Over Her Head (22 page)

The department, of course, meaning him.

Anna.

Without another word, he went back to his desk and called up the file on the system. He did his duty and wrote up the report,
then put in a requisition to have the lobby security tape logged into the exhibit room as evidence.

Anna.

These girls pointed fingers at one another so easily. It was easy to be skeptical and dismiss them, but somewhere in all this
videotape lay the truth. And now that Kate’s accusation had been made in public, he was bound to perform due diligence and
investigate her claim as carefully as all the other leads and hints he’d followed up on.

Whether he believed it or not.

O
n Tuesday morning,
Laurie had just pulled into the garage after dropping off Tim (still half asleep—he was not a morning person) and Anna (sulky
and adamant that she wasn’t going to miss English to talk to a cousin she saw at least once a month anyway), when her cell
phone rang. She threw the gear shift into park and shut the engine off, then pressed the answer button.

“Lor, it’s me.”

She smiled at the sound of her husband’s voice, which had lost that frightening, closed-off tone and sounded more like the
best friend she’d depended on for more than half her life. “Nice timing. I just got home.” Looping one hand through the straps
of her purse, she slid out of the van, slammed the door shut, and walked into the kitchen. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen a paper this morning?” His tone stopped her.

“No. I only read it at school. Why?”

“Anna made the front page.”

“How can that be?” Anna was grounded. She wasn’t out running around and getting into trouble. Not anymore.

“It says here that two girls were questioned in connection with Miranda Peizer’s death, and in a ‘dramatic exposé straight
out of
America’s Most Wanted
,’ one of them said that not only was an ‘unnamed juvenile’ the last person to see the victim alive, she also pushed her head
under the water. And we know who they mean. So will everyone else.”

Laurie’s jaw dropped, and she spluttered through the dam of furious denial that backed up in her throat. In the end all that
made it out was, “That’s a fabrication and you know it.”

“All I know is that Anna doesn’t tell it that way. It’s more important than ever that she see the counselor today.”

“Don’t worry. She’s going if I have to drag her out of English class by her hair.”

“We might have to keep her home a couple of days, Lor, if this is all over the school. Even though they didn’t print her name,
you know how nasty kids can get.”

“What, and make her look like she’s guilty? The kids are already nasty, Colin. They’re throwing stuff at her in the cafe-teria.”
Fight or flight.
Adrenaline flooded her system as her body prepared to do battle—even though there was no one in her empty kitchen. “Who is
saying all this, anyway? Who are these girls the paper is talking about?”

“It doesn’t say here, but the simple process of elimination tells me one of them has to be Kate, or maybe Rose or Kelci.”

“I’m going to get to the bottom of this.” How dare these criminals-in-training shift the blame onto Anna? It was a fact that
one of them had done the pushing. If there had been no pushing, there would have been no death. The evidence supported that,
and everyone knew the evidence didn’t lie.

Unlike teenage girls who were too afraid to come clean about their own horrific behavior.

“Lor, don’t fly off the handle. Leave this to the police.”

“Believe me, that’s my very next call.”

“Lor—”

Laurie could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d hung up on her husband. This made one more. And for
a miracle, Nick actually answered the phone at his desk.

“Tremore.”

“Nick, it’s me.”

“Lor, I’m so sorry the paper ran the story before I could call you.” Nothing like getting straight to the point. But was it
propelled by guilt? Laurie decided she didn’t care.

“You have to get them to retract it. If it wasn’t already, my little ‘unnamed juvenile’s’ life is going to be sheer hell,
starting today.”

“I couldn’t stop it. There was a reporter there picking up a news briefing, and he happened to be in the waiting room when
Kate made her big announcement.”

So it had been Kate. Tall, slender Kate Parsons with her unlimited clothing budget and her big brown eyes.

“She’s lying through her teeth, Nick. Anna would never do something so horrible. If she really did run under that bridge,
she did it to see if she could help. I know that much about my daughter.”

“Has she given you any other details at all?”

