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“Would you say you were close?”
“I suppose so.” I hoped so. I only built the past year of my life on that concept-being Perri Kahn’s new best friend.
“She tell you anything about her…plans?”
“How do you mean?” Shit, that was the wrong way to say it. “No, she didn’t tell me she had pla
“But she told you something.”
“Not really.” Technically true. She hadn’t told him anything.
“You know, it’s just unusual for a thing like this to happen without anyone having an inkling.”
Inkling. What a fu
“No, I didn’t have an inkling.”
“Back at Columbine,” the handsome cop put in, “there was a Website and everything. And in some other school shootings, kids told people what they were going to do, showed off the gun, told people when it was going to go down.”
“Yeah, only this wasn’t Columbine,” Da
“But why?”
He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.” And this was true, too. Perri had never explained her anger. Was it because she didn’t completely trust him? Then again, to the extent that she had confided in him, he had betrayed her, so perhaps she was shrewd enough to realize that Da
“Was she unhappy? Did she speak of suicide? Did she have some kind of grudge toward the dead girl?”
He should never have agreed to speak to these men. Now that he was in too deep to turn back, he should just keep feigning ignorance. But Da
“Perri never spoke of it. To me. To anyone.”
“The shooting?”
“No. I mean, yes-she never said she was going to shoot anybody. But she also never told me why she had stopped talking to Kat.”
The policemen didn’t say anything. Da
“There was a lot of speculation over the past year. The divas-”
“Excuse me?”
“The bitchy popular girls. Anyway, they were always a little antagonistic toward Perri because she didn’t follow their dictates, you know? She wasn’t scared of them. But she was friends with Kat, who was, like, the queen of the school, so they left Perri alone. Until she and Kat stopped hanging out together, and then they started all these rumors.”
“Such as?”
“They were rumors. Bogus.”
“Still, it might have bothered Perri. Being gossiped about.”
“It didn’t. She was above that stuff.”
“Da
“They said she was gay, that she had fallen in love with Kat, and Kat had dropped her.”
“And that wasn’t true?”
“No.” He laughed, although he was sure that made him look weird, laughing. “If I’m sure of anything, it’s that Perri Kahn was not gay.”
“But did Kat say those things, too?”
“The only things Kat Hartigan said to me during almost ten years of school were ‘Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!’ and ‘Looking good, Da
The older detective smiled at Da
“That’s basically what Kat Hartigan said to everyone. And that’s why she was popular. She was nice. Not two-faced. But kind of bland, too. Perri said she was banal.”
“And that’s why they weren’t friends anymore? Because Kat was boring?”
“Banal.” It was such an excellent word; Da
“What do you mean?”
“All she had to do was say why Perri was mad at her, instead of letting people gossip. She had that kind of power. But she wouldn’t.”
“And this made Perri angry, her refusal to stop the rumor?”
Da
“Did you know she had a gun?”
Shit. He thought they had moved past that topic. “Um…”
“It wouldn’t be a crime, it doesn’t implicate you in any way. But we do want to establish without a doubt that Perri was the one who brought the gun to school. Did she show you the gun? Did she mention having one or how she came to get it?”
This was a trap. It had to be a trap. If he said yes, there would be more questions, questions he honestly couldn’t answer, but who would believe his ignorance of Perri’s plans once he admitted she had shown him the gun? And if he said yes and the Kahns found out he had known about the gun, they would never forgive him. Oh, he had tried to be strategic, tried to have it all ways-be a friend to Perri, keep her confidences while trying to protect her against her own self-destructive impulses. He was so smart he was stupid.
“Mom? Ma?”
His mother, who had been hovering nearby, appeared instantly. Da
“What is it, honey?”
“I don’t want to talk to the police anymore. Do I have to?”
The good-looking one, Infante, stood. He was over six feet, and his five o’clock shadow gave him a menacing look, but his intent was clearly to charm. Hey, flirt with me, Da
“It’s always better for people to cooperate, ma’am. It’s a mistake for i
“Da
“So he should talk to us, don’t you think?” The detective continued to try to ply his handsomeness, but Da
“I don’t want to talk to them at all, Mom. I…I…” Da