Clifford is only three miles across. You can get anywhere in town in under eight minutes, even without sirens.

Officer Doug Chalmers is the first one on the scene, because of course he is.

I expect to be asked to leave the locker room so the cops can do their job, but a crowd has gathered in the gym, so Doug asks me to sit on the bench near the door instead. Most of seventh period passes in a blur of blue uniforms and low-pitched voices. Quiet procedure and whispered outrage. No one wants to speak very loudly, even though there’s no chance of waking this baby.

I want that not to be true. I want to hear the baby cry, offended by the indignity of having a gym bag for a cradle. But any distant hope of that happening fades when the county coroner shows up, his job title printed on the back of his jacket, to officially declare the poor infant dead.

A few minutes later, Doug introduces me to his direct supervisor, John Trent, the patrol sergeant, who is the first to ask me questions and write the answers in a little notepad.

Several minutes after that, my mother arrives. I’m not really surprised that she’s the investigator in charge. Clifford PD only has two of them, and I can almost understand why Chief Stoddard might assume a case involving a dead baby and a bunch of high school students should go to the “lady detective.”

“Okay, somebody catch me up,” she says as she pushes her way into the locker room wearing a tailored blue button-up and a gray blazer, her badge clipped to her hip. “And Doug, you and Robert Green get out there and start asking questions.” She points through the closed door at the gym. “Take all their names, and send anyone who didn’t see anything home, but let them know they might need to give a statement later. School’s over, isn’t it?”

“It’s still seventh period,” I say, and my voice sounds like there’s a frog in my throat.

My mother’s gaze lands on me, and her brows dip. “Beckett? What are you doing here?”

Doug’s hands are propped on his duty belt again. “Julie, Beck found the … um … body.”

She exhales. Then she points at the closed door again, without ever looking away from me. “Go, Doug. Question teenagers.”

He heads into the gym, and my mother’s assessment of me deepens, like maybe everything she needs to know about this case is hidden somewhere on my face.

“Stay put,” she says at last. “I’ll be right back.”

Then she gives Coach Killebrew a pat on the shoulder on her way down the aisle and around the first bank of lockers, to See What We’re Dealing With.