Curse of the PTA

by Laura Alden

  “Hidey ho,” Lois said, appearing in the doorway, one hand held behind her back. “It’s off to another interview we go. I say this is a fine morning for”—she whipped her hidden hand around her body and brandished a white bag—“a hearty dose of Alice’s cookies, guaranteed to rejuvenate body, mind, and soul.”

  And to expand the hips, but there was something to be said for the psychological benefits of an extremely good cookie. I picked out a coconut chocolate chip and took in today’s sartorial display.

  A Madras plaid shirt over a bright pink T-shirt. A beige skirt and shoes of apple green. Leather, they looked like.

  Lois watched me eye her ensemble. “Comments?” she asked.

  A line from an old folk song whispered in my ear. What was the title? Ah, there it was. “I know where I’m going.” I didn’t have dresses of silk, but who wanted clothes that were dry-clean only, anyway?

  “Huh. Must be nice. Want some tea?”

  At nine o’clock sharp, the interviewee rapped her knuckles on the front door. Lois went to let her in and I slugged down a last swallow of tea. Ready, Cap’n. Steady as she goes.

  We settled around the workroom table. Taylor Eaton was a recent college graduate and was dressed for success in pants ironed to a sharp crease, an understated jacket, and a white shirt. Small gold earrings and a new-looking watch were her only jewelry.

  “So, Taylor,” I said. “What was your major in college?”

  “Business administration.” She smiled. “My plans are to get an MBA within the next five years.”

  Lois kicked me under the table. I ignored her and continued to smile at Taylor. “And what do—”

  The purse the young woman had placed on the table jiggled. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I thought I’d turned that off. I must have accidentally set it to vibrate.” Her cheeks went slightly pink as she unsnapped the bag and pulled out the phone. “I’ll turn it off.”

  Her eyes went still as she looked at the smartphone’s screen. She darted a glance at me. At Lois. Back at the phone. “Wow. I, uh, wow. Awkward.”

  Lois kicked me again. Awkward how? I wondered. In that she was committing the faux pas of answering a phone call while in a job interview? In that her boyfriend was breaking up with her over the phone? Proposing to her over the phone? In that she—

  “Um.” Taylor flicked me a quick look, then pushed a few buttons. “It looks like I just got a job.”

  —or, in that she’d accepted a job working for someone else before Lois got a chance to reject her.

  Still pushing phone buttons, Taylor named the largest bank in Madison. “I interviewed there last week for a management job. I didn’t think I had a chance of getting it, so I thought I’d come talk to you.”

  Ouch.

  Lois grinned. “Well, best of luck to you. We’re sure you’ll be very happy over there in cubicle land. Ow! Beth, quit kicking me.”

  • • •

  As soon as the door shut behind Taylor, I told Lois that we’d dissect the interview after Yvonne came in. Before she could think up a counterargument, I retreated to my office.

  Summer’s phone rang three, four, five times. Just as the answering machine started making clicking noises, Summer’s breathless voice came on the line. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s Beth.”

  “Oh, wow, just the person I wanted to talk to.”

  I took an easy breath. She’d done it. She’d talked to her husband, she’d confessed all, and now was ready to come with me to the police station to see Gus.

  “You know the committee meeting we’re supposed to have tonight?” she asked. “Do you think . . .” She stopped. “Uh, do you mind hanging on a second?” The phone clunked down.

  I hummed the Jeopardy! song. I pushed my cuticles down. I thought about what to make for dinner. Just when I was ready to hang up, she came back to the phone.

  “Sorry,” Summer panted. “And I’m really sorry about tonight, but I can’t make the committee meeting. My daughter’s running a fever and she’s just not settling down. She hardly slept at all last night.”

  My irritation had been mounting all through her absence, but the mention of a sick child popped the bubble. And if Summer’s daughter hadn’t slept, neither had she. “We can reschedule for next Monday. I’ll let Marina and Carol know.”

