by Alden, Laura
I found Paoze in the back corner, dusting the wooden puzzles with the raggedy feather duster that had been in the store as long as the store had existed. One of these days I’d have to get a new one.
“Paoze, I need to talk to you.”
He sprang to attention. “Yes, Mrs. Kennedy.”
I led the way to my office. “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble.” I closed the door behind us. “And this is more of a personal matter, anyway.”
“Yes, Mrs. Kennedy.”
Time and time again, I’d asked him to call me Beth. “I cannot, Mrs. Kennedy,” he always said. “It would be disrespectful.” Maybe to him it was disrespectful, but it made me feel as if my mother-in-law were standing behind me.
I sat in my desk chair and Paoze perched on the edge of the chair facing me. “Remember the night I dropped you off at your house?” I asked. “Well, a couple of blocks away I thought I saw a . . . a friend of mine. This friend went into a two-story house, a white house with black shutters and what looked like a metal door.” It also had bars on the windows, but so did most houses in that neighborhood.
Paoze didn’t say anything.
“Do you know the house?” I asked.
He looked at his knees, at his hands, at his knees. “Yes.”
The drawn-out hesitation kicked my anxiety into alert mode. He knew something about the house. Something bad. It was a drug house. It was a brothel. It was—
Paoze looked up and met my gaze. “This friend. Do you know her well?”
I frowned. “Her? It’s not a she at all. It’s a he.”
The boy’s brown eyes opened wide. “A man? At that house?” His fingers began tap-tap-tapping his kneecaps. “No man should be going to that house. No man should be let in the door. It is not safe.”
“Not safe? What are you talking about? Randy went up to the door and knocked. The door opened, and he went inside. What’s unsafe about that?”
“Randy? Big Mr. Jarvis?” Paoze spread his arms wide.
“Well, yes.”
The kid smiled, and the tension left his body. “Then this is right. Mr. Jarvis belongs there.”
This conversation might have made sense to Paoze, but I was missing something—like the whole thing. “Belongs where?”
“I . . .” He went back to studying his knees. “I should not tell.”
Shouldn’t or couldn’t? Or wouldn’t? Though his grasp of the English language was firm in a general way, sometimes mistakes slipped into his speech. “Why not?” I asked. “Mr. Jarvis isn’t doing something wrong, is he?”
“Oh, no.” Paoze shook his head vigorously. “Mr. Jarvis is a very good man. I wish to be like him when I grow older.”
Randy as a role model? The mind boggled.
“Kayla says—” He came to an abrupt halt.
“Sara’s roommate?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “And I should not say more.”
Curiouser and curiouser. What could involve an attractive college junior and a sixtysomething man from Rynwood who ran a gas station and ate large bags of nacho chips for breakfast? I knew Sara, Kayla, and Paoze had a comfortable friendship, but how did Randy figure into the mix? “I don’t want you to break a confidence,” I said. “I just . . .” Just what? What exactly was I trying to do here?
“Kayla only goes during the week.” Paoze’s hands were gripping each other. “I am glad she does not volunteer on weekends. That is when it can get very bad.”
What could Kayla be doing as a volunteer at a place with a metal door and bars on the windows? “Mr. Jarvis is also a volunteer.”
“Yes.”
I thought about this. Randy, a volunteer. Kayla, a volunteer. Kayla’s major was social work. Randy was the treasurer for the Tarver PTA, a child advocacy organization. There were dots here to connect, but the dots were a little too far apart for me to make the leaps.
“Kayla said Mr. Jarvis is very brave,” Paoze said. “I do not worry about her when Mr. Jarvis is there.”
Dot to dot to dot. I’d figured it out. “That house is a women’s shelter,” I said. “Where women and children can go if they feel they’re in danger.”
Paoze’s brown face went very still. “I should not have said. It is much of a secret.”
“Don’t worry.” I smiled at him. “The secret is safe with me.”
“You will not tell?”
“I will not tell, Paoze. And neither did you,” I said softly. “I reached my own conclusions, that’s all.”
