She flinched ever so slightly at the sudden sound of his voice. “I took some courses in college. That’s not even close to having a degree.”

“But you know your kids. You can read them pretty well?”

“The school year just started. I’ve known them six weeks.”

“I don’t know them at all. Have you met the parents?”

“At conference time. An hour. One evening.”

“So tell me about . . .” He consulted his notes. “Wendy Morgan. What’s she like?”

That coaxed a little smile out of her—for Wendy, not for him. “Wendy is very self-assured. She has opinions and she won’t hesitate to tell you what they are. She’s the class feminist.”

“She’ll be an easy interview, then. Good. And the mom?”

“Sara. She seems like a very nice woman. Very caring of her daughter. She teaches community ed classes in art.”

“And the father?”

“Nice guy. He’s an attorney. Very busy. He does a lot of pro bono work in family court for the women’s center. I think he even does some lobbying for women’s issues in Sacramento.”

She huffed a quick sigh. “What is it you want me to do here, Detective?”

“Reassure them. Make sure I don’t break out the billy club.”

Anne Navarre scowled at him, unimpressed with his sense of humor. Looking back on it, his fifth-grade teacher hadn’t been impressed with him, either.

“When did you arrive on the scene?” he asked, hitting the Record button on the cassette player.

“The scene was already taped off,” she said. “There were deputies everywhere. Are you taping this?”

“Just making sure the machine is working,” he said, turning the thing off, rewinding, playing back the sound of Anne Navarre’s voice. She sounded highly suspicious of him.

“And where were the kids then?”

“Tommy and Wendy were away from the scene. Dennis Farman was right there, trying to see what was going on. His father was there. You know him, I suppose. Frank Farman.”

“Did any of the kids say they had seen anyone else in the woods?”

“No,” she said. “They talked about a dog.”

“I don’t think a dog buried her there.”

“That isn’t funny.”

“I didn’t mean for it to be. I was being sarcastic.”

“Nothing about this is funny,” she snapped. “And you weren’t being sarcastic, you were being facetious.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking away from him, crossing and uncrossing her arms. She reached up and tucked that strand of brown hair behind her ear again. “This situation . . . I’m a little rattled.”

“I understand. It’s okay.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She probably didn’t mean for him to see it, but she was wary of him. He got that a lot. Even the most innocent people could become nervous around cops. It went with the territory.