Over Her Head

by Shelley Bates

  She grabbed the phone and dialed Maggie. “Have you seen the paper this morning?” she asked as soon as her friend picked up the phone. “The front page?”

  “Who hasn’t seen it?”

  “The girl, Maggie. Miranda Peizer. Is that—”

  “Isn’t it just awful? Poor, poor Tanya. She had so much trouble with her. She told me once she caught Randi smoking pot when she was only eleven.”

  “Is anybody with her? Maggie, she’s in our study group. We have to do something.”

  “I’ve called over there, but the answering machine keeps picking up.”

  “I’ll take some sick time and get out of here early. I’ll pick you up at two and we’ll go over, okay?”

  “See you then.”

  Laurie could hardly concentrate as two hundred and forty interminable minutes dragged past. Fortunately, the day wasn’t all that heavy—the most complicated thing she had to do was a couple of updates to the lit department’s Web page. At two o’clock she practically ran out the door and kept her foot on the gas as she negotiated the winding quarter-mile drive and then the back roads over to her neighborhood.

  Maggie was watching at her front window, and in a couple of minutes they were heading down the highway to the newer part of Glendale.

  Tanya lived in one of the units in a new building, but Laurie had her doubts about the construction of the place. The walls seemed flimsy and the view was, well, the Wal-Mart parking lot. At least it was convenient when Tanya had to do a run for socks and school supplies.

  Would have been convenient. Oh, Tanya, she thought.

  The building had no security—just an exterior staircase, like a motel. A woman Laurie had never seen before answered the door of the second-floor apartment.

  “We’re friends of Tanya’s, from her Bible study group,” Laurie explained. The woman looked to be in her mid-fifties and wore her hair cropped short, as though she had recently undergone chemotherapy and it was beginning to grow back in. “Is she home?”

  The woman didn’t smile. “I’m Patty. I live next door. Yes, she’s home. The poor thing has no one to sit with her.”

  If you’re such good friends, how come it’s taken you this long to show up? Laurie heard the unspoken accusation clearly.

  “We just found out the girl who drowned was Tanya’s daughter.” Why was she explaining herself to this nasty woman? “We brought some supper for her. Does she have any family? Is anyone coming?”

  “If they are, no one’s told me. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve got things to do.”

  “Thank you for being with her.” Laurie put as much sincerity into her voice as she could. “If you want to take a break, we can sit with her for a while, and try to find out what’s going on.”

  Without a word, the woman grabbed a coat off a chair next to the door and pushed past them.

  “Just who I’d want with me at a time like this,” Maggie whispered as she closed the door.

  They found Tanya passed out on the bed, a quilt over her and a bottle of prescription tablets on the nightstand. Laurie took one look around the eight-by-ten bedroom and made a few decisions.

  “Don’t wake her up. Sleep is probably a blessing right now. We can’t do much, but one thing we can do is pick this place up.” She glanced at Maggie. “Would you take a stab at those dishes in the sink? I’ll do this room and the living room and get started on the laundry. I think I have enough quarters in my purse for a load of whites, anyway. You certainly can’t face the world if you don’t have any clean underwear.”

  “Good plan.”

  Maggie headed into the kitchen, carrying a casserole dish in two pot holders, and Laurie got to work. Tanya didn’t seem to have many clothes, and most of them were on the floor. Laurie sorted some into a laundry pile and hung some of them up in the tiny closet. Shoes went on the closet floor in a neat row, and a number of scattered paperback novels were placed in a stack on the dresser.

  Laurie pushed open the door of Randi’s room and came out of housemother mode with a jolt. The bed was unmade and clothes—a purple camisole, a black skirt, several pairs of stockings in colors that hurt the eyes—lay draped on the bed and on the chair in front of the student desk. On the bulletin board above the desk, pictures, concert notices, tickets, and other minutiae of a teenager’s life were tacked with push pins. Huge posters of scary-looking rock bands were tacked to the walls with blissful disregard for the apartment’s security deposit.

