All the Little Liars (10 page)

Surely the police knew all about the bullying situation by now. Aubrey and Emily must have told the police about it. What would Tiffany Andrews say if I asked her why her daughter was persecuting Liza Scott? Any parent would get defensive, even a very fair-minded parent; and I couldn't say that Tiffany Andrews was a very pleasant person even when you weren't saying hard, but true, things about her daughter. I knew Marlea Harrison's parents, but only in a superficial way. I'd always thought of Kesha Windham as a pleasant child, and Sandra and Webster were good people. Maybe I could talk to them, see if they had any insight.

I had to start somewhere. I wanted Phillip back, I wanted to know Liza was safe—and if I was scared for my brother, I couldn't even imagine how the Finstermeyers felt, missing two precious children.

While we waited for the police, I called Beth. “No news, but I wondered if you'd talked to Jessamyn yet?”

Beth said, “That's coming up next. You want to sit in?”

I realized the generosity of the offer. “Yes, I do,” I said. “I have a couple of ideas that may steer us in the right direction.”

“Then come on over,” Beth said. “We're getting out the thumbscrews and the bamboo slivers.” God bless her, she was tough.

I had to explain to my family where I was going and why. Robin wanted to go, but I asked him to stay at the house to answer the phone and give the sketchpad and backpack to the police. He nodded, reluctantly. Mom and John said good-bye and went home, but not until I'd asked my mother to put her real-estate brain to thinking of properties any of the families involved might own. I know, that was looking for the old hunting cabin again, the one everyone in mysteries seemed to have tucked away. But the kids had to be somewhere.

If they'd been in a car accident, the car would have been found by the road now, with all the people out searching.

I left Robin sitting on the couch with a book, the phone beside him and Moosie on his lap.

If it hadn't been so cold and miserable, I could have walked to the Finstermeyers' house, which was only a couple of blocks away. It was very much like my house: thirty or forty years old, renovated, sitting on a quarter-acre lot with large trees. There were lots of cars in the driveway, because the Finstermeyers belonged to a large family through Beth, who'd been a Coggins. George was an import—Beth (or Bethany; her family always called her by her christened name) was a local girl. She'd met George while they were in college, and though at first George's job had taken him to the North, after a few years the family had gotten transferred back to Atlanta.

I finally found a parking space on the street, and walked back. It was misting, and the wind picked up. I thought of how careful I would have to be if we had ice this year. What if I fell and hurt the baby? Even this reminder of my pregnancy made me happy for a moment, until I had to knock on the Finstermeyers' door to deal with more sadness.

 

Chapter Seven

It was warm inside. I felt almost claustrophobic in a couple of minutes. The Finstermeyer house was crowded, and all of the people were talking at once. There was a golden retriever padding through the maze of well-wishers, and a miniature poodle who liked to bark. It was kind of overwhelming. And it bore an unpleasant resemblance to a wake.

“Let me tell Bethany you're here,” said a tiny gray-haired lady. “You probably don't remember me, Aurora, but I'm Bethany's mother Martha.”

“It's good to see you,” I said automatically. “How are you holding up, Miss Martha?”

“I'm hanging in there, Aurora. This is the worst thing that's happened in this family since my great-uncle Farris went on a bender and drove a John Deere tractor into the lake.”

I was startled into laughing. “Excuse me,” I said immediately. “I know it must not have been funny then.”

“No, John Deeres are expensive,” Martha said, with a hint of a smile. But then the upcurve vanished. “And our twins are not replaceable like the tractor was. Beth's down the hall, second doorway to the right.”

I knocked lightly before stepping inside. I knew instantly I was in Jessamyn and Joss's room. It was large, but full of furniture and girls' clutter and three tense people: George Finstermeyer, Beth, and Jessamyn. Jessamyn was thirteen, and she was both defensive and sad in the way only teenagers can seem to manage.

“Roe, glad you're here,” Beth said. “You can shut the door behind you.”

I did, and sat in the rolling office chair that was the only available seating. Beth was sitting with Jessamyn on one bed, and George was sitting on the other; I was sure it was Joss's. “George,” I said, “I'm Aurora Teagarden, Phillip's sister. We've only met once before, I think.”

