by Gina LaManna
“How so?”
“Class schedule,” Mr. Thomas explained. “For most students, it’s simple. We have a basic track list for Orientation. We’ve done this a million times for a wide variety of students—we know what works best. The order of classes, etc. However, Mr. White insisted that he knew himself better than we did, and I couldn’t disagree with that.”
“You let him choose his own schedule?”
“To a certain degree,” Mr. Thomas said with a sniff. “We discussed it thoroughly together and eventually came to an agreement that we both approved of. I normally wouldn’t have been so accommodating, but with his unique background as an experienced magic user and his insistence that he was different—”
“Different?” I interrupted. “Different how?”
Mr. Thomas steepled his fingers before his face. “I’m not sure exactly. Learning style, I assumed. He didn’t go into specifics, and I didn’t pressure him to. All those lawsuits about discrimination and whatnot. We have to be extra careful these days. The Campus of Magic respects all species, races, magical types, learning styles—”
“I get it, but I’m not going to sue you for being politically incorrect, Mr. Thomas. I’m trying to figure out who murdered one of your students. And the faster we find his killer and throw him or her behind bars, the better it is for all of us. Including the reputation of the school.”
Mr. Thomas cleared his throat. “Understood. But I’m afraid I can’t help you any more than I already have, Detective. As I said, Mr. White seemed to be a very private person and he kept anything peculiar—anything personal, really—to himself. Have you tried speaking with his teachers and friends? I can provide a class schedule if that’d be helpful.”
“I have one already—” I hesitated. “Actually, there is something you can do for me. Can you give me a schedule of the normal classes an incoming student might take? And put that side by side with the classes Mason White insisted on taking?”
“It’s right here in his file,” Mr. Thomas said. “You can have this copy—I have another for the records. Standard classes to the left, Mr. White’s revised schedule to the right.”
“Thank you,” I told the dean. “If there’s anything else, is it alright if I give you a call?”
“Anytime,” Mr. Thomas said, standing along with me. “Enjoy the hot chocolate, Detective.”
I left the Dean of Admissions and took the staircase outside his office at a jog to the main level. When I reached the lobby, I took a quick glance at the differences between the standard schedule and Mason White’s itinerary. It looked like he’d managed to secure three classes that were different than the original. Professor Bleeker with Magical Etiquette and Paranormal Prowess, Magical Maladies with Professor Petri, and Paranormal History of the Sixth Borough with Professor Harrison.
I’d spoken briefly with all three professors during my initial interviews. Only Professor Bleeker had truly remembered having Mason White in her class at all. And she hadn’t been able to provide a ton of information despite her organization and attempt to be helpful. I folded the papers and tucked them into my pocket. I’d mull them over, come back to them later. I doubted there was much more his professors could say about their former student.
I checked my Comm, but Felix hadn’t left a message during my meeting with the dean. With a little more time to kill, I pointed my feet in the direction of the library. I could hit it quickly on my way back to the lab to frighten Felix into giving me results. It was taking him forever to get a piece of pizza.
After reading Primrose’s report, I’d deduced the officer had done a good job on her scope of the library, but that didn’t mean she’d been able to talk to everyone who’d worked or been studying the night in question. Different days, different schedules... maybe I’d get lucky.
The Campus of Magic library was a stately building made of sturdy brick that’d faded to a dull red from years and years of standing tall against the battering of storms and snow and weather of all varieties. This afternoon, there was a hint of magic that clung to the outside against the early onset of darkness.
Residuals hung on trimmings and shutters, and the trees guarding the pathway to the front door were glimmering with touches of decorating, hanging, and moving magic. Christmas lights glowed from all surfaces, giving a hazy brightness to the crisp air and reflecting off the light spattering of snow puttering down and landing gently on boughs and branches and bulbs.
A breath of warmth cascaded over me as I pressed the front doors open and tapped my boots against the welcome mats on the floor. I glanced around the library, found it brimming with students. The pre-dinner, post-class hour had many young people cramming work in before evening activities or classes.
Interviewing all these students would be like searching out a tiny needle in a giant haystack, so I went toward the more likely candidates to have seen and remembered the conversation in question. Specifically, the employees. I hit the front desk first and found three students behind it—two women and one man, all looking like they could be students themselves.
“Hey there,” I said. “Detective DeMarco of the Sixth Precinct. Any of you seen this guy around?”
I flashed a picture of Mason White at the three of them, watching for any immediate reactions. One of the women bit her lip, gave a shake of her head. The second one studied the photo for a while longer, but she, too, looked up and responded with a negative.
The man, however, was still gazing at the photo even after both women had resumed helping customers. His brow furrowed in thought.
“You know this guy?” I asked. “You’re not in trouble, I’m just looking for information. Mind if we step over here for a minute?”
“I swear, I don’t know anything about him.” The man—a kid, really, with scrawny long limbs and a gumby-like bendiness to his height, stared at me through circular wire-framed glasses. “I didn’t, like, associate with him or anything.”
“I promise you’re not in any trouble. In fact, the department would greatly appreciate any help,” I said. “I’d be happy to put in a good word for you.”