After he left, I took the list out of my desk drawer and picked up a pen. I drew a line through the name of Randy Jarvis.
Two down, nine to go.
“Thank you for meeting with me.” Gary Kemmerer, Tarver’s acting principal, folded his hands on top of the desk. Erica, Randy, Julie, and I were representing the PTA, and all four of us were uncomfortable. Five, I amended, as I heard Gary’s toes tapping under the desk.
“As acting principal,” Gary said, “I might not remain in this office for long. The school board is starting a search, and they’re anxious to appoint a new principal as soon as possible.”
“You apply for the job?” Randy asked.
Erica and I blinked at his tactlessness. Julie moved her hands over her oversized belly and looked radiant.
“Yes, in fact, I did.” Gary frowned at Randy. “But that’s not the purpose of this meeting. I invited you here to establish common ground with the PTA. The past ten years have seen a fair share of adversarial instances, and I want to say I’ll do my best to . . .”
He was lapsing into corporate-speak. I put a noncommittal expression on my face and drifted away. Jenna and her apology for whatever. Oliver and enuresis. Paoze. Marina. WisconSINs. Halloween. The threatening e-mails.
“Beth? You don’t approve of this idea?” Gary asked.
I jerked back from the memory of a Marina too frightened to talk. “Um . . .”
“The PTA,” Erica said, “is more than pleased to work hand in hand with Tarver’s leadership—”
“What if the police don’t find the killer?” I blurted out. “I’m worried about these kids if the murderer goes free.”
Erica, Randy, Julie, and Gary all stared at me.
“I know this isn’t what we came here to discuss,” I said, “but it’s a huge concern of mine.” For lots of reasons. “I hear the police have been talking to the teachers. Have they been talking to the staff and administration, too?”
“Good point,” Erica said. “Staff dealt with Agnes from eight thirty in the morning to four in the afternoon. I’m sure most of them had occasional run-ins with her. How about you, Gary?”
“What about me?” His chin went up.
“Do you have an alibi?” Erica smiled, but the steel wasn’t far below the surface.
“As a matter of fact, yes. Now about this—”
“What is it?” Julie asked.
“What is what?”
“Your alibi.” She folded her hands over her tummy. “I think the parents of Tarver children deserve to know that the acting principal has a solid alibi.”
“The police were satisfied.”
“But I’m not.”
They stared at each other, grim-faced, until Erica spoke up. “She has a point, Gary. If you tell us, we can reassure everyone that Tarver is in good hands.”
“The police—”
Erica shook her head. “What the police think doesn’t matter. It’s what the Tarver parents think that counts. And,” she added, “what the school board thinks. How satisfied is Mack Vogel that you had nothing to do with Agnes’s murder?”
“I . . .” His chin sank down. “It’s personal.”
Randy chuckled. “You’re not taking figure skating lessons, are you? Those toe picks mess up the ice something fierce.”
Gary mumbled something.
The four of us leaned forward. “What did you say?” I asked.
He sighed and spoke louder. “I take lessons on Tuesday nights. I’ve driven to C
hicago on Tuesday nights for five years. But it’s not figure skating. Or hockey or curling, for that matter.”
“Then what?” Erica asked impatiently.
“I take opera lessons.”
“You . . . what?”
“Don’t spread it around,” he pleaded. “I don’t want people to ask me to sing in church or at weddings. Or here at school. Can you just see the kids’ reaction to Tosca’s ‘Recondita armonia’? I mean, please.” He spread his hands wide, palms up, in entreaty. “Opera is the only music I sing. It’s the only music that really matters, you know.”
I didn’t dare look at Erica. I knew she hated opera with a passion.
“Thank you for sharing, Gary,” she said. “If the news of your Tuesday lessons spreads, it won’t be because of anyone in this room.”
We went on with the rest of our meeting. Somewhere between discussion of how the PTA’s mission statement meshed with Tarver’s core values, I pulled out the list and a pencil.
