The captain shrugged. “Ah . . . remember thatEnquirer ar ticle? And the ET’s on TV, talking about predators? Maybe this isn’t something for a patrol. We’ll bypass patrol and find out, okay?”
Burton, a husky youngster only three years on the force, drove, lights and siren on. McClellan watched the streets flee by as they swerved through evening traffic, counting to himself. After today, three more days until his last day. And wouldn’t you know, the job was just getting worth doing again when he was getting ready to leave it. These last couple weeks had been fun, like the old days, putting the bad guys away and doing it without walking a tightrope the whole time, doing it honestly, no cheating, no faked evidence or any of the stuff some men fell into when their patience wore out. If he were a churchgoing man, McClellan thought maybe he’d go to services and thank God for the ET’s.
“Next right,” he said to Burton, grabbing for support as the car swerved at the corner. “Slow down. We’re not chasing anybody.” Wouldn’t that frost your cookie! Killed in a speeding police car, chasing nobody, three days before retirement.
The street ended at the back of a tall, blocky gymnasium, separated from the street by a row of bollards. Burton eased around the bollards and parked as close to the front of the building as he could get. An unlocked gate in a high fence opened on a wide stone terrace extending across the building front. Three shallow steps outside the double doors of the building were occupied by a cluster of young men and women students gathered around a hunched over, weeping figure.
McClellan fumbled for his notebook and approached the group. “So, what happened?”
The tear-stained person at the center of the group looked up and cried, “They disappeared. Right in front of me!”
“Okay, okay, miss,” murmured McClellan. “Now, who was it who disappeared?”
“My brother,” the young woman cried. “Carlos Shipton. And some other people. I don’t know who. They were out there . . .” She waved toward the oval track below them, separated from the terrace by a wide, shallow tier of bleachers. “There were two other guys, and a coach, and … a girl in running shorts walking along the track, and . . .” She looked up, her mouth squared into an agonized mask of tragedy.
“And then?” murmured McClellan.
“They were gone. One minute they were there, the next minute they were gone.” She dabbed at her face with the backs of her hands, smearing the tears.
“There was a smell,” volunteered one of the students. “When I came out of the building, there was a strange smell.”
Two others nodded, yes, there’d been a smell.
One of the building doors banged open to a hurrying youth, who called out, “It was Coach Jensen. Coach Jensen, and he was out there with three guys, Turley, McClure, and Shipton.”
“Who was the girl?”
The young man shook his head. “She was just somebody out there running. I came over here to see Carlos. He owes me money from when we roomed together last year, and I need it. When I got here, I saw he was busy with the coach, so I waited for him. Then I saw the girl, and at first I thought she was Carlos’s sister, so I walked down there and called to her and waved. She looked up, and then I saw she was somebody else.”
“You were here when they disappeared?”
The youth looked flustered. “I didn’t actually see them disappear. I thought the girl was Angelica, so I yelled ‘Hey, Angelica,’ but it wasn’t her. The real Angelica was standing right there,” he pointed, “at the top of the stairs, and I said something like, ‘Oh, there you are,’ and she screamed. She was looking past me, down there, and when I turned around, they were gone.”
“Coach Jensen, and three students?”
“That’s who the coach’s assistant says. And the girl,” said the youth.
“Your name is?”
“Mack Dugan. I roomed with Carlos last year. That’s how I knew him and his sister.”
“Is that what happened?” McClellan asked Angelica. “Did he tell it the way it happened.”