Curse of the PTA

by Laura Alden

  I stammered a greeting to Melody, made a short remark about the weather, and beat a hasty retreat to the bookstore.

  Safe inside, I stood for a moment, breathing in the scent of new books. A comforting smell, hinting of things to learn and stories to hear. “And happy endings,” I murmured. “Lots and lots of happy endings.”

  “I don’t see any new shoes,” Lois said severely. “I thought I told you not to come back until you’d found a fun pair of shoes.”

  At least that’s what I think she said. Her voice came to me from a long distance, as if miles separated us instead of a few feet. She was just across the room, but it felt as if she weren’t even there.

  Melody Kreutzer. Had she . . . ?

  “Hey, are you okay?” Lois dropped the scolding-mother tone and come close. “You look a little . . . weird.”

  I shook my head. Yes, I’m fine. No, I’m not. No, there’s nothing you can do for me. No, I’m not going to burden you with this. Yes, I’m going to keep this trouble to myself. Yes, I need to think this through on my own.

  “Was that a yes or a no?” Lois asked.

  I worked up a smile. “I’ll be fine.” Eventually. “I need to do some things in the office. Paoze will be here soon, but knock if you need me.” I pushed past her look of concern and completed my retreat by closing the office door.

  The small room suddenly seemed even smaller. Cozy, I reminded myself. And quiet. Just what you need.

  I sat in my chair and slouched down, letting my head be supported by the chair’s high back. Closed my eyes. Tried to clear my mind. Tried again. Gave up and started thinking about what I’d learned from Bruce Kreutzer. Tried to come to a different conclusion.

  Didn’t.

  Once, twice, and three times, I started over in my head, and each time I ended up in the same place. Melody had killed Dennis.

  Did I have any proof? Of course not. All I had was supposition and conjecture.

  I opened my eyes and unslouched myself. There was only one thing to do, really. I picked up the phone.

  “Good morning, Rynwood Police Department.”

  It was still morning? “Hi, this is Beth Kennedy. I’d like to speak to Chief Eiseley. Is he still in that meeting?”

  “No, ma’am, the meeting is over. But he’s out on a call. Can I help you?”

  The dear child. “Thanks, but I really need to speak to Gus.”

  We agreed that leaving a voice mail message would be the best thing. At the appropriate beep, I told Gus I had some information that might be pertinent to Dennis’s death and to please call me when he had a chance. I paused, then said, “It’s not urgent, but it might be important. Thanks, Gus.”

  I hung up, thought some more, then called Detective Barlow at the sheriff’s office. Once again, I was sent to voice mail.

  “Stupid voice mail,” I muttered. It was far too easy to ignore a voice mail. Much harder to ignore a pink message slip taped to your computer. Even harder to ignore a person standing in your office, but that didn’t seem to be an option right now.

  Now what?

  “Tomorrow morning,” I said. “Ten o’clock.” If I hadn’t heard back from one of them by ten tomorrow, I’d go find a law enforcement office in which to stand. But after all, as I’d said to voice mail number one, this wasn’t urgent information. What difference could one day make?

  • • •

  That night, after the homework and dinner dishes were done, after Spot had been walked, fifteen minutes into a game of Apples to Apples and five minutes after I’d thought it was time to start the kids toward bed, the phone rang.

  Jenna jumped off her chair while I was still looking at the phone and remembering too many things.

  “Kennedy residence, this is Jenna.” Pause. “Sure, she’s here. One moment, please.” She held out the phone. “For you,” she said unnecessarily.

  If it had been Marina on the other end, Jenna would have told me. If it had been anyone she knew, she would have said. Therefore, this wasn’t someone Jenna knew. Which told me something, but not enough. Time to add “Who’s calling, please?” to the phone etiquette list.

  “Hello?” I asked. “This is Beth.”

  “Lou Spezza. Sorry to bother you at home.”

  His apology took away the sting of fear. Not that I was scared of the phone, of course. “No problem. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, it’s like this. I was out with the dogs—stayed far away from Miss Flossie, just so you know—and I saw some lights were on in your store. In the back, you know? Those aren’t normally on. The dogs and I talked it over, and we figured it’d be good to say something.”