He nodded. George, a short and stocky man in his forties, was blond and had a reddish complexion. He obviously needed sleep. His fists were clenched. “You're married to the writer fella?” he said.

It was my turn to nod.

“Phillip told Josh you're gonna have a baby,” Jessamyn said.

“I am,” I admitted. “I was counting on Phillip babysitting for us, but until we find him, I'm just going to worry about him. Can you give us anything to go on, Jessamyn?”

She sighed, as if the world was on her shoulders. And maybe she felt like that at the moment. She said, “I already told Mom and Dad. You know Liza Scott, the minister's daughter?”

“I go to that church,” I said.

“Well, you know those little—excuse me, b-asses, are just being mean to her. There's nothing wrong with Liza except she's a little too holy.”

“You're not the first person to tell me about her situation at school. So?”

“So,” Jessamyn said, just this side of sarcastic, “Liza had this huge crush on Phillip. Like a little lapdog. Anyway, Phillip felt bad for her after Joss told him what was happening to her at school, and he was nice to her, when he should have just shoved her away. So the afternoon … the afternoon they went missing…” For the first time, Jessamyn lost her composure. Her eyes filled with tears. “Well, that day, Joss called me from the soccer field. She was really happy because it was the last lesson of the year and she'd get nearly three weeks off from school and teaching soccer lessons.”

“And Josh and Phillip came to pick her up.”

“Yeah, 'cause they're like best buds ever since Phillip moved here.” Jessamyn went on to relate the story of Liza's unwillingness to stay at the soccer field until her mother came, since her tormentors were present. Joss had called Jessamyn (evidently before she'd called Tammy) to remind her that Joss was going to have her hair trimmed before she came home. Joss had wanted to make sure Jessamyn had a way home from her piano lesson. “So I told her I'd gotten a ride with Lynn McManus, and that I'd remind Mom about Joss's haircut,” Jessamyn said by way of roundup. “Joss said she and Tammy would get here later than they'd thought, because she was a little behind to her hair appointment.”

This was not as familiar to the Finstermeyers as it was to me, and they asked several questions. Jessamyn couldn't answer most of them.

“I wonder why the boys didn't drop Liza off on their way to Shear Delight,” I said. I looked at Jessamyn inquiringly.

“I don't know,” Jessamyn said. “Maybe there was no one at the Scotts'. Liza wouldn't want to be there alone.” The scorn was apparent in her voice.

“A lot of eleven-year-olds wouldn't want to go into an empty house,” Beth said sharply.

Jessamyn had the manners to look a little abashed. “Anyway, Joss said good-bye then. She just wanted to be sure I had a ride, since Josh was taking Liza home. This was a real short phone call, because she had to call Tammy.”

“Why did she have to call Tammy?” Beth said.

“They were supposed to meet at Shear Delight. Tammy's sister was dropping her off there. Tammy was going to come over here to spend the night.”

“I didn't know that,” Beth said. “But then, Tammy is over here a lot, if Joss isn't at her house!” She smiled fondly, but then remembered why we were having this conversation, and her face crumpled. “And now poor Tammy is dead! And she was Joss's best friend!”

“Mom.” Jessamyn looked away, clearly exasperated.

Oh, not now!
I thought.
Don't dump this on Beth now!

George said, “Beth, the girls are—were—a couple.”

Beth's mouth dropped open. “No,” she said, more as if she was testing the word than as if she actually believed it.

“I'm sorry, Mom. She was going to tell you. She was so scared you'd be mad,” Jessamyn said.

Beth looked from one face to another, stunned into silence. “How could she ever imagine I wouldn't still love her? Oh, my child.” She closed her eyes and took a long breath, trying to get a grip on herself. Finally, she said, “Roe? You knew, too?”

I was profoundly embarrassed. I just nodded. I started to tell Beth I'd only found out hours ago, but that really didn't make a difference. Beth had had the rug pulled out from under her, and she had to have a little time to get back on her feet.

“Well,” said Beth in an unsteady voice. “Well. Okay. I'll have to deal with that later. But I love my daughter, no matter what.”

Jessamyn was subdued, now. And maybe to point out the fact that she was a daughter, too, she said, “So if it hadn't been for Lynn and her mom, Josh would have come to get me, too, and I'd have been in the car.”

