Murder at the PTA (9 page)

“Don’t be silly.” This time I said it so sharply that a blue-haired customer looked up from the rack of stickers. “My children need a stable home environment.”

“And what could be better than a rich stepfather who has loved their mother since sandbox days?” Lois’s smirk disappeared behind a cardboard display of Stephenie Meyer books, and a flush of embarrassment engulfed me from collarbone to hairline.

“Hot, are you?” the blue-haired lady inquired kindly.

“Um, yes.” I fanned my face with the stack of invoices I held. “How are you today, Mrs. Tolliver?”

“I’d be better if I wasn’t afraid of being murdered in my bed. I saw you coming out of the police station earlier. Has young Gus arrested anyone for killing that Agnes Mephisto?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, the DNA evidence will tell the tale.” She handed me a small pile of twenty-five-cent stickers. “These are for my granddaughter. I’d like them wrapped individually, please. Each in different paper.”

I pasted on a smile. “No problem.” As I cut small squares of wrapping paper off the rolls under the counter, Mrs. Tolliver went on at length about the shortcomings of our local law-enforcement officers. I nodded at the appropriate places, but my mind was far away. Would DNA evidence really help find the killer? If there were no suspects, could a stray hair mean much? Okay, if the stray hair was identified in some police database as belonging to a serial killer, it meant a lot, but how likely was that?

Mrs. Tolliver moved on to new topics, but I continued to think about tracking down a killer.

 

“I hate spaghetti,” Oliver announced. As I’d just put a plate of steaming hot pasta in front of him, his statement wasn’t welcome news.

“You love spaghetti,” Jenna said. “Last week you said you could eat spaghetti for supper every night the rest of your life.”

I sat down. “Jenna, your turn for grace.”

She bounced a little. “Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. Go, God!”

Oliver giggled and I shot them both a mom look. “Jenna, would you like to try again?”

A dramatic sigh.

I held out my hands, left hand to my daughter, right hand to my son. The soft touch of their palms at this quiet second of the day filled me to overflowing with love.

“Bless us, O Lord,” Jenna said, “for these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

My silent prayer was similar, but not identical.
Bless them, O Lord, for they are the bounty you have bestowed upon me and for which I will always be grateful. Amen
. I gave their hands a gentle squeeze before releasing them, before letting go of the moment of grace.

“I hate spaghetti.” Oliver crossed his arms harder and higher.

Ah, yes.

“You said that already.” Jenna tucked a paper napkin into her sweatshirt’s collar. “How can you love something one week and hate it the next?”

“I told you. That was before.” He pouted. Clearly, we weren’t listening.

“Before what?” I passed Jenna the green cardboard canister. “Go easy on the Parmesan, okay? It’s supposed to enhance flavors, not eliminate them. Before what, Oliver?”

“Before Robert told me about spaghetti.”

A born storyteller, Oliver was not. Or maybe he was. He’d be a master at end-of-chapter cliff-hangers. Jenna had paused in her fork-twirling and was looking at her plate with cautious interest. I put my fork down. “What did Robert say?”

“That spaghetti is . . .” He slid down in his chair.

I leaned forward. “Is what?”

“Is . . .” His chin trembled.

I
hadn’t
been listening to him, not really. The poor kid was upset, and I should have realized it earlier. I scooted my chair sideways and put my arm around him. “Tell me, Ollster. What did Robert tell you?”

“That spaghetti is dried
worms
! I’ve been eating worms my whole
life
!” Tears sprang from his eyes. “Robert said grown-ups won’t tell you what spaghetti really is because it’s a pirate thing. He says if you eat too many spaghetti worms, they’ll come alive in your stomach and grow out your ears.”

Oh, eww. My own stomach felt a lurch. Robert must have older siblings, to come up with a story like that.

“That’s gross. Good thing I like worms.” Jenna shoved a monstrous bite of spaghetti into her mouth and chewed hugely.

“Jenna,” I said.

“What?” All innocence.

“I don’t like worms!” Tears were double-streaming down Oliver’s face. “I don’t want to eat worms!”

Without saying a thing, I gathered him up and onto my lap. I held him tight and touched my cheek to his silky-smooth forehead.

