Murder at the PTA (2010) bk-1

by Laura Alden

  “Oh.” Pete looked puzzled, and I realized that, though I’d given him one answer, I’d created a whole list of new questions.

  “Do you want some help with that?” Pete gestured at the bulging garbage bag.

  Reflexively, I started to refuse the offer, but then I thought of Gus’s comment. “That’d be great. Thanks.”

  He took the bag. “I’ll dump it in my van. No, not a problem. I rent a big Dumpster, and it’s not even half full.” With no obvious effort he lifted the bag, a weight I would have had to drag.

  I took one last look around the bedroom and went into the study. Spot lay down in the doorway with a sigh. I waded through the mess, sat in the desk chair, and started flattening papers. A faint whistling grew louder and louder, turning into an off-key rendition of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

  Pete poked his head inside. “Whoa. You’ve still got quite a mess in here.” He’d stripped off his white coverall and was back to khaki pants and denim shirt. “Do you . . . Um, I mean . . . would you like some help?”

  I looked at him. He must have been sorely in need of business. Though I knew what that felt like, spending more of Gloria’s money didn’t seem right. “Well . . .”

  “Off the clock, I mean,” he said hurriedly.

  “Oh.” Now I was the puzzled one. Why on earth would he want to spend what was left of his evening helping a stranger tidy a room that wasn’t even hers?

  He interpreted the look on my face correctly. “I just like to clean things,” he said, shrugging. “And if it’s helping you or watching the Wild lose another hockey game, well, lead me to an empty garbage bag.”

  “We could do both.” I nodded at a small television tucked into the end of a bookshelf. “And who says the Wild will lose? Their new goalie is hot right now.”

  Pete’s face lit up. “A fan! Now I’m staying for sure.”

  With Pete’s help and garbage-hauling expertise, we straightened up the room before the end of the first intermission. We parted amicably at the curb, with his climbing into his van and my crossing the street and walking up to Marina’s house.

  My children, up past their bedtime, were whiny. I gathered up their belongings while Marina pestered me for details. “Are you okay? Are you sure? How tall do you think that guy was last night? Do you remember anything? Did he take anything?”

  Guiding a sleepy Oliver out the door, I told her I’d call her the next day. Once the kids were in the car and buckled in, I patted my coat pocket and felt the reassuring crackle of paper. I didn’t know if Mr. Grip had taken anything or not. But I had.

  After dropping the kids off at Ezekiel G. the next morning, I rushed back home. Some things are best done in privacy. “Please open at eight,” I said, dialing the phone. “Please.”

  The phone rang two, three, four times. I looked at the paper I’d taken from Agnes’s house and double-checked the number. No, I’d dialed correctly. I was about to hang up, when there was a click.

  “Hunter Clinic, this is Brooke. How may I direct your call?”

  “Um.” The pat little speech I’d prepared vanished out of my head, gone away as if it had never existed. I knew I should have written it down. “Good morning, Brooke. My name is, uh, Gloria Kuri.”

  “Yes?” When I didn’t instantly respond, she went on. “Are you a patient here, ma’am?”

  “Oh.” She started to say something, but I jumped ahead. “No, I’m not a patient. My sister was.”

  “I see.”

  “My sister was Agnes Mephisto. She died more than three weeks ago.”

  “She did? I’m so sorry.”

  “Thank you.” It dawned on me that Brooke had no clue Agnes had been murdered. “It’s been hard on all of us.” I made a sniffling noise. “I was wondering . . .”

  “Yes?”

  I detected sympathy, and my rehearsed speech swam back. “Agnes didn’t want to trouble anyone with the details of her illness. She was so brave.”

  “I’m sure she was. The patients here amaze me.”

  When I’d come across an invoice in Agnes’s files from the Hunter Center, a little buzz had set off in the back of my brain. The Hunter Center. The Hunter Center . . . At home, a Google search had yielded the information I’d expected, but not wanted, to see. Due to privacy laws, I knew Brooke wouldn’t tell me anything specific, but maybe I’d find out enough. “We’d like to make a donation,” I said, “and we want it to go to research.”

