Dead Heat (Alpha & Omega 4)

Leeds, still on the floor, laughed.

Marsden looked at his partner, who said, “He’s in Cantrip, Miss Baird; ‘moron’ comes with the territory. No offense, Jim. I think we’ve both been morons about this.”

“Have we?” Marsden asked in an altered voice. He sucked in a breath and then looked at the small contingent of police officers in the room. “Tell you kids what. Shift change is coming in half an hour. We’ve got this. Looks like they’re going to stick by their claim that it’s magic, so we’ll give your department our report. If one of your superiors is upset, you know our names and numbers. We’ll take it from here, and you folks can all go home.”

“You got it,” said the officer who apparently was in charge. “Let’s pack it up, boys and girls. Hey, Marsden, you and Leeds on for softball on Saturday?”

“Yessir,” Marsden said. “Ten a.m. sharp.”

They waited until the police filed out.

“Okay, they’re gone,” said Marsden. “This is real?”

His partner, still on the floor, said, “There hasn’t been a case of a fetch since we first found out that the fae were real. Standard changelings, where a fae disguises itself as a human child, those we’ve had a few of. But a fetch, an inanimate object spelled to mimic real life, that’s a new one.”

Marsden sucked air. “Leeds. Pay attention. Is it a real case?”

“We’ve been looking at a series of oddities in this neighborhood, right?” Leeds focused on Miss Blair. “I overheard you are new. Did you get this job because the previous teacher—I’m sorry, her name escapes me just now—hanged herself? I remember reading about a teacher here who died recently.”

She nodded.

“So,” said Marsden slowly. “It is a real case.”

“And that odd car wreck, Jim,” Leeds continued as if he were talking to himself—even though he addressed Marsden. “This is the right area of town and there were some kids in the car that were the right age for day care.” He caught Miss Baird’s eye again. “Someone in your classroom recently die in a nasty car wreck with their family?”

“No,” said Miss Baird.

“Yes,” said Ms. Edison. “About three days before Mrs. Glover’s unfortunate death. Henry Islington. His mother crossed the median and she and her three boys all died. Henry was the only one who was a student here.” She paused. “There was an incident the day before he died between him and one of the girls in the classroom. I don’t know if it was Amethyst.”

“It was,” said Amethyst’s mother in a dull tone. “Mrs. Glover gave us his written apology after he died.”

“If Henry was in this classroom, he was five years old,” Anna said. “He wrote an apology?”

“Mrs. Glover wrote it, of course,” Mrs. Miller said. “He signed it—his r was backward. Then he died and it was horrible. And now Amethyst…”

Ms. Edison walked over to her and patted her on the shoulder. “I know, Sara,” she murmured.

Amethyst’s mother wiped her eyes, but not because she was crying. Maybe they were too dry. “Amethyst and Henry were best friends from day one. She talked about him all the time. And then, out of the blue one day, he punched her.”

“Henry said she said something bad,” Ms. Edison told them. “He wouldn’t tell us what it was, and she just smiled.” She paused. “In retrospect, it was very odd behavior for Amethyst. It didn’t strike me that way at the time, but she is usually a gregarious, cheerful child.”

“Amethyst?” said Miss Baird. “Cheerful?” She shook her head. “But we weren’t dealing with Amethyst, were we?”

“It’s real, Jim,” said Leeds.

Marsden stared at him a moment, then took a good long look at the bundle of sticks on the floor. “Do you know how many fake calls come in? We’ve been stationed here for a year, and the most excitement we’ve had was when some kids swore a demon was eating their dog’s food every night. Twelve hours of stakeout turned up a half-grown coyote. Then there was the lady who saw a unicorn, which turned out to be her neighbor’s kid running around in last year’s Halloween costume. My brain’s a funny thing—it tends to atrophy if I don’t use it. Real, huh?”

Leeds nodded. “Real.”

Marsden waited a beat. “Okay, then.” He pulled out an electronic notebook and said, in a cool professional tone, “Can I get everyone’s name and what their relationship to the missing girl is?”

Anna leaned on her husband and raised her eyebrows. He narrowed his eyes at her, but she thought he was smiling a little. It was hard to tell.

Marsden started with Miss Baird.

“I’ve been teaching here for two weeks,” she told him, her feathers still ruffled. “Probationary period. I was informed this morning that they would be terminating my contract because there had been too many incidents in my room and parents were complaining.”

“Fourteen in two weeks,” Ms. Edison said. “Our average is about once a month for the whole school.” She gave Miss Baird a half smile. “We need to revisit that decision, I think. All of those complaints revolved around Amethyst and for some reason none of us, myself and our board members, even thought twice about that. And I assure you that is something we normally do. If one student causes more than three incidents in a month, he is on probation and the next time he is gone. Under normal circumstances Amethyst would have been served notice and then asked to leave.”

“Your name is?” Marsden asked. His partner, evidently satisfied that he’d gotten Marsden on the right track, was back to examining the bundle of sticks.

“Farrah Edison,” Ms. Edison said. “I run this lunatic asylum. I stayed because what I know might help. Cathy, Miss Baird, has only been here for a short time.” She took a deep breath. “I’ve been sitting in this room for going on four hours, and every hour it feels like my head clears a little more. Amethyst used to be a cheerful, gregarious girl, and she came back from Christmas break totally different. I intended to call her home, but Sara, her mom, came in to talk to me before I managed it. She told me that she and her husband were thinking of divorce. Then they—I’m sorry, Sara—they started to have some loud altercations when they would come to pick up or drop off Amethyst. I decided that was an adequate cause for Amethyst’s sudden change in personality.”