Death of a PTA Goddess (20 page)

The warm air inside the exhibition hall bore the pleasing scent of wood chips and potpourri. The woman guarding the front door was not Jane. I showed her the card identifying me as a judge and asked, “Is Jane Daly here?”

“No, she’s not.”

“Is she supposed to come here tonight for any reason?”

“No, she worked this morning. Can I give her a message?”

“That’s okay. Thanks.” I breathed a little easier and made my way over to the section where the works of eighteen-and-under artists were displayed.

I soon saw what Karen meant about my decision being difficult. The artwork was outstanding. Here I was, judging work way beyond my own ability level by artists less than half my age. What was I supposed to say to a sixteen-year-old who could somehow make a flower-covered garden come so alive, or a portrait look so haunting? Well, your work is good, yes, but I get to rule that you’re not worthy of a blue ribbon because
I
can draw a pair of funny-looking rabbits in tuxedos with arched eyebrows and pink noses in the air, saying, “Pardon my impertinence, Sir Fluffy Foo-foo, but didn’t you wear that very same ecru-colored cumberbunny to
last
year’s banquet?”

As I made my way down the aisle feeling a sinking hopelessness at having to decide, the final entry stopped me in my tracks. It was a watercolor portrait of Patty Birch. Because of the medium, the colors had a faded, ghostlike feel, which added to the effect. It was an extraordinary painting, but so were many that I’d seen, and it was excruciating to have to decide whether or not my judgment was tainted by my added desire to see Kelly win.

I agonized over the decision. Ultimately, I decided to award her with first place. Furthermore, I vowed that I was not going to feel guilty if some partiality had crept into my judgment, because I’d tried my best to be fair . . . at the fair. I awarded the other ribbons, including the second- and third-place ribbons.

Afterward, I felt that I’d earned the right to see the other exhibits, although I’d gotten the impression that my fellow judges had already left. As long as the door was unlocked, the lights were on, and Jane Daly wasn’t around, I was in no danger of getting trapped inside for the night.

The next aisle featured paintings by the adults, and they were no better than the ones that I’d judged. One immediately caught my eye, because it was so unsettling—a naked woman shown from the waist up, screaming to the heavens. What was particularly remarkable was that the work wasn’t a painting at all, but rather was a mosaic made with tiny plastic beads glued into place. It was hard to imagine somebody taking such painstaking effort and expense to build such a hideous image. The judge, apparently, must have shared some of my misgivings, for the artist had only been awarded a red ribbon. I looked at the name card that identified the artist: Jane Daly.

“Oh, crap,” I muttered to myself.

“I’d like to think it’s better than that,” a woman’s voice said from directly behind me.

I gasped and turned slowly. Jane Daly had somehow sneaked up behind me and met my gaze with dagger eyes. It was all I could do not to scream and step back.

“Hi, Jane.” I gestured at the portrait. “This is a remarkable piece.”

She continued to glare at me. “I would expect a fellow artist to appreciate the emotions that my work expresses, if not the subject matter.”

“Oh, it does indeed express a lot of emotions. Your work depicts total despair, for one thing.”

She crossed her arms and looked at her portrait. “I wasn’t sure if I should really exhibit that here or not. Obviously my judge couldn’t relate to it. Can’t say that I’m surprised. I started work on this last year, when Patty won with a reproduction of van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
made entirely out of M&M’s.” She chuckled. “My mosaic doesn’t exactly belong in this country-kitsch fair, along with all the knitted mouse-head golf club covers or the little-piggie oven mitts, and cranberry muffins . . . and walnut preserves.”

There’s such a thing as walnut preserves? Jane seemed to be in no mood to discuss such matters, and, truth be told, I wasn’t, either. Whether or not she actually was Patty’s killer, I was now nervous in her presence.

I glanced around me. There was nobody else in the immediate area. “The guards are probably ready to lock up now. I guess I’d better be going.”

“So do you like it? My self-portrait? Would you have given it a blue ribbon?”

I looked again at the mosiac. “It’s very good, plus unusual. But you’re right. It’s too disconcerting to be a big crowd-pleaser at a little local fair like this.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Would you give my painting a blue ribbon?”

“I doubt it. The piece isn’t my taste.”

She nodded and sighed. “I appreciate your honesty. Frustrating, really, when I think about it. You know, Molly, until Patty came along, I had won Best-in-Show honors six years running. Do you have any idea how hard that is? Out of more than a thousand entries each year, different judges each time, to win the very highest honor six times in a row? I mean, it’s like . . . I was the Michael Jordan of the Carlton Fair.”

“Yes, you were. Good for you, Jane. It’s very impressive.”

“Then, two measly years, Perfect Patty wins the honors. And I’ve got to tell you, Molly, that first year, I allowed her to win by deliberately not entering my very best pieces. Everybody just . . . kneels down before her and heaps praises on her and acts like I never even existed. Even though I won this thing six times, and she only won it twice.”

