“We’ve got practice this afternoon,” two uncommonly tall boys say in sync.

I take a deep breath and resist the urge to smack them. Behind me, a body’s being loaded unnecessarily into an ambulance, and they’re worried about class and their sports team.

“I’m sure you all have places to be,” Teddy says diplomatically before I can tell them just how fucked up their perspectives are. “But this takes priority.” He looks at me, an upward turn at the corner of his lips. “Detective Kaplan will write each of you notes, stating you were needed for a police investigation.”

Asshole, I think, but it’s half-hearted, and I give a reassuring nod to the students.

Most are appeased by this, but the wide-eyed girl presses a notebook to her chest and mutters peevishly, “But I’ve been studying all night.”

I take the boy in the hoodie. His energy is making me nervous, and I can’t tell if that’s because he knows something or is just a weird kid. Either way, I want him out of my sight.

Teddy will talk to the girls. With his chiseled jaw and wide smile, he has the extra talent of making people squirm under his attention, but his calm, easy going attitude wins him their confidence. This doesn’t always work. There’s a type—usually forty- to eighty-year-old white males and sixtyish white females—who regard him with suspicion, the former with racially charged, sometimes homophobic slurs (Teddy’s Black, not gay, but racists and homophobes seem to share hate in common) and purse-clutching by the latter.

College women, though, love Teddy.

Generously, he picks the notebook-clutching girl. “We’ll see if we can’t get you to your test on time.” He smiles, and some of the stiffness goes out of her shoulders.

I, on the other hand, have to keep a straight face, or no one will take me seriously.

“Name?” I ask, positioning myself squarely in front of hoodie-boy.

“Tom Jones.”

“Seriously?”

He gives me a blank, petulant stare, and I see his pale skin is pockmarked, like the dotted and scratched surface of a student desk. I think of my mother with her generational complaints—he probably doesn’t know who Indiana Jones is, I think, never mind Tom Jones.

“All right, Tom, tell me what you saw—and start from the beginning. What direction were you walking? Who was next to you? What did the car look like?”

“What about what I had for breakfast?”

“Sure,” I say magnanimously. “Let’s start there.”

He rolls his eyes and mutters something about not eating breakfast.

The interview is a complete waste of time. He didn’t see anything. Not the car. Not the driver. Looked up just when our victim collided with the ground.

For a split second, a wave of panic washes over his face—like he’s just realized what happened.

“I think he was—is he—dead?”