Curse of the PTA (24 page)

“Do something?” He turned to look at me, surprise written in the lines of his face.
“You don’t even know me.”

“Can’t I care about the pain of a stranger?”

My question caught at him. “Of course you can.” He frowned. “It’s just . . .”

“Strange?” I offered. “Odd? Intrusive?”

He smiled a second time. “All of the above. But also kind. Thank you, Beth. It is
very nice of you to be concerned.”

“You’re welcome.”

We sat, comfortable in a tentative sort of way, watching the sun shine. After a while
I said, “If you’d like to talk about anything, I’m willing to listen. Don’t feel obligated,”
I added hurriedly, “but I am willing.”

The sun moved a little bit farther in its track across the sky; then Bruce started
to talk.

“My business is bankrupt,” he said. “There’s no way out. I was just turned down for
a loan by the last bank who would talk to me. I’m going to have to close the business
and lay off my employees. Fifty of them—” His voice cracked.

I ached to reach out, to touch him, to help him, but I knew I couldn’t.

He turned his sob into a cough. “Excuse me. Fifty people who have depended on my business
to pay their mortgages and put food on their tables and make their car payments, and
now I have to shut the doors.”

I wondered what business it was. But I supposed it didn’t really matter. “I’m so sorry,”
I whispered.

He went on as if he hadn’t heard, and maybe he hadn’t. “If only I’d listened, if only
I’d done what he said. My wife said he was a financial genius. She said he’d be able
to keep the business afloat, but I couldn’t do what he said. Lay off thirty percent
of the work force? How could I do that? And now they all have to go.” Bruce sighed.
“They’re all losing their jobs and he’s dead.”

For a short moment, the world stopped. There was no movement, no life, no air, no
sound. Nothing existed except that last, cold word. “ . . . Dead?”

Bruce nodded. “Remember the man who was killed out at the elementary school two or
three weeks ago? Dennis Halpern, Halpern and Company? He saw immediately how to keep
the business alive. Told me what I had to do. And I didn’t do it.”

I stared at him. Realized what I was doing and turned away before he sensed how my
gaze was searing the side of his head.

Was this the
why
I’d been trying so hard to find? Would anyone kill over good advice not taken?

Then again, it wasn’t a question of whether I thought a motive was realistic or not;
it was the matter of finding out if the motive had created action. So, more specifically,
had Bruce killed Dennis?

“Do you blame Dennis?” I asked. “For the bankruptcy?”

Bruce shook his head emphatically. “Not in the least. It’s my fault, from beginning
to end. Mine and mine alone.”

That seemed a little harsh. Surely there were other people involved.

I said as much and he half smiled. “Kind of you to say so, but I’m the owner. The
captain of the ship, so to speak. And the end of the day, I’m the one who’s responsible.
I’m the one who’s supposed to make sure everyone gets off the ship safely.” He stopped,
then added, “But they’re not. They’re all going down with me.”

The despondency was back.

“I have no idea what I’m going to do.” His shoulders, which had straightened a bit
when he’d smiled, bowed forward. “My wife . . .” He dropped his head in his hands.

I wanted to say that his wife would be supportive and understanding, that together
they’d battle through this rough spot and come out on the other side, but since I
had no idea who his wife was, I couldn’t say that. “Your wife?”

He rubbed the sides of his face. “She has no idea that I didn’t take Halpern’s advice.”

“She . . . doesn’t?”

“No.” He gave a deep sigh, gusting out grief and despair. “She thinks I did exactly
what he advised, so she blames Halpern for the bankruptcy. But how can I say I didn’t
follow his advice? She was so sure he’d fix everything.”

I was getting a very bad feeling about this.

“And look,” Bruce said, his voice low. “There she is. We were going to meet for coffee
after my meeting at the bank. What do I tell her? What am I going to do?”

Walking briskly toward us, bracelets jingling, was Melody Kreutzer.

Chapter 18

I
stammered a greeting to Melody, made a short remark about the weather, and beat a
hasty retreat to the bookstore.

Safe inside, I stood for a moment, breathing in the scent of new books. A comforting
smell, hinting of things to learn and stories to hear. “And happy endings,” I murmured.
“Lots and lots of happy endings.”

“I don’t see any new shoes,” Lois said severely. “I thought I told you not to come
back until you’d found a fun pair of shoes.”

At least that’s what I think she said. Her voice came to me from a long distance,
as if miles separated us instead of a few feet. She was just across the room, but
it felt as if she weren’t even there.

Melody Kreutzer. Had she . . . ?

“Hey, are you okay?” Lois dropped the scolding-mother tone and come close. “You look
a little . . . weird.”