Fortunately, I’d hit the right note to gain favor with my young potential witness. He brushed back an orange curl that had fallen over his eyes and gave a huge smile revealing a gigantic set of braces and an even more gigantic pair of front teeth, along with a spattering of freckles across his nose.
“I think I can help you. You said your name was—”
“Detective DeMarco,” I said. “Can you tell me the last time you saw this man?”
“Wait a second, isn’t he the one who just died? Maybe that’s where I recognize him. Did they run his picture in the paper?”
“I don’t think so, not yet,” I said. “Were you working any other nights this week?”
“I worked every night this week except last night,” he said. “I had it off to see a school play. Anyway, I think I saw this guy in here—always a little weird when older adults come to study at the campus library. I mean, not weird, but you know... I’m used to seeing kids my age. He just stuck out a little. Plus, he was talking with some big dude. And I remember that because Andrea—” the kid paused and glanced over his shoulder as if someone were listening—“kept staring at him.”
“Andrea is...?”
“She’s an employee here. Really cute. I sorta thought she liked me, but, like, we never really talk. Anyway, she was working with me the night this guy was in here. And the guy he was talking with was, like, super handsome.”
I felt a tingle begin on the back of my neck. “You got a good look at him?”
“Yeah. Because it was the only time Andrea talked to me all night, and I remember every word that Andrea has ever said to me. It’s, like, three hundred and sixty-seven words total in two years working here. I really value them.”
“And Andrea was talking about this guy?”
“Talking? Yeah, right. Drooling, maybe.” The kid scoffed, then turned on a high-pitched voice that was probably suppo
sed to imitate Andrea. “She went on, and on, and on about this guy and his brilliant eyes—and was he a student here? She hadn’t seen him before.” The kid took a deep breath. “It was gross and annoying, and she used forty-two words to describe this guy. I can’t believe eleven point four, four, four percent of the words she’s ever said to me were about another dude. That’s disappointing.”
“Would you recognize ‘this dude’ if you saw him again?”
The kid blinked. “Um, yeah. He was the handsomest dude I’d ever seen. I mean, it’s annoying Andrea was here that night to see him, but, like, I don’t blame her for liking what she saw.” His cheeks turned pink. “You know what I mean. Objectively. I like girls. Andrea. Forget it.”
“Tell me your name?”
“Clyde Tudor,” he said. “Junior here at the Campus of Magic.”
“Clyde, do you think you could describe this guy to a sketch artist?” When I saw hesitation budding on Clyde’s face, I widened my eyes and gave him a knowing smile. “I’m sure Andrea would be quite impressed.”
“Wait a second,” Clyde said, squinting at me. For a moment, I thought he was going to call my bluff about Andrea, but then the suspicion passed, and a huge smile broke out onto his face. “If you’re trying to find this guy, he’s probably a criminal, right?”
“I can’t comment on that. It’s an open investigation.”
“Dude, come on. I know how this works.” Clyde sounded very smug with his prowess. “He’s a person of interest at the very least. And if he gets locked up in prison, Andrea can’t exactly drool over him, can she?”
“From a distance, maybe,” I said. “Plus, prisoners wear ugly jumpsuits. I’m sure that no matter how handsome this guy is, he won’t look good in orange.”
Clyde bit his lip. “Crap. But girls like Andrea go for the bad boys. Maybe this will make him more appealing to her.”
I rolled my eyes, grabbed one of his arms lightly, and tried not to think about Matthew and Grey as I gave my next piece of advice. “Come on, Clyde. Help me out. Girls never end up with the bad boys—have patience. Someday girls your age will appreciate a nice, stable man with your... um... you know, personality.”
“You think?”
“I know,” I said. “And in the meantime, I’d really appreciate you coming down to the station with me and meeting with a HoloHex artist.”
“But—” He looked torn. “Andrea’s supposed to be coming on for her shift shortly. I hate taking off when she’s working.”
“Nothing like playing hard to get,” I said. “Trust me. Now, march.”
Chapter 14
Clyde liked to talk. As he shuffled next to me on the shortest route back to the precinct, I found myself wondering if he didn’t have Andrea all wrong. Maybe she had tried to talk to him, but Clyde was such a chatterbox that poor Andrea had only managed to get in three hundred and sixty-seven words over two years despite her best efforts otherwise.
“...and after the show, I told her—do you know what I told her, Detective?”
“I don’t,” I said dully, grabbing Clyde’s elbow and steering him forward.
The marketplace streets were a main throughway of the city—one I usually avoided. Too many of the criminals I’d put in prison found their way back into the shadows of the marketplace, and there was nothing more awkward and disheartening than buying a bagel from an ex-con witch who had probably spit in my cream cheese.
This time, however, I would take a bagel with cream cheese spit over listening to Clyde for the extra ten-minute detour it’d cost us to go around.
“What’d she say?” I prompted when I realized Clyde had been silent for a full thirty seconds. “Clyde?”
I turned, annoyed at the kid’s back and forth cold feet, when I found him staring straight ahead into a crowd of people.
“Yo, Clyde,” I said. “You didn’t finish your story. Let’s walk and talk, pal.”
“B-but—” Clyde just shook his head and froze solid into a statue.
