Curse of the PTA (6 page)

My distaste must have been obvious, because her face went quiet, a speck of raisin
on her lip. “No, it’s not like that. It’s more . . . well, I’m worried.” She laced
her hands over her mostly flat belly. “For the little bug, you know? Travis is worried
that Rynwood isn’t safe. After what happened last spring, you know, and now this,
well . . . it doesn’t look good.”

Alan murmured an agreement.

“I understand your husband’s concern,” I said, “but I’m sure the police will find
the killer soon.”

“The Rynwood police?” she said doubtfully. “Chief Eiseley is, like, the nicest guy
ever, but how many murders has he ever had to solve?”

More than you’d think
, I almost said. “The investigation is being turned over to the Dane County Sheriff’s
Office.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good,” she said. “Say, I heard you and Nick Casassa almost had the
guy. Did you work with one of those sketch artists?”

So much for the being worried thing. I started to say something annoyingly weenie,
something along the lines of not being able to talk about an active investigation,
when the front door jingled again.

Rachel Helmstetter, mother of Blake and Mia, widow of Sam, walked in, spotted our
small group and came back to join us. “Morning, everyone. Have I missed anything?”

She grinned, and almost against my will, I smiled back. Rachel had come a long way
in the last year. After her husband had been killed, she’d taken the helm of his mobile
shredding business. She was transforming it from a nice little venture for two partners
and their two trucks into a business that had the potential to expand into Madison
and out to Milwaukee

And she was making it look easy. It wasn’t, of course. During the lunches we had every
so often, she’d confess her doubts and fears. I’d encourage her to stifle the doubts
and tramp on the fears and we’d both return to work refreshed. Every so often, I’d
chuckle at the idea that fear-laden and worry-filled Beth Kennedy was helping Rachel.
Then again, who knew better how to work through fears than someone who was used to
being afraid?

“I was just asking Beth about a sketch artist,” Whitney said.

“Really?” Rachel asked. “Didn’t the guy have a ski mask on? That’s what I heard, anyway.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Sara rushed in the back door. “It won’t happen again, I’m really
sorry.”

I looked at my watch. “You’re all of three minutes late. Don’t worry about it.”

The front bells jingled again, and Glenn Kettunen, owner of the local insurance company,
came in and headed straight toward us with the accuracy of a target missile. On his
heels was PTA mother Isabel Olsen, and behind her was PTA mom and bank vice president
Debra O’Conner.

Alan was asking Rachel something, Lois was talking to Sara, Whitney was turning and
calling to Isabel, and Glenn was looking jovial, which was always an indicator that
he had time to spare.

The noise was reaching the level you found inside one of those slick city-style bistros
with hard floors and brick walls and tin ceilings, the kind of restaurant I stayed
away from whenever possible.

I looked from one friend to another. All talking, all waving their hands, all seeming
to be having the time of their lives. I made my thumb and middle finger into a circle,
put it in my mouth, and blew.

The resulting earsplitting whistle had the desired effect. Silence.

“Thank you,” I said. “Now. While in many ways I understand your curiosity about last
night, I do not appreciate how a man’s murder seems to have become entertainment.”
Everyone had the grace to look ashamed. Everyone except Glenn.

“Oh, come on, Beth,” he boomed out in his bigger-than-life voice. “Have a heart. We
know it’s a tragedy. But you can’t blame us for wanting to get the story straight.
You were there, and we weren’t.”

I sighed. “Okay. But don’t you dare transmogrify what I tell you to something more
exciting.” I gave Glenn the same look I gave my children when they were about to tell
me “Yes, Mom, my homework is all done.” “I know where you live, and I will hunt you
down if you change one single word.” I scanned the small crowd. “And that goes for
the rest of you, too.”

Heads nodded, so I forged ahead and related the events of the previous night. As I
spoke, I tried to see the scene in black and white, trying to keep away from the vivid
red I so didn’t want to see. It worked. Mostly.

“And that’s all I know,” I finished. “Gus said the sheriff’s office is taking over,
so from this point on, I won’t know any more than what we’ll read in the papers.”

