I read once that death isn’t instant. Our brains are still ticking for ten minutes or so, even after our hearts stop, meaning that in some way, we may be conscious of our own death. As I wait to be put through, I rock back on my heels, still close enough to see the chipped tooth and blood dripping from his lips. I’m wondering whether he bit his tongue, whether some part of him knows this, knows that he’s dead, that I’m here, and he’s not alone, when the operator says, “What’s your emergency?”

“I’m at the Lumpkin and Baxter Street intersection, there’s been a—”

“Pedestrian accident, yes.” A few clicks of a keyboard. “There’s an ambulance en route now. The police are on their way.”

I hang up and dial Teddy.

He answers on the first ring.

“Hey,” he says, “sorry about Truman. I told him you could handle it, but he thought Oliver—”

“There’s been a hit-and-run on campus.”

“Yeah—we heard, but—”

“You should meet me here.”

“Hit-and-run’s not our—”

“Trust me, Teddy. Get here as fast as you can. Take the car, not your bike.”

I’m ashamed to say, but as soon as I realized the polo-and-khaki-clad boy in the street was dead and the driver had left him to bleed out on the asphalt, I knew I wanted this case.

Behind me I can feel the students on their cell phones, swarming, taking video footage and remonstrating. The light changes from red to green. Cars back up on Lumpkin and Baxter, honking and doing U-turns in the street.

“He’s not breathing!” a student screams.

No shit, I think. He also has no pulse, no pupillary constriction when I shine my phone flashlight in his eye. And he’s released his bowels.

“Is he dead?”

Wails from all sides.

And then the howling ambulance and police sirens. A woman in blue circles me with yellow tape, and Teddy’s voice purrs, low and calm at my elbow.

“I called the techs, but they were already on their way.” I look up at him to find he’s gazing over my shoulder, his mouth a hard line. “Aisha will want to take a closer look at the body.” Another beat. “What happened?”

I tell him about the screams, my dash down Lumpkin, the students, and the condition of the body when I arrived.

“I got here two minutes, three max, after he was hit.”

“And he was—” Teddy’s crouched low. He’s wearing bright orange sneakers and one side of his dress pants is rolled up.

I lower my voice. “Dead, yeah. On impact’s my guess, but we’ll see what Aisha says.”