  I smiled. He and the dogs had discussed this. “Thanks for calling, Lou. Someone must have left them on.”

  “Yeah, that’s the weird thing,” he said. “Because they weren’t on when the dogs and I started out. When we got back, they were on. Maybe somebody stopped by for something, is what I figured.”

  “Thanks, Lou. That must have been what happened.” When I hung up the phone, I stood there, thinking.

  “Come on, Mom.” Oliver tapped his cards on the table. “Let’s play.”

  Twenty minutes. That’s all it would take to drive downtown, unlock the store, turn off the lights, lock it back up, and drive back home again. Twenty minutes.

  “What’s the matter?” Jenna frowned. “You look funny.”

  What I looked like was a mother about to change the course of her children’s lives. This moment had been inevitable from the time they’d been born, but inevitability wasn’t making the reality any easier.

  “I need to run to the store,” I said. “We left some lights on and I don’t want to leave those hot halogen lights on all night.”

  “Because of fire?” Oliver asked.

  “Because they’re expensive to have on,” Jenna said.

  I smiled. “You’re both right. And since you’re both so smart, I’m going to leave you alone here in the house while I’m gone.”

  “You are?” Oliver’s eyes went big. “Ow, Jenna, that hurt!”

  “No kicking,” I said. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe they weren’t ready. But Jenna was twelve and I’d only be gone twenty minutes. I’d been babysitting toddlers at thirteen, after all, and Richard was always telling me I wasn’t giving the kids enough responsibility.

  “I’ll be gone less than half an hour.” I ducked into the study and grabbed my purse off the desk chair. “Jenna, here’s my cell phone.”

  She held it in her hand, looked pointedly at the cordless phone that was perhaps eight feet from her head, then looked back at me. “And I need this why?”

  “Because I’ll feel better if you have it. Now, it’s time to start getting ready for bed. When I get back, I want to see both of you in your pajamas with your teeth brushed.” I looked from one young smooth face to the other, excitement on both, and resorted to bribery. “Brownies with ice cream and hot fudge for dessert tomorrow if you’re both in bed when I get home.”

  Oliver leapt out of his chair and ran upstairs on all fours. Jenna rolled her eyes.

  I kept my smile inside and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll call Mrs. Neff right now and tell her what’s going on. You know what to do, right?”

  “Yes, Mom.” Another eye roll. “Pajamas, teeth, bed.”

  That hadn’t been what I meant, and I suspected that she knew it. “Keep my cell phone with you. If you have any questions about anything, call Mrs. Neff. If you get scared at all, about anything, call 911.”

  “Shouldn’t you be leaving?”

  My daughter was twelve going on thirty. I called Marina, asked her to keep an ear open for the phone for the next half hour, and left.

  Chapter 19

  It was odd, coming to the store in the evening. The traffic was different, the lights in the houses and buildings were different. Even the air didn’t feel the same at night.

  And it was night. Full dark, actually, back here in the alley. All summer long, I’d come to w
ork in daytime and left in daytime and so hadn’t paid any attention to the single streetlight that was burned out. I’d noticed it on the Wednesdays I worked late, but I never remembered to call anyone at the city about it the next morning.

  Maybe this time I’d think to write it down. All I had to do was keep the thought in my head until I got in the store and found a piece of paper. “Streetlight,” I muttered as I got out of the car. “Streetlight,” I told myself as I walked up the steps. “Streetlight,” I said as I unlocked the door and reached for the switch.

  But when I turned it off, nothing happened. Because surprise, surprise, I hadn’t been smart enough to get the broken switch replaced.

  As I walked across the room, I thought about who might have left the lights turned on. Since everyone occasionally either opened or closed the store, we all had keys, but who would it have been tonight? This late?

  I considered the three possibilities. Yvonne hadn’t even been in today. Lois or Paoze, then. Maybe Lois had forgotten her purse, but since she always kept her keys stowed inside her purse, she couldn’t have driven away without it.