“You don’t really think it was someone in the PTA, do you?” Rachel looked at me, worry
showing in the twist of her mouth. “Who do you think did it? I’ll need to tell the
kids something.”

“Yeah.” Glenn’s bald pate shone in the halogen lights. He’d lost the majority of his
hair before he was thirty and had started shaving his entire head soon after. Now
in his midforties, he claimed to have no idea if he still had any hair. “You’ve caught
more killers than Gus has. Who do you think did it?”

No way was I going to tell this group that I’d spent half the night going over and
over the meeting in my head, trying to remember anything and everything. If I mentioned
a single name—not that I had a name in my head; of course I didn’t—half the town would
have that person tried and convicted before lunchtime.

“I’m not thinking about it at all,” I said firmly.

Glenn started laughing. “Tell that to someone who might believe you.”

I turned to Sara. “I’m not thinking about it at all.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, Mrs. Kennedy. Your ears are going all pink.”

Foiled again by my body’s stupid reactions. “Fine. I may be thinking about it, but
I don’t know anything and I’m not going to guess. The fine people from the sheriff’s
office will find the killer soon. That’s what they do.”

Debra looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I knew what she was thinking, though,
or close enough. How soon was soon? How long would we have to walk down the street
knowing there was a killer roaming free?

I crossed my arms, cupping my elbows with the opposite hands.

Soon. It would be soon.

The nonemployees in the room straggled away, and soon just the three of us were left.
I turned to Sara to ask if she wanted a cup of tea, but she preempted my question.

“I know you were just being nice about me being late.” Blond and blue-eyed, tall and
thin, intelligent and bookish, Sara had been all bones and angles when she’d first
come to work for me three years ago. Now she was finally getting curvy, and, although
she didn’t yet know it, she was going to be a drop-dead-gorgeous woman.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she was saying, “and I promise it won’t happen again and
I’ll shut up now because you probably don’t want to hear about how late I was up last
night working on my pee chem lab.”

Lois frowned. “I thought I told you to stop peeing on your chemistry project.”

“I told you before.” Sara pulled her hair out of its rubber band, shook it loose,
and ponytailed it back up again. “It’s a physical chemistry class. And there’s nothing
funny about it.”

Lois and I exchanged a glance. Sara had sounded downright snippy. Which was completely
unlike the college senior.

When Sara turned to the sink and flipped through the basket of tea bag selections,
Lois pointed at me. I pointed at her. She shook her head vigorously. We both put our
right hands into fists and slapped them against our palms three times. On the fourth
slap, I laid down my two splayed fingers. Scissors. Lois kept her hand as a fist.
Rock. Rock grinds scissors.

Rats.

Grinning, Lois pushed me toward the young woman. “Pretend it’s a training session,”
she whispered, “for when Jenna gets older.”

Social, athletic Jenna had about as much in common with the studious and scientifically
minded Sara as I had with Marie Curie, but I knew what she meant. I stood beside Sara,
watching her go through the tea bags over and over.

“Sara,” I asked. “Is something bothering you?”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just fine.”

A possibility occurred to me. Sara wasn’t from Rynwood. She was from ten-mile-distant
Madison, but maybe she had relatives here in town. “Did you know Dennis Halpern? The
man who was killed last night?”

She picked up a tea bag—lemon zinger—and said, “No. I’ve never heard of him before.”
Her eyes went wide, and I noticed for the first time the red bloodshot streaks. “Mrs.
Kennedy, were you related to him? Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. I never thought, and here
everyone was wanting to know about last night and all the time you’re—”

“No, I’m not related.” I shook my head. “Not as far as I know, anyway.”

This earned me a small smile, but it disappeared much too quickly. I watched her long,
slender fingers as she dunked her tea bag in the hot water. Pianist’s fingers, my
grandmother would have said. Surgeon’s fingers, my grandfather would have said, and
in Sara’s case, my grandfather would have been dead-on because Sara was aiming for
medical school and orthopedic surgery.

I watched Sara dunk the tea bag far beyond normal dunking requirements and wished
I knew what was bothering her. If she didn’t want to tell, there was no reason she
should. But I could make sure she had every opportunity to change her mind.

