by Laura Alden
“Nothing about Sam, but wait until I tell you about Viv Reilly. You remember we saw her with Dave Patterson? Well, he isn’t the only one she’s seeing. Would you believe—”
I sat back to listen. Marina’s blog was important to her, and I knew if I dangled that shiny subject in front of her she’d veer away from my “oh” of surprise.
Marina was my best friend, my confidante, and the bosomest buddy of all time, but she didn’t need to know everything.
“Where’s Marina?” Debra O’Conner turned around in the booth and looked down the length of the restaurant. “It’s not like her to be late.”
I’d chosen the back booth of the Green Tractor to give us a modicum of privacy, but Debra wasn’t with the program. She was waving and chatting with most of the patrons and all of the staff. I should have known better. As a vice president of Rynwood’s biggest bank, Debra probably knew more people in town than anyone except my hairstylist.
This wasn’t the quiet, heads-together lunch I’d tried to arrange without seeming to arrange it. Clearly, subtle subterfuge wasn’t my strong suit.
Of course, lots of things weren’t my strong suit. Baking with yeast, accounting practices that involved anything more than adding and subtracting, and the ability to touch my toes without bending my knees. Or calligraphy. I loved the curves and swirling arcs of inked letters, but every time I tried—
“Beth?” Debra had turned around. Her hair, once cut on monthly trips to Chicago, flowed carelessly to her shoulders. “Are you in there?”
Back in the dark ages, say about a year ago, I’d been overawed by Debra O’Conner. Bouncy blond hair straight out of a television commercial. Kind to animals and strangers. Picked up litter on the street. Rewarding and lucrative career, loving husband, well-behaved children, etc., etc. But a chance remark I’d made had set her on a different path.
The new path closely paralleled the old one: same career, same husband, same house and car, but the power suits and glossy hair were gone. She now dressed like an average middle-aged Midwesterner, had quit taking golf lessons, and publicly declared she didn’t care if she ever tried zip-lining.
Happiness shone out of her skin, which was now absent of makeup. She said she owed her newfound contentment to me. The thought made me squirm a little, so I tried not to think about it.
“Is Marina coming?” Debra asked.
“Not today,” I said.
“Oh?” Debra’s eyebrows went up. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Don’t you have lunch with her today?”
How had I ended up such a creature of habit? Had it been motherhood, or being married to Richard? Or had the seeds of rutness abided in my psyche all my life and only recently come to full flower? I frowned, trying to remember. In high school I’d made lists of the clothes I wore, but that was to keep from wearing the same thing twice in a week. Rut-avoiding behavior, not rut-creating.
“Um, I didn’t mean anything by that, Beth, okay?” Debra was biting her lower lip. “It’s just you and Marina are such good friends that I don’t want to horn in on anything. Some people can get possessive about their friends.”
I made a very unladylike snorting noise. “Are we talking about the same Marina?”
“Maybe not.” Debra put her index finger to her chin in a completely fake thoughtful pose. “The one I’m thinking about has red hair, a big laugh, big smile, and a big heart. Yours?”
Her kind words about Marina, a woman who at times could test the patience of a newly ordained minister, made me feel warm and fuzzy. But then I caught a glimpse of the coffee can Ruthie had placed by the cash register and remembered why we were there. Or at least why I was there; Debra didn’t yet know I had an ulterior motive. “I did ask someone else to join us for lunch. That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“Sure.” Debra put her purse on the wall side of the booth and started to slide over a little. “Any friend of yours is a friend of—”
“Beth!” a male voice called down the length of the restaurant. “Is that you way the heck back there? Ruthie, get me some provisions so I can make it without dying of hunger.” His rich laughter boomed off the black-and-white-checked linoleum floor, off the ceiling, and off the mirror above the far wall.
I waved at him and Debra froze in midslide. “Is that—”
“Hey, sweetheart.” Glenn Kettunen, husband to Christine, father of four, insurance agent for most of Rynwood, and owner of the baldest head in the county, slid in the seat across from me, almost squashing Debra against the wall.
