by M. Leighton
What if what I thought was an innocent assumption had resulted in a girl’s death? How could I live with myself? Another wave of nausea washed over me and I raced into the stall behind me.
I heaved into the toilet repeatedly, though I never actually vomited. It did feel, however, like my insides were pushing their way out through my nose.
When I’d rinsed my face off for the second time and swished some water around in my mouth. I hoped against hope that those three girls weren’t talking about Lisa.
On the tail of that thought, denial rode in, reminding me that it could still be a big mistake. The girls really could have been talking about someone else. There could have been other girls dressed like a guy; it was a costume party after all. And there had to be a few more guys names Jake in school. It was probably just a colossal coincidence.
Then another little voice, one far less appreciated, piped up inside me and asked But what if it wasn’t?
********
After I’d managed to pull myself together enough to leave the restroom, I went straight home. I changed into some shorts and a tank top and then sat down in front of the computer. I wanted to see if I could find a number for Lisa on the student website. A cell phone number was what I was really hoping to find, something very personal that she was not likely to go very far without.
And, with the first trace of good luck I’d had in an otherwise crappy week, I found her cell number. I hesitated only briefly before I punched the number into my cell phone and hit the send button. It rang four times and then put me through to her voicemail, which told me nothing. She could be dead or she could just be busy. That didn’t help at all.
That night, surprisingly, I slept pretty well. It was the next morning that turned out to be a little more bothersome. I woke with a weird foreboding that I hadn’t felt before. Though I had no idea what it meant, I had the distinct feeling that I’d see Lisa again today, but maybe not in a very good way.
I dressed for school and went to all my classes. Nothing strange or unusual happened. I kept my ears open, but there were neither whispered rumors about Lisa nor funny stories or references to her. There was simply no mention of her at all. Not that that was necessarily a bad sign. I’m sure the student body had gone a day without talking about Lisa Bauer before.
And yet that feeling of foreboding persisted.
That night over supper, Mom made mention of my haggard appearance.
“Are you staying up on the computer all night? You look tired,” she said, her brow creased with concern.
“I’ve just had a lot of reading for school. That’s all,” I said vaguely, staring down at my plate and stabbing peas with my fork.
Mom reached over and put her hand on my forearm. When I lifted my head, she looked deep into my eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright? Is there something wrong at school? Or—”
“No, Mom,” I said, pulling my arm away. “I told you everything’s fine,” I snapped. Then when I realized this would not take me in a direction that I wanted to go, I took another tack. “You’re right,” I said with a bone weary sigh. “I’m just tired. I’m going to get my reading done earlier tonight so I can go to bed at a decent hour.”
Mom nodded, satisfied that I was acknowledging the problem and taking steps to correct it. She was as strict about her “steps” as AA was about theirs. And, though it had taken eighteen years, I’d finally learned how to “handle” her.
She was easier than Dad. She was placated more quickly and painlessly than he was. When he caught scent of something in the air, he was like a blood hound; he wouldn’t let it go until he got to the bottom of it.
Fortunately, Dad had already finished dinner and was firmly ensconced in the recliner in front of the television. I could hear the news drifting out of the living room, which is one of the myriad reasons I spent so much time in my room. The news made me either want to commit murder or suicide. It varied depending on whether they were talking about politics or the unhealthy state of the world. Either way it wasn’t a pleasant experience for me so I avoided it like the plague. I caught enough bits and pieces of what was going on from overhearing Dad’s shows during or after dinner to stay basically informed. And, at eighteen-almost-nineteen years old, I didn’t require anything more than that—just the basics.
“Roger, do you want a piece of pie now or are you going to wait until later?”
A low grumbling came from the living room; it sounded a lot like I’ll wait, but only Mom and Dad could be sure. I didn’t speak that language and I had zero desire to learn.
I got up and took my plate to the sink. “I’ll get it, Mom.” I went back to the table for her plate since she was obviously finished. “You want a piece now?”
She smiled up at me, one of those smiles that says I have the best daughter in the whole world. I smiled back, pleased. That was just the reaction I’d wanted. It wouldn’t do anybody any good for her to worry about me. It just made both of our lives harder. So I’d do what I had to in order to make sure that she didn’t. It was the least I could do.
I dished us both up a huge piece of apple pie and topped it with ice cream, caramel and just a dash of cinnamon sugar. While I ate it, I was temporarily transported away from all my troubles. Sweets had always had that magical affect on me. It’s a mysterious yet beautiful thing. It’s a wonder I didn’t weigh three hundred pounds. So far I’d been lucky, though, and was blessed with a petite figure.
