Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery) (3 page)

The two women held hands and jumped into the pool together. “Let the creaming begin!” the announcer declared. The men who’d gathered at the end of the stage put the whipped-cream cans in front of their belt buckles and began squirting the women as they slithered around in the pool.

“Why are they holding them like that?” I asked.

Peaches gave me a look over the rim of her glass.

“Oh,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “They really pay ten dollars a can so they can pretend they’re . . . you know?”

“Looks like it,” Peaches said.

I watched the men holding the cans at their crotches—including our friend Krumbacher, who was right at the front—and shuddered. “Gross. Should we get a photo?”

The men beside us, thankfully, seemed to have forgotten our existence and were staring slack-jawed at the spectacle at the end of the stage. The two women were writhing around together on the bottom of the pool. It looked a little like they were playing Twister, except that they were mostly naked and covered in Reddi-wip. And Banana Twirl’s G-string had slipped twice.

“It’s not grounds for divorce, but it’ll look good in the report,” Peaches said. “Show that we’re doing something.”

“You should go,” I said. “He’s already seen me.”

“First rule of private investigation,” she repeated sternly. “I’ll go,” she said grudgingly, “but wave at me when the steak gets here. I don’t want it to get cold.”

I agreed and sat back happily, scooting my chair farther from Liver Spots as Peaches headed down toward the pool.

She wove through the crowd of men, tugging her orange dress down over her thighs, and wedged herself into the crowd until she got a ringside seat opposite from Krumbacher; I guess she figured she’d have a better shot of him that way. She had just positioned herself between two men in cowboy hats and pulled out her smartphone when Banana Twirl’s head popped up from the tangle of Reddi-wipped limbs, a giant glob of whipped cream hanging from her chin.

“Hey,” she said, wiping her eyes and squinting. “I know you.” She was looking right at Peaches. “You’re the bitch who followed my boyfriend around and took pictures of him at the monster-truck rally last month.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peaches said, and took a step back.

But Banana was advancing on her.

“You’ve got the wrong girl,” Peaches protested as Banana stepped over the rim of the pool, leaving a dollop of cream on the pink carpet.

Banana wasn’t smiling anymore, I noticed. “He lost ten thousand dollars in workers’ comp thanks to you!”

Peaches tried to back away, but the cowboys were blocking her escape route. Before she could find another exit, Banana Twirl had grabbed her wrist with a cream-covered hand and hauled her into the pool.

CHAPTER THREE

W
hat happened to the first rule of private investigation?” I asked Peaches as I slammed the van door behind us, almost forty minutes later. It had taken me ten minutes to wrangle Peaches away from the slippery talons of Banana Twirl, and we’d spent another fifteen minutes in the ladies’ room rinsing off the Reddi-wip and tending to Peaches’s black eye. Chewy had had to hustle us out the back door, leaving our steaks untouched.

“We all have bad days,” Peaches said.

“How did she spot you at a monster-truck rally? Aren’t there like thousands of people at those things?”

“It’s a long story,” she said. “I’ll tell you over a beer sometime.”

I looked at the clock; it was 3:45. “This day is turning out to be a disaster.”

“It was just a little whipped cream,” Peaches said.

“I have to be at Holy Oaks in fifteen minutes,” I reminded her, throwing the van into reverse and just missing the corner of the Corolla. “It’s my first time meeting the other parents, and I look like I lost a battle with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Plus, we didn’t get a picture, and now Krumbacher’s seen both of us.”

“More of me than you,” Peaches pointed out. She was right; at least twice during the tussle, Peaches had inadvertently mooned the entire club, Marty Krumbacher included. Miraculously, her top had stayed in place, but it had been touch-and-go a couple of times. “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a little setback, Margie,” she said, flipping down the visor and applying a coat of lipstick. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

A little setback.
Peaches was nothing if not optimistic.

I glanced at myself in the mirror. My reddish hair was still streaked with globs of white, and there were powdery patches appearing on my cheeks where the cream had dried. Plus, I was starting to pick up a yogurty aroma from my clothes. “I need to go home and change; there’s no way I can show up at the school looking like this.”

Peaches shook her head. “If you do that, you’ll miss the whole thing. Can your hubby fill in?”

“Blake’s in a client meeting this afternoon,” I said.

“On a weekend?”

“He’s an attorney, remember?” I reminded her. “Anyway, my mother-in-law agreed to watch the kids so that I could go.” Normally I could turn to Becky Hale in a pinch, but since Holy Oaks had turned Becky’s daughter down and she had written a nasty editorial about it in the
Austin Heights Picayune
, things had gotten a bit chilly between us.

Peaches turned and squinted at me. “It’s not really that bad, you know. If you sit in the back of the room, you’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, stealing another look in the mirror.

“You’ve got baby wipes, right? Just sponge yourself down with those and you’ll be fine. If anybody asks, tell them you were doing an art project with the kids and lost track of time.”

“Whipped-cream finger-painting?”

“Sounds good to me,” she said.

We pulled into the last available space of the Holy Oaks Catholic School parking lot at 4:15. There’d been no time to drop Peaches off; she was planning on waiting outside and making some phone calls while I was inside.

I spent another five minutes frantically wiping my hair and body with Huggies Wipes, the end result being that I now smelled like yogurt
and
diapers.

“How do I look?” I asked Peaches.

