Murder at the PTA Read online

  She made a gagging motion. “The owner’s connected. You know, the mob? I wouldn’t trust any meat he serves. Grilled steaks and Blazing Saddles.”

  In June I’d blown off my eyebrows trying to light the grill. I hadn’t started the evil thing since, and Marina knew it. She also knew I wasn’t a Mel Brooks fan. “Peanut butter and jelly and Dr. Zhivago.”

  As Marina crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, a gavel banged down. I jumped and started the tape recorder.

  “This meeting will come to order.” Erica Hale, the PTA’s silver-haired president, peered out at the audience over half glasses. “I’d like everyone to welcome our newly installed secretary, Beth Kennedy.” Polite applause sprinkled through the room, punctuated by Marina’s fist thrust and earsplitting whistle. My cheeks flamed hot, and I shuffled papers that didn’t need shuffling.

  Erica went on. “As some of you might remember, our former secretary and her family moved to Belize, and Beth has graciously agreed to donate her time and services.”

  I blinked and mouthed the word to Marina. “Belize?” I’d heard of people vacationing in and retiring to Belize, but moving there? With young children? That was far outside my comfort zone—about two thousand miles outside.

  Marina shrugged.

  “With the committee’s permission,” Erica said, “I’d like to rearrange tonight’s agenda. We have a guest who has another commitment, and I’d like to move action item number one to the beginning of the meeting.”

  I glanced at the agenda, but before I could locate the action items, Erica requested a voice vote approving the change. “Ayes?” Erica asked. The other committee members said aye. “Nays?”

  I found the action items. Number three was putting allergy warnings on bake sale goods. Number two was buying an automated snow-day notification system. Number one was . . . “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “Was that a nay vote?” Erica frowned at me.

  “Uh, no.” I picked up a pen, circled the pertinent item, drew an arcing line up to the top of the agenda, and ended it with an arrow. “I’m fine with the change. Sorry.”

  Erica nodded and looked at the back of the room. “Agnes? You have the floor.”

  Twenty-odd members of the PTA were in the audience, and every one of them twitched as Erica said the name “Agnes.” As if choreographed, all heads turned to watch the fiftyish Agnes Mephisto, principal of Tarver Elementary, walk to the front of the room. Topped by a haircut that even I knew had gone out of style years ago, Agnes’s body had an unfortunate resemblance to a fire hydrant. She walked with solid steps and planted herself directly in front of me. I had an excellent view of her back and her long, overpermed hair.

  “Good evening, PTA members!” Agnes’s voice was piercing at a distance. At point-blank range, it was all I could do not to cover my ears. “I have outstanding news for you, for our community, but most of all for the wonderful students of Tarver Elementary.” There was a smile in her voice, and I was just as glad not to see it. Agnes had a weasel-like cast to her face, a resemblance that grew even more pronounced when she smiled. Luckily, that didn’t happen often. “I’m sure,” she said, “that everyone will be as excited about this project as I am.”

  I leaned to the left to look around Agnes. Excitement wasn’t the word I would have used to describe the crowd’s emotions, not if the crossed arms and stone faces were any indication. In the ten years she’d been principal at Tarver, Agnes had alienated a host of parents and encouraged more than one teacher to take early retirement. Only the school board seemed to like her. “Test scores are up,” Mack Vogel, the superintendent, had said when he’d stopped by the store the day before. He also said he hoped that, as the new PTA secretary, I’d ease tensions with Agnes. “You’re the conciliatory sort, Beth. Calm and peaceful.” He’d given me a hearty handshake. “You’ll do a great job of cooling tempers.”

  Right. I raised my eyebrows and tried to catch Marina’s eye, but she was too busy scowling.

  “We’re entering a new age,” Agnes said, “and I can’t stand by and see Tarver Elementary left behind. I can see exactly what we need, and I know you’ll agree with me.”

  Not a head nodded. I sneaked a look down the committee table. No one there was nodding, either.

