March 30, 10 a.m.

South Colby, Washington

“Now, that’s attractive,” she thought.

Kendall Stark sat in her white Ford SUV in the school parking lot and fumbled in her purse for a toothpick. Nothing. She checked the glove box. Again nada. A sesame seed from a morning bagel had lodged between her front teeth. Coming up empty-handed, she used the corner of one of her Kitsap County sheriff’s detective business cards. Tacky as she knew it was, mission accomplished. She reset her rearview mirror and got out of her car, proceeding toward the front office of South Colby Elementary School. She said hello to Mattie Jonas, the school secretary, who in turn handed her a clipboard with a signup sheet.

Son’s spring conference, she wrote for the reason of her visit.

Mattie nodded. “You know the drill. Gun-free zone. No exceptions, even for Kitsap County ’s finest.”

With her mind on the meeting, Kendall had forgotten to remove and store her Glock in her car’s gun safe, something procedure called her to do. While the school secretary looked on, she removed the magazine, set the safety, and put the gun into a metal lockbox that the secretary had provided for that purpose.

“We don’t worry about you,” Mattie said, locking the box with a key she kept on a chain around her slender wrists. “I mean, you and the other cops are on the side of right, but a rule’s a rule.”

“Of course,” Kendall said.

“How’s your mom?”

Kendall sighed. “Good days and bad days. More bad days lately, I’m afraid.”

Mattie didn’t press for details. It was clear Kendall didn’t want to go into it. It was a question that came at least once a day. Most people in town knew her mother. Port Orchard was small enough that on any given day, paths would cross with those who shared histories. Mattie had been an assistant in Kendall ’s mother’s fifth-grade classroom many years ago. Mrs. Maguire-never Ms.-was a favorite of anyone who had her. Bettina Maguire was a marmalade-colored redhead who taught her pupils with the fervor of a preacher and the kind of self-deprecating humor that made other teachers standoffish and jealous.

Kendall walked the familiar corridor to Classroom 18 and turned the knob, her heart beating a little faster as she went inside. Lori Bertram’s classroom was a riot of construction-paper cutouts and the smells of all things that seven-year-olds live for: Paste. Sour green-apple candy. Guinea pigs. Lori Bertram had been teaching at South Colby for the past six years, but she still carried the enthusiasm of a first-year teacher. Ms. Bertram was a brunette with pointed features and a splatter of freckles over the bridge of her nose. A charm bracelet with all fifty states, something she used as a teaching tool, jangled whenever she moved her arm.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Stark,” she said, motioning toward one of those impossibly small chairs. Green eyes sparkled through wireless frames.

Kendall Stark was there about her son Cody, an autistic boy who was easy to love but a challenge nonetheless. He was blond-haired and blue-eyed, like his mother. His head was like a small pumpkin, so round and perfect. In photographs, he was the ideal. A cherub. The Gerber baby. The image of the child that young women always dreamed would find their way into a perfectly appointed nursery. He was almost one when the doctors first diagnosed the possibility of “delayed development.” If only. At two, the autism was confirmed. The diagnosis, at first, was a torpedo speeding toward every dream Kendall had for her son. It would never change her love, of course, but in her darkest hours she knew that her son was born to suffer in some way. It broke her heart.

To outsiders, at least, it appeared to take longer for Steven Stark to come to terms with the idea that their son was “different from the others.” An advertising salesman for a hunting and fishing magazine out of Seattle, Steven used to be the kind of man who was all biceps and bravado. Snowboarding. Bungee jumping. Driving fast cars. He was drawn to whatever gave him a challenge, a rush. He had assumed that when he became a father, he’d be able to relive the excitement of the things that didn’t seem to be in the dignified realm of adulthood. He loved his son too. But the cruelty of autism was a chasm between father and son. Steven’s love, it seemed, was seldom returned. There would be no playing catch. No baseball games. No deer hunting.

“This may not be the son you’ve dreamed of,” Kendall said on the way home from one of their first consultations with an autism specialist. “But in time you’ll see. He will be the boy of your dreams.”

Steven put on his game face. “I’m sure you’re right, babe.”

“God gave us a special son because we’re the right parents for him.”

“I know,” he said, his tone more rueful than he’d wanted.

Later, when she played back the conversation, she wondered who had said what.

Kendall Stark knew no speeches could change what Lori Bertram was about to tell her. She knew that the second-grade teacher cared for her little boy. She’d said so many, many times. She’d arranged for special testing, more hours from the support staff than were required to help him stay in the same class as the kids he’d known since preschool.

“Kendall,” the teacher she said, lowering her glasses to view a printout, “I’m sorry to report that things aren’t working out for Cody here at South Colby as we’d all hoped.”

The words were not a surprise. Ms. Bertram had sent several missives home, as had the special education teacher, Ms. Dawson. All seemed to agree that Cody was not a candidate for mainstreaming.

“Cody’s needs and challenges are too great for a standard classroom,” she said.

As a detective, Kendall knew the kinds of questions to ask in order to get the kind of result she wanted. But not now. She was powerless.

“I can get him more help,” Kendall said. “Another specialist.”

The teacher looked away. The moment was awkward. “Look, you already have. You have done an exemplary job, and I know whatever avenue you choose to pursue will be the right one. But the truth is, having him in the classroom is too disruptive to the education process.”

Kendall thought about fighting back. She wanted to tell the teacher that what was best for Cody was that he’d stay with the other children. But she held her tongue. There had been enough warning that this was coming.

“I’ve told Inverness about Cody,” Ms. Bertram went on. “They might have room for him in the fall.”

“I see,” was all Kendall could come up with. The teacher’s words were meant to offer hope, but they stung.

The Inverness School was in Bremerton. Reviews on the institution were mixed. Some kids were boarded there, which Kendall considered no better than warehousing the disabled. The school itself earned decent marks from educational advocates for the disabled. It was probably the best place for Cody in Kitsap County.

The only place.

“Can I see him before I leave?” Kendall asked.

Ms. Bertram nodded. “He’s in music now. Follow me.”

The two women walked down a polished-aggregate corridor to a small classroom filled with the sound of children singing “Baby Beluga.” Only one little boy remained silent, the flicker of recognition that something was going on around him barely discernible. Yet, like a flipped switch, when he saw his mother, he rushed over, nearly knocking down a little girl.

“Mama!”

She scooped him up and gave him a loving embrace, kissing the top of his beautiful blond head.

“I was here to see your teacher,” she told him.

She gave him another peck on his forehead and told him she’d see him at home after school.

“I love you!” the boy said.

Cody was a child who didn’t say much. Unsurprisingly, the words he did utter went straight to his mother’s soul.