I shook my head.
Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not. No, there’s nothing you can do for me. No, I’m not going
to burden you with this. Yes, I’m going to keep this trouble to myself. Yes, I need
to think this through on my own.

“Was that a yes or a no?” Lois asked.

I worked up a smile. “I’ll be fine.” Eventually. “I need to do some things in the
office. Paoze will be here soon, but knock if you need me.” I pushed past her look
of concern and completed my retreat by closing the office door.

The small room suddenly seemed even smaller. Cozy, I reminded myself. And quiet. Just
what you need.

I sat in my chair and slouched down, letting my head be supported by the chair’s high
back. Closed my eyes. Tried to clear my mind. Tried again. Gave up and started thinking
about what I’d learned from Bruce Kreutzer. Tried to come to a different conclusion.

Didn’t.

Once, twice, and three times, I started over in my head, and each time I ended up
in the same place. Melody had killed Dennis.

Did I have any proof? Of course not. All I had was supposition and conjecture.

I opened my eyes and unslouched myself. There was only one thing to do, really. I
picked up the phone.

“Good morning, Rynwood Police Department.”

It was still morning? “Hi, this is Beth Kennedy. I’d like to speak to Chief Eiseley.
Is he still in that meeting?”

“No, ma’am, the meeting is over. But he’s out on a call. Can I help you?”

The dear child. “Thanks, but I really need to speak to Gus.”

We agreed that leaving a voice mail message would be the best thing. At the appropriate
beep, I told Gus I had some information that might be pertinent to Dennis’s death
and to please call me when he had a chance. I paused, then said, “It’s not urgent,
but it might be important. Thanks, Gus.”

I hung up, thought some more, then called Detective Barlow at the sheriff’s office.
Once again, I was sent to voice mail.

“Stupid voice mail,” I muttered. It was far too easy to ignore a voice mail. Much
harder to ignore a pink message slip taped to your computer. Even harder to ignore
a person standing in your office, but that didn’t seem to be an option right now.

Now what?

“Tomorrow morning,” I said. “Ten o’clock.” If I hadn’t heard back from one of them
by ten tomorrow, I’d go find a law enforcement office in which to stand. But after
all, as I’d said to voice mail number one, this wasn’t urgent information. What difference
could one day make?

•   •   •

That night, after the homework and dinner dishes were done, after Spot had been walked,
fifteen minutes into a game of Apples to Apples and five minutes after I’d thought
it was time to start the kids toward bed, the phone rang.

Jenna jumped off her chair while I was still looking at the phone and remembering
too many things.

“Kennedy residence, this is Jenna.” Pause. “Sure, she’s here. One moment, please.”
She held out the phone. “For you,” she said unnecessarily.

If it had been Marina on the other end, Jenna would have told me. If it had been anyone
she knew, she would have said. Therefore, this wasn’t someone Jenna knew. Which told
me something, but not enough. Time to add “Who’s calling, please?” to the phone etiquette
list.

“Hello?” I asked. “This is Beth.”

“Lou Spezza. Sorry to bother you at home.”

His apology took away the sting of fear. Not that I was scared of the phone, of course.
“No problem. What can I do for you?”

“Well, it’s like this. I was out with the dogs—stayed far away from Miss Flossie,
just so you know—and I saw some lights were on in your store. In the back, you know?
Those aren’t normally on. The dogs and I talked it over, and we figured it’d be good
to say something.”

I smiled. He and the dogs had discussed this. “Thanks for calling, Lou. Someone must
have left them on.”

“Yeah, that’s the weird thing,” he said. “Because they weren’t on when the dogs and
I started out. When we got back, they were on. Maybe somebody stopped by for something,
is what I figured.”

“Thanks, Lou. That must have been what happened.” When I hung up the phone, I stood
there, thinking.

“Come on, Mom.” Oliver tapped his cards on the table. “Let’s play.”

Twenty minutes. That’s all it would take to drive downtown, unlock the store, turn
off the lights, lock it back up, and drive back home again. Twenty minutes.

“What’s the matter?” Jenna frowned. “You look funny.”

What I looked like was a mother about to change the course of her children’s lives.
This moment had been inevitable from the time they’d been born, but inevitability
wasn’t making the reality any easier.

“I need to run to the store,” I said. “We left some lights on and I don’t want to
leave those hot halogen lights on all night.”

“Because of fire?” Oliver asked.

“Because they’re expensive to have on,” Jenna said.

I smiled. “You’re both right. And since you’re both so smart, I’m going to leave you
alone here in the house while I’m gone.”

“You are?” Oliver’s eyes went big. “Ow, Jenna, that hurt!”

