Angel Among Us by Katy Munger

understand what might have happened to their teacher. They raced up and down the hallways playing and their parents were too distracted to stop them. They had been forced to hurry past a gauntlet of television cameras as they entered the school with their children in tow and the experience had driven home the realization that Arcelia Gallagher’s disappearance was real.
    Two of the classrooms had been converted into staging areas where the detectives could question the children in the hope that at least one had seen something that might prove useful in the investigation.
    The two men questioning the kids seemed an unlikely choice at first glance, but if you knew them, like I did, it made sense. One was tall and gaunt with a cadaverous face, but he was the father of four children, the last I’d heard, and comfortable with their fanciful flights of imagination – all of which had to be sorted out from the truth to reveal useful leads.
    The other officer was a bear of a man whose father owned the Polish restaurant in town. Terrence Palicki must have eaten at it five times a day growing up because he was well over six feet tall and as wide as a grizzly. He was also a gentle giant. I remembered him as one of the few people who had been unfailingly kind to me back when I was alive and bumbling through my cases. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body. At the moment, he was questioning a small boy with a remarkably round head and runny nose. Two of his classmates stood nearby, gazing at Terrence with awe.
    â€˜What did he look like?’ Terrence was asking the little guy, who mostly seemed interested in the gold badge pinned to the detective’s jacket pocket. Maggie and Calvano were waiting against one wall for Terrence to finish before they checked in. Both were the subjects of unabashed staring by a line of five-year-olds. Maggie barely seemed to notice their presence, but Calvano winked at a few and flashed his gun at a row of little boys. He had a lot of nieces and nephews and was comfortable with humans that barely reached his waist, even though he had none of his own.
    The little boy with the round head picked up a crayon and bashed it into the top of the desk, enjoying the opportunity to smash something. ‘I don’t know,’ he told Terrence, concerned solely with the destruction of his crayon. ‘He looked like my dad.’
    Now if it had been me, I would’ve torn my hair out long ago and left the task to someone else, but Terrence had unlimited patience. ‘What does your dad look like?’ he asked the child. ‘What color hair does he have? Is he taller than me?’
    The little boy stared at Terrence. ‘No one is taller than you.’
    â€˜What about his hair? What color was it?’
    â€˜Like mine. I look like my daddy so my daddy looks like me,’ the boy explained proudly.
    Terrence sighed. He had limits after all. He shifted in the chair, which was way too small for him, and the whole room seemed to tremble. ‘You have blond hair,’ he pointed out. ‘Did the man you saw at the fence also have blond hair?’
    The little boy nodded, but one of his classmates could no longer stand by and listen to his nonsense. ‘Liar!’ an Hispanic boy with a buzz cut interrupted. ‘The man had brown skin like mine and his hair looked like mine.’
    The first boy looked at his classmate with scorn. ‘I think I can tell the difference between a Mexican and a ’Merican.’
    Oh yes, it started young.
    â€˜So you saw the man at the fence talking to Seely, too?’ Terrence asked the second boy.
    The boy nodded. His skin was the color of dried autumn leaves. His eyes were huge and he stuck his thumb in his mouth for comfort as he contemplated Terrence’s size.
    â€˜Was this a few days ago?’ Terrence said encouragingly, his voice gentle as he tried to wheedle more information out of the boy.
    â€˜No,’ the little boy