Kat, in fact, was one of the few people who hadn’t been beguiled by Glen’s easygoing nature. Oh, she loved him-he was her uncle, after all, and he tried to be doting, although he seldom followed through on his best intentions. His big talk of trips or projects, such as keeping a horse for her on his acreage, tended to peter out pretty quickly. Kat had realized early on that Glen was not reliable, and it was the one thing Kat required in the people around her-constancy, dependability. This was the key difference between Chloe and Glen, kindred spirits in so many respects. Chloe, no matter how scattered and crazy she might be with Dale, was someone Kat could count on. Even in the wake of Kat’s death, Chloe was meeting every expectation as a mother.
And so she was here, suitably dressed and behaving herself, holding Glen’s hand. What was it like, holding hands with his brother? Did it feel like Dale’s hand? Even when a twin was fraternal, even when you had spent most of your life making sure the physical resemblance was the only resemblance, it was hard not to think such thoughts.
Peter had thought he could skip the funeral, but when his parents got home Monday night, his mother insisted they go as a family. His mom was a little too much in awe of the Hartigans, in Peter’s opinion, but she had also been genuinely fond of Kat. She was one of the few people who thought Kat looked better before she lost weight, who was always trying to load her up with frijoles, plantains, and arroz con pollo.
Still, the Laskos hung back once they arrived, determined not to be presumptuous. Mrs. Hartigan motioned to them and insisted they take seats in the second row. His eyes on the ground, Peter stuck out his hand to the dark-haired man at her side, muttering, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hartigan,” only to have Kat’s mom correct him. “This is Kat’s uncle, Glen. Her father’s over there, with the young redhead.”
Mr. Hartigan, the real one, had given his ex-wife a sharp look-she hadn’t tried to mute her voice in any way-then taken Peter’s hand with a loose, quick shake that reminded Peter just how much contempt the man had for him. Because I dated your daughter? Or because I stopped? To this day he still wasn’t sure what Dale Hartigan had wanted from him.
Dale noticed Peter’s error with his brother-but also saw how quickly he recovered from it. The young man had developed some poise in the last three years, but he still radiated that desperate like-me vibe. That same quality probably explained his success as an actor. It could be a useful quality, Dale thought, watching Josie Patel swing along on her crutches.
She was prettier than Dale remembered, but perhaps he simply hadn’t seen her since she passed through her awkward stage. Josie had been, well, monkeyish as a child, small and tanned, her nose a little large for her face, her cheeks pinched. She was still tiny, but the cheeks had filled in and the nose had receded, and there was no denying that the light-colored eyes gave her face an almost mystical cast. She made her way carefully along the front row, only to find that every chair was filled.
Susannah, who had the usual forethought to include Josie among those who would be seated for this brief memorial service, looked puzzled. She craned her neck, searching for the impostor among them. “What’s that?” she whispered, pointing to an impossibly large woman with a strange red rash visible on her bare arms and legs. The woman was at the end of the front row, on the other side of Chloe, who had engineered the seating so Glen, Thornton, and Susannah were between her and Dale.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he began, and that was all Susannah needed to confront the woman. He couldn’t hear Susannah’s whispered exhortations, but everyone was treated to the woman’s vehement protests. Finally Susannah’s gentle voice rose in frustration: “The girl is on crutches. She was Kat’s best friend. You can’t possibly expect her to stand.”
The large woman moved, although not without quite a bit of muttering, and it seemed at first that she might leave the cemetery altogether, as if this would prove she was the wronged party. Instead she settled for forcing her way into the front row of those standing.
Josie swung toward her seat, murmuring “I’m sorry” over and over. But for what? For the little scene over the seat, which was not her fault? Or for Kat’s death, which also was not her fault? Or was it? What the fuck did that one-line letter mean anyway? What truth did Perri want Kat to tell; what secret hung between them? Dale had sources inside the police department. He knew that Josie had been evasive with the detectives, obstructionist even. But why would Josie lie? Chloe insisted Josie had adored Kat.
Once Josie was settled in her seat, Chloe turned and held the girl’s hands in hers. Even from the other end of the row, Dale could see she was gripping them much too tightly, and her voice was inappropriately loud for this somber setting.
“I always thought,” she said, “that Kat would be safe with you.”
If he had been next to Chloe, he would have whispered some reprimand out of the side of his mouth or put a restraining hand on his ex-wife’s arms.
But Josie, tears in her eyes, merely said, “I did, too.”
Sergeant Lenhardt and Detective Infante stood on the other side of the drive, apart from the crowd, but in a spot where they were clearly visible to Josie. It was a cheap trick, but cheap tricks can work. We’re watching you. We’re going to talk to you again and again and again. Mr. Patel, seated behind his daughter, glared at them but did not try to approach or chase them away. How could he?
“Are these high-school girls,” Infante asked, “or strippers on a break from Northpoint Boulevard?”
“Pervert,” Lenhardt said, but Infante had a point. The girls’ idea of funeral wear was strangely provocative-short, tight black skirts with tops that hugged their bodies, leaving a strip of stomach bare. Perhaps it was a trick of memory, but he did not remember girls looking like this when he was in high school during an allegedly permissive time. The girls at Northern High School had worn low-slung jeans and gone braless, yet they had still been fresh, wholesome-looking even, with long, shiny hair and very little makeup. He would die before he let Jessica out of the house looking like this. Even as he made that vow, he knew he would be helpless to do anything about it. If this was how girls dressed, this was how girls dressed, and trying to force a kid to behave differently would be disastrous. Maybe, he tried telling himself, these getups were proof of just how innocent these girls were. Only a child who hadn’t made the connection between her body and sex could parade herself this way.
Infante nudged him, directing his attention to a short, compact beauty with her breasts pushed up into an impressive swell in her scoop-neck black top, a big gold E nestled in her cleavage.
“I never wanted to be a necklace before,”’ Infante said. “But I’m beginning to see the possibilities.”