Curse of the PTA (7 page)

“Did I hear you say scones?” A round-faced woman stood in the doorway that led to
the back offices. “Chocolate chip?” She spoke with the soft-edged tones of someone
from the South. Charleston, South Carolina, to be specific.

“Morning, Millie.” I smiled at the school psychologist. “I’ll split one with you.”

“Oh, my dear.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “I like you very much, but scones are
not to be split and shared.”

“Especially Mrs. Eberhard’s,” Lindsay said. “Here.” She held out a plate, aiming it
alternately at me, then at Millie. “Scone, anyone?”

Since it would have been rude not to take what was offered, I took the smallest one.
Which was still probably three hundred calories too big, but it was Friday, after
all. I’d make sure to work it off playing with the kids tomorrow. Absolutely. For
sure.

We ate the first two bites in reverent silence, giving Mrs. Eberhard’s scones the
attention they deserved. “How’s it going with the new vice principal?” After lengthy
deliberations, the school board had hired Stephanie Pesch in July. All I knew about
her was that she had come highly recommended and that she was young.

“She’s a very nice young lady,” Millie said. “I think she’ll do well.”

“Good thing she’s wasn’t hired by the high school,” Lindsay said, laughing. “She’s
a hottie.”

I smiled, then asked the dreaded question. “Have the kids been affected much by Dennis
Halpern’s death?”

Lindsay squinched her face. “Staff and faculty more than the kids, I think. Kids are
bloodthirsty little buggers.”

“It’s not quite real,” Millie said. “To them, Mr. Halpern’s murder is more like a
television show that’s being filmed right here at the school. They didn’t see what
you did, Beth.”

No, they hadn’t, and for that I was profoundly grateful.

“Oh, wow, I forgot.” Lindsay’s eyes went wide. “It must have been . . . awful.”

I’d started to clench the muscles at the back of my neck, anticipating more questions,
preparing for more curiosity, steeling myself to being dragged back to that night
and having to tell the story all over again. But Lindsay was looking at me with sympathy,
and Millie’s large brown eyes were full of nothing but kindness.

“Yes,” I said. “It was awful.”

The room was quiet as we finished eating the scones. Millie dusted off her hands.
“Well, back to work. Tests to analyze and all that. Lindsay, thank you. Beth, if you
need to talk—or even if you don’t need to—you know my door’s always open.”

I watched her go. “She’s a nice lady.”

“Yup.” Lindsay nodded. “Say, if you want—” The electronic beeping of the phone cut
across her sentence. “Oh, drat.” She made a face as she picked up the phone. “Good
morning. Tarver Elementary.”

I waited a moment, but when she said, “Sure, I can do that for you. Just let me pull
up that program, okay?” I waved good-bye and headed down the hallway to find my Oliver.

He was where he should be, inside his fourth grade classroom. From what I could tell
of his concentrated look and hunched posture, the class was practicing writing. Mrs.
Sullivan was a big believer in teaching cursive handwriting. No matter how loudly
the students protested that they didn’t need to learn cursive, why should they when
everything was done on the computer, she ignored them with a bland smile and handed
out worksheets.

Oliver had been in tears over the “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” homework.
“I can’t make a
Q
,” he’d wailed. “It keeps turning into a
G
. I’m never going to get this right. I’m going to get an F on this homework, and I’m
going to fail fourth grade and never get to go to college.”

The tears coursing down his face had made my own eyes prickle even as I was trying
not to laugh. “Sweetheart, look,” I’d said, pointing at the handout. “Read what it
says at the top of the page.”

He’d sniffed. “Um, it says . . . you will not be graded on this homework. It says
it’s for ref . . . refer . . . reference purposes only.”

“That’s right. Do you know what that means?”

“Um, there’s a reference section in the library. My homework is going to be in the
library?” He’d sat up straight, mouth opening in horror.

“No. A reference is something you can look up.” Sort of. “Mrs. Sullivan is going to
keep your homework”—I tapped the tearstained piece of paper—“and at the end of the
year, you’ll write this sentence again.”

“And you think I’ll be better then?”

I squeezed his shoulder. “You’ll be lots better.”

He looked at his homework, and I could almost see the direction of his nine-year-old
brain. “So I don’t have to do a really good job on this?”

“You should do the best job you can,” I said firmly. “You should always do your best.”

“But if . . .” His voice faded off when he saw my face. He sighed. “But it’s hard
to always be trying so hard.”

