Murder at the PTA

by Alden, Laura

  I stared at her and couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “So I’m going to change.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes. Starting tomorrow.” She nodded decisively. “Why wait?”

  Good heavens. “Um, big changes are worth a few days of thinking, don’t you think?”

  Behind us, a door opened. “Good-bye, Mr. Egoscue, Mrs. Egoscue,” chirped an unbelievably young voice. “Thanks for coming! Oh, good, Mrs. Kennedy. Right on time. Come on in. I’m ready for you.”

  I didn’t move. “Debra, let’s go to the Green Tractor. I can meet you there in twenty minutes. We’ll get Ruthie to make us ice-cream sundaes and brew up a pot of decaf.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Debra said, “but I have errands to run. I just wanted to thank you.” She hurried off.

  “Mrs. Kennedy?” Lauren Atchinson stood in the classroom door.

  What was the right thing to do? Since it was my speechifying that had affected Debra, wasn’t it my responsibility to go after her and offer my help, as little as that might be? On the other hand, I needed to talk to Ms. Atchinson about my son.

  “Mrs. Kennedy?”

  On the other hand, because of me, Debra might be hurtling onto a path of self-destruction. How could I turn away from her now?

  “Mrs. Kennedy, if you need to reschedule, I might have time the week after next.”

  But it was no contest. Motherhood trumped everything, every time.

  In Oliver’s classroom construction paper pumpkins spattered the concrete block walls, each one decorated with leering grins and a child’s scrawled name. I looked for Oliver’s and finally found it, a lopsided one-toothed visage.

  “First off,” Lauren said, “Oliver is a very nice little boy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For an older parent, you’re doing a great job of socializing him with peers.”

  “A what?” Had she really said what I thought she’d said?

  She opened a manila folder. “You can’t have a lot in common with people my age, and I just wanted to say I think you’re doing a great job.”

  Responses rushed into my head. They all jammed up together, making an outraged bottleneck, and not a single word made its way out of my open mouth.

  “So.” Lauren handed me a sheet of paper. “Here’s a chart of Oliver’s progress.”

  Young, I thought. She’s not even twenty-five. She knows not what she does.

  I studied the graph. On the left were the titles of Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Physical Education, and Other. All the titles had a series of horizontal lines extending across the sheet, and on the right was a scale of one to ten for each. Across the sheet’s bottom was a label for each week in the six-week marking period.

  “As I’m sure you can see,” Lauren said, “there’s been a falling off.”

  She had a gift for understatement. At the beginning of the year, Oliver was scoring between seven and nine for each subject. The lines jiggled a bit until the last two weeks. After that, each line looked like the Dow Jones in 2009. Crash!

  “Have there been problems at home?” Lauren frowned, tilting her head to one side. “Is there anything I can do? I’d honestly like to help.”

  She looked earnest and caring, but what was I going to say? That he and his sister wanted a puppy and I didn’t? That he was suddenly afraid of eating spaghetti? That the idea of a man in my life frightened him? That he’d gone back to wetting his bed?

  “Mrs. Mephisto’s death has been hard on him,” I said. “He’s known only one other person who died. That she was murdered makes it even more difficult.”

  “It’s so hard to think someone in Rynwood was murdered.” She fidgeted with her necklace. “The police came around and talked to all the teachers, did you know? They said they were just gathering information,but funny thing is they were asking us all what we were doing that night.”

  I smiled. “Where’s an alibi when you need one?” I suddenly remembered Lauren’s vehement recommendation of appointing Gary Kemmerer as principal. Maybe I should add the two of them to the list. Who knew what ten years of working under Agnes could do to a man? And Lauren might have the kind of malleable personality that could be manipulated to do the direst of deeds.

  “Oh, I had an alibi,” she said. “Tuesdays are my ballet nights. I was in Madison helping to block out a scene from The Nutcracker. The choreographer and the director and I were there past midnight.”

