Poison at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  I nodded.

  “Interesting,” he said. “Wonder who she talked to. I never saw an incident report.” He drummed his fingers on the desk and I could tell he was lining up his staff and considering them one by one. All the Rynwood officers were very nice people, and I didn’t want to know who got the dressing-down.

  “You got this yesterday.” Gus tapped the letter.

  “Yup.”

  “And you didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?” He smiled.

  I put my hands under my legs to keep from touching the dark circles I’d tried to hide. Clearly, the cover-up I’d used wasn’t doing the job as well as the packaging had claimed.

  “So what do you think?” Gus asked.

  “About what? The weather? It’s January, so complaining about the cold and the snow is pointless. If you’re asking about the rise in the Dow Jones, I can’t explain it. And if you want to know what I think about postmodern art, I’ll have to get back to you.”

  Gus paid no attention to my ramblings. He knew a stalling tactic when he heard it. He picked up the letter and read it one more time. “You realize this letter isn’t proof of anything except Cookie’s state of mind.”

  “She says she’d never take her own life,” I protested.

  “No, it says taking her own life would be a sin. Doesn’t mean she didn’t decide to be a sinner after she wrote the letter. And before you get all worked up, like I said yesterday, I’ll be investigating.” He leaned back in his chair. “Clues, she said. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

  “Nope.”

  “She also says everybody knows how smart you are.”

  I made a rude noise in the back of my throat. “No one would think that if they knew what I did the other day.”

  “Yeah?” Gus half smiled. “What’s that?”

  “Promise you won’t tell?” At his nod, I went on with the story. “The other day I needed to fax an order to a distributor, and I couldn’t find the fax number. So I looked up their phone number on my computer contacts list and called them.”

  “Doesn’t sound dumb so far.”

  “I called and asked for their fax number, then wrote the number down.”

  “Still not dumb.”

  “I wrote the fax number down on a memo pad the distributor had sent me. A memo pad that had their phone and fax numbers on it.”

  Gus threw his head back and laughed. “Can I take that promise back?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He wiped his eyes and let his laughter fade. “So,” he said, sighing, “more circumstantial evidence that Cookie was murdered, but no hard evidence. What do you think?”

  “That I really, really wish she hadn’t sent me that letter.”

  He nodded and fingered the envelope. “Alaska. Wonder what that’s all about.”

  I had no idea, and said so. “Why is it that the older I get, the more I realize I don’t know anything?”

  “Some people might call that wisdom.”

  “And some people use an apostrophe to denote a plural, but that doesn’t make them right.” I got up to go. “Anyway, I thought you should see the letter.”

  “Thanks, Beth. You’ll call if you come across anything?”

  I nodded and headed for the door.

  “You’re smarter than you think,” Gus said.

  In a low voice I said, “Remember the fax number,” and left with Gus’s laughter trailing after me.

  • • •

  When I unlocked the store, the darkness inside felt harsh and heavy. I flicked on every light switch and immediately felt better. So much easier to look on the bright side of life when the stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bears were happily lit with sparkling halogen rays.

  “Good morning to you, too,” I said to the short row of rag Madeline dolls.

  I turned on my computer and made up a mug of tea.

  My hand reached out for a pad of paper to start the day’s To Do list, but my fingers stopped just before my fingers wrapped around the pen.

  First things first.

  I opened e-mail and was momentarily distracted by the distressing number of incoming messages. “I’ll deal with you later,” I told the e-mails, and started typing.

  Dear Ms. Neff, I wrote. The president of the Tarver Elementary PTA wishes to meet with you at your earliest convenience. While the president understands your schedule is filled with the demands of the day, she would like to impress upon you the urgency of this request. Please consider this a priority.

  Sincerely, Elizabeth Ann Kennedy, President, Ezekiel G. Tarver PTA.

