Lockdown on Campus (Part 2)
Another parent, a woman with permed hair, chimed in: "What kind of garbage school is this? A teacher dies and you lock us all in. What does it have to do with me? It's completely unreasonable. I'm transferring my child next week—what a mess, they can't learn anything good here."
The vice principal hurried over to placate her with a smile, but it did no good. The more they tried to calm things down, the more agitated the parents became.
Marcus Shaw had been standing to the side, silent, waiting until they'd finished venting before speaking. "Based on the latest evidence, the deceased was murdered. Now, who would be in a rush to leave the scene? The police need to identify suspects first, and the most anxious person is the most suspicious."
The parents quieted down—except for the buzz-cut man with the bag, who said, "Fuck it. Suspect whoever you want—it's got nothing to do with me. Costing me business—you couldn't compensate me with a lifetime of your salary."
His voice was loud, his words like bricks slamming onto the pavement.
Viktor Dunn was about to lose his temper when Marcus Shaw waved a hand and smiled: "May I ask what business you're in, sir? I have some friends at the tax bureau. Perhaps they could help you with your accounting—save you the cost of hiring one."
The man looked like he'd swallowed something that got stuck. He stared, cheeks puffed, Adam's apple bobbing, and after a long moment hawked up phlegm and spat loudly. Then he turned to the parent who'd been backing him up and said, "We've got nothing to hide. This is a society governed by law. I don't believe they can pin something on me I didn't do. Investigate all you want—I'm not scared."
He pulled the bag from under his arm, gave it a swing, and headed back toward the classroom building.
Viktor Dunn grinned.
Marcus Shaw addressed the remaining parents: "Please go back to your classrooms and wait a little longer. We need to check the surveillance footage and ask a few questions. It won't take much more of your time."
The crowd filed back into the building.
Upstairs, the three officers went first to the crime scene and had the body carried down to the vehicle for the forensic examiner to transport back. Dr. Maren Frost noticed Lucas Lutz was drenched in sweat, so she fished around in her white coat pocket and handed him an individually wrapped wet wipe.
Viktor Dunn happened to see this and pulled a long face. "Marcus, look at that—our beautiful Miu is so partial. She gives him a wipe for his sweat but leaves us two out in the cold."
Marcus Shaw ignored him.
Dr. Maren Frost said, "I only had one left. Whoever's closest gets it. Besides, you two are such close brothers—why would you need my tender care?"
Viktor Dunn's eyes lit up. "How do you know we don't need it if you've never given it?" He nudged Marcus Shaw with his elbow. "Right?"
Marcus Shaw felt like he'd swallowed a fishbone. He thought, Why did the department pair me with this fool? Watching Dr. Maren Frost and Lucas Lutz, he found them oddly well-matched, then caught himself—what did it matter to him? Why should he always feel awkward? So he helped Dr. Maren Frost carry her investigation kit to the car and said at the end, "Senior Sister, I'll be waiting for your report."
Viktor Dunn and Lucas Lutz went to question the various classes while Marcus Shaw, led by the vice principal, headed for the surveillance room. When they arrived, the door was shut—it wouldn't budge, and no one answered their knocking.
The vice principal grew anxious and pulled out her phone to call the technician, barking into it right away: "Where the hell are you? You're supposed to be on duty!"
The person on the other end stammered some explanation, and she barely managed to calm down. She turned back to Marcus Shaw with a smile: "I'm sorry—the school was having a parents' meeting, so he assumed nothing could go wrong and went out for lunch. He's on his way back now."
After waiting over ten minutes, a very young male technician came running back, drenched in sweat. He called the vice principal "Second Aunt" and asked what had happened. Marcus Shaw gave him a brief summary, and the technician's jaw dropped. With trembling hands, he unlocked the door—only to find the display screens all dark!
He scrambled to check the system, then reported miserably: "The surveillance system's independent power supply seems to have been cut. This is bad—that thing isn't easy to fix."
Marcus Shaw said, "You probably won't need to fix it." He sat down at the desk and pulled up the footage himself. He found that from 1:27 PM onward, the screens had gone completely black. At 1:25, the deceased had appeared alone on the third floor, looking nervous and acting furtively. Then the signal cut out—the killer may have begun the assault.
Marcus Shaw also quickly scanned the footage from earlier in the day. The third floor housed only senior grades, which weren't holding parents' meetings today, so no one had been up there. On the other floors, the most activity was parents going to and from the restrooms and teachers' offices.
One fashionably dressed female parent was seen linking arms with a female teacher, whispering at a stairwell corner. Before the surveillance feed cut out, only one male parent in a white shirt had stepped into a corridor to take a phone call, and he'd quickly returned to the classroom. Nothing seemed particularly unusual.
Marcus Shaw was about to get up and leave when a tall, thin man suddenly appeared in the second-floor footage. He immediately rewound and played it frame by frame, discovering that the man had come up from the first floor and turned directly to the left, after which he vanished from the frame. Marcus Shaw then pulled up the first-floor footage and saw the man emerge from a classroom and hurry toward the stairwell, heading alone to the second floor.
Marcus Shaw found this strange and asked the vice principal, "What rooms are down that left wing on the second floor?"
The vice principal thought for a moment. "Nothing special—just ordinary classrooms."
Marcus Shaw fell into thought, then heard her add, "There is also a men's restroom. Maybe he needed to go?"
"There's a men's restroom on the first floor where he was. Why would he go out of his way to the second floor?"
The vice principal's face tightened. She said nothing, her eyes darting back and forth.
Marcus Shaw went to check the second floor. The classrooms were all filled with seated parents, each with one or two teachers at the front trying to keep them calm. The men's room was empty. Wind poured in through the window, pushing at him like hands trying to shove him out.
Yet there was still a strong smell of disinfectant—overwhelming, almost choking. A cigarette butt lay on the floor by the window, with no ash around it.
Marcus Shaw pulled out an evidence bag and collected the butt, then checked each stall.
Coming back out, he noticed a small, inconspicuous door at the far end of the corridor. He put on gloves and pulled it open. Inside was a very narrow staircase leading both up and down.
"Why is there a staircase here? Why didn't you mention it earlier?"
The vice principal pursed her lips. "Hardly anyone uses it—I'd almost forgotten. Besides, you asked about rooms, not staircases."
Marcus Shaw stared, speechless.
Then he went down to the first floor and headed straight for the classroom where the suspicious man had been.