“No kicking,” I said. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe they weren’t ready. But Jenna
was twelve and I’d only be gone twenty minutes. I’d been babysitting toddlers at thirteen,
after all, and Richard was always telling me I wasn’t giving the kids enough responsibility.

“I’ll be gone less than half an hour.” I ducked into the study and grabbed my purse
off the desk chair. “Jenna, here’s my cell phone.”

She held it in her hand, looked pointedly at the cordless phone that was perhaps eight
feet from her head, then looked back at me. “And I need this why?”

“Because I’ll feel better if you have it. Now, it’s time to start getting ready for
bed. When I get back, I want to see both of you in your pajamas with your teeth brushed.”
I looked from one young smooth face to the other, excitement on both, and resorted
to bribery. “Brownies with ice cream and hot fudge for dessert tomorrow if you’re
both in bed when I get home.”

Oliver leapt out of his chair and ran upstairs on all fours. Jenna rolled her eyes.

I kept my smile inside and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll call Mrs. Neff right
now and tell her what’s going on. You know what to do, right?”

“Yes, Mom.” Another eye roll. “Pajamas, teeth, bed.”

That hadn’t been what I meant, and I suspected that she knew it. “Keep my cell phone
with you. If you have any questions about anything, call Mrs. Neff. If you get scared
at all, about anything, call 911.”

“Shouldn’t you be leaving?”

My daughter was twelve going on thirty. I called Marina, asked her to keep an ear
open for the phone for the next half hour, and left.

Chapter 19

I
t was odd, coming to the store in the evening. The traffic was different, the lights
in the houses and buildings were different. Even the air didn’t feel the same at night.

And it was night. Full dark, actually, back here in the alley. All summer long, I’d
come to work in daytime and left in daytime and so hadn’t paid any attention to the
single streetlight that was burned out. I’d noticed it on the Wednesdays I worked
late, but I never remembered to call anyone at the city about it the next morning.

Maybe this time I’d think to write it down. All I had to do was keep the thought in
my head until I got in the store and found a piece of paper. “Streetlight,” I muttered
as I got out of the car. “Streetlight,” I told myself as I walked up the steps. “Streetlight,”
I said as I unlocked the door and reached for the switch.

But when I turned it off, nothing happened. Because surprise, surprise, I hadn’t been
smart enough to get the broken switch replaced.

As I walked across the room, I thought about who might have left the lights turned
on. Since everyone occasionally either opened or closed the store, we all had keys,
but who would it have been tonight? This late?

I considered the three possibilities. Yvonne hadn’t even been in today. Lois or Paoze,
then. Maybe Lois had forgotten her purse, but since she always kept her keys stowed
inside her purse, she couldn’t have driven away without it.

Paoze, then. All afternoon he’d been preoccupied with finishing the first draft of
his novel. With that kind of pressure—self-instigated though it was—he could easily
have forgotten something. But what would have been worth his bicycling back the ten
miles from his Madison apartment? And I couldn’t see him leaving lights on, anyway.
He was far too conscientious for that. They all were.

Well, it had to be one of them. I’d figure it out in the morning.

I flicked the switch, turning the lights off and the darkness on. I stood for a moment.
If I waited long enough, my eyes would adjust to what little light there was. Slowly
but surely, the outlines of shelves and books and spinning racks came into view, courtesy
of the light spilling in the front windows. I concentrated on making my way to the
back door without knocking anything over, and except for an elbow bumping a rack of
coloring books, I made it intact.

I was out the door and turning around to lock the dead bolt, when I remembered. Streetlight.
Yet again, I hadn’t written it down. I flung my head back, opening my mouth to ask
the sky, “Why
why
am I so stupid?” when three things happened simultaneously.

A loud
BANG!
echoed through the alley.

There was a loud
thwack!
noise on the wooden door.

Something dropped onto my shoulder.

I brushed at it, my ears ringing. Wood. It was a small chunk of wood. What was it
doing on my shoulder?

Then the three things connected in my head.

Someone had fired a gun at me.

A gun. At . . . me? Not possible.

My brain refused to process the information. Tried to reject the conclusion.

Surely not a gun. It must have been something else. Two or three something elses,
perhaps. A car backfiring, assuming cars still did that. A piece of the old wooden
door reacting to the waves of sound pressure created by the backfire and so falling
off the building. Sure, that could have been it.

I was satisfied with the rationalizations, both of which I worked through in a tiny
fraction of a second. But then I remember thing three. The
thwack
noise? What could that have been?