  I read over the e-mail, thought a little more, then added P.S. Marina, please talk to me. I know there’s something wrong and I want to help. If I’ve done something to hurt you, I didn’t mean it; if I’ve—

  “Stop it,” I said out loud, and deleted the entire postscript. Then, before I could think about it too much, I clicked the SEND button.

  I imagined it flying thought the wires, zooming from downtown Rynwood over the treelined streets to Marina’s house. Saw it arrive on the laptop she kept in the kitchen. Watched as it pinged onto her screen.

  It was after nine o’clock. Right now she’d be having her day care kids playing some energetic game in the basement. When she finally saw the e-mail, would she answer? If she did, what would she say?

  I wrapped my hands around my mug, but the tea had cooled to room temperature. No comfort there. I pushed back my chair and offered up a thank-you to whoever invented the microwave. If it wasn’t for that wonderful appliance, half of my tea would be dumped down the drain.

  My e-mail pinged. I blinked. Marina had answered already.

  I swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm tea. Swallowed another, just to remind myself just how much I disliked tea at that temperature, then opened the e-mail.

  We’re headed to the hill as soon as I get their boots on.

  That was all she’d written. Not exactly an invitation, but not anything close to a go-away-forever, either.

  Lois popped her head through the open door. “What’s up for today, boss?”

  “Looks like I’m going sledding.”

  • • •

  The sky was so low and gray, it made me wonder if the cloud cover was stuck to the upper layers of the atmosphere. Maybe we’d never see the sun again and—

  “Look out!”

  The soprano shriek startled me into awareness. With a quick hop, I jumped out of the way of the kid sliding past on the saucer.

  “You came.” Marina, red-cheeked and red-nosed, gave me a quick glance, then went back to studying the sledders. “That Joshua is going to age me before my time. Joshua!” she called. “Don’t you dare go any higher than halfway up!”

  A small boy in a blue snowsuit looked over his shoulder. “But, Mrs. Neff—”

  “If you don’t do what I tell you, we’re going back to the house.”

  His shoulders drooped with what was obviously a heavy sigh, but he turned his tub sled around. “Banzai!” he yelled as he took a running jump and landed face-first on the sled.

  I winced, but the kid whooped with delight all the way down the hill. “Where are Noah and Kendra?” I asked.

  Marina pointed to the far side of the hill where a red snowsuit and a yellow snowsuit were falling down and getting back up again. “They both got snowboards for Christmas.”

  “I didn’t know they made snowboards for four-year-olds.”

  “They shouldn’t,” she said. “And no one should ever have bought a pet rock, either, but they did.”

  After that, the conversation languished. I watched the kids; Marina watched the kids. We stepped aside for an incoming sledder. We watched the kids. Time ticked away. My toes lost all feeling.

  “So,” I finally said. “I have a proposal.”

  “About what?” Marina kept her gaze fastened on the snowsuits, which were now sitting down and tossing snow up into the air.

  Not all of what had kept me awake last night had been Cookie�
�s letter. “About how we deal with whatever it is you don’t want to talk about.” I watched her closely, but her expression didn’t change. Which in itself was a sign of strangeness, since on an average day, Marina’s face was constantly on the move.

  I plunged ahead. “Something is bothering you. Before I present my proposal, there’s one thing to clear up. Have I done something to upset you? Is this my fault?”

  Slowly, she shook her head.

  I waited her to say something. She didn’t. “Then here’s what I suggest. I truly wish you’d talk to me about whatever this is, but I respect your feelings and assume there’s a good reason you’re keeping this to yourself.”

  She made a small nod.

  “Okay. Do you think you’ll ever talk to me about this thing?”

  For a long time, we stood there. Tectonic plates shifted, continents collided. When the sea level had risen and fallen again, Marina said, “Yes. Someday.”

  A spring that had been coiled up tight inside my tummy relaxed. “Good,” I said. “Do you think we can pin down a date?”

  “Beth—”

  The raw pain in her voice tightened the muscles back up again. “Just tell me this. You’re not sick, are you? No one in your family’s sick?”