  The room needed a cleanup in the worst way, but Laurie backed out and closed the door gently. The mess was all that Tanya had left. When she was able to deal with it, she could grieve her daughter’s death as she folded the camisole and the skirt and put away books and magazines. If Laurie and Maggie did it, Tanya wouldn’t see it as a favor. She’d see it as an insensitive invasion of the relationship between herself and Randi—whatever that had been.

  Laurie piled the laundry into the half-full basket she found in the bathroom and made her way downstairs to the laundry room. Once she had that going, she took on the living room. Tanya didn’t have much in the way of clutter, other than clothes. Laurie supposed that when you moved a lot, you kept your possessions to a bare minimum. Clothes. Cookware. Something to sit on. Practically everything here would fit in the back of a pickup.

  When the Hales had moved into their dream house, it had taken an entire Allied van and a solid week of work. Laurie had decided then and there that they were never moving again. And there was no reason to. Everything she and Colin loved and needed was right here.

  Except for the occasional big night out in Pittsburgh, like seeing a play or going to a Penguins game, or, in Anna’s case, a major shopping trip, they hardly ever left town.

  “Now what?” With the dishes done and all four feet of counter spotless, Maggie joined her in the living room. “Leave a note and be on our way?”

  Something rustled behind them, and both Laurie and Maggie turned.

  Tanya Peizer swayed in the hallway, her face so pale it was nearly green. Her hair was matted down on one side, as if she’d been asleep for hours. Laurie’s breath caught at the haunted expression in her eyes, as if she knew something was wrong, but couldn’t quite remember what.

  “What are you guys doing here?” she croaked. “Has Randi done something wrong?”

  Chapter Four

  Those were the last coherent words Tanya said. And it was a good thing, too, because Laurie’s brain had frozen up with horror and she wouldn’t have been capable of even a comforting but vague reply. She and Maggie got Tanya back into bed, and the young woman slid back into unconsciousness as abruptly as she’d come out of it.

  “That was close.” Maggie glanced at Laurie as they gave the apartment a final check. “She knows, right? That Randi’s gone?”

  “The paper said she was told. But if the doctor gave her a sedative, she probably doesn’t remember, and thank goodness for that. We need to organize people to sit with her. And we should find out who’s making arrangements for the funeral, too.”

  “I’ll stay till suppertime,” Maggie said. “Ben can look after the kids till then.”

  “Okay, you organize a roster and call everyone in study group, and I’ll get ahold of Cale Dayton.”

  It was easier to handle a crisis when you had a plan. As Laurie drove away from the apartment complex, half her brain concentrated on the drive home and the other half on dialing their pastor on her cell.

  “Cale, it’s Laurie,” she said. “We’ve just been to see Tanya Peizer. Did you hear that it was her daughter I—who was found in the river?”

  “I read it in the paper,” he said. “I’ve been calling over there but got no answer. Have you seen her? How is she?”

  “Sedated.” Laurie’s tone was wry as she made a left turn and sped down the county road. “And who can blame her? Maggie and I are organizing a roster of people to sit with her. I don’t think she realizes what’s happened yet—or her brain isn’t letting her realize it. But when the shock
and the drugs wear off, she’ll need help.”

  “Thank you for spearheading this.” His bass voice rumbled through her cell phone. “I should have known you’d already be on it.”

  “The thing is, we don’t know if she has any family. Have they been told? And I assume you’re taking the funeral . . .”

  “To my knowledge, she doesn’t have family. Sophie and I have gone over there a couple of times in the past few months, and she never mentioned any relatives. There were no pictures. I think there’s an ex-husband somewhere, though.”

  “I’ll get Maggie to find out. There has to be an emergency contact number in the apartment. Probably in her purse. Or maybe we could call the school and see if there’s a name in Randi’s file.”

  “As for a funeral, we’ll need to contact the police about—about when Randi’s body will be released.”

  Laurie digested this for a second. “What do you mean, released?”

