The Couple Next Door

“Yes,” Rasbach says, “we want to talk to you about Anne.”

“It’s a terrible thing. I was very sad when I saw it on TV.” She sighs deeply. “I don’t know what I can tell you about what happened back then, because I don’t know anything. I tried to find out, but nobody would tell me anything.”

Rasbach feels excitement prickle at his neck. “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” he says patiently.

She nods. “I liked Anne. She was a good English student. Not inspired, but hardworking. Serious. She was pretty quiet. It was difficult to know what was going on in her head. She liked to draw. I knew that the other girls were picking on her. I tried to put a stop to it.”

“Picking on her how?”

“The usual spoiled-rich-girl stuff. Kids with more money than brains. They told her she was fat. She wasn’t, of course. The other girls were rail thin. Unhealthy.”

“When was this?”

“Probably when she was in about tenth or eleventh grade. There were three girls—thought they were God’s gift. The three prettiest girls in school found one another and formed a private club that no one else could join.”

“Do you remember their names?

“Of course. Debbie Renzetti, Janice Foegle, and Susan Givens.” Jennings writes the names in his notebook. “I won’t forget those three.”

“And what happened?”

“I don’t know. One day the three pretty girls were hassling Anne, as usual, and the next thing you know, one was in the hospital and the other two were giving Anne a very wide berth. Susan missed school for a couple of weeks. The story was that she fell off her bike and got a concussion.”

Rasbach leans forward slightly. “But you don’t believe the story, do you? What do you think actually happened?”

“I don’t know, exactly. There were some closed-door meetings with the parents. It was all hushed up. But I’m betting Anne had had enough.”

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Back at the station, Rasbach and Jennings do some digging and learn that two of the girls mentioned by the retired English teacher, Debbie Renzetti and Susan Givens, had moved away with their families by the end of high school. Janice Foegle, as luck would have it, still lives in the city. When Rasbach calls her, his luck holds—she’s home and she’s willing to come in to the station and talk to them that afternoon.

Rasbach is called to the front desk when Janice Foegle arrives, right on time. He goes out to meet her. He knows what to expect, but still, she is a striking woman. What must it have been like, Rasbach wonders, to possess that kind of beauty in high school, when most of the other kids are struggling to come to terms with their own unsatisfactory appearance? He wonders how it has shaped her. He is reminded, fleetingly, of Cynthia Stillwell.

“Ms. Foegle,” Rasbach says. “I’m Detective Rasbach. This is Detective Jennings. Thank you for coming in. We have a few questions for you, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She gives him a resigned frown. “To be honest, I’ve been expecting someone to call me,” she says.

They take her to one of the interview rooms. She looks tense when they mention the video camera, but she doesn’t complain.

“You knew Anne Conti in high school—she was Anne Dries then—when you were at St. Mildred’s,” Rasbach begins, once the preliminaries are out of the way.

“Yes.” Her voice is quiet.

“What was she like?”

Janice pauses, as if unsure of what to say. “She was nice.”

“Nice?” Rasbach waits for more.

Suddenly her face crumples and she begins to cry. Rasbach gently pushes the tissue box within her reach and waits. “The truth is, she was a nice girl and I was a total bitch. Me and Susan and Debbie, we were awful girls. I’m ashamed of it now. I look back at what I was like and I just can’t believe it. We were so mean to her, for no reason.”

“Mean to her how?”

Janice looks away and blows her nose delicately. Then she looks up at the ceiling and tries to compose herself. “We teased her. About her looks, about her clothes. We thought we were above her—above everyone, really.” She gives him a wry look. “We were fifteen. Not that that excuses anything.”

“So what happened?”

“This went on for months, and she just took it. She was always nice back to us and pretended it didn’t bother her, but we thought she was just pathetic. Actually, I thought it was a kind of strength, being able to pretend you’re not bothered, day after day, when she obviously was, but I kept that to myself.”

Rasbach nods, encouraging her to continue.

She looks down at the tissue in her hands, sighs heavily, and looks back up at Rasbach. “One day she just lost it. The three of us—Debbie, Susan, and I—we’d stayed late after school for some reason. We were in the girls’ bathroom, and Anne walked in. She saw us and froze. Then she said hi and gave a little wave and went into one of the stalls to pee. That took a certain amount of guts, I have to admit.” She pauses, then continues. “Anyway, we started saying some things.” She stops.

“What kinds of things?” Rasbach asks.

“I’m ashamed to say. Things like ‘How is your diet coming along? Because you look like you’ve gained weight’—things like that. We were pretty awful to her. She came out of the stall and went right for Susan. None of us were expecting it. Anne grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. It was one of those cement walls, painted a glossy cream, and Susan hit it hard with her head. She just kind of slid down. There was a big smear of blood all down the wall.” Janice’s face twists, as if she is back in that school bathroom seeing her friend crumpled on the floor, the blood smeared on the wall. “I thought Anne had killed her.”

“Go on,” Rasbach encourages.

“Debbie and I were screaming, but Anne was completely silent. Debbie was closer to the door, so she ran for help. I was terrified to be left alone with Anne, but she was between me and the door and I was too scared to move. Anne looked at me, but her eyes were blank. Like she wasn’t really there. I didn’t know if she was even seeing me. It was creepy. Finally one of the teachers came, and then the headmistress. They called an ambulance.” Janice falls silent.

“Did anyone call the police?”

“Are you kidding?” She looks at him in surprise. “That’s not the way things are done in private schools. The headmistress was all damage control. I know they worked something out. Anne’s mother came in, and our parents, and it was all just . . . handled. You see, we had it coming, and everybody knew it.”

Rasbach says gently, “What happened after they called the ambulance?”

“When it arrived, they put Susan on a stretcher and took her down to the ambulance. Debbie and I and the other teacher followed Susan. Debbie and I were crying, hysterical. The headmistress took Anne to her office to wait for her mother. The ambulance took Susan away, and Debbie and I waited in the parking lot with the other teacher for our parents to come.”

“Do you remember anything else?” Rasbach asks.

She nods. “Before the headmistress took Anne away, Anne looked at me, like she was completely normal, and said, ‘What happened?’”

Rasbach says, “What did you think when she said that?”

“I thought she was crazy.”

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