  For the first time, she looked straight at me. “Is that what you think this has all been about? That I’ve been diagnosed with . . . with something awful and I didn’t want to tell you?”

  I swallowed. “Maybe.”

  She thumped me on the shoulder with her mittened hand. “Silly old you. Of course I’d tell you something like that. I mean, really, Beth. Of all the things to think. Puh-leese.”

  “What was I supposed to think? You haven’t given me much to go on here.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I just . . .” She looked away. “Just can’t right now.”

  A compromise was in order. “Okay. So there’s something going on in your life that’s troubling you, and though talking to your best friend would undoubtedly help, you can’t or won’t do so.”

  She nodded.

  “Then I’ll wait,” I said. “You’re my best friend, and I’ll help you in any way I can. If that means standing back from this, then I will.”

  Marina made a choking noise, the weird snort she made when she was trying not to cry. I usually heard that noise when we were watching sappy movies and every so often when we were talking about our families, but this was the first time I’d heard it out in public.

  “But I won’t wait forever,” I warned her. “If you haven’t told me by . . .” By when? Clearly, this was a Big Thing for Marina, so I had to give her time. But too much time and this divide would widen until it might split us apart. I thought fast, then made up my mind. “If you haven’t told me by Mother’s Day, I’m going to camp on your back deck until you start talking.”

  She wiped at her eyes with the back of her mitten. “Mother’s Day. I’ll tell you by then, I promise.”

  I marked the date in my head with a big fat red felt pen. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “I know,” she said, and thumped me on the shoulder again.

  A glow of happiness warmed me. Marina and I were all right. One thing in the world was straightened out, only three point two billion things to fix. The glow faded and I reached into my pocket. “Read this,” I said, and handed over Cookie’s letter.

  Marina’s eyes opened wide as she read. “You’ve got to be kidding me. A letter from the dead? That woman watched too many soap operas. You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” She folded up the letter and studied my face. “You are taking it seriously. Oh, jeez . . .”

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “We have a problem,” she said to whoever was on the other end. “Emergency meeting at the sledding hill. Right now. Do what you can.”

  I frowned as she turned back around. “Don’t tell me,” I said.

  She grinned. “Yep. We’re having an emergency meeting of your intervention team.”

  • • •

  Far too short a time later, Lois and Ruthie arrived at the sledding hill. Marina nodded at me. “Show them.”

  “Do I have to?”

  She glared. “Yes.”

  Sighing, I handed the letter to Ruthie, who read it silently and passed it to Lois, who asked, “Has Darlene heard about this?”

  “I sure have,” my sister’s tinny voice said from the cell phone Marina was holding out into the middle of our small circle. “Was this woman nuts, or what?”

  “But,” I said “that doesn’t mean Cookie wasn’t right. Just because she . . . she . . .”

  “Had a few screws loose?” Lois asked.

  “Just because she had a different way of looking at life,” I said firmly, “doesn’t mean she didn’t have a point. And, yes, I’ve shown this letter to Gus. He said he’ll keep it in mind as he’s looking into her death.”

  “Then that’s all taken care of,” Ruthie said, “and you don’t have to do a thing.”

  “She’d better not,” Darlene said. “I’ll tell Mom if you do, Beth.”

  It wasn’t as much of a threat now as it had been thirty years ago, but it still carried some steel.

  “And look at her,” Lois said. “You can tell she hasn’t been sleeping right. See those circles under her eyes? She’s starting to look like she did last fall. When did you get that letter?”

  “Last night.”

  Ruthie clucked at me. “Girl, you need to lay off this thing. Request of a dead woman or not, you have to take care of yourself first; otherwise you’re not good to anyone else. Think of your children, sweetie.”

  I was. I did. I was never not thinking of them. But still . . .

  “Let Gus take care of it this time,” Marina said. “I know you’ve figured out things ahead of him before, but let him do this one. Heck, with what he’s learned from you, he’ll track her down lickety-split.”