“I can imagine how that must feel.”

“So now I’m free. The weight’s off my shoulders. I can enter whatever I want in the contest, but . . . it’s like I lost all my creativity, all of a sudden. I look at my work over the year, and . . . I’ve got nothing to show for it.” She gestured at her mosaic. “I mean, come on. The Carlton judges are hardly enlightened enough to bestow honors on a portrait of a naked woman screaming, now are they?”

For some reason, she started to cry.

A chill ran up my spine. “I’m really sorry, Jane. I’ve got to get home soon. My—”

“What am I going to do?” Jane said through her tears.

Was there anybody else here? Other judges? The guard must still be here. The place now had an eerie, deserted feel to it.

She sniffled. “Did you see the way my husband danced with me, at Chad’s studio?” Jane asked, forcing a smile.

Oh, my God. Why would she mention that now? “Yes, and he obviously loves you a lot to . . . take lessons for you.”

She dried her eyes and nodded. “Yes, he does.” She gave her head a shake. “I’ve got to get home and get dinner going. Can I walk you to your car?”

I wanted to keep a safe distance from her. “Oh, no, I . . . think I might have left something over in the section I was judging. My extra ribbons.”

She pursed her lips and shuffled off toward the door.

My heart was racing. I listened to Jane’s heels across the concrete floor and breathed a little easier when I heard the gymnasium-style door open and shut behind her. I pulled my keys out of the pocket of my jeans. I would give Jane a minute’s head start, then get my cell phone out of my glove box and let Tommy know that, evidence or not, I was now certain that she was the murderer.

Save for my own pounding heart, the building appeared to be empty. At the top of my lungs I called out, “Is anybody here?”

My voice seemed to echo slightly among the rafters, but there was no answer.

I headed for the exit, then stopped. There was always the chance that Jane would be waiting to mug me right outside the main exit. I decided to go out through the rear exit instead.

I hurried my pace. The door was bolted. I tested the knob, but it was locked. Damn! I would have to go through the main exit after all.

I started to jog down the main row. I stopped short. Jane Daly was standing alone next to the double doors, which had been chained and padlocked from the inside.

Chapter 19

No Exit

I struggled to hide my fear. “Jane. You . . . didn’t leave.”

“No, and I told the guard I’d lock up tonight, so it’s just you and me.”

She had one hand hidden behind her back. I prayed that she wasn’t holding a deadly weapon, but knew my prayers were unlikely to be answered. Trying to sound relaxed, I said, “I’m ready to go now, so you can let me out.”

“Drop the routine, Molly. Neither of us is that good of an actor.”

I forced a smile, still desperately hoping I could somehow bluff my way out of this. “I . . . don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You figured out who taught my husband how to dance.”

My face felt red hot and wet with perspiration. “Susan Embrick?” I bluffed.

“Patty Birch. He’d taken dance lessons from her as his anniversary gift to me.” Once again, tears started to run down her cheeks. “Only that’s not what I thought when that awful woman confronted Aaron and me in the parking lot of Lucinda’s. And you found out about her, somehow.” She winced, but then lifted her chin as if in defiance. With her free hand, she indicated our surroundings. “This is my last chance. I’d been waiting for you to come back here, hoping you’d be here late. Deliberately told you judging started an hour later than it actually did.”

Desperately clinging to the notion that I could talk my way out of this, I muttered, “Let’s just go home and discuss this in the morning. Okay, Jane?”

As if she didn’t hear a word, Jane continued: “That woman told my husband frequent customers like him were keeping the place in business. I pretended like I hadn’t heard her. After dinner, Aaron asked me to dance. That’s when he was going to surprise me. If only I’d said yes, none of this would have happened.” She grimaced. “I was too upset to dance. I claimed I wasn’t feeling well. I was so certain he was having an affair. But he’d just been sneaking out of the house for dance lessons.

“It wasn’t my fault, not really. I couldn’t have known. That damned Patty always had to do everything her way, to be the star. I recognized that dreadful woman’s voice on the tape, calling us amoral. I put that together with some slips-of-the-tongue from Aaron and knew it was Patty Birch he’d been seeing.”

She swiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her free hand. “I didn’t mean to kill her, Molly. I just . . . hated that woman so much. And when I doubled back and confronted her that night, she just kept using that ohso-superior voice of hers . . . telling me it wasn’t what I thought. That I needed to ask Aaron. So, I asked if I could call him. I went into the kitchen and grabbed the knife.”

“Jane, stop. I don’t want to hear this.”

She ignored me, fury now marring her tear-stained features. “I came back into the living room with the knife.” Jane’s eyes were glassy-looking. She looked almost inhuman. “Patty was just looking at me like I was some kind of fool. Even afterward, she almost . . . she laughed at me, Molly. She was laughing at me.”

