Murder at the PTA (2010) bk-1

by Laura Alden

  My own clothing was well-worn running shoes, jeans unfit to be worn in public, and an aged Northwestern sweatshirt. The purple had faded to a light plum, and half the letters had peeled off, proclaiming that I was now an alumna of NOR WE ERN. “One of us,” I said, “is dressed inappropriately. Wonder who it is?”

  “Only time will tell.” Marina smiled grandly. “Shall we?”

  I’d parked my car in Agnes’s driveway and walked to Marina’s house. Now we made the journey in reverse. Marina chattered about the Saturday activities of her husband and youngest son, Zach. I half listened to the hiking plans, but most of my attention was on the ranch house in front of us. Beige vinyl siding; brown shutters; juniper bushes in front; maple trees and a fence in back—so average it was hard to believe it actually existed.

  We climbed the concrete steps to the front door. I took Gloria’s key from my purse, inserted it into the dead bolt, and stopped.

  “What’s the matter?” Marina leaned close. “Is it stuck?”

  I’d always wondered if I could sense where a murder had taken place. Was anything left behind? Maybe a piece of tormented soul would chill my blood. Maybe there’d be a silent cry of anguish that only certain ears could hear. Or maybe—

  “Let me try.” Marina brushed my hand away and unlocked the door easily. “You must have been turning it the wrong way, silly.”

  We stepped inside and into a dusky gloom. “Eww.” Marina blew out a breath. “Stinks in here.”

  Marina marched to the nearest window, unlocked it, and pushed the frame high. “I don’t care if it is twenty degrees colder outside than in. This stink has got to go.” She circled the room, opening drapes and windows.

  I flipped on the light, flooding the room with a wash of light, and stood transfixed.

  Marina opened another window and brushed her hands. “There. Hey, what’s the matter?”

  I stared at an amoebalike stain on the carpet. The stain and its accompanying smell were organic; a cloying odor that made the back of the throat feel as if it were coated with gunk. Agnes had died right there, leaving behind a spot made up of things I really didn’t want to think about.

  “Oh, ick.” Marina wrinkled her nose. “That’s where this ranky stink is coming from. Why on earth didn’t Agnes clean it up?” Marina’s thoughts caught up with her words. “Oh,” she said, and sat down hard on the couch. We stared in silence at the spot where Agnes had breathed her last breath, where she’d left her last mark—literally.

  I supposed I’d been in hospital rooms where people had died and I’d passed crosses on roadsides put up to mark the location of fatal traffic accidents, but those were different, somehow. This had been someone I’d known. The last beat of her heart had faded away on the very floor at my feet. I stared at a single marble bookend that sat on the coffee table; its mate was in the hands of the police.

  “Well.” Marina rocked herself forward and to her feet. “This isn’t getting the eggs fried. You want I should clean this up?”

  I gave her a grateful look. “You don’t mind?”

  “Don’t be a goose.” She gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Now. Where do you think Agnes kept her vacuum cleaner?”

  We went from living room to dining room to kitchen, both of us skirting the stain with as wide a berth as possible. Next to the garage door, we found a closet full of cleaning supplies.

  “I’ll vacuum the . . . the living room,” Marina said. “And there’s some carpet spot cleaner. You clear out the fridge. We’ll be done with the nasty chores in a tick.” She trundled the upright vacuum cleaner across the linoleum and soon had it running at full volume, sucking up the last pieces of . . .

  I rubbed my eyes. Sometimes a vivid imagination was a curse. I took a deep breath. We had three hours; I needed to get to the store by eleven. Standing here being creeped out from what had happened to Agnes wasn’t very productive. I rolled my shoulders to loosen the tension in my neck and got to work.

  The closet was stocked with cleaning supplies, but there was something funny about it. I stood there, looking at the cans of powdered cleanser, the toilet bowl cleaner, and the furniture polish, trying to figure it out. Only when I saw the aging can of Glass Wax did I catch on. There was nothing new. Agnes didn’t stock anything in her closet that had been put on the market in the last thirty years. No plug-in air fresheners, no premoistened cleaning cloths, no dryer sheets.