I’d kissed the top of his head. “Once you get in the habit, it’s not so bad.”

Now, as I watched the tip of his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he practiced
his writing, I hoped my words had sniggled deep down inside him. If I could teach
my children that you should always do your best and if I could show them that nothing
mattered more than having a kind heart, then I could count my parenting as successful.
Of course, it would be nice if they’d end up with a solid sense of humor and a slightly
above-average dose of ambition. And if—

“Hey, Beth.”

I turned. “Hey, yourself, Pete. What are you doing . . . ?” Then I made the obvious
connection. “Oh. Right.”

Pete Peterson owned and operated Cleaner Than Pete, a company that cleaned up things
no one in their right mind wanted to touch with an eleven-foot pole. He’d started
with sewers that had backed up into people’s houses, expanded to tidying up vandalism,
and then branched out into crime-scene cleanup.

We’d met two years ago while he was cleaning a murder scene, and last year, after
his sister had moved to Rynwood with her young daughter, we’d started running into
each other more often.

Pete was one of those friendly guys who didn’t have a worry in the world. His typical
stance was a round-shouldered comfortable slouch, hands in pockets, smile on his face.
Medium height, balding, and permanently cheerful, Pete smiled easily and laughed often.

“One of these days they’re going to figure out a way to keep water from being so heavy.”
He set the full bucket of soapy water he was carrying on the floor and flexed his
hand. “Are we on for golf tomorrow?”

“The kids are already working on their strategies.” Last May, Pete had volunteered
to teach Jenna and Oliver how to play disc golf. The four of us had spent many a Saturday
afternoon hurling plastic discs at various objects from various distances. His niece,
Alison, and his sister, Wendy, occasionally joined us, and the ensuing hilarity was
the stuff of which memories are made.

Pete mimicked a throw with a wrist twist at the end. “Jenna been working on that new
move?”

“Every day.” With Jenna, doing her best was not a problem—at least when it came to
sports-related activities. Her hockey coach had endorsed the disc golf, saying that
it would help her hand-eye coordination. Since she was starting to dream dreams of
Olympic teams, anything that might improve her goalie skills was added to her list
of things to do.

“And how about you?” Pete’s smile went down a notch, from happy-go-lucky to things-could-be-worse.
“It sounds like you probably had a rough couple of days. You okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “It’s just . . .”

Pete waited, something that few people knew how to do. Most people—myself included—would
try to supply you with the words, but sometimes all you needed was a few seconds to
figure out what you were really feeling and another few seconds to translate those
feelings into a semblance of a sentence.

“Well, there are two things, really,” I said at last. Pete nodded, so I went on. “First
is that Dennis was killed. That’s hard enough. Then that he was killed at a PTA meeting
that I invited him to, so I feel sort of responsible.” I rubbed my eyes. “And I ran
right toward what could have been deadly danger without once thinking of my children,
and we didn’t even catch the guy, and we couldn’t save Dennis from dying, and now
the whole town’s talking about me and . . . and that’s a lot more than two things,
isn’t it?” I laughed, but it came out so shaky and pathetic that I stopped as fast
as I could.

“None of it is your fault,” Pete said. “You know that, right? I mean, it seems pretty
clear that Halpern’s death was premeditated, so having him killed at your PTA meeting
doesn’t mean a thing. And you can’t help your reactions. Maybe you ran toward danger,
but it was with the intent of helping. How can you fault yourself for that? And as
for everyone talking about it?” He smiled. “I think they’re all proud of you.”

Proud of me? As if. But it was nice of him to try and make me feel better. “In my
head, I know none of it is my fault. It’s here that I’m having troubles.” I tapped
my chest, and then I finally heard what he’d said. “You think that whoever killed
Dennis planned it ahead of time?”

“Sure. If the killer was a nutcase who wanted to kill a whole bunch of people, coming
into an elementary school at night is a pretty dumb place to do it.”

My mind skated over and far away from the idea of mass death at Tarver. “Do you really
think it wasn’t a random killing? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“I’m about as good a liar as you are.” He grinned. “Your ears turn red, right? I stutter.”

I laughed, and this time it was a real one. “I’ll remember that.”

“Ah, I should have kept my mouth shut. Now you know all my secrets.” Pete picked up
the bucket. “So the next question is, who killed Halpern? Any ideas?”