“Nothing more than what she told you, but think about it for a second.” In view of this new twist, he needed to know what
she knew. “I talked with Kyle Edgar the other day, and he said he found her standing in the water. But you know that part
of the river as well as I do. There’s a big drop-off about four feet out. We know where Randi fell, and there’s no way Anna
could have gotten that close without swimming. She was only wet up to her ankles.”

“Laurie, think carefully. What was Anna wearing that night? Do you remember doing her laundry?”

She and Janice had talked about this, before their visit had gotten ugly. “There was nothing. No muddy socks, nothing.”

“You don’t remember wet pants or a wet shirt?”

“Nick, my daughter isn’t going to go swimming in the Susquanny in November, no matter what the provocation. She’s the world’s
original cold-water wimp.”

“But she was suffering from severe agitation and trauma. She could have jumped in and not even felt it.”

“Nope. Kyle said she was just standing there, up to her ankles in water.”

“But we have no way to prove it.”

“We have no way to prove what Kate said, either. We need to focus on who did the pushing, not the hysterical stories of fourteen-year-olds
who are trying to foist the blame on an innocent girl to save their own skins.”

“You don’t need to tell me how to do my job, Laurie.”

His tone was so cold she blinked, feeling the sting of his rebuke right through the connection. “I—I’m sorry. Of course not.
I’m just a little hysterical myself right now. I want to tear apart anyone who points a finger at my little girl.”

“That’s natural. I know how protective you are. And I want you to know I’m doing everything I can to get to the bottom of
this.”

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Okay. I’ll try to possess my soul in patience while poor Anna is probably having
the worst day of her life at school today.”

“I think we should cancel Thanksgiving.”

For a second her mind went blank. They’d cancel a holiday gathering because of a lot of gossip? “Thanksgiving?”

“Yes. Remember I asked you if Tanya Peizer could come along with me?”

Oh. Of course. “Right. I was thinking of something else. Why would you want to cancel it?”

“In light of this news . . . I think it would be awkward, not to mention a little weird.”

What was it Colin had said about armed camps? Everyone seemed determined to put Tanya in one camp and Laurie in the other.
And that was reasonable—if you believed that Anna had come within twenty yards of being responsible for Randi’s death.

“Nick, Anna is innocent. She did not push Randi under the water, and she did not see her alive once she fell. If you believe
that, really believe it, then having Tanya here is not awkward at all. It’s simply two families helping each other through
a rough time.”

Static crackled. He must be on his cell phone.

“Nick? You believe that, right?”

“I don’t have the luxury of believing anything other than the evidence,” he said slowly.

“And there’s no evidence to support what Kate said in the paper. So no, we’re not going to cancel Thanksgiving. Dinner is
at two o’clock, as usual. And Tanya is very welcome.”

“Thanks, Lor. I meant it, you know. I’m doing everything I can to find out the truth.”

“The truth shall set us free.” She reminded herself of the Bible’s promise aloud, and wondered if something that had been
recorded two thousand years ago applied to the here and now in Glendale, Pennsylvania.

“Are you quoting the Bible to me, the family heathen?” Nick said. At least the cold note had gone out of his voice, and he
was back to being the teasing cousin she loved.

For once, she didn’t go along with the joke. “I was just thinking out loud. Hoping that what the Bible says really is true.”

“I thought all you Christians believed that. The process of law is based on it,” he pointed out.

“Provided you have all the evidence.”

“Yeah. The evidence. I have to say, though, that I believe it as a general principle. I couldn’t do this job if I didn’t think
that the truth divides the people doing wrong from those doing the right thing.”

“Maybe you’re closer to Christianity than you think.”

“Don’t push it,” he warned, and she wondered if he was kidding, or if she’d overstepped the boundaries of his privacy. Maybe
she should change the subject.

“You take good care of my daughter, Nick.”

He was no dummy. He caught the implication right away. “You can count on me. Look, I’ve got to go. See you Thursday.”

“Will do.”

She hung up the phone slowly. Love and truth. She had those on her side.

Surely that was enough?

Enough for Anna, who had to be vindicated. Enough for Tanya, who must lie awake at night wondering who could have done this
to her child.

Enough for this town?