“Who am I?” I asked.

Oliver snuffled into my chest.

“C’mon, Ollster, who am I?”

“Elizabeth Anne Kennedy,” came the muffled words.

“Who am I?”

“Grandma Emmerling’s daughter.”

The time-honored litany continued. “Who am I?”

“Aunt Darlene and Aunt Kathy and Uncle Tim’s sister.”

“Who am I?”

“Um . . .” Oliver wiped his face with the shoulder that wasn’t burrowed into my armpit. “You’re somebody’s cousin.”

“Bill,” Jenna said.

“And Bill.” Oliver looked up at me, his small face stained with wetness. “You have two cousin Bills. A hockey Bill and a doctor Bill.”

“That’s right.” I hugged him. “And who else am I?”

“Mommy.” He dove against my chest, thumping me hard enough to drive air out of my lungs. “You’re my mommy!”

And always would be.“That’s right.And would Mommy give you worms for dinner?”

“Nooo.” But he didn’t sound convinced.

“Don’t move.” I plopped him into my seat and went into the kitchen. “No moving!” Both kids giggled. I opened the cabinet door under the sink and extracted a long, skinny box from the trash. I brought it back to the table and reinstalled Oliver on my lap. “See this? It says ‘Ingredients.’ This is a list of everything inside this box of spaghetti. Semolina, durum flour, niacin, iron, also known as ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, and riboflavin.” I left off the folic acid in case the acid part scared him. “Not a single worm.”

His index finger ran over the unfamiliar words. “No pirate thing?”

“You mean conspiracy?” He nodded. “No pirate thing,” I said. “No conspiracy here. If the spaghetti company doesn’t write down exactly what’s inside the box, they’ll get in big trouble with all the mommies in the country.”

“That’s a lot of mommies,” Oliver said.

“A force to be reckoned with,” I agreed. “Now, are you hungry? Do you want me to put your plate in the microwave?”

“Yes!” He slid off my lap with the speed of a seal and was soon slurping down pasta. I blew out an invisible sigh of relief. Not only relief that Oliver had recovered, but also relief that I’d divorced Richard. Oliver’s father wouldn’t have comforted him and explained the mysteries of ingredients; he would have told him to eat what was on his plate.

“Um, Mom?” Jenna took a piece of garlic toast.

“Hmm?” My lovely daughter was growing. The top of her head obscured the bottom of the wall calendar. In June I’d been able to see all the way to the end of the month.

“Mom?” Though she hadn’t taken a bite of toast, Jenna took another from the pile. “Can we get a dog?”

 

Jenna’s request hung in the air. I got the feeling that if I squinted the right way, I’d see the words spelled out in light and dark furry shadows. But maybe I’d heard wrong. Maybe Jenna had asked about getting something that only sounded like dog. A bog, perhaps. There was room for a little bog in the backyard, tucked between the garage and the sandbox.

Or maybe she’d said hog. That was easy to turn down. We were zoned residential; no agricultural animals allowed. Sorry, kids. It’s out of my hands. Or maybe she’d said log. Or maybe—

“Mom?”

“Yes, sweetie.” I wiped away my imaginings. “Did you ask about—?”

“A dog.” Oliver sat up straight. “A puppy. With big paws and a pink tongue.” He dangled his own tongue out of his mouth.

This was not good. I looked from one child to the other. “Didn’t we have this same discussion last year? The reasons we couldn’t get a dog then are the same reasons we can’t get a dog now.”

“But it’s different now.” Oliver wiped his mouth of dog drool.

“How so?”

“You said we weren’t big enough to take care of a dog, but now we’re a year bigger.”

“That’s true, but—”

“And we’ve been taking care of George all by ourselves for months,” Jenna said. “Litter box and food and water and brushing and everything. That shows we’re responsible enough to have a dog.”

“It helps, but—”

“And we’d be safer with a dog in the house,” Oliver said. “He’d bark if anyone broke in. Really loud, like this!” My son the dog let out a series of yips, more poodle than guard dog.

“If Mrs. Mephisto had had a dog,” Jenna said, “maybe she wouldn’t be dead.”

Her simple words hit me like a physical blow. “Oh, sweetheart.” I reached for her hand, but she pulled away. I stifled a sigh.