It was too dark to see much of anything. I reached out and felt the door with the
palms of my hands. If it really had been a gun—which was ridiculous; why would anyone
in Rynwood be shooting a gun in this alley—and it had been a bullet that hit the door,
well, the bullet would be in the door somewhere, wouldn’t it?

My purse slipped off my shoulder and hung in the crook of my elbow as I searched.
Door, door, nothing but plain old door in need of painting. No bullet
. What a silly conclusion to have reached. Beth, you are clearly in need of—

Then I found it. Just above head height, high and to the right. A splintered hole.
A new splintered hole that hadn’t been there before tonight. Before ten seconds ago.
Before someone had fired a gun at me.

The extreme danger of my position sank into my skin. I had to get out of there, and
fast. Someone had tried to shoot me and had nearly hit me. What would keep him from
firing again?

I whirled on the small stoop, thinking fast, trying to come up with a safe place to
run, trying to come up with a plan, and failing at both things, because the gun fired
a second time. This time the bullet zinged past my ear.

Clapping a hand to my head, I made myself flat against the brick wall, doing my best
to hide in plain sight. After a few panting breaths, I started peering into the darkness.
Someone was out there. But where? I squinted and looked, and just when I was sure
there was nothing to see, I saw.

There, where the building ended and the alley began. Even in the dim light, her bright
blond hair was visible as it curled around the building’s corner.

Melody Kreutzer was trying to kill me.

As soon as I realized what my current and fairly unpleasant situation was, a thousand
thoughts flooded into my head, most of them stupid.

I hardly even knew Melody. I told the kids I’d be back in half an hour. How will killing
me change anything? There’s nowhere for me to hide. The recycling Dumpster is too
far away. How long does it take to recover from being shot? I don’t have time to get
hurt, there’s too much to do. This can’t be happening. Not in Rynwood. We’re nice
people.

All that and more rushed in and out of me in half a breath. Then all thought was wiped
away. The blond hair moved forward. And even though the poor light should have kept
me from seeing almost anything, I saw the barrel of the gun come around the building.

Pointed straight at me.

There was no time to run, no time to shout, no time to do anything except stare at
the gun. Was this how Dennis had felt? Had he felt this frozen fear? Had he seen his
death coming to him from that tiny dark circle?

No. I had to do something. I wasn’t going to stand here and wait to die. Better to
try and fail then not to try at all.

I held still, concentrating on gathering all my muscles together, willing myself to
go. Ready, set . . .

“Hey!” a female voice shouted. “You with the gun!”

The dark circle wavered and dropped an inch.

No thought, only action.

I exploded, pushing myself off the wall with all my strength and all my might. I bounded
across the back stoop, ran with giant strides across the stretch of open pavement
in front of my car, and threw myself into a tumbling heap behind the Dumpster as the
gun fired a third time, its reverberating report echoing in my ears.

“Gotcha,” said the voice, whispering now. Her hand gripped my upper arm. “You all
right?”

No, I wasn’t all right. How could I be?

Over here on the back side of the Dumpster, the lighting was a little better, thanks
to the fixture that Lou had installed at the entrance to his upstairs apartment. I
panted, trying to recover, and looked at my savior. Fiftyish, thick, black curly hair,
and a body that didn’t look as if it had ever seen the inside of a gym.

“Um, I think so. Thanks.” I kept my voice to a whisper. “I’m sure the police will
be here soon. Someone will call in about those gunshots. If we stay here, we should
be okay.” I hoped.

“So who’s your friend?” My rescuer tipped her head in Melody’s direction.

I stared at her. Laughter burbled up inside me. Hysteria, no doubt. I slapped my hands
over my mouth and tried my best to keep it inside.

“Sorry,” she said. “Lou always says I have a bad habit of saying the exact wrong thing
at the right time. Whatever that means.”

We were crouching face-to-face behind the Dumpster, whispering our conversation in
low tones. “Lou?” I asked.

“Lou Spezza. My husband.” She held out her hand. “Mary Margaret Spezza. And you’re
Beth Kennedy.”

The battened-down laughter threatened again, but I twisted the screws on it and shook
Mary Margaret’s hand. Her grip was strong and reassuring. A lot like Lou’s, come to
think of it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Back at you.”

“Um, I didn’t know Lou had a wife. Of course,” I added hastily, “I don’t know him
very well. He keeps himself to himself, pretty much.”

“I’m going to kill him,” she said. “Just as soon as we get out of this, I’m going
to kill him.”

That sounded a little extreme. “He seems like a very nice man.”

“Yeah, but he’s an idiot. And I mean that in a very deep and profound way. We’ve been
married for thirty-five years. He’s the freaking love of my life, you know?”

“But you’re going to kill him.”