That brought her thoughts back to Debbie and Cammie and the women in her study group who were so determined to create those
imaginary camps set against one another, all in the name of kindness. If Nick and Tanya came for dinner, she’d show them.
Anna was innocent. There was no reason for Tanya not to come. And when Tanya told those women where she’d been for dinner,
they’d see how wrong they were to make separations where they shouldn’t exist—between sisters in Christ.

She’d been feeling frustrated and guilty because she couldn’t act to help her daughter, couldn’t do anything to solve this
mystery. But there was one thing she could do.

She could cook. And it would mean far more than an ordinary turkey dinner usually meant.

It would be a statement of faith and trust.

Feeling lighter in spirit than she had for days, Laurie pulled a notepad out of her purse and sat down at the counter. She
wrote
Pick up turkey
at the top of her list before the blinking light of the answering machine caught her attention.

She leaned over and pressed the playback button. Janice’s voice said very stiffly, “Hi, Laurie, this is Janice. I’m afraid
I can’t make Bible study this morning after all. I’ll go with the others tomorrow. I apologize for the late notice. Bye.”

Armed camps. Trust.

Here was another person she’d pushed away, whom she’d allowed to fall into that opposing camp. She’d said unkind things about
Kyle, just the way the people in Glendale were saying unkind things about Anna. What right did she have to say she didn’t
trust his word? She had no choice but to trust Anna’s, or she’d find her family in pieces around her. Janice would feel the
same. Families operated on love and trust. So did friendships. How many of those was she going to allow to fall by the wayside
over this?

Before she lost her courage, she picked up the phone. Janice answered on the second ring.

“Janice, it’s Laurie.”

“Oh. Hello.” Silence. “Did you get my message?”

“Yes. Both of them. Janice, please let me say that I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things I said to Kyle. He and Anna
are both telling the truth. It’s this town that’s spreading lies and mistrust all over the place, and I’m tired of letting
it get to me.”

Silence.

“Janice?”

“I’m here.” Her voice was scratchy. “I’m just . . . surprised.”

“About what? You were brave enough to apologize when you hadn’t done anything wrong. The least I can do is apologize when
I’m the one at fault. I hurt you, and I accused your son of lying, and I’m sorry for it. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Oh, Laurie,” Janice said on a sigh. “Of course I forgive you. We’re mothers and we’re scared, and we tend to lash out at
people who threaten our kids.”

The tension snarled under Laurie’s heart relaxed enough to allow her a deep, cleansing breath. Forgiveness. What a wonderful,
freeing thing.

“But that wasn’t why I was surprised to hear from you.”

It wasn’t?
“Why, what’s up?”

“I shouldn’t listen to gossip, that’s all there is to it. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever grow up and be able to make decisions
based on something other than ‘what will people think?’”

Gossip. Didn’t it say in Proverbs that the person who kept a watch over his mouth would keep his life? Maybe she should suggest
that passage to Cale Dayton for his next sermon.

“I just got off the phone with Maggie,” Janice went on. “This article in the paper has everyone upset and saying things they
don’t mean.”

“I bet they do mean them. Like what?”

“Neither of us needs this burden, Laurie. Trust me.”

Trust me.
“No point in bearing it by yourself.”

“You already have enough to bear. I just don’t understand it. We’re all supposed to be sisters, supporting each other, not
speculating and raising doubts about each other.”

Janice might be surprised, but Laurie wasn’t. “Ignore them. The important thing is that everything is out in the open between
you and me, right?”

“Yes.” Janice paused. “I’m praying for you, Laurie.”

“Pray for our kids, my friend. They need it most of all.”

A
t 10:15, Laurie
pulled up at one side of the school parking lot, where the kids who weren’t bused usually waited for their rides. Anna was
nowhere in sight.

She tapped the horn, in case Anna was standing just inside the door talking, but when there was no movement besides the wet
flapping of the flag on the flagpole, she turned the engine off and marched inside. Anna’s English class met in one of the
classrooms behind the library on the first floor. When she peeked in the door’s wire-reinforced glass window, she couldn’t
see Anna anywhere in the classroom. The last thing she wanted to do was interrupt the teacher, so she slipped into the nearest
of the girls’ bathrooms.