“Hello, Glenn,” she said.
This time I was the one who froze. It was the old Debra voice, the one that intimidated me to near speechlessness, the one that had toddlers do her bidding at a single command, the one that made cats stop shredding furniture.
“Ah, don’t go all Debra on me.” Glenn slung an arm around her shoulders. “Where’s the Deb I know and love so much more?”
My wide-eyed gaze flicked from Glenn to Debra and back. What on earth had I done? This lunch, which had seemed like a brilliant idea last night, was suddenly in the running for Beth’s Worst Idea Ever.
Debra tossed her head, flinging the ends of her hair into Glenn’s eyes. “She disappeared the minute you told my husband that my life wasn’t worth insuring since I stopped wearing Armani. ‘Now that she wears plain old clothes,’ you said, and I’m quoting here, ‘there’s no reason to make any big deal out of her.’ ”
Glenn chuckled, leaned over, and gave her a big smacking kiss on the cheek.
It was only then I noticed the grin lurking in the corner of Debra’s mouth. She made a show of wiping her face. “Kissed by an insurance agent,” she said. “Will I ever live this down?”
“Nope,” Glenn said cheerfully. “Ah, Dorrie.” He greeted our waitress and snapped his fingers. “Menu, young lady.”
Dorrie, who’d stopped counting gray hairs years ago and had, instead, started making regular coloring appointments, gave Debra a glass of ice water, me a mug of hot water, and Glenn a mug of coffee. “You haven’t used a menu in this place since 1991.”
She pulled a tea bag from her apron pocket, put it next to my mug, gave us napkin-rolled silverware, then took out her order pad and started writing. “Rueben for you, soup of the day and house salad with Italian dressing for Debra, and a fish sandwich with coleslaw for Beth.” She shoved the pad back in her pocket. “Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?” Glenn asked.
“Mr. I’ve-Been-to-Cooking-School is being all persnickety about the fry batter.” Dorrie rolled her eyes. “Like it’s any different today than it’s been any other day. Let me know if you need anything.”
“When did Ian go to cooking school?” Debra asked. “I thought Ruthie hired him out of high school.”
Glenn reached across her and picked five packets of sugar out of the wire rack against the wall. “The kid’s been taking culinary classes.” He leaned forward and dropped his voice to a nearly normal decibel level. “Says he wants to open his own restaurant someday.”
Debra, wife, mother, and bank loan officer, looked thoughtful. “What kind, do you know?”
“One of those bistro-type places.” Glenn unwrapped his silverware and stirred the sugar into his coffee. “Brick walls, uncomfortable chairs, a menu that changes every day, and a lot of talk about presentation.”
“Could work.”
Glenn took one sip of his coffee and grimaced. “In Rynwood?” He set down his mug and reached for three more sugar packets. “The kid would lose his shirt. Who’s going to eat at a place like that? Auntie May?” He laughed, but Debra continued to wear the “I’m going to have to talk to Ian before he goes to another bank” look.
Before it wore off, I plunged in. “Speaking of money—”
“I hate it when people start conversations like that.” Glenn waved his spoon around. “Second only to ‘Promise you won’t be mad.’ ”
“Or ‘I forgot to tell you my parents are coming this weekend,’ ” Debra said.
“Jenna plays soccer.” Glenn made a head-butting motion. “Score!”
“And now she plays hockey,” I said. “She was taking lessons all last summer and she’s been playing with the Rynwood Raiders.”
“Real hockey like on ice or field hockey like on grass?” he asked.
Debra gave him a look. “This is Wisconsin. What do you think?”
“Hey, I’m just an insurance agent. How am I supposed to keep up? Kids get older every year.” He stabbed the table with every syllable. “Every year.”
Debra shook her head. “What about Jenna’s team?”
