Curse of the PTA

by Laura Alden

  I glanced at Flossie. She was clinging to the corner of the Dumpster, eyes closed. I wanted to go to her, but first things first. With one hand, I snatched up the roll. With the other, I drew out half a dozen black bags. In seconds I’d knotted together two makeshift leashes. One end of each I tied to their collars, the other ends I tied around the back wheel of the Dumpster.

  “Good boys.” I gave their heads one last pat. As Castor—or was it Pollux?—tried to lick my hand, I saw a piece of paper rolled around his collar and taped to itself to secure it. Odd. Maybe Lou had put it there until he could get a real dog ID made? Maybe it had his phone number on it. I untaped and unrolled it, thinking that I’d call him on my cell and—

  My brain came to a screeching halt. I read the note through a second time. A third. And, since it was only a four-word sentence, I read it another time. Then I folded it up and slipped it into my pocket.

  Flossie made a sad bleat of a noise. I went to her side and put my arm around her. “Come over here,” I said. “Sit down on the step. It’s a little dirty, but . . . Yes, there you go.” I sat beside her, not letting go of her thin body. “Just sit a few minutes. The dogs are tied up and there’s nothing to worry about.”

  She tried to talk, but all that came out was a stuttering breath.

  “Shhh,” I said, hugging her tight. “Shhh. You don’t need to talk. I’ll do it for you, okay? Then, when you feel a little better, you can tell me whatever you want to tell me.”

  So I babbled about nothing. About the weather, about the Super Bowl chances for the Green Bay Packers, about the color Lois wanted to paint the workroom, about what I’d eaten for breakfast, about the price of tea in China.

  Finally, Flossie drew in a long, shuddering breath and sat up straight. I let my arm fall to my side and waited.

  “Thank you, my dear. You are a gem and a treasure,” she said, “and I will never forget what you did for me today.”

  I tried to deflect her thanks. What had I done, really, but save her from a licking by two overly friendly dogs?

  She grabbed my hand so hard that I winced. “You have no idea what you did. I am deathly afraid of dogs. Have been ever since I was four. A neighbor’s Alsatian . . .” Her breaths went short and sharp. “A neighbor’s Alsatian attacked me. I . . . I . . .”

  “Don’t say any more,” I said. “You don’t need to relive it.” Memories were surfacing, Flossie crossing the street whenever a dog was walking toward her. Her fixed smile when I plopped a big bag of dog food on the checkout belt and talked about Spot.

  “No.” She blew out a small sigh. “Thank you for not needing to hear the story.”

  “Just promise you won’t ask to hear about the time I almost drowned.”

  Flossie smiled and the muscles at the base of my spine relaxed just a bit. She was going to be fine. She’d been surprised by the dogs, that’s all. No need to worry about her. She was hale and hearty and she was in better condition at her age than many people ever were. She was . . . My throat tightened as my thoughts went deeper.

  She was eighty-one. She was in great condition for her age, but she was still eighty-one. Old enough that she should be kicking back and spending some time on herself, not wearing out her body tossing the morning garbage into the Dumpster. But if I suggested that maybe it was time for Patrick to take over the heavier work, I’d get a smile, a “Thanks for thinking of me,” and she’d go on doing what she’d been doing for the last thirty years. “I’m far too young to take it easy,” she’d say.

  When, I wondered, was it appropriate to interfere in someone else’s life? When was it the right idea to speak up? How much did we owe our fellow human beings? Our friends? Our families?

  I looked sideways at Flossie’s thin frame. She shouldn’t be working so hard, not when there was another way. Maybe I’d have a talk with Patrick. Suggest that he not talk to Flossie about a change, that he just go ahead and start doing some of the heavier chores. Was that too manipulative?

  And this brought up the best question of all: Why was it so hard to figure out the right thing to do?

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Flossie said.

  “Oh . . .” I realized I’d heaved a heavy sigh. “Um, I was wondering whether or not I should show you what was on one of the dog’s collars.”

