Over Her Head

by Shelley Bates

  Laurie would bet her mortgage she knew who JohnnysGrrl was.

  She scrolled through Anna’s e-mail, and every message from JohnnysGrrl was a threat. Some were veiled and rambling, some brief and to the point:

  Tell ur cuz what happened and baby bro goes swimming. Just try me.

  She had to nail down JohnnysGrrl, or at least find someone who would know. The girl in the picture was Kate, but who had taken it? Was Kate JohnnysGrrl, or was it the person behind the camera?

  Ping!

  KEdgar254: Babe, u OK? Cell dead?

  Laurie grabbed the extension sitting next to the computer and dialed Janice’s house. Kyle Edgar answered on the first ring.

  “Anna?” he whispered.

  “This is Anna’s mom.”

  Silence. “Oh.”

  The least of her worries was who was grounded and who wasn’t. “Never mind that now. Why did you ask if Anna was OK?”

  “I heard something weird on Dad’s scanner, and I’ve been trying to get ahold of her all night. Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

  “What did you hear?” She wasn’t even interested in why the mayor was monitoring the police bands.

  “An ambulance got called to her street and I thought—” He cut himself off.

  “Thought what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You thought she’d been hurt?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  “By someone?”

  Silence.

  “Kyle, I’m sitting in front of her computer. I know someone’s been sending her threatening e-mails. There are dozens of them, going back over the last two weeks. And they start on the night Randi Peizer was killed.”

  Silence.

  “Kyle? Answer me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’d better. Someone called JohnnysGrrl wrote all of these. Do you know who that is?”

  When he finally replied, it sounded as though every word was being pulled out of him with a pair of tweezers. “I can’t tell you, Mrs. Hale. She’ll—”

  “She said she was going to hurt my little boy. Send him swimming, the way Randi went swimming. That’s the hold she had on Anna. What has she got on you?”

  “She—” His voice broke, and he took a breath. “She said she’d tell the papers some dirt about my dad.”

  “That’s impossible, Kyle. Your dad is a good man. He doesn’t have any dirt. That’s why I voted for him.”

  “She said he had an affair with Randi’s mom. That Randi was really his daughter. And if I said what happened, she’d tell the papers like she told them Anna did it.”

  Bingo. “It’s Kate Parsons, isn’t it, Kyle? Kate pushed Randi off the bridge, didn’t she?”

  She could practically feel the misery coming through the phone. “I didn’t say that. You guessed.”

  “Has your dad ever lived in Ohio, Kyle?”

  It took him a minute to catch up with the swerve in topic. “No. We moved here from New Mexico when I was a baby.”

  “Tanya and Randi lived in Ohio before they moved here a few months ago. Randi’s dad is a drifter named Daryl, and he was last known to be living in Columbus. The man who donated his chromosomes to Randi was not your dad.”

  Silence. “You must think I’m pretty stupid.”

  “No. I think you love your dad a lot. And now I think you’d better go tell your parents the truth about what happened that night.”

  “But what about Tim? And Anna?”

  “Kyle, I don’t want to make this worse for you than it already is, but Anna tried to . . . She took too many Tylenols earlier. That ambulance call was to our house. She’s in the hospital—and Kyle,” she said when he made a sound halfway between a cry and a moan, “she’s going to be fine. They have her there for observation, but they pumped her stomach, and everything will be okay.”

  Again she heard the sound, only muffled this time, and she realized the mayor’s son was crying.

  “Sweetie, this is not your fault. It’s Kate’s fault. And my very next call is to Deputy Tremore. I’m going to tell him everything, and then this whole nightmare will be over.”

  As she hung up, she spotted the Bible where she’d left it on the bed: The snare is broken, and we are escaped.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hospitals and police stations never sleep. Nick stood next to Anna’s bed and traced the line of the IV drip from the bag hanging on the tree, to the rail of her bed, to the needle taped into the back of her hand—a hand that looked too fragile to support it. Didn’t those things come in kid sizes?

