“But I thought he didn’t know that his wife was selling drugs,” Susan protested.
“True, but he had the drugs around for his own use and he sure didn’t want a police investigation to turn them up,” Brett replied. “Anyway, if Julia Ames had just admitted calling her husband, saying that she was upset over Jan Ick’s death, we wouldn’t have been suspicious. But when she insisted that he just arrived home early to help clean up after the party, we began to look closer.
“Also, Charline Voos’s statement wasn’t as truthful as it might have been. And Julia’s presence helped us there, too. Charline was so worried that she was going to say something wrong that she kept deferring to Julia. So we knew that she had something to hide. We didn’t know what it meant, but it was a valuable clue.”
“And Paula’s murder?” Susan asked, no closer to understanding than before.
“Well, after her death, your local police carried on no real investigation at all. They used the children present as an excuse and then broke every single rule of good police work. And I was so mad about that that I didn’t stop to think about what it meant.”
“You mean John Mann intentionally carried out a bad investigation to cover up Carol’s guilt?” Susan asked. “Then Carol didn’t kill both Jan and Paula?”
“She did, but her husband didn’t know she was the murderess until after the second murder.”
“And that accounts for the sloppy police work after Paula’s death: this time John Mann wanted to be sure the killer wasn’t discovered,” Kathleen added. “But how do you think he found out that Carol was the murderer?”
“I’d guess it had something to do with the elaborate system of cameras he has at the Club. I’d bet he saw something that gave her away,” Brett answered again.
“And then he had to protect her to keep everyone from knowing,” Susan said quietly, beginning to understand the agony and horror of the situation that John Mann had found himself in: knowing he had to appear to be looking for the murderer and helping those who were doing the same, but all the while working to hide the truth. She shivered. “I feel so sorry for John. I …” She stopped, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s probably killing him,” Brett acknowledged, more accustomed to the sorrows of those who loved a criminal than she.
Susan took a deep breath. “When did you begin to think that it was Carol you were looking for?” she asked.
“Actually, I thought about her when we first heard the story of Jan’s murder,” Brett answered. “Remember how Julia Ames told us that Carol Mann had gone down to the curb to signal to the police and the ambulance so they would know which driveway to turn into?”
“Yes. I thought it was so smart of her at the time,” Kathleen exclaimed.
“It also meant that she was the only person present to leave the scene of the murder. The only person who had a chance to dispose of something before the police searched the area and the suspects.”
“Of what?” Susan asked. “What did she want to dispose of?”
“I’d guess some sort of covering: a piece of plastic wrap or aluminum foil or something similar. Whatever the poisoned canapé was carried in.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m confused,” Susan said. “I still don’t understand how Carol could have known that Jan was going to eat that sandwich …”
“I couldn’t figure that out myself,” Brett said. “Although Charline’s statement was a clue there too. I just didn’t see it at the time. Of course,” he added, returning to Susan’s question, “I didn’t see what reason Carol would have had for wanting Jan dead either.”
“You mean it wasn’t Jan that she wanted to kill?” Susan asked.
“Exactly.”
“You mean …” Kathleen began.
“Yes. The murder of Jan Ick was a mistake. The wrong person died.”
“Jan Ick instead of Paula Porter!” Kathleen exclaimed, thankful that she had been right all along.
“No, Jan Ick instead of Charline Voos.” Brett saw the mystified looks on the women’s faces and explained. “Charline Voos was the last person to get food. Remember Julia Ames explaining that they had arranged it that way? All the crab things were gone by then—they were very good and very popular. And then Carol must have put out that last one, the different one, the one containing poison that she had made at home. And she put it down on the tray just before Charline Voos chose her meal. Carol assumed Charline would pick it up. But Charline didn’t and the first person to go up to the table for seconds did—Jan Ick.”
“So the fact that Paula Porter and Jan Ick were on the fund-raising committee was a coincidence,” Susan said.
“Yes, and that confused us for a while,” Brett answered.
Kathleen was happy to be included. As for herself, she was still confused. “And Carol wanted to kill Charline because … because why?”
“Because she felt that Charline looked down on her.”
“When she and Julia didn’t want Carol to run for vice-president,” Susan said.
“Yes, but that wasn’t snobbery on their part,” Brett said.
“Then what was it?”
“Common sense. They were protecting themselves. They didn’t want the wife of a cop to get any closer to their drug dealing than she already was.”
“That makes sense,” Susan agreed. “There are a lot of meetings of various committees that take place in the homes of the PTA presidents and a lot of running in and out just to pick things up.”
“Wait,” Kathleen insisted. “That doesn’t explain a lot. You just said that Charline’s statement was a clue—a clue to what?”