I gave him an answer that was cast-in-stone correct. “I have no clue. And finding
the killer is a job for the police. For the sheriff. I’m staying out of this completely.”

“Sounds good,” he said easily. “See you tomorrow, then?”

We set a time to meet in the park—barring rain—and he went back to his labors. But
as I watched him walk toward the restroom where Dennis had lain, I found myself staring
at the door at the end of the hallway, the door through which the killer had escaped.

And I wondered.

Chapter 5

T
he weekend passed happily enough. Friday night we made pizza and played a video game
Jenna had been given for her birthday. Saturday morning was spent on chores, homework,
and hockey practice. Saturday afternoon was disc golf, and the evening was a chicken
casserole and a nice long walk with the three of us and Spot, our solid brown dog.
Sunday morning we went to church, where I sang in the choir, and the rest of the day
was spent reading and watching a movie.

Monday morning I parked in the alley and looked up from locking my car to see Lou
Spezza being towed along by two energetic dogs. Mutts, by the look of them, with a
healthy dose of golden retriever and maybe a smattering of husky. “Morning,” Lou called.
“Happy Monday to you.” He stopped at the bottom of the stairs that led to his above-store
apartment and, after a short choking moment, the dogs also stopped.

“And to you.” I smiled at him. Lou’s new store, Made in the Midwest, had filled in
the only empty downtown storefront, and everyone from the chamber of commerce on down
was giddy that we had one hundred percent occupancy. “I didn’t know you had dogs.”
I walked behind the two stores that separated us and crouched in front of the canines.

“Didn’t until Saturday.” He stooped and patted the head of one dog, then the other.
“Meet Castor and Pollux.”

I held out my hand, knuckles up, and had it promptly licked by two long tongues. “That’s
a good boy. Yes, you’re a good boy, too.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Lou beamed, his dark mustache curving up on both ends. He
caressed the dogs again, his muscles rippling under the thick black hair that covered
his arms.

Lou was fiftyish and strong enough to move extremely heavy boxes by himself, and that
was all I knew about him. I’d never seen any sign of a wife, and the one time I’d
asked, he’d looked so sad that I’d changed the subject immediately.

His happy face dimmed. “Say, you’re a friend of that Summer Lang, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Why?” His face went grim, and I started to get a twisty feeling about what he
was going to say next.

Lou glanced left and right, then behind him. He moved in a little closer. “They’re
saying she might be the one who killed that man, that Dennis Halpern.”

“That’s nuts,” I said, loud enough to have the bricks walls bounce my words back to
me. “Summer wouldn’t kill anyone. Why on earth would she?”

“They’re saying she had a fight with him right before the PTA meeting.”

The mysterious “they” was on the loose again, and they were starting to irritate me,
right down to the bone. “Where did you hear this?” If Summer and Dennis had argued,
it was news to me.

“Just now, at the convenience store. I went out to get a newspaper and I was behind
two women who were talking about it.”

“Who?”

But he shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t know their names. But I’d say younger than
you by a few years. And from the sounds of it, I think they’re in your PTA.”

I’d been petting Castor (or was it Pollux?), and my hand stopped mid-pet. “What makes
you say that?”

“Oh, ah.” He pulled at one end of his mustache. “Well, as I remember, and I’m getting
up there in age, so don’t quote me on any of this, mind you. As I recall, they were
commenting on the, ah, on the fact of your presidency.”

I looked at him, but he was concentrating on picking loose dog hairs off his shirt.
There was a ninety-nine-percent chance that I knew who the two women had been, and
there was a one-hundred-percent chance that they’d been bad-mouthing me.

“Thanks, Lou.” I gave the dogs one more pat each, stood, and headed for Randy Jarvis’s
convenience store.

•   •   •

From halfway across the store’s parking lot, I could see that a gaggle of people were
gathered around the coffee station. Randy was standing behind the counter, silent
as usual, taking in the action with the calm complacency that was his habitual attitude
toward almost everything.

Come to think of it, I’d never seen him get upset about anything. Not when a gang
of teenagers robbed him, not when an elderly man drove into one of his brand-new gas
pumps, and not even when a monstrous cloudburst of a rainstorm flooded his store.
Ankle-deep in thick, brown water, Randy hadn’t stumped around in anger or broken down
in sobs at the wreck of his store. He’d glanced around, then phlegmatically gone to
work cleaning up the mess.