  “In case it’s being . . . you know. Treated as a suspicious death.”

  Colin had said something about that, too. “That’s ridiculous. The poor girl had an accident.”

  “I guess the police are taking everything into account. We’ll need to know what’s going on there before we do anything else.”

  Poor Tanya. Laurie’s very next call was going to be to Nick. “Thanks, Cale. I’ll talk to you later.”

  She rang off and dialed her cousin, who was not where he was supposed to be when she needed him. “Nick, it’s Laurie,” she told his voice mail. “Pastor Dayton tells me Randi’s body might not be released for a funeral because you guys might be treating it as a suspicious death. I’m on my way home from Tanya Peizer’s place now, and trust me, we don’t want to drag this out any longer than we have to. The poor woman is sedated, and it would be great if the funeral were over before the prescription runs out. Call me.”

  But he didn’t. Laurie kept her phone clipped to her waistband while she oversaw Tim’s homework and made dinner. Afterward, she checked it to make sure the charge hadn’t run down. What was the matter with that guy? He always returned her calls. It was a lucky thing she wasn’t lying in the street with a broken leg, trying to call him for help.

  Nick never did call back. Instead, he and his partner Gil Schwartz turned up on the doorstep at ten minutes after seven. Laurie could tell right away he wasn’t there to sell tickets for the policemen’s annual Christmas ball.

  “Laurie, can we talk to Anna for a minute?” He and Gil stood a little awkwardly in the foyer, the crowns of their caps and the shoulders of their jackets misted with rain that had just begun to fall.

  She gaped at him a little stupidly while her brain rearranged her expectations to line up with reality.

  “Aren’t you here to answer my page?” She’d assumed he’d been driving by and figured it was just as easy to stop in as it was to call.

  “No. I got it, but that’s not why we’re here. Is Anna home?”

  “Of course she’s home. But what do you need to talk to her about?”

  Colin came out of his office and smiled at Nick and Gil, both of whom were men like him—practical, sensible, and handy with a hammer in their off-hours.

  “Hey, guys. What’s up?”

  “They want to talk to Anna,” Laurie said before Nick could open his mouth.

  “We should call her, then.” He loped up the stairs to do that very thing instead of something sensible, like finding out why first.

  “It’s okay, Laurie,” Nick assured her over the murmur of voices upstairs. “We just need to ask her a couple of questions about Miranda Peizer.”

  “She didn’t hang around with her, if that’s what you mean,” Laurie said. “Not that I know of, anyway.” And she would have known. Tanya would have said something at Bible study about their daughters being friends. It had mattered deeply to her that Randi find nice kids to hang around with, though it seemed she didn’t really know how to go about making sure it happened. She worked two jobs, and keeping up with a teenager like Randi seemed to be a full-time job in itself.

  Anna thumped down the stairs in her stocking feet, her dad behind her, giving the odd impression that he was cutting off an escape route. Anna wore fraying cargo pants and a camisole under a plaid flannel shirt. She also wore a set, wary expression that Laurie had never seen before. She came to a slow stop on the bottom step, and instead of flying into Nick’s arms the way she usually did, Anna looked at him as if he were about to whip out the handcuffs.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Nick said easily. “Gil and I need to talk to you for a sec.”

  She retreated one step, eyeing him as though she were searching for an ulterior motive. “Why?” With one foot, she felt for the next step.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Colin assured her. “No big deal.”

  “No.” She turned an appealing gaze on her dad. “Daddy, I don’t want to.”

  Laurie blinked. “Anna, don’t be silly. Go into the living room and offer your cousin a seat.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Nick said. “We’re just gathering information right now, and we hope you can help us.”

  This seemed to reassure her a little, but she still looked spooked as she led the way into the living room. Laurie followed.

  “Mom.” Anna flopped into the easy chair that sat kitty-corner from the couch. “They want to talk to me.”

  “Not you—my mom, who is always hogging the spotlight,” Laurie heard. Why did everyone think that?