  He’d heard the call for the ambulance on the scanner in his kitchen after he’d left Tanya at her apartment, and recognized the address at once. No one here was giving out any details, no matter how many times he’d flashed his identification, but he could see all he needed to see from here.

  Anna was pale, but breathing.

  They were looking after her. That was enough for now.

  The pager on his belt vibrated like an agitated bee, and he recognized the Hales’ number. He hit autodial on his cell.

  “Nick?” Laurie picked up on the first ring, her voice thick with emotion. “Were you asleep?”

  “I’m at the hospital, outside Anna’s room. What happened?”

  “She took a bunch of Tylenol.”

  “She tried to kill herself?” His voice spiraled into soundlessness. “Why?”

  “Kate Parsons has been threatening her. Over e-mail. They call it cyberbullying.”

  “Why would Kate Parsons be doing that?” But he already knew.

  “Because she did it. That night on the bridge. Kate pushed Randi over and then threatened all those kids with harm—to themselves or to people they loved—if they told. She told Anna she’d hurt Tim, and sent her a picture of her and Tim and Ke-Shawn Platt. She’s got them in a headlock and her face is downright scary. Don’t ask me where or how it was taken, but I’m betting that picture is what finally sent Anna over the edge.”

  “I know where and how. Earlier today, I mean yesterday, remember, when Tim went to get the whipping cream? The boys were coming back over the bridge with Kate and Kelci Platt. And Kelci had been taking pictures with her brand-new digital camera.”

  “That was just yesterday?” Laurie sighed. “It feels like last year.”

  “Who else did she threaten?”

  “Kyle Edgar. He says she was going to tell the world that Randi was his dad’s illegitimate daughter.”

  Nick said something that definitely did not fall within the rules of conduct for a peace officer. “And he believed her?”

  “They all did. Obviously. Normal kids don’t go attempting suicide over something they don’t believe.”

  She had a point. “You have proof of these threats?”

  “I’m on Anna’s computer printing out all Kate’s e-mails and the picture now, plus I’m saving them all to a flash drive to give to you. There’s a lot. Two weeks’ worth.”

  “Bless Anna for saving them, then. Most kids would have been so scared they’d delete them just to pretend they made the threat go away.”

  “You need to come over and get this stuff. And then arrest Kate.”

  “Laurie.”

  “You’re right. Don’t tell you how to do your job. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. We’re thinking the same thing. You just have a tendency to say it out loud.”

  As he climbed into his vehicle and radioed Gil to meet him over at the Parsonses’ place, he wondered what had prompted his cousin to go into her daughter’s computer and start snooping around. Laurie and Colin had good intentions where their kids’ privacy was concerned, but in Nick’s opinion, respect for privacy only went so far when you were talking about teenagers. Protecting them from harm sometimes overrode that. Maybe Laurie had come to that conclusion, too.

  It took just a few minutes to get to Laurie’s house, but she was already at the bottom of the driveway waiting for him with a manila folder in her hand. He made her go inside whe
re it was warm, with instructions to leave this to him, and then spent a few minutes reviewing the printouts of the messages JohnnysGrrl had sent to Anna.

  What he read left him shaking his head and wondering what kind of influences and environment had produced a girl like this. He made sure he had his badge in his pocket and a spare set of cuffs. Then he fired up the truck. It was time to find out.

  When he turned onto the street where the Parsonses’ comfortable four-bedroom home was located, he saw Gil’s vehicle parked out front. Every window of the house was dark except for one in the rear, which was probably the kitchen. It was 3:00 a.m. Someone was either a very early riser, or an insomniac.

  He nodded at Gil, who followed him around to the back deck. “This ought to be fun,” Gil commented. “Looks like we’ve been spotted.”

  Dressed in his bathrobe, Neil Parsons stood in front of the French doors that led onto the deck. A cup of coffee steamed in his hand.

  “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

  Like he hadn’t spent hours down at the station, swearing at the two of them while he tried to keep his wife and daughter from throwing fits of hysterics. Nick braced himself for a fight. “You keep late hours.”

