Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery) (21 page)

I contemplated the car’s dollhouse-scale trunk. If I did manage to get Bubba Sue, she’d have to sit in the backseat; there was no way I could stuff her into the rear of the car. “I guess this will have to do,” I said, and ten minutes later I was heading toward Holy Oaks, the engine roaring like a sewing machine. If I needed to sneak up on anyone, I reflected, this was the car to drive.

If I felt out of place in a minivan, driving a subcompact electric car made me feel like an alien. Despite Austin’s environmentally friendly reputation, the parents of Holy Oaks largely leaned toward the Hummer end of the car spectrum. Luxury Hummers, that is.

I pulled into the carpool line, feeling dwarfed by the Porsche Cayennes and Cadillac Escalades growling like giant, expensive beasts around me. When I inched my way up to the front door, Elsie wouldn’t budge until I waved at her.

“Where’s the van?” she asked after she’d wedged herself into the booster seat, her backpack on her lap.
Words!
She was using words. I put on my best mom smile.

“I had an . . . accident this afternoon. It’s being repaired.”

“What about my fry phone?”

“I’m working on it,” I told her lamely as we pulled away.

“I want my fry phone,” she said. She crossed her arms and kicked the back of the seat. “I hate this car. I hate Holy Oaks. I want to go back to Green Meadows.”

And then she burst into tears.

My mother wasn’t at the house when we got home.
Went to food bank—dinner in oven!
was scrawled on a note on the kitchen table.
Back before 6.

Elsie had stopped crying but still wasn’t what you’d call happy. She wouldn’t tell me anything about what was going on at school, so I sent a quick e-mail to her teacher and then started scouring the cupboards for snack options. It was a short and unsuccessful search.

“Where’s Grandma?” Nick asked as I cut up an apple. Thank goodness apples were still on the approved list. I made a mental note to stop by the grocery store and stock up on nonperishable edibles like Ritz Crackers and Fruit Roll-Ups. I couldn’t fit them in the trunk, but there might be room in the glove compartment.

“She had an errand to do,” I told him.

Elsie, whose eyes were still swollen from crying, wrinkled her little nose. “What smells bad?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, as if I hadn’t noticed the sulfurous miasma wafting from the oven.

“It smells like bathroom again,” Nick announced through a mouthful of apple.

“Maybe Rufus missed the litter box again,” I suggested. Speaking of Rufus, I hadn’t seen much of him since my mother arrived. Maybe he was as traumatized by the pantry clearing as I was—or maybe my mother had tried doctoring his food with kale chips. Was there such a thing as vegan cat food? I wondered. “Anyone have any homework?” I asked.

Elsie—who had her pink collar back on and was curled up on the sofa cushion she liked to call her dog bed—growled.

“Well, if you do, it needs to be done by bedtime,” I said. No response. I sidled over to the oven and cracked it open, releasing a wave of distinctly cruciferous hot air. There was a brownie pan on the middle rack, but the gooey green substance it contained bore no resemblance to brownies. I slammed the oven shut quickly and stepped away, tempted to open a window despite the heat.

“What is that stuff?” Nick asked.

“Let’s go see if the TV is hooked up,” I said, ushering him away from the kitchen. Once he settled down with his trains and an episode of
Thomas the Tank Engine
, I tossed Elsie her favorite rope toy, headed to the kitchen again, and grabbed the phone.

Becky answered on the third ring.

“It’s Margie,” I said as I retreated to my bedroom.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day!” she said.

“Sorry about that; I don’t have my phone. Is Bunsen bothering you?”

“He called me this afternoon and asked me a lot of questions.”

“He stopped by Peachtree Investigations this afternoon.” I told her about the events of the day—including the memorial service fiasco and my shot-up car.

“Thank God you weren’t in the van at the time,” she breathed. “Margie, this is getting scary.”

“I know.”

“Somebody’s getting nervous, sounds like,” she said. “Thank God they shot up your van at the office, and not at your house.”

I shivered at the thought. “But why shoot it at all?”

“I’ll bet there’s something somebody doesn’t want you to know about going on at Holy Oaks. They’ve seen you eavesdropping and nosing around, and they’re telling you to drop it.”

“I have the key to the school’s front office,” I said. “I was thinking I might go and investigate tonight, after my Warrior Wives meeting.”

“Your what?”

“It’s that Journey to Manhood support group for wives of men who . . . well, men who are trying not to be gay,” I said. “Blake wants me to go.”

“Wow. Want company tonight?” she asked.

I sat down on the end of my bed. “Is Rick hanging out with transvestites, too?”

“Not at the meeting, silly. The school.”

“You just want to go through those admissions files again, don’t you?”

“No. I want to find out what that school is up to and write another letter to the
Picayune
. Of course I want to go through the admissions files—largely because a certain individual left my business card on top of George Cavendish’s tights, resulting in multiple visits from the police.”

I sighed. “The meeting is from seven to nine.”

“Pick me up when it’s over,” she said. “How are things going with your mom, by the way?”

“She’s been a huge help with the kids,” I said, “but the food thing is getting to be a bit of a problem. She took just about everything I had and gave it to the food bank. I’m having to sneak the kids fast food just to get some calories into them.”

“How long is she staying?”

“A week. I’m not sure I can make it that long. At least Blake isn’t here, so we don’t have to share the bedroom, but what if he comes back and wants to get . . . romantic?”

“How do you feel about it?”