Jane had me so spooked, my knees shook. “I’ll help you with the police, Jane. If you’ll turn yourself in now, you can—”

“No, Molly. That’s not the way this ends. I can’t go to jail.” She took a steeling breath.

She looked straight at me. “It wasn’t my fault, and I’m not going to pay for that woman’s arrogance. I mean . . . what would any woman think under the circumstances?” She paused, expecting me to respond.

“Right. Any woman would have thought her husband was having an affair.”

She grimaced. “You know what’s funny, Molly? On our way home from Chad’s studio, that time he surprised me, you know what happened? Aaron pulled out this little note card from his jacket. He said he was going to give it to me on our actual anniversary, but never got the chance . . . and now he wasn’t sure he should even show this to me, considering who wrote it to me, but decided that I’d want it as a keepsake.”

She let out an eerie laugh. Her eyes looked wild with fright or, perhaps, rage. “It was a note from Patty, in flawless calligraphy, of course, wishing me a happy anniversary, and thanking me for letting my husband secretly get lessons. Can you imagine how that made me feel?”

Not really. Learning that you’d killed somebody for no reason? “Jane, please think about what you’re doing. It wasn’t premeditated. There were all sorts of extenuating circumstances. You’ll be able to get help. And I’ll vouch for you with the authorities.”

She shook her head determinedly. “I’m in too deep, and so are you. Everyone’s always saying how you solved a couple of murders some time ago. I kept trying to warn you off . . . crashing into you on the ski run . . . the notes. You just wouldn’t quit. You’re just like Patty. Thinking you’re so much better than I am that you don’t have to listen to anything I say.”

She lowered her arm to her side, but whatever weapon she hid there was still out of my sight in the fabric of her broomstick skirt.

“No, Jane, that isn’t true,” I said, backing away. “You’re not gaining anything by hurting me. You won’t get away with this. It’s too late. I already told”— I paused, needing to keep Stephanie’s name out of this in case Jane would go after her—“Tommy Newton earlier tonight. He knows I’m here. He’ll send the police here for me any second now if I don’t get home. There’s no way for you to cover your tracks this time.”

“It doesn’t matter. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, that you hadn’t figured everything out, but one look at your face tonight and I knew this was my only chance. I’m leaving town tonight. By the time they find you, it’ll be morning, and I’ll be long gone. With you out of the picture and me on the lam, they’ll never know for certain it was me.” She lifted her right hand. She was holding a hatchet.

“Oh, my God! Jane . . . you can’t possibly . . . use that on me! We’re friends!”

“No. I have no friends. Just my husband and kids. She took them from me. I’ll have to leave them now. I’ll go back to the mountains, make a new identity for myself. I lived that way before, and I can do it again.” She glanced at her hatchet. “I’ve used this to rough out my wood sculptures. Now it’s going to help me carve out a new life.”

Oh, Jesus. Help me!
Why hadn’t Officer Bob taught us how to defend ourselves against an ax-wielding maniac? How could I get away from her?

He’d said to use the element of surprise—not to hesitate to be the one to strike first. I didn’t have the nerve to try that now. She was too well armed.

Keep calm
. I knew there was a fire alarm near this door. She was blocking it, but maybe there was a second one by the rear exit.

I backed into the table of displayed items behind me. Shit! Of all the useless categories for me to be near at a time like this—needlecraft. All I had to use in self-defense here were pot holders and quilts and knitted baby blankets.

“Jane, you’re not a cold-blooded killer. You don’t want to do this.” Afraid to turn my back on her, I worked my way blindly down the long row of tables.

Jane was content to match me step for step. She must have figured that she would back me against the wall, then make her move. I kept backing down the aisle, dragging my hand along each of the tables. Still nothing but cloth items.

I was unable to take my eyes off the glinting sharp blade of the weapon in her hand. My God. With one blow of that monstrous thing I would, at best, be maimed for life. “Jane. Please. Think about your children.”

“I
am
thinking about them. They will not be raised by their dad, their mother locked away in jail. I can’t do that to them.”

I felt dizzy, all but faint with fright. Mindlessly, I babbled, “But you
won’t
be there for life. Not if you put a stop to this right now. You’ll serve your sentence and get home to them. If you kill me and run, you’ll never see them again.”

Jane looked like some madwoman from a bad movie, her nostrils flared, her teeth gritted. She gave her head a little shake. “Maybe I’ll bring them. We’ll manage.”

I was almost at the last table in this row. This had to be the second to last. Then I might have to turn and run. Yet my instincts warned me that the only reason she hadn’t struck me already was that she was waiting for just that—for the moment when I turned away.

