When Wunder turned onto his street, the first thing he saw was flashing light. Red-and-blue flashing light. There was a police car in front of his house.
Officer Soto was sitting in the living room. Officer Soto was Tomás’s dad. He was one of three police officers in Branch Hill, so Wunder had figured that if the police were called about the town hall break-in, Officer Soto would know about it. But he hadn’t expected to see him at his house.
Wunder’s mother was in the chair across from him. Neither of them was speaking, even though they had known each other for years.
“Oh, hey, Wunder.” Officer Soto jumped to his feet as Wunder entered. He looked relieved. “You’re here.”
“Hi, Officer Soto,” Wunder said. He put his hands in his pockets. His heart was pounding. “How are you? How’s Tomás? Everything okay?”
“I’m fine, Tomás is fine.” Officer Soto cracked his knuckles. “But actually, everything’s not okay.”
“Officer Soto says you broke into the town hall, Wunder.”
Officer Soto and Wunder both turned to look at Wunder’s mother. She was still sitting, and she was still staring across the room. It was almost as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Well,” Officer Soto said, “I said we think it was him. The clerk, Ms. Eugenia Simone, she says someone who claimed he was you was in there the day before with a”—he consulted the small notebook he was carrying—“‘foul-tempered, profanely garbed vampire girl.’ Says the two asked to see a particular set of records, which she refused to let them see. And now those records are missing…”
Officer Soto waited for Wunder to respond, but not for very long. “Things being what they are,” he continued, “circumstances being a certain way—if we got those records back, the whole thing could just be over and done with. Papers go missing every day, no big deal. So…”
He cracked his knuckles again, loud, painful-sounding pops. Wunder tried frantically to think of what to say. But what could he say? He had broken into the town hall. He had taken the cemetery records. And he had never been any good at lying.
“Well, you let me know if you think of anything, Wunder,” the officer finally said. He nodded at Wunder’s mother. “Mrs. Ellis.”
Then he walked out the front door.
Wunder waited, uncertain, conflicted. His mother stayed in the chair. More than anything, what he wanted right then was for her to look at him, to tell him what to do. She had always helped him figure things out.
But she didn’t look at him. The way she was sitting there, she might as well have been a stranger. She might as well have been someone who had nothing to do with him, someone who wasn’t connected to him at all.
Then she said, “I’m sorry, Wunder, but I’m not sure I can handle this.” She turned to him finally, and her eyes were red. “It’s hard to—this is a lot for me right now.”
Now Wunder knew what his father had felt like yesterday, knocking on the door and apologizing to his mother. He couldn’t remember ever making her cry before. It was a horrible feeling. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
Then he ran outside.
“Officer Soto!” he called. “When I was walking home—I saw—in an alley near the town hall. There was a binder there. Maybe—maybe that’s what you’re looking for.”
Officer Soto studied him for a minute, his brow furrowed. He looked like he was going to say something, but not something angry. Then he nodded.
“Okay, Wunder,” he said. “I’ll check it out. Thanks for letting me know.”
When Wunder came back into the house, his mother was gone. His parents’ door was shut.