"So you're saying it's either this guy Cumberland from the Arts Council trying to get his own school moved out of town, or some theater nerd so desperate for a part that she's sabotaging her classmates?" Pete asked in disbelief. He and Artie were talking to Steve over the Farnsworth outside of the school.
"We don't know which one makes more sense yet," Steve began.
"Both of them sound kinda crazy," Pete admitted.
Artie butted in from behind Pete. "If it were either of these cases, what kind of object should we be looking for?"
"I don't know, we think it could be a ring with a blue stone? Cumberland was wearing one when we talked to him. He's been creeping around here more creepily than me and Claude."
"What about the theater students?" Pete asked as Artie went to research rings in the Warehouse database.
"We don't have a specific idea for them yet, because Claudia is still looking into who it might be. We got a list of all the girls trying out for Perdita, the main female lead in The Winter's Tale. Emma Canning – most recent to get sick. Melissa Roberts – not a theater major, but planning to audition for Perdita, and sick. Elizabeth Laurel – one of the first to get sick before we got here. The only other name on the list is a girl named Shawna. Claudia's interviewing her now, and several students told us she's, quote, 'ultracompetitive.'"
"Sounds like a main suspect if I've ever heard of one," said Pete.
"Yeah. Their school day ended a little while ago, so Claudia's gonna get back to me with – "
"What? With the girl? Her artifact?" Pete asked after Steve broke off. All he could see on his Farnsworth screen was Steve's head tilted aside, looking away, in surprise. "Steve?"
Steve was looking at Claudia walking over with Shawna, who was sweating like a sinner in church and sneezing quiet "Eshu!"s every five seconds or so.
"I don't think it's Shawna," Claudia said bluntly.
"Shawna, listen to me," said Steve. "Did this come on all of a sudden, or have you been feeling sick all day?"
"All of a – sudden – Eshuu! I need to lay down…"
"She's on fire, Jinksy, I gotta bring her to the nurse."
"STEVE?" Pete asked for the fifth time, and Steve finally heard him and snapped his head back to the Farnsworth.
"Sorry," he replied. "Scratch the other-girl idea, she's sick now too. Most of the victims are having their symptoms come on all of a sudden."
Artie reappeared on screen. "So Cumberland is your main suspect now, then?"
"Yes."
"Well bad news, there's no information here on any rings with blue stones being any kind of artifact," he replied. "Keep trying."
And with that, in typical Artie style, he hung up the Farnsworth, before Pete could say goodbye.
Claudia returned. "I hate this assignment all of a sudden," she said. "I'm running out of ideas."
"It could still be Greg Cumberland," Steve pointed out, "but we have to interview some of the victims and their families tonight."
"Alright, well what do we know right now? Some students are spontaneously getting very sick, and others are developing their symptoms more gradually. I bet the ones with gradual symptoms are catching it from previously infected people, not directly from the artifact!"
"Yeah," Claudia agreed, "and the three we saw happen today, Melissa Roberts, Emma Canning and now Shawna – all of their symptoms came on out of nowhere."
"I thought for a second Shawna might be faking being sick to get out of you questioning her," Jinks added, "but she was telling the truth just now when she said it came on all of a sudden."
"Plus they said in there she had a temperature of 103," said Claudia. "It's getting worse, Jinksy."
"Okay, then we know which victims to focus on!"
They thought they had a plan. Well, they did, but it wasn't go so well.
"Well they weren't useful at all," Claudia sighed as he and Steve left the Roberts household. Their interviews with Melissa and her mother had been, in a word, unproductive. Shawna and her mother hadn't been of much assistance, either.
"We can still get some sort of helpful information at the Cannings' house," said Steve, but he was starting to lose faith, too.
The pair headed towards their car, but a familiar figure was walking towards them and the Robertses' house. It was Greg Cumberland, wrapped up in a black trench coat, making him even less visible in the dark Michigan night.
"You're here too?" he asked gruffly.
"We just left. They weren't any help, didn't give us any new information," said Steve.
"I'll find out for myself whether they'll be of help," Cumberland replied.
"Still on the job?" Claudia asked.
"I need to prove that that there's mold in that buildig that's causig this. We're sendig in an inspection team toborrow."
Steve noticed, besides the apparent stuffy voice, something white crumpled up in Cumberland's hand, though he might have been trying to hide it: a handkerchief.
"Wait, are you sick with it now too?" he asked.
He seemed almost ashamed to admit it, but he acquiesced with a hushed, "Yes. I have such a pounding headache now, and my fever's up."
"And you're sure it's all from some mold?"
"Yes!"
"Mr. Cumberland, were your symptoms sudden?" Claudia asked.
"No, it came on throughout the day! Now no more questions, let me through here! Good night!" And Cumberland pushed through and headed for the house.
"Jinksy?"
"Truth, the whole time…" Steve shook his head in disbelief. "He really believes the whole mold thing. He's not behind it."
Claudia was just as disgusted. "So that brings our list of leads, suspects, people with motives… to squadoosh." As she got into the car, she slammed the door behind her.
"It was so sudden, yes. It was very strange how it happened. She woke up this morning perfectly fine, and now she's a wreck," Mrs. Canning, Emma's mother, was telling Claudia and Steve.