  Paoze, then. All afternoon he’d been preoccupied with finishing the first draft of his novel. With that kind of pressure—self-instigated though it was—he could easily have forgotten something. But what would have been worth his bicycling back the ten miles from his Madison apartment? And I couldn’t see him leaving lights on, anyway. He was far too conscientious for that. They all were.

  Well, it had to be one of them. I’d figure it out in the morning.

  I flicked the switch, turning the lights off and the darkness on. I stood for a moment. If I waited long enough, my eyes would adjust to what little light there was. Slowly but surely, the outlines of shelves and books and spinning racks came into view, courtesy of the light spilling in the front windows. I concentrated on making my way to the back door without knocking anything over, and except for an elbow bumping a rack of coloring books, I made it intact.

  I was out the door and turning around to lock the dead bolt, when I remembered. Streetlight. Yet again, I hadn’t written it down. I flung my head back, opening my mouth to ask the sky, “Why why am I so stupid?” when three things happened simultaneously.

  A loud BANG! echoed through the alley.

  There was a loud thwack! noise on the wooden door.

  Something dropped onto my shoulder.

  I brushed at it, my ears ringing. Wood. It was a small chunk of wood. What was it doing on my shoulder?

  Then the three things connected in my head.

  Someone had fired a gun at me.

  A gun. At . . . me? Not possible.

  My brain refused to process the information. Tried to reject the conclusion.

  Surely not a gun. It must have been something else. Two or three something elses, perhaps. A car backfiring, assuming cars still did that. A piece of the old wooden door reacting to the waves of sound pressure created by the backfire and so falling off the building. Sure, that could have been it.

  I was satisfied with the rationalizations, both of which I worked through in a tiny fraction of a second. But then I remember thing three. The thwack noise? What could that have been?

  It was too dark to see much of anything. I reached out and felt the door with the palms of my hands. If it really had been a gun—which was ridiculous; why would anyone in Rynwood be shooting a gun in this alley—and it had been a bullet that hit the door, well, the bullet would be in the door somewhere, wouldn’t it?

  My purse slipped off my shoulder and hung in the crook of my elbow as I searched. Door, door, nothing but plain old door in need of painting. No bullet. What a silly conclusion to have reached. Beth, you are clearly in need of—

  Then I found it. Just above head height, high and to the right. A splintered hole. A new splintered hole that hadn’t been there before tonight. Before ten seconds ago. Before someone had fired a gun at me.

  The extreme danger of my position sank into my skin. I had to get out of there, and fast. Someone had tried to shoot me and had nearly hit me. What would keep him from firing again?

  I whirled on the small stoop, thinking fast, trying to come up with a safe place to run, trying to come up with a plan, and failing at both things, because the gun fired a second time. This time the bullet zinged past my ear.

  Clapping a hand to my head, I made myself flat against the brick wall, doing my best to hide in plain sight. After a few panting breaths, I started peering into the darkness. Someone was out there. But where? I squinted and looked, and just when I was sure there was nothing to see, I saw.

  There, where the building ended and the alley began. Even in the dim light, her bright blond hair was visible as it curled around the building’s corner.

  Melody Kreutzer was trying to kill me.

  As soon as I realized what my current and fairly unpleasant situation was, a thousand thoughts flooded into my head, most of them stupid.

  I hardly even knew Melody. I told the kids I’d be back in half an hour. How will killing me change anything? There’s nowhere for me to hide. The recycling Dumpster is too far away. How long does it take to recover from being shot? I don’t have time to get hurt, there’s too much to do. This can’t be happening. Not in Rynwood. We’re nice people.

  All that and more rushed in and out of me in half a breath. Then all thought was wiped away. The blond hair moved forward. And even though the poor light should have kept me from seeing almost anything, I saw the barrel of the gun come around the building.

  Pointed straight at me.

  There was no time to run, no time to shout, no time to do anything except stare at the gun. Was this how Dennis had felt? Had he felt this frozen fear? Had he seen his death coming to him from that tiny dark circle?