  “Early, actually. I’m usually at my desk by five. Even on a long weekend.”

  “Early lawyer gets the worm, huh?” Gil said.

  “Plenty of worms in family law. But you probably didn’t come by to discuss my practice, did you?”

  “Information has come to light about Kate, Mr. Parsons. Apparently she’s been cyberbullying some of the kids in town to keep them quiet about what happened on the bridge. To cover up the fact that she is the one who pushed Miranda Peizer over the rail.”

  “Ridiculous,” Neil said in a voice as cold as a reptile’s blood. “You better not ever show your face in this town again if you mention it to anyone.”

  “We have proof, and it’s in writing.”

  “Whose writing?”

  “Kate’s. E-mails and digital photos, among other things.”

  “E-mails can be faked. Anybody can set up a Hotmail address and fake a name. You know better than that.”

  “We’ll subpoena the service provider’s records if we have to. But I have a feeling that once this breaks, we’ll have kids coming forward voluntarily, willing to tell us what really happened. Including the mayor’s son.”

  Neil snorted, as if Kyle’s word were as worthless as a dot-com stock option.

  “I don’t believe you.” Neil reached for the door and stepped back into the kitchen. “When you guys get a warrant, you can talk to me.”

  Gil stuck his foot between the door and its frame. “I’m afraid you have your facts wrong, sir. This is a homicide. In the Commonwealth, we can arrest someone without a warrant. And we’re not interested in talking to you in any case. At this time we’d like to ask you to wake your daughter and have her get dressed.” He glanced behind him at the darkened yard. “In some warm clothes.”

  Neil Parsons spat a few choice phrases that, in Nick’s opinion, a churchgoing man should be ashamed to say. Then he reined in his temper. “My daughter isn’t going anywhere with you. She’s done nothing wrong—she’s been telling you that for weeks. Her friends have told you that. Whatever last-minute, Hail Mary, so-called proof you have is either a lie by a scared kid, or something made up by someone with a grudge against me. I have lots of enemies in this town, and they’d like nothing better than to—”

  “This isn’t about you, Mr. Parsons, as the deputy said,” Nick interrupted. “This is about Kate. Please go and wake her. We’re taking her downtown now.”

  “You half-wit, didn’t you hear anything I—”

  “Mr. Parsons, you can be arrested for obstructing a peace officer in the performance of his duties.”

  “Obstruct this!”

  Neil Parsons lunged and swung at Nick, who ducked, and the blow caught Gil on the shoulder.

  “Hey!”

  Nick whipped the handcuffs out of his pocket, and while Neil’s body was still following his fist’s trajectory, Nick snapped one around his wrist, captured the man’s free hand, and popped the cuff closed.

  “What is going on here?”

  On the other side of the kitchen, a woman appeared, tightening the belt of her baby-blue dressing gown. “Neil!”

  “Mr. Parsons, I’m arresting you for assault on a peace officer. Gil, call in for another unit. We’re outnumbered.”

  “What are you doing to my husband?”

  “Mrs. Parsons?”

  “Noreen,” Neil shouted, twisting awkwardly with his hands behind his back, “call our attorney. Now.”

  “It’s three in the morning.”

  “Mrs. Parsons, we’re here to arrest your daughter Kate as a suspect in the homicide of Miranda Peizer.”

  “Why have you got Neil in handcuffs?”

  “Mrs. Parsons, did you hear me?”

  “Of course I heard you!” she snapped. “You’re just not making any sense. Is this some kind of joke?”

  “We’re arresting your husband for assaulting a police officer, and we’re waiting for backup to transport your daughter to the station for booking.”

  “You’re all completely insane.” She looked from Nick to her husband to Gil. “All of you.”

  “Noreen, do I have to repeat myself?”

  “No, I heard you.”

  “Then get a move on!”

  She fixed him with a glare so cold that Nick was surprised snow didn’t sift down from the ceiling. “Is the attorney for Kate, or for you?”