  Weird.

  I found a box of garbage bags and pulled one off the roll, wondering what I’d find in the refrigerator. I tried and failed not to think about the B horror movies Marina had forced upon me. Eyes mostly shut, I opened the door.

  A quart of milk, a carton of sour cream, a bag of lettuce, eggs, and assorted condiments. I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. There was no reason for severed hands to be in Agnes’s refrigerator, but you never knew.

  I dumped the liquids and near-liquids down the drain, ran the disposal, and was filling the garbage bag when Marina reappeared, pushing the vacuum cleaner ahead of her. “I sprayed the spot remover,” she said. “It needs to set for a while. Need some help?”

  In my hands were jars of mayonnaise and pickle relish. “It seems a waste to throw away perfectly good food.” I looked at the jars, considering options.

  “Well, I don’t want them. People who live alone double-dip.”

  I dropped the jars into the bag and reached for the ketchup bottle.

  When you don’t have to make any keep-or-pitch decisions, emptying a refrigerator doesn’t take long. Marina hauled the bag over to her house and I wiped down the shelves with a mixture of baking soda and water. Agnes would have approved, I was sure.

  With grunts of effort, we wrestled the fridge a few inches away from the wall. I squeezed my arm into the gap and unplugged the cord; then we found blocks of wood in the garage to hold the fridge and freezer doors open.

  Marina went back to the living room and sponged up the spot remover while I checked the kitchen cupboards for perishables. Potatoes, onions, and open bags of flour and sugar went into another garbage bag.

  “Done!” Marina announced. She emptied her bucket of water into the sink and rinsed out the sponge. “We’ll get Don the dry cleaner to take those drapes. There’re some spots on that one that won’t come out.” She dried her hands on a kitchen towel hanging from a cabinet knob and grinned. “Now for the fun part.”

  “Didn’t know we were here to have fun.”

  “That’s the problem with you, Beth.” My best friend looked at me sadly. “You still haven’t learned that every moment is an opportunity to have fun.”

  We’d had this conversation before, and it always ended the same way—with my agreeing to whatever Marina was planning. I still didn’t know if it was because I lacked a backbone, or if it was because she was right.

  Due to time constraints, I didn’t bother arguing.“Whatever you have in mind had better not take more than half an hour. I need to get to the store.”

  She huffed. “Not nearly enough time. But”—she held up a traffic hand—“we’ll make it work. Despite the rumors, I can be efficient, especially regarding this particular task.”

  “Which would be what?”

  Marina’s hair was beginning to escape the scarf, and dirt smudged her forehead, but her cheeks had a youthful glow. “Snooping!”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” The idea of going through Agnes’s personal belongings gave me the willies.

  “That’s not a reason.”

  “What about privacy? She’s dead, but does that give us the right to poke through her private possessions? How would you feel if someone rooted through your belongings?”

  Marina tapped her lips with her index finger. “You’re right. I wouldn’t like it.”

  “No one would. I’m glad—”

  “Which gives me real incentive to clean out my underwear drawer. Come along, my dear.”

  I trailed along in Marin
a’s wake. The living room was filled with October air. I shut windows while Marina flipped through the stack of magazines on the coffee table.

  “American Educator, National Geographic, Smithsonian .” She tossed the magazines one by one onto a new pile as she read the titles. “No Good Housekeeping, no cooking magazines, not even a People.” She made a humph noise.

  “You make it sound as if there’s something wrong with learning.”

  “All learning and no fun makes Agnes—and Beth if she’s not careful—a dull girl.” She put her hands on her hips. “Speaking of dull, this furniture defines the word.”

  The couch and armchairs were covered with the beige-est of beige fabrics. The material was the velvety stuff that parents of young children avoided due to its amazing ability to attract food and drink stains. The oak coffee table, end tables, and entertainment center were stained a medium honey shade. The drapes looked as if they’d come from a midpriced motel room.

  Marina opened the entertainment center. “Take a look at this. Can you get more boring than Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters, and Perry Como? The newest singer she had in here is Paul Anka.”