  Flossie glanced at the dogs, then away. “I saw you put something in your pocket. What was it?”

  I really didn’t want to show it to her. It wouldn’t be right to keep it from her, but I really didn’t want to. My natural inclination to tell the truth warred with my wish to protect her. “A note.”

  “For me?”

  “It didn’t have a name on it.” At least I didn’t think so. I pulled the notepaper from my pocket. No name. Just the four short words. Silently, I handed Flossie the note.

  She read it out loud. “Keep quiet or die.” She frowned. “What kind of note is that? Far too melodramatic and not at all specific. Keep quiet about what, for goodness’ sake? How can I keep quiet if I don’t know what not to say?”

  I stared at her, then started laughing. “I can’t think of anyone else in the world who would criticize the structure of a death threat.”

  “You would. You probably already have.” She tapped the words. “You’ve probably already noted the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven piece of normal copy paper, the black ink from a ballpoint pen, and the block capital letters that could have been written by almost anyone.”

  She was right, of course.

  “So the question,” Flossie went on, “is what do I know that is a threat to someone?”

  “Any ideas?”

  She handed the paper back to me. “None whatsoever.”

  “The only thing that makes sense,” I said slowly, “is that you know something about the fire. Or Dennis Halpern’s murder.” I read the note again. The straight lines of the letters were frightening somehow. Too bold, too forceful. I folded the paper and put it back in my pocket, trying not to think that the person who had killed Dennis had touched it. They were Lou’s dogs, but did Lou have anything to do with the note? It would be extremely stupid if he did, and he seemed too smart for that. Still, they were his dogs.

  “I don’t know anything about the murder or the fire.” Flossie ran her fingers through her hair, then patted it into place.

  Three seconds of mostly unconscious action and her hair looked as good as if she’d walked out of the salon. Had she been born with that ability or had it come about from her years on the stage? My life was full of questions that I didn’t dare ask. “Maybe you know something that you don’t realize you know.”

  She smiled. “That sounds like an impossibility.”

  “And it doesn’t sound like you’re taking this seriously.”

  “A message wrapped around a dog collar?” She laughed. “There are more effective ways to send a threat, I should think. Whispered phone calls at midnight, perhaps. Or footsteps behind you in the dark. Or items in your home being rearranged. Or—”

  Suddenly we heard heavy feet pounding toward us. I jumped up and stood in front of Flossie. She pulled at my hands, but I stood firm.

  Lou Spezza came around the corner of the grocery store, arms pumping. “Beth!” he called. “Have you seen my dogs? They’re gone, just gone and—” His eyes followed my pointing finger. “There you are!” He ran to the dogs and dropped to his knees, gathering them into his arms. “You good bad dogs. Yes, you’re all right. Daddy’s here.”

  The hind ends of the dogs waggled back and forth as their tails went wild. They licked Lou’s mustache, making him laugh and bury his face in their fur. “Now, don’t ever do that again, okay? Running away like that is bad for your old dad’s heart.”

  He got to his feet. “Thanks so much for finding Castor and Pollux. I have no idea how they got out. I’ve been in the store since six, working on a new display. I went up to the apartment a few minutes ago to let the dogs out and the door was open.” He stood, one dog on either side of him, their heads leanin
g against his legs. “I was sure I’d shut and locked it, but . . .” He frowned, then shrugged. “But I must not have.”

  He looked at Flossie, who’d come to her feet and was standing slightly behind me. “Flossie, right? Sorry about my dogs. I won’t let it happen again.”

  “Thank you,” Flossie said, and I wondered if I was the only one who heard the frost in her voice.

  Lou laid a hand on each dog’s head. “I really am very sorry,” he said quietly.

  So he’d heard it, too.

  “Yes.” Flossie nodded. “I can see that. So I will also assume you know nothing about the note?”

  Lou’s eyebrows drew together.

  It was so obvious what his next words were going to be that I preempted him by taking the note out of my pocket and holding it out.

