The interrogation room had a moldy scent and a stifling stillness to the air, the type that tended to arise in scarcely used spaces: small towns and violent crime so seldom mixed. Department Chief of Police Clyde Pemberton believed in (and strove for) a high standard of work, but budgetary shortfalls and a lack of officer effort usually wound up with something less-than-stellar. The dank air was all the proof needed. Now, inhaling that air, Officer Nora Campbell rubbed at her temples and sighed, hoping that the deep breath would expel the rising stress she felt creeping in. It didn't.

The week was young, and it somehow felt different already. First was arson, and now a double armed robbery, both in the span of two days. At this rate, Nora mused that President Reagan might just be shot on the library steps by Friday evening. And knowing her luck, she'd be stuck with the paperwork in the aftermath.

"Something funny?" asked the young woman seated across from Nora, still handcuffed to the coffee-stained table.

"Oh, it's nothing… just thinking about how quickly things have turned upside-down around here."

The young woman was quiet, waiting.

"So, let's get to it. Valerie Delacroix," Nora said officiously, "date of birth October 11th, 1963. Can I call you Valerie?"

"Val to my friends," the young woman replied.

"Are we friends?"

"Well, certainly closer than the last guy who was in here… he was an awfully boring sort. Nearly had me asleep confessing my own crimes."

Nora chuckled, shaking her head. She felt the exact same way about Coulter. "Well, Val, help me to understand a few things and we can end all the tiresome interrogations. I promised my kid I'd be home for dinner and I'm sure you'd like to get out of this room just as much as I would."

"Am I invited to dinner too?"

"I'll have the boys make you something nice for your holding cell while charges process," Nora offered, not even sure how seriously she'd meant it. She was starting to warm to this Valerie.

"Well look, I told…"

"Officer Coulter?"

"Yeah, Coulter. I told him everything that happened. Came clean. It was real cathartic and all that."

Nora nodded and glanced down at the signed statement in front of her, as well as the rest of Delacroix's file. "He told me you were very forthcoming."

"So why the extra interrogations? I'm no police but it seems pretty open-and-shut to me."

"Well, Val, I've got some more questions about the masked men. Walk me through it again."

"Well, it's like I said on the paper there. I was robbing the place when another crew burst in through the door. First the one, and then four more later on. Young, I think. No gun, as far as I saw."

"Bats? Knives?"

"No weapons at all that I could see," Val said.

"Strange that a whole gang would run in without a single weapon on them," Nora commented.

"Well…" Valerie began before trailing off. "Nah, nevermind."

"No, go on, what were you going to say?"

"Well, I know this sounds ridiculous-like, which is why I didn't mention it to the last guy… they had these rocks."

"Well that'd definitely qualify as an improvised weapon," Nora said, adding that newest detail to her notebook.

"Well, see, they weren't ordinary rocks. One of them was flying."

"Like, they threw it?" Nora asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, flyin' around back and forth by the door."

"Uh-huh," Nora said, writing. "So they didn't hold the rocks, brandishing them as weapons?"

"Well, one of them did… the one I, you know,"

"Shot twice," Nora finished. "The one you think you killed. Did Coulter tell you that we didn't see any body or even a single drop of blood on scene beyond a bit of yours?"

Val looked confused, tracing backwards through memories of the failed robbery. "That can't be. I shot him twice in the chest."

"Yeah, we got that. Still, no body, no blood… in fact, beyond two spent casings, no evidence that you hurt anybody at all."

"Why would I lie about shootin' someone?"

"You tell me," Nora challenged.

Val was silent for a moment. "The clerk! You can ask him. He definitely saw me kill the guy… maybe the rest dragged out the body and mopped up the blood while I was out."

"That's a serious cleaning job," Nora countered. "Kind of them to cover up for you like that. Either way, we've already got an officer bringing the clerk in. We'll corroborate your story. Now, Before we call this thing wrapped, I gotta ask you: what were you up to last night, July 12th?"

Val seemed caught momentarily off-guard. "I was visiting with my parents near Blowing Rock. Had dinner, spaghetti and meatballs. You can call 'em and confirm."

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"What time, roughly?"

"Got there some time around 5, and left close to 10?" Val said hesitantly.

"How certain are you on that endtime?"

"Not exactly certain. Give or take a half hour, I guess, but it was somewhere close to 10. My parents might remember better."

"We'll be sure to ask them," Nora said, while mentally scratching Valerie off her arsonist suspect list. Timeline wouldn't work out if she'd left anywhere after 9, but Nora would of course double-check with the parents and verify the alibi.

There was a knock at the door to the small interrogation room. From behind that door, a muffled voice spoke: "We got the clerk in B."

"Perfect timing. We'll be speaking soon, Valerie," Nora said as she pushed herself up from the creaking chair and made her way to the door.

"Wait!" Valerie called out, hesitant. "Ask him about the flying rock," she said, an earnest interest on her face.

* * *

"The rock," the man repeated, his lips in a line.

"Yes, the rock. Valerie Delacroix, the woman who robbed the store, said that there was a rock doing some strange things. What did you see?"

Jack Cooper, the clerk at Johnson's General, had never had so strange a day in his life. He shook his head to himself, something that he'd been doing near reflexively for the past three hours. "I saw a lot of strange things, Miss. Feel like I'm losing my mind."

"Well, let me get you started then. The robber said that a rock outside the door was doing something strange. What did you see?"

"It, well," Cooper began, before trailing off and staring at the desk. "Can we do this off the record?"

Nora sighed. "Sure. Off the record. What was it doing?"

"Well, it was flyin' about like a bat out of hell. Waggling around near the door like it was tryin to get in."

