To The Power Of Three

11

Josie was alone with her mother when the two strange men appeared in her hospital room. She could not have told you who they were, but she quickly understood who they were not. Not doctors, because they wore suits and ties and hovered in the doorway waiting to be invited in, while the hospital staff always sailed right in. Not from school. Not friends’ fathers, because she didn’t recognize them, and one looked a little too young to be anyone’s dad. Not her parents’ friends, because-But she had no words for this knowledge, just an awareness that these were not men from her parents’ jobs. Something about their suits, their ties, even their hair, told her they were not part of her family’s world.

“Mrs. Patel?” the older one asked. Josie, who had endured a lifetime of such puzzled looks, knew he was trying to connect the blond woman in the chair to the dark girl in the bed. He also didn’t say their name quite right. It was more “Pattle” than “Pa-tel” in this stranger’s mouth. If her father were here, there would be no confusion. But Josie’s father was in the parking lot, arguing with his insurance company on his cell phone. Josie was to be discharged today, but with television trucks cruising the cul-de-sac in front of their house, her parents felt it would be easier to safeguard her privacy at the hospital. Her father had assured Josie it was just a matter of getting the right person on the phone, but there were apparently many, many wrong people en route to that right one, bored men and women in windowless cubicles in distant states who did not understand the magnitude of what had happened at Glendale, or Josie’s singular role in it.

“Mrs. Patel?” The older man had to repeat himself, for Josie’s mother was just looking at him over her magazine, fatigue making her punchy. She had gone home last night to take care of Matt and Tim, but she told Josie she hadn’t slept.

“Yes?”

“I’m Sergeant Harold Lenhardt from Baltimore County Police, and this is my partner, Detective Kevin Infante. We’d like to ask your daughter, Josephine, some questions if she’s up to it.”

“Josie,” said Josie, shocked to hear the old-fashioned name that her family had never used. Then she wished she had not responded so quickly and forcefully. She should have pretended to be tired, or spacey from the painkillers. Then these men would have to go away. Why did she have to talk to police? Wasn’t it obvious what had happened?

“I suppose-” her mother began.

“It’s important,” the older man said, the one who had identified himself as a sergeant. “It’s best to talk to witnesses when their memories are freshest. Every day that goes by, things will be harder to recall. Especially in a trauma like this, where a healthy brain will be working to suppress memories.”

“Josie’s brain is very healthy,” her mother said, clearly not hearing all the words.

“Of course she is. It’s just, from our point of view, it’s never too early to start preparing for a trial.”

“There’s going to be a trial?” Josie asked.

“Maybe,” Lenhardt said. “If…well, for now, we have to assume that someone will be charged. That could change.”

Because Perri might die, Josie realized. The very concept still stunned her, despite seeing Perri’s face. Perri dead was even more shocking than Kat dead.

“Even if there’s not a criminal trial,” put in the younger cop, Infante, “there could be civil ones. Lawsuits against the gun manufacturer, for example. Or the school.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Josie’s mom said. “We would never be a party to such things.”

“You’re not the only family affected,” Sergeant Lenhardt reminded her, almost apologetically. “But I wouldn’t worry so much about civil trials right now. We just need to have a clear picture of what happened, so the state’s attorney can decide what sort of charges are merited. There are a lot of distinctions, even within a homicide case.”

“Homicide?” Josie asked.

“A girl is dead. You knew that, didn’t you? The Hartigan girl died immediately.”

Josie nodded. Of course she knew. She just hadn’t thought of it as a homicide. It was such a television word, freighted and somber. It was hard to see how it had shouldered its way into her life.

“But I don’t know what I can tell you. Perri came into the bathroom and started shooting. It was…crazy.”

“Just walked in and opened fire? Didn’t say anything or do anything else?” Sergeant Lenhardt pulled a microcassette recorder from his blazer pocket. “Mind if I tape this? My own memory’s not the greatest, and Infante’s notes”-he gestured to the younger man, who had produced a narrow steno pad and pen-“are darn near illegible.”

“No problem,” Josie said. Her voice sounded faint and thin in her ears.

“So you’re in the bathroom with Katarina Hartigan.”

“Kat. No one called her Katarina.”

“Okay. You and Kat are in the bathroom. Is anyone else there? Does anyone come and go before Perri Kahn comes in?”

“No.” The other detective seemed to find that interesting, underscoring whatever he had written on his pad.

“And why are you there?”

“Well, you know, the usual reasons.”

“Of course. That was silly of me. Why does anyone go to the bathroom just before school starts? In my day kids smoked, but I guess that’s not so common anymore.”

“Some girls smoke,” Josie said. “But not in the bathrooms. You get suspended for that. The whole school is smoke-free, by state law, so the kids who want to smoke go to the woods, just beyond the athletic field. That’s not school property.”

“Yeah. You don’t look like a smoker anyway.”

“I’m a gymnast. I have an athletic scholarship to College Park. At least…I did.” Josie indicated her foot. She had been proud of that scholarship. Maryland was the first school in the country to offer cheerleading as a Title IX program, and it was hard to get into College Park. Only five students from her class had made it.