  “For Kate, of course, you idiot! I’m completely capable of managing my own defense.”

  What a delightful family. If this was the kind of environment that had produced a girl like Kate, she hadn’t had much of a chance of turning out differently. To her, it probably sounded like a reasonable plan to threaten the kids so they wouldn’t rat her out. A negotiation tactic, as it were. The fact that she’d neatly set up someone else to take the fall was most likely a cause for relief rather than guilt. Her dad doubtless talked the same kind of strategy at the dinner table when he told stories about his cases.

  Even Nick could be a better parent than that. Not that he had any hang-ups about it, but getting married and becoming a father hadn’t been real high on his list of life priorities, either.

  Noreen had gone upstairs, presumably to call a lawyer in private, forcing him to wait. He wasn’t about to bust into Kate’s room like a vigilante posse and roust her out of bed, though he’d had about enough of this family. Hauling her down to the station in her jammies would serve her right.

  Lights flashed out in the street, signaling the arrival of their backup. Tersely, Gil gave the new deputies a situation report and, without giving Neil the courtesy of a few minutes to get out of his nightclothes, they took him away in their vehicle.

  Nick cocked an ear toward the upstairs but couldn’t hear a thing. “Mrs. Parsons? Would you come down here, please?”

  “We’re right here.”

  Noreen Parsons and Kate trooped down the stairs. Kate was so pale her skin was nearly green, but she held her head high and looked at him as though he were something she’d picked up on her shoe. She was dressed in low-slung jeans, a heavy cable sweater, and running shoes.

  “You just don’t understand,” she informed him. “It was totally an accident. I never meant to hurt her. You should be checking out Anna Hale. She’s the one who was in the water with her.”

  Nick was tempted to say, “Tell it to the judge,” but that sounded like a TV cliché.

  “You’ll be given the opportunity to say anything you wish in your statement,” he said instead. “You have the right to remain silent.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She waved a negligent hand. “I get it. Anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law. What—do you think I don’t watch Law & Order?”

  He didn’t pause until he’d finished reading the girl her rights.

  “I’m coming, to
o.” Noreen fixed him with a look and barred the doorway.

  “Oh, Mom, spare us the dramatics and do what Daddy said. I need a lawyer worse than I need you to hold my hand.”

  Noreen flinched, and Nick spared half a second to feel a little sorry for her. What a piece of work she’d raised.

  “Come on, Kate.”

  He and Gil got her into the marked vehicle (“What do you mean, I can’t ride up front? What a bunch of chauvinists!”), and as he followed them downtown in his truck he thought not of the Parsons family or even of Laurie and Anna Hale, but of Tanya.

  And of how, finally, he could give her something to be thankful for.

  On Friday morning, Laurie woke at daybreak and chose the silence of a run along the river path over the silence of her empty house. To her surprise, Janice hailed her a few hundred feet from the parking lot. Laurie was here only to kill time and try to find a little strength before she went home and Colin picked her up at nine.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked as Janice jogged up to her, togged out in the latest fashion in sweats.

  “Following your example.” Her grin faded. “Or am I intruding on you?”

  “There you go again, assuming it’s your fault.” Laurie reached out to hug her, and before she knew it, she’d burst into tears and was clinging to Janice, sobbing like a four-year-old.

  “Laurie! Laurie, what is it? What’s happened? Oh, honey, here, sit down on this bench and just let it all out.”

  And so she did, sobbing and heaving and gasping out the night’s events in disjointed sentences that Janice probably had to piece together like a crossword puzzle until they made some sense. But in the end, she got the gist of it, the important part: Both their kids were safe.

  When Laurie had soaked Janice’s folded cotton headband with tears, she gave her face one last dab and looked up. Janice’s face glowed with relief.

  “Anna’s going to be all right? The doctor said so? And it was Kate all along?”

  Laurie nodded. Wrung out as she was, she was never going to be able to get up from this bench. But Janice had other ideas. “Come on. I feel like jumping for joy that it’s all over, but that would scare the wildlife. Let’s walk.”