Poison at the PTA (21 page)

I took in a small breath. “I love you,” I whispered.

“And I love you,” he whispered back. “So very, very much.”

I
t was easier than I’d anticipated to forget about Cookie’s request because uppermost in my mind was caring for my children. Beyond the fear of a delayed case of hypothermia—which was impossible, but did we ever truly knew what was impossible?—there were psychological ramifications to consider.

My former husband pooh-poohed my concerns, of course.

“I don’t know why you’re so worked up,” Richard said. The morning after the Adventure in the Snow, I’d called from the store and updated him on what his children had been up to. “They’re fine, aren’t they? I’ll keep Oliver off the video games tonight and this weekend. That will be punishment enough.”

“I’m worried that Oliver is going to have a hard time getting over his crush on Stephanie.”

“You have to stop worrying so much,” my ex said. “Why do women do that?”

Because we have to clean up the messes men make because they don’t worry enough, I wanted to say. “Just pay attention to him, okay? He’s getting too good at hiding his feelings.”

Richard gave a patronizing chuckle. “That’s what men do.”

“He’s not a man,” I said sharply. “He’s a nine-year-old boy.”

“And he’ll be getting his driver’s license in seven years. Let him be who he is, Beth, not who you want him to be.”

Anger jammed into my throat and kept my mouth from opening. Which was probably a good thing, because I would have gone into a long and strident rant about his own expectations, but doing so wouldn’t have helped and could have made things worse. Instead, I said a stilted good-bye and hung up wondering how I could possibly have stayed married to that man for twenty years.

I got up from my desk and wandered out to the kitchenette. Owing to the odd confluence of a doctor’s appointment for Yvonne, a sick grandchild for Lois, and an old friend of Flossie’s who happened to be in town, Paoze and I were the only ones in the store.

When the microwave dinged, I took out my mug, dropped the soggy tea bag into a saucer to use again later, added a little milk, and went up to the front.

“Thanks again for coming in,” I said to Paoze.

He smiled. “I am happy to. It is a pleasure to work here.”

“It’s a pleasure to have you, and I’m not just saying that to be nice. I really mean it.”

The books in his hands must have suddenly needed a lot of his attention, because he was studying them carefully. “Thank you, Mrs. Kennedy. You are very kind.”

I made a gagging noise. “If I were really kind, I’d pay you a lot more. Instead, I pay you a teensy bit above minimum wage, hoping that will somehow entice you to work hard and keep coming back for more.”

The books kept needing serious inspection. “The reason I come back is not the wages.”

Of course it wasn’t. No one worked in a bookstore to get rich. People worked in a bookstore because they loved books. Game, set, and match. Which was why bookstore people tended to get along. It was the books that mattered, and . . . hmm.

“Paoze, last week I asked you what was going on between Lois and Flossie and you said you didn’t know.”

He rearranged the books. Now
The Indian in the Cupboard
was on top instead of
The Great Brain
. The new setup must not have worked for him, because he frowned, rotated them back to the way they’d been, and said nothing.

So the sideways approach wasn’t going to work. No surprise there; Paoze was too smart to get caught so easily. It was time for a full-out attack. “They’re not getting along and customers are starting to notice.” Well, they might if the terrible twosome held an argument in front of a customer, but they were both too professional to do so. Still, the possibility existed. “If they don’t stop arguing, I’m going to have to let Flossie go.”

Paoze forgot all about the books and looked straight at me, eyes flared wide. “You will fire her? But she is so smart. She has increased sales far beyond what Marcia ever did, and the children love her.”

I let out a heavy sigh. “Yes, but the store’s staff has to work together. If they can’t, well . . .” I shook my head with as much sorrow as I thought I could reliably fake.

Paoze turned the books over and over so much that I started to be concerned that he’d wear the covers and I’d have to put them on the sale table. “I do not like to say,” he murmured.

“Of course not.” I patted his shoulder. “You’re a good employee and a good friend. But I have to know what’s going on.”

