Murder at the PTA (30 page)

A door creaked open. “Down the stairs,” he said. The last
s
slid into a hiss. I was sure that
s
would haunt my dreams for years—assuming that I had years left to me.

“Down,” he whispered.

I edged forward until the front ends of my shoes curled down over air. Through the blanket I felt for the handrail. The grip was slippery, but I gained a small sense of comfort from the rail’s existence.

Down one stair. Down another. When I had both feet on the third stair, the door slammed shut behind me. I whirled around and almost fell down the rest of the stairs. I started to shout, but the memory of his threat kept me from calling out. Maybe he hadn’t meant it, but maybe he had.

I heard the screech of heavy furniture being slid across linoleum. It screeched closer and closer until it thumped against the basement door. I was blocked in.

Now what?

I went up a step, then retreated a step. What could I do when I was virtually blind? The blanket over my head was so thick—

There are those rare days when a stroke of genius strikes you like a bolt out of the blue and you bask in the glow of smartness. This wasn’t one of those days.

I pulled the blanket off my head.

But even blanket-free, I was still surrounded by mostly dark. I felt around for the light switch, and brightness burst around me. Instantly, I felt better.

I listened to Iron Grip move around the house, opening and closing doors, and tried to figure out what he was doing. His movements didn’t make any sense—not at first, anyway. He had a mission; I was just too dumb to understand.

He’d been looking for the electrical panel. One loud click and I was plunged back into a deep and endless darkness.

I
went all the way downstairs, found a chair, and spent some time scolding myself. If I’d worn spike heels, maybe I’d have had the presence of mind to do a rapid double-stamp backward on Iron Grip’s insteps, send him into fetal-position pain, and run as fast as I could to Marina’s house.

For a moment I let myself dream that dream. Brave Beth, using her wits to escape her captor, bring a killer to justice, and return peace of mind to Rynwood.

Hah. Maybe men could maintain fantasies like that. Most women had a firmer grasp on reality. I recalled a bit from a long-forgotten comedian. Girls read superhero comic books as the stories they are; boys read comic books and consider the superhero’s job a career option.

I wondered what Iron Grip had in mind for me. Then, and only then, did I start wondering why he was here in the first place. As an amateur sleuth, I was making an excellent divorced mother of two.

If I made the mental leap that Iron Grip had killed Agnes, why on earth would he have come back to the scene of the crime three weeks later?

If he’d wanted to steal something, surely he would have done his thieving the night he’d killed Agnes. He wouldn’t have been trying to retrieve something he’d accidentally left behind at this late date, would he? What could he have been looking for? Or in the grammatically correct version of my thoughts, for what could he have been looking?

Heavy footsteps thudded over my head, and I was suddenly and fiercely glad I’d cleaned out the kitchen. He wasn’t going to be drinking or eating anything Agnes had bought. I made a mental note to call Gloria about turning off the water and electricity, assuming I got out of the basement, of course.

I spent a few unhappy moments speculating on Iron Grip’s plans. I imagined a flowchart. The oval at the top of the chart was the question, “Is he going to kill me?” The “yes” arrow went to the right to a diamond-shaped object around the question, “Tonight?” There should have been more diamonds and arrows leading away from the Tonight box, but even in my head I lacked the courage to draw them.

Going back up to the “Is he going to kill me?” oval, I drew a “no” arrow.

I liked this arrow a lot better.

It ran into a diamond with the question, “Is he going to let me go?” The “yes” arrow went to “When is he going to let me go? Like, tonight, before 8:30? Because the kids always call me before they go to bed.” A yes answer to that seemed unlikely, so I returned reluctantly to the other path leading away from “Is he going to let me go?”

Because, really, why would he set me loose? No one would think to look for me in Agnes Mephisto’s basement—not until it was much too late. I hadn’t left a note labeled “In case I don’t return by Thursday morning, look for me at Agnes’s.” If I were a character in a movie, viewers would have long ago labeled me as TSTL—Too Stupid to Live.

“Am not,” I said quietly, sounding like a nine-year-old.

Above my head and to the left, I heard the thumps and slams of drawers slamming and objects dropping. It sounded as if he were doing what I’d been doing—going through Agnes’s files. I almost wished Agnes’s ghost weren’t imaginary. I nearly smiled thinking of the tongue-lashing Agnes would have given the man who’d killed her.

After an eternity and a half, Iron Grip’s footsteps thumped into the dining area. I followed his path around the table and chairs; past the kitchen counter; through the kitchen; past the door to the basement; out the back door. After a small click as the door shut, there was silence.

Or, rather, relative silence. In the sudden stillness, my panting, frightened breaths sounded louder than Oliver’s raspy breathing the winter he’d had a bad case of the flu.

Was Mr. Grip gone? Or had he stepped out to his car for a weapon?

A shiver started deep in my bones. My teeth chattered as if the basement’s temperature had dropped below freezing.

Agnes—she was back in her ghost form to taunt me. “The suggestion box is open. All ideas are welcome.”

“Not much of a suggestion,” I muttered, but the spasms of shivering diminished to mild rattles, and I started thinking.

He wasn’t coming back with a weapon; with a grip like that, he didn’t need anything else. If he wanted me gone, I would have been dead long since. Since I hadn’t seen his face and hadn’t heard his real voice, I was no threat to him.

Was he going to let me out of this basement?

“
Why would he?
” Agnes asked.
“Any additional contact with you increases the chances of your being able to identify him.”