  “Lots of people donate to the American Cancer Society,” Brooke said.

  “We were hoping to send a check to a more specific organization.” Agnes had been living with cancer. No wonder she’d been pushing so hard on the addition.

  “Oh, I see what you mean. Let me see a minute.” I heard the sound of a keyboard tap-tapping away. “Mephisto, Agnes?” Her voice went quiet. “I probably shouldn’t say—you know how that HIPAA stuff goes—but I don’t see how this could hurt.”

  “I won’t tell a soul where I got the information. Cross my heart.” And hope not to die.

  “If I were you,” she whispered, “I’d send my money to the American Brain Tumor Association. And I’m really sorry about your sister. I know she didn’t have long, but this was really fast. She seemed like a nice lady.”

  Brain cancer. Poor Agnes.

  I sat at my desk and stared out at the golden autumn morning. A few leaves hung tight to tree branches, swaying slightly to and fro. They were bright orange leaves, more brilliant by far than any leaves I’d ever seen.

  Oh, Agnes.

  There were places to go and people to see, but I sat there for a long while, mourning a woman I’d never known.

  Chapter 19

  “Are you seeing him or what?”

  “Shhh!” I tried to hush Marina. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and Jenna and Oliver were with Zach in the Neff family room watching Saturday cartoons, but if so inclined, little pitchers did indeed have big ears.

  “Why?” Marina continued at normal volume. “Is he some big secret?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “Dear, dear Beth.” Her voice took on a Southern drawl. “Ah can always tell when you’re lying.”

  My fingers shot up to feel my earlobes.

  Still in belle mode, Marina said, “He is remahkably handsome—yes, indeed, he is. But your brainy little head doesn’t turn at mere good looks. Or does it?” Her eyebrows arched.

  “I knew him in kindergarten.”

  “Yes, mah dear, you said so.”

  “Quit with the Scarlett O’Hara bit, will you?”

  “Ooo, Beth is a little uptight this morning.” Marina put her feet up on the chair next to her, an act she knew was guaranteed to make me edgy. “Problems sleeping? Maybe your pretty boy will come in handy, because I bet I know what you need. How long has it been?”

  Some days it was best to ignore everything Marina said. “I owe you one for taking the kids.” Thanks to Richard’s unpredictable boss, I suddenly had my children two weekends in a row. Any other time I would have been delighted, but this weekend was different. “I’ll call tonight at bedtime. Come give me a kiss, you two!” I called, pulling on my coat and picking up my purse. There was a long drive ahead, and time was ticking away.

  “Don’t go, Beth.” Marina’s face was serious. “Let me go instead. This is all because of me, and I shouldn’t be letting you fight my battles.”

  In some ways she was right, but in other ways she was very wrong. It wasn’t because of Marina’s death threats that I was abandoning Jenna and Oliver for half the weekend; it was because of Agnes.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then I kissed my children and left.

  Two hundred miles later, my cell phone rang. Normally I didn’t talk on the phone while driving, but since there were exactly zero cars to be seen on this particular stretch of U.S. 53, I decided to risk taking the call.

  “Beth? This is E
van.” Static punctuated his words.

  “If I hang up on you,” I said, “I didn’t hang up on you. There aren’t a lot of towers out here.”

  “Where are you? Never mind,” he added quickly. “It doesn’t matter. I called because I want to apologize for the other day.”

  “Apologize for what?”

  “For acting as if I had any right to tell you what to do.”

  “Ah.” Take that, Marina.

  “You’re angry at me and I don’t blame you. We barely know each other, and I assumed control and did those guy things that make strong women want to swear off men forever.”

  If he thought I was strong, he really didn’t know me at all.

  “Let me make it up to you. How about dinner?” He named one of the fanciest restaurants in Madison. “Soft lights, a piano playing in the background, a bottle of wine. Just the two of us. What do you say?”

  Or maybe it was time for the big test. “How about dinner at my house, instead?” I smiled, and warmth filled me from head to toe. “Just us—and my two children?”