“Like you just came out of a car wash,” she said, squinting at my blotchy T-shirt.

“Thanks.”

“Hey. At least you look clean!”

I ran my fingers through my hair one more time and grabbed my purse. “This shouldn’t take long,” I told her.

“I hope not,” she said. “I’ve got a hot date in two hours.”

So did I. Unfortunately, it was with a six-year-old who only ate her food if it was white and I referred to it as “kibble,” and a four-year-old whose favorite word was “no.” I loved my kids, but there were days when I missed my single life.

Or did I? Despite Blake’s assertion that his fascination for men in blue satin was “only a phase” and that we’d “work things out,” I was likely looking at being single again. Only this time, with two young kids in tow.

I pushed that unpleasant thought from my head as I hustled through the manicured grounds toward the front entry. I couldn’t help noticing that there were not a lot of minivans in the parking lot. And certainly not a lot of minivans with their back bumpers held on with coat hangers. In fact, the lineup of sparkling Porsche Cayennes and Mercedes SUVs made me wonder for a moment if I’d accidentally driven to a luxury-car dealership.

It was 4:25 by the time I reached the front door and slipped into the lobby, which was the temperature of a meat locker. A young woman in a designer dress and sky-high heels glanced down at my outfit, made a poorly concealed moue of distaste, and said, “May I help you?”

“I’m looking for the new-parent orientation,” I told her.

“Right there in the library.” She waved a French-manicured hand at a set of double doors. I thanked her and scurried over to it, slipping in quietly and heading toward one of the few empty chairs in the back of the large, book-lined room.

My whipped-cream-stained shorts had barely hit the seat when the petite, perky woman at the front of the room said, “And who is
this
?”

It wasn’t until the entire room turned around to look that I realized she was talking about me.

I raised a hand and gave a little wave. “Margie Peterson,” I said, trying to sound casual. “My daughter’s name is Elsie; she’s starting first grade.”

“Wonderful!” the perky woman exclaimed, the brittle smile never wavering. “We were just discussing the uniform policy. There’s a packet of information for you here.” She held out a folder with
PETERSON
emblazoned on the front.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sorry I’m late.” I heaved myself to my feet and traipsed the length of the library, aware of every set of eyes on my whipped-cream-stained backside. It quickly became apparent that I was the only one who favored cream-covered shorts. In fact, I was the only one wearing shorts at all; the women all wore coordinated jogging ensembles or cute belted dresses, and the men had on jeans or khakis and button-down shirts.

I grabbed the folder from the head of the elementary school, who was dressed in a red sheath dress and a scarf with the Holy Oaks logo printed on it in blue. Beside her sat the headmaster, a vague, avuncular look on his round face. He had a fringe of white hair around his bald scalp, blue slacks over which spilled a small gut, and a tie with the Holy Oaks logo emblazoned on it. Was there a whole Holy Oaks wardrobe available at the school store?

As I turned around, ready to sprint back to my seat, my gaze fell on a familiar face.

It was Mitzi Krumbacher, her eyes boring into me like she was trying to reduce me to cinders telekinetically.

And next to her, with a smirk on his face, was her husband Marty.

The next hour seemed to go on for days—and not just because I was wearing damp shorts that smelled like yogurt. The woman in charge of the elementary school—Claire Simpson, I remembered her name was—covered the uniform policy, the fundraising campaign for the new buildings, the hot lunch program, the facilities they hoped to add once they’d fundraised for the new buildings, the importance of parent council, and more details on the capital campaign for the new buildings.

I was starting to sense a motif.

She concluded by brandishing a large “Sky High” poster for the capital campaign, looking as if she were showing off Door Number One on
The Price is Right
. “Welcome to Holy Oaks,” she told us. “I’m looking forward to seeing your children’s shining faces tomorrow morning. And, of course, I hope you’ll all pitch in and help Holy Oaks grow deep roots and reach Sky High!”

There was polite applause, and everybody stood up. The young woman from the front office came and opened the double doors to the lobby.

And that’s when I heard Peaches, her Texas twang carrying across the empty space like she was talking into a bullhorn.

“I told you, I don’t like to use hookers for jobs like this!” she bellowed into the phone. “Their hourly rate is way too high.” She was sitting on the bench in the front lobby, her smartphone plugged into an outlet, her orange hair plastered to her head, and her white-streaked orange dress hiked up high on her plump thighs. She looked a little like a Creamsicle.

My eyes flicked to Mitzi. Her jaw had dropped, which, frankly, was more movement than I thought her Botoxed face could handle, and she looked pale beneath her suntan.

“Peaches,” I hissed.

My boss looked up, and I noticed her black eye had started to turn purple. “Oh. Hey, Margie.”

CHAPTER FOUR

H
ookers?” I asked as I tore out of the Holy Oaks parking lot, the information packet wedged between the seat and the console. “You couldn’t take that call outside?”

“The timing wasn’t great, I’ll admit. My phone battery started to die just as we got to the important part, so I had to come inside and plug it in.” She shot me a sheepish look. “Sorry about that.”

“Maybe you should order the small margarita next time,” I suggested.

Peaches gave a little belch. “Probably because I didn’t eat. Tequila always goes to my head if I don’t eat.”

“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. I’m sure everything will be okay,” I said, hoping it was. Elsie hadn’t started her first day of school yet, and I’d already managed to scandalize half the parent population.