Blood in the Water(34)

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.”

“Of course it’s true,” LizaAnne said. “And if he’s a bum, she’s a bum. But even if she wasn’t, we’d still be where we are, and that’s that she doesn’t have a car anymore. She comes to school on the bus. We’ve seen her.”

“Lots of people come to school on the bus,” Heather said.

“Of course they do,” LizaAnne said. “But they’re all in the C group or lower, and you know it. And I’m not the only one who feels that way about it, either. Didi’s been hanging around with Norma Antonelli for weeks now, and I heard Norma talking about it to Sally Carr in the girls’ room. I mean, I’m not asking for her to have some fancy car the way she used to, but practically everybody has something to drive. Even dweebs have something to drive. It’s impossible.”

“If her father is out of a job, maybe he doesn’t have enough money to get her something to drive,” Heather said. “Maybe she’d have to get a job to have something to drive.”

“Well,” LizaAnne said, “if she got a job, that would be very good. And if she got the right kind of job, she could even get back into the B group. But I think she belongs in the C group and I’m going to talk to Norma and Sally about it. If things keep going the way they’re going, she’s going to drop all the way down to D, and then nobody will talk to her. Don’t be retarded. Tell me what I’m supposed to do about Lisa Breen. She’s started dating Peter Halliday, and usually that would mean a step up, but you know Lisa. I can’t stand brainy girls, can you? I mean, who do they think they are?”

Heather went over to the window and looked out. LizaAnne stared at her back for a moment and then turned away. Heather was always a problem. She was only in the A group because she was LizaAnne’s ugly friend, and she knew it, and LizaAnne knew it, and everybody else knew it. LizaAnne had considered the possibility that it might one day be necessary to ditch her for a substitute, but she didn’t like the idea. Substitutes were actually very hard to find. You wouldn’t think so, but they were. A lot of ugly girls seemed to think it was better to be outcasts in the F group than to be some pretty girl’s ugly friend.

LizaAnne picked up Lisa Breen’s picture and frowned. Lisa wasn’t bad looking, and she had wonderful clothes, but there was the brains thing. Lisa was in all the honors classes, and in AP everything, and people said she was applying to Harvard. Nobody with any sense applied to someplace like Harvard.

Heather came back from the window and sat on the bed. “It’s true,” she said. “I just saw him.”

“Saw who?”

“I just saw Mr. Heydreich. He’s back. He just came out onto his deck. He was wearing a suit. You know, a regular suit. Not an orange suit for jail.”

LizaAnne put down the picture of Lisa Breen. “Well,” she said. “I guess that’s interesting. Although I don’t like it, and my dad doesn’t, either. It’s not nice to live in a place with a murderer.”

“But maybe he isn’t a murderer,” Heather said. “They let him go.”

“They arrested him in the first place, didn’t they? They must have had a reason. The police don’t just go running around arresting people for no reason. He must have done something.”

“Do you think so?”

“Of course I think so,” LizaAnne said. “Everybody thinks so. Besides, somebody has to have killed Michael. Everybody goes on and on about Martha Heydreich, but it was Michael’s body they found in the pool all bloody. Who do you think did that?”

“I don’t know,” Heather said.

“I do,” LizaAnne said. “There were two murders, not one. People don’t just go around murdering people like that. Especially not people in a place like Waldorf Pines. There can’t be two murderers running around. Whoever killed the one had to kill the other.”

“Maybe.”

“Absolutely. And you know what?” LizaAnne said. “I’ll bet that if I had to, I could prove it. Forget about it, won’t you? He probably has some fancy lawyer that found a technicality to get him out of jail. It happens all the time. That’s what my dad says. Just wait. He’ll be back in jail in no time. What do you think I should do about Lisa Breen?”

“What?” Heather said.

LizaAnne rolled her eyes. Heather was so retarded. Really. LizaAnne took the picture of Lisa Breen and dropped it into the C group.

“I don’t care who she’s going out with,” LizaAnne said, “she’s just retarded.”