  “Would you? That’d be great.” She blew out a breath. “I’m being a horrible committee chair, aren’t I?”

  Yes, but at least she was acknowledging the fact. “Sick kids come first.”

  “I knew you’d understand. Well, I have to go, okay?”

  Not so fast. “Did you talk to your husband yesterday?” No reply. “About the casino?” Nothing. “About Destiny and the money and why you were fighting with Dennis Halpern?”

  Summer’s voice was small. “She got sick so fast. I didn’t have time. Really, I didn’t.”

  And once her daughter was healthy, there’d be another reason. And then another. “I’m talking to Gus today,” I said.

  “Oh.” There was a short silence. “I suppose you’re going to tell him about . . . you know.”

  “Don’t you think it’s time?” I said softly. Past time, really. And not just for the information Summer had; Gus should have known about Flossie and the dogs long ago. You never knew how one additional piece of the puzzle could change the shape of an investigation. Or so all the TV shows indicated.

  “Today?” Her voice went thready. “You’re going to talk to him today?”

  “This morning,” I said. “Right now.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “I’m sorry, Summer. This has waited too long already.”

  She sucked in a short breath, then let it out. “Yeah. I guess it has. See you later.”

  The line went quiet. I held on to the phone, wondering if I’d just lost a friend, trying to think what I could have done differently. If only . . .

  I sighed, then replaced the receiver and went to talk to Gus.

  • • •

  The young man standing behind the high counter looked up when I walked in. “Good morning, ma’am. Welcome to the Rynwood Police Department. How can I help you?”

  I gave him a quick once-over and tried to make an honest estimate of his age. He had to be older than sixteen, didn’t he? Of course he did. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Officer Ford at your service.” If his spine had been any straighter, it would have started arching backward. “I started with the department last week.”

  One more in the long line of young officers the city council hired cheaply and who moved to greener and richer pastures as soon as possible. Well, maybe this one would be different. “Is Gus in?”

  “Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am. He’s in a chief’s meeting.”

  An image of a group of men dressed in buckskins and feathered headdresses bounced in and out of my head. “Police chiefs, you mean?”

  “Yes, ma’am. From all over the east half of the county.”

  “How long will the meeting will last?” My sense of urgency had only increased during my walk to the station. Now that I’d finally made the move to talk to Gus, my need to tell all was starting to hurt my head.

  “Most of the morning, is what Chief Eiseley told me.”

  Now what? I twisted my mouth to the side, trying to remember the name. All I could come up with was bar stool, which couldn’t be right. “Barlow,” I said.

  “Huh?” the youngster said. “I mean, excuse me, ma’am?”

  “You’ve been a big help.” I wanted to reach across the counter and pat his cheek, but smiled and thanked him instead.

  I retraced my steps and was back in my office in five minutes by dint of telling Lois that “I have to make a quick phone call,” as I hurried past her.

  Flipping through the pages of the phone book, I found the number I needed in the government section.

  “Dane County Sheriff’s Office, how may I direct your call?”

  “I’d like to speak to De
puty Barlow, please.” Or was he a detective?

  “One moment, please.”

  A hum, then a click, and “Hello, this is Detective Barlow.”

  “Hi, this is Beth Kenne—”

  “I’m afraid I’m away from my desk now, but please leave a message and a phone number and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If this is an emergency, please dial 911.”

  Beep.

  “Uh . . .” I left a long babbling message in which I sounded like a moron, but I recovered enough presence of mind to leave my phone number. “Okay, then, thanks,” I finished lamely. “I’ll look forward to your call.”

  After hanging up, I slouched in my chair, frowning at the world. I’d primed myself to do something and hadn’t counted on chief meetings and voice mail. I was itchy with action. I wanted to do something.

  But what?

  • • •

  What I did was go to work. Good hard work would surely take my mind off all the questions that were poking at me. Would telling Detective Barlow about Summer and Dennis make any difference? Next, who had called Saturday night and scared the bejeebers out of me? Was it the same person whose footsteps that had given me the mild creeps the Saturday morning after the fire? And what was troubling Oliver?

