Over Her Head (9 page)

I
n the church
activity room, Laurie stared at Janice Edgar.

“Kyle was there?”

The poor woman. It was bad enough having the police come to visit and hint that your child might be involved when someone
had died. But to actually know that he might be prosecuted—she couldn’t bring herself to think about it.

Janice took a sip from her cup of tepid tea, and seemed to swallow with difficulty. “So he told Nick.”

“What else did he say?”

“That Kate was there, and that other girl who spoke today.”

“Rose. Who else?”

Janice lifted an eyebrow. “Why do you want to know? Anna wasn’t there, according to Kyle.”

“No, for which I’m thanking God as we speak. But surely one of them must have seen something.”

“Apparently not.” She would have said more, but Tanya touched Laurie’s arm and they both turned to her.

“Laurie, I can’t handle this,” Tanya whispered. “I need to go home.”

“I’ll take you,” Janice offered instantly.

Laurie would just as soon have taken Tanya home herself and made sure she was all right before Debbie Jacks came on duty that
evening, but then who would take care of getting all this food put away and the activity room cleaned up?

“Thanks, Janice,” she said. “I’ll talk with you later. Before Bible study on Thursday, okay?”

Janice gave her a surprised look, but murmured something in the affirmative before she and Tanya made their way out of the
room. Well, maybe she’d deserved it. She and Janice weren’t exactly on “I’ll give you a call for any old reason” terms. But
that could change. She wanted to know what Kyle knew.

She wasn’t sure exactly why—but there was this knot of anxiety growing inside her, and something had to be done about it.
If she could find out something—any detail—about that night, then maybe it would dissipate.

Laurie didn’t indulge much in self-examination. She didn’t have a therapist or spend her energy figuring out how to self-actualize.
Frankly, she didn’t have the time. Getting Colin and the kids from one end of a day to the other didn’t leave much time for
contemplating her navel, and any free time she did have went to the church or even to herself in a rare hour alone to read.

So she didn’t bother examining the roots of the little knot under her breastbone. She just went with what her instincts told
her—that information about that night would help, and the more facts she had, the safer she’d feel.

Safe from what?

Well, that was the silly part. Anna had done nothing wrong. Her family was safe, and there was nothing to be afraid of. But
she trusted her instincts. Colin didn’t put much store in instincts—they were too close to what he called “that ESP nonsense.”
But they hardly ever led her wrong.

When the mourners had thinned to just a trickle of die-hards who were there because they didn’t often get the opportunity
to socialize and enjoy a good spread at the same time, Laurie and her team—down to just Cammie and Mary Lou now—began to clean
up. The leftover cookies and squares would be perfect for the worship team’s music rehearsal the following night, along with
the soda, so that all went into the fridge.

The kitchen had a cooking area, with stove, sink, and refrigerator. A long staging counter with a pass-through opening on
one side faced the multipurpose room, with storage cupboards beneath it. Laurie was on her knees putting minarets of paper
cups back in their space when she heard her name on the other side of the pass-through.

“I don’t think Laurie knows that.”

She froze. Her legs tensed as she got ready to pop to her feet and say, “Knows what?”

But then she recognized the voice of Sophie Dayton, the pastor’s wife, who would probably clam up if she did that. So she
stayed on her knees and closed the cupboard door as quietly as she could.

“Brendan swears Anna was there, too.” Aha. Nancy O’Day.

Sophie’s tone was gentle but honest. “It’s not likely Brendan is going to lie about that. He’s been very up-front about being
out that night.”

“Why shouldn’t he be?” Nancy seemed to bristle a little. Well, using the word
lie
in connection with her child would make Laurie bristle, too. “He’s got nothing to hide. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“None of them did. I’m sure it was all an accident or a suicide and the police are being overly cautious. Even treating it
like a murder investigation. Not that it is,” she said hastily. “Just treating it that way.”

“They should treat it carefully. That’s their job. Pass me one of those pecan tarts, would you? I’ve been holding out all
afternoon, and I just can’t anymore.”