  “This school needs better facilities,” Agnes said. “I want our children to have a larger library. I want more computers and more books. And our children need more exposure to music. Have any of your kids ever seen an opera?” She looked at the cold expressions. “I didn’t think so. Children need artistic stimulation. They need to play instruments. They need to paint and draw and sing. And they need pets. They need to—”

  “Agnes.” Erica drummed her arthritic fingertips on the table. In years past, PTAs had consisted of parents and teachers, but the Tarver PTA had conceded the need to expand its membership and had allowed grandparents to join. “A well-rounded education is one of Tarver’s missions,” Erica said. “That isn’t up for debate. Could you please get to the point?” She gave the clock hanging over the classroom door a hard look.

  The female fireplug swelled in all directions, and I shrank back. Stories of a shouting and sputtering Agnes were legendary, but I had no wish to see or hear the reality. The swelling went down, and Agnes settled back on the balls of her feet. “Of course, Erica.” Her shoulders rose and fell slightly. “I’ve been notified that a benefactor is willing to make a large donation to Tarver Elementary.”

  Agnes talked over the low buzz of conversation that circled the room. “The benefactor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is happy with my suggestion for an addition to the school building.”

  The buzz grew to a dull roar.

  “Who is it?” called a woman from the back of the room.

  “Anonymous means anonymous, CeeCee,” Agnes said. “The benefactor’s name won’t be made public. Our secret donor is eager to get started, so I’ve hired an architect to—”

  “You did what?” A young father in the back row tried to stand, but his wife dragged him back down.

  “I’ve hired an architect,” Agnes repeated. “With my guidance, this addition should—”

  “Your guidance?” A blowsy woman grabbed the back of the chair in front of her and heaved herself up. “What about our guidance?”

  Another woman stood. “What about the taxpayers?”

  “Since this is a donation,” Agnes said smoothly, “there will be no bond issue. The taxpayers needn’t be consulted.”

  The room exploded into sudden sound.

  “You can’t—”

  “Of all the high-handed—”

  “Just because you’re principal doesn’t mean you can—”

  I laid down my pen. How does a secretary take minutes of a free-for-all? I watched the wheels of the recorder spin and hoped there’d be enough tape.

  “Where on earth have you been?”

  “Ahh!” Everything I was carrying cascaded to the kitchen floor. “Richard!” I put a hand to my chest. Yes, my heart was still beating. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you to get home so my children wouldn’t be left unattended.”

  I took a deep breath—then another. Frights like that couldn’t be good for you. “Why isn’t your car in the driveway?”

  “Since I don’t know which side of the garage you use, I parked in front.”

  The house was on a corner lot. “A choice corner lot,” the real estate agent had said when we’d toured the place. Choice of what? I’d asked. Richard had chuckled, but I hadn’t been trying to be funny.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “The kids sleep at your place on Wednesdays.”

  “I have to leave at six for an emergency meeting in Chicago.” He looked at his watch. “That’s in six and a half hours. I left messages at your store and here and on your cell phone. Why you didn’t call me back, I can’t imagine.”

  I could, but imagination wasn’t one of Richard’s strong suits.“Are you going to be back for the weekend?”
I asked. “The kids are looking forward to carving pumpkins.”

  “Yes, I know.” He picked his coat up from a kitchen chair. “What’s all this?” He gestured at the floor, now covered with PTA paraphernalia. I explained my new role and he chuckled, using the same patronizing frequency that had incited divorce proceedings. “Marina talked you into it, didn’t she? Not a bad idea. You need to get out more.”

  Please, I begged the universe, send me a witty retort.

  “I’ll pick the kids up from school on Friday.” Richard jangled his car keys. “You will be home on Sunday at seven, won’t you? I don’t want to have to wait like this again.”

  When he’d left, I took off my shoes and padded in stocking feet up the hardwood stairway. The doors to Jenna’s and Oliver’s rooms were ajar. Jenna was flat on her stomach, arms spread wide across a rumpled blanket, our black cat curled up between her feet. I kissed the top of her head and straightened the sheets.

  In Oliver’s room, stuffed animals were dropping off the bed like fleas from a swimming dog. I picked up a bear, a lion, a dog, a hippopotamus, and lined them up on the desk so that Oliver would see them when he woke. I kissed my baby boy and headed to the kitchen with one thought in my head.