  Around and around and around again, question tailing into question. It wasn’t until Lois was standing in front of me, hands on her hips, that I realized what I was doing.

  “What on earth are you doing, young lady?” she asked.

  I looked at the racks that held the rolls of brightly colored stickers so loved by the preteens. “Um, making sure all the rolls are lined up.” We both studied the perfectly aligned rolls, the raw edge of each one in the exact same position, all the way down the rack.

  “I can see that,” she said. “The question is why are you doing it?”

  And a very good question it was. “If I answer ‘why not,’ will you leave me alone?”

  “What do you think?”

  I spun a roll of smiling bunnies. Around and around they went. “There’s a lot on my mind right now, that’s all.”

  Lois snorted. “And that would be different from every other day in your life how?”

  “Today’s stuff seems . . . bigger.”

  “It’s the kids, right? They’re get bigger and their problems get bigger, too.” She spun a roll of bright green stars. “What, is Jenna talking about tattoos?”

  “No, but . . .” I stopped before a pent-up flood of words poured out.

  But everything’s all wrong, I wanted to shout. Dennis is dead. Flossie isn’t right. Summer is having husband troubles. Oliver is having Oliver troubles, and I have no idea how to fix any of this.

  “You know what you need?” Lois asked.

  “A brain that functions properly,” I muttered.

  “What you need is a new pair of shoes.”

  I glanced down at my brown loafers. “These are fine.”

  “Fiddleheads.” She picked up her right foot and pointed her shoe of fine green leather at me. “You need something like this. Go.”

  “Lois, I—”

  “Right now.”

  “I do not need green shoes.”

  “Then get some pink ones.”

  Me, in a pair of pink shoes? A smirk started climbing up one side of my face. Now, that was something Marina would pay to see.

  Lois smiled back. “See, even the thought is perking you up. Git!”

  I let her shoo me outside. Though the day was bright with sunshine, a light breeze was pushing me eastward. Coming soon, the radio had told us cheerfully, were clouds and rain and thunder and lightning. Just the thing for the last day of September.

  When I was halfway down the block, a burst of wind blew at my back. I shivered and stopped to put on my coat. After I’d zipped it up, I noticed a man sitting on the bench just outside the antiques mall. It was the man I’d seen a few times in the last weeks, him of the salt-and-pepper hair, the man I’d dubbed Mr. Sad. Even though he was dressed for success in a suit and tie, he didn’t look any happier today.

  My feet started moving before my head realized it had made a decision. “Hello,” I said. “Do you mind . . . ?” I gestured at the empty half of the bench.

  “No,” he said wearily, as if uttering that single short word was almost more than he could manage.

  “Thanks.” The wooden slats made a comfortable creaking noise underneath me at I sat. “My name is Beth. Beth Kennedy. I own the Children’s Bookshelf down the street.”

  His shoulders rose and fell. I watched as he worked through the situation, and I could almost answer the questions without him asking them out loud. Yes, I’m going to keep talking. Yes, I’m going to make you talk back.

  “Bruce,” he finally said.

  I nodded and wondered what to say next. All I wanted was to see him smile. Even a little one would do. Discussing the weather was not going to do the job. I was a horrible joke teller, and—

  “Oh, no,” I breathed, and sat up straight. Not her. Not now. The last thing I needed was a conversation with that woman.

  Bruce inched slightly away from me. “Problem?” he asked politely.

  My back filled with tension as I tried to make myself small. Doom approached . . . and then went into Faye’s Flowers. “She’s gone.” I relaxed. “Auntie May, I mean. She’s gone into a store.”

  Bruce smiled. “That woman could strike fear into the heart of a saint.”

  Aha! So he was from Rynwood. “She loves my store,” I said glumly.

  “You have my sympathies.”