Their voices faded to the other side of the room and then out the door. Laurie stood, wishing she’d had the courage to stand
up. At least there were two people who stuck up for Brendan the way she’d wished her friends would have stuck up for Anna.

Brendan, who didn’t deserve people sticking up for him. Who was putting the word out that Anna had been on the bridge that
night. Putting her in danger. Laurie could practically feel the hackles rise on the back of her neck. She’d had just about
enough of people spreading lies about her daughter. But she wasn’t the police. Other than solving the investigation herself,
how was she going to make them stop?

N
o one was
with Tanya Peizer at the mortuary, which puzzled Nick a little, considering the army of loving and efficient women who had
surrounded her up until now. Maybe she’d slipped her handlers and come to do this on her own. Maybe he should butt out and
find another time to talk to her.

It wasn’t strictly necessary that he tell her in person about what Lisa and Forrest had found. A copy of Lisa’s report would
come to the mailbox at apartment 202 in due time, in all its stark and ugly detail. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself
to put this fragile woman through reading something like that when he had the means to break it to her kindly, as a compassionate
but impartial officer of the law.

This wasn’t Pittsburgh, where an officer might not see the family of a homicide victim unless he chose to go to the funeral.
This was Glendale, where he knew nearly everyone, from the drunks he put in the slammer to sleep it off before they drove
home, to the kids he coached in Little League every summer. If he had the power to do someone a kindness, then he did it simply
because he could—and today’s errand fell into that category.

He sat in what the funeral business called the “meditation room,” which resembled the waiting room of a doctor’s office but
with comfortable chairs and no magazines. When Tanya came out, he expected to see her carrying an urn, but her hands were
empty. A worn brown leather purse swung from her left shoulder.

She looked a little surprised when he got to his feet. “Deputy Tremore.”

“You can call me Nick. Everybody else does.”

Her gaze took in his khaki uniform, badge, utility belt, and the radio on his shoulder. “Nick, then. Do you have more questions
for me?”

Her skin was so pale it made her reddish hair look as though it were burning. Dark smudges hung below her eyes, as though
sleep was something she chased every night and failed to catch.

His insides squeezed with compassion. Coming here had been the right decision.

“No, no questions,” he said, and her shoulders dipped a little, as though she had exhaled a sigh of relief. “I did want to
talk about something, though, so the woman in the apartment next to yours told me where you’d gone.”

She led the way outside into the blustering wind, buttoning a duffle coat cut to look like the kind sailors wore. It was pea
green and a little tattered at the cuffs and collar. Navy surplus, probably.

“This might take a while,” he said when she paused by his vehicle. “I have the preliminary findings about Randi’s death.”

This time her shoulders really did sag. “I can’t do this,” he thought he heard her murmur, but the wind had kicked up a flurry
of leaves in the parking lot, and the sudden whisper scratched out her words.

On impulse, he went around and opened the passenger door of the police vehicle. “Come on. Let’s go for a ride.”

Instead of following him, she stepped back. “Down to the station?”

“No, no. Just for a ride. I think better when I’m driving, and you’ll have a little privacy.” He glanced at the door of the
mortuary, where a black limo was pulling up. “More than we’ll get here, anyway.”

“All right.” She climbed in and he closed the door behind her, then went around the front and got in. It took about five minutes
to get to the edge of town, and then they were headed east into the Pennsylvania hills, now covered in the bare skeletons
of trees.

“Where are we going?” She didn’t look at the bleak scenery, but at the radio, the rifle rack, the GPS, and the computer system
angled around him.

“There’s a place I know about eight miles away. I used to ride there on my bike as a kid. It has a nice view and my cousins
couldn’t find me.”

“Isn’t Laurie your cousin?”

“Yeah, but she’s five years older than me. When you’re eight, you don’t want your teenage girl cousin acting like your mother
and bossing you around.”

“That sounds like Laurie.”

“Nothing’s changed. But people need to be organized, and she happens to be good at it.”