  “Keep quiet or die?” His frown deepened to the level where his mother, had she been around, would have warned him about his face freezing that way. “Where was this?”

  “Around Castor’s collar.” Or was it Pollux’s? “One of their collars, anyway.”

  “But . . .” Lou’s black eyebrows drew so close that they touched. “But how did it get there? And what does it mean? Keep quiet about what?” He read the note again. Turned the paper over, saw that it was blank, turned it back again. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  I looked at Flossie. “How many people know how you feel about dogs?”

  “My irrational and abject fear of the creatures, you mean?” Flossie smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. All surface and no substance. I started to say something, but she shook her head. “Almost everyone, I imagine. Certainly I’ve made a public spectacle of myself more than once.”

  I wanted to say that no one would think less of her for having a dog phobia, that everyone was frightened of something and her fear was just more visible than most people’s, that’s all. Most of all, I wanted to tell her that it didn’t matter. But from the shadow in her smile, I could see that it did. She was embarrassed at her behavior, and if I knew Flossie at all, she’d probably tried to do something about her fear for years and failed.

  So, yes, it mattered. Even if it didn’t matter to anyone else, it mattered to her. And what should I do about it? I thought through the possibilities. How would I want to be treated if it were me?

  Easy enough.

  “It could be worse,” I said. “You could have an irrational fear of broccoli. I’ve heard that’s impossible to get over.”

  Flossie blinked at me, then barked out a laugh. “You’re right. It could be worse.”

  “Yeah,” Lou said, chuckling. “It could be a fear of canned goods.”

  “Or cardboard boxes,” Flossie said.

  “Pennies.”

  Smiling, I looked from one of them to the other as they got sillier and sillier. When they’d reached the point of inanity, I sighed and brought the conversation back to earth with a hard thud. “Lou, so you don’t have any idea how the dogs got out? Or how the note got on Pollux’s collar?”

  “How they got out, it must have been an accident,” Lou said. “The only thing that makes sense. Must have been I didn’t shut the door tight. I mean, do you know for sure that you shut and locked your door this morning?”

  I had been, until that very second. Now, of course, I was going to have to call Marina and ask her to go check. “And the note?” I tried to ask the question in my best possible Gus imitation, but I sounded more like a mom questioning a child about a broken window.

  “No idea,” Lou said, looking at his dogs. “The boys were running around loose, and someone . . . well, I don’t know why anyone would have done that.”

  A thought popped into my head. “Do you think they could get a fingerprint off the collars? Even a part of one might be worth something.”

  “Not a chance,” Lou said quickly. “Not those nylon mesh collars. Those won’t take a print at all. Leather ones, maybe, but not that nylon. And the buckles are way too small to get anything worthwhile.”

  Flossie and I looked at each other. Had he been playing the “I’m a guy, so I may be making this up, but I’m going to say it in such an authoritative way that you won’t think to question me,” card? Maybe. But it made sense. Still . . .

  I held out my hand and Lou gave me the note. A thought flitted through my head; would he have done that if he’d written the threat? Another thought followed fast; everybody’s motives are a mystery, even your own, so don’t think you can guess anyone else’s.

  “We should take this to the police,” I said.

  The reply came in unison: “No!”

  I looked from one to the other. “Why not? This is a threat, Flossie. Maybe it’s something to worry about, maybe it isn’t, but Gus and the guys should know about it.”

  “No fussing.” Flossie stood tall as if the top of her head were attached to an invisible string in the sky pulling her taut. “You go to Gus and Gus will talk to Patrick, and the next thing you know, I’ll be shut into Sunny Rest with nothing to do except knit hats for the great-great-nephews and – nieces I don’t yet have.”

  “It was probably kids,” Lou said. “I seen these three punks hanging around the last couple of weeks. They looked like trouble, the kind that would do something like this.”

  I remembered the tongue-lashing Melody had given the Harvey brothers. From what I’d heard of them, they were more the type that would break into vacant houses than the death-threat type, but they did have that dog, so maybe.