•   •   •

It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, not long before the store closed, that I had
another chance to talk to Sara. The day had been full of curiosity seekers in search
of details about the night before (with an occasional outburst from friends who felt
the need to scold me for trying to be a hero), and I was starting to look at my watch
a little too often. Tomorrow would be an easier day, and it couldn’t come too soon.
Everyone I knew in town had either stopped by or called—even my former nearly significant
other, Evan—so with any luck, the next day things would be back to normal.

I was smiling at the thought while I sat at my computer in my tiny office at the back
of the store. A normal day tomorrow. How very nice that would be. I could start thinking
about the Halloween orders and—

Suddenly, my mom senses went
twang!

I’d heard something. I was sure of it. Something like . . . yes. There it was again.

I pushed back my chair and stood. Went to the door and looked around the corner.

There, standing next to the early chapter books, was Sara. But it was a Sara I’d never
seen before. The normally chipper and perky young woman had laid her arms on the end
of the shelving and put her head down. Her shoulders were shuddering with sobs, and
her quiet sniffs were enough to make me want to cry.

I went to her side. “Sara,” I said softly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nuh-nuh-nothing.”

Had I been this dramatic when I was her age? Sadly, I was sure I had been. “Sara,
please tell me what’s bothering you.” I hesitated, then put my arm around her shoulders
and gave her a hug. “Please let me help. I want to, you know.”

“But . . . don’t . . . you see?” she huffed out between her tears. “That’s the problem!”

I didn’t see. Not at all. But it didn’t do to point out logic to someone in emotional
distress. And if men could learn that simple fact, marriages all over the world would
improve.

“If you want,” I said, “come into my office. We can sit down and talk about whatever
it is that’s troubling you.”

She drew in a long breath and stepped back. “Um, thanks, but I’m fine.” She rubbed
her face and her hands came away wet with tears. “Really, I’m fine.” To prove it,
she smiled wide, a grimace that didn’t carry an ounce of happiness. “I’m just tired;
that’s all.”

“Tired,” I said. “You’re sure about that?”

Her shoulders came back up. She looked at me straight on. “Honest, Mrs. Kennedy. I
really am just tired. I’ll catch up on sleep this weekend.”

I nodded and let her get back to work, watching the top of her blond head bob between
the shelves as she went to help a customer. She’d sounded like she was telling the
truth. But was she? I watched her greet the woman, saw her manufactured smile, and
wondered.

•   •   •

The next morning was Friday, the day I’d recently decided was perfect for delivering
books to the local schools. For years I’d made it a point to personally drop off books
that teachers had special ordered. It cost me two hours of time almost every week,
but it generated a tremendous amount of loyalty, and that was beyond price.

Plus it gave me an opportunity to peek in on my son. Not Jenna, though, not now that
she was in middle school. She’d made me promise with a triple cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die-stick-a-needle-in-my-eye
that I wouldn’t come anywhere near any of her classrooms.

“I will die,” she said. “Just die. Middle school is different, Mom.”

She was right, but in spite of my promise, I’d found it difficult almost beyond bearing
to walk in and out of the middle school without seeing her. So close to my daughter,
yet so far. But Oliver would be at Tarver for two more years, so I had two more years
of happy kid-peeking.

I plopped the box of books on the counter of the front office. “Good morning, Lindsay.
How are you this fine day?”

Lindsay, six feet tall and skinny as a runway model, was as competent a school secretary
as you could imagine. Teachers, parents, and the rest of the school staff continued
to be amazed that she’d choose to work at the school instead of finding a higher-paying
job at some fancy office in Madison. We all wanted her to stay forever, and since
we couldn’t do anything about the size of her paycheck, the parents had banded together
and made a quiet schedule for presenting her with gifts of chocolate, cookies, and
muffins.

“Getting fat,” she said, thumping her bony hips. “Put on almost a pound since school
started.”

I looked at her.

“Gotta nip that stuff in the bud, you know.” She grinned. “Want a chocolate-chip scone?
Mrs. Eberhard gave me a plateful.”