  No. I had to do something. I wasn’t going to stand here and wait to die. Better to try and fail then not to try at all.

  I held still, concentrating on gathering all my muscles together, willing myself to go. Ready, set . . .

  “Hey!” a female voice shouted. “You with the gun!”

  The dark circle wavered and dropped an inch.

  No thought, only action.

  I exploded, pushing myself off the wall with all my strength and all my might. I bounded across the back stoop, ran with giant strides across the stretch of open pavement in front of my car, and threw myself into a tumbling heap behind the Dumpster as the gun fired a third time, its reverberating report echoing in my ears.

  “Gotcha,” said the voice, whispering now. Her hand gripped my upper arm. “You all right?”

  No, I wasn’t all right. How could I be?

  Over here on the back side of the Dumpster, the lighting was a little better, thanks to the fixture that Lou had installed at the entrance to his upstairs apartment. I panted, trying to recover, and looked at my savior. Fiftyish, thick, black curly hair, and a body that didn’t look as if it had ever seen the inside of a gym.

  “Um, I think so. Thanks.” I kept my voice to a whisper. “I’m sure the police will be here soon. Someone will call in about those gunshots. If we stay here, we should be okay.” I hoped.

  “So who’s your friend?” My rescuer tipped her head in Melody’s direction.

  I stared at her. Laughter burbled up inside me. Hysteria, no doubt. I slapped my hands over my mouth and tried my best to keep it inside.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Lou always says I have a bad habit of saying the exact wrong thing at the right time. Whatever that means.”

  We were crouching face-to-face behind the Dumpster, whispering our conversation in low tones. “Lou?” I asked.

  “Lou Spezza. My husband.” She held out her hand. “Mary Margaret Spezza. And you’re Beth Kennedy.”

  The battened-down laughter threatened again, but I twisted the screws on it and shook Mary Margaret’s hand. Her grip was strong and reassuring. A lot like Lou’s, come to think of it. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Back at you.”

  “Um, I didn’
t know Lou had a wife. Of course,” I added hastily, “I don’t know him very well. He keeps himself to himself, pretty much.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” she said. “Just as soon as we get out of this, I’m going to kill him.”

  That sounded a little extreme. “He seems like a very nice man.”

  “Yeah, but he’s an idiot. And I mean that in a very deep and profound way. We’ve been married for thirty-five years. He’s the freaking love of my life, you know?”

  “But you’re going to kill him.”

  “First chance I get.”

  There was something very puzzling about all this. Maybe if there hadn’t been a woman with homicidal intent roughly twenty feet away, I would have figured it out on my own. As it was, I was having a hard time. Visual aids would have been helpful.

  “See,” Mary Margaret said, “he ran out on me. Did he think I wouldn’t understand? Did he think I was so wrapped up in my own life that I wouldn’t see?”

  Maybe he’d cheated on her. That made a little bit of sense. I’d wondered the same thing about Dennis, thinking that could have been the reason he was killed. I’d been completely wrong, of course, as I’d been wrong about Elsa and Kyle and that entire line of thinking. I’d been wrong about so much. If I hadn’t been so wrong, if I’d seen through to the truth sooner, I wouldn’t be crouched behind this Dumpster, shivering with fright and listening to a stranger talk while I tried to figure out how to save our lives.

  “I mean, sure, I was making more money than he was, but so what?” Mary Margaret asked. “It’s just money, for crying out loud.”

  Was, she’d said. Past tense. A clue, Watson, a clue!

  “And then he loses his job.” Her chin dropped to her chest. “He doesn’t even tell me, can you believe it? He doesn’t tell me. Weeks go by, and he goes off every day, just like he was still working. I had no idea. He took over paying the bills when the kids grew up, so I just . . . didn’t see.”

  For the first time, I looked at her closely. Sheer terror had precluded such an examination until this point. This wasn’t what I’d call a perfect time to get to know someone, but now that an entire minute had gone by without a shot being fired, I was taking in more than my second-to-second future.