Laura Lippman - To The Power Of Three

“Well, there are two ways to look at that. One, she’s unstable. So she does things that don’t make sense.” His eyes were on the television set above the bar.

“And the other way?”

“What?”

“You said there were two ways to look at it.”

“The other way is…probably not something I should be talking about.”

“You mean, someone other than Perri might have done this.”

“I didn’t say that. In fact, I’m now more sure than ever that the Kahn girl brought the gun onto school property.”

“Well, I think I know a student who might have been there. Another student. A fourth girl.”

His attention was complete now, unwavering. “Tell me her name.”

“I don’t think I should. If the police were to visit her…She wouldn’t tell you anything, and she’d never trust me again. It’s better if I keep trying to get through to her.”

“With all due respect, there’s been a murder, Ms. Cunningham-”

“Alexa. Even my students call me Alexa.”

“There’s a way to talk to people, to get information that’s not prejudicial.”

“I was a communications major at American. My field is actually rhetoric. I got the teaching credential so I could work in public schools, but I’m more of an ethnographer than anything else.”

“That word I don’t know.”

She was charmed. Men so seldom admitted not knowing something.

“I study teen culture.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

“What do you do, the Reader’s Digest Build Your Word Power?”

“Yes, in fact. That and lots of crossword puzzles. I hear they stave off memory loss.”

She was looking at his mouth. Alexa had never cared if men were handsome-she liked to think it was because she was confident enough in her own looks not to need the ego boost of gorgeous guys. But she liked mouths, and Lenhardt had a nice one. Full, but not too full. A little too old for her, but she liked older men, and don’t tell her that it was daddy shit. Older men were so kind. Older men were grateful.

“Look, Ms. Ethnicographer-”

“Ethnographer.”

He smiled, letting her know he had gotten it wrong as a joke. Or that he didn’t mind being corrected by her. She couldn’t quite read him, and that guarded quality was part of what made him so interesting.

“I’m sure you’re good at what you do,” he said. “But I’m good at what I do, and I’m the person who should be interviewing anyone who has information about this homicide, no matter how tangential.”

“But in your view it’s all straightforward, right? You said you’re sure that Perri brought the gun to school. Maybe this other girl’s information is…apocryphal.”

He didn’t smile at what she thought would be a nice shared moment, their first private joke. “If you keep talking to this girl, she’s going to get rehearsed. Or scared. Or she may actually come to believe whatever version she’s giving you. If you tell me her name, I won’t say how we know about her. I’ll just say we developed it from our investigation.”

“Teenagers aren’t stupid. She’d know it was me. And that’s one thing I won’t do, compromise a student’s faith in me. It’s essential to my work. These girls have to trust me. They’ve been betrayed and bullied, often by those who were once their dearest friends. I teach them how to survive.”

“They give credit for that?”

She knew he was trying to make a joke, but she couldn’t help being a little offended. “Yes. And they should.”

Her sandwich arrived, along with his second beer. He drank off half of it in a few gulps, looked at his watch. “I really should be getting along.”

“Don’t,” she said, then wished she could take it back. “I mean…stay with me. Until I finish my sandwich. I’m a quick eater.”

“Until you finish your sandwich. But don’t get indigestion on my account.”

“I never do.”

In the parking lot,she asked him, “Which way do you go?”

“North. Toward Freeland.”

“Oh, I’m south. Beverly Hills.”

“That’s a nice neighborhood.”

“I’m renovating my own house. I bought this amazing buffet at a yard sale, but then I put a new floor down over the weekend.” She waited to see if he would have anything admiring to say about this. “So it’s ridiculous, but I can’t move it back by myself. My brother says he’ll help me when he visits from New York, but that’s not until later this summer.”

The moment yawned. He looked at her thoughtfully, then took a step backward, jangling his keys. “You drive carefully, now. Someone little as you could be over the legal limit, drinking two beers in an hour.”

But Harold Lenhardtdid not drive straight home that night. There was no rush, now that it was clear he would never make Jessica’s meet. He still went north but took a slight detour, stopping at a town house in White Marsh, a place he had visited only once before, for a Christmas party.

Andy Porter-the big blond giant, as Lenhardt thought of him, half amused, half intimidated-opened the door.

“ Nancy know you’re coming?” he asked, clearly surprised. As close as Lenhardt and Nancy were at work, they didn’t socialize much outside the office.

“No, but I was in the neighborhood and thought I should check on her.”

“I’ve fixed her up a place in the sunroom. Less moving around that way. A few steps to the bathroom, a few steps to the fridge.”

The family room was a den on the other side of the kitchen, separated by the now ubiquitous breakfast bar. Hey, there’s another word I know, Lenhardt said to the woman who lingered in his head. “Ubiquitous.”

“Sergeant!” Nancy ’s voice squeaked with surprise. She was lying on a flowery sofa, a thin, summer-weight blanket covering her substantial bulk, the television on mute, a stack of paperbacks within easy reach.

“How you doing?”

“They say okay. It is what it is.”

What it was was toxemia, a potentially fatal condition for mother and unborn child, and Lenhardt was pretty sure that Nancy was scared to death, but there didn’t seem to be any reason to call her on her attitude. If she wanted to play strong for him, he was okay with that. A police should front for the boss.

“I can’t help feeling cheated. I counted on you working until the moment your water broke. I was looking forward to seeing how a pregnant woman functioned in interrogations.”

“You know they would have put me on desk work the moment I started showing.”

“Probably.” Lenhardt was tactful enough not to mention that Nancy, a big-boned girl, could have gone longer than most before that happened. “But you’re okay for now? And the kid’s okay?”

She nodded. “As far as we know.”

“And it’s a boy?”

“It’s a boy.”

“That’s good. Boys are…easier. Maybe because I’m a guy, but our boy seems awfully simple next to our girl.”

“Infante told me what you’re working on-murder in the girls’ room. You feeling kind of blue about teenage girls?”

Lenhardt hadn’t realized he was feeling blue, much less that someone might notice. “I don’t think I understand women of any age. I just talked to this teacher-young, younger than you. Swear to God, Nancy, I think she was coming on to me.”

“Ladies like you, Triple L.” That was Nancy ’s nickname for him, Triple L-Living Legend Lenhardt. “Did she touch your hand?”

“No.”

“Because if a woman touches you in any way-on the hand or arm-she definitely wants to sleep with you. That’s what women do.”

“Where do you learn this stuff? I mean, not just you. Women in general.”