“Thank God for Lynn's mom,” said George. “Thank God.”

Jessamyn looked at him as if she were seeing her father for the first time. Then she shyly took his hand, and he clenched it so hard that her fingers must have ached, but she didn't say a thing.

I said, “Jessamyn, do you know
anything
about what might have happened to your brother and sister? Do you know of any other problems they might have been having with other kids, or with a grown-up?”

“Nothing big. Josh wanted to ask Heather Sissley for a date, but he hadn't worked himself up to it,” Jessamyn said. “He and Phillip were talking about throwing a party during the Christmas break. But that's it, that's all I know.” I was leaning forward, prepared to getting up, when Jessamyn said, “You saw the post on Facebook, right? The one from yesterday?”

“Show us,” George said.

I was liking George Finstermeyer more and more.

Jessamyn grabbed her laptop and clicked on a few buttons, brought up a posting by Marlea Harrison. Her icon was a cartoon of a caped woman with a mask. The post read, “Does anyone on the planet miss LS? I don't think so! Now, Josh and Phillip r hot. Their a loss, for real!”

Beth's face froze. She pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. She called up a listing in her address book and punched it. We heard the buzz of a voice on the other end. “Karina? It's Beth. No, no news yet. But I think you need to go on Facebook and read your daughter's latest post. It was brought to my attention.” Beth's voice was as frosty as her face. “No, I don't want to read it to you. I'm very upset. I'm sure you can get Marlea to take it down. Talk to you later.” And she pressed End.

The cruelty of children is more shocking than the cruelty of adults. Not only was I shocked, I was angry. But it felt somehow wrong, unhealthy, to be so furious with a child. I closed my eyes, knowing that if Marlea had been in front of me at that moment, I would have been tempted to slap her across the face. I still felt like tracking her down and giving her a “Come to Jesus” moment.

Jessamyn seemed a bit pleased at having dropped such a bombshell. I tried to feel more sympathy for a girl who was caught in between her sibs' age group and Liza's age group. Instead, I wanted to turn her upside down and shake her in the hope that something useful would come out of her head.

“Thanks, Jessamyn,” I said, working hard to sound grateful. “We needed to hear everything you knew.”

“I miss them,” she said, and I felt like a heel. At that age kids seemed to revolve from one side of the emotional coin to another with the quick flip of the cosmic wrist. “I wish Liza had never been born. Then none of this would have happened.”

“Jessamyn,” her mother said, and in that one word was a weight of censure that made the girl cringe.

“It also would not have happened if Marlea, Kesha, and Sienna had not been born,” I said. “Don't blame the victim for the crime.” In this case, Liza was literally the victim.

There had always been a certain amount of sound coming from the rest of the house, with so many people talking, moving. Now there was silence. We all turned our heads to the closed door.

Aubrey and Emily came in. I had never seen such a drastic change in two people in such a short time. They looked as though they'd lost ten pounds in two days, and they looked shattered. Though Emily and I had never been soul mates, I never felt sorrier for anyone in my life. Since Aubrey and I had dated for some time, he'd confided in me that he couldn't father a child. When he'd married Emily, who was a widow, he'd adored Liza and adopted her. So Liza was the only child, for both of them.

“We came to ask Jessamyn…” Emily said, and then she seemed to realize who was in the room already. “Oh, then we aren't the first ones to think of this.” She even managed a faint smile.

For the first time, Jessamyn looked stricken by the pressure of being the sister of the missing twins. She might be able to keep up a facade in front of her own parents and me, but in the presence of such overwhelming anguish she could not. I liked her better.

“I told my mom and dad, and Miss Aurora, that I really didn't know much of anything else,” Jessamyn said. “I'm sorry. Liza asked them to drop her off, and they were going to do it.”

“I was late,” Emily said, and she began to cry. Silently. “I was late because the women's Bible study ran late, and I had to pick up the Christian education room, no one else seems to think about that, and then I looked at my watch and it was just past time to pick up Emily from her soccer lesson, and by the time I got there she had gone. I figured someone else had given her a ride, and that she'd borrow a phone and call me. We were going to give her her own phone for Christmas. She's too young to have one, I think, but with her situation at school and the rough year she's had, we…”