Josie was alone with her mother when the two strange men appeared in her hospital room. She could not have told you who they were, but she quickly understood who they were not. Not doctors, because they wore suits and ties and hovered in the doorway waiting to be invited in, while the hospital staff always sailed right in. Not from school. Not friends’ fathers, because she didn’t recognize them, and one looked a little too young to be anyone’s dad. Not her parents’ friends, because-But she had no words for this knowledge, just an awareness that these were not men from her parents’ jobs. Something about their suits, their ties, even their hair, told her they were not part of her family’s world.

“Mrs. Patel?” the older one asked. Josie, who had endured a lifetime of such puzzled looks, knew he was trying to connect the blond woman in the chair to the dark girl in the bed. He also didn’t say their name quite right. It was more “Pattle” than “Pa-tel” in this stranger’s mouth. If her father were here, there would be no confusion. But Josie’s father was in the parking lot, arguing with his insurance company on his cell phone. Josie was to be discharged today, but with television trucks cruising the cul-de-sac in front of their house, her parents felt it would be easier to safeguard her privacy at the hospital. Her father had assured Josie it was just a matter of getting the right person on the phone, but there were apparently many, many wrong people en route to that right one, bored men and women in windowless cubicles in distant states who did not understand the magnitude of what had happened at Glendale, or Josie’s singular role in it.

“Mrs. Patel?” The older man had to repeat himself, for Josie’s mother was just looking at him over her magazine, fatigue making her punchy. She had gone home last night to take care of Matt and Tim, but she told Josie she hadn’t slept.

“Yes?”

“I’m Sergeant Harold Lenhardt from Baltimore County Police, and this is my partner, Detective Kevin Infante. We’d like to ask your daughter, Josephine, some questions if she’s up to it.”

“Josie,” said Josie, shocked to hear the old-fashioned name that her family had never used. Then she wished she had not responded so quickly and forcefully. She should have pretended to be tired, or spacey from the painkillers. Then these men would have to go away. Why did she have to talk to police? Wasn’t it obvious what had happened?

“I suppose-” her mother began.

“It’s important,” the older man said, the one who had identified himself as a sergeant. “It’s best to talk to witnesses when their memories are freshest. Every day that goes by, things will be harder to recall. Especially in a trauma like this, where a healthy brain will be working to suppress memories.”

“Josie’s brain is very healthy,” her mother said, clearly not hearing all the words.

“Of course she is. It’s just, from our point of view, it’s never too early to start preparing for a trial.”

“There’s going to be a trial?” Josie asked.

“Maybe,” Lenhardt said. “If…well, for now, we have to assume that someone will be charged. That could change.”

Because Perri might die, Josie realized. The very concept still stunned her, despite seeing Perri’s face. Perri dead was even more shocking than Kat dead.

“Even if there’s not a criminal trial,” put in the younger cop, Infante, “there could be civil ones. Lawsuits against the gun manufacturer, for example. Or the school.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Josie’s mom said. “We would never be a party to such things.”

“You’re not the only family affected,” Sergeant Lenhardt reminded her, almost apologetically. “But I wouldn’t worry so much about civil trials right now. We just need to have a clear picture of what happened, so the state’s attorney can decide what sort of charges are merited. There are a lot of distinctions, even within a homicide case.”

“Homicide?” Josie asked.

“A girl is dead. You knew that, didn’t you? The Hartigan girl died immediately.”

Josie nodded. Of course she knew. She just hadn’t thought of it as a homicide. It was such a television word, freighted and somber. It was hard to see how it had shouldered its way into her life.

“But I don’t know what I can tell you. Perri came into the bathroom and started shooting. It was…crazy.”

“Just walked in and opened fire? Didn’t say anything or do anything else?” Sergeant Lenhardt pulled a microcassette recorder from his blazer pocket. “Mind if I tape this? My own memory’s not the greatest, and Infante’s notes”-he gestured to the younger man, who had produced a narrow steno pad and pen-“are darn near illegible.”

“No problem,” Josie said. Her voice sounded faint and thin in her ears.

“So you’re in the bathroom with Katarina Hartigan.”

“Kat. No one called her Katarina.”

“Okay. You and Kat are in the bathroom. Is anyone else there? Does anyone come and go before Perri Kahn comes in?”

“No.” The other detective seemed to find that interesting, underscoring whatever he had written on his pad.

“And why are you there?”

“Well, you know, the usual reasons.”

“Of course. That was silly of me. Why does anyone go to the bathroom just before school starts? In my day kids smoked, but I guess that’s not so common anymore.”

“Some girls smoke,” Josie said. “But not in the bathrooms. You get suspended for that. The whole school is smoke-free, by state law, so the kids who want to smoke go to the woods, just beyond the athletic field. That’s not school property.”

“Yeah. You don’t look like a smoker anyway.”

“I’m a gymnast. I have an athletic scholarship to College Park. At least…I did.” Josie indicated her foot. She had been proud of that scholarship. Maryland was the first school in the country to offer cheerleading as a Title IX program, and it was hard to get into College Park. Only five students from her class had made it.

“A gymnast. That’s very admirable. So you and Kat are…well, where, exactly, when this other girl comes in?”

“Standing by the sinks.”

“Washing hands? Putting on makeup?”

“Kat had a lipstick.”

The other police officer wrote something, then waited for her to continue.

“And Perri came in-”

“You knew her, right?”

Josie hesitated, and her mother, ever helpful, rushed in, “The girls have been close friends since they were eight, all three of them, although their interests took them in different directions in the past year. Josie and Kat were doing cheerleading, and Kat was knocking herself out with all sorts of extracurriculars, to make sure she got into Stanford. Perri had concentrated on drama.”

You can say that again, Mom.

“Oh. Oh. So did the three of you normally meet in this bathroom before school? I mean, would someone know you would be there?”

“No. We didn’t even have homeroom or classes in the north wing, Kat and I. But Perri’s homeroom teacher was the drama teacher, so she was in that wing.”

“So why were you there?”

“Because Kat said she needed to do something in that part of the school.”

“What?”

“She didn’t say.”

“So you just followed your friend on some errand, although you didn’t know what it was?”

“They were extremely close,” Josie’s mom said. “Kat drove Josie to school almost every morning.”

“If you don’t mind, ma’am, it’s better if we just let your daughter tell the story.” Josie’s mother blushed, embarrassed at being corrected in any way, although the sergeant’s manner was gentle.

“So you and Kat are in the north wing, getting ready to do something-you don’t know what-and it’s a place where you don’t normally go, at least before school, and this other girl that you know, who used to be your good friend, although you don’t see her so much anymore, just comes in and starts shooting when she sees you, although she has no reason to suspect that you’ll be there.”