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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.
12
“Do you want anything from downstairs? Zip’s going to the food court.”
“Did I see a Mama Ilardo’s down there? I love the sausage and pepperoni thick crust.”
Eloise Kahn paused, and Da
But perhaps Eloise Kahn was less wedded to this view of self-control. For all her good choices, she was now hunkered down in the corridors of Shock Trauma, one of the most despised people in the Baltimore metro area this weekend. The other being her husband, of course. And Perri, too, although Da
“Sure,” she said. “Sausage and pepperoni, thick crust. What do you want to drink with that?”
“Mountain Dew.”
“One slice?”
He held up two fingers, embarrassed by his greed, but he had been here since 10:00 A.M., when his mother had finally agreed to drive him down rather than continue to listen to his insistent wheedling.
Eloise nodded. “You got it. I’ll go tell Zip before he gets on the elevator.” She walked down the hall, her feet dragging along the linoleum, in marked contrast to her usual gait, which was bouncy, more girlish than Perri’s. At the end of the corridor, she turned and called back to him.
“Are you sure that’s all you want?”
“Yeah,” he said, although it was far from all he wanted. But what Da
For now his only claim to outlaw status was that he was willing to be here, keeping a vigil with Baltimore ’s newest pariahs, part of a tiny minority who wanted to see Perri live. Oh, other people probably wanted Perri to survive, too, but only to see her punished. Da
The Kahns, for once needing Da
Then, last fall, Perri Kahn had taken him under her wing suddenly, excitingly, needing a coconspirator in her scheme to get the drama department to mount Stephen Sondheim’s Anyone Can Whistle. They hadn’t won in the end, but they should have, and Da
Perri wasn’t supposed to say “sons of bitches,” of course. She was expressly forbidden, told to say sons of guns instead. So on opening night she substituted “bastards.” That word, she blithely told a furious Barbara Paulson after the performance, had not been prohibited. Eloise and Zip had defended her, as they usually did. Eloise and Zip were big on integrity and principle.
Of course, Da