  Mentally, I added Lauren and Gary to the list, then crossed off Lauren’s name. I wasn’t obsessive about my lists; I was just accurate.

  “The police will catch the killer,” I said. “I’m sure that will help Oliver.”

  Lauren nodded. “So you can directly correlate his downturn with the death of Mrs. Mephisto?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he showing other signs of grief or stress?”

  Though I knew she was only trying to help, my irritation level was rising. Clearly, obfuscation was in order. “He has a history of enuresis,” I said. “I’ve been following the recommendations of his pediatrician and expect to eliminate the problem in a short time frame.”

  “I didn’t realize Oliver had bed-wetting issues.”

  So much for that idea. “It’s not uncommon,” I said calmly.

  “No.” Her gaze lost its intensity and wandered off. “Kids can’t help themselves. They don’t do it on purpose.”

  “Of course not.”

  “There are all sorts of reasons for enuresis.” Her cheeks were developing round red spots. “A child could simply have a genetic predisposition. A urinary tract infection. Sleep apnea. Diabetes, even.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “And some people are born with small bladders. It’s not a character flaw. It’s just the way you were made.”

  I’d struck a nerve, and I didn’t quite know how to unstrike it. “Exactly,” I said.

  After a pause, the conference went on. At long last she closed the folder. “Mrs. Kennedy, would you consider making an appointment for Oliver with the school psychologist? I’m sure we both agree it’s in his best interest to work through his problems.”

  I bit my cheeks. “I’m sure my son will be fine.”

  “You could be right,” she said doubtfully, leaving hanging the insinuation that though I could be right, I was probably wrong. “But I think it’s better to act sooner rather than later.”

  “Good advice.” I gathered up my purse and the materials she’d handed over. On my way out, I counted the months until the end of school and came up with a number much bigger than the optimal zero—eight and a half more months of Lauren Atchinson.

  This could be a very long year.

  I picked up the kids at Marina’s house. “So how did it go?” she asked. Her gaze was bright and shifty, darting toward me, toward the laptop computer on the kitchen table, toward the family room where her son Zach was playing with Oliver and Jenna. She was making me dizzy.

  “Jenna’s teacher said she’s doing fine, but Lauren Atchinson wants Oliver to start therapy.”

  “For what, having to be in her classroom all year? Piffle.” She waved off the idea with bright orange fingernails. “And that wasn’t what I was asking about.” The glancing eyes made another circuit. “Did you find out anything? You know, about you-know-what?” She made a big sideways nod toward the laptop.

  “You mean finding out the you-know-what of the you-know-who who did you-know-what you-know-when?”

  “Stop that.” She shook her finger at me. “You know what I mean.”

  And, of course, I did. “Not yet.”

  “Oh.” She deflated half a size.

  “You didn’t really expect me to figure it out this fast, did you?”

  She pointed at her head. “Here? No. Down here is another story.” She put her hands on her heart. Though she didn’t look as rough as she had last night, there were telltale signs of Marina-stress. Hair loose on her shoulders, boxes from frozen dinn
ers on the counter, no coffee brewing. “This morning,” she said, “the Dear Husband actually asked if anything was wrong. I said the sad plight of the African swallows was keeping me awake at night.”

  I laughed. “Could you possibly have come up with a worse lie?”

  “Well, I had to tell him something.” The fun left her face, and worry appeared in its place. “I’m sure the you-know-what threat isn’t real.” She twisted a strand of hair around her fingers. “This will all turn out okay, won’t it?”

  “It’ll be fine,” I said. “Promise.”

  But I should have known better. Making a promise like that is just asking for trouble.

  I drove us home through a rain that couldn’t make up its mind what it wanted to be. For two blocks the drops came down hard enough for me to turn the windshield wipers on high. In another block the rubber scraped dry on the glass. Half a block later, it was a steady drizzle.

