Death of a PTA Goddess

by Leslie O'Kane

  “Did she say anything about the tapes, or whether she’d given them to the police?”

  “No, it was all off-topic, and we were having a quiz that day.”

  “Did you ever see the tape yourself?” He was shaking his head, so I went on, “Or did the kids ever tell you what happened in scenes they decided to cut?”

  “ ’Fraid not. Why do you ask?”

  “Just . . . being a concerned citizen, hoping that this crime gets solved sooner rather than later.”

  “We can all get behind you on that point.”

  I hesitated, wishing there were an easy way to find out how badly Skye Smith and her cronies were harassing my daughter. But Karen was not even in Mr. Alberti’s class, and it was a large school.

  “You still look puzzled. Is there anything else on your mind?”

  “Always. Just nothing especially interesting.”

  He started erasing the blackboard. “You know what we teachers like to say about asking questions . . . that the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.”

  “There is one thing. Skye Smith came over to my house, asking for my daughter and being generally unpleasant about Karen’s newly begun relationship with Adam Embrick. The incident made me worry about the likelihood of friction between them during school.”

  He turned around again and faced me. “Skye’s a good kid, but overly dramatic and impetuous. My hunch is, by next week she’ll have found somebody new and forgotten all about Mr. Embrick and your daughter.”

  I smiled, glad that he was willing to tell me what I so wanted to hear. “Thanks. I’ll see you at a future PTA function, I’m sure.”

  He went back to his blackboard. “Take care.”

  The hallways had already pretty much emptied out as I made my way down the hall. I found Karen sitting in her fiercest demeanor in the driver’s seat of the car.

  “Thanks a lot for embarrassing me half to death with Adam,” she said the moment I sat down beside her.

  “If what little I said in the lobby embarrassed you half to death, you’re going to have one heck of a hard time surviving the next few years. I mean, I wasn’t even trying. Are you daring me to shock you in front of your new beau?”

  She gave me the triple whammy—indignant sigh, tongue click, and eye roll—but started the car. She drove to our neighborhood in silence.

  “How’s the homework situation tonight?” I finally asked.

  “Easy, for once.”

  “Let’s see if Lauren and Rachel are home.”

  “Okay.” I knew I wouldn’t have to twist her arm on that one. She pulled into their cul-de-sac. Rachel appeared to have just gotten home from the bus. Her backpack was beside her as she sat on the porch, her now-ancient cat, Misty, in her lap. As we got out of the car, Karen gave Rachel a significant look, which I knew meant: Wait till you hear the awful thing my mother did now! The two of them went inside the house where they would no doubt escape to Rachel’s room before I could even get in the door.

  I glanced at my parents’ house as I climbed Lauren’s front steps. It had been fortunate for me that my parents were in Florida when all hell had broken loose here in Carlton. They were not due to return for another month, but when they did, my mother, and probably my father, too, would resent the fact that I hadn’t told them about the murder. They would want to return now if they knew about it, somehow assuming that their presence would make things safer for me, despite prior evidence to the contrary.

  Lauren was all smiles at our unannounced visit. She and I sat at her faux-wood-grain Formica counter and sipped peach-flavored tea. Cutting right to the chase, I said, “I think I really ruffled your husband’s feathers earlier this afternoon.”

  “So what else is new?” Lauren said with a grin.

  “I got on his case because it’s possible that he never collected the unedited version of the videotape that we saw at Patty’s house. Now it looks as though someone broke into one of the girls’ homes and may have stolen the tapes.”

  “Ouch. So you . . . pointed out to him what a major screwup that was?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, you were right. Not that that helps. I can only imagine how heads are going to roll if that’s really the case . . . if they let a big piece of evidence slip through their fingers like that.”

  “I know.” I feigned a big sigh. “You’d think sooner or later he’d just face facts and make me his consultant, wouldn’t you?”

  She knew I was joking and chuckled. “Really. So how’s the sleuthing going?”

