The Graduation Read Online Free PDF Page B

reason, she tried to keep distance between herself and her husband. She knew that one day she would lose him, and that from then on there would always be a light in the heavens to remind her of him, and break her heart.
    Of course the husband’s rocket fell into the sun. It had been a sad story. Yet the Western custom of pumping dead people’s veins with preserving fluids, Michael realized, and sealing the bodies in airtight coffins to bury them in concrete-lined holes, affected him in much the same way. One of the reasons he couldn’t get over Alice, no matter how often he told himself her soul was free, was that her decaying body was always, in a sense, beneath his feet. He wished they’d had her cremated and thrown her ashes into the ocean, or tossed them onto the wind.
    At the same time, he wondered if it would have made any difference.
    He had not intended to visit the cemetery. He had many things to do. He had to question the coroner who had performed Alice’s autopsy, examine the bedroom again, speak to Clark, and give that silly speech. The fact that he had so many things to investigate all on one day caused him to wonder about his convictions. He could have made his appointment with the coroner months ago. He could have had Bubba duplicate Polly’s keys anytime. And he had found Clark three weeks ago, but still hadn’t approached him. There was really no two ways about it—he had postponed the investigation. The question was, had he done it because he was afraid to discover a fact that proved she had pulled the trigger?
    But why would she kill herself?
    Even Jessica had not attempted to address that point. Maybe Clark would. Michael glanced back toward his car and the gun safely stored there. More questions came to mind. Why had he postponed his investigation until this particular day, the last day of school? And why did he feel he could no longer postpone it?
    “ I feel it. It’s a bad feeling. ”
    It was hard to stand beside her grave, but harder still to leave it. He wished he had brought flowers. This was the first time he had been to the cemetery since the funeral. He glanced at the two graves on either side of Alice: Martha McCoy and Philip Bart, Alice’s aunt and an employee of McCoy Construction who had died from an on-job accident. The grass was not quite as green around their tombstones. They had been in the ground less time, but perhaps it would always be greenest near Alice.
    It was just a thought. He turned and left the cemetery.
    Michael had obtained his appointment with Dr. Gin Kawati under false pretenses. He had called the doctor the previous week and explained he was an assistant editor at a local paper in need of technical information on modern forensic techniques for an article his boss was doing on how modern murders were sometimes solved. Michael had given the doctor the impression the name Dr. Kawati would figure prominently in the article if he would help him out. The doctor had sounded interested.
    Michael drove to downtown Los Angeles and parked across the street from the ARC Medical Group. This was his first visit to the office, but Bubba had been there before when he swiped certain codes from the physician’s secretary. It was those codes that had allowed Bubba and Michael to dump the medical group’s files onto Tabb High’s computers homecoming day.
    The receptionist showed him directly into the doctor’s office. Dr. Kawati was of Japanese descent—which was no big surprise given his last name—short and mustached. He was not old—thirty-five at most—and appeared at first glance to be friendly. He gave Michael a warm handshake and offered him a seat beside his cluttered desk. But Michael couldn’t help glancing at the man’s hands and thinking to himself that here were hands that spent their days dissecting people. Michael couldn’t understand how anyone could willingly go into such a gruesome field.
    “I wear gloves,” Dr. Kawati said. Michael glanced