Organized for Homicide (Organized Mysteries Book 2)

by Ritter Ames

  "But Tiffany is my—"

  "Great. Tiff is already a pro at food handling, given her experience working weekends at the ice cream shop. The trade will be perfect."

  Valerie stood for a moment with her mouth opening and shutting a couple of times. Then she gave a hrumph sound and gathered up her clipboard. "Fine. You can have Tiffany, and I'll take Jess."

  * * *

  "Don't hate me, but I believe I successfully negotiated us a pay cut." An hour later Kate McKenzie sighed and rested an elbow out the open driver side window of the van. She squinted into the sun to see Meg standing in the drive of Hazelton East Elementary. They both still wore their pink, short-sleeved shirts and jeans.

  Kate had helped a bit more with decorations and set-up after Valerie left their area. The rest of the event areas, both inside and outside the library, seemed filled and nearly ready for the public. Though the fundraiser was set to start at eight a.m. the next day, decorations, as well as last minute changes and ideas, were still time consuming for those signed on to help. Especially when only half the crew showed during the set-up preparations. As much as Valerie irritated her on so many levels, Kate had to hand it to the take-charge chair for jumping in and pulling all the tangled threads together so beautifully.

  First, however, she needed to convince Meg that things were still on track. Despite the changes made during the time she was gone for her dental appointment.

  Meg swung her right arm and rubbed a stiff muscle. "I think I have permanent nerve damage from having to hold up those banners so the crew behind me could come through and staple this morning."

  "I have a bruise the size of a half-dollar on my foot where a weighted bar fell on it," Kate commiserated.

  "Guess they should have added steel-toed boots to the dress code." Meg grinned and leaned against the open window frame. "Who knew a library could be so dangerous."

  "It'll be fine tomorrow. Just had to find all the kinks to work out today."

  "And we'll be working out our kinks for the next week."

  "Don't remind me."

  "I do want to remind you that we're volunteers," Meg said. "How can we get a pay cut?"

  "Well, not a pay cut exactly, but more work for less free time, so the phrase fits well enough."

  The late-spring afternoon sunshine washed over Kate's bare forearm, warming the skin and making the blond hairs appear almost white. She was near the end of the line in the parent pick-up circle, an unenviable spot her now-seven-year-old twin daughters were sure to complain about when they had to wait for all the vehicles ahead to leave first. The car in the fifth position from the front belonged to Meg, who'd come directly from her dental cleaning. She hadn't really had time to return early enough to the library to help any more. She had walked back to Kate's end of the line when the van finally pulled in and now stood on the sidewalk listening to the organizer's lament.

  Meg lifted a perfectly arched brow toward her tangle of fiery curls, and said, "I'm sorry. I knew I shouldn't have left. What happened?"

  "Erin is no longer co-chair, and Valerie used her newly attained absolute power to pull rank. Not that Erin would have taken our side anyway," Kate mused. "Except she might have done so to annoy Valerie."

  "So the queen bee is taking over?"

  "You might say. Beyond taking over the decisions on decorations she decided 'didn't fit her vision,' and changing a bunch of things right before I left, we also lost one of our three tables," Kate replied, then puffed a stray lock of chin length blond hair out of her face. If only she could blow away her problems as easily. "So we can't stand in a horseshoe now, and we lose our added extra square footage to hide stock. She did it right after you left. I know she had it planned so that I was on my own and didn't have any back-up."

  "I'm sorry."

  Kate waved a hand. "Stop. It's not your fault, and I told you to go to your appointment. Valerie was just being her normal self. But we have to have all the baked goods out of the room they're stored in, and we probably need to do that the hour before the public arrives. The room will be used non-stop by the authors once the book sale starts. I figure we'll now have to stock the van and then make runs to the parking lot whenever we need to grab anything we have stashed out there. One of the librarians told me we'll have rolling carts to use. But it will still mean more work and reduced counter help as someone runs back and forth."

