Class, I have an announcement,” Miss Hodges
said at the beginning of forensic science. “The Rocky the Ram mystery has been solved!”
Hannah, Ben, and Corey looked at one another, shocked. They were pretty sure Mitchell had ruined the costume, but they still needed more evidence, so they hadn’t said anything to Miss Hodges yet.
And now she was announcing that the case was closed.
“There go my VIP tickets,” Corey murmured. He didn’t even bother to correct himself and say “our VIP tickets.” The contest was over, and they’d lost.
“Who did it?” Jennifer asked eagerly.
“And who solved it?” Kayla added.
“There’s been a confession,” Miss Hodges said. “Another note was left pinned to the tree at the high school.”
She held up a piece of white poster board. “It says, ‘We burned Rocky. We’re sorry. GO VIKINGS!—The Vikings Football Team.’”
Miss Hodges set the note down on the front table. “So the football players at Jefferson High School committed the arson.”
Ricky Collins’s hand shot into the air. “Miss Hodges?” he said. “You forgot to mention that it was our team that found the note—me and Charlie. So we won the contest, right?”
Hannah spun around in her seat to face Ricky. “Finding a confession isn’t solving a mystery. You didn’t use forensic science. You just got lucky!”
“Sometimes luck is what makes all the difference in solving a case,” Ricky said. “Right, Miss Hodges?”
“Sometimes,” Miss Hodges admitted. “As for whether you actually won the contest, I’m still debating that issue.”
“It wasn’t just luck,” Charlie said. “We found the note because we were at the high school investigating. We wanted to check out the crime scene again.”
Ben thought to himself that Charlie and Ricky had definitely provided some tough competition to Club CSI.
“Plus, we did use forensic science,” Charlie continued. “Before we turned the new note over to Miss Hodges, we used handwriting analysis to see if it matched the old note.”
“And did it match?” Corey asked.
Charlie smiled, nodding. “It sure did. The results were conclusive.”
Ben silently disagreed. He didn’t believe the investigation had come to its full conclusion. “Has the football team been questioned?” he asked.
“I told Principal Inverno about the new note first thing this morning,” Miss Hodges said. “And he called Principal Hall at Woodlands High School. Principal Hall communicated with the principal at Jefferson High School immediately. All three principals are convinced that the football team burned Rocky the Ram, so the team members will be held responsible.”
“That was always the rumor,” Ryan said. “That the Vikings did it.”
“But rumors aren’t facts!” Corey protested, even though he himself had thought for quite a while that the Vikings had destroyed the costume.
“Maybe not,” Ricky said. “But it’s a fact that my partner and I found a signed confession. Case closed. I’ll wave to you from my VIP seat at the games, losers!”
Miss Hodges repeated that she hadn’t yet made up her mind about whether Ricky and Charlie had won. She set the matter aside and began the day’s lesson in forensic science.
After class, Hannah, Corey, and Ben stuck around to talk to Miss Hodges. She was putting away the materials the students had used in that day’s activities.
“Miss Hodges, we were wondering if you could do us a small favor,” Hannah said.
“Sure,” the teacher replied brightly. “What is it?”
“Could you ask that tire expert you know in Las Vegas to compare two pictures of tire marks for us?” Hannah asked. “We could e-mail the photos to him.”
Miss Hodges stopped putting materials away. She looked confused. “Tire marks?” she asked. “Weren’t those part of your Rocky the Ram investigation? That case is closed. Why would you want a tire expert to look at your photos now that the case is over?”
The three friends hesitated to answer her. They didn’t want to accuse her, and the three principals, and their classmates of getting the solution wrong without stronger evidence against Mitchell. All they really had was some fishy behavior and a blurry tire print.
“Oh, that’s okay, Miss Hodges,” Corey said. “Forget it.”
“Yeah, never mind,” Ben added.
Miss Hodges smiled gently. “The case has been solved, but there’s no need for you three to feel frustrated by that. You did the best you could. Just because you didn’t solve the case doesn’t mean you’re not great investigators. You’ll get ’em next time.”
The three friends looked at one another. Miss Hodges thought they were sore losers! She totally had the wrong idea! Now they definitely had to prove Mitchell had destroyed Rocky the Ram. But they’d have to do it without Miss Hodges’s Las Vegas expert.
“Okay, Miss Hodges,” Hannah said, smiling. “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”
As they walked down the school hallway, they thought about what they could possibly do next. “We really need that handwriting standard from Mitchell,” Ben said. “I’m guessing it’ll match the original note and the new note.”
They kept walking, trying to think of a way to get Mitchell to write something for them. Send him a present and hope he’d write them a thank-you note?
Then Corey thought of something.
“I wonder if Ricky and Charlie ever got a handwriting sample from Mitchell. Charlie definitely thought of using handwriting analysis to solve the case. He used it to match the two notes to each other.”
“Are you saying we should go ask Ricky and Charlie for a sample of Mitchell’s handwriting?” Hannah asked.
“Well,” Corey said, “we could just ask Charlie.”