Three down, eight to go.
“You’re getting a what?” Richard asked.
“A dog.” My chin pressed the phone harder into my shoulder as I whacked a few keys on the store’s computer keyboard.
“They’re too young,” he said. “They’re not old enough to take care of a dog. You’ll end up doing all the work yourself.”
It was the exact Richard response I’d predicted. I didn’t say anything, just kept looking at the photos on the local animal shelter Web site. A parrot? Who would leave a parrot at an animal shelter?
“You don’t even like dogs.”
“I love dogs.”
“When they’re someone else’s,” he said.
Why did I keep forgetting that Richard knew everything about me? “The kids could use a little responsibility. It’ll be good for them. Besides”—I enlarged a picture of a tabby cat—“Oliver says if Agnes Mephisto had a dog, she’d still be alive.”
Richard was quiet for a moment. “I can’t have it on my weekends,” he finally said. “My condo doesn’t allow dogs.”
Rats. “Fine,” I said.
“What breeds are you considering?” He launched into a speech on the characteristics of the dogs best suited for young children.
I let him talk while I poked around the animal shelter Web site a little more. When he said he’d e-mail me a list of respected Lagotto Romagnolo breeders, I said, “Thank you, Richard. The store’s getting busy now, so I have to go. Bye.”
Lois looked at me, then looked at the empty store. “Busy must mean something different from what I thought it meant.”
“Words evolve.”
“Mmm.” She flicked her feather duster over the shelves of board books. “Did you see the WisconSINs blog this morning?”
Uh-oh. “What does it say?”
Lois cast me a glance laden with overtones. Surprise, suspicion, pleasure, and anticipation were all wrapped up together in her small smile and lifted eyebrows.
“Thought you didn’t hold with gossip,” she said.
“Everyone is talking about that blog.” I tossed off what I hoped was an eloquent shrug.
The small smile turned large. “And you don’t want to be the last one to know?”
“Well, no one does.”
She cackled with delight. “Where’s the calendar? It’s a red-letter day.” Next to the cash register was a canister of pens, and she reached for a red one. “I can’t wait to tell Marcia.” She turned to the calendar on the wall behind the counter and wrote. “There!” She spun back around and clunked the pen back into the canister.
The calendar I’d mounted on the wall was filled with notations for party dates, author signings, and staff scheduling. Today’s square, however, had the added touch of a small stick drawing. The triangle skirt and hair ending at the shoulders denoted it as female. The outstretched fingers and O-shaped mouth showed the figure’s surprise. Above her head was a lightbulb, and inside the bulb was the word “people.”
I stared at the drawing. People.
“It’s supposed to be funny,” Lois said uncertainly. “You know, silly? Beth finally admits that knowing things about people is important. Hah hah?”
People. I wanted to smack my palm against my forehead. “Thanks, Lois. You’ve been a big help.”
“I have? I mean, good.”
A customer came in and asked for middle-grade books for boys not very interested in reading. Lois took her in hand. I went to my desk and fired up the WisconSINs blog. I glanced at the bottom of today’s entry. Barely ten o’clock in the morning and more than a dozen people had already left comments. Oh, dear.
“Fresh Help for Finding Murderer,” it started. “This blogger is giving you the good news that a new recruit will breathe life into the campaign to ferret out Agnes Mephisto’s killer.
“No longer will the citizens of Rynwood need to wait for the slow wheels of justice to grind out the answer we so desperately crave. Why should we be afraid to walk the streets at night? Why should we quake under our blankets, shivering with the numbing thought that We Could Be Next?
“My friends, it’s time to fight back, and this blogger has enlisted a new vigilante to fight for the cause. Come back tomorrow, dear Readers, for the next installment in the efforts to Take Back the Rynwood Night.”
I closed my eyes. “Oh, Marina,” I whispered. “What have you done?”
Chapter 13
I crossed my arms. “Vigilante?”
Marina chuckled. “Isn’t that a great word? The exact definition is ‘a self-appointed—’ ”
“I know what ‘vigilante’ means.”