“Yes, I see.” He turned the books over a few more times. “I do not like to say,” he said again, “and you will not like to hear this.”

I blinked. “Okay. But I’m a big girl. I can take it.” Because, really, how bad could it possibly be? This was likely something silly that had blown up big and neither one of them knew how to fix it. All I had to do was learn what is was and I’d be able to—

“They are arguing about you.”

—to fix the situation with a few of Alice’s cookies. Unless they were fighting about me, in which case I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea of what to do.

His dark eyes were kind. “It is that intervention your friends had in January. Miss Untermayer thinks they should have left you alone, that you are smart enough to know when you need rest. Mrs. Nielson says that you don’t always have the sense to come in out of the rain.”

He stopped, but I waved him on. I knew a direct Lois quote when I heard one.

“When Mrs. Nielson sends you out of the store, Miss Untermayer . . .” He hesitated. “She describes how she feels about people interfering in another’s life without being asked. Mrs. Nielson replies that sometimes people need to be interfered with, and Miss Untermayer asks how Mrs. Nielson would feel if someone interfered in her life.”

I could picture the scene as if it were unfolding in front of me. Both of them shouting at each other, hands on hips.

Paoze sighed. “When you return to the store, they change their words to be about books. I am sorry, Mrs. Kennedy. I did not want to tell you, but I do not want Miss Untermayer to be fired.”

“It’s all right,” I said vaguely.

“They are only fighting because they both care about you so much,” he said. “They will stop when this intervention is over. This is soon, correct?”

I nodded, or at least I think I did. Because it was hard for me to hear his new words because his old ones were repeating themselves over and over inside my head.

“They are only fighting because they both care about you so much.”

Slowly, so very slowly, I went back to my office, wondering what I’d ever done to deserve such wonderful friends.

Halfway there, I stopped cold, right in the middle of the graphic novels. Because I’d just recognized the real problem: how was I going to tell Lois and Flossie the jig was up without getting Paoze in deep trouble with both of them?

•   •   •

The rest of the day rushed past, followed by a busy Thursday and a customer-filled Valentine’s Day Friday. As music, the ding of the cash register drawer opening on a steady basis might not have been the stuff of Grammy Awards, but it did more to warm my heart than anything the Foo Fighters had ever done.

I was a little sad that Pete and I wouldn’t be spending the evening together, but he’d had a rush call to a job up in Wausau and wouldn’t be back until Saturday noon. Of course I understood, I’d told him, and made plans with Marina instead. Her DH wasn’t big on what he considered coerced holiday celebrations.

During the extremely short midafternoon lull, Yvonne asked if I’d heard that Gus was back to work.

“Not that I know of,” I said.

“No, I mean he is back. When I was out at lunch, I saw him.”

“Really?” At church on Sunday, Winnie had said her husband was a mess and that she wasn’t going to let him out of the house until he could do fifty push-ups. Not that I believed she’d actually make him do fifty push-ups. Twenty-five would probably do the trick. “How did he look?”

Yvonne shook her head. “Weak. Pale. Like he should still be in bed.”

I started to ask if he’d be at work all afternoon, but the front bells jingled, half a dozen grandmotherly-looking women walked in, and the moment passed.

At closing time, the store was still crowded with customers. I shooed Yvonne and Lois off home, locked the front door, flicked off the lights that turned the front window into a fairyland display of books and toys, and pleasantly told the browsers that store hours were over, but to take their time making their selections.

Ten minutes later, they were all still in the store and I was doing my best to keep from tapping my foot and glancing pointedly at my watch.

Ten minutes after that, I turned off the rear bank of lights. Most of them got the not so subtle hint, made their purchases, and left, but the last holdout didn’t seem to notice the lights going off around her until I tapped her on the shoulder.

“Ma’am? Excuse me, but we’re closing.”