  "What about the library? Aren't there any more tables or storage space?" Meg asked, staring off into the distance. A frown line appeared between her eyebrows, and Kate wondered if she ought to mention it.

  Not a chance.

  "There isn't any more room at the inn, or in this case, in our tiny library," Kate added aloud. "Valerie's contention, and to be truthful it is a good one, is the books have to take precedence, no matter how much extra profit we make on the bake sale. People come for the books, then are attracted to the sugar."

  "I'd probably agree if it wasn't our table in question here."

  "Especially if it was hers." Kate pulled a notepad from the passenger seat. "I've been trying to make a list of all the things we now have to load into the van for the bake sale. And all of that is in addition to the list I have of the hundreds of tasks we still have to do for the Collier move once the police finally let us back into the house. Plus, I just learned today Valerie is staging the house, so you know she'll be chomping at the bit to get inside and decorate." She tapped the pad twice. "But one good thing—"

  "Really? One whole good thing?"

  "Yep. I made sure we got Tiffany as our student liaison. One negotiation I wasn't going to lose. We already know she's adept at food handling, given her part-time job at the ice cream shop, and she knows everyone—"

  "Like her mother," Meg said.

  "—and is fairly easy to work with."

  "Unlike her mother," Meg added.

  Kate grinned. "I figure during a quiet moment or two we can use the opportunity to subtly pump Tiffany for information. You know, who at the high school is talking about Sydney. What the talk has been about the Collier family and Sydney staying with her mom. Find out what kind of Hazelton High drama we can learn about and see how it might help us learn who has a grudge against the girl, or knew enough about her and her family to kill Lila and use the incriminating knife to do it."

  "I have to hand it to you, Katie." An exasperated look flashed across Meg's lightly freckled face. "You're the only person I know with a jam-packed life, who can not only make it more jam-packed but make someone else feel good about having more work. I swear sometimes you need a keeper. Someone who can stand beside you, to continually whisper 'no' in your ear so you'll have that powerful word handy whenever situations like this one appear. However, what you're doing is on the side of angels, and a part of me says it's all my fault you're even in this bake sale mess. But the other part of me is so glad you are. You have a plan for everything and lists to cover all the surprises."

  Even before Meg's summation, Kate knew the mess was more than she'd bargained for, and common sense said she needed to step back. While Keith's job gave him most of the day free when the girls were in school and she was working, the family only had the early dinnertime together before he disappeared into the night to anchor Sports Talk on WHZE. So once the moving assignment muscled its way back to the forefront again, she was likely to be overwhelmed in a hurry. Especially since she hadn't even really discussed with Keith what she and Meg were up to and why.

  "Let's hope this plan works. Despite your belief in my list-making superpowers, I don't have any contingencies factored in yet."

  Meg frowned again. "Well, what little info I gained from my walk and talk doesn't really amount to much either. Looks like both of our superpowers are letting us down."

  "Nothing, huh?

  "Well…" Meg paused and frowned. "Maybe. Apparently Erin's assistant, Lee Ann Miller, went to college with Lila in Massachusetts. But I googled Lila on my phone while I was waiting for the dental tech to call me, and everything I
found said Lila got her undergraduate degree from Dartmouth."

  "Could your source be mistaken?"

  "It was one of the librarians who's lived in Hazelton her whole life," Meg said. "Like my mother—and like me, mostly." She cocked her head to one side. "I don't know. But with the town so small, it's harder to confuse one person's facts for another."

  "Or Lila could have transferred. Maybe Massachusetts was a graduate degree."

  Meg shook her head. "No, her graduate work was in Florida. It's how she met future husband, Blaine Collier. Lucky her."

  "Well, the marriage did produce three terrific kids."

  "There is that."

  As the sun struck her watch crystal, Kate realized it was just five minutes before the midget horde erupted from the blue steel door. "Won't be much longer."

  "Yep, my little monsters will be stomachs on running feet." Meg smiled, showing the true affection she had for her rambunctious five- and eight-year-old sons. "They'll beg all the way home for fast food, then pick at the dinner I'll serve when Gil gets home from work. But never fear! All three of them will pig out at the ball game and be wired for sound when they get home tonight."

