Curse of the PTA

by Laura Alden

  The full import of what I’d done finally sank into my tiny little brain. “I . . . I . . .”

  What had I been thinking? Or more, why hadn’t I been thinking? How could I have done such a thing? I should have thought about what might happen. I should have thought about the danger. I should have considered what might have happened to me and the consequences for my children. I should have . . .

  Lois tsked at me and shoved a chair behind my knees. “Sit, you silly child. You hadn’t really thought it out, had you? And now you’re shaking. Let me take that mug before you drop it. That’s a good girl. Now, take a deep breath. And another. There. Feel better?”

  I nodded. The dark spots that had been shadowing the edges of my vision faded to gray and then dissolved completely.

  “Okay, then,” Lois said. “It’s time for promises. Hold up your hand. Let me get . . .” She cast about for the nearest book. “Here. Put your left hand on this copy of Tuesdays at the Castle. Right hand up and repeat after me: I do solemnly swear that I will never again run straight toward what might be certain death.”

  I pulled my hands away. “That doesn’t make sense. You can’t qualify a term like certain death.”

  Lois hooked her index finger under her chin. “How about ‘I swear I will never again run straight toward the sound of gunshots’?”

  It sounded like a very good idea. “I want to, but . . .”

  She sighed. “But you don’t want to make a promise you can’t keep. Well, we’ll just have to hope you won’t run into any more gunshots. I mean, really, how likely is that in a town this size?”

  Next time I talked to my physicist brother, Tim, I’d have to ask if he could run the statistics for me. Or not. Because if I told him, I’d have to explain why I wanted to know, and he would inevitably tell his son, my beloved seventeen-year-old nephew, Max, and Max would tell his Grandma Emmerling, also known as my mother, and after her recent back surgery, I didn’t want Mom to worry about me.

  Or scold me, whichever came first.

  The bells tied to the front door jingled. “Hello?” Alan, owner of the antique mall, wandered back. “Ah, there you are, Beth. I wondered if you’d be in today after last night’s excitement.” He hefted a small white bag. “Alice sent over some of her oatmeal-raisin cookies. She considers them medicinal,” he said, winking. “Maybe she’s wrong about that, but do we want to take the chance?”

  Alan and Alice, both retired schoolteachers, had opened the antique mall a few years ago so that Alan could pursue his hobby of collecting antiques without having to purchase a ten-thousand-square-foot house and so that Alice could reap some financial benefits from making the best cookies in the world.

  Lois dove into the bag and started handing out the morsels of goodness. Alan patted his stomach. “No, thanks. I’ve already had my quota today.” As the two of us munched, Alan asked, “Lois, did you know the gentleman who was killed?”

  I blinked at them. Of course. Dennis had attended Tarver Elementary, and Lois had lived in Rynwood all her life. Lois was bound to have known him.

  “Nope,” Lois said, spattering a few cookie crumbs on the sleeve of my shirt. “His family moved to Madison about the time he would have started junior high. He was a year or two behind me, and I was much too cool to hang out with the younger kids.”

  I brushed the crumbs off my shirt. “You were cool?”

  She grinned. “Can’t fool you, can I? Of course I wasn’t. I didn’t get cool like I am now until recently.”

  Though I wasn’t sure that anyone who wore what she’d worn last week—a shirt with flowers the size of teapots and pants with horizontal stripes—could be considered part of the kingdom of cool, I let the comment slide. “Was Dennis?”

  “Was he what? Cool?” She shrugged. “Hard to tell in someone who’s only ten years old.”

  She was probably right. Although coolness is inherent and not something that can be learned, it usually doesn’t emerge until adolescence. At least as far as I could tell. Coolness was something I only observed from afar. I’d had a brief brush with the concept when I’d dated the handsome and rich Evan Garrett, but I’d ended that relationship in May and hadn’t come within spitting distance of cool since.

  The front door jingled again. “Hello? Is anyone in here? Oh, there you guys are.”