  In the backseat, Jenna wiped her fogged-up window with her hand. “What did Mr. Richey say about me?”

  I smiled into the rearview mirror. “That you’re the smartest, nicest, most talented little girl he’s ever taught.”

  “No, really. What did he say?”

  This was the first time Jenna had paid any attention to a parent-teacher conference. “What do you think he said?”

  Her palm scrubbed harder at the window. Soon it was clear from top to bottom, and from left to right. “It was only the one time.”

  Uh-oh. “Are you sure?” It didn’t take a great leap of reasoning to figure this was something to do with Bailey Scharff. Pete had given me a general warning; the rest was up to me. For the first time in months I felt a wave of longing for Richard. I couldn’t do this by myself. I wasn’t smart enough to raise two children all alone. I was too old, too out of touch, too—

  Jenna whipped around and thumped her back against the back of the seat. She folded her arms. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said sullenly.

  I glanced over at Oliver. He was tipping his head back and forth with the windshield wipers, counting the beats. “Fifty-five, fifty-six . . .”

  “Why did you do it even once?”

  “Don’t know.”

  I flicked on the turn signal and turned left. Half a dozen blocks and we’d be home. The kids would jump out, rush inside, and the opportunity for car-inspired confidences would be gone. Richard had always wanted the kids to take the school bus in the morning, saying they needed to learn to interact with children of all ages. Maybe he was right, but I’d discovered more about my children’s lives on these rides than in any other situation. “Who started it?” I asked, intentionally not mentioning Bailey’s name.

  “Not sure.”

  I slowed down a little more. This felt like a ten-block conversation. “Are you going to do it again?”

  “No,” she muttered.

  All I could see was the top of her head. The part in her hair was straight as a ruler, the two ponytails drooping down. For no known reason, tears smarted in my eyes. I loved her so much. . . . I winked the wetness away. “Are you sorry you did it?”

  She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything.

  “Jenna? Are you sorry?”

  “Do you think he hates me?” Jenna whispered.

  This conversation was like the quote about writing a novel; it was like driving from coast to coast in a dark fog, seeing only a hundred feet of pavement in front of the headlights. “Do you think he does?” If we were talking about Paul Richey, the answer was no. If we were talking about a boy in her school, the answer might be different.

  “I would if I were him,” she said.

  To my right, Oliver was still busy counting. “Ninety-one, ninety-two . . .”

  Three blocks to go. Time for Mom to come up with some miraculous way of making everything better. Unfortunately, my bag of magic was flat empty. Well, except for the one surefire trick. “Have you told him you’re sorry?”

  Half a block later, the answer came like a soft breeze. “No.”

  “Do you think apologizing would help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If you were him and he was you”—I grimaced at the atrocious grammar, but communication was the important thing—“would you want him to apologize?”

  We drove the last block; then I clicked on the turn signal for the approach up our driveway. From the backseat came a very, very quiet “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you should do it tomorrow.” I pulled the garage door opener off the visor and handed it to Oliver. He pushed the button with his thumb, and the door rolled up. “Get it done, and then you don’t have to think about it anymore,” I said.

  We rolled onto the garage’s dry concrete, and I turned off the windshield wipers. “A hundred and thirty-seven,” Oliver said firmly. “I counted all the way from Mrs. Neff’s house.”

  “Good job, Ollster,” I said. “You’re the King of Counting.”

  Jenna unbuckled her seat belt, grabbed her backpack, and rushed inside. I helped Oliver with his buckle and held the booster seat while he jumped out. “What did Jenna do?” he asked. “Is she in trouble?”

  So much for his not paying attention. “If Jenna wants to tell you, she will.” That meant he’d never know; Jenna wasn’t prone to sharing confidences with her little brother. I had high hopes that someday they’d be friends, but that day was probably decades distant.

  “Oh.”

