All the Little Liars (21 page)

“We started e-mailing each other when he got old enough to get on the computer by himself, though,” I said, smiling as I remembered how glad I had been to hear from him.

“So your father kept you two apart?”

“Yes, he did,” I said. “I flew out to see Phillip a couple of times, and we went out by ourselves. During my first marriage, Martin and I flew out to California to spend time with Phillip. It was great. But Dad wouldn't let him come to Lawrenceton.”

“So how did Phillip come to be here with you?”

“He hitchhiked here,” I said. “It scared the hell out of me. I had no idea he was coming. I would have sent him some money, or gone to get him. And he had some very tense moments along the way, he told me. I was scared all over when I thought of what could have happened. But he made it here, and he showed up at the library where I work.” I smiled and shook my head, remembering. “I didn't even recognize him for a second, he was so grown-up.”

“And then what?”

“Well, I called my father and Betty Jo, of course, and told him that Phillip was here, and safe. And that Phillip had asked to stay with me.”

“Quite an adjustment for you, a newlywed, to have a teenager living with you.” Van Winkle was stirring his coffee, looking wise and understanding.

I wasn't buying that, not completely, but I was sure going to tell them the truth. I didn't know what might turn out to be important, and what might not.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “But in the end, I didn't mind.”

“Why is that?” Crowley looked only quizzical.

“Because I love my brother,” I said. “And Robin was willing, thank God. We weren't married at the moment, but we got married.”

“Late last month,” Robin said. I could scarcely believe it.

“And I understand you are expecting?” Crowley said, nodding at my middle.

“Yes,” I said, and felt a little smile curl my lips up. “We are.”

“So did Phillip feel that he'd been edged out by the baby?”

“He didn't seem to. He was pretty excited. But he had barely learned about it before he was gone.”

“So how was Phillip's schooling arranged?”

“Well, he'd been taking these classes in California, at some kind of joint classroom for home-schooled students,” I said. “I didn't know anything about it, but as it turned out, this system is nationwide.”

They both nodded, as if this was a well-known established educational mode. I'd had no idea.

“Phillip took off from California before the end of a semester, but after about a million phone calls and e-mails, we worked it out so he could finish his semester from here, which he did. In January, he was going to go to the high school here.”

“Because he'd already made friends,” Crowley said, nodding.

“Right,” I said. “I knew Josh from the library, he was a frequent patron and a good kid, so I asked him to come by to meet Phillip. I didn't want Phillip to be stuck with me all of the time.”

“Or you didn't want him to be around all of the time,” Van Winkle suggested.

Oooooh. A snake in the grass. “Phillip is nice to have around the house,” I said. “He's even reasonably helpful. But teenagers need to hang around with other teenagers, and they need a social network. So of course I was hoping he'd make friends.”

“Of course,” Crowley said smoothly. “And did that work out?”

“Better than I'd ever imagined. He and Josh really hit it off, and Phillip liked Jocelyn, too. Joss and Josh are very close, naturally, so that made it a good match.”

“Your brother had romantic feelings for Jocelyn?”

I smiled. “He thought Joss was pretty, and he admired the fact that she was a good athlete,” I said. “He did like her. But Phillip found out fairly quickly that he wasn't what she was looking for.”

“In fact, Jocelyn is gay,” Van Winkle murmured.

“Yes, that's what Phillip told me,” I said. “That she and Tammy Ribble were girlfriends.”

“Who did you tell about this?”

“No one. It wasn't my business.”

“Did it disgust you?”

“Disgust me? It's not my business to be disgusted,” I said slowly. “I've known girls who liked girls before. I don't think that's really big news these days, do you?”

“Did Phillip take it hard, that his crush didn't give him the time of day?” Van Winkle said. He looked so kind and understanding!

I laughed, for the first time in forever. “No, he didn't take it hard,” I said. “Phillip is an optimist, and he's blessed with good looks. I understand he and Sarah Washington were ‘talking.' Phillip was content to be a friend of Joss's. Which you'd have to, to be friends with Josh.”