  Whitney Heer, a young woman I’d met last spring, walked back to join us. She was pregnant, halfway through her second trimester with her first baby, and she’d begun to haunt the bookstore with happy frequency. I’d first guided Whitney toward the shelf of new-mother books. Once done with those, she’d worked through the Sandra Boynton board books and was moving on to the classic Winnie-the-Pooh releases. It had been a natural move to ask her to join the PTA. Maybe she wouldn’t have a child in Tarver for a few years, but why wait until the last minute?

  Whitney was wearing a loose, flowing, cotton plaid dress that looked as comfortable as pajamas. “Morning, ladies. And gentleman.” She grinned at Alan. “Are you here for the same reason I’m here?”

  “Yes, but I had an excuse.” He pointed his elbow at the white bag. “I brought some of Alice’s cookies.”

  “Seriously?” Her blue eyes flared wide, then went back to normal. “I mean, how nice of you to bring cookies to Beth and Lois.”

  I’d assumed they were also for my part-time help, Sara, when she arrived, but I took pity on the pregnant girl. “Here,” I said, holding out the bag. “We’ve had ours already. Right?” Lois’s mouth was opening, and I bumped her ribs with my elbow.

  “Oh. Right,” she said. “Eat up.”

  Whitney held her hands behind her back. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Yes, you can,” I said. “I know what being pregnant can be like.” I jiggled the bag, making the cookies rattle against each other. “Oatmeal raisin. You know you want them. They’re calling your name.”

  “Whitney!” Lois squeaked. “We’re yours!”

  With a quick whip of her arm, Whitney snatched the bag out of my hand. “I couldn’t eat this morning, and now I’m starving and—” Her next words were lost amidst a monstrous bite of cookie.

  I looked at Alan. “So what’s the reason you and Whitney are here?”

  Lois did an eye roll. “Yes, folks, she really is that clueless.”

  Alan chuckled. Whitney’s giggles sent crumbs flying in all directions. She slapped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and made a huge swallow. “Sorry,” she said out loud. “It’s just that, well, you were right there and all. I was in the other room most of the time.”

  Light dawned. They wanted a blow-by-blow account of the whole business, the gunshot, the running, the fear, the ambulance, the body bag, the whole sad tragedy. “You want to hear about what happened last night,” I said flatly.

  My distaste must have been obvious, because her face went quiet, a speck of raisin on her lip. “No, it’s not like that. It’s more . . . well, I’m worried.” She laced her hands over her mostly flat belly. “For the little bug, you know? Travis is worried that Rynwood isn’t safe. After what happened last spring, you know, and now this, well . . . it doesn’t look good.”

  Alan murmured an agreement.

  “I understand your husband’s concern,” I said, “but I’m sure the police will find the killer soon.”

  “The Rynwood police?” she said doubtfully. “Chief Eiseley is, like, the nicest guy ever, but how many murders has he ever had to solve?”

  More than you’d think, I almost said. “The investigation is being turned over to the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s good,” she said. “Say, I heard you and Nick Casassa almost had the guy. Did you work with one of those sketch artists?”

  So much for the being worried thing. I started to say something annoyingly weenie, something along the lines of not being able to talk about an active investigation, when the front door jingled again.

  Rachel Helmstetter, mother of Blake and Mia, widow of Sam, wa
lked in, spotted our small group and came back to join us. “Morning, everyone. Have I missed anything?”

  She grinned, and almost against my will, I smiled back. Rachel had come a long way in the last year. After her husband had been killed, she’d taken the helm of his mobile shredding business. She was transforming it from a nice little venture for two partners and their two trucks into a business that had the potential to expand into Madison and out to Milwaukee

  And she was making it look easy. It wasn’t, of course. During the lunches we had every so often, she’d confess her doubts and fears. I’d encourage her to stifle the doubts and tramp on the fears and we’d both return to work refreshed. Every so often, I’d chuckle at the idea that fear-laden and worry-filled Beth Kennedy was helping Rachel. Then again, who knew better how to work through fears than someone who was used to being afraid?