  His voice sounded even smaller than usual. As we shut the car doors and headed into the warmth of the house, I studied him with the eagle eyes of a concerned mother. Oliver had a naturally cheerful personality, but now all I could see were sagging shoulders and dragging feet, and the voice in my head was Lauren Atchinson’s. Is he showing other signs of grief or stress? Would you consider making an appointment with the school psychologist?

  I hadn’t seen eye to eye with the school psychologist since she’d suggested Jenna’s basic nonreaction to the divorce could be linked to a deep fear of men’s genitals. But I knew a way to bring Oliver back to life. And with any luck it would bring Jenna and Oliver closer together, too.

  Not so very long ago I would have called Richard before making a decision like this. He was their father, after all, and had a right to be involved in anything that affected their lives. But he was out of town, and Oliver needed this right away. Besides, I knew what Richard would say.

  I dropped my purse in the study and headed to the kitchen. Jenna had already run upstairs, but Oliver had put his backpack on the kitchen table and, kneeling on the seat of a chair, was sorting through the contents.

  “Mommy?” He turned, holding out a scribbly drawing. “Robert says this looks like a whale, but I want it to be a dolphin.”

  Jenna plopped into the chair next to Oliver. “What’s that? Looks like a shark.”

  “It’s a dolphin!”

  Time to head off the impending argument. “Who wants some popcorn before dinner?”

  Five minutes later the popping slowed to a stop. I poured the popcorn into a bowl, then drizzled melted butter and salt over the top. “Ready?” We ate the first ritual piece solemnly, then dug in for great greasy handfuls. “Normally,” I said, “we have popcorn on Sunday, right?”

  “Um-hmm.” Grunts of agreement came through stuffed mouths.

  “And sometimes we have it when someone is sick. Why else do we have popcorn during the week? No talking with your mouth full, please.”

  Oliver reached for another handful. “We had popcorn when Mr. Stolz died.”

  Oh, geez. I’d forgotten about that. The kids had been all excited about its being their turn to run the garden train and had run down the street, only to find an empty house and drawn shades. I’d given them hugs, talked about heaven, then done my best to distract them with food.

  Jenna looked at me, her hand midway to the bowl. “Are we having popcorn because Mrs. Mephisto died?”

  “Partly.”

  “Whaf’s fe ofer pah?” Oliver asked.

  “No talking with your mouth full
.”

  He swallowed hugely. “What’s the other part?”

  I wiped my buttery fingers on a napkin. “Remember the time we had popcorn when I told you about our trip to Florida?”

  The spring break trip had been a gift from Richard. “Take the tickets,” he’d said gruffly, and I’d cried myself to sleep that night, certain the divorce had been a horrible mistake. The next day he’d e-mailed the itinerary he’d worked up for the trip—new activities every thirty minutes, kids!—and I hadn’t cried over him since.

  “Are we going to Disney World again?” Jenna’s eyes went round.

  “No.”

  She heaved a tremendous sigh, then shoved a massive handful of popcorn into her mouth. Her cheeks pouched out like a chipmunk’s. I closed my eyes briefly and decided to let this skirmish go. “You have to pick your battles,” my sister Darlene once told me. She had four children, and all four had evolved into functional young adults, so she must have done a few things right.

  “We’re not going to Disney World,” I said, “but we are getting something.”

  “Are we getting . . .” Oliver didn’t finish the sentence. His gaze was locked on me. “Are we. . . .” Hope was in his eyes, his face, his hands, his entire body.

  “Wha—?” Jenna said, spitting out a wet and half-chewed kernel. “Are we what?”

  I looked at Oliver. He knew.

  His grin started small, then grew and went from ear to ear and practically all the way around his head. He jumped out of his chair and hurtled around the table in leaps and bounds. “We’re getting a dog, Jen! We’re getting a dog!”

  The store was quiet. The lone customer was having a grand time chuckling over picture books by Kevin Henkes. Lois was at the front computer, working on a flyer for the Halloween party and humming an ABBA tune.