Thread of Hope

FORTY-FOUR

“Here’s what’s wrong with Derek’s story,” I said to Gina, handing her a piece of paper as we stood in the parking lot.

She studied it. “Meredith’s transcript.”’

The transcript was what I’d asked Lana McCauley to print out right before we left.

“Yeah. Tell me what you see.”

She leaned back against her BMW and read through it. “She’s smart. We already knew this, though.”

“Look at it,” I said, pointing at the paper.

She read through it again and frowned. “She gets good grades. That’s not a surprise. I don’t get it.”

“She doesn’t get good grades,” I said. “She gets perfect grades.”

“She always has.” She glanced at the paper. “GPA of four-point-four. How the hell do you get a four-point-four?”

“It’s a weighted scale,” I said. “She’s taking AP classes and killing them. Four-point-four means she has gotten an A in every class she’s taken in high school.”

“Again. Not a surprise. She studies hard. Jon stays on her about her grades, even though he knows he doesn’t need to.”

I nodded. “Right. So what Derek said doesn’t make sense to me.”

She stared through me for a moment, then refocused. “He said Jon got on her about a test grade.”

“Exactly.”

She glanced at the transcript, then back to me. “Maybe she got a B plus or something. Jon can be anal like that.”

I shook my head. “She doesn’t get B’s. That transcript shows it. Not even on tests. A perfect GPA means she’s perfect in the classroom. One B would bring it down.” I shook my head again. “There are no poor test grades to get on her about.”

“So it was something else. Or Derek got his story wrong.” Gina cocked an eyebrow. “Not like he’s in the same class of genius as Meredith.”

“I agree. But whatever happened in that pool house, it wasn’t over a grade. I don’t buy that for a second. Meredith may have told Derek that, but if she did, she wasn’t telling him the truth.”

She handed me the transcript back. “So how do we find out?”

“I’m having dinner with your boss tonight,” I said, folding the transcript up and putting it in my pocket. “I’ll ask him.”