“A clue to the fact that the wrong person had been killed. I don’t think that Charline was just worried about the drugs being found in the house. I think that she believed something more significant was going on. You see, nothing was quite what it appeared to be—not just to us but to the people involved in the murders.”
“You are going to explain?” Kathleen said a little sarcastically.
“Yes. You see, Charline was so worried about what she said because she thought that Julia had killed Jan Ick.”
“For what reason?” Kathleen insisted on knowing.
“Oh, not intentionally. They knew immediately the wrong person had been killed and they both thought that the other had made the fatal error; they both thought that the other had been trying to kill Carol Mann.”
“Because she was going to interfere with their drug-selling,” Susan exclaimed.
“Exactly. When Jan Ick died, they were horrified not just because they thought a police search might turn up drugs in the Ames home but because each one believed the other had tried to kill Carol Mann and botched it. They had discussed the problem of Carol being vice-president and too near their homes and they must have believed that the other had tried to solve the problem by killing Carol. Of course, after the police left, they got together and straightened things out. So when we met them they were cool. They didn’t know who had done it, but they knew they weren’t involved. Which only left us with one question—something that Dr. Tyrrell had wondered about too: Just why did they want to be co-presidents? And Susan, of course, answered that one just now.”
“I did?”
“Because the presidents have so much coming and going around their homes. It covered up the comings and goings of the people who were there for a different reason: to buy cocaine.”
“And since Carol didn’t know about the cocaine, she didn’t understand the reason they didn’t want her around. She thought it was snobbery …”
“Right. The tragedy here is that poor Carol’s feelings of inferiority led her to misunderstand their motivation. It made a simple rejection for a reason she couldn’t know into something she couldn’t live with. That’s what I meant when I said that nothing was what it appeared to be. Everyone—Carol Mann, Julia, and Charline—everyone was seeing things through their own eyes, with their own prejudices, instead of what was really going on.”
&
nbsp; “But what about Paula Porter?” Kathleen asked.
“That’s a problem. I’m not sure I understand that now. Of course Paula was chairperson of the nominating committee and could have gotten an office for Carol, but I don’t believe that was the reason she died. I think we’ll have to check with John Mann about that one. He probably knows just what reason there was for Paula’s murder.”
“Carol thought that Paula knew the truth.” It was John Mann who spoke. He was standing behind them, having walked up the driveway instead of coming through the house. “I overheard a conversation between the two of them in the ladies’ locker room at the Club. Paula was asking Carol if she thought it was a coincidence that Jan got the poison sandwich. You see, Paula had taken what she thought was the last sandwich …”
“That’s right. She was starting to tell me that at the Club the morning before she died,” Susan cried, suddenly remembering the conversation.
“She probably told lots of people,” John Mann said, “but only the murderer would realize that the information was dangerous. Carol knew it.” He took a deep breath and continued. “But I didn’t know that Carol was the killer when I heard the conversation in the locker room. Oh, I knew how much she hated the leaders of the PTA—except you, Susan. But I never thought it would cause her to kill. But, of course, it did.”
He was silent and that silence was respected by the others.
“When Paula died I knew immediately that it was Carol. Not just because I had overheard that conversation in the locker room, but because I’d seen my wife fooling around with the sugar packets that morning. I didn’t know what she was doing—didn’t pay any attention to it at the time. But when Paula died, I knew what it meant. That’s when everything began to make sense. Carol was a sick woman,” he added. “Her sense of inferiority blinded her to what was really going on in this town—the drugs and everything—and all she could see was that these women looked down on her …”
Susan saw the tears in his eyes but couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Has something happened to Mrs. Mann?” Brett asked gently.
Kathleen knew he had heard John speak of his wife in the past tense.
“She’s dead. Took cyanide herself. I found her on the floor near our bed.” He swallowed. “I should have known how hard it was for her, living in this town, never feeling like a part of things, no matter how hard she tried. I should have known. I could have stopped this …”
He started to sob just as the two uniformed police officers appeared around the corner of the house. “We were called …” one of them began.
“Come with me, gentlemen,” Brett said, displaying his ID and showing them the way out of the yard. He motioned to Kathleen as he left.
“I think we’re going to have to tell your children something before we go down to headquarters,” Kathleen said gently, putting her arm around John Mann and leading him away.
“Mommy! Mommy! I won!” The gleeful voice of Susan’s son preceded him into the yard.
“Mother! Chad borrowed my tennis racket without asking and he scratched it!” her daughter put in her two cents’ worth.
“Susan? Are you back here? How about lunch and a swim at the Club? I saw Brett and he said it’s all over, that you would tell me about it …”
“I will.” Susan reached up and kissed her husband. “Later. And let’s not go to the Club. Let’s all four go someplace new, where we don’t know anybody. Just for a change.”
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