When we had both practically licked our bowls, I cleaned up the dishes for good measure. By the time I went to my room, Mom was seated on the end of the couch near the recliner, basking in the perfection of her life and her family. And that’s the way I wanted it to stay.
Despite the dark cloud that had followed me around all day, I managed to fall asleep quickly. I had just drifted into a dream about Jake and Detective Grayson competing against one another at a track meet when a pounding at my door woke me.
“Mercy,” Dad said softly from the other side of the panel. “Mercy!” He called louder when I didn’t answer right away.
“What?”
The door opened and Dad poked his head into my room. “Do you know a girl named Lisa Bauer?”
I shot straight up in bed, my heart dropping into my stomach like a ball of lead. “Yes. Why?”
“She’s on the news. Her body was found in the river. It was trapped in some debris along the shore almost eighteen miles downstream.”
I felt lightheaded and strangely numb, like I was still dreaming. I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that was the case, but the faces of Jake and Detective Grayson didn’t return and when I opened my eyes, my dad was still at the door with a worried expression on his face.
“When did they find her body?”
“Just have. I guess maybe an hour or so ago. You know how quick the news people pick up on stuff like this.” Dad pushed the door open wider and stepped inside to sit on the end of my bed. “How well did you know her?”
“Not very well. I had a class with her and saw her around campus, stuff like that.” I said as vaguely as I could, trying to hide my distress from him. “D-Do they know what happened to her?”
“They haven’t said. I’m sure they won’t release cause of death until after the coroner’s had a chance to look the body over.”
“Are they sure it’s her?”
Dad shrugged. “I guess. I doubt they’d announce it if they didn’t have some kind of positive identification.”
I nodded pensively, my mind spinning off in a thousand directions at once. I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do. I’d put off helping her too long and now it really was too late.
It was suddenly hard to breathe. That crushing realization settled on my shoulders, on my heart and lungs, like a thousand-pound weight. I had to get up and move around so I pushed my covers aside and stood up. “I guess it’s all over the news?”
Dad nodded.
“I’ll watch it with you for a while if you don’t care,” I said,
heading toward the door. Silently, Dad got up to follow me. I walked into the living room and sat down in Mom’s spot on the couch; she’d gone to bed long ago, I’m sure. She was a bank teller and, even though she could sleep a little later, for some reason she consistently got up at the crack of dawn anyway.
As Dad moved to the recliner, he stopped in front of it, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead. Ahh, I thought. Now I get it. He’s sympathizing with Lisa’s parents. He was glad it wasn’t his daughter they’d just pulled from the Potomac.
I knew my parents would be excessively protective of me now, more worried than usual about my welfare. Until things died down and Lisa was forgotten anyway. And I couldn’t ease their minds by telling them that she’d known her attacker, intimately in fact, and that neither I nor any other student at school likely had anything to be concerned about. No, I’d just have to let them worry, right along with most of the other parents of my schoolmates because the alternative would bring them much more grief in the end and I refused to put them through that.
Dad flipped from channel to channel, getting bits and pieces of coverage on all the news stations. None of them had as much information as I had, though, and it was eating away at me. Why hadn’t I been more courageous, more selfless? Why hadn’t I acted sooner? Would it have mattered?
Almost an hour later, Dad scooted to the edge of his chair. “You staying up or do you want me to cut it off?”
I uncurled my legs and stood. “Nah, I’m going to bed, too.” I turned to walk back to my bedroom and Dad’s voice carried softly to my ears.
“I love you, Mercy.”
I looked back over my shoulder and Dad was moving off through the dark house toward the master bedroom.
“Love you, too, Dad.” I saw him stop and turn back to me before continuing on to bed so I knew he heard me.
It goes without saying that I had a terrible night. What sleep I did manage to get was haunted by clips of Lisa’s murder and vicious attacks of conscience in between. I woke feeling worse than I had when I’d gone to bed.
********
It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that I got a call from Detective Grayson. I had wondered if he would try to contact me. Thankfully, I’d given him my cell phone number, so when I saw the unfamiliar number pop up on the screen, I had enough foresight to take the call in my bedroom.
Though the circumstances were anything but funny or ideal, I couldn’t help a grin of satisfaction when he introduced himself. I badly wanted to say Told you so, but I refrained. That would be in the poorest taste ever.
“I guess you’ve been expecting my call, haven’t you?”
Though his voice had the hard edge of a cop, there was still something warm and pleasant about it.
“To be honest, Detective, I didn’t quite know what to expect. I guess I’d hoped this could be prevented altogether.”
“Where were you Monday night between the hours of eleven pm and two am?”
In my mind, I did a double take. This was hardly the direction I’d expected him to take. It was an unforeseen and terribly bothersome angle I hadn’t considered. Could my plan to help Lisa have backfired? Did they suspect me?