  “What if,” I said carefully, “what if I talk to Gus in confidence? Just ask him to keep an eye out. Not make a formal report or anything?”

  “No.” Flossie snatched the note from my hand and ripped it in half. I protested, but she ignored me and ripped the note in half a second and a third time. She tried for a fourth, but the papers were getting too thick, so she tossed the scraps into the Dumpster. She turned to us, dusting her palms together. “There. All taken care of, yes?”

  Lou gave her an admiring grin. “No fuss, no muss. I like that.”

  I studied Lou. “You don’t think going to the police is a good idea? Not even for Flossie’s sake?”

  His mouth opened. Shut. Opened again. “If that’s what she wants. But it’s up to her.”

  Flossie nodded. “And my decision is not to bother anyone with any of this. Thank you, Lou. And, Beth, I’ll thank you to keep this episode to yourself. Do I have your promise?”

  “Are you sure?”

  Lou smoothed his mustache, right side first, then the left. “She sounds sure to me. I think you should respect her decision.”

  Flossie laid a hand on my arm. “Please, Beth.”

  I looked at her hand. Flossie was smart, talented, beautiful, and kind, but she wasn’t someone to instigate physical contact. Not the hugging type, not the air-kiss type. For her to do this . . .

  “Whatever you want,” I said, then couldn’t decide who looked more relieved, Flossie or Lou.

  Chapter 13

  On Sunday morning, the church sanctuary was filled with slanting sunbeams. The sunshine lit the little faces gathered up front for the children’s sermon with a soft glow that was worthy of a portrait artist. An intense longing for my own children stabbed at me, and it faded only when the minister got up to the pulpit and began to speak. Distraction can be a good thing.

  I whiled away the afternoon by taking a long walk with Spot, trying to enjoy the sound of other family’s backyard games, and welcomed Jenna and Oliver home with hugs and warm cookies fresh out of the oven.

  Weekends without the kids were sometimes very, very long.

  Monday morning’s weather was a shocking reversal from the sun and warmth we’d been enjoying. Rainy and cold and dark, it was a reminder that October was fast on its way. The multiple mugs of tea I downed did little to warm me up, and I spent the morning shivering and wishing I’d worn something warmer than thin dress pants and an Oxford shirt.

  Lois had clucked at my clothing. “Light blue over navy? That has to be th
e most boring color combination in your closet. And look at you, not a single accessory. No bracelet, no scarf, no necklace, not even a pair of earrings.”

  I glanced down at my practical, reasonably priced, no-iron clothing. “Tell me again that you and Marina aren’t in cahoots.”

  Lois twirled one end of her fuzzy scarf. It was a multicolored hand-knit gift from a niece, and the multiple hues almost went with the olive drab pants and deep purple top. None of which matched the light pink sneakers, but color matching wasn’t ever one of Lois’s primary concerns. “Why, is she on you to get out of your mom clothes rut?”

  “We were at the mall on Friday night. You should have seen some of the stuff she was tossing over the dressing room door.”

  “Ha.” Lois grinned. “Wish I could have seen you in some of her picks.” She narrowed her eyes as I rolled mine. “Don’t tell me you didn’t try anything on.”

  “One.”

  “Gold lamé sheath dress?” She raised her eyebrows. “A spangly tube top?”

  I flashed back to the single thing I’d taken off a hanger—the black pants—and pointed at my watch. “The first interview will be here in a few minutes.”

  Lois sighed dramatically. “I know. I know. You want me up front and you and Yvonne will interview her. Why don’t I ever get to have any fun?”

  I held up two fingers. “Two answers. Number one is that you’re not to be trusted around potential new hires due to your penchants for hyperbole and mischief. Or you can choose option two, which is you’re the person I trust most to run the store while I’m otherwise occupied.”

  “Hmm.” Lois rubbed her chin. “I choose option three.”

  I looked at my two fingers. “What’s that?”