  “I was just asking Beth about a sketch artist,” Whitney said.

  “Really?” Rachel asked. “Didn’t the guy have a ski mask on? That’s what I heard, anyway.”

  “Sorry I’m late.” Sara rushed in the back door. “It won’t happen again, I’m really sorry.”

  I looked at my watch. “You’re all of three minutes late. Don’t worry about it.”

  The front bells jingled again, and Glenn Kettunen, owner of the local insurance company, came in and headed straight toward us with the accuracy of a target missile. On his heels was PTA mother Isabel Olsen, and behind her was PTA mom and bank vice president Debra O’Conner.

  Alan was asking Rachel something, Lois was talking to Sara, Whitney was turning and calling to Isabel, and Glenn was looking jovial, which was always an indicator that he had time to spare.

  The noise was reaching the level you found inside one of those slick city-style bistros with hard floors and brick walls and tin ceilings, the kind of restaurant I stayed away from whenever possible.

  I looked from one friend to another. All talking, all waving their hands, all seeming to be having the time of their lives. I made my thumb and middle finger into a circle, put it in my mouth, and blew.

  The resulting earsplitting whistle had the desired effect. Silence.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now. While in many ways I understand your curiosity about last night, I do not appreciate how a man’s murder seems to have become entertainment.” Everyone had the grace to look ashamed. Everyone except Glenn.

  “Oh, come on, Beth,” he boomed out in his bigger-than-life voice. “Have a heart. We know it’s a tragedy. But you can’t blame us for wanting to get the story straight. You were there, and we weren’t.”

  I sighed. “Okay. But don’t you dare transmogrify what I tell you to something more exciting.” I gave Glenn the same look I gave my children when they were about to tell me “Yes, Mom, my homework is all done.” “I know where you live, and I will hunt you down if you change one single word.” I scanned the small crowd. “And that goes for the rest of you, too.”

  Heads nodded, so I forged ahead and related the events of the previous night. As I spoke, I tried to see the scene in black and white, trying to keep away from the vivid red I so didn’t want to see. It worked. Mostly.

  “And that’s all I know,” I finished. “Gus said the sheriff’s office is taking over, so from this point on, I won’t know any more than what we’ll read in the papers.”

  “You don’t really think it was someone in the PTA, do you?” Rachel looked at me, worry showing in the twist of her mouth. “Who do you think did it? I’ll need to tell the kids something.”

  “Yeah.” Glenn’s bald pate shone in the halogen lights. He’d lost the majority of his hair before he was thirty and had started shaving his entire head soon after. Now in his midforties, he claimed to have no idea if he still had any hair. “You’ve caught more killers than Gus has. Who do you think did it?”

  No way was I going to tell this group that I’d spent half the night going over and over the meeting in my head, trying to remember anything and everything. If I mentioned a single name—not that I had a name in my head; of course I didn’t—half the town would have that person tried and convicted before lunchtime.

  “I’m not thinking about it at all,” I said firmly.

  Glenn started laughing. “Tell that to someone who might believe you.”

  I turned to Sara. “I’m not thinking about it at all.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Mrs. Kennedy. Your ears are going all pink.”

  Foiled again by my body’s stupid reactions. “Fine. I may be thinking about it, but I don’t know anything and I’m not going to guess. The fine people from the sheriff’s office will find the killer soon. That’s what they do.”

  Debra looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I knew what she was thinking, though, or close enough. How soon was soon? How long would we have to walk down the street knowing there was a killer roaming free?

  I crossed my arms, cupping my elbows with the opposite hands.

  Soon. It would be soon.

  The nonemployees in the room straggled away, and soon just the three of us were left. I turned to Sara to ask if she wanted a cup of tea, but she preempted my question.

  “I know you were just being nice about me being late.” Blond and blue-eyed, tall and thin, intelligent and bookish, Sara had been all bones and angles when she’d first come to work for me three years ago. Now she was finally getting curvy, and, although she didn’t yet know it, she was going to be a drop-dead-gorgeous woman.