"What have her symptoms been since she came home from school?" Steve asked.
"HAH-CHOOOO!"
"Well, there's that," Mrs. Canning chuckled nervously. "A lot of that." She seemed a bit embarrassed by Emma's sneezing, which could be heard from upstairs through the walls with seemingly no dampening of the volume. They reminded Claudia of her own sneezes, which were few and far between but uncontrollable and forceful. Not that she minded – they fit her personality perfectly.
"And her fever is still around 102, and she's getting chills. Do you know if it's the flu? Because she was vaccinated."
"We don't know yet, ma'am. Our team is working on it. Can we go up to Emma's room and ask some questions?" asked Steve.
"Oh, of course… are you going to need to quarantine any of us for this?" the worried mother asked.
The Warehouse agents looked at each other before Claudia improvised. "Uh, no, not yet. The sickness has spread, psh, barely at all yet, not enough for a quarantine, we're just looking into it…"
"OK, good, because her father and I have been seeing her, and she has a friend upstairs too."
The agents headed for the stairs, and Mrs. Canning was out of earshot. "Sometimes people are amazed I'm a human lie detector, but now I'm starting to think it's because there are people like you who are so bad at lying," Steve teased.
"Hey, I'm not bad at lying, just improvving on the spot!" Claudia replied. "But we really won't need to quarantine people, will we? Once we snag, bag and tag the thing? The longer this case goes, the more I feel like I'm actually from the Department of Health."
"I dunno the first thing about this stuff," Jinks admitted, "but I know this bunch of symptoms are weird. There isn't supposed to be this much sneezing in influenza, or this much of a fever in a cold."
Through the door, they heard another sneeze rip out of Emma's nose. "HEH-SHOOO!"
"Alright, so what are we asking in there?" Claudia asked as they reached Emma's door.
"Same stuff, Claude. You gotta believe something's gonna click soon."
"I'm running low on believing," she replied as she knocked on the door and opened it at the same time. "Hello?"
Emma Canning, the brunette who had had a loud, spontaneous sneezing fit in the middle of the school hallway earlier that day, had been reduced to a sweating, sniffling mess in her bed. She must have been cold, because she was under her covers, which was undoubtedly contributing to her sweating. She was presently being handed more tissues by the "friend" Emma's mother had referred to.
"Clayton, was it?" Claudia asked as Emma blew her nose.
"Yes, ma'am. Clayton Jasiak." He stood up to shake Claudia's hand, smiling.
"I interviewed him and the other girl at school when they took Melissa to the nurse," Claudia told Steve. "Emma, Clayton, you remember Agent Jinks and myself. We need to ask you a few more questions."
Their talk with the two teenagers went similarly to their interviews with Melissa and Shawna. Emma was in the middle of saying how heartbroken she was that she couldn't audition for Perdita that evening, but she hoped they would reschedule the audition when people weren't sick, et cetera, et cetera. Claudia had already zoned out, until Emma abruptly stopped.
"Huh, huh – HUH-CHOOO! Excuse be, I'b sorry!"
"Bless you, Emma!" Clayton almost jumped to be the first to say it, while handing her another tissue.
Steve directed his attention to him for a minute. "Clayton, how long have you been friends with Emma?"
"Oh, not very long. We only really met last year!"
"But I bet you're good friends now, seeing as you're here taking care of her."
"Oh, yes, we are good friends, I'd say," Clayton blushed but smiled. He started to wipe his glasses clean with a (fresh) tissue as an excuse to look away from the three pairs of eyes watching him. "We've just been getting much closer recently, and I really, really care about her. And I figured Mr. and Mrs. Canning had been busy all night taking care of Emma, so I offered to stop by and lend a hand!"
Claudia noticed Emma grinning like a fool in love and rubbing her irritated, pink nose during Clayton's monologue – an entertaining combination.
"You're just the sweetest, sweetest boy I know, Clay," she sighed, but her facial expression jumped from lovey-dovey to desperate. "Oh n-no, I'm going to sn-sneeh HAHSHEW!"
Another tissue and another "Bless you" from Clayton. Steve also said "Bless you" but shifted in his seat and looked away, and Claudia just looked down and said nothing.
With no help from his partner, Jinks had to wrap it up. "Well, thank you guys for your time. We hope you feel better, Emma, and we'll call your home if there are any developments in the case."
"Thank you!"
"Claude, let's go," he muttered to his partner, who still hadn't gotten out of her seat. She slowly got up and followed.
Steve wanted to beat her to the punch as to who could make the first joke about the awkward teenage couple, as soon as they got out the door. "I wanted to tell them to get a room, but they already had one," he smiled. He heard nothing from behind him. "Claude?"
He turned around and saw his friend standing still in the hallway, with the most agonizing-looking, screwed-up, pre-sneeze face he'd ever seen.
"Oh no."
"HATCHOOO!"
"Bless you!" Clayton and Emma, eager beavers, called out to her lightheartedly.
"I don't think I've ever seen you sneeze before. Tell me it's dust. Tell me you feel OK."
"I feel… I fe-heeehl… HA-CHOOO!"