Poison at the PTA (11 page)

If my death looks like something other than murder, please find out what really happened. My health is good and taking my own life would be a sin. Please help the police. Everybody knows how smart you are. There will be clues and I’m depending on you to figure out what happened.

Please, Beth, please help me rest in peace.

Sincerely,

Cookie Van Doorne

I picked up the phone and dialed the number for Gus and Winnie’s house. Maybe this could wait until tomorrow, but I’d feel better if I could tell him now. The phone clicked and I opened my mouth to say hello, but the machine clicked in. “Hi,” said a tinny version of Winnie’s voice. “You have reached the Eiseley household . . .” With Cookie’s letter in my hand, I waited out the message, then left one of my own, asking Gus to call me tonight; otherwise I’d stop by his office the next morning.

“Mom?”

I jumped. “Jenna! You startled me.”

“Sorry.” She stood in the doorway, looking at me looking at the letter. “Um, are you okay? You look a little funny.”

I put on a smile, folded up the letter, and slid it into my purse. “I’m fine, sweetie. Are you two done with the dishes? Then what do you say to a rousing game of triple solitaire?”

•   •   •

After one too many card games, I sent the kids upstairs to brush their teeth and get into their pajamas.

“But, Mom,” Jenna said, “it’s Thursday night. That’s almost like a Friday night, so we should get to stay up a little longer.”

“And you have. It’s ten minutes past when I should have sent you upstairs. Now go before I have to send the flying monkeys after you.”

Oliver giggled. “I could be one of those.” He made screeching noises and ran up the stairs flapping his arms.

Jenna rolled her eyes. “He’s so embarrassing sometimes.”

I laughed. “At least he didn’t do it in public.”

A look of horror flashed across her face. “He won’t, will he? Make him promise not to, Mom. I’d die, just die, if he did that in front of my friends. I’d have to change schools.”

I laughed again. “Most of your friends have younger siblings, too. I’m sure they’d say the same thing. Maybe you could start a new school. The Rynwood School for Humiliated Older Siblings.”

Jenna grinned. “We could call it RSHOS. Riss-hoss.” She said it again. “Yeah, I like it. Our hockey team would be the Mustangs, and—”

“Lights out in half an hour.” I pointed toward the stairs. “Do you want to spend the time fantasizing about your new school or do you want to spend it reading
The Red Machine
?”
The book about the rise of the Soviet hockey dynasty was a gift from her aunt Darlene, and it had been her bedtime companion since Christmas.

She headed up, but her mutterings trailed down the stairs. “Riss-hoss. We’d make it an all-girl school. No stinky boys. And no guy teachers. Just us girls. What do we need boys for, anyway? All they do is make trouble.”

I wanted to call up after her that girls could make plenty of trouble, too, but she knew that already. At least she should.

By the time I’d tidied up the family room, I’d heard Oliver come out of the bathroom and pad down the hall into his bedroom. I went up and found him buttoning his pajamas and humming a little song. It sounded a lot like the dah-di-dah song he’d sung for me the previous night.

“Is that your song about Ms. Stephanie?” I asked.

He nodded. “I need more words that rhyme with ‘be’ and ‘me.’ Can you think of any?”

I could think of quite a few, but I didn’t want to encourage the writing of a paean to a woman decades older than my son. “We can look in the rhyming dictionary on Sunday when you get back from your dad’s.” And, with any luck, he would have forgotten about the whole thing by then.

“Okay.” He jumped into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. “Or maybe I could take the dictionary with me?”

“Sorry, Ollster. I need it this weekend.” For something. I’d make sure of it.

“Oh.” His face fell. “Maybe I can get Dad to help me come up with some rhymes.”

“Never hurts to ask,” I said. “I was talking to Mrs. Helmstetter the other day. She said Mia is learning how to play the flute.”

“Maybe I could teach her the Ms. Stephanie song.” Oliver hummed his song. “Mom?”

“What, honey?” I sat on the bed and snuggled him close to me. My little boy was getting so big.

“Do you think Ms. Stephanie will wait for me to grow up? I’m too young now, but we could get married when I’m older, can’t we?”

Oh, dear. I kissed the top of his head. “Sweetheart, Ms. Stephanie already has a boyfriend.” At least I was pretty sure she did. Just after New Year’s, I’d seen her walking out of a downtown restaurant hand in hand with a man who was smiling down at her with infatuation written all over his face.

Oliver hummed a verse of his song. “Okay, but when they break up, you know, like you and Dad did, then I can marry her, right?”

•   •   •

My bedtime talk with Jenna didn’t go any better. I knocked on the door of her room, then went in.

I’d expected to see her sitting up against three pillows, legs drawn up, book resting on her knees. Instead, she was lying on her side with her back to me. I sensed more than heard the sniffles.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and put my hand on her shoulder. Didn’t say anything.

