The Unusual Suspects

"I don't," Mr. Seven said.

The sheriff frowned and shook his head.

"Good," Mayor Charming snapped. He took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling as if someone were watching from above. "OK, let's relax. Let out all the anger and frustration. You are a great mayor. Smile."

Suddenly, a smile sprang to Charming's face and he started down the hallway again. The mayor was a master at the phony, toothy grin, but it slid off his face when he spotted Sabrina and Daphne.

"What are they doing here?" he moaned.

"They found the body," the sheriff explained.

"The sisters Grimm found the body and no one told me?" Charming said.

"You told us not to talk," Mr. Seven said defensively.

The mayor bit down on his lower lip and mumbled a variety of curse words Sabrina had never heard before. He reached into his pocket, took out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to Mr. Seven, who looked down at it and frowned. The dwarf unfolded it, revealing a pointy paper hat, and put it on his head. Someone had written IDIOT in big black letters on the front of it. Mr. Seven lowered his eyes in humiliation.

"Howdy, Mayor," Daphne said happily. Even though Charming considered the Grimms his eternal enemies, Daphne had a soft spot for him. The mayor had helped the family stop Jack the Giant Killer, but most important, he had been kind to Elvis when the big dog was injured. Since then, the little girl had been convinced that deep down Mayor Charming was one of the good guys.

"Sheriff, let's make a new law. Children who ca

"You're so fu

Principal Hamelin rushed down the hall to join them. "Mayor Charming, Sheriff Hamstead, this is such a terrible tragedy. I just want you two to know that the faculty will cooperate in every way we can. I just feel horrible about this."

Charming smiled and shook the principal's hand, vigorously. "I appreciate that, Piper. We'll get to the bottom of this and be out of your hair as soon as possible," he said. "I assume you don't have any more of these ru

"You mean children?" the principal said. "Oh, no. It happened at the end of the day and most of them were already on their way home."

"Sheriff, let's take a look," Charming said, gesturing to the door of Mr. Grumpner's classroom.

The two men tried to enter the room at the same time and got jammed in the doorway together. They squirmed and shoved but were trapped until Mr. Seven came up from behind and pushed them into the room.

"I thought we weren't going to do that anymore," Mr. Charming said, maintaining his phony smile in front of everyone. Hamstead muttered an apology and immediately took a camera from his pocket. He snapped pictures of the unusual crime scene and Mr. Grumpner's disturbing corpse.

"He was found about ten minutes after the last bell," Principal Hamelin offered.

"I see," said Charming as he yanked some of the sticky stuff off a desk.

Sheriff Hamstead stepped close to the body to take more photos. He pulled aside a strand of the sticky substance to get a better look at Mr. Grumpner's face. "Looks like the blood has been drained right out of him."

"Maybe it was a vampire!" Daphne cried.

"There's no such thing as vampires," Charming muttered.

I used to think there was no such thing as you, Sabrina thought.

"Sheriff, do you have any idea what happened to him?" the principal asked.

"Well," Hamstead said as he put his camera away, "if I had to hazard a guess I'd say…"

"Spiders," Charming interrupted. "A whole bunch of spiders murdered him. There are so many cobwebs here I'd say it took hundreds of spiders to make them. Looks like they came in through the window."

"It's too cold for spiders," the sheriff argued, but when the mayor flashed him an angry look, the portly policeman zipped his lips.

"And what would the spiders' motivation be?" Sabrina asked.

"How should I know?" Charming said. "Maybe Mr. Grumpner stepped on one and its family wanted revenge."

"Spider revenge?" Sabrina asked.

"I don't hear anyone else with a better theory," Charming snapped.

Suddenly the door opened and Gra

"Oh, I have a theory," Gra

Daphne ran to the old woman and wrapped her arms around her.

"We found something gross," the little girl cried, burying her face into the old woman's bright green dress. Gra

"A monster!" Charming growled. "You've had some insane theories in the past, Relda, but monsters?"

"You're right, Mayor," the old woman said sarcastically. "Ferryport Landing has fairies, witches, robots, and men made out of straw, but monsters? Now I've really lost my marbles!"

Charming scowled. "Well, have your look around. I know I can't stop you."

"Thank you, Mayor," Gra

Sabrina nodded.

Gra

"Gentlemen, I believe I have found a clue," she said.

Sheriff Hamstead took the feather and eyed it closely. "Looks like crow to me," he said. "There's a couple more there under the windowsill."

Mr. Canis took a deep sniff of the air. "It is crow."

"They probably blew in with the wind," Charming said, snatching the feather from the sheriff's pudgy hands. He tossed it to the floor as if it were meaningless.

"We found a clue, too!" Daphne said proudly. She pointed at the red hand painted on the chalkboard.

Hamstead, Charming, Mr. Seven, and Principal Hamelin peered at the red hand closely. Each of them had a worried look on his face.

"It's just like the one the police found in my parents' abandoned car," Sabrina said. "Or maybe that blew in with the wind, too."

Charming scowled and rolled his eyes at her. "Probably just a prank."

"A prank?" Sabrina and Daphne cried.

"Mayor Charming, that's the sign of the Scarlet Hand," said Gra

"There's no such thing as the Scarlet Hand," he said. "Hamstead has done a thorough investigation and we've concluded that Jack invented the whole thing."

Sabrina couldn't believe her ears. Charming knew the Scarlet Hand was real. He had admitted to the girls that the shadowy criminal group of Everafters had approached him. And this was before they'd heard Jack brag about being a member. Why was he now lying about its existence?

Before Sabrina could confront him, the door opened and Snow White entered. It didn't seem possible, but Ms. White was even more beautiful up close.

Mayor Charming rushed to block her view of Mr. Grumpner's corpse, but the teacher had already spotted it.

"So, it's true," she gasped.

"Snow, you shouldn't see this," Charming said softly.

"I'm fine," Snow White said, but the mayor ignored her. He took her by the hand and led her into the hallway. Sabrina and Daphne shared a glance and pushed through the crowd, eager not to miss a second of this royal soap opera.

The mayor pulled the teacher into his arms as if she needed comfort, and for a brief moment she seemed to enjoy it, but then she pulled away.