“Bookish Beth.” She rolled a pencil toward me. It bounced across her kitchen table and came to rest against my yellow pad of paper. “Can’t you just see it?” she asked. “You and me and all the other people who want to see justice done, banding together for the maintenance of order. Maybe we should get uniforms. A dark green would be just the ticket.”
People, whispered a voice in my brain. What people do is important; what people think is important; what people feel is important. Our job was figuring out which particular people were significant to Agnes, and then we could work on motivations. And motivations are the origins of actions. Find the motivation, find the killer.
“Or a mustache.” Marina’s cheeks were flushing a pale shade of pink. “Don’t you just love those handlebar types?” She twisted the ends of her imaginary mustache.
“No mustaches until we figure out who’s threatening you.”
“Aren’t you the party pooper.”
“Richard is dropping off the kids at eight. I don’t have all night.”
“Sad, but true. Ah, for the days of unencumbered youth.” She heaved a bosom-raising sigh.
“Take off your rose-colored glasses. We need to get to work.” I thumped my pad of paper. “We need a plan.”
“Oh, goodie.” She clapped her hands. “I love plans.”
“When was the last time you went along with a plan? 1983?”
She pulled her mustache tips out straight. “I’ll have you know I’m completely capable of following a plan.”
“You can, but will you?”
“Wasting time, my sweet, we’re wasting time.”
“Fine.” I picked up the pencil. “Tonight is brainstorming night. I ran into Gus at the grocery store, and he says the sheriff’s department says the investigation is proceeding, but that could mean anything.”
“Means they’re getting nowhere,” Marina said darkly.
“We don’t know that.”
She looked at the ceiling. “Is she truly this innocent?” she asked the white paint. “I know she doesn’t get out much, and she has a history of serious shyness, so she’s the worst person on the planet to hunt down a killer—”
“Hey!”
“But she’s the best thing I’ve got.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She stopped fiddling with the mustache. “You don’t have to do this.” Her voice was quiet. “Help
me, I mean. This kind of stuff isn’t your style.”
A sense of relief filled me. I was off the hook! I could go home, back to my journal and dirty laundry. No threats, no murders, no pushing myself into a shape that didn’t suit me. “Well . . .”
“No, really. This is going to mean tracking down clues and figuring things out about suspects and eliminating possibilities. You’d have to get out and do stuff you don’t like to do. I pushed you to be PTA secretary, and that’s as much pushing as I should do. You’re quiet and retiring, and you don’t like all that . . . that doing.”
The relief was replaced by irritation. “I’m not exactly a hermit. You make it sound as if I live in an ivory tower. Did you forget I was a journalism major? I know all sorts of techniques that would be useful for this.”
She gave me one of those you’re-being-argumentative-for-no-good-reason looks. “Only on paper. You don’t know anything about real investigating.”
“And you do?”
“I’m the one being threatened. Dragging you into this is pure selfishness on my part. This kind of stuff isn’t for you, Beth. You’d have to make people talk to you. Make people want to talk to you.”
That people thing again.
“It’s so not you.” She leaned forward and placed her warm hands on my chill ones. “You’d have to change, and I don’t want that. I love you the way you are, dear heart.”
There was no good choice. If I helped Marina, I’d be stressed out and uncomfortable and cranky and impatient with my children. If I didn’t help, I’d feel guilty the rest of my life that I didn’t help my best friend in her hour of need.
The scrunchie in Marina’s hair dropped to the floor with a small plop. “I should never have asked you to help.” She patted my hands. “Forget I ever brought it up. Let’s talk about something else. What are you doing for Jenna’s and Oliver’s Halloween costumes?”
She chattered on about costumes she’d once made for her older children, and I listened with half an ear as my conscience fought with my stick-in-the-mud-ness.
I didn’t want to do things that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to change. But there were dark circles under Marina’s eyes, something I’d never seen before. And there were the hat boxes in Agnes’s closet.