Death of a PTA Goddess (15 page)

She froze for a moment. Her cheeks turned red, and she averted her eyes. “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

“Why did you suggest such a thing? When Patty was taking the heat over her supposedly suggesting it, why didn’t you say it was originally your idea?”

“Molly, I’ve felt horrible about that. And, I guess I’m glad you’re calling me on the carpet, as they say.”

She didn’t go on, so I prompted, “So . . . what happened? Did you suggest it to Patty in passing or something?”

“Yes. Just before school started this year, Patty happened to say that Al’s class had been her son’s favorite in high school. I mentioned, half jokingly, what a great project it would have been for him to have surreptitiously taped our PTA meetings. We got to talking about other things after that, and I never dreamed the results would be that . . . damned tape.”

I nodded. “Apparently, Patty went directly to Mr. Alberti’s students and suggested the project to them.”

Emily’s mouth opened slightly in surprise. “She did?”

“According to Al’s wife. She thought Patty might have done that to show off or something . . . to demonstrate to the kids how cool she still was.”

Emily’s face fell. “Oh, dear. Poor Patty.”

“You knew Patty better than I did. Does that make any sense to you?”

Emily looked truly miserable. “Yes, Patty could be desperately insecure at times. She knew a couple of those camera girls through her son. Helping them out by suggesting a topic for a class assignment would have made her day.”

“Don’t you think she should have realized that—”

“Let’s just drop the subject. Okay?”

“Okay.” She must have not wanted to cast aspersions on her late friend. “Well, I’ve got to say that, of all people, Patty Birch had the least reason of anyone I know to feel insecure. I mean, the woman was nicknamed Perfect Patty, for heaven sakes.”

Emily furrowed her brow.

“Sorry. I’m not very good at dropping subjects once I’ve got a good hold on them.”

“We all have our faults. And none of us enjoy having them exposed for the world to see.”

I nodded. “I guess, in that respect, we’re all like the joke about the old, ugly stripper . . . in which the crowd starts yelling, ‘Put it back on!’ ”

She smiled a little, but that quickly turned to a frown. “Molly, everyone knows you’re the self-appointed murder investigator in this town. Do you really think this is the way to go about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Confronting people like this? Asking them what they were thinking when they made negative comments about Patty? You’re just stirring up trouble, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were guilty of anything. You’ve been really close to Patty, ever since she moved here. Literally, too. You’re all of—what?—two blocks away?” Which also meant that she probably didn’t drive that night, either, I told myself.

“Yes, we used to go for walks together, every morning. Good prevention for osteoporosis, by the way.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you even have the slightest interest in menopause, or did you join the group just to garner evidence against us?”

“Of
course
I’m sincerely interested in learning about menopause. What woman in her forties can afford not to be?” I couldn’t resist adding, “Though I came mostly for Stephanie’s sake.”

Emily nodded thoughtfully. “She’s got a lot of peri-menopause signs, now that I think about it.” She glanced at her watch, and I took the hint and said that I needed to get going. She walked me to the door, but then stopped and touched my sleeve. When our eyes met, she said gently, “Molly, I’d hate to see you become a second victim. Let the police do their jobs. If I were you, I’d stay out of this entirely.”

“So would most rational human beings.”

Too bad I wasn’t one of them, I thought as I stepped outside into the brisk afternoon air.

Despite some of the things I’d recently heard about Patty, I knew one wonderful thing about her: She was absolutely the type of person who, had it been me instead of her, would have done anything and everything to help my children.

I also knew beyond any doubt that the only way that I, or anyone else, could help Kelly Birch was to see to it that her mother’s murderer was brought to justice.

Chapter 14

Chia Cheese Pets

After school, Nathan had gone to a friend’s house on the opposite side of our development. Blessed with some extra time on my hands, I gave Karen another driving lesson. She was doing well as we navigated down a congested main road. Up ahead of us was a sign for the highway, and Karen asked, “Can I please go on the Northway? Just for one exit?”

