If Alicia North was the norm for the "popular" look at Sutro, Jeri was something else again. She'd dyed her hair a dark henna, rimmed her eyes with black kohl shadow. Waif-thin, the pajama bottoms she wore hung low enough on her hips to reveal a hint of pubic hair on her belly under the black T-shirt. In addition to the silver rings adorning both of her ears, she'd pierced her nose, eyebrows and tongue. When she got to the office, she greeted Wagner and then Hardy with an ill-disguised wariness. She tugged her pajamas up an inch or two. "So why again am I here?"
Wagner went through the explanation for a second time. The girl scanned Hardy up and down, clearly pegged him as another meddling adult in the Wagner mold. Suit and tie. A dork who started out by saying, "I'm trying to get at the truth of what happened that night."
She rolled her eyes, an actress all right. "I don't think so," she said. "If you're Andrew's lawyer and you're any good, you're trying to get him off, whether it's the truth or not. So give me a break, all right? And that night? I don't know what happened. I wasn't there."
"Okay," Hardy said. "Thanks for coming down, then." Dismissing her. Two could play at that game.
She threw a confused glance first to Hardy, then at Wagner. "That's it?"
Hardy, stonewalling, shrugged. "You obviously don't want to talk about it. I want to help Andrew and I'm sure there are other students here at Sutro who feel the same way I do. So why waste each other's time. Sorry to have interrupted your class."
She shifted her weight, hip cocked. "Who said I didn't want to help Andrew?"
Hardy, giving her nothing, looked up from scribbling on his legal pad as though surprised she was still there. "I got that impression. It's not a problem. Thanks again." He went back to his notes, spoke to Wagner. "Let's try Steve Randell."
"Wait a minute! Steve doesn't know anything either."
Patiently, Hardy said, "Well, if that's true, I'm sure he'll let us know."
"What could he tell you? He wasn't there either."
"I don't know, Jeri. What do you know, say, about Laura?"
"You mean she and Mooney?"
"We can start with that, sure."
"Well, the main thing, they didn't have anything going. Sexually."
"But Andrew thought they did?"
"Maybe. I mean, yeah, sure, the first couple weeks of rehearsal, Laura got a crush on him. So did I, you want to know the truth. He was just so there, you know?"
"This is Mr. Mooney now?" Hardy ventured an encouraging smile. "Just keeping the players straight. Mr. Mooney was so there, you said. You want to talk about that?"
A sigh. "Have you met Laura's parents?"
"No. They wouldn't see me."
"There you go. They wouldn't see her much either. I'm going to sit down." She folded herself down onto the floor. "The thing about Mike- Mr. Mooney- is there was no… like barrier, you know. I mean, at school he was a teacher and all, but when you got acting, you were with him. Just completely equal. He'd get inside your space and you'd just want to stay there. It was just total acceptance."
"Of what, though, exactly, if you can say?"
She paused, thinking. "Of who you are, of what you were doing."
"And Laura? How did she react to that?"
"What do you think? Like a desert to water. She bloomed, man. Everybody did."
"And this is when Andrew became so jealous?"
Jeri didn't answer right away. "Okay," she finally said, "let's get this part straight. At first, yeah, Andrew kind of freaked. But you've got to remember that this was like in November or something, four months before the shootings happened. Four months. You know how long that is? That's half the school year."
"All right. But you said Andrew freaked? What do you mean by that?"
"First, though, you had to know Laura."
"Were you and she friends?"
"Like, best." On the floor with her legs crossed, Jeri bent over at the waist, stretching, came back up. The movement seemed unconscious, but it bought her some time to get her emotions in check. "You know she was seriously depressed?"
"No. I hadn't heard that."
"That's the key, though. She'd been in therapy forever. She tried to kill herself two years ago. Did you know that?"
Hardy and Wagner exchanged glances, and Wagner gave a small nod, acknowledging it.
"Do you know why?" Hardy asked.
"A million reasons. The world, you know? But mostly the home scene sucked."
"What sucked about it?"
"Basically, clueless parents. They're heavily into the social thing here in town, you know? The Wrights? Wright-Way Components? Anyway, she had this whole wing of her house that was all hers? So she comes home from school, goes to her room and gets loaded, listens to all, like, you know, metal and death music."
"Like who?"
Jeri shook her head. "You wouldn't know them. They're not playing for guys like you. Let's just say the music's dark. So anyway, she's popping valiums and ludes and anything else she can get her hands on, but nobody notices. I mean, her parents see her every day, right? And Laura's fine, she's pulling A's and B's. And Mom and Dad are all, 'Whatever, as long as you don't bother me, 'cause I've got a party.' You know? Same as Andrew."
"You mean with the drugs, too?"
"No. Andrew's uptight about drugs, but the home thing. Gone parents. That's how they connected."
Hardy found himself working the fictional angle again- the sister in "Perfect Killer" hadn't been based on Andrew's sister, Alicia, but on his girlfriend Laura. He made it up.
Next, wondering if the Wrights had discovered their daughter's pregnancy and, because of the rumors about Mooney's promiscuity, attributed it to him. And what they might have been tempted to do about that. He scratched a note, came back to Jeri. "So how does all this relate to Mr. Mooney?" he asked.
She scrunched her face puzzling it out. Hesitantly, the words started to come. "I guess, I think Laura needed somebody to notice she was alive. Maybe Andrew needed the same thing. That was kind of the baseline, you see?"
Hardy didn't exactly, but wanted to keep her talking, so he nodded.
"Okay, so you've got two needy kids- Andrew and Laura- hanging on to each other, right? Then, all the sudden really, one of them wakes up. Now she doesn't just need anymore. Suddenly, she's… I don't know if happy is the word, maybe… validated. Mike- Mr. Mooney- makes her feel that way, all on her own, without Andrew. If you ask me, that's what Andrew freaked about. Laura just had this new confidence and went flying away. Not with Mike, by herself. But Mike had made it happen, and Andrew didn't know how to handle it."
"So how'd they get back together?" Hardy asked.
"That's what's funny. The same thing, I think, happened to Andrew. Mike really thought Andrew was a great actor. I mean, he gave him the lead. And I think Andrew finally just got it. He'd been stupid and he apologized. So next time he and Laura got together, it was… I don't know… it seemed like it was on a different plane, if that makes any sense."
"So you're saying you don't think Andrew was jealous of Mr. Mooney anymore, at least not by the time the shootings happened?"
"No way. He just wasn't. I knew them as well as I know anybody. They were tight."
"But she didn't tell him she was pregnant? Did you know that she was?"
Jeri glanced down to the floor. "Yeah. But she was getting an abortion. She didn't want to screw things up with Andrew again by getting him involved in all that. It would be better if he just never knew. That's why she was staying later with Mike those nights, getting all that worked out. He was going to help with the arrangements. She sure couldn't go to her parents."
"All right. But what if Andrew found out about the baby and wanted to keep it? Might they have fought about that?"
"I doubt it. And so then because he wants the baby to live, he kills it? I don't think so. And while we're at it, Andrew didn't shoot Laura, either. Or Mike. There's no way. That's just not who he is."