I know better than to break her concentration. She takes photographs of everything—the body, the asphalt, the dozen or so students pressed against the orange barricade. Then her sketchbook appears, and a video camera. Someone will construct 360-degree images of the scene, so once the body’s gone, the road cleaned up, and the students dispersed, we can return to this moment again and again. She still hasn’t touched anything, and I know she’s going to murder me when she sees the blood on my sleeve and learns how close I was to the body.

It doesn’t matter that it’s a hit-and-run, Aisha’s still going to look for fingermarks, hairs, and fibers. Her movements are slow and intentional as she makes her way around the body, collects and tags potential evidence, packaging it in plastic bags and vials so nothing’s disturbed on its way to the lab. Every gesture is methodical. No exhale of sympathy, no headshake at the wasted youth. I could watch her all day, but the students on the steps in front of the learning center are getting anxious.

There are twenty or so of them, and two in the front watch me pace back and forth like puppies following the trajectory of a ball. The rest hunker down against backpacks and stare at their phones. An odd group; some are still wearing pajamas although the day is creeping toward noon, hair disheveled on purpose—freshmen relishing the sudden lack of dress code and parental input. The girls wear a collection of high-waisted jeans and T-shirts; the guys shuffle back and forth in their shorts and different shades of the same polos or university tees. One of them, a boy with a hoodie pulled low over his face, keeps muttering to himself and making me uneasy.

I sigh. The more times they repeat this story to friends in class and the dining halls, the more they’re going to start embellishing, filling in blanks, and believing their own half-truths. It’s the same reason it’s going to take a lot more than me being first on the scene for Truman to let me have this case.

In my peripheral, an orange stretcher appears with a white cover. He’s been dead for twenty minutes now, but there’s no way Aisha will move him in a body bag. Students circle the barricade hyena-like, snapping photos with their cell phones. I can almost feel Aisha wishing the guy had been stabbed in an apartment or moved to the basement of a building so she could conduct her investigation in private.

“Hello,” I yell to get their attention. “I’m Detective Kaplan, and this is Detective White. You were all witnesses to a hit-and-run this morning. We need to talk to each of you.”

There are instant grumbles.

“I have a test at one,” a girl with wide eyes yelps.