I’d just entered the classroom when I realized I had forgotten my water. I returned to the kitchenette to fetch a glass, and Greg found me. Benny and Jimmy still couldn’t settle. I poured out doses of Benadryl for the two kids. Greg took the Benadryl, then I headed back to the classroom, where the look on Sergeant Warren’s face told me I still didn’t have water.

I returned to the kitchenette again, this time finding a glass and banging on the tap. The other detective, LeBlanc, poked his head out of the Admin area. Copier had run out of paper.

I reloaded the copier, glancing at the records he’d already duplicated. I offered to carry the copies to the classroom, but he refused. I shrugged, and since he appeared done with Tika’s original file, I took that for myself to use as a reference.

I made it all the way to the classroom; then, right outside the door, I realized I’d left my water glass sitting next to the copier. Back to Admin I went, grabbing my water, and making it to the classroom with everything in hand.

Sergeant Warren glanced at her watch as I took a seat. She was flanked on either side by a detective.

“Always take you fifteen minutes to grab a drink?” she asked me.

“Oh, sometimes it takes twenty. Tonight I was lucky; I only got interrupted four or five times. Don’t worry, someone will need something shortly.”

“Crazy night,” the detective on her left commented. I recognized him from the first visit. George Clooney playing the role of a Boston cop.

“Birthday party,” I said. “Does it every time.”

“Birthday party?” he asked.

“Priscilla turned ten. We had a celebration for her after dinner. The kids made cupcakes; we hung streamers, handed out party hats. The kids got very excited, which, for our crowd, has consequences.”

“Then why have the party?” Sergeant Warren asked, with a frown. I could see this woman running the Gestapo. She’d be good at it.

“Because most of these kids have never been to a birthday party,” I explained. “They’re either too poor or too emotionally disturbed or too unloved to ever be so lucky. They’re still kids, though, and kids should get to have a party.”

“Now they’ll be up all night, torturing you and one another?”

I regarded the cops steadily. “Priscilla has brain damage from being shaken as a baby; it impairs her ability to process numbers. Tonight, however, she counted out ten candles and jammed them all onto one cupcake. Speaking for the staff, we don’t care if the kids spend the rest of the night tearing this place apart. It’s worth it for that moment.”