Sour Grapes

asked.
    “No, I was more upset than most of them, you know, since she was my roommate and all. One of the girls, Desiree Porter, was even jazzed about it. She said one of us had a chance now that the Barbie doll was out of the picture.”
    Savannah stood, ran her fingers through her hair, and slipped her aching feet back into her loafers. “Well,” she said, “if the rest of the girls are taking this as hard as you are, it’s a darn good thing we’ve got those counselors coming from Mental Health. We’d wanna head off any mass suicides.”
    “Huh?”
    “Never mind.” She strapped on her holster and gun, then went to her suitcase and got a fresh jacket. For some reason, the other one seemed to smell of death.
    “You’re right,” Savannah said. “It... sucks. And I’ve got to get back to work. Throw the dead bolt after me.”
    “Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to keep telling me. I—”
    “Dammit, ‘Lanta, for once will you just do something I ask you to do and not give me any lip?”
    Savannah stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind her. Pausing, listening for the bolt to shoot home, she heard her sister say, “Boy, oh, boy... she’s such a grouch when she wakes up!”

    But there was someone who was upset about Barbie Matthews’s death. Terribly upset. And Savannah heard her crying, even before she saw her. On a patch of lawn behind the guest lodge, Francie Gorton was sitting beneath a trio of palm trees on a white, wrought-iron park bench that overlooked the sweeping vista of Villa Rosa’s oceans of vines. Her face was buried in a handful of tissues, and her shoulders were shaking with racking sobs.
    Savannah walked over to her and sat down on the bench beside her.
    The warm, late-summer sun was almost directly overhead, and the girl’s long, glossy black hair shone iridescent, like a raven’s wing.
    Savannah wasn’t sure Francie was even aware of her presence, until she heard her say, “It’s my fault Barbie’s dead. And I could have stopped it.”
    Trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice, Savannah said, “What do you mean, Francie? How could you have kept her from dying?”
    The girl wiped her eyes with the tissues and blew her nose. Then she turned to Savannah, her young face full of grief. “Last night, when you asked me what was going on, I should have told you about it. Or maybe I should have called her parents and talked to them. I don’t know if it would have done any good; and now I’ll never know.”
    Savannah reached over and pushed the girl’s tear-wet hair back from her face. “Francie, did you hurt Barbie?”
    “No, she was my friend. I know a lot of people didn’t like her, but she was pretty nice to me most of the time, and I liked her.”
    “Do you know who hurt her?”
    A look of raw fear flickered in the girl’s eyes, and she glanced away. “No.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Francie nodded, but continued to stare at the far horizon.
    “You have any idea who might have done it?”
    Francie twisted the tissues between her fingers. “No.”
    Having no luck opening the front door of the conversation, Savannah decided to try the back door. “Last night,” she said, “outside your room, I heard you warning Barbie to be careful. You told her that you were afraid she was going to get hurt. What was that about, Francie?”
    The girl began to cry again, and Savannah could almost feel her fear—suffocating, paralyzing, until she could hardly breathe.
    “I can’t tell you. Please don’t ask me.”
    “You can’t tell me because you don’t know, or because you’re afraid? Which is it, Francie?”
    “I’m... I’m afraid. If I tell you, if I tell anybody, I’ll be next”
    Savannah’s heart ached for the girl; she was so like some of her sisters back in Georgia—old enough to get into trouble but too young to find her way out
    She stroked the girl’s sun-warm hair, trying to comfort her. “Francie, sweetie, if you think your life is in danger, that makes it even more important that you talk to me about it. You can trust me. I’ll help you, if you’ll just let me.”
    Francie blew her nose again, then glanced at her watch. ‘1 have to go and get ready for lunch. I have to act like everything is okay, you know what I mean?”
    “No, I don’t know what you mean. I wish I did. Is there anything! can do to help you, Francie?”
    The girl shook her head and stood. “I really need to go. But thank you, Ms. Reid. It was very nice of you to stop