For some reason my mouth short-circuited my brain, and I heard myself say, “Okay.”

“Thanks, Mom!”

Already I was getting a major case of nerves. “We’ll have you stick in the right lane no matter what, and we’ll get off at the next exit. I just hope I’ll be able to remember how to get us home on the back roads.”

My heart was racing, and I dug my fingers into the armrests. I tried to silently reassure myself. Karen truly had been making great strides in her driving, and there was nothing innately challenging about being on the Northway, except for the high speeds, increased traffic, and additional lanes. “Karen, on second thought . . .” Too late. She’d started to veer onto the ramp.

“What?!”

“Nothing. It’s fine. We’ll be fine.” We’re fully insured, and we have air bags. At least this was early enough in the day that we weren’t dealing with rush hour.

I held my breath and prayed for the Saint of Traffic and Driving Conditions to intervene on our behalf. Mercifully, as we sped onto the highway, we were indeed blessed by a nice, empty slow lane. In gratitude, I silently swore that I’d obey all speed limits for a month.

Breathing once again, I said, “Okay. No cars. Just put your left blinker on, accelerate, and pull into the traffic lane.”

She did so, more or less, and I complimented her. In truth, however, she had yet to master the skill of merging smoothly into a lane, seeming to believe that she could make the car hop lanes by jerking the wheel. My standards were lower these days. Any drive accomplished without being in imminent and real fear for our very lives was a good one.

We got up to the speed limit without incident. Nevertheless, I continued to feel as though we were running the rapids atop barrels of nitroglycerin. All the while, I continued to tell Karen how well she was doing and give little tidbits of instruction about highway driving.

With just a mile or two to go till the exit, we caught up with the car in front of us. “Slow down and we’ll just follow this car,” I said.

“This guy isn’t even going fifty! Can’t I pass him?”

“No! Changing lanes is for a future lesson, way down the road. So to speak.”

Karen protested, but slowed down. My attention was diverted to the car ahead of us. “Hey, that’s Chad Martinez driving, and it looks like his passenger is Susan Embrick.”

“Adam’s mom?”

“Yes.”

“Should I tail them? Find out where they’re going?”

“No. Like I said before, simply follow them until we reach the next exit.”

Karen stayed a reasonable distance behind their bumper. They were certainly engrossed in their conversation. What could they be discussing so earnestly? They turned off at the next exit, and we followed.

“You know what, Karen? Since I never go this way and don’t really know how to get back, tailing them for a while isn’t such a bad idea. Just kind of lag back a bit and keep following them till I can pick up on some street names.”

“Cool! I feel like a secret agent!”

“Well, don’t get too attached to the notion. We’re just doing this till I get my bearings, then we’re trading places. This has been a long enough lesson for one day. I don’t want you to overload.”

Chad had put on his signal to pull into the parking lot of a grocery store.

“This is perfect, Karen. Just follow them into the parking lot. This will be a good place for us to swap drivers.”

We pulled in behind them and found a section with three empty parking spaces, which was roughly the amount of open space Karen needed to park without incident. Chad, however, stopped directly in front of the grocery store. Susan got out of the car and went into the drugstore next door, while Chad left his car in the no-parking zone and dashed into the grocery store.

“Are we switching drivers now?” Karen asked as I opened my door.

“Yes, but I’ll be right back. I’m going to ask Susan how to get back on a less-busy road than the Northway.”

“Okay, but don’t bring her out here. I don’t want Adam’s mom to think we’re, like, weird or something.”

“Oh, no chance of that.” I trotted into the drugstore and found her in the indigestion-products aisle, examining some small box.

“Susan, hi.”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “Molly. I didn’t expect to see
you
here.”

“It is somewhat off my usual beaten path. I was giving Karen a driving lesson and happened to spot you and Chad. Thought I’d ask if there was a direct route back, or if we should turn around and head back up the Northway.”

“If I were you, I’d just head up to Ballston Lake Road.”

“Does that intersect with this road?”

She furrowed her brow. “Yes, just a couple of miles up ahead. Haven’t you lived here for something like . . . ten years now?”