Nora felt a chill run across her arms and back. "Was it on a string, maybe?"

"Don't think so… none that I saw, at least. And nobody was there to be holding it," he added.

Nora underlined the word rock in her notebook and added several question marks in the margins. She had no idea what the hell kind of lead this was, but for two people to corroborate such a strange detail of the scene… it felt significant somehow. "Back on the record, if that's fine with you… where was this in the timeline of events?"

"Just before the first group of masked folks after Valerie run in."

"Wait, there were multiple groups after Valerie?" Nora asked, leaning in and immediately writing "more robbers???" in her book. "As in, more than the five we already knew about? Why didn't you tell our agents that on-scene?"

"I did, but I think they misunderstood me. After all, who'd automatically think of a place being robbed three or four times at once?"

"Ok, I need you to walk me back through the whole thing in as much detail as you can."

"Well, the girl had us in there at gunpoint. Took our wallets, keys, the like. Then in came the first extra masked guy. He was alone, but definitely no friend of hers. She took his wallet, I think." At this, Nora began scribbling furiously. Check bag for wallet of perp. Cooper continued: "then in run like four more of them. They were friends of the second guy, I think. Not friends with her at least. The leader, he was tall; black, I think. Tried to de-escalate the situation. Then she shot masked man number two, twice." Cooper looked down towards his lap. "I was terrified, so I ducked down behind my counter, but I think he must've been wearing a bulletproof vest. Got right back up after she was subdued."

"And how was she subdued?"

"Like I said, I ducked down behind my counter. But… we got one of those convex mirrors. I watched the scene unfold through that tiny round mirror. You're not gonna like this…"

"Go on, just tell me what you saw. No need for embarrassment."

"Well… from the mirror, it looked like one of the wine bottles off the shelf… it just went on and leapt right off into her head, knocking her out."

"On its own?" Nora asked.

"On its goddamn own," Cooper replied.

Silence fell over the room. "Is it ok if I have a smoke?" Cooper asked, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. Nora nodded.

A few clicks of a lighter later and tendrils of smoke drifted up lazily around Cooper's face. He rubbed at his temples and sighed out a deep lungful of smoke. "So, then, I see the girl who had a weapon is down, so I rise back to my feet. While I'm doing that, I see another one materialize out of thin air."

Nora raised her eyebrows. "You definitely didn't mention that one," she said, pen in hand. She writes check mental health next to Cooper's name.

"Of course I didn't, who'd believe it? But it's what I saw, swear to God. He goddamn teleported in, like out of a science fiction film or something. Then one of the new arrivals, he starts going off on this heroic speech about how they saved the day, but the others are hushing him along. They tell me to watch the girl and then they run out of the store."

"They didn't take anything?"

Cooper exhaled another puff of smoke and shook his head. "No, not them at least. But then in walks the next robber."

Nora perked up, leaning in. She knew the entire testimony of this man was in question after the materializing phantom, but this new part of the story still interested her. Another possible angle of approach to this bizarre case? "So, the new guy… what's he do?"

"Well, he's got a gun, unlike the last group. He comes in and runs straight for the girl, who's still out, and he goes rifling through her bag for just one wallet. He takes it and leaves."

Nora frowned. Did he come back for the wallet of the first masked man? She puzzled over it for a moment. "The newcomer, he wasn't in the store before?"

"No. Well, I don't think so. Dressed totally different, at least. In fact, speaking of his dress… sometimes after work I go over to Trade-In Tom's, since it's just a couple doors down. Shop for the kids and such. The ratty hoodie the robber was wearing? Pretty sure it's the stained old thing Tom's been trying to sell for near on two months now."

"Could you describe the hoodie in as much detail as you can remember?"

* * *

"Yeah, I know the hoodie," Tom Krischer said, his face suddenly pale.

Nora read Tom's sudden change in demeanor and leaned in. "Tom, what's wrong? You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"I've got something to tell you about that hoodie, but you won't like it…"

"Truth over comfort," Nora said.

"Well, Nora, I parted with that hoodie just today, minutes before closing. It was to your own boy, and his friends with him."

Nora's stomach dropped. Suddenly the room felt tiny and far too chilly. "You sold it to Parker?" her voice asked, though she wasn't even aware she'd meant to speak out loud. "When?"

"Must've been five 'till six," Tom replied. "I'm sorry."

Nora furrowed her brow. "Wait," she said, gripping the table for stability. "You said five 'till six? As in, 5:55 p.m."

"Yes'm. Was about to close."

The room still spun about Nora, but she felt a sense of composure returning as the unease burned away and cool relief crystalized in its wake. The robbery had been at roughly 5:20. Parker didn't buy the hoodie until after the robbery.

"That was… about a half hour after the robbery. Did he tell you why he was buying a stained old hoodie?"

"Why not ask him yourself?"

Nora wiped her hands on her lap, trying to clear the sweat before she returned to her writing pad. "We just like to double-check to corroborate stories."

"Said he was painting, or something."

"Did anyone else enter the store between 5:20 and closing? Someone that could've dropped the hoodie off after stealing it at some point earlier?"

"A couple people, sure, but none walking in carrying a hoodie… running a clothing consignment shop, you notice that stuff. Who's coming in to buy and who's looking to sell."

"Any back doors to the building, where someone could have snuck in and out?"

"We've got a back door, sure, but it's kept locked all the time. It's also got a noisy bell on it… wasn't opened."

Nora clicked her pen and wrote stained hoodie - dead end. She then clicked at the pen nervously as an internal debate played out. Finally, she sighed and scratched out dead end. Beneath it, with pen trailing slowly as though it were made of lead, she begrudgingly added a single word to the page: Parker.