  It was the most sincere thing I’d heard him say. “And you’ve had mine,” I said. “I’ve noticed you the last few weeks, looking so terribly sad, and I’ve wished there was something I could do for you.”

  “Do something?” He turned to look at me, surprise written in the lines of his face. “You don’t even know me.”

  “Can’t I care about the pain of a stranger?”

  My question caught at him. “Of course you can.” He frowned. “It’s just . . .”

  “Strange?” I offered. “Odd? Intrusive?”

  He smiled a second time. “All of the above. But also kind. Thank you, Beth. It is very nice of you to be concerned.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  We sat, comfortable in a tentative sort of way, watching the sun shine. After a while I said, “If you’d like to talk about anything, I’m willing to listen. Don’t feel obligated,” I added hurriedly, “but I am willing.”

  The sun moved a little bit farther in its track across the sky; then Bruce started to talk.

  “My business is bankrupt,” he said. “There’s no way out. I was just turned down for a loan by the last bank who would talk to me. I’m going to have to close the business and lay off my employees. Fifty of them—” His voice cracked.

  I ached to reach out, to touch him, to help him, but I knew I couldn’t.

  He turned his sob into a cough. “Excuse me. Fifty people who have depended on my business to pay their mortgages and put food on their tables and make their car payments, and now I have to shut the doors.”

  I wondered what business it was. But I supposed it didn’t really matter. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  He went on as if he hadn’t heard, and maybe he hadn’t. “If only I’d listened, if only I’d done what he said. My wife said he was a financial genius. She said he’d be able to keep the business afloat, but I couldn’t do what he said. Lay off thirty percent of the work force? How could I do that? And now they all have to go.” Bruce sighed. “They’re all losing their jobs and he’s dead.”

  For a short moment, the world stopped. There was no movement, no life, no air, no sound. Nothing existed except that last, cold word. “ . . . Dead?”

  Bruce nodded. “Remember the man who was killed out at the elementary school two or three weeks ago? Dennis Halpern, Halpern and Company? He saw immediately how to keep the business alive. Told me what I had to do. And I didn’t do it.” />
  I stared at him. Realized what I was doing and turned away before he sensed how my gaze was searing the side of his head.

  Was this the why I’d been trying so hard to find? Would anyone kill over good advice not taken?

  Then again, it wasn’t a question of whether I thought a motive was realistic or not; it was the matter of finding out if the motive had created action. So, more specifically, had Bruce killed Dennis?

  “Do you blame Dennis?” I asked. “For the bankruptcy?”

  Bruce shook his head emphatically. “Not in the least. It’s my fault, from beginning to end. Mine and mine alone.”

  That seemed a little harsh. Surely there were other people involved.

  I said as much and he half smiled. “Kind of you to say so, but I’m the owner. The captain of the ship, so to speak. And the end of the day, I’m the one who’s responsible. I’m the one who’s supposed to make sure everyone gets off the ship safely.” He stopped, then added, “But they’re not. They’re all going down with me.”

  The despondency was back.

  “I have no idea what I’m going to do.” His shoulders, which had straightened a bit when he’d smiled, bowed forward. “My wife . . .” He dropped his head in his hands.

  I wanted to say that his wife would be supportive and understanding, that together they’d battle through this rough spot and come out on the other side, but since I had no idea who his wife was, I couldn’t say that. “Your wife?”

  He rubbed the sides of his face. “She has no idea that I didn’t take Halpern’s advice.”

  “She . . . doesn’t?”

  “No.” He gave a deep sigh, gusting out grief and despair. “She thinks I did exactly what he advised, so she blames Halpern for the bankruptcy. But how can I say I didn’t follow his advice? She was so sure he’d fix everything.”

  I was getting a very bad feeling about this.

  “And look,” Bruce said, his voice low. “There she is. We were going to meet for coffee after my meeting at the bank. What do I tell her? What am I going to do?”

  Walking briskly toward us, bracelets jingling, was Melody Kreutzer.

  Chapter 18