  “In circles. Lately, though, I’ve heard from a couple of people that Patty was trying to win her ex-husband back. That makes Amber Birch a more credible suspect.”

  Lauren tilted her head. “Amber isn’t even on the tape, though, right?”

  “No, she isn’t.”

  “So if these tapes were stolen by the killer, she’s off the hook, right?”

  I considered the matter. “Not necessarily. She could have had reason to think she was in the outtakes. I’m starting to think that Patty was a lot more underhanded than she ever appeared to be. Maybe Amber came over after the meeting broke up, and Patty lied and told Amber that she’d been filmed by Skye Smith doing something that would cause Randy to leave her. Then Amber became so enraged, she murdered Patty. Afterward, Amber stole the tapes to destroy the evidence.”

  Lauren said, “I guess that’s possible. Have you gotten to know her at all?”

  “Not well enough.” An idea hit me. “I just thought of the perfect excuse for going to see her tomorrow morning. She works part-time at that sports equipment store downtown. Or rather, the place that would be downtown if Carlton actually had a downtown.”

  “You’re going to buy sports equipment?”

  “No, just finally get my skis tuned. Thanks for being my sounding board, Lauren.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Just then there was a considerable racket as Rachel and Karen came trotting down the stairs. Rachel was saying, “This is going to be so cool. I’m glad you asked me to help.”

  “Help with what?” I asked.

  “Shopping,” Rachel replied.

  Karen said, “Adam asked me to the junior prom.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” I said automatically, but needed a moment to accept the news. Having not been asked to my own prom, this would be my first time shopping for one.

  It really would be quite terrific to be able to play formal-attire dress-up with Karen, to take photographs, to see her date in a tuxedo, all without having to actually spend an evening in all that uncomfortable clothing myself. I could do this. I could be a prom mother.

  “So can I have two hundred dollars?” Karen asked me.

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred. I need a prom dress, and Rachel and I are going to go pick one out next week.”

  “Hey, for that kind of money, you shop with me.”

  She shrugged. “You can come if you want.”

  Well. So much for vicarious prom experiences.

  Jim had to work late, which was badly timed, because the phone rang three different times with the caller hanging up the moment I answered. It was really getting on my nerves. A fourth time, Karen happened to pick up. She hung up the phone a few seconds later, but her twisted facial expression told me what had happened. “Was that Skye calling?” I asked.

  “Yeah. She just called to say she hates my guts. Like I haven’t figured that out already.”

  “That does it,” I snapped, reaching for the phone. “I’m going to dial star-six-nine and get her back on the line, then I’m—”

  “Don’t, Mom,” Karen cried. “Please. You’ll just make things worse.”

  I frowned and hung up the phone. “Okay, but I’ve got a real short fuse on this. We’ll see if Skye can get a handle on herself by the end of the week. If not, I’m talking to her parents.”

  Karen grimaced, but said nothing.

  The following morning, after calling to
verify that Amber was there, I grabbed my skis, stuffed them into the Honda CRV, and headed off in search of Amber. I had to fight off three different sales clerks till I located her in the ski department.

  “Molly. Hi. Looking for a trade-in on some new skis?”

  “Actually, I thought I’d just have these old ones tuned.”

  She took them from me and studied them with a deep scowl on her attractive features. “No offense, but these look older than I am.”

  “That’s because they probably are.”

  “Have you ever tried parabolic skis?” She gestured at the rows of shiny skis that lined the wall. “They are much, much easier to control. They practically turn by themselves.”

  “So do mine. It’s just that they sometimes do so when I’m trying to go straight.”

  “Let me just show you what I’ve got in stock, for future reference, if you ever decide you want to upgrade. All right?”

  Twenty minutes or so later, I was trying to calculate the exact moment when things had gone awry for me. It was probably the blue screen—a high-tech device that made it look as though I was actually on the slope, skiing like a scene out of an old James Bond movie.

