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into a fair amount of money and moved into Belltown Terrace, a high-rise downtown condo, there’s been a certain sourgrapes element at work among some of my cohorts at Seattle P.D. A few of those folks can’t seem to let go of what they presume to be my rarified social status. Mostly that so-called status is nothing more than a figment of overly active imaginations, but it doesn’t make the ongoing antagonism any less real or any less annoying.
    “I’ve never met the man before,” I answered stiffly. “I assume he’s interested in being apprised of what’s going on here. After all, he is the school district’s head honcho. We’re here working on his turf, remember. It can’t hurt for us to show him a little common courtesy.”
    “It’ll be a waste of time,” Kramer grumbled.
    “Courtesy is never a waste of time,” I assured him.
    If she had only lived long enough, hearing that comment coming from her diamond-in-the-rough son would have made my mother proud. Astonished and proud.
    When we appeared in front of Doris Walker’s desk, her phone was ringing, ablaze with several blinking lights that indicated calls waiting on hold. As soon as she saw us, however, she dropped the handset back into its cradle, jumped to her feet, and left the telephone ringing unanswered while she escorted us to the door of the superintendent’s private office.
    “He told me you were to be shown in as soon as you got here,” she explained.
    I had seen Dr. Savage once or twice on television, usually standing in front of a podium addressing either the press or a group of citizens. In person he turned out to be surprisingly short. Well dressed and rotund, he spoke in flat, nasal tones that betrayed his proper Bostonian origins. He stood to shake hands across his desk and then waved us into chairs as Doris made the introductions.
    “This is awful,” he murmured, resuming his seat. “I can’t imagine anything worse. How could such a terrible thing happen? The phone lines have been going like crazy all morning. Of course, we haven’t given out any information, none at all. I hope that’s correct. It’s what we were told by the first officer who came here this morning. He said not to release anything, not a single word, until someone has a chance to notify next-of-kin.”
    “That’s exactly right,” I said reassuringly. “And we’ll be doing that as soon as we possibly can, but in the meantime, there are a few things we need to clear up. Miss Lafflyn told us that your security guards keep a logbook and that it’s currently located in the receptionist’s desk downstairs. The crime-scene investigators will be picking that up and taking it along down-town with them.”
    “Certainly. That’s fine. I’m sure we can scare up another one for whoever Seattle Security sends over to take Mr. Chambers’ place. It’s terrible for the families, of course, and I don’t want to seem incredibly hard-hearted, but my main concern has to be to get this dreadful matter straightened out as soon as possible. We’re an inner-city school system, you know. This kind of tragedy will make headlines all over the county. We can’t afford that kind of PR. We simply cannot afford it.”
    Savage paused, seemingly winded by the vehemence of his speech. “Is there anything else you need?”
    “Yes,” I told him. “We’ll need to have an opportunity to interview any number of your personnel, although we can’t tell at this time the exact identity of the people involved, how many there are, or how much time we’ll need to spend with each one of them,” I added. “First on the list would be Mr. Jacobs, the fellow who called 911. There are probably numerous others as well.”
    Savage nodded thoughtfully. “I sent Martin, Mr. Jacobs, that is, home this morning right after it happened. He had quadruple bypass surgery six months ago. I didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. We’ll give you his home number, though. He said he’d be happy