“So the twins were devoted to each other?” Crowley asked.

Robin and I nodded simultaneously. “They seemed to be,” I added cautiously. “We didn't see as much of Joss as we did of Josh.”

“Close, despite being so different?” Crowley inquired.

“Are they so different?” I considered. “Well, I guess so. Joss is more athletic and really direct. Josh is more of a reader, and Phillip said he makes all A's. But they're both popular at school, and both very involved in activities.”

“What about Tammy Ribble?”

“I only knew her by sight,” I said. “I had never talked to her.”

Crowley looked inquiringly at Robin, who shook his head.

“And Liza Scott?”

“I've known Liza since she was a small girl,” I said. “When her mom moved here and started coming to church, Liza came too, of course, and then Emily married Aubrey, our priest, and Aubrey adopted Liza. He's always adored her. So I still think of Liza as a little kid, though she's eleven now. Little enough,” I added, feeling a wave of sadness.

“And I understand she was fond of Phillip?” Van Winkle said gently.

“That's what I hear,” I said. “I wasn't aware of it, but Sarah mentioned that.”

“Did Phillip discourage her?”

“Not by being
mean,
” I said instantly. “Liza was in a vulnerable position, because of the situation at her school. Maybe she was looking for a champion?” I thought of Phillip's drawings, now in the hands of the police. “Phillip did feel a lot of sympathy for Liza. And he was always nice to her, as far as I know.” I remembered being a teenager, and I remembered that impatience could get the better of someone who wanted everything to happen
now.
Plus, I knew it must have been not a little embarrassing for Phillip … right? To have a preteen hanging around with pleading eyes?

They asked me to talk about the bullying, but I had no firsthand knowledge. I hadn't known the full scope of the problem until Phillip had gone missing. I did tell them about Tiffany Andrews' visit.

Then Crowley and Van Winkle took me over Phillip's call of the day before, in exhaustive detail. At least at that moment, I reminded myself, Phillip had been alive and able to talk. It broke my heart that he had called me, and I hadn't been able to help him. Though Van Winkle and Crowley took me over his words again and again, I could not wring any more meaning or information out of them.

“The call came from a cell phone,” Crowley told me. “That makes its location impossible to pinpoint exactly in a semi-rural area like Lawrenceton, though we know the call originated from the area to the west side of the town, and a little farther out. Before you ask me, he didn't call again. The only calls on your log are from your family and one of your coworkers.”

My heart sank. She returned my phone. I looked at it, longing for it to ring again, to hear Phillip on the other end.

But while I spoke to the FBI agents, hoping against hope that they would find something new in my words, or be set off on some investigative angle they hadn't visited, I had my own new thought.

Liza Scott's three persecutors weren't the only bullies who played roles in the tumult surrounding our missing kids.

Clayton Harrison had a reputation as a bully, too. And he was something of a classic bully, if the stories I'd heard about him were true: that he dominated everywhere he went, that he was quick to gibe at kids who had less, were different, were smarter or dumber. He liked to snap towels at other guys in the locker room, and if he didn't like something, he proclaimed it “gay.”

So why had he been seeking out Josh, Phillip, and Joss? After all, they were more-or-less two years younger. Or had he just come to the field to pick up his sister? If that were the case how had Marlea and the other two girls gotten home?

Tammy Ribble had encountered the other kids not thirty minutes later. And ended up dead. The kidnappers had appeared and forced all the teenagers, and Liza, into cooperation. Some terrible confrontation had taken place, something so bad that Connie had killed herself rather than live with it.

I'd been assuming that that “something” was the forceful abduction of the kids in the car. That Tammy, coming out the back door of the beauty salon, had witnessed this crime and been killed because she knew the abductor, or at the very least could give information leading to his (their?) arrest.

I could at least understand that.