“Seven or eight. Plus, I grew up here. The thing is, though, I have no sense of direction whatsoever.”

“That must be a challenge.”

“It is.” I hesitated, curious about her being with Chad. “So, what brought
you
out this way?”

“Chad’s thinking of opening another studio and wanted a second opinion . . . normally the type of thing he’d ask Patty to do, but I took classes from him when we first moved here, and he seems to think I’m outspoken with my opinions.” She fluffed up her black hair and widened her eyes jokingly. “No idea where he got such an outlandish idea.”

“He’s thinking of putting a second studio right here?”

“No, farther south. I’d just been feeling a bit under-the-weather and asked him to pull in here.”

“Hope you feel better soon. Well, have a nice evening. And thanks for the directions. I’d better get back to my car before my daughter gets bored and tries to take off without me.”

“See you later.” She went back to examining the box of medicine in her hands.

As I walked, I idly considered whether it would be worth my while to track down Chad and chat with him, too. All thoughts of additional sleuthing flew from my head the moment I stepped outside and saw what was happening in the parking lot.

Karen had gotten out of the car—probably to switch to the passenger seat—and pushed toward the rack a grocery cart that a shopper had deserted. The cart had a gimpy wheel and, instead of going into the rack, it headed toward Chad’s car, which was just a few yards away from this storefront.

It was as if everything were taking place in slow motion, and yet my reactions were operating at an even slower speed. Karen gasped and put both hands to her face. I tried to dart around Chad’s gold-colored Toyota to catch the cart. Meanwhile, someone came out of the grocery store and yelled, “No-o-o-o,” as he ran. Both of us arrived at the point of impact a second too late. The car door was dented and scratched.

“Oh, my God!” Karen cried.

Chad shoved the cart away, ran his hand over the slight dent, then pivoted, his face beet red. “You idiot! Look what you’ve done to my car!” He rolled up a newspaper he was carrying, and I had a vision of him beating my daughter over the head with it.

“Hey!” I shouted. “It was an accident. The damage is already done. Name-calling and temper tantrums aren’t going to change that.”

Showing no signs of softening his temper, Chad whirled to face me. “Easy for you to say when it’s not your car!” He focused again at poor Karen, who was already in tears. “You have nothing better to do than to stand out in parking lots, shoving carts into people’s cars? What’s the matter with you?”

“There’s nothing the matter with my daughter, Chad! She had a minor lapse of judgment that led to a small scratch on your car, which—”

“What happened?” Susan cried as she ran toward us down the sidewalk.

“I scratched his car,” Karen said in whimper. “It was my fault.” She looked desperately at me. “Someone left the shopping cart in a handicapped space, and I thought I could just give it a little shove into the rack.”

“Why didn’t you keep hold of the handle? This wouldn’t have happened if you’d pushed the cart all the way into the rack!” Chad cried.

“And it wouldn’t have happened if your car hadn’t been parked illegally in the fire lane,” Susan said calmly.

“I was only going to be here for a minute! I was just buying a newspaper!” He lifted the paper rolled in his fist as if to demonstrate.

The man had a ridiculous temper. The damage was very minor, and I was having to struggle to keep my own temper at bay for his getting so carried away at my daughter. “Chad, get the damage appraised, and I’ll pay for it.”

“You bet you’ll pay.” He glared at Susan. “Let’s get out of here. Now.”

“Don’t feel bad, Karen,” Susan said. Eyeing Chad, she said evenly, “This is truly not a big deal.”

“Chad, my husband’s name is James Masters. Susan can help you remember that. We’re in the phone book. Just call me as soon as you get an estimate.” My teeth were clenched so tight, it was lucky they didn’t break as I threw my door open. Karen was crying softly as she handed me the keys and we got into the car.

I tried to count to ten to calm myself. “Some people put a whole lot of importance into their cars. But it was just a little scratch. Don’t worry about it, Karen. As I told Mr. Martinez, your father and I will pay for the repairs.” I started the engine, and we pulled out of the lot, leaving Susan and Chad behind.