“A gymnast. That’s very admirable. So you and Kat are…well, where, exactly, when this other girl comes in?”

“Standing by the sinks.”

“Washing hands? Putting on makeup?”

“Kat had a lipstick.”

The other police officer wrote something, then waited for her to continue.

“And Perri came in-”

“You knew her, right?”

Josie hesitated, and her mother, ever helpful, rushed in, “The girls have been close friends since they were eight, all three of them, although their interests took them in different directions in the past year. Josie and Kat were doing cheerleading, and Kat was knocking herself out with all sorts of extracurriculars, to make sure she got into Stanford. Perri had concentrated on drama.”

You can say that again, Mom.

“Oh. Oh. So did the three of you normally meet in this bathroom before school? I mean, would someone know you would be there?”

“No. We didn’t even have homeroom or classes in the north wing, Kat and I. But Perri’s homeroom teacher was the drama teacher, so she was in that wing.”

“So why were you there?”

“Because Kat said she needed to do something in that part of the school.”

“What?”

“She didn’t say.”

“So you just followed your friend on some errand, although you didn’t know what it was?”

“They were extremely close,” Josie’s mom said. “Kat drove Josie to school almost every morning.”

“If you don’t mind, ma’am, it’s better if we just let your daughter tell the story.” Josie’s mother blushed, embarrassed at being corrected in any way, although the sergeant’s manner was gentle.

“So you and Kat are in the north wing, getting ready to do something-you don’t know what-and it’s a place where you don’t normally go, at least before school, and this other girl that you know, who used to be your good friend, although you don’t see her so much anymore, just comes in and starts shooting when she sees you, although she has no reason to suspect that you’ll be there.”

It did sound odd, the way he said it. “I guess that’s what happened.”

“It’s not a test, Josie. The only right answers are the ones you know.”

Josie’s head was beginning to ache, her foot to throb.

“She shot Kat,” she said. “Then she shot me in the foot when I tried to grab the gun from her. And then she shot herself. Those are the right answers.”

“Did she say anything? Perri Kahn, I mean.”

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

“I mean no, no, she didn’t say anything.”

The sergeant did not say anything for a while, and yet the detective wrote and wrote and wrote, filling his pad. What could he be writing if nothing was being said?

“So you’re at the sink, and Perri comes in,” the sergeant began, as if there had been no long silence. “Is the gun in her hand, or does she have to get it out of something?”

“It was in her knapsack, but in the outside pocket. I think.”

“So”-the detective pantomimed holding a knapsack in his left hand, pulling a gun out with his right-“she just comes in, whips out the gun, and starts shooting. No preamble, no warning.”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t do anything else?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t lock the door?”

Shit. “Well, yeah, she must have locked the door.”

“Really?” The sergeant returned to his mime with the knapsack and the gun. “How does she do that if she comes through the door and immediately gets her gun out?”

“I didn’t see her lock the door, but she must have, because it was locked when the police came.”

“You didn’t know the door was locked until the police got there and asked you to open it?” Her words, recast as his, sounded odd. Suspect, even.

“No, not for sure.”

“You didn’t go to the door at any time?”

“No.”

The sergeant made a great show of being puzzled. If he had been in one of the school’s productions, Josie thought, the drama teacher, Old Giff, would have told him to dial it down a notch. That had been his most frequent note to Perri. Dial it down a notch, make it real.

“The thing is, there’s this trail of blood. Just a little, from one corner to the door. Dot, dot, dot, like a trail. As if it were leaking from something, but not a lot.”

“I was still bleeding a little when the paramedics took me out,” Josie said.

“On a gurney?”

“What?”

“They took you out on a stretcher with wheels, the kind that goes up and down?”

“Yes.” She remembered the way it had risen and collapsed beneath her along the way, bringing her up to the paramedics in the bathroom, then down again at the door to the ambulance, up again at the hospital. Up and down, up and down. It had reminded her of her old trampoline after a fashion, although there had been no joy in these movements.

The young detective turned a page, filled it with a big, looping scrawl, turned another page.

“Probably not important,” the sergeant said. “Now, who got shot first?”

“Kat.”

“Perri just walked in-locked the door, although you didn’t see her lock the door or notice her turning back-pulled the gun out of her knapsack, and bam, shot Kat Hartigan right in the heart.”

“Yeah. I mean, I grabbed for the gun, but I couldn’t reach her.”

“How far away was she?”

“Not far.”

“Three feet? Six feet? Nine feet?”

“I’m not good with distances.”

“If we were to go back there, could you-”

“I don’t want to go back there,” Josie said, feeling dangerously out of control. “Ever.”

“I get that. I get that. And then what? After Kat was shot?”

“Perri shot me in the foot. I made another grab for it, but she’s taller, and she just aimed the gun down and fired. Then she stepped back and shot herself.” It was no effort to cry here, none at all. The only effort was making sure she didn’t choke on the sobs that started. “I didn’t know what to do. My foot hurt, and it was bleeding, and they say you should elevate injuries, so I just sat down where I was, and I put my leg up, and I waited.” She remembered how endless it had seemed, the long minutes before the paramedics arrived, the principal’s voice on the PA system, the distant sounds of the school emptying. “I waited an awfully long time.”