  “Just like her cleaning closet,” I said, then had to explain.

  Marina hunkered down to look at the videocassette titles. “Same thing here. No movie made after 1975. The woman was frozen in time.”

  “The magazines are current.”

  “Bet she read new stuff only so she wouldn’t come across like a freak.” She pushed herself to her feet and grinned. “Didn’t work.”

  “Oh, Marina.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t speak ill of the dead. But why? We didn’t like her when she was alive, so why should we go all hypocritical and pretend we like her now?”

  “It’s unkind. The poor woman was murdered. She deserves better.”

  Marina didn’t look convinced. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”

  “Of what?”

  “That her ghost is going to haunt us for saying bad things about her.” She lifted her hands, wriggled her fingers, and made Hollywood ghost noises. “Ooooo-OOOoo.”

  “Quit that.”

  “OoooOOoo . . . Boo!”

  I jumped back from her shout.

  “Gotcha.” She laughed.

  “Funny. Fifteen minutes and I have to leave. Are you going to spend it playing Casper?”

  “You could leave me the key.” She put on a wheedling tone. “Pretty please?”

  “No. Gloria told the police I’d have the key. If I leave and you’re here without me, you could get in trouble.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “Fourteen and a half minutes.”

  “You’re such a worrywart.”

  “It’s what makes me such a fine secretary for the PTA.”

  “Zing!” She licked her finger and made a sizzling noise as she set the finger on an invisible iron. “Good one. Now, let’s go.”

  She hustled out of the room and down the hallway. Another tendril of hair popped out and bobbed alongside the brightly colored scarf. Marina didn’t notice; she was on a mission.

  First door on the right was a bathroom. Marina flicked on the overhead light. “Holy cats,” she said. “Would you look at this?”

  “If you’d move, I would.”

  She moved aside and made Vanna White moves. “And here, ladies and gentlemen, you have an incredibly hideous bathroom. The idea that anyone paid money for this makes you doubt that the world will ever spin the right way.”

  “Oh, my,” I said. While the fixtures weren’t of the harvest gold or avocado green vintages, they must have been born in a related era. “This is really . . .”

  “Pink?” Marina suggested.

  “Pink,” I agreed.

  The sink, toilet, toilet paper holder, and bathtub were that light pink favored by grandmothers of infant girls. The shower curtain was cloth and patterned with pink flowers; the soap was pink. Agnes had even found pink toilet paper.

  Marina started to open the medicine cabinet. “Ten minutes,” I said.

  “Well, drat.” Her hand hovered. I’d never known how many women sneaked looks into other people’s medicine cabinets until Marina and I had taken a quiet poll of friends and relatives. I’d bet dinner and a movie that only one out of ten peeked. Marina had bet nine out of ten. I still had occasional nightmares about the fate of the rabbit in Fatal Attraction.

  She sighed and let her hand drop to her side. Though I was glad she’d given up on the medicine cabinet, I was also a little sorry. Maybe, just maybe, we would have seen something that would have helped. Silly, of course, when the police had been through the whole house, but wasn’t it possible that two eagle-eyed women could reach conclusions that law enforcement wouldn’t see?

  Marina tried to tuck her hair back into the scarf. “Let’s keep moving. I want to see how many interior design faux pas one house can hold.”

  The guest room was as bland as the living room: beige carpet, medium oak nightstand, and dresser. The white chenille bedspread was as much of a statement as the room made.

  We trooped down the hallway to the master bedroom. “What do you think?” Marina asked. “More pink? More beige? Or, be still my heart, do you think there might be a third color?” She put the back of her hand to her forehead. “I’m not sure I can take the shock.”

  “You’d better. I don’t have time to administer first aid.”

  Agnes’s bedroom was mild mannered and polite with a quilted bedspread in an inoffensive paisley print, pale yellow dresser, mirror, and nightstand. Marina poked her head into the small bathroom. “White. Whew!”

  I looked at the books on the nightstand—the Bible and a set of specifications for the Tarver Elementary School addition. “I wonder. . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, if the addition had anything to do with the murder.”