  “I can’t imagine anything that Nick couldn’t say in front of Dad and me,” she said easily and made herself comfortable on the love seat.

  Nick and Gil folded themselves onto the edges of the couch cushions, and Colin leaned on the mantel while the fire snapped and popped in a silence that was unusual in their talkative family.

  “You or your husband need to be here, anyway, Mrs. Hale,” Gil said, getting down to business. “We wouldn’t interview a person under sixteen without a parent or guardian present.”

  “What exactly are you interviewing her for? She hardly knows—knew—Randi Peizer.” If they didn’t answer that question soon, she was going to abandon politeness and give her cousin the kind of healthy whack upside the head that had done wonders for his cooperation when he’d been a little boy.

  Anna’s smooth forehead creased under her bangs. “I don’t know anything about Randi.”

  “Well, you might be surprised at what could help us. How well did you know her?” Nick said, as if Laurie hadn’t just told him.

  Anna shrugged and the wary look settled on her features again. “Not very. She’s in third-period science with me, and last-period phys ed.”

  “Did you talk with her much?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Why not?”

  Anna’s clear gaze fell to the carpet. “Well, she’s new. And . . .”

  “And?”

  “And she’s kind of a . . . the kids don’t—didn’t—like her very much.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s a poser.” At the two cops’ blank looks, she expanded. “You know, she says stuff that it’s obvious she hasn’t done to look cool, like she said she was in a gang in Columbus. And she met some lame rock star and was friends with his daughter. Stuff like that.” She paused a moment. “That’s where she got her nickname. Poser. You know. Instead of Peizer.”

  Laurie thought of poor Tanya, working fourteen-hour days to keep their heads above water, and her daughter making up a life that sounded exciting and cool so she could survive the first year of high school.

  She wondered if Randi had known it wasn’t working, that the other kids had seen right through her and despised her for it.

  “So when was the last time you saw Randi?” Gil asked.

  Anna raised her eyebrows and turned down the corners of her mouth in an expression that said, Who knows? “I don’t remember. We had phys ed on Tuesday, so she was there, probably.”

  “What about Wednesday? Did you see her that day?” />
  Anna shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t keep tabs on people.”

  “And you’re not really friends, so you wouldn’t pay attention,” Laurie put in.

  “Yeah.”

  “So what did you do Wednesday night?” Nick asked.

  The night Randi had been killed. Wait a minute. “We had supper, Anna did her homework, we watched TV, and we went to bed,” Laurie said. “What are you—”

  “Lor,” Colin said in a warning tone.

  “Please let Anna answer the question, Mrs. Hale,” Gil said. His tone was polite, but Laurie bristled anyway.

  “It’s a ridiculous question! Where do you think she was?” Laurie lifted her arms to encompass the room where they sat, and by extension, their home.

  “Lor,” Colin said again, a little louder this time.

  “What?” she snapped. Couldn’t he see what they were implying?

  “Calm down, Laurie,” Nick said. “We’re trying to establish a time line here. And trying to figure out where everyone was Wednesday night.”

  “Everyone who? Who all are you talking to?”

  “At this point it seems like everyone in the high school,” Gil said, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

  “But why?”

  “A clerk at the Stop-N-Go by the bridge says there was a big gang of teenagers hanging around there at about ten thirty that night. It’s significant that Randi’s body turned up the next morning. We’re trying to establish whether the two events are connected.”

  “Whether they are or not, it has nothing to do with Anna.” Laurie knew she sounded like an angry bear defending her cub. Nick should have known better than to even bother coming here. They were a good family. They always tried to do the right thing, to pitch in and help when there was a need, to be good examples in the community. Why, Colin hadn’t even had a traffic ticket in twenty years. And as far as Anna and Tim went, you couldn’t find better kids. They were loyal, got good grades, had lots of friends.

  Why would he think he needed to bother interviewing his own cousin?

  “Probably not,” Nick said gently, “but Anna, you still need to confirm for us about that night.”