Dr. Johnson was not entirely unprepared for the turnout. For the past two weeks the school office had been fielding a steady stream of phone calls from concerned, and sometimes irate, parents. They wanted to know why their kids had been questioned by the police at school, who was supplying their underage children with alcohol and drugs, and what the school intended to do about it. The call from June Jeffries’s father had been a particularly unpleasant conversation, and Dr. Johnson saw that he and his wife, Kim, the head of the PTA, had arrived early and were sitting in the front row of seats.

At the back of the auditorium, Dr. Johnson saw Jake Tillman, the assistant DA who was working on the case. He was speaking to a blond woman who sat in the seat next to him. Dr. Johnson didn’t recognize her. She looked like she’d gotten lost on her way to an off-Broadway performance and instead wandered into a PTA meeting by mistake. Tillman was pointing discreetly to a few of the parents in the rows ahead of them, and the woman followed his gaze and frowned. Dr. Johnson wondered if she might be the person who owned the house, who he’d heard was from out of town. If she was, she was about to get a pretty real look at her new neighbors.

The board president had been briefed by Dr. Johnson and the chief of police on the matter, but he had no wish to take a public stand at this point. He called the meeting to order and glanced down at his notes.

“As usual,” he said, “we will reserve the first thirty minutes of the meeting for public comments. Please remember to state your name and address for the record, and keep comments limited to three minutes per person.”

Kim Jeffries was first in line at the microphone that was set up in front of the stage, of course.