  In the back of the supremely unreachable cabinet above the refrigerator, there might, just might, have been a bag of Hershey’s kisses. I dragged over a chair, clambered up, opened the cabinet door, and spied the unmistakable sheen of aluminum-covered chocolate. “Found you.” This would be medicinal. I’d eat one or two. Three, at most. Four would be too many, but—

  “Mom? Mommy?”

  Jenna. I jumped to the floor and ran up to her room. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” I went to my knees beside her bed. “Another nightmare?”

  “I—I think so.” She sat up. In the dim glow shed by a night-light, I could see hot sleep creases on her face. “Someone was chasing me and I tried to run, but I kept falling down and getting up and falling down.” Her strong chin trembled.

  “It was just a silly dream. Slide over, sweetie.” She made room, and I pulled my daughter onto my lap. “Just a dream. Mommy’s here. Nothing’s going to hurt you. Just a silly old dream.” In time, my nonsense words calmed her. When she was soundly into the land of Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, I tucked her back into bed and gave her one more kiss.

  The kitchen clock showed an ugly time when I came back to collect my PTA notes—half past midnight. A sensible person would have left the chore of typing the meeting minutes until the next day. Until the weekend, even. I took the files into the study, turned on the computer, and started typing. Heroically, I took only one chocolate break.

  Well, maybe two.

  Three, tops.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning it took me three tries to punch in the correct code for the store’s alarm system. Five hours of sleep just wasn’t enough. Once upon a time I’d pulled all-nighters with ease, but my last collegiate exam had been a long time ago.

  While I turned on lights, I did the math and came up with eighteen years since I graduated from Northwestern, journalism degree in hand. As it turned out, I’d hardly needed that degree with my only newspaper job being the circulation editor for the Rynwood paper, published twice weekly. Richard and I had married straight out of college, and he hadn’t wanted me to work for the big paper in nearby Madison. “You’ll be safer here in Rynwood,” he’d said.

  He was probably right, and when I paused to think about things, I realized I was content with my life. I’d answered an ad for a part-time bookstore clerk when Oliver started preschool and had progressed to store ownership. Funny how things turned out, sometimes. I loved Rynwood’s downtown with its quirky collection of stores and store owners, and I loved my brick walls, tin ceiling, and faded carpet. But most of all I loved the intoxicating scent of new books.

  Once the store was bright with halogen lights, I headed to my minuscule office at the back. I dropped my purse into a desk drawer and picked up the report my manager had left last night. Clerks came and went with seasonal frequency, but Lois, the last holdover from the previous regime, was forever. For that, I was grateful—almost all of the time.

  “Less two percent,” she’d written on the monthly financial figures. “Party?” This meant our September sales were down two percent from the previous year and Lois’s idea for spurring sales was a Halloween party. Which meant decorations and costumes for the staff, and cookies and cider and spooky music—probably a machine to make fog, too. Lois didn’t do things in a small way.

  As I sat heavily in the scratched wooden chair, also a holdover from the last owner, the wheels squeaked. They squeaked again as I stood. Teatime—I had to make decisions, and no way could I do that without a mug of tea.

  “Good morning, Beth!” Lois breezed into the tiny kitchenette. She was twenty years older than I was, three inches taller, ten pounds lighter, and, since the death of her husband, infinitely more adventurous in her clothing choices. My idea of cutting-edge fashion was adding a paisley scarf to a navy blue blazer. Today, Lois wore canvas high-top tennis shoes, a plaid kilt kept closed by a brass pin, a pink ruffled blouse that miraculously managed to go with the kilt, and noisy metal bracelets. She twirled a black velvet cape from her shoulders and pulled off her red beret, hanging them both on hooks. “Got that tea water going?” she asked. “I have a new kind of chai. Vanilla peach spice.” She waved a small box.

  “Lois, about a Halloween party. I’m not sure—”

  “We can afford it? Don’t worry. It’ll cost hardly a penny. We’ll print a few posters and hang them around town. We’ll make some flyers and stuff them in bags. Half sheets, to save paper.” She talked with one hand on the handle of the almost-hot teakettle. “We’ll get the staff to bring a treat each, and I have boxes and boxes of decorations at home.”