Even Agnes’s make-believe ghost was annoying. Everyone would be nice after death, wouldn’t they? I pondered this for a moment, thinking about mean Mr. Orton from my childhood. He’d been a cranky old man who yelled at the neighborhood kids if they so much as looked in the direction of his pristine lawn. What would he be like in the afterlife? If he wasn’t still mean, he wouldn’t be Mr. Orton any longer, would he?

I abandoned that path of thought as too philosophical for my tiny little brain. My time would have been much better spent trying to get out of here. Why had I hidden my car so well? If I’d parked in a more visible location, Marina would have seen it and ridden to my rescue.

I wouldn’t die here, would I?

And there it was again: the fear that made my breaths come fast and my stomach hurt, and undoubtedly shortened my life span.

Of course, I lived in constant fear. This was just on a higher plane. Once upon a time, Richard had started a list of the things that frightened me. He soon ran out of room on the kitchen notepad and went to the computer. I’d started with typical mother fears: that our children would meet with random accidents; that they’d be stricken with deadly disease; that a food I fed them would contain a toxic substance and cause irreparable damage, etc., etc.

Then I’d moved on to being afraid of tornadoes, of ice storms, of driving in heavy rain, of high winds, of global warming, of random asteroids ramming into our planet. Then came my fears of losing my children’s love, of being crippled by arthritis, of breast cancer, of macular degeneration, of dying alone, of heart disease, of diabetes.

Richard had looked at me with concern. “Do you have a family history of diabetes?”

“Well, no.”

He’d sighed, and I continued with the anxieties. That the Middle East would never know peace, that our country would be attacked by fanatics who’d cobbled together a hearty supply of nuclear warheads, that our children would inherit a world in which violence was the only realistic response.

Then there were the little nagging fears. That the car would break down and I’d be late dropping the kids off at school. That I’d forget one of Jenna’s soccer games or swim meets or softball games. That by owning the bookstore I was damaging my children’s psyches by not welcoming them with open arms and warm cookies when they came home from school.

I’d started mentioning my fears of dentist drills and stubbing my toe in the dark when Richard had rolled his eyes and turned off the computer. “How can you look so normal on the outside but be such a mess on the inside?” he asked. “Have you ever considered therapy?”

I’d tried to tell him that all women worried like this. It was part and parcel of being female. The estrogen made us do it, Officer.

Agnes made a snorting noise.

“Well, maybe not
all
women,” I said.

A shiver climbed through my body, and I wrapped the blanket tighter around me. I deeply regretted that Marina and I had turned down the thermostat.

Somewhere out in the darkness lurked a murderer. He’d killed once, and though I didn’t think he planned to kill me, how did I know? Any happy ending I’d hypothesized could easily be attributed to wishful thinking.

Somewhere out there my children were waiting to call their mother for a bedtime phone-kiss.

Oh, my sweet Jenna.

Oh, my darling Oliver.

“Now what do I do?” I asked the empty air.

I could wait and hope for rescue. It would come, eventually, but when? Or I could shout and scream and yell in hope that someone would hear me. But who? And even if someone heard something, would they think to call the police?

Maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop being afraid. An excellent idea. Why hadn’t I though of it earlier? I said it out loud. “It’s time to stop being afraid.” Though I waited for Agnes to make a comment, she was quiet this time around.

But I still felt the fear licking at my ankles and threatening to run up my legs and into my heart where it would take hold forever.

Okay. If I couldn’t stop being afraid, I could at least do
something
. If I were busy, maybe I wouldn’t have time to be afraid. But before I did anything, I had to wait a little longer. Time played tricks on people. My father had once collapsed at home from what turned out to be his first heart attack. Mom called 911 immediately and for weeks went on and on that it had taken the EMTs “at least half an hour!” to arrive. My sister Kathy finally called to check. The first responders had arrived in four minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

Since Mom had provided half my genetic material, the possibility of similar time expansion was strong. Even though it felt like hours since Iron Grip had left, maybe it was only five minutes. Maybe he was outside, waiting for Marina’s neighbor to finish walking the dog.

Once again, I considered my options. Once again, I didn’t come up with anything good.

I counted seconds in my head. One one thousand, two one thousand. Ten times I counted to sixty thousand. Ten minutes. The steady rhythm calmed me and cleared my mind. I counted out another ten minutes, then another ten. He’d been gone for at least half an hour—long enough. First things first, I decided.

“Help!” I yelled. “Hellllp!”

 

My shrieks brought no assistance. The night was too cold, the basement too soundproof, my screams the wrong frequency—for whatever reason, I was on my own.

“You had to try,”
Agnes said.

I nodded in the dark. “Would have been silly not to.” It was nice to have some support, even if it wasn’t real. “Do you have any ideas you’d like to share?”

But here she was silent.

Ah, well. It was probably best that I stopped talking to myself, anyway.

Once upon a time I’d carried a small pocketknife. Then one day, a small Jenna reached into my purse, dug out the knife, and pried out the knife’s short, sharp blade. I’d immediately taken it away from her, thrown the knife in the wastebasket, and carried the wastebasket into the garage.

Too bad. Even a small knife would have been handy right now.

I banged on the door with my knuckles. Banged on it with the heels of my hands. Kicked at it with my toes. Kicked at it with my heels. Banged on it with my fists. All I got for my efforts was a nice collection of wood splinters.

That was when I started to cry.

I don’t know how long I cried. I’d like to say it wasn’t very long. I’d like to say only a tiny tear escaped before courage reasserted itself. I’d like to say the intrepid spirit of my homesteading ancestors surged forth and brought me strength and innovative ideas for escape.