  Six hours after leaving Marina’s house, I was sitting in Gloria Kuri’s living room and sipping a mug of coffee strong enough to curl my toes—not my hair, though. Nothing was strong enough to curl those stick-straight tresses.

  Gloria caught my glance at her living room decor. “I need to do something about them. Last week I got a new Oklahoma one and it’s messing up everything.”

  None of Gloria’s furniture was placed against a wall; the couch, the overstuffed chairs, the coffee table, and the console television floated in the middle of the room. With the single exception of a wood fireplace burning bright, every bit of flat wall space was consumed by vintage postcards, and each one was mounted in the exact same type of frame.

  “Got started collecting when I was a kid.” Gloria looked around. “That one there. The Wisconsin Dells ducks in 1954. You know about the ducks, right?”

  I nodded. Once upon a time, my parents had trundled the whole family across Lake Michigan in a car ferry. My older teenaged sisters had been ostentatiously bored the entire trip, but my brother and I had loved the resort area and riding on the old army land-and-water vehicles.

  “After the Dells, you branched out?” I asked.

  Gloria laughed, a throaty smoker’s laugh. Her house didn’t smell a whit like cigarette smoke, though. Maybe she didn’t smoke in her house for the sake of the postcards. “You could say so,” she said. “If you’re buying Wisconsin cards, why not Minnesota?”

  “Why not?” I agreed.

  “Then Michigan, then Illinois, and then I figured I should get one from every state. Then I started for two for every state. I’m on seven.” She frowned. “But now I got this Oklahoma one. I gotta decide if I want to get rid of one of the old Oklahomas or start into the eights. And they don’t make these frames no more. I’d have to buy new ones. Eight times fifty of even a cheap frame is a lot of bucks.”

  “What about putting one set in another room?” I suggested. “Then you’d have to buy only fifty frames.”

  She stared at me. “They have to stay together.”

  It occurred to me that Gloria and Agnes weren’t as different as I’d first thought. Whether from nature or nurture, both had the gift of making people feel stupid. With both hands I held out the cardboard box that had been sitting on my lap. “This is for you. From Agnes’s house.”

  “Yeah?” Gloria put down her coffee and took the box from me. “Oof, that’s heavier than I thought. What’s in here, rocks?” She held it close to her ear and shook it back and forth.

  “They were in her guest room.”

  “Bet that got used a lot.” Gloria rolled her eyes. “Can’t imagine Aggie had a whole lot of friends staying over.”

  Or relatives, I thought.

  Gloria unstuck the tape and pulled back the flaps. “Books,” she said. “You brought me books.” She poked at them with her index finger. “Not even new ones.”

  I was starting to understand why Agnes hadn’t often traveled to Superior. “No, they’re quite old—from the 1920s and 1930s. That’s one of the reasons I brought them up. Books that old should be in a regulated environment. And most of them are inscribed inside the front cover by Agnes Kuri.”

  “These are Aunt Agnes’s books?” Gloria’s face hardened into stone. She picked the top book, Alice in Wonderland , from the box. “And my sister kept them all these years.” Gloria put the box on the table, picked up two books, and stood.

  “You’re not going to—”

  “You bet I am.” Gloria pushed the fireplace screen aside with her foot and pitched Alice into the flames, Fahrenheit 451 in heat and glowing life. In went Anne of Avonlea.

  “If I were a nicer person,” she said, “I’d let my brothers and sisters take a turn.” A Girl of the Limberlost was committed to the flames. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz followed. “But I ain’t that nice.” Book after book went in. “There.” She dusted her hands and replaced the screen, then sat down and put her feet up on the coffee table, a wide grin on her face. “I ain’t had that much fun in years. Thanks.”

  “You’re, um, welcome.” The fumes of burning glue stung my eyes.

  Gloria laughed. “Let me tell you about my dear departed sister. My parents named her Agnes after my dad’s aunt. Dad loved his auntie Agnes. She lived with us for years, the old bat. Only one to have her own room, and we always had to run whenever she rang this dang bell.”

  I wondered if Joanna was still ringing her bell to summon Mack.

