Plus ca Change: Part 2b
by Tom MacCarrol
She felt the strong urge to crawl into a hole and pull it in after her. Every eye in the room was trained on her. Expressions of various mixes of surprise, (in Liz's case at least) concern, and the perverse glee of anticipated disaster, were evident. Anne aborted the search and gathered up her things, giving an 'I don't know either' gesture to Liz, and bland smiles to everyone else. She left the room trying hard not to look like she was slinking out.

The summons was a total mystery- doubly so since the two vice- principals were mostly involved in disciplinary matters and other such unpleasantness, leaving Principal Hornby free to handle the nicer aspects of running the school. All the way to the Admin wing Anne tried to puzzle out the meaning behind the abrupt command performance.

She kept hitting a blank wall. There wasn't anything she could remember doing to warrant all this. In fact, since transferring to the district at the start of the year, she scrupulously avoided doing *anything* to attract attention, even to the point of becoming invisible. Maybe she wasn't in trouble after all. Maybe they just wanted to give her a medal - or make her Spring Queen. Yeah. And maybe flatworms can tap-dance.

Anne entered the open, common, outer office of the Administration area, and looked around nervously. She hadn't been there since registering half a year ago, and couldn't remember which of the maze of doors and passageways leading off in all directions was the one she needed. Fortunately the school district couldn't afford to fully automate its clerical functions, so there was a live human for her to ask.

"Excuse me...", she started. The young man at the center desk looked up from shuffling virtual paperwork, almost startled to see her, or anyone, talking to him. "Um. Anne Winters, to see Vice..."

"Oh. Yes. In there", he pointed to a blank, faux wood door. "Go right on in, they're waiting for you inside."

They? As in more than one? Who else beside 'Witless' Whiplish wanted to see her, and *why*? 'Only one way to find out.' she told herself. Anne pushed through the door and abruptly came to a dead stop.

Vice-principal Marion Whiplish was seated at her desk, not unexpectedly. The woman was wearing what, even for her, was a sour expression, and fixed Anne with a silent glare that could burn holes through brick. Totally unexpected was the presence of the other two people in the tiny room. Standing next to the desk was River Valley Police Sergeant Crickton, the 'School-community relations' officer. She was definitely not working the 'Officer Friendly' beat just now; her body held stiffly, face a studied neutral mask. On the other side of the room, closer to the back wall, was a stranger - a man in a business suit, but with a gold official badge hanging from the breast pocket. He looked at Anne as if at something that crawled out from under a rock. Not one of her many fans and admirers somehow, she thought, but still no clue as to why. She was sure they'd tell her, and equally sure she wouldn't like it.

"Ms. Winters, you know me.", Sgt. Crickton started abruptly. "This is Detective Wesniic; Metro Area Bias Crimes Unit." Whiplish was left out of the loop totally, most likely accounting for much of her unpleasant demeanor. "The detective and I are investigating a rather despicable incident, and would like any information you have that might help us."

"Starting with; Have you ever seen any of these items before...?", the stranger- Wesniic said, pointing to a pile of plastic bags on Whiplish's desk. There, each one sealed in it's own private evidence pouch, was everything she'd dropped fumbling to get the stake out of her purse last night. Right on top, like the cherry on a dessert, was her River Valley High student government ID card, complete with her name, photo, and thumbprint.

Her belly tightened around a leaden ton-weight the temperature of liquid hydrogen. Oh god. Someone had come by the aftermath of her battle with the vampire later (in daylight), jumped to some very understandable conclusions, and called in the police. Her brain went to hyper speed. A simple denial wasn't going to work here at all. She'd have to work up a fancy story on the fly and hope she didn't trip herself up on the details. The hard part would be figuring out how much they already knew for fact, and what was just suspected. The first step was to separate herself from where the items were found.

"Oh. Gee. You guys...found my stuff. That was...fast work since...it's only been .... missing since...Tuesday."

"Tuesday." The detective pronounced the word as if it were the title of a fairy tale. "And you reported this when?"

"Actually, I didn't... I, I didn't see it happen, there wasn't anyone else who could have seen it, and since nothing really valuable was gone, I didn't want to take the time away from this really big school project I was doing to go through a lot of hassles over something that looked pretty hopeless..." Thank heaven her wallet and change purse had stayed put, or else this tale wouldn't have a prayer. Not that it seemed they were buying much of it, anyway.

The two cops were standing so that she couldn't see both of them at once. Sgt Crickton started in again, "Yes, we found your belongings, alright, right where some pretty disgusting things happened last night.."

"Things like violating someone's grave.", Wesniic picked up, making Anne swivel to face him.

"And 'Tomb Robbing'...", Sgt Crickton tossed in, pulling Anne's attention around the other way again.

"Not to mention 'Body Snatching'. I'm sure we can safely tack on 'Intentional Mistreatment' also.", Wesniic again. If they kept this up, she'd be dizzy, which was probably part of the idea.

"These aren't the sort of things that people will understand as just youthful pranks..."

"A jury made up of adults will take such ghoulish behavior very seriously. Serious jail for those involved, even peripherally. Especially, since the object of the crimes was Vilani, while the trail leads to a near-totally Solomani area like this. If there's even a hint of organized ethnic hatred, then the Imperial authorities get involved. Not just the Justice Ministry, a copy of the report will go to the Navy's CID office. This record will be there ahead of you, Ms. Winters. Your future career will consist of scrubbing bulkheads at some ground base with no hope of anything better."

They were really playing dirty. Not too many people knew of her ambitions for the Navy Scholarship Program, they must have dug it out of her 'confidential' counseling files. Fear was starting to be replaced with anger. But only partly, there was still enough fear left to go around.

"Of course it doesn't have to be that way.", Crickton said. "You still have a chance to pull yourself out of this. Tell us your side, explain how it happened. Point out that you didn't really know what was going to happen, didn't personally do anything wrong, that it was all the other people. Give us a statement and their names, and all this will go away..."

"I don't *have* a side. I wasn't involved with any group, organized or not. I didn't dig up any bodies, never saw anyone else do it, either." I just can't come out and say he dug himself out, and then blew away downwind after getting staked. I'd rather not be seen as bucking for an insanity plea, just yet.

"I have nothing to tell you guys except look for whoever took my stuff. Just 'cause something with my name on it is somewhere, doesn't necessarily mean I put it there." Of course, then again it might, but we won't go into that, I hope. If I get out of this, I ought to send my old logic teacher a big thank-you card. Crickton shook her head slowly. "Alright Ms. Winters. If you don't want to help yourself, we can't force you. You want to live or die by 'I wuz robbed', go ahead. But let me warn you, this is not, by any means, over."

"We're actively investigating this case, it's only going to be a question of when, not if, we get to the truth. And when we bring in the others, don't count on the schoolboy code holding up. At least one will roll over for a lighter sentence, and if your name comes up then, this deal is off, you go down with the rest." Wesniic threatened calmly. He handed her a business card. "I can be reached at that code, if you remember anything... *differently*, later. But remember, the clock is ticking, and there's no prize for coming in second."


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