  "Oh, are they going to the triple-A game?" Kate saw a new plan in the making.

  "Yeah, Gil got a pass at the paper, and kids get in free. You want me to see if he will take the girls, and we can do some game planning ourselves?"

  "You just read my mind."

  The crossing guards walked out of the building and headed for their respective intersections, signaling the near end of the school day. Kate pointed through the windshield. "There's the cue to head back to your car. You'll have angry parents and angrier kids if you aren't ready to move as soon as your guys are loaded."

  "No kidding. Thanks." Meg sprinted back toward her silver Camry. Just as she slipped behind the steering wheel, the afternoon bell sounded. Kate watched the children erupt out of the door and line up to the side until one of the teachers motioned them toward a parent's car.

  The system was well-rehearsed, and it didn't take long for Kate to move just a couple of car lengths from the loading zone. Within a few more minutes she was in place at the front, with the one of the third grade teachers sliding back the van's passenger door and helping her first graders load themselves and their backpacks into the second seat.

  "Thanks so much," Kate said, and waved as the teacher smiled and nodded, then slid the door back into the closed position. "Ready to go, girls?"

  "Yes!" they chorused.

  Kate swung the wheel and checked for traffic on the now busy feeder street that led to their home. "Anyone have homework tonight?"

  "No," Samantha said, as Suzanne was saying at the same time, "We have to write a report about a book we like."

  "The teacher said we didn't have to," Sam replied.

  "She said it was for extra credit," Suze clarified.

  "Sam, do you need extra credit?" Kate asked, looking at her tomboy twin through the rearview mirror. Sam shrugged.

  Ever helpful, Suze repeated more of what Kate suspected the teacher had told them. "Everyone can always use extra credit. And reading exercises our brains and makes us smarter."

  "I'm smart enough."

  "No one is smart enough," Suze countered.

  "Girls, stop, or there will be no surprise tonight." This conversation was not going anything like she'd planned, and Kate had never been happier to see her neighborhood appear in the distance.

  "What surprise?"

  "What, Mommy?"

  "What do we get?"

  "Do we get something? Or get to go somewhere?"

  "Girls, stop, please." She knew why they were overly excited. The sleepover at their grandparents the previous night, meant they now wanted her undivided attention. But her exhausted mind could only take so much.

  "Mommy, we're sorry," Suzanne said, her lower lip puckering.

  "Yeah, we're sorry." Samantha remained cooler about it, but a glance in the mirror told Kate she was worried too.

  Though probably more worried about not getting her surprise. Gotta love kids.

  Kate smiled and turned onto their street. "It's okay, girls. I'm not mad. I just wanted you to simmer down so I could talk."

  She pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. Keith's Jeep was missing from the other side of the drive, and she knew her husband had likely left early to cover the game tonight for his radio show. Kate twisted and leaned to see both girls through the seatbacks. "Mr. Berman is taking you and his boys to the baseball game tonight. But you have to get your homework finished first. Okay?"

  Suzanne grinned her dimpled best, but Samantha flashed a hesitant smile. Kate reached back and touched Sam's knee. "Don't worry. You'll do fine. You can work at the kitchen table in case you need to ask me questions."

  "I'll help you, sis," Suze added.

  Samantha's face darkened. "I don't need help!" She unbuckled her seatbelt and crashed between the front seats to escape out the passenger side front door.

  "What's wrong with her?" Suze asked.

  Kate watched Sam disappear around the back of the house. She pulled the key ring from the ignition and passed it to Suzanne. "Here, honey, get yours and Sam's backpacks inside, okay? You can grab an apple for a snack. I'll go talk to your sister."

  A jog around the house, and she saw the toes of a couple of small blue athletic shoes peeking from the bottom of the cluster of cedars in the corner of their lot. She walked closer, until the toes of her Keds were inches away from Sam's, and asked, "Honey, what's wrong?"