  “Anyway,” Gloria went on, “we waited on her hand and foot, and when she finally died, turns out she had enough money to buy this whole town ten times over. She’d hung on to her stocks during the Depression, and ended up making a killing. How did that old biddy know to pick up Xerox and IBM early? Coca-Cola, too, can you believe it?” Gloria’s cheeks were blotched with red indignation.

  With the inevitability of an incipient train wreck observed from afar, I knew where this was going.

  “Agnes ended up with everything.” She slouched low into the couch, shoulders slumping. “Who’d have thought a name would mean so much? It’s not like Agnes was going to carry on the family name. We had plenty of boys around to do that.

  “Anyone else in the family would’ve shared.” Gloria’s face was etched with hostility. “Not my sister. She said she had things to do with that money.” Spittle flew out of Gloria’s mouth at every overpronounced consonant. “What could have been better than taking care of family? She had millions! It’s not like we asked for much. A nice house, a little income. Wouldn’t have made a dent in what she had.”

  “How old was Agnes when your aunt died?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer for a moment, mired in an ancient battle. “College,” she finally said. “The one in Eau Claire.”

  There it was. The timing explained the first, very short marriage. Poor Agnes. I wondered how much money he’d taken from her. No wonder she hadn’t married again. No wonder she kept her distance from people.

  And then, with the certainty of a celestial voice from on high, I knew that Agnes herself had donated the money for the school addition. The Tarver Foundation was Agnes.

  “Did you know she was sick?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was a patient at a cancer clinic. The prognosis wasn’t good.”

  Gloria stared at the flames. “Seems a good time to give her sisters and brothers some of Aunt’s money. But all she cared about was that stupid foundation. That’s all she’s cared about for years. Who the heck is Ezekiel Tarver, anyway?”

  “Maybe she intended to give something to her family,” I said, “but was killed first.”

  Gloria watched the fire. “Maybe.”

  I got up, touched her shoulder, and left. Before I’d backed all the way out of the driveway, I’d started punching buttons on my cell phone.

  “Hey, pest,” my sister Darlene said. “What’s up?”

  “Just w
anted to hear your dulcet tones.” Though I spoke lightly, I meant it as sincerely as I’d ever meant anything I’d ever said.

  “Aren’t you the funny one? Have I told you about the stunt your oldest nephew pulled the other day? You’d think he’d have more sense at age twenty-five.” She went on, telling a tale of pumpkins and white sheets and toilet paper. I pushed the phone against my ear until the skin burned, pulling the comfort of my sister’s amused voice into my heart.

  Early the next afternoon, I parked in Marina’s sunny driveway. The day was as warm as mid-September. After leaving Gloria’s house, I’d driven south until just before Oliver’s bedtime; then I’d stopped and found a place to sleep. In the motel room’s weak light, I’d spoken to the kids, then told Marina about my afternoon.

  “Wow,” Marina had said. “So Agnes was loaded. Who would have guessed? And it was bucks from Agnes that were paying for the addition. No wonder she was pushing it so hard.”

  “We don’t know for sure,” I’d cautioned. “It’s just a guess.”

  “Guess, schmess,” she’d said. “The puzzle pieces are fitting together. I can feel it.”

  Now I knocked on her back door and walked in. Maybe Marina could feel things fitting together, but what I felt was a gnawing sense of failure. I didn’t feel any closer to identifying the killer than I had the night Marina had sat in my kitchen, pleading for help.

  “Mom’s here!” Oliver thudded into me, his small arms wrapping around my waist.

  I kissed the top of his head. “Hi, handsome. Are you and Jenna ready to go?”

  “Hi, Mom.” Jenna sauntered into the kitchen, too cool to hug me. “Mrs. Neff made us pack an hour ago.” She kicked the bottom of her backpack, which lay near the door.

  “Beth!” Marina swept into the room, carrying her laptop like a platter, her hands palm up. “Your timing is impeccable.” She thrust the computer at me.

  A crawling sense of dread wiggled its way into my stomach. She wouldn’t have, would she? I read the title on the screen.

  “Jenna? Oliver?” I asked quietly. “Please get your coats, get the dog, take your bags, and wait for me in the car.”