Laura Lippman - To The Power Of Three

“It’s what I want, ” she insisted. “I specifically asked for a speaking part. Dad-don’t interfere again.”

“I never interfere.”

“Dad.” Kat could say a thousand things with that one word. In this instance she was saying he was full of shit. She knew him, his daughter. Her love for him was not blind, but it was constant, unwavering. Married people never knew this kind of love. A lasting marriage was full of rough spots and angry times; the only real victory was hanging on. But it was possible, with a child, to have a pure relationship.

“That was different, what happened last spring. You deserved the number one ranking in the class. It was silly of them to try to deny it, sillier still to just drop the valedictorian rather than sort out their own contradictory policy-”

“Dad.” This time her tone signaled: End of topic. If Dale had been frustrated by his own father’s refusal to brag about him loud and long, Kat squirmed a little at her father’s obvious pride, which just made her more adorable. What would Kat have been like as a mother? What lessons would she have absorbed, what models would she have rebelled against? Her even temper, her dislike of arguments-were those inborn or the result of the fractious years in the Hartigan marriage?

Kat was Kat, her own person. He had looked forward to celebrating every milestone in her life, had cherished the idea of seeing her graduate, high school and college, find her way into the professional world, marry-but not too soon. Have children. Again, not too soon. He had envisioned her winning prizes first-he wasn’t sure for what, just that there would be prizes, endless prizes, and he would always be there.

Alexa was oneof the teachers assigned to keep the seniors in the cafeteria, where they were corralled like wild horses. After all, there were almost four hundred of them, and, understandably, their spirits were high verging on insane. Alexa tried not to find them annoying, but her own mood was gloomy. Perri was dead, so all her efforts on the girl’s behalf were meaningless. And Perri had been her primary focus, she assured herself now. She had not used her concern over the girl as a pretext to spend time with the sergeant. He was much too old for her, and stocky.

Even Josie Patel, allowed to perch on a bench while the others stood, seemed happy, if not as gleeful as her fellow students. When the signal finally came, via walkie-talkie-Barbara Paulson had no intention of any unplanned contingencies in the graduation-Josie’s fellow P ’s helped her stand and accommodated her off-kilter gait as they began to march out to the recorded strains of “Pomp and Circumstance.” Yes, Josie was smiling-wanly, to be sure, but smiling.

As the procession reached the door of the cafeteria, Alexa saw that strange little gay boy, Dannon something, appear at the threshold and fall into step alongside Josie, whispering urgently. Josie shook her head, trying to pick up her pace, but there was no place to go, and Dannon continued to dog her down the long corridor. Finally another teacher put a hand on his shoulder, told him to step back and stop slowing down the processional, which had to cover a lot of ground through the cavernous school.

Perhaps, Alexa thought, Dannon had last-minute instructions for Josie, whose participation in that night’s ceremony had been carefully scripted so she could accept her scholarship, then wait in the wings for her diploma, instead of going up and down the stage stairs.

The last lineof the “Desiderata” echoed in Josie’s mind, more crystalline in Toni Singleton’s soprano than it would have been in Perri’s. Peace in silence . Perri had never been as good a singer as she yearned to be, so she had worked extra hard at chorus, winning solos through sheer determination. It had been difficult for her, when Kat’s golden voice had emerged, although she had never admitted it.

How could she be dead? Until the moment that Dannon had grabbed Josie-hissing at her, as if it were her fault-Josie had believed that Perri would recover. Perri had to recover. Perri was the talker. Perri was the one who needed to explain what happened.

The speaker droned on and on, but Josie heard none of it, although her mind registered the relieved applause signaling that the speech was over. Only two more items on the program, the Hartigan Scholarship and the diplomas. She barely heard her own name when Mr. Hartigan called her forward, although each mention of Kat’s name was like a low-level electrical shock. Kat! Hartigan! Kat! Hartigan! Kat! Hartigan!

Then there was a huge silence, and Rose Padgett nudged Josie, reminding her to rise and go up the stairs to the stage. It was hard to maneuver, even though they had arranged for Josie to be on the aisle, and she lurched a bit, rolling from side to side as if drunk. She hopped up the steps-they had offered to put in a ramp, but Josie had said she could manage the short flight of stairs, and made her way toward Mr. Hartigan. He had a handheld mike, and he tilted it toward her so she would not have to let go of her crutches while making her brief remarks.

Peace in silence. Josie would know peace, if only she could keep her silence. No, that was wrong. She would be miserable if she kept on this way. It was everyone else who would be happy. Her parents, Mr. Hartigan, the Kahns. The scholarship was a bribe, even if they didn’t realize it. Take the money, go to college, and stick to the version that made everyone comfortable. With Perri dead it would be easy. Even if they found her sandals, even when they retrieved the text messages from Perri’s and Kat’s phones, they couldn’t prove anything. If Josie had learned anything from her mathematically inclined father, it was how hard it was to create a proof from a few scanty facts.

“Mr. Hartigan, parents, my fellow students,” she said, stalling as she gathered her thoughts, trying to figure out if she really wanted to say the words forming in her head. All she had to say was thank you, according to her mother. A simple thank-you and she would be free. Or not.

“You are very kind, but I can’t accept this scholarship. Kat would have wanted it to go to someone who truly needed it-and someone who deserved it.”

It had been planned that the diplomas would be awarded next on the program and that Josie could wait in the wings for her name to be called, rather than make her laborious way back to her seat. The band played, covering the confused silence, and parents applauded as if the scholarship presentation had gone as planned. Josie stayed, making it through the G ’s, but she simply could not take it anymore, and escaped through the stage door, following the curving paths around the school to her parents’ car.

When they showed up twenty minutes later, they did not berate her for what she had done or pester her with questions, although Josie could see a thousand questions in their faces.

“Perri died,” she told them. “This afternoon. Dannon Estes told me while I was in the processional. The police kept it from me.”

“Oh, Josie,” her mother said. “No wonder you’re so upset.”

“I want to talk to the police.”

She was scaring them, she knew she was scaring them, but she couldn’t help it. She had been protecting them for a week, and she was exhausted.

“Why don’t you sleep on it?” her father suggested. “Go home, get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll call Ms. Bustamante.”

“I’m not going to be able to sleep until this is settled.”

Just as Josie had gone reeling,in her own fashion, from the auditorium, Dale had slipped away, too, leaving as soon as the principal began handing out diplomas. What was the girl thinking? Why had she embarrassed him that way? True, he may have had ulterior motives when he offered Josie the scholarship, but it was, above all else, a sincere memorial to Kat, and she had been Kat’s best friend. Angry, distracted, he drove blindly through the streets of Glendale, unsure of where he was going until he ended up at his old house.