I dunked my tea bag. “I heard Sam Helmstetter was thinking about sponsoring. And now . . . well . . . I don’t know what’s going to happen.” Which was true. What wasn’t quite true was that I’d heard that Sam was thinking about a sponsorship. But since I’d said it, I’d now heard it, and I didn’t have to think of it as a lie. Yes, it still was a lie, but rationalization and I could become close friends.
“Does her team need money?” Debra asked.
“Uniforms, pads, helmets.” Glenn tapped the table with the end of his spoon at every item. “Skates, skate sharpening, tape, pucks, sticks. Ice time. Gas money. Food.”
I could see dollar signs adding up in Debra’s calculator of a brain. Once I’d watched her grab a lunch check, total it up, divide it up three ways, and add a twenty percent tip to each, all the while talking about a new muffin recipe she wanted to try. Later, Marina and I redid the math with a calculator. Debra had been right, down to the penny.
“Hockey isn’t a sport for the poverty-stricken,” Glenn said. “That’s why I never played.”
“You never played because you have the athletic ability of a soap dish,” Debra said.
“I happen to know some very—”
“Who said Sam was thinking about sponsoring?” she asked.
My earlobes started to itch with heat. “Not sure.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Probably just a rumor.”
Not a definitive statement, but it told me that Sam’s company wasn’t making the kind of money needed to fund a hockey team. And if they weren’t making enough for that, they weren’t making enough to make murder worthwhile. Sure, I knew in some places people were killed over a twenty-dollar bill, but not here in Rynwood. I hoped.
The chances that the Helmstetters carried their insurance locally were better than good. I looked at Glenn, who was reaching for another sugar packet. “Do you think it’s worth asking Rachel?”
Clever Beth, to get Sam’s banker and insurance agent at the same table at the same time. Guilt-ridden Beth, for asking them sly questions that would get me the answers I wanted without violating confidentiality issues.
Glenn tore off the top and slowly poured the sugar into the sticky mess that used to be coffee. “I wouldn’t ask Rachel about donations for a few years. Say, twenty.”
So, no nice big insurance policy. Nothing big enough to pay the mortgage, fund two college educations, and keep the kids in iPods. Poor Rachel.
I had one last straw to grasp. “How about Sam’s partner? Do you think he would still be interested in sponsoring the team?”
Glenn shook his head. “I don’t see how.”
And no key person insurance. Not a huge surprise for a start-up company. Not a huge surprise for many small businesses, including mine.
The three of us stared at the table. What I saw in the scratched plastic laminate was a future for Rachel, Blake, and Mia that looked a lot like my nightmares. Cheap rooms above a downtown store. No store. No job. No health insurance. Nowhere to go. I’d end up sitting in front of the television all day, getting even fatter and uglier and—
“I know what you’re getting at,” Glenn said.
“You do?”
“Sure. And I understand. Situations like these can be hard.”
“Um . . . they sure are.” Here I thought I’d been so clever, and Glenn had seen through me from the beginning. I glanced at Debra; she was nodding.
“In my experience,” she said, “it’s even harder for women.”
Glenn laughed. “Hah. Some women find it easier than using speed dial to call Sabatini’s for pizza.”
“The exception that proves the rule.” Debra tossed a sugar packet over to him.
On the outside, I kept a neutral expression on my face. On the inside, I was wondering what on God’s green earth they were talking about.
Debra elbowed Glenn. “Look at the poor girl. She’s afraid to ask, isn’t she?”
“She’s never done it,” Glenn said. “Written all over her face.”
“Beth.” Debra put her elbows on the table and reached out for my hands. “Don’t be scared. We’re your friends.”
“Um . . .”
“Cat must have snuck in when we weren’t looking and stolen her tongue.” Glenn looked under the table. “Here, kitty, kitty. Nope, cat’s gone. We’re going to have to talk for her.”
Maybe they could do my talking the rest of the day. If I was asked a question, I’d step aside and let my newly appointed spokespersons take care of things. No saying anything stupid, no sounding like I didn’t know what I was talking about. When Jenna and Oliver came into teenager-hood I wouldn’t be able to say a single thing right; why not let Debra and Glenn say it for me?