  The whistle began its throaty chirping. Lois snatched it off the electric hot plate and poured water into two mugs. The tea bags steeped as she talked. “I checked the attic last night, and I have oodles of orange lights. Only things we’ll have to buy are cider and plastic cups.”

  “I have cups.” The words were out before I knew I was going to say anything.

  “Excellent.” Lois dunked the tea bags a few times and dropped them onto a cracked Peter Rabbit dish. The store carried child-sized dinnerware of Peter and his sisters. Breakages happened on occasion, and I had a varied collection of repaired dishes at home. The kids considered themselves too old for such babyish things, but I didn’t mind eating toast with Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail.

  “I’ll bring in my special Halloween CDs.” Lois wrapped her hands around the mug. “And my sister has a neighbor who has a friend who bought a fog machine for his last Halloween party. I bet I could borrow it.”

  Sometimes I wondered if Lois knew whose store this was. Sometimes I wondered if I knew.

  “Hello? Is anyone here? Beth?”

  I put down my tea and hurried out. “Good morning . . . Oh. Hi, Debra.”

  Nathan’s mother, dressed in a skirt-and-jacket set two shades darker than her pale blue eyes, put her hands on her hips. Light glinted off her multicarat engagement ring. “Is it true?” she demanded.

  “Umm . . .” I tried to like Debra. She was pleasant. She watched her son’s soccer games and didn’t scream at him. She attended church every Sunday and held hands with her husband on walks. I’d even seen her brush snow off an elderly woman’s windshield, but I just couldn’t like her. Marina said it was my inferiority complex rearing its butt-ugly head. Maybe knowing Debra was afraid of water would give me an edge. Not that we were in competition.

  “I couldn’t make it last night,” Debra said. “What is Agnes Mephisto doing now?”

  Last night’s PTA meeting came back to me in a rush—Agnes and her anonymous donor. And since for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, there also came the remembered instant opposition to Agnes’s proposal. “Would you like a copy of the meeting minutes?” I asked.

>   “Just tell me what that woman is trying to do to our school this time.”

  I gave her a summary, then said, “I’ll send out minutes tonight. Is your e-mail address still debra at rynwood dot com?”

  She ignored my attempt to slide away from the subject of Agnes. “She’s trying to railroad us into this addition.”

  “Well—”

  “Anonymous donor, my aunt Fanny. We have a right to know who’s putting up the money. What if it’s some kind of drug lord? We don’t want dirty cash in our school.”

  “I suppose you’re—”

  “And how can that woman bypass getting a taxpayer vote? I don’t care where the money is coming from. The parents of Tarver Elementary should be at the table for this issue.”

  Her voice was stern but not strident. She was being assertive but not aggressive. The perfect balance. So of course I couldn’t help myself. “It would be nice to have a bigger library.”

  Debra’s expertly made-up eyes thinned. “You’re in favor of this?”

  I shrugged. “There are positives.”

  “That’s not the point. None of her plans has had public approval. She can’t just forge ahead making decisions without a consensus. This is the United States.” She stood tall in her outrage. “This is Madison!”

  It was Rynwood, five miles away from the hotbed of liberalism in Madison, but I didn’t say so.

  “I’ll be at the next PTA meeting,” Debra said, “and I intend to speak up.” Her blond hair bounced like something out of a television commercial as she strode outside and down the sidewalk to the bank where she was a vice president. The bells hanging on the door had barely stopped jangling when CeeCee Daniels came in. “Can you believe that woman?” she asked.

  “Debra?” Maybe if I paid seventy-five dollars for a haircut, my hair would bounce like that. Not that I was ever likely to find out.

  “No, Agnes! She’s shoving that project down our throats. She can’t do this!” CeeCee put her hands on her hips and leaned forward. I had a premonition about the rest of my day. Tarver parent after Tarver parent would march into my store, ask about last night’s meeting, complain about Agnes, and leave without buying anything. If I were more like Debra, I’d tell people I had a business to run and could they please contact me after hours. But I was Beth Kennedy, and I’d been raised to be a Nice Girl.