Damn it! Still just cloth goods. Did every woman in this entire goddamned town except me have to
sew
? Where in hell was something solid! And sharp!

“You won’t be able to run forever, Jane. You know that’s true. Besides, I already told Tommy about the woman at Lucinda’s. He got a description of your husband from the employees. By now, he already knows everything you told me. It’s too late, Jane.”

At last, I touched something hard. It was a small glass jar. Probably preserves.

I talked louder, hoping to distract her with my words. “You know you can’t run forever.”

She kept slowly coming toward me. I threw the jar at her head as hard as I could. I whirled around without waiting to assess the damage.

She let out a cry of pain and surprise. I ran for all I was worth. A jar whizzed just past my ear, and I darted around the corner.

Instinctively, I dodged behind a partition and into another aisle.

At last—sculptures!

Jane shouted, “Molly, you’re the one who can’t run. Face it. You’re overmatched.”

At least she had hard-soled shoes on to my tennis shoes. I could hear her footsteps more easily than she could mine. I took off at a dead run down this aisle. Though the partitions blocked all view to the other aisles, I could hear her just on the other side of this row. She was shadowing my movements.

I stopped at the next display. It was metalwork. Some artist had crafted a stainless steel end table. I grabbed it by one leg and held the table like a baseball bat and waited for her to turn the corner. I tried to keep silent, but was panting for air. If she could hear my hard breathing, she would hack me with that hideous ax and it would all be over for me.

“Molly? I can hear you. I know where you are.”

Her voice was directly on the other side of this partition, which looked flimsily constructed. I held my breath.

The table in my hands was heavy, and I couldn’t keep my arms cocked like this for long.

I turned around and gave the second-to-last partition a thrust-kick. The partition teetered for a moment, then toppled over into Jane’s aisle. Praying that she would still be looking at the fallen makeshift wall, I raced around that corner and into her aisle.

I swung at her head with my heavy little table just as she was starting to turn back toward me. The corner cracked into her temple with a sickening thud, but again I didn’t stop to see what had happened to her. As she crumpled to the floor, I ran for the nearest exit.

Something hard and heavy skittered down the cement floor at me and clipped me in the ankle. I hollered in pain and fell, afraid that she’d hurled the hatchet and had struck my leg with the blade.

Despite the pain, I scrambled to my feet and caught a look at the weapon she’d thrown. It was a large, sun-shaped, metal discus. The thing was heavy, made of steel, perhaps.

Jane charged at me so fast, there was no hope of my outrunning her.

I dived back down and grabbed the sun sculpture, rolling over onto my back.

Jane let out a scream and swung the hatchet down at me. Gripping the sculpture with both hands, I held it over me.

The ax blade clanged into my shield, sending horrid aftershocks down my arms. The impact threw her off balance. I managed to get to my feet. I kneed her in the stomach before she could strike again. She doubled over, and I smacked her in the side of the face with the metal sculpture. I staggered toward the front door.

My vocal chords were making an animal-like moan as I limped across the room. It was as if I’d lost control of my own voice.

I threw the alarm. The shrill noise was the most welcome sound I’d ever heard.

A partition came crashing down. Jane stomped over the top of it like Godzilla gone mad. Blood poured from her temple and her chin. She was breathing hard, holding her hatchet in one hand, by her side.

Jesus, God! Did this woman have nine lives!?!

“You’re gonna die, damn you!” Jane shrieked and rushed toward me.

My back smacked against the padlocked doors. No place to go, I charged at her. I grabbed her forearm before she could strike again with the hatchet. We barreled into a folding table. The displayed candles clattered to the floor.

The table held for a second or two. Jane dropped her hatchet. She threw her forearm into my neck. The table collapsed beneath our weight.

Jane took the brunt of our fall as I landed on top of her. I scrambled to my feet, grabbed her weapon, and raced to the window. I swung at it, shattering the glass.

There was a noise behind me. I turned.

Once again, Jane had risen.

She still looked wild with rage, ready to charge at me. I prepared to swing her hatchet, gripping it firmly with both hands. “Stop!” I cried. “I’ll kill you!”

She took another step toward me. Her breaths were coming in half groans.

She put a hand to her eye as if confused why she couldn’t see clearly. Then she looked at her own blood on her fingertips.

Her demeanor changed. She seemed to sag a little.

“Don’t come any closer,” I again warned. “I’ll use this if I have to.”

Outside, a police or fire engine siren wailed. Its reassuring cry grew louder.

“It’s over, Jane.”

She gave a glance at the shattered window. She’d heard the sirens, too.

Jane slowly dropped to her knees. She curled into the fetal position and cried like a little girl. Moving as quickly as possible without cutting myself on the glass shards, I climbed outside through the shattered window.

A firetruck turned the corner onto this road. I dropped the hatchet and waved both arms as the headlights caught me in their steady beam.