It wasn’t such a bad idea, really. The times I’d said the right thing at the right time were way outnumbered by the times I’d said the wrong thing, so why not—
“Hello?” Glenn snapped his fingers in front of my nose. “Did you hear me? I said I’d be glad to sponsor the Rynwood Raiders.”
“You . . . would?”
“Sure. What’s another ten bucks? Ow! Debra, quit kicking me.”
The two started bickering about how much Glenn should donate. I sat back, trying to decide which reaction was on top. Dismay or amusement? Dismay, because I wasn’t any closer to finding Sam’s killer, or amusement, because I’d found a sponsor without trying.
Debra glared at Glenn. “If you don’t give them enough money to buy new jerseys and keep their skates sharpened all season, I’ll sic the chamber of commerce on you.” She lifted her chin and reverted to the old Debra. “Do I know a potential donor for the summer fireworks? Why, yes, I do. Talk to Glenn Kettunen. He as good as told me he was willing to make a sizeable donation.”
“Aw, Debra, you wouldn’t.”
“Want to try me?” With the eye that Glenn couldn’t see, she winked at me.
Amusement. Definitely.
Which, as I listened to the two of them spar, slid back down to dismay. If Sam’s death wasn’t due to an old grudge and wasn’t due to money, I was fresh out of ideas.
Chapter 13
The classroom echoed around the three of us. Erica looked at the wall clock, at the empty chairs, at Claudia’s vacant spot, and at her watch. “It’s seven o’clock,” she said. “This special meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA is now in session. Will the secretary call the roll?”
“Hale?” I asked.
“Here.”
“Jarvis?”
Randy stirred. “Present and accounted for.”
“Kennedy, here.” I looked at the door, listened, waited, then said, “Wolff?”
“Mark her absent,” Erica said. “If she’s not—”
A door shut and footsteps hurried down the hall toward us. All three of us waited expectantly for Claudia to come through the door, tossing off excuses in place of apologies.
Summer Lang rushed through the doorway. “Sorry I’m late. Oh!” She stopped short at the sight of the mostly empty room. “Where is everybody? Isn’t the dance committee supposed to give our report tonight?”
“Yes.” Erica clipped the s on the end of th
e word shorter than I would have thought possible for anyone except an auctioneer. “I hope you’re prepared.”
“Well, I guess so.” She lifted the end of the sentence into a question. “I have the report. Is it okay if I just, you know, read it?”
Erica lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you were planning to sing it.”
“To the tune of ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ then.” Summer dropped her bag onto a chair, flung off her coat, and started singing.
This is my report
My only report.
It makes me happy
To have it done.
We made much money,
A lot of money.
Please don’t make me do this again.
Erica burst into laughter. “Summer, you’re a natural for the stage.”
Summer blushed and sat in the second row. “Thanks. I tried, in high school.” She put her hand on her stomach. “But my tummy felt funny for days before a performance. It was just too hard.”
“I used to get that way before a court appearance,” Erica said. “Beth, please finish the roll call.”
The concept that Erica had ever been nervous—about anything—was going to take some getting used to. Could it be that she wasn’t as strong and stable and selfassured as I’d always believed? And if so, did it make me happy to know she was an actual human, or did it frighten me? Because if iron-willed Erica had fears, what chance did I have of ever growing out of mine? “Wolff is marked as absent.”
“Thank you,” Erica said. “Did anyone hear from Claudia?” Randy, Summer, and I all shook our heads. “Summer, did anyone on the dance committee contact you?”
“Just Marina on Sunday to work on the report,” she said. “Isn’t she here?” Summer looked around the audience, as if expecting to find Marina under a child’s desk. “Oh, she’s probably in the gym with the kids, isn’t she?”
“She’s home with a bad cold,” I said. A stuffed-up Marina had called me at work that afternoon, and I’d had to summon my emergency babysitter. And with the clock ticking at double pay for weeknight sitting, I hoped the meeting would be short.