  The voice was muffled. "Suze is such a pain. She's just…just…such a know-it-all butt."

  Time to go in. Kate crawled into the covey, telling herself not to think about spiders. She needed to hug Sam and get her daughter to open up and put her feelings into words. Sam sat on the ground, looking tiny, with her face pressed into her knees. Kate's heart nearly broke, knowing exactly what that felt like after spending too many years tamping down her own feelings, upsets, and shaky emotions. Until she reached the point where she kept everything inside. To the point where she could no longer let any of it out, and now had a rubber band on her wrist to help her remember to disengage and speak up when she needed to do so.

  No matter how many mis-steps I make as a mother, this is one time I know exactly what I need to do. And I will fight to keep this child from making the same armor-building mistakes I tried to use to deal with life.

  She scooted closer to Sam and put an arm around her daughter's narrow shoulders. Sam rubbed her eyes against the knees of her jeans, leaving tear stains behind.

  "Talk to me, Sam. Tell me how I can help."

  Sam heaved a great sigh, and her whole body seemed to suddenly get even smaller. "Suze is so smart. She can read anything. She can do all the math the teacher gives us and do it up on the board without one mistake. She reads faster than me, and tells me when I say a word wrong." She raised her tear-streaked face to look at Kate. "I'm just so…tired of it all."

  "Your teacher always has great things to say about you when I talk to her. Do you want me to talk to Suze, or maybe both of us can tell her how you feel?"

  Sam nodded once then shook her head and finally shrugged, her expression showing her confusion about the situation. She stared off into the tree branches ahead of her for a few moments. Kate waited, giving the child time to figure out what she wanted to say.

  "I just want to do something better," she whispered after a few minutes.

  "But you have your own strengths, Sam. You're always the first one picked when the neighborhood plays street hockey, and your soccer coach says you're the best goal tender he's ever seen at your age."

  "That doesn't matter." Sam swallowed, and more silent tears fell. "Suze says if I don't make good grades I'll never get to go to college, and I'll have to live with you and Daddy forever. I love you and Daddy, but I don't want to not be able to do something Suze can do."

  Oh, boy. Obviously the time had come to get the twins involv
ed in individual activities, no matter how much they'd always begged to do everything together. Kate and Keith had already discussed the growing competitiveness, and a comment Meg made a few weeks ago helped Kate formulate a new best plan that included devising new schedules for the girls. Plus, she knew Sam was the better athlete of the two, which was the likely reason why Suze was discounting her sister's achievements.

  She settled deeper into the mossy ground and pulled Sam closer. "Honey, what do you feel good doing? All by yourself. Nothing you have to do because Suze wants to do it, too?"

  Sam raised her face, her eyebrows pulled together in a questioning V. "You mean, what do I like to do best?"

  "Exactly."

  "That's easy." Sam shrugged. "I like to go really fast on skates. It's like I'm flying, and I always know exactly what I'm doing. But it's not anything for school, so Suze says I'm wasting my time thinking about it."

  "You're not wasting your time. Forget about that. School is important, but other activities are, too. Do you mean like speed skating or hockey?"

  "Yeah, both. But I think I like racing on skates best, because then it's all up to me. I like being on a team. But I really like counting on myself, too."

  Kate rubbed a hand up and down Sam's back. "Tell you what. I'll talk to your daddy tonight, and we'll see if he can't do some one-on-one time with you. Give you a few more opportunities to 'count on yourself.' Does that sound like a winning idea?"

  "That'd be great!"

  "Then let's scoot out of here and get everything done we need to do so you and Suze will be on time to catch a ride to the baseball game."

  They scooted clear of the cedar branches, and Sam scrambled to her feet. Kate shook her head in awe of her daughter's abilities, and took several seconds longer to get upright again herself. But when Sam seemed to be dragging her feet, Kate realized there was more and guessed at the next problem. "Are you having trouble thinking about how to write your report? I know your teacher is only going to want maybe a page and a picture, Sam. Don't worry."