  “I’m really, really sorry,” she was saying, “and I promise it won’t happen again and I’ll shut up now because you probably don’t want to hear about how late I was up last night working on my pee chem lab.”

  Lois frowned. “I thought I told you to stop peeing on your chemistry project.”

  “I told you before.” Sara pulled her hair out of its rubber band, shook it loose, and ponytailed it back up again. “It’s a physical chemistry class. And there’s nothing funny about it.”

  Lois and I exchanged a glance. Sara had sounded downright snippy. Which was completely unlike the college senior.

  When Sara turned to the sink and flipped through the basket of tea bag selections, Lois pointed at me. I pointed at her. She shook her head vigorously. We both put our right hands into fists and slapped them against our palms three times. On the fourth slap, I laid down my two splayed fingers. Scissors. Lois kept her hand as a fist. Rock. Rock grinds scissors.

  Rats.

  Grinning, Lois pushed me toward the young woman. “Pretend it’s a training session,” she whispered, “for when Jenna gets older.”

  Social, athletic Jenna had about as much in common with the studious and scientifically minded Sara as I had with Marie Curie, but I knew what she meant. I stood beside Sara, watching her go through the tea bags over and over.

  “Sara,” I asked. “Is something bothering you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Just fine.”

  A possibility occurred to me. Sara wasn’t from Rynwood. She was from ten-mile-distant Madison, but maybe she had relatives here in town. “Did you know Dennis Halpern? The man who was killed last night?”

  She picked up a tea bag—lemon zinger—and said, “No. I’ve never heard of him before.” Her eyes went wide, and I noticed for the first time the red bloodshot streaks. “Mrs. Kennedy, were you related to him? Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. I never thought, and here everyone was wanting to know about last night and all the time you’re—”

  “No, I’m not related.” I shook my head. “Not as far as I know, anyway.”

  This earned me a small smile, but it disappeared much too quickly. I watched her long, slender fingers as she dunked her tea bag in the hot water. Pianist’s fingers, my grandmother would have said. Surgeon’s fingers, my grandfather would have said, and in Sara’s case, my grandfather would have been dead-on because Sara was aiming for medical school and orthopedic surgery.

  I watched Sara dunk the tea bag far beyond normal dunking requirements and wished I knew
what was bothering her. If she didn’t want to tell, there was no reason she should. But I could make sure she had every opportunity to change her mind.

  • • •

  It wasn’t until late in the afternoon, not long before the store closed, that I had another chance to talk to Sara. The day had been full of curiosity seekers in search of details about the night before (with an occasional outburst from friends who felt the need to scold me for trying to be a hero), and I was starting to look at my watch a little too often. Tomorrow would be an easier day, and it couldn’t come too soon. Everyone I knew in town had either stopped by or called—even my former nearly significant other, Evan—so with any luck, the next day things would be back to normal.

  I was smiling at the thought while I sat at my computer in my tiny office at the back of the store. A normal day tomorrow. How very nice that would be. I could start thinking about the Halloween orders and—

  Suddenly, my mom senses went twang!

  I’d heard something. I was sure of it. Something like . . . yes. There it was again.

  I pushed back my chair and stood. Went to the door and looked around the corner.

  There, standing next to the early chapter books, was Sara. But it was a Sara I’d never seen before. The normally chipper and perky young woman had laid her arms on the end of the shelving and put her head down. Her shoulders were shuddering with sobs, and her quiet sniffs were enough to make me want to cry.

  I went to her side. “Sara,” I said softly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nuh-nuh-nothing.”

  Had I been this dramatic when I was her age? Sadly, I was sure I had been. “Sara, please tell me what’s bothering you.” I hesitated, then put my arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “Please let me help. I want to, you know.”

  “But . . . don’t . . . you see?” she huffed out between her tears. “That’s the problem!”

  I didn’t see. Not at all. But it didn’t do to point out logic to someone in emotional distress. And if men could learn that simple fact, marriages all over the world would improve.