“The Italians. Everybody. Now, what was it you wanted to meet about?”
“Is it okay if I order something to eat?”
“Go ahead. Nothing here will kill you.”
She ordered a turkey club with fries and a Coors Light draft, because that’s what he was drinking.
“I think I’ve stumbled on something pretty vital,” she began.
“Yeah?”
She had his attention now.
“Earlier this week the principal-Barbara Paulson-told us that Perri’s diploma could not be awarded. No one expected it to be announced at the ceremony, of course. But she says that Perri will never be recognized as a graduate of the school-even though her work might be complete.”
“Well, that’s a matter for the school board and her parents to hash out. It’s not really a police matter.”
“Yes, but-Barbara ordered Perri’s teachers to destroy any work that turned up, to say she hadn’t done the work. Isn’t that wrong? I mean, obstruction of justice and all that?”
“Still sounds more like a civil matter. Unless Perri’s work included a confession.”
“I’m pretty sure that Perri did submit her final paper to me that Friday morning, only it’s missing.”
He didn’t say anything, but his look was clearly an “And?”
“Here’s the thing: What kind of a girl turns in her final work when she’s planning to kill her friend, then kill herself?”
“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 Lenhardt did 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.