“She makes sure I have company all the time. Not that I’m not grateful,” she said hastily, glancing at him. “At first I hated
to be alone, and the memorial service was awful. But now that those things are over, I want to breathe a little bit and feel
like I can grieve. I didn’t want anyone with me during the”—her voice broke—“the cremation. I wanted to cry without anyone
thinking they had to make me feel better.”

He paused, feeling for the right words. “I think they’re afraid you’ll hurt yourself,” he said quietly. “Like with the pills.”

She shifted and fussed with the seat belt. “I flushed them days ago. Patty meant well, but I wasn’t thinking straight when
I took them.” Another glance his way. “You’re not going to arrest her for giving them to me, are you? She wanted to help.”

He shook his head. “I had a little chat with her after I talked with you, and it didn’t take long to realize she was honestly
trying to do right. But she won’t be doing it again, that’s for sure.”

He signaled and turned off the highway, taking a narrow road that wound up the side of a hill. In a few minutes—a distance
that had taken him an hour of pumping and puffing on his bike—he pulled over where the road widened a little.

“Is this it?” she said doubtfully. “I think you’ve brought me up here under false pretenses.”

If this had been any other woman, he might have thought she was flirting. But Tanya was dead serious.

“We have to walk a little way. Not far.” Belatedly, he checked to see what she had on her feet. Sneakers. Good.

Only a few hundred feet of trees and brush separated the road from a place he remembered as being a kind of refuge. Collars
of dirty snow stood around the bases of the trees in the deepest shade, but as they cleared the trees and emerged onto the
south-facing cliff, it was dry and almost warm. Provided you had a good coat. At least the wind had died down.

“Over here.” He helped her up a tumble of limestone boulders and then settled on one that was nearly level. This natural bench
was where he’d done his daydreaming as a kid.

“You came all the way out here on your bike?” Her profile looked very young and almost wistful as she gazed out over the valley.
Glendale lay off to their right, the highway snaking through the bare trees, following the course of the Susquanny.

“Sure.”

“Didn’t your mom tell you not to?”

“I never told her about it. Never told anyone. I used to pick her flowers up here and bring them home in my backpack, and
she never asked me where I got them.”

“I always asked Randi where she went. She might not have liked it, but she always told me.”

Told you something. Maybe not the truth.

“We had pretty good communication,” she went on, “considering we mostly saw each other at breakfast and at night. I wanted
her to know she could tell me anything. Heaven knows I’ve done a ton of stuff I’m not proud of. She probably couldn’t make
any mistakes I haven’t made myself.”

The cold air moving down the side of the hill stirred the curls on her forehead. She’d pinned her hair back into a twist for
the trip to the mortuary—a touch of formality, a show of respect for her daughter’s last journey.

Unexpectedly, his throat closed up on whatever inane comment he’d been about to make, and he cleared it roughly.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to babble. You had something you wanted to tell me.”

He frowned. Trust him to break a mood. “No. I mean, you weren’t babbling. Talking about Randi is natural.”

“Talking about the coroner’s findings isn’t.”

“I can do it another time. I’d rather listen to you reminisce about her.”

“On my tax dollars? I don’t think so.” For a moment, he thought a smile might soften the words, but she gazed at the river
instead, the corners of her eyes pinched with pain. He braced himself. What he had to say was not going to make this any better.

As gently as he could, he summarized what Lisa had told him. By the end, Tanya’s cheeks were glassy with tears.

Yeah. A real pro at ruining a mood, a view, and a whole blasted day.

He didn’t even have a tissue on him. She dug in her pocket, found a tattered one, and blew her nose. “Is that everything?”
she said when she could finally speak.

“Not quite. But we can leave the rest for another time.”

“No.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “If I have to have this in my head for the rest of my life, you might as well give it
all to me. I just can’t bear . . .” The word trailed off into tears, and a flock of brown sparrows who had been investigating
the rock below them took off in alarm. “Bear thinking of her in pain and me not being there.”

One crumb of comfort. It was all he had, and he offered it with eagerness, as if it would make up for the rest. “She wasn’t
in pain, Tanya. When she went in, I mean.”