  “Track what her down?” I asked.

  “The killer, of course.”

  I frowned. “How do you know it’s a woman?”

  “Everybody knows poisoning is a woman’s crime. No fuss, no muss, no nasty loud guns that make a big mess. Men like to make a statement. Women just want to get the job done. A woman killed Cookie. I’m sure of it.”

  I wasn’t so sure her logic sequenced properly, and it sounded pretty sexist to me, but I kept quiet.

  “Let it go,” Ruthie said. “You’ve done your job by showing the letter to Gus. Let him take over.”

  “I can’t.” I looked around at my friends, at the women who cared enough about me to do the hard thing of intervening. “Cookie asked me to help her. How can I turn my back on a request to help her rest in peace?”

  The trio shuffled their feet and didn’t say anything. They studied the snow, their boots, one another, then finally looked back at me.

  “Don’t stop me,” I said. “Help me.”

  “Beth’s right.”

  I’d heard approaching footsteps, but hadn’t realized they were Pete’s until he spoke.

  Marina glared at him. “What kind of interventionist are you if you let her do too much?”

  He smiled, shrugging. “Not a very good one, I guess. But how can we keep her from doing what she thinks is right?”

  Dear Pete. I made a mental note to bake a big batch of his favorite cookies.

  “I say we help her.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “She’s smart and she knows what she’s doing.”

  Clearly, I hadn’t told Pete the fax number story.

  “Is that Pete?” Darlene asked. “Pete, if she’s so smart, ask her why she ruined the starter on Dad’s car by trying to turn on the engine when it was already on.”

  “Hey,” I said. “That’s not fair and you know it. Dad said that starter was already going bad and—”

  Lois made the time-out sign. “Chill, sisters. We need to concentrate because my toes are about to fall off from frostbite. If that happens I’ll have to get rid of all my flip-flops and
I just bought a pretty purple pair with sparkles all over.”

  “What do you say, ladies?” Pete asked. “The faster we figure out what really happened to Cookie, the better it will be for Beth. Are we in?”

  Marina smooshed her mouth with her mittens, then said, “I am.”

  “And me, I guess,” Darlene said.

  Ruthie nodded. “Me, too.”

  Lois flung her fuzzy yellow scarf around her neck. “I can see I’m the only one with any sense. I just hope this doesn’t turn out bad. Remember what almost happened last fall.”

  And suddenly I was back in that alley, crouched in the dark, waiting for—

  “Don’t worry,” Pete said, giving me a one-armed hug. “Last fall was a one-off. And this time it’ll be different because we’ll be helping you.”

  My smile was genuine, but my gaze was looking back in time. Maybe instead of the alley, I’d park in the city lot for the next few weeks.

  Chapter 11

  After I closed down the store on Saturday, I went home to walk Spot, then headed for Marina’s house. My two were with their father, and Marina’s DH and Zach, their only at-home child, were at a comic book convention in Minneapolis.

  “He’s going to turn into an engineer,” Marina said glumly. “I just know it.”

  “Most mothers would be excited at having a child enter such a potentially lucrative career.”

  “Yeah, well, most mothers aren’t married to an engineer. I know what they’re really like. Zach’s already starting to read science fiction.”

  “Cheer up,” I said. “Even if you lose one child to the engineering profession, you have three that didn’t see the attraction.”

  “That’s true. My genes rule, don’t they?” She held her hand up for a high five. Cheered, she got up from the kitchen table. “This calls for a celebration. How about guacamole and bits of toasted pita bread?”

  Marina’s adult snacks were usually more of the brownie, coffee cake, or cookie variety. “Did you make a New Year’s resolution you didn’t tell me about?”

  “Variety is the spice of life. And Zach has decided that for something that’s green and is supposed to be good for you, guacamole isn’t so bad. Next week I’m going to sneak some tomatoes into it and see what happens.”