I shuddered. “I think I’d rather sleep with an orangutan.”

Becky sighed. “You’re going to have to deal with this at some point, you know. You can’t live like a nun for the next twenty years.”

“I know,” I said. “But I told him I’d give it a try, and I will. I hate the thought of what divorce would do to the kids.”

“You have to take care of yourself, too,” she reminded me. “Besides, you won’t be young and pretty forever.”

I glanced up at myself in the mirror. Young and pretty? I had bags under my eyes that were big enough to hold groceries, and some mornings I wished I could send out a search party to locate my waist. “Really, Becky?”

“My brother thinks you are,” she said suggestively.

Michael. I got a little flutter just thinking about him, but quickly quashed it. I didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. I had more important things to deal with. Like getting the bullet holes in my minivan patched and convincing my daughter to eat with a fork. Not to mention keeping Becky, Peaches, and me out of jail. “I’ll go to the support group, and then we’ll go break into Holy Oaks.” I got up from the end of the bed and opened the closet door, wondering what one should wear for an evening of support-group sharing followed by burgling. “Let’s just figure out who killed Aquaman, and then we can talk about my personal life.”

“Touchy,” she said.

“I’ll call you when it’s over.”

“You don’t have a cell phone,” she reminded me.

I groaned.

“I’ll see you at 9:20, then,” Becky said. “Give or take a few. I’ll tell Rick you need to go get a drink.”

“You won’t be lying,” I said before hanging up.

The Journey to Manhood “Warrior Wives” group turned out to be in the fellowship hall of a Baptist church on the south side of town. I closed the door of the tiny car behind me and adjusted my black cardigan—I’d decided dark was good for burgling, and besides, it was the nicest thing I owned. So what if it was still almost ninety degrees in the parking lot?

As I headed for the metal double doors, bracing myself for what was to come, I reflected that it might be better than being at home with my mother and children. The broccoli–brussels sprout casserole had not been a resounding success; even my mother had deemed it inedible, and to my relief, she relented and let us order pizza. (Plain cheese, no sauce, on Elsie’s, of course.)

“What kind of meeting is this, Margie?” my mother had asked when I came back in from taking the trash bag with the casserole’s contents out to the curb. The smell was so strong the plastic bag didn’t have a chance. “Is this about Elsie’s . . . dog fixation?” she whispered.

“Actually no,” I said. “It’s . . . just about relationships,” I added lamely.

“I’m really worried about her,” she told me. “I know nutrition must play a part, but I’m not sure that’s all there is. Are you sure this school is the right kind of place for her?”

“She’s only been there a couple of days,” I said.

“But it sounds like there’s no opportunity for self-expression.” She pushed the bangles up on her arm. “Plaid jumpers, navy polo shirts . . . is it any wonder she’s wearing a dog collar as an accessory?”

“She wore that before school started,” I reminded her.

“Yes, but the stress of the environment can’t be helping.” My mother reached for another piece of her artichoke-asparagus pizza. “When did all of this start?” she asked.

“Around the end of last school year,” I said. “That’s when she started wanting us to call her Fifi and using a water bowl instead of a glass.” I sighed. “She actually bit one of her classmates at Green Meadows.”

My mother winced. “Ouch.”

“That’s what the kid said.”

She steepled her hands under her chin, much as I had done earlier in the day, and the bangles slid back down her arm with a clank. “How are things between you and Blake?” she asked. “It seems like your auras are a bit . . . cloudy.”

I shifted in my chair and reached for another piece of pizza. “Oh, you know,” I said. “Same as every marriage.”
With a few rather glaring exceptions
—but again, there was no need to discuss that with my mother. She’d be trying to sign us up for yogic vegan Tantric sex counseling, or prescribing a diet of oysters and artichokes. “When you have kids, they’re really the focus.”

“It’s not good for your partnership, though,” she said. “Your father and I didn’t make our relationship a priority, and I’ve always regretted it.”

I knew I hadn’t spent nearly enough time with my mother since she’d arrived—and that I owed her a debt of gratitude for all she’d done for me and the kids—but right now, the last thing I needed was a dissection of my parents’ failed marriage. I grimaced and swallowed my guilt. “Shoot,” I said, looking at my watch and standing up. “Is that the time? I’ve really got to run, Mom.”

She sighed. “I worry about you, sweetheart.”

“I know, and I love you for it,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “Thanks so much for your help with the kids. I’ll probably be back late. Call me if you have any trouble.”

“I’ve been calling you all day and you haven’t answered.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. I . . . lost my cell phone.”

“Margie, Margie, Margie. How do you keep it all together?”

Keep it all together? I’d met schizophrenics who were doing a better job of keeping it all together than I was. I let out a short, barking laugh and escaped out the back door, thankful to have avoided further interrogation.

Now, as I pushed through the double doors into the coffee-and-hymnal-scented fellowship hall, I felt a twinge of apprehension. It was not assuaged when a circle of depressed-looking women in plastic chairs turned to look at me.

“Hello!” sang the group leader, a plump, chirpy-looking woman with shiny black hair and a bright-red skirt suit. She wore six-inch stiletto heels that made me wonder how she stayed upright. “Are you here for the Warrior Wives group?”

“Um, yeah,” I said, edging toward one of the vacant chairs.

“Welcome!” she said with a smile so bright I had to resist the urge to squint. “I’m Barbie Ford, the leader of the Warriors. We were just about to join in our opening prayer.”