There was something to be said for such an approach, but I wasn’t sure we got to choose
the basic way that we approached life. I was a list maker. Randy was a plodder. Marina
was a court jester. As I pushed open the glass door of Randy’s Quick Mart, I looked
at the faces and added a few more. Denise, my hairstylist, was a talker. CeeCee Daniels,
PTA member, was a follower. Kirk Olsen was a doer, but only after someone had told
him what to do. Which made his recent career switch to stockbroking a puzzle Marina
hadn’t yet grown tired of trying to solve. Violet Demps was a thinker. And Glenn Kettunen
was . . .

“I’m shocked, shocked to hear this,” he said.

Glenn was an actor.

“Shocked about what?” I asked.

The entire group turned as one unit to face me.

“Well,” Glenn said heartily. “If it isn’t our friendly neighborhood bookstore owner.
What brings you out so early on a Monday morning?”

I gave him a look. “What are we so shocked about?” I scanned the faces. “Anyone?”
Not one of them met my gaze. “Randy?” I asked over my shoulder. “Were Claudia and
Tina in here earlier?”

CeeCee gasped. “How did you know?” she asked in her high, little-girl voice.

Ever since she’d been a happy collaborator in the picketing of my store, I’d found
it hard to be anything more than polite to CeeCee. And even politeness was difficult
some days. This was one of those days.

I ignored her question and turned to Randy. “What were they saying about Summer?”

Randy sipped at a cup of coffee. “That she’d been fighting with Dennis before the
meeting the other night.”

“An argument?”

“Yeah.” Randy nodded and laid his fleshy arms on the counter. Which must have been
hard to do, considering the size of his stomach, but maybe his counter had been specially
designed. “Claudia said that’s how things get started, is with fights.” He looked
at me sorrowfully. “She’s right, you know. And they say Summer has a mean temper.”

A pox on Claudia. And whoever “they” might be. “Did you hear the argument?” I asked.

Randy shrugged. “Just what Claudia said.”

I whipped around and faced the others. “Did any of you hear Summer and Dennis Halpern
arguing?”

Kirk spoke up. “I saw Summer looking plenty mad right before the meeting started.”

“But you didn’t hear or see her talking to Dennis.”

“Well, no, but . . .”

I waited. When he didn’t go on, I prompted him. “But what?”

He shuffled his feet. “Nothing.”

What he was thinking and not saying was probably along the lines of: But Claudia said
Summer’s your hand-picked PTA secretary and you won’t believe anything bad about her,
that you won’t see the truth if it’s about to bite you on the nose.”

“Repeating what Claudia said about Summer is, at best, sheer gossip.” I said this
loudly and clearly. “At worst, you could be interfering in a police investigation.
If you have solid information, talk to Gus. If you don’t, maybe you should consider
keeping quiet.”

I fixed each and every one of them with a hard mom look, the one that says “pay attention
to what I said or you’ll be sorry.”

But even as I walked away, I was regretting my outburst. My mom powers didn’t have
any hold over adults.

Instead of helping, what I’d done might have made things even worse for Summer.

•   •   •

“You said that out loud?” Marina stared at me. She was in the act of handing me a
skirt with a slit up to there and a knit shirt with a deep V-neck down to here, and
I welcomed the pause in the action. Marina’s latest improve-Beth scheme was a makeover
of my wardrobe, and it was starting by way of her asking if I wanted any of her old
stuff she was getting ready to donate. “You said that in front of real live people?
Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Afraid?” She shook the clothes. “Take these. Go into the bathroom and try them on.
What are you afraid of, exactly?”

I tossed the skirt over my arm and held the shirt up against me. “In these clothes,
I’d be afraid of hypothermia.”

“Just put them on. You were defending Summer. What’s wrong with that?”

“Because I’m sure it came across as me being”—being what? I thought back to what I’d
said and tried to hear the words from the point of view of a listener—“being snotty.”

“Oh, fiddle-faddle. It was the truth.” Marina pointed at my shoes. “And those have
to go. How can anyone get mad at you for telling the truth?”

I looked at her.

“Okay, okay.” She grinned. “Maybe there’s lots of reasons.”

The bottom of the V-neck was landing somewhere in the land south of my bra and north
of my belly button. I pulled it higher. “What I’m afraid of is that my outburst will
hurt Summer.”

Marina reached out and rearranged the shirt so the V was an inch lower. “Do you really
think any of them will tattle to Gus about Summer fighting with Dennis just because
you called them gossips?”