  “Don’t be silly. People don’t kill each other over buildings,” Marina said. “Time?”

  “Seven minutes.” But what was worth killing over? Nothing, as far as I was concerned, but then I was the kind of person who carried spiders outside rather than squishing them.

  She pushed past me. The last door off the hallway was to a small study. Crowded bookshelves filled three walls, and a desk filled a fourth. An opaque curtain kept any sunshine at a distance. The room, covered with dark wood paneling, felt too tight for two people. Especially when one of them was a bigger-than-life redhead.

  “Holy camoley. Do you see what I see?” Marina’s voice was full of wonder. She picked up a piece of paper from the desk. She held one corner with her index finger and thumb, pinching her nose shut with the other hand. “I think I need to bathe in disinfectant,” she said nasally.

  I took the paper from her and read aloud. “‘Dear Mrs. Mephisto: Thank you for your very generous donation—’ ”

  “You’re the world’s worst detective.” Marina flicked the top of the sheet. “Look at the letterhead.”

  “ ‘The National’ ”—I stopped and looked at my friend—“‘Republican Party.’”

  “Agnes,” Marina said solemnly, “was a closet conservative.”

  We stared at each other. This was Rynwood, one of two towns in Wisconsin that voted overwhelmingly liberal in every election. Asking about a political stance couldn’t be legally part of a job interview, but everyone knew there were ways to sneak in questions. Though Agnes had been smart enough to keep her politics private, if enough influential parents had known she was Republican, her job could have been in jeopardy.

  “No wonder she was killed,” breathed Marina.

  I put the letter back on the desk. “No one would kill Agnes because she’s right instead of left.”

  “She was principal of our elementary school,” Marina said darkly. “Who knows what she was doing to the minds of our children?”

  “Get a grip.” I banged off the light and headed down the hall. Politics was the one thing we were agreed never to discuss. If you weren’t with Marina, you were against h
er, but I’d declared myself a noncombatant long ago. What the politicians did in St. Paul and Washington, D.C., might affect me, but what I did in Rynwood would have little effect on them, so I paid them about as much attention as I did the time of high tide in the Bay of Fundy.

  “Do you think they know?” Marina followed me. “The police, I mean?”

  “About Agnes and the Republicans?” It sounded like the name of a bad garage band. “The letter was on her desk. Just a guess, but I’d say the police can read.”

  “Maybe you should call and tell them the implications.” Marina tugged at my elbow. “It might be important.”

  “Me?” I stopped. “Because I talked to the deputy in charge of the investigation for thirty seconds, I should be the Rynwood contact person?”

  “You’ve established a rapport.”

  “Hah. It’s been nice, but I have to get to work.” Since Agnes’s house was closer to the store than my house was, I’d packed a bag with a change of clothes.

  “We haven’t seen the basement,” Marina said. “Down, a look around, and back up. Less than five minutes.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I’m barely going to make it on time as it is.”

  “What’s a few minutes? Lois will be there, and I bet Sara will stay to cover.”

  “Paoze.” It was Sara’s Saturday off.

  “Paoze, then. He has such a crush on you that he’ll hang around the rest of the day, anyway.”

  With a wave I dismissed her oft-repeated theory and looked around for my purse. “I’m the owner. If I’m late, it sets a bad example.” The purse sat on the end of the counter and I grabbed it up. As I turned around, I caught sight of what had to be the basement door.

  And I stopped.

  “Gotcha!” Marina crowed. She grabbed the knob of the door and pulled it open with a flourish. “Down we go!” Her feet clattered on wood steps, and the top of her head disappeared from view.

  “I’m going to be late,” I said, and followed her.

  “Would you look at this?” Marina stood in the middle of a large room.

  We’d found the color in Agnes’s house, and it was all thanks to hockey. Other than a small corner with laundry appliances and a tool bench, Agnes’s basement was a floor-to-ceiling shrine to the Minnesota Wild and the North Stars. Wisconsin doesn’t and never has had an NHL team, but Minnesota does, and Minnesota is directly west of Wisconsin.