“I feel awful. It was my fault. And it would have to happen to the car Adam’s mother, of all people, was riding in. I should be the one to pay for it.”

“You don’t have any money. You can pay me back by driving the speed limit and obeying your curfew, and using good judgment at all times. That and doing the dishes for the next two weeks.”

Karen sighed, but was otherwise silent for a minute or two. Finally she said, “Can’t I just give you an IOU?”

The minute we got home, Karen went straight to her room and closed her door. I picked up Nathan who, to his credit, promptly began his homework in his favorite spot: seated on the living room floor with his books on the coffee table. I called Jim, telling him about our impending auto-body bill at such great length that he moved from anger at Karen to anger at Chad and then all the way into complacency. Finally, I hung up and started working on a cartoon.

Betty, meanwhile, was being especially emphatic about wanting more dinner. She carried her food dish into the living room and then dropped it right on my foot.

Mulling the benefits of owning plants rather than animals, my subsequent doodles were of a Chia Pet. Eventually I wound up drawing a couple of men in white lab coats studying a piece of scuzzy-looking, moldy Swiss cheese. The one scientist is saying to the other: “Maybe we could try cutting it into the shape of a mouse.” The caption reads: The inventors of Chia Pets work to expand their product line.

I glanced over at Nathan and thought about showing him the cartoon, but decided not to risk rejection right now. “How’s Kelly seem to be doing?”

“We had a test in algebra today, and right in the middle of it, she started crying and said she had to go to the nurse.”

My heart lurched. “Did she say she felt sick?”

“No, just that she couldn’t remember anything she’d studied last night and that she had to go to the nurse.”

“Did she come back to class?”

“I don’t think so. I tried to find her at lunchtime, but couldn’t. It’s weird, though. She was always really good in math.”

Tears started to well in my eyes. I tried to find a distraction in my drawings, not wanting Nathan to see me cry.

“Do you think I could make her a card?” Nathan asked. “We’re kind of friends, and I wish she wasn’t so sad.”

“I do, too. I think a card would be nice.”

That evening, Karen hated the dinner I’d prepared, which meant that Nathan liked it. My children believe in taking opposite stances whenever possible. I told Karen, “You know, you’re old enough to cook dinner yourself. Laura Ingalls Wilder was already a professional teacher and working for a living when she was your age.”

“Oh, good argument, Mom.” She rolled her eyes. Apparently she’d recovered her sense of sarcasm in the wake of her shopping-cart incident.

The phone rang. Both Jim and Nathan were mid-bite and Karen was mid-scowl, so I answered.

It was Stephanie. “Molly, get . . . spiffed up. We’re going to a dance competition tonight.”

“We are?”

“There isn’t much time. It starts in an hour.”

“An hour from now? And we’re just finding out about it now?”

“I’ve known for a couple of days, but kept forgetting to call you.” She paused. “That’s not quite accurate. I kept assuming I wouldn’t have to be the one to call you. I thought you’d call
me
to send me off on another wild-goose chase with you. Then you never did.”

“I think I’m going to have to pass, Stephanie.” I added jokingly, “I just don’t think I’m up for competing tonight.”

“Not you. Me.”

“You’re going to be
in
the competition?”

“Yes, but it’s not much of a competition, in the classic sense of the word. More of a publicity stunt to get more students. Three of the dance schools in the immediate area are showing off what their students have learned so far. Chad Martinez has asked me to be his partner to fill in for Patty.”

While Stephanie was talking, I wandered out of the dining room with the cordless phone. I said quietly, “That’s nice, Stephanie, but Karen’s in a volatile mood, and the last person in the world I want to see right now is Chad Martinez. I was giving Karen a driving lesson today, and—”

“Molly, we’re wasting time here. This is a golden opportunity to talk to most of the suspects. Not only will Chad be there, but so will Emily Crown, Jane Daly, and Kevin Alberti. I will be too busy dancing to look for clues.”