“Um, I was here at home all night. Why?”
“Is there anyone who can corroborate that?”
My voice dropped to a loud whisper. “Yes, but will you need to speak with them?”
“Of course. That’s the only way I can verify your whereabouts.” His tone said all that was missing was a duh! at the end of that sentence.
“Ok, here’s the thing. My parents don’t know that I came to you with that…information. In fact, they don’t know about my visions at all.”
“Uh-huh,” he said suspiciously.
“It’s not like that. I’ve just never wanted to worry them. I mean, you have to admit, it sounds crazy, right?” I took the silence that answered me as agreement. “So you see, I’ve just never told them. They’d probably have me in therapy for the rest of my life.”
“And yet you expect me, a total stranger, to believe you?”
I thought for a minute about how to answer that. “Not really, but I had to come to you. I felt like I had to risk looking like an idiot if there was any chance that it could save Lisa’s life.”
The silence that I met with this time was a little different. Not that it was probably possible to tell over the phone, but I imagined that Detective Grayson was giving me kudos for acting despite the unsavory consequences. He seemed like the type that would admire things like that.
“I’m sorry, but I’ll still need to talk to them. You understand that it’s procedure right? Part of my job?”
I immediately had a little more respect for him. He didn’t necessarily want to out me to my parents, he just felt like he had no choice.
In my head, I was sifting through options for damage control. Then I found one.
“Hey, couldn’t you just tell them that you are interviewing all the…I don’t know…or maybe you’re interviewing a random sampling of students and…I don’t know. Couldn’t you make up with something that will sound plausible to my parents without alerting them to the fact that their daughter is a freak of nature?”
I heard a sigh on the other end of the phone so I swooped in to take advantage of his moment of weakness. “I mean, I did try to do the right thing. I did come to you with information, albeit crazy information. But it was all that I had. Don’t you think I deserve a little consideration for that? You owe me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and crossed my fingers, hoping that I hadn’t overplayed my hand with the you owe me bit.
After another deep sigh, Detective Grayson said five truly beautiful words. “Alright. I’ll think of something.”
Though he hung up without another word, I still felt better, like disaster had been averted.
Unfortunately, because Detective Grayson didn’t mention when he’d be coming by to talk to my parents, I was on pins and needles for the rest of the day. I was jumpy and nervous, but by the looks my parents were exchanging, I’d say they chalked it up to a normal reaction to Lisa’s death. And that was fine with me, of course. I’d milk that and use it for as long as I could. It could come in handy for excusing a multitude of odd behaviors.
I tried to read a new book I’d downloaded for my Kindle, but I finally gave up after I’d read the same paragraph four different times and still had no idea what it said. After that I decided to throw my energy into cleaning. Mom would be thrilled, the house would look great for the cops and it would get my mind off the situation with Lisa. It was a win-win situation.
Only it didn’t work out nearly as well as I’d anticipated. For one thing, our house isn’t all that big. It’s a brick ranch that has three bedrooms, two and a half baths, a kitchen and living room, a small office and a formal dining room. I whipped through cleaning it in, like, two hours and that was mostly because Mom is a seriously (though undiagnosed) OCD person who never lets the house get very messy to start with.
On top of that, it turns out cleaning is a fairly mindless task and my thoughts had more than ample time and space to wander. And guess what they wondered to. Yep. Lisa.
At one point, I considered calling Detective Grayson to see what time he planned to come by, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want him to perceive my nerves as arising from a guilty conscience.
It wasn’t until after supper that evening that he actually showed up. I was on the couch looking through a Cosmo magazine when I heard a door slam in the driveway. My heart started pounding and I could feel a cold sweat break out on my brow.
At first I was going to let Mom answer the door, but then I decided it would look more natural if I did it. So I waited for the doorbell and then got up and walked slowly to the door. With my hand on the knob, I took two deep breaths before I opened it.
Detective Grayson was standing on the stoop, looking dapper and professional in dark gray slacks and a slate blue dress shirt with a black sports coat. His tie was black wit
h gray and blue geometric shapes on it. A very cool tie as far as I was concerned and I wondered if he dressed so well all the time and, if so, who dressed him.
I looked at him meaningfully and, with a roll of his eyes, he went along with the plan and introduced himself as any stranger would. He asked if he could come in and speak with me, playing the part perfectly.
I opened the door and ushered him inside, looking behind him for a partner. Thank God he was alone. I’d worried a little about him having to bring someone else, someone that would mess up our plan. I was glad to see that wasn’t the case, so when I smiled in greeting, it was wide with relief.
I walked him into the living then hollered for Mom and Dad. Within minutes they both came from different directions—Dad from the garage and Mom from the office.