“But when the police came, you wouldn’t unlock the door.”

“I couldn’t. I was scared. I thought if I moved, I might lose too much blood.”

“So it was less scary sitting there with your dead friend and your old friend…well, she must have looked pretty bad.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It was all awful. Everything was awful.”

“Detective,” her mother began.

“Sergeant,” the older man corrected. “Sergeant Lenhardt.”

“This interview seems a little rough to me. I’m not sure what you want Josie to say, but you don’t need to make her feel as if she did anything wrong. She’s the victim.”

“Oh, right. Right. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be harsh. Far from it. The thing is, while this whole shooting is obvious from my department’s point of view, it might not seem quite so obvious in court. So let me just make sure that I’m absolutely clear on this: Perri comes in, says nothing, takes out her gun, shoots Kat-how many times?”

“Once.”

“Right, once. Then she shoots you in the foot while you try to grab the gun, steps back, and…well, we haven’t talked to her doctor, but it’s my understanding it goes up through her jaw. How tall are you, Josie?”

It was a question she hated under any circumstance.

“Five-one.”

“And how tall was Perri? Approximately?”

Her mother answered: “At least five-eight, maybe five-nine. She stooped horribly when she was younger, but she was more comfortable with her height once they started high school.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Josie, did any of the responding officers test you for gun residue?”

“Why would they do that?” Josie’s mother asked.

“Oh, it’s just routine. But no one touched the gun except Perri. Right, Josie? She was the only one who held it.”

“I might have touched it when I tried to grab it from her. Everything happened so fast.”

“But if we wanted to test you, right now, you’d say yes, right? Because you didn’t fire the gun, and a test could prove that even twenty-four hours later. Besides, we’ll need your fingerprints, just in case. I could go out to our car-”

“I don’t feel good,” Josie said, putting her hand beneath the sheet and hugging her stomach, which was beginning to jump around alarmingly. “I’m nauseous and hungry at the same time.”

“Josie, are you…um, menstruating? Or was Kat? Is that why you were in the bathroom?”

“What?”

Josie’s father entered the room, brandishing his cell phone as if it were the Olympic torch. “I all but had to call the CEO at home in Louisville, but they okayed another night’s stay as long as a hospital psychiatrist signs off on it, which I’ve been assured is no problem. When I told him how many television cameras were outside our house-Who are these gentlemen?”

“Police,” her mother said.

“Why are you talking to Josie? I mean, why now? Couldn’t this have waited?”

“She’s the only witness, sir.” Was it Josie’s imagination, or did the sergeant stare at her just then?

“Daddy, I’m tired and it’s hard to remember everything, and they’re asking me questions about my period and stuff.”

“What?”

“It’s not quite-” Sergeant Lenhardt stood, as if he knew it was time to leave. Was he scared of her dad? No one had ever been scared of Josie’s dad. It was kind of cool.

“My daughter has been through enough this weekend,” her father said. “She saw her best friend killed and was shot trying to take the gun away from a girl who was also her friend. Girls who were like sisters to her. This is unconscionable.”

“No one’s implied that your daughter’s lying or that she wasn’t brave,” the sergeant said. “We’re in the difficult position of having to collect information in the expectation of facing a very skilled criminal defense. As I said, your daughter’s the only eyewitness. I mean, who can talk. Who knows what the Kahn girl will say if she recovers?”

Now everyone in the room was silent, everyone and everything, except the younger detective’s pen, hurrying across his pad.

“Does my daughter have to talk to you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is she required to talk to you? Do citizens have to talk to the police when they’re not charged with anything? Because I am a citizen, Officer, a second-generation American, for your information, so don’t think I can be bullied.”

“Well, it could be argued, Mr. Patel”-he still didn’t have their name quite right, Josie noticed-“that a witness to a murder who doesn’t cooperate is obstructing justice, which is a felony in its own right.”

“In that case-since you’re throwing charges around-I think I’d like my daughter to have a lawyer before she talks to you again.”

“That’s your legal right, Mr. Patel, but it’s not really necessary. Just gunks up the works, makes your neighbors think things are different than they are. No one’s accusing your daughter of anything. We’re simply trying to make sure we’re clear on the details of what happened.”

“I’m very clear. My daughter’s been through the most traumatic experience of her life. She’s seen her best friend killed and suffered a painful injury. If you’d like to talk to her further, I’ll bring her to your offices next week. With a lawyer.”

The sergeant and the detective shuffled out, heads down. Josie almost felt sorry for them-until she caught the look on the older man’s face. He wasn’t the least bit ashamed or cowed by her father’s lecture. He was just pretending.

“Daddy?” she said as soon as the detectives left. “Could I have a snowball? Raspberry? Or fireball, with marsh-a-mallow?”

“Marsh-a-mallow” was an old family joke, Josie’s childhood mangling of the word.

“The hospital might have smoothies or frozen yogurt, but I don’t think-” her mother began.

“Of course you can have a snowball,” her father said. “I’ll ask where the nearest stand is, so it won’t be all juice.”

Josie settled back on her pillows, exhausted. Exhausted, and just a little exhilarated, too.