  In any case, I had just spent more money on new skis than Karen expected to spend on her prom dress. I put my foot down, literally, and insisted that the bindings merely be transferred from my old skis to the new ones and that my old boots were fine. The unfortunate aspect—probably only one of many that I’d yet to consider—was that all I had to show as I completed my transaction was a receipt. The skis themselves would not be ready for pickup until the end of the week.

  As with the other strip mall, where Jane’s crafts store was located, this sporting goods store was near a chain coffee shop. “Now that you’ve sold me new skis, can I buy you a cup of coffee?” I asked Amber.

  She smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll part with a couple bucks of my commission and buy you one, okay?”

  “Deal,” I said, though my heart sank a little. There was an evil part of my heart that didn’t want to start to like Amber. Yet I was liking her more and more each time we spoke. We made our way to the coffee shop on the opposite side of the parking lot.

  I ordered a chai and Amber got a latte, and we settled into chairs. As a conversation starter, I said, “It’s too bad my son gave up karate and is no longer into the Asian disciplines. I always thought it would be neat to drink chai tea while watching tai chi.”

  On second thought, not much of a conversation starter, that. Amber had nothing whatsoever to say in response. After a pause, she said, “This is a special occasion. After more than two years in this town, this is the first time I’ve done something social with another mother. I mean, people at work like me and accept me, both at the ski shop and the slope. Just no one who’s in the all-important Carlton PTA.”

  “That’s Carlton for you. I grew up here. Our slow-to-warm-up climate doesn’t just refer to the weather. There’s no welcoming or greeting committees for people moving into this town.”

  “Till now. Patty started up some groups. She, of course, noticed the absence.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I remember hearing about that.” She’d asked me to join, but I’d declined, being too much a product of this town myself.

  Amber frowned. “Let’s get real, here. Even if this place brought fruit baskets to new families, I’d have received the pits and rinds. I’m the ‘other woman’ who all married women see as the enemy.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Definitely so. Randy and I bought our house and moved in two months before Patty did. Yet everyone treated me like the intruder and welcomed Patty with open arms.”

  I shrugged, uncomfortable and unwilling to admit to some of the ugly truths, even though I’d thought them myself. “We got to know her quicker because she stepped in to take over as PTA president when Stephanie needed someone to volunteer. Maybe a lot of the PTA’ers . . . felt it would be disloyal somehow to befriend you. And, yes, like you say, when you get older, you still feel young, and yet you come to realize that society doesn’t agree. You do worry about the cliché of your husband having a midlife crisis and dumping you for a younger woman. It happens all the time. How often do you see a fifty-year-old woman dumping her husband for a twenty-year-old stud muffin? It angers us aging women, and the wrong person gets blamed. After all, it’s not you young women who left their spouses and children.”

  “No, my husband was the one who did that . . . but I betrayed the sisterhood.”

  “Well, maybe not you specifically. Only if you look at it in symbolic terms and generalize like I just did.”

  Amber pursed her lips. “I’ll tell you something, Molly. There are days when the very hardest thing for me to believe is that anybody could possibly be jealous of me. Sometimes I envy everybody else, just because they don’t have to be me.”

  “I think everyone feels that way at times. But I’m sure it was really hard to be in your particular triangle, living right across the street from Patty.”

  “I’ll say. God. That woman was like . . .” She gestured in the air as if seeking divine inspiration. “Nothing that I did could ever come close to being good enough. I’m not much of a cook. I get bored easily and can’t stand being cooped up in the house. I just . . . want to be outside, climbing mountains or throwing Frisbees or having fun, you know? I can’t stand all those interminable meetings at school, or all that artsy-fartsy junk Patty was into. So if you Carlton moms want to hate me, sorry, but why should I care? Screw all of you.” She paused and gave me a sheepish smile. “I mean . . . it’s not that I hate you and your friends, Molly. It’s that you all hate me without knowing me.”

  My cheeks were warming. “I can understand how that must feel.”