A few people bumped into us from all angles. One or two sneered naughty words. A third person smelled so much like a Narcotics jail cell that I almost pulled out my handcuffs, but I was too intrigued by Clyde’s frozen stare to care who was jostling against us.
“What is it?” I leaned in closer, my hand loose on his wrist. I wasn’t letting the kid bolt. After listening to over twenty minutes of his tales, I’d earned that HoloHex. “Did you see someone you recognize?”
“It’s...” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Him.”
“Him?” I glanced forward, but the kid’s gangling legs propped him a few inches taller than me. I couldn’t see over the crowd of people. “Do you mean the guy you recognized from the library the other night?”
“Yes,” he stuttered. “The b-beautiful one.”
I rolled my eyes again, wondering what this gorgeous guy had going for him that made a college boy drool through his braces in envy. I tugged Clyde’s skinny arm with me as I wound my way through the crowd.
With one final elbow into the ribs of a man who had to be half-giant, I squeaked through to the front of the line, keeping Clyde close behind me. I had my hand on my Stunner just in case. If this guy bolted...
“Him.” Clyde’s voice grew stronger, his finger raised.
I followed his point to the man in front of a small crowd of people.
“Rob?” I gaped at my oldest brother.
His hands were spread wide as he flipped different colored fireworks back and forth between his palms. A little crackle and a fizz sounded as one of the fireworks died at the sound of my voice.
“Come on, lady, don’t stop the show,” someone called from the crowd. “It’s Rob DeMarco! In town for a few weeks only! Can’t buy these firecrackers anywhere else.”
I pulled open my leather jacket wide enough to reflect the greens and blues and reds of Rob’s fireworks off my badge and Stunner. In the marketplace, both a badge and a Stunner were bad news, though the badge was probably more intimidating to these folks than the gun.
“Show’s over,” I said to the crowd. “Thanks for watching. Give us some space, please.”
As the dirt and grime of the city street kicked up in a cloud from the grumbling mess of onlookers parting ways, I dragged Clyde just a few paces closer. I let him take a good long look at Rob. I watched as Rob eyed me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance, with that same hint of amusement that told me he wasn’t taking any of this seriously.
“Clyde,” I said, turning to the kid. “Is this the guy you saw talking to Mason White in the library this week?”
Clyde nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
I inhaled a deep breath. Blew it out. “Thanks. Do you need an escort back to Campus?”
“Why?” Clyde asked. “I thought you were taking me to the station. I was gonna tell Andrea about it.”
“You already ID’d the guy,” I said. “We don’t need a sketch now.”
Clyde squinted at me in frustration. “What are you going to tell Andrea?”
“Whichever of your stories you’d like,” I said. “Thank you very much for your cooperation. I’ll let you know if I have any more questions.”
“Great,” he said. “And if you do need to ask me any more questions, can you please do it when Andrea’s around? I think it’d probably look cool if I had a hot detective who needed my help. She’d probably dig me even more, now that I think about it.”
“How about that escort?”
“Is it gonna be you?” Clyde asked. “Would you take me back?”
“No.”
“Then I’m good,” Clyde said, looking a little crestfallen. “I’ll, uh, get going then. See you around.”
“Nice kid,” Rob commented once Clyde rounded the block and disappeared from sight. “King’s not gonna be happy with your fan club.”
“Shut up,” I said, turning to face my brother. “I’m not here on a friendly visit.”<
br />
Despite the DeMarco blood that ran thick and hot through our veins, I didn’t have a twinkle of amusement in my eye. I didn’t have a soft spot for my biggest brother. If I was going to live up to Primrose’s thesis that I was a good detective, I had to separate business from family. And the only way I could afford to look at my brother in this moment was as a suspect.
“What’d he say I did?” Rob asked, crossing his arms lazily over his chest. “It probably wasn’t me.”
He wore a button-down black shirt and jeans that fit him just a little too perfectly. He leaned against the brick wall behind him, brushed dust off his shirt. Two girls giggled and stared as they walked by.
“Apparently his little girlfriend was drooling over you, so he remembered you as clear as day,” I said. “Who would’ve thought your looks would be your downfall?”
Rob narrowed his gaze at me, a hint of anger appearing in his eyes. “What the hell are you talking about, Dani?”
“Detective,” I snapped. “I have a witness who ID’d you talking to my murder vic the night he died. Did you?”
“Did I what?”
I took a sharp breath of surprise. “Holy shit, Rob. You did. You’re stalling.”
“Did what?” This time he answered more coolly. He matched me, stony gaze for stony gaze. “You’re not being clear, Detective.”
“Did you, or did you not, speak with this man in the library at the Campus of Magic this week?” I asked, pulling out the photo I’d used with Clyde. “His name’s Mason White, but then again, you probably knew that already.”
“Oh, yeah.” Rob let out a thin smile. “I did that. Kid was right.”
“I know. Now, you’d better have a good reason for talking to him.”
“Do I need a reason to talk to people? Or to go to the library for that matter?”
“You’re going to have to stop avoiding my questions sooner or later,” I said. “Wanna join me down at the station?”
“I’d love to, sis, but I’ve got places to be. Maybe another time.”