I laid the clothes over the back of one of Marina’s kitchen chairs. The only possible
way I’d ever wear that skirt or that blouse was on top of a pair of overalls. “I suppose
not, but I sounded like a mom. Scolding adults never does much good.”

“What, you think kids pay any attention when they’re being yelled at?” Marina asked.

“Sure. Until they start school. Then not a chance.”

“Speaking of chances . . . ,” she said, fingering the clothing I’d rejected.

“Not a single solitary one.”

“You’d look like a goddess in this.” She put the skirt up against her waist.

“I’d feel like an idiot. And where would I wear something like this? If I’m ever invited
to a wedding in Las Vegas, I’ll call and ask to borrow it.”

She sighed. “I wore it when the Devoted Husband and I went dancing, back in the day.”

I eyed the skirt’s waistband. It might have reached halfway around her, but probably
not. “What day was that?”

“The one right before we got married.” She twirled and the deep red skirt flared out.

A vision of Marina’s engineer husband dancing the night away was not something I wanted
to come sneaking into my dreams on little cat feet. “Anyway,” I said, “I shouldn’t
have said anything to that group. It’ll just get back to Claudia, and it’ll be harder
than ever to work with her.”

“But Gus probably knows about Summer already, don’t you think?” Marina reached into
the bag she’d dragged down from her attic and pulled out another ensemble. This one
included an iridescent pair of pants that looked like something from a harem and a
blouse that looked suspiciously see-through. “About Summer and Dennis fighting, I
mean.”

I thought back to the night of the murder. Of how long Nick and I had sat in that
room. Thought about the carefully worded questions Gus had asked. “You’re right,”
I said. “He probably does know.”

“Of course I’m right.” She brandished the clothes at me until I took them. “Someday
you’ll quit arguing with me about every little thing and start agreeing with me right
off the bat. It’ll save us mountains of time.”

“What, and miss all this fun?”

I started to put the new clothes on top of the others, but she
tut-tutt
ed. “Now, now. No rejecting without at least giving them a chance.”

I held out the pants, then laid them on the chair. Held the top up to myself, then
laid it on the chair. “Of course you’re right? Are you saying you’re never wrong?”

“Moi?”
She dug back into the bag. “Since you’re rejecting the glorious outfit I wore to
a New Year’s Eve party the year we got married, I’ll go straight to the dress you’re
guaranteed to fall in love with at first sight. And speaking of right and wrong, what’s
wrong with Oliver?”

I looked down the hall to the family room, where Zach, Marina’s youngest, was playing
Wii bowling with Jenna and Oliver. The sounds of electronic pins tumbling down were
drowned out by young cheers.

“Nothing’s wrong with Oliver,” I said.

Marina halted, her arm thrust deep into the bag. “You haven’t noticed anything?”

“No. He’s fine. Or he was this morning. Do you think he’s coming down with a cold?”
I turned and made a move for the living room—Mom to the rescue!—but Marina called
me back.

“It’s not like that,” she said. “It’s more like . . . like he’s worried about something.”

My mothering cells went from a full-red alarm alert to a soft orange status. “I’ll
bet it’s because his classroom is right down the hall from where Dennis was killed.
He was upset after Agnes died. Maybe this is bringing back the memory.” Two years
ago, the principal of Tarver Elementary had been murdered. In her home, not at the
school, but her death had troubled then seven year-old Oliver deeply.

But Marina was shaking her head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. He and Zach were trying
to one-up each other on who had talked to the forensics team the most.” She pulled
a garment half out of the bag, glanced at it, glanced at me, then pushed it back down.
“Oliver won, by the way, because Pete Peterson said hello to him.”

Good old Pete. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“He didn’t want an after-school snack today.”

“No snack?” That didn’t make sense. Oliver always claimed that he was starving to
death when he was done with school.

“Nope. Tried apples, bananas, and pears. Tried potato chips, cookies, and brownies.
Nothing.” She held out a glittery silver sheath.

I took the dress and put it on the seat of the chair. I was afraid that if I draped
anything else over the back that it would tip over in one of those slow-motion topples.
I’d lunge forward to save the clothes from hitting the floor, Marina would do the
same, our heads would thunk together with a sickening noise, and we’d both fall to
the ground, unconscious, while our children went on with their virtual bowling game,
oblivious to our injuries.