But I sure couldn't understand Connie's drastic action. Had she been on the scene? Had the girl been so fragile that seeing Tammy die had unhinged her? It couldn't be the mere absence of her boyfriend that had precipitated her death. She would hope for his rescue, right? Connie had to know something about where Clayton was, who had taken him. I thought again that Connie must have been threatened with Clayton's murder if she talked.

The picture we'd been looking at (all the kids in one car, all abducted) did not make sense, like so many things about this crime.

Lost in my own thoughts, I didn't notice my visitors had gotten up to leave until Robin touched my shoulder. “Sorry,” I said, with an effort. “Can I ask you something?”

“I'll answer if I can,” said Crowley. She waited with brows raised for me to speak.

“Connie really died from the pills, right?” I asked. “Nothing suspect about it?”

Whatever they'd been expecting, it hadn't been that. Both the agents looked just the slightest bit disapproving. Perhaps they thought I was asking out of ghoulish curiosity. “Yes, she took all of her mother's sleeping pills,” Crowley told me.

“But why?” I just couldn't understand it.

“The assumption is she despaired of her boyfriend's ever coming back, since his parents paid the ransom and he never showed up,” Van Winkle said.

And the way he said it told me that the two agents also had their doubts about Connie's motivation for such a drastic act.

“So the Harrisons told Connie, from the get-go, that they'd gotten a ransom demand for Clayton?”

Crowley looked surprised. And thoughtful. “Maybe since she'd told you and George and Beth, Karina figured she ought to tell Connie,” she said. “But that wouldn't have been my choice.”

“There's no doubt she took the pills voluntarily?” I said.

And they were both looking at me with quizzical gazes now.

“No doubt,” Crowley told me. “She was alone in the house. Her father was at work and her mother was visiting her own mother's nursing home.”

“She was lying on her own bed, and the pill container was beside her, along with a bottle of water,” Van Winkle added. “The autopsy has shown she took the pills, and she hadn't sustained any bruises or other injuries.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. That seemed conclusive. I still could not understand why it had happened. “There was a note, I hear?”

“A very brief one.” Les Van Winkle was looking at me funny. “Do you have a theory about Connie Bell's death?”

“It just seems so unlikely,” I said. “Unlikely and unnecessary. Based on the facts as we know them.”

“Any kid's death seems unnecessary,” Crowley said. She and her partner pulled their coats on.

“Can you tell me what
you
think happened in that alley?” I said.

Van Winkle smiled cryptically. “No,” he said. “We can't share our speculations with you.”

And then they were gone.

Two hours later, the tree was up. Robin and I had a lackluster lunch while we looked at it and tried to feel a spark of optimism. Robin had also wound lights around the bushes in front of the house and then told me our lighting was complete. I had hung an artificial wreath on the front door. That was as much as we could do, and more than we had heart for.

Though the visit of the FBI agents had given me food for thought, all that thought didn't lead anywhere. Robin went to his office and tried to work. I sat and held a book in front of me, though I could not have told you what I read. Instead of staring at a book, sometimes I stared at the television. I missed work more than I ever thought I would, yet I was sure I couldn't get through a whole day at the library.

My mother came by after showing a house in my neighborhood.

“You shouldn't have gone to that press conference,” she said. “Roe, you look awful.”

“Maybe I should have stayed home,” I said listlessly. I wanted to tell her I'd talked to Phillip, but after my recent experiences, I was obediently keeping my mouth shut. “All I seem to be able to do is sit here.”

“You and Robin need to go out and be around people,” she said firmly. “Is your Christmas shopping done?”

“There doesn't seem to be any point,” I said. I'd been telling myself to go to my laptop and at least order some things, but that hadn't happened. In the back of the linen closet, I'd stashed two pairs of jeans for Phillip, two shirts, and a coat (he needed everything), and a couple of shirts for Robin, some books he'd been wanting, and a leather jacket, plus some gift cards. That might constitute our Christmas gift exchange.

“If nothing happens by Christmas,” Mother said, and paused to pick her next words. “If nothing is discovered, please come to our house for Christmas dinner.”