This time it was a photo of Kendall and Josh leaning over the body.

“That’s how I knew it was you and why you were coming, Officer Stark.”

“Any more out there?” she asked, her tone flat to mask her anger.

“He texted everyone that he was putting up an animated slide show on his MySpace later. Kind of cool that someone died around here, and we can watch how you solve the case. Like CSI. My mom loves that show.”

Jesus, what’s with these kids around here? Is everything a joke? she thought.

“Thanks, Matt. And by the way, it isn’t cool that someone died around here. This is very serious and sad business. I’d appreciate it if you’d remind people of that. Okay?”

“Yes, Deputy. Will do.”

Josh spoke up. “It’s Detective Stark. She’s a detective now. Not a deputy.”

Kendall suppressed a smile. It was the first time that Josh had done that. For a man who was a relentless self-promoter, he simply didn’t believe in building up someone else, because if someone was his equal, it diminished him.

She turned to the boy. “By the way, I’ll need your phone.”

The Kitsap County detectives went past the hideous cement pillars and into the administrative offices, where they had a brief conversation with the school’s assistant principal, a nervous man with caterpillar eyebrows who was about to consume a limp chef’s salad. It was doubtful that anything but an inquiry from the Sheriff’s Office could have interrupted the meal.

Gil Fontana set down his plastic fork and verified that Devon and Brady were decent students, not overly prone to mischief.

“Those two are harmless,” Gil said, “given what we deal with around here.” He looked down at the contents of an open file folder to refresh a memory that couldn’t possibly have held any real awareness of those boys: there were hundreds like them at the school. “Let’s see, they’ve skipped school only twice before and never have been the subject of any major disciplinary action.”

“Any female students reported missing in the past few days?” Kendall asked, looking past Gil as he fidgeted in his leather office chair. A poster on the wall indicated that John Sedgwick Junior High “celebrated” tolerance, diversity, and sensitivity.

“No female students missing. A few out sick, but junior high girls take advantage of their cramps to miss school.”

Kendall thought of saying something like “cramps” were no laughing matter for a young girl and that he needed to rethink a few things.

The poster caught her eye again.

“I see that you celebrate sensitivity here,” she said.

Gil plastered on a smile. “That’s right. The state requires it.”

Kendall stood. “Good. Too bad it has to be required. By the way, you’ve got a problem here, Mr. Fontana. A young woman’s death is not something to be celebrated on MySpace or Facebook or Twitter, for goodness sake. Those boys-who you seem to feel are no problem-have some serious issues.”

The assistant principal’s face turned scarlet. “What are you getting at, Detective?”

“Aren’t you concerned that they broadcasted a photo of a dead body to everybody in this school?”

Josh followed Kendall to the door. He didn’t say a word, but he clearly was loving the exchange.

“These are the times we live in,” he said, a discernible smirk on his face.

Kendall masked her anger with a smile. “At least I doubt you’d want the school to be known for that kind of thing. Am I right?”

“What was that all about?” Josh asked as they got back in Kendall ’s car.

“Seriously? You don’t think the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket? It’s like a school full of sociopaths.”

“I guess so,” he said. “I never thought of it that way.”

“Well, you should. How would you like it if someone took a photo of your son like that and sent it around for a bunch of gawkers?”

“I wouldn’t. You’re right, Kendall. I wouldn’t at all.”

Serenity Hutchins slid back behind her computer. Charlie Keller was stomping around the office like a beat reporter in one of those 1940s movies that glorified the “scoop.” She wondered for a minute if her boss could possibly be that old. Her archrival, Joy-whom she called “Joyless” behind her back-was fuming in the corner that she was stuck doing that season’s “Fall into Halloween” Web blitz, an assignment that reeked of getting under the covers with advertisers. The paper’s copyrighted Spooky McGee character, a pumpkin-headed seagull, implored shoppers to head for the sad little mall at the base of Mile Hill Road. Joy was stuck with coming up with content to support the program.

She had already used BUOYS AND GULLFRIENDS, HEAD OVER TO THE MALL as a headline, and she wanted to die.

Joy looked up, her face contorted in an unattractive grimace. “Serenity, you need any help?”

“No, thanks, I’ve got it handled. Besides, you’re up to your neck in work yourself.”

Joy sighed. “Not what I thought I’d be doing when I graduated from journalism school,” she said.

Charlie’s deep voice boomed from across the newsroom. “We all have to start somewhere.”

But we don’t have to end up here. Like you, Serenity thought, but didn’t say it.

“How’s the dead girl story?” he asked, now at her desk. “This is front-page, Hutchins. And as you know, we don’t get a lot of front-page stories around here.”

Serenity didn’t say so, but it troubled her that her mood had shifted from boredom to the rush of excitement that came with the discovery of the dead woman in Little Clam Bay.

“I’m on it. Nothing much yet.”

She’d tried to get the detectives to tell her something about the case. Was it even a homicide or just a boating accident? No one would say. She talked to the boys and their mothers for about ten minutes, but there really wasn’t much she could write about that. She stared at the empty window of her computer screen.

“We want to lead with the dead body,” Charlie said, now hovering. She could feel his hot coffee breath on the back of her neck.

“Figured that,” she said. She half expected him to give her some kind of lecture about how things were done “back in the day.” She liked Charlie all right. He was smart, was an excellent writer, and seemed compassionate enough. But he didn’t seem to get the irony that he’d landed a final gig at a paper that was one step above a shopper.

“It’ll be short. I took some photos of the kids who found her, but I didn’t get much out of them. The detectives-Stark and Anderson-gave me the brush-off, pending the coroner’s report. We might not have much in the way of any real info. No who, what, why, anyway.”

“Okay. Do your best. I need it in an hour.”

Serenity dialed Detective Anderson’s number, but it went to voice mail.

“Detective, it’s me, Serenity. I need whatever you’ve got. Keller’s riding me hard right now. Let me know something, okay? Call me on my cell. You’ve got the number.”

Serenity looked at her computer screen. The story for tomorrow’s front page was thin, but what more could she really say? She had agreed not to identify the boys. The detectives had given her next to nothing. A body was found. That was it. The subject was so tragic, there was no room for clever wordplay in the text. She had to stick with the facts.

Body Found Floating in Little Clam Bay

Two local boys found the body of an unidentified young woman floating on Little Clam Bay yesterday morning. The boys, both 14, were skipping school when they made the grisly discovery in the water fronting 1527 Shoreline Road.

“We weren’t sure if what we were seeing was really a dead person,” one of the boys said. “She was out there floating. It was pretty random that we discovered her. We, you know, shouldn’t have been there.”

Neither the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office nor the coroner’s office had any immediate comment.