“What?” She took her head out of the book she was reading. “You’re closing?” She looked around, blinking. “Oh, my goodness, you’re closed! How long have I been standing here?”

I glanced at her choice of reading material.
The Hero and the Crown
by Robin McKinley. “Forty-five minutes, I think. Good, isn’t it?”

Red flooded across her cheeks. “I am so sorry.”

Grinning, I said, “Don’t worry about it. At least you started early in the evening. It was eleven at night the first time I picked it up. I’m not sure I ever did get any sleep.”

She apologized all the way to the cash register and as I rang up the sale and only stopped when I started to put it in a bag. “Don’t bother,” she said. “I only live a few blocks away. There’s enough light from the streetlights that I can read while I walk.”

I laughed. “A woman after my own heart. Just don’t forget to look both ways before you cross the street.” I came around the counter and unlocked the front door to let her out.

“Come back when you’re done reading. That author has written a number of books.” Smiling, I waved her good night and closed the door as she waved back, the expression on her face thick with something that looked close to joy.

It didn’t take long to do the closing-up chores. I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes until Marina was going to show up for our no-kids-allowed night.

Twenty minutes wasn’t very long, but it would have to be enough.

I grabbed my coat, let myself out the front door, locked it behind me, and hurried down the sidewalk.

•   •   •

“Wow,” I said. “You look horrible.”

Gus glared at me. Or what would have been a glare if it hadn’t been interrupted by his sudden need to take care of a nose that was starting to drip indiscriminately. When he was done blowing, he said in a voice so hoarse it was almost unrecognizable, “Why, thank you, Beth, I’m feeling much better.”

“Uh-huh.” Uninvited, I sat down. “Is that what Winnie says?”

“My wife and I have come to an agreement.”

Sort of, I added silently. Both Winnie and Gus were very good friends of mine, and no way was I going to choose a side in that dogfight. “Well, it’s nice to see you back in the office.”

He blew his nose again. “Even if I look like something the cat dragged in?”

I bared my teeth and made dragging motions with my head. This made him laugh, which was what it was intended to do, and I smiled, very glad indeed that Gus was feeling well enough to be back at work, even though he probably shouldn’t have been.

“So, what’s up?” He pulled out a lower drawer of his desk, leaned back, and put his feet up on the drawer. “Winnie’s going to drag me out of here in fifteen minutes, so you’d better talk fast.”

Perfect.

I told him everything I could remember. About Isabel’s pregnancy, about Alan’s arthritis and his ways of coping, about Stephanie and her allergy to acetaminophen. About Oliver’s crush, how he’d overheard Marina and me talking and how he’d run out into a winter storm to warn Ms. Stephanie. About how Jenna had followed him. About how I’d come far too close to losing both of them.

When I stopped, Gus didn’t say anything. He just looked at me and waited.

“So,” I said. “I’m done. No more investigating, no more poking around into things that aren’t any of my business, no more doing what law enforcement has been trained to do.”

Gus sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “Glad the kids are okay, and I’m sorry to lose your eyes and ears, but I understand. Cookie had no business asking for your help, anyway. That’s what we’re here to do.” He tapped his gold-colored badge.

In spite of my determination to walk away from all this, I felt a pang when Gus mentioned Cookie’s request. “Right,” I said lamely. “So . . . I guess I’ll go.”

“You and me both.” Gus dropped his feet to the floor. “Winnie’s going to have my . . . er, she’s going to chew me out if I’m not at the back door in”—he glanced at his watch—“in negative two minutes.”

I laughed and got to my feet. “See you at church on Sunday?”

“Count on it.”

Outside, the cold air snapped my brain awake. Not that it had been sleeping, exactly, but it must have turned a little dozy inside the police station because I’d forgotten to tell Gus about the box. I should have plopped it on his desk as a kind of “Sorry I’m quitting on you, but here’s this” gift. And I’d neglected to give him the one name Marina and I hadn’t crossed off the list. “I forgot,” I said out loud. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the odd looks of the passersby.