  “It’s Kelly that gets hurt. I mean, it was bad with Randy’s son, too, but he was only around for a year after Randy and I got married, and now he’s off at Harvard, so it’s not so rough on him.” She gestured as she spoke. The coffee was making her animated, or maybe that was just the effect of her finally feeling free to unburden herself to one of us who’d made her life so hard.

  I murmured, “It’s obvious what a tough time you’re having with Kelly.”

  “I can’t be like her mom was. All that feathering-of-the-nest stuff. I’m just not into it, but I felt so inferior. And I do want to make Kelly feel welcome . . . like it’s a real home for her. I know that’s what she’s used to, so I try my best, and that just makes Kelly hate me all the more. I see the disdain on her face every time she looks at me.”

  “A lot of that goes with the territory of having a teenager, you know.”

  “Sure. As you no doubt are thinking, I was a teenager myself just eight years ago, so I remember how it is. But this stuff with Kelly is way worse.”

  “Is Kelly’s counseling helping at all?”

  She spread her arms wide. “How can it be? The kid thinks I killed her mom!”

  “Maybe that’s just an act. Maybe in her heart of hearts she knows you’re innocent.” Though I hated myself, I was determined to check for her reaction to the rumors. “I think she wants to believe that you and Randy were in trouble . . . that he was considering going back to her mother.”

  She froze for a moment, then took a sip of her coffee. “That’s what this is about? You invited me for a cup of coffee because you’re trying to figure out who killed your friend, and you think I did it?”

  “No. To be completely honest, I don’t think you did it. But, yes, I am desperate to find the killer, largely for Kelly’s sake. She’s a sweet kid, and she deserves better than this.”

  Amber held my gaze. “Kelly’s right about her father. It’s hard to say if he’d still be with me, had this not happened to her mother. Now I’m hanging on to my marriage by my fingernails. I didn’t kill her, though.”

  “You were right across the street. Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anything? A car pulling into her driveway? Raised voices?”

  She combed her fingers thro
ugh her blond hair. “I wish I had, but I didn’t.” She took another sip. “My break time’s over, and I’ve got to get back to work.” She widened her eyes as she rose from her seat and said jokingly, “Nice talking to you.”

  “Amber, maybe when this is all over with, you and I could get Kelly and Nathan together. Maybe go out for lunch some weekend or—” I broke off my words as I caught sight of who was coming in the door.

  Skye Smith and one other camera girl had come into the coffee shop.

  Chapter 13

  Rearview Mirrors

  Amber followed my gaze, then turned back toward me. “What?”

  I ducked behind her a little, not wanting Skye to see me yet. “Some of my daughter’s friends must be cutting classes today. I think I’ll go nag them about that.”

  She nodded, taking my words at face value. “I’ll talk to you again in a couple of days, when your new skis are ready.”

  I thanked her and watched her leave. She never looked back, or gave a second glance to Skye and her friend who, in turn, were too engaged in their own animated conversation to notice anyone else in the room. Another indication that Amber was either innocent or an astoundingly good actress. If Amber had actually seen that tape at some point, she’d have recognized Skye and her friend.

  The girls purchased frothy drinks at the counter and sat down at a table across the room from me. Skye was doing most of the talking, tossing her bleached hair back from her shoulders every few seconds and speaking in what—to my biased ear—sounded like a perpetual whine. Her friend, who wore glasses and had thick dark hair, appeared to be nodding sympathetically. Bringing what was left of my chai, I walked over to them.

  Skye was saying, “So then she said, ‘That’s got nothing to do with—’ ”

  Skye’s companion’s eyes widened, and she elbowed Skye, who broke off midsentence to stare at me.

  “Hello, Skye. Mind if I join you?”

  “Umm . . .”

  I pulled up a seat and sat down. I looked at her friend. She had neither Skye’s perfect nose nor her flawless complexion, but behind her lenses, her dark eyes sparkled appealingly. “I’m Molly Masters. We spoke once at a PTA meeting, but I don’t remember your name.”