It did sound odd, the way he said it. “I guess that’s what happened.”

“It’s not a test, Josie. The only right answers are the ones you know.”

Josie’s head was beginning to ache, her foot to throb.

“She shot Kat,” she said. “Then she shot me in the foot when I tried to grab the gun from her. And then she shot herself. Those are the right answers.”

“Did she say anything? Perri Kahn, I mean.”

“Not really.”

“Not really?”

“I mean no, no, she didn’t say anything.”

The sergeant did not say anything for a while, and yet the detective wrote and wrote and wrote, filling his pad. What could he be writing if nothing was being said?

“So you’re at the sink, and Perri comes in,” the sergeant began, as if there had been no long silence. “Is the gun in her hand, or does she have to get it out of something?”

“It was in her knapsack, but in the outside pocket. I think.”

“So”-the detective pantomimed holding a knapsack in his left hand, pulling a gun out with his right-“she just comes in, whips out the gun, and starts shooting. No preamble, no warning.”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t do anything else?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t lock the door?”

Shit. “Well, yeah, she must have locked the door.”

“Really?” The sergeant returned to his mime with the knapsack and the gun. “How does she do that if she comes through the door and immediately gets her gun out?”

“I didn’t see her lock the door, but she must have, because it was locked when the police came.”

“You didn’t know the door was locked until the police got there and asked you to open it?” Her words, recast as his, sounded odd. Suspect, even.

“No, not for sure.”

“You didn’t go to the door at any time?”

“No.”

The sergeant made a great show of being puzzled. If he had been in one of the school’s productions, Josie thought, the drama teacher, Old Giff, would have told him to dial it down a notch. That had been his most frequent note to Perri. Dial it down a notch, make it real.

“The thing is, there’s this trail of blood. Just a little, from one corner to the door. Dot, dot, dot, like a trail. As if it were leaking from something, but not a lot.”

“I was still bleeding a little when the paramedics took me out,” Josie said.

“On a gurney?”

“What?”

“They took you out on a stretcher with wheels, the kind that goes up and down?”

“Yes.” She remembered the way it had risen and collapsed beneath her along the way, bringing her up to the paramedics in the bathroom, then down again at the door to the ambulance, up again at the hospital. Up and down, up and down. It had reminded her of her old trampoline after a fashion, although there had been no joy in these movements.

The young detective turned a page, filled it with a big, looping scrawl, turned another page.

“Probably not important,” the sergeant said. “Now, who got shot first?”

“Kat.”

“Perri just walked in-locked the door, although you didn’t see her lock the door or notice her turning back-pulled the gun out of her knapsack, and bam, shot Kat Hartigan right in the heart.”

“Yeah. I mean, I grabbed for the gun, but I couldn’t reach her.”

“How far away was she?”

“Not far.”

“Three feet? Six feet? Nine feet?”

“I’m not good with distances.”

“If we were to go back there, could you-”

“I don’t want to go back there,” Josie said, feeling dangerously out of control. “Ever.”

“I get that. I get that. And then what? After Kat was shot?”

“Perri shot me in the foot. I made another grab for it, but she’s taller, and she just aimed the gun down and fired. Then she stepped back and shot herself.” It was no effort to cry here, none at all. The only effort was making sure she didn’t choke on the sobs that started. “I didn’t know what to do. My foot hurt, and it was bleeding, and they say you should elevate injuries, so I just sat down where I was, and I put my leg up, and I waited.” She remembered how endless it had seemed, the long minutes before the paramedics arrived, the principal’s voice on the PA system, the distant sounds of the school emptying. “I waited an awfully long time.”

“But when the police came, you wouldn’t unlock the door.”

“I couldn’t. I was scared. I thought if I moved, I might lose too much blood.”

“So it was less scary sitting there with your dead friend and your old friend…well, she must have looked pretty bad.”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It was all awful. Everything was awful.”

“Detective,” her mother began.

“Sergeant,” the older man corrected. “Sergeant Lenhardt.”

“This interview seems a little rough to me. I’m not sure what you want Josie to say, but you don’t need to make her feel as if she did anything wrong. She’s the victim.”

“Oh, right. Right. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be harsh. Far from it. The thing is, while this whole shooting is obvious from my department’s point of view, it might not seem quite so obvious in court. So let me just make sure that I’m absolutely clear on this: Perri comes in, says nothing, takes out her gun, shoots Kat-how many times?”

“Once.”

“Right, once. Then she shoots you in the foot while you try to grab the gun, steps back, and…well, we haven’t talked to her doctor, but it’s my understanding it goes up through her jaw. How tall are you, Josie?”

It was a question she hated under any circumstance.

“Five-one.”

“And how tall was Perri? Approximately?”

Her mother answered: “At least five-eight, maybe five-nine. She stooped horribly when she was younger, but she was more comfortable with her height once they started high school.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. Josie, did any of the responding officers test you for gun residue?”

“Why would they do that?” Josie’s mother asked.

“Oh, it’s just routine. But no one touched the gun except Perri. Right, Josie? She was the only one who held it.”

“I might have touched it when I tried to grab it from her. Everything happened so fast.”

“But if we wanted to test you, right now, you’d say yes, right? Because you didn’t fire the gun, and a test could prove that even twenty-four hours later. Besides, we’ll need your fingerprints, just in case. I could go out to our car-”

“I don’t feel good,” Josie said, putting her hand beneath the sheet and hugging her stomach, which was beginning to jump around alarmingly. “I’m nauseous and hungry at the same time.”

“Josie, are you…um, menstruating? Or was Kat? Is that why you were in the bathroom?”

“What?”

Josie’s father entered the room, brandishing his cell phone as if it were the Olympic torch. “I all but had to call the CEO at home in Louisville, but they okayed another night’s stay as long as a hospital psychiatrist signs off on it, which I’ve been assured is no problem. When I told him how many television cameras were outside our house-Who are these gentlemen?”

“Police,” her mother said.

“Why are you talking to Josie? I mean, why now? Couldn’t this have waited?”

“She’s the only witness, sir.” Was it Josie’s imagination, or did the sergeant stare at her just then?

“Daddy, I’m tired and it’s hard to remember everything, and they’re asking me questions about my period and stuff.”

“What?”

“It’s not quite-” Sergeant Lenhardt stood, as if he knew it was time to leave. Was he scared of her dad? No one had ever been scared of Josie’s dad. It was kind of cool.

“My daughter has been through enough this weekend,” her father said. “She saw her best friend killed and was shot trying to take the gun away from a girl who was also her friend. Girls who were like sisters to her. This is unconscionable.”

“No one’s implied that your daughter’s lying or that she wasn’t brave,” the sergeant said. “We’re in the difficult position of having to collect information in the expectation of facing a very skilled criminal defense. As I said, your daughter’s the only eyewitness. I mean, who can talk. Who knows what the Kahn girl will say if she recovers?”