“First chance I get.”

There was something very puzzling about all this. Maybe if there hadn’t been a woman
with homicidal intent roughly twenty feet away, I would have figured it out on my
own. As it was, I was having a hard time. Visual aids would have been helpful.

“See,” Mary Margaret said, “he ran out on me. Did he think I wouldn’t understand?
Did he think I was so wrapped up in my own life that I wouldn’t see?”

Maybe he’d cheated on her. That made a little bit of sense. I’d wondered the same
thing about Dennis, thinking that could have been the reason he was killed. I’d been
completely wrong, of course, as I’d been wrong about Elsa and Kyle and that entire
line of thinking. I’d been wrong about so much. If I hadn’t been so wrong, if I’d
seen through to the truth sooner, I wouldn’t be crouched behind this Dumpster, shivering
with fright and listening to a stranger talk while I tried to figure out how to save
our lives.

“I mean, sure, I was making more money than he was, but so what?” Mary Margaret asked.
“It’s just money, for crying out loud.”

Was, she’d said. Past tense. A clue, Watson, a clue!

“And then he loses his job.” Her chin dropped to her chest. “He doesn’t even tell
me, can you believe it? He doesn’t tell me. Weeks go by, and he goes off every day,
just like he was still working. I had no idea. He took over paying the bills when
the kids grew up, so I just . . . didn’t see.”

For the first time, I looked at her closely. Sheer terror had precluded such an examination
until this point. This wasn’t what I’d call a perfect time to get to know someone,
but now that an entire minute had gone by without a shot being fired, I was taking
in more than my second-to-second future.

A tear was dripping off her nose and onto the gravelly pavement.

“You love him very much,” I said.

“The stupid lump,” she whispered fiercely. “The stupid, stupid lump.”

I wanted to pat her hand, give her a hug even, but if I did, I was sure I’d fall over.
Instead, I said, “And I’m sure he loves you very much.”

“Then why is he being so stupid?” she asked.

In my experience, love and stupidity were a common combination, but I kept quiet.

“How could he think of running away from me?”

And this was what Lou had been hiding. He hadn’t wanted anyone to contact his wife.

“Didn’t he know how much that would hurt me? Didn’t he care?”

Her anguish tugged at me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t concentrate on easing her pain
since I was trying to listen for approaching footsteps.

“I’m sure he cares,” I murmured.

“Then why did he take off without me?” she whispered fiercely. “And why didn’t he
tell me where he was going? I’ve been looking for him for months! No one knew where
he was, not even the guys down at the bowling alley.”

Pride, that’s why, but I kept still and just listened.

“All he left me was this stupid note. ‘I’ll be back,’ it said.” She snorted. “Like
some stupid movie. He signed it ‘Love, Lou,’ and drew some X’s and O’s, but heavens
to Betsy, did he really think that was going to stop me from finding him?”

Now that I’d known Mary Margaret for almost three minutes, I’d have thought it would
take handcuffs and iron chains to keep her from looking.

“Finally I started using my noggin.” She whacked the side of her head with her knuckles.
“Lou had talked for years about a Made in the Midwest store. A little bit of search
engine, and there it was on the front page of the Rynwood
Gazette
.” Her head drooped. “The article was written by a Jean McKenna. I got the idea she
likes Lou quite a lot. Do you think . . . ?”

I tried to imagine the possibility of caustic, driven Jean and laid-back Lou in the
same room for more than ten consecutive minutes without the world imploding. “No,”
I said. “Not a chance.”

Mary Margaret gave a sigh so small that I barely heard it. “I didn’t want to think
so, but if he’s moved on, well, I don’t want to stand in his way.” She punched me
in the shoulder. “Heck, I even thought he might have a thing for you.”

I blinked. “Me?”

“Sure. You’re pretty, young, smart. Why wouldn’t he go for you?”

There wasn’t enough time to even think about answering her. “What made you realize
he wasn’t? Isn’t?”

She looked over her shoulder, over mine, then dropped her voice even lower. “Been
watching you. Sorry about that, but I had to know.”

“Watching me?” I asked loudly.

“Shhh!” Mary Margaret beat at the air. “Do you want her to hear?”

It wasn’t as if Melody didn’t know where we were, but Mary Margaret went on before
I could point out that fact.

“Yeah, I kind of been watching you. Following you, a little, after this one time I
saw you and Lou back here, talking like you were good friends. Couple of times I even
called you, but I didn’t have the guts to see it through.”

So there it was. Stalker number two who wasn’t a stalker at all. Number one was Staci,
working up the courage to apologize. Number two was a confused wife who wanted her
husband back. And yet . . .