Gus had told me there’d been no signs of forced entry at Agnes’s house, so it was likely she’d let the killer inside, and given that the time was late, it was likely she knew the killer. That knowledge wasn’t very helpful, though, as Agnes knew hundreds of people. But since only the killer knew exactly what had happened, in theory Jenna could be right.

“So can we get a dog?” Oliver clasped his hands together and aimed them at me, elbows tight together. “Pretty, pretty please, please, please?”

“Please, Mom?” Jenna did the hand-clasp thing, too. “We’ll walk him and brush him and clean up his poop with those little plastic bags.”

“We’ll teach him to get the newspaper,” Oliver said.

“We’ll give him baths.”

“We’ll teach him to roll over.”

I did not want a dog. I especially did not want a puppy. Puppies had a knack for chewing up the most expensive shoes you owned. Puppies left puddles in the middle of the night. Puppies with great big paws grew up into great big dogs. I looked from one child to the other.

“Please?” they chorused.

I did not want a dog, but they’d lost so much in the last year, and now their principal had been murdered. Having the care of a dog might be good for them. But still . . . I didn’t want a dog. No matter what the kids said, I’d end up on dog duty. I pinched the bridge of my nose. If Richard were here, he’d say no and that would be the end of it. But there was no Richard, and the decision was up to me.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

Jenna and Oliver grinned at each other, and I got the feeling I’d lost the first battle.

 

As soon as Richard had moved out of the house, the standard pattern of visitation rights had begun. The first Wednesday night I sat on the couch and made a gap in the curtains so I could see the kids the instant Richard dropped them off. The second Wednesday I made a pot of coffee and brought it with me to the couch.

When I found myself putting together a tray of coffee and snacks for the third Wednesday, I knew I was in serious trouble. Ignoring the fact that it was dark, raining, and cold, I went for a long walk. When I got home, I was drenched and shivering, but an idea was banging around in my brain.

I needed a hobby.

In the months since that walk, I’d gone through knitting (too much counting), scrapbooking (too many options), and baking (too much weight gain). I’d settled into journaling. My writing sessions had seen me through the worst of the effects of the separation and the post-divorce aftermath. In writing to myself, I took my share of the blame for the marriage’s failure. Through writing, I calmed my fears for the children and my fears for myself. I wrote about coming to grips with my status as a divorced mom, and I wrote about my high hopes for the future.

Jenna and Oliver and I were a family, and Richard was a good father, even if he did live on the other side of town. Together, we’d make this work.

But would it work with a dog?

 

On this Wednesday night, the four board members of the PTA met in Erica’s kitchen.

“Are you sure this is legal?” Randy Jarvis asked around a chocolate-chip cookie. His concern about PTA proprieties didn’t extend to ignoring the plate of treats Erica offered.

“I checked the bylaws,” said Julie. Our vice president had lowered herself onto a ladder-back chair, eschewing the padded window seat on the grounds that the bump wouldn’t fit behind the table. “We can call special meetings without the rest of the members as long as we publish minutes afterward.” Even when discussing murder at the PTA, Erica was bound and determined that we would follow all bylaws.

She put down a china cup and saucer of decaf in front of me. Cream, no sugar. “Beth, you ready to start taking notes?”

“On it.” I extracted a spiral notebook and pen from my voluminous purse.

Erica slid into the window seat next to Randy. Julie and I sat in chairs facing the window. Even on a dark October evening and only partially illuminated by floodlights, Erica’s garden was beautiful.

“This special meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA is now called to order.” Erica lifted the half glasses that hung from a chain around her neck and put them on the end of her nose. I called the roll.

“As this is a special meeting,” Erica said, “we can dispense with a reading of the minutes and committee reports and move on to the topic of the night.”

“Agnes,” Julie breathed. “Oh, it’s so horrible.”

I remembered Marina’s fairy tale of Randy being involved with Agnes. If he and Agnes had had a relationship, surely he’d be distraught. On the verge of tears. Full of sorrow and grief. But as far as I could tell, the only thing Randy was, was hungry. He was already chewing on his third cookie, and I guessed he’d go for a fourth any second.