She sniffed. Sniffed again. “Mom?” she asked. “Do you think I’m a good goalie?”

Instantly, I gathered her up into my arms. “Sweetie, you’re a wonderful goalie.”

“Then why isn’t Coach playing me?”

Her pain seared me inside and out. My daughter, my heart, my life, my love. I caressed her hair. “Because he knows you’re good, and it’s only fair to let the new girl have a chance to play.”

“I don’t want to be fair,” she whispered. “I just want to play.”

“That’s because you’re a goalie. A very good one.” I rattled on about her drive and her ambition. About her constant work to improve, about the biographies she’d read about professional goalies. About how this was a test, and how she’d come through in the end.

But though I talked on and on, I could tell it wasn’t helping. My darling Jenna had reached the age when Mom couldn’t fix everything.

I ran out of words and simply sat there, holding her, loving her, doing my best to send her all the strength and courage I had. She could have it all, if she needed it. She could have everything.

Finally, I felt her relax into sleep. With an ease that came from years of motherhood, I slowly extracted my arm from around her shoulders, pulled the covers up, and stood over her, watching. Could there possibly be a more beautiful sight than a sleeping child?

I stooped to kiss her forehead and left.

•   •   •

My own bedtime came not too much later. I plumped up pillows and read a few chapters of a new Krista Davis mystery before turning off the light, but though I was tired, sleep didn’t come easily.

Oliver. What could I do to help my son?

Jenna. What could I do to help my daughter?

And then there was Cookie. What could I do? What should I do?

George jumped up onto the bed. He found my feet, walked up my legs, and settled onto my chest. His rumbling purr was comforting, but I didn’t find sleep for a very long time.

Please help me rest in peace.

T
he next morning I dropped Jenna off at the middle school. I sent her off with an air kiss from the front seat and an admonition to be nice to their father’s new friend.

“He’s not going to marry her, is he?”

It didn’t require the use of the rearview mirror to know Jenna was scowling. “He hasn’t said anything to me about it,” I said. Not that he would. If Richard remarried I’d learn about it via a phone call from his mother asking what size dress she should buy for Jenna.

“Just be nice,” I said. “It goes a long way.”

But from the look of Jenna’s scuffing steps up the sidewalk, the poor woman wasn’t going to get a lot of nice from my daughter. Horrible person that I am, the thought made me smile a little.

After Oliver hopped out of the car and headed for Tarver’s before-school activity room as he tried to work out another line for the Ms. Stephanie song, I headed for the bookstore’s copy machine. After that, the Rynwood Police Department.

“Sorry I didn’t call you back last night,” Gus said. “But we had tickets to that show everybody’s talking about and didn’t get back until late. What’s up?”

I handed him the letter. The original, not one of the copies I’d made. He read through it once, twice, then three times. “You got this yesterday?”

I nodded.

“Interesting,” he said. “Wonder who she talked to. I never saw an incident report.” He drummed his fingers on the desk and I could tell he was lining up his staff and considering them one by one. All the Rynwood officers were very nice people, and I didn’t want to know who got the dressing-down.

“You got this yesterday.” Gus tapped the letter.

“Yup.”

“And you didn’t get much sleep last night, did you?” He smiled.

I put my hands under my legs to keep from touching the dark circles I’d tried to hide. Clearly, the cover-up I’d used wasn’t doing the job as well as the packaging had claimed.

“So what do you think?” Gus asked.

“About what? The weather? It’s January, so complaining about the cold and the snow is pointless. If you’re asking about the rise in the Dow Jones, I can’t explain it. And if you want to know what I think about postmodern art, I’ll have to get back to you.”

Gus paid no attention to my ramblings. He knew a stalling tactic when he heard it. He picked up the letter and read it one more time. “You realize this letter isn’t proof of anything except Cookie’s state of mind.”

“She says she’d never take her own life,” I protested.

“No, it says taking her own life would be a sin. Doesn’t mean she didn’t decide to be a sinner after she wrote the letter. And before you get all worked up, like I said yesterday, I’ll be investigating.” He leaned back in his chair. “Clues, she said. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?”

“Nope.”

“She also says everybody knows how smart you are.”

I made a rude noise in the back of my throat. “No one would think that if they knew what I did the other day.”

“Yeah?” Gus half smiled. “What’s that?”

“Promise you won’t tell?” At his nod, I went on with the story. “The other day I needed to fax an order to a distributor, and I couldn’t find the fax number. So I looked up their phone number on my computer contacts list and called them.”

“Doesn’t sound dumb so far.”

“I called and asked for their fax number, then wrote the number down.”

“Still not dumb.”

“I wrote the fax number down on a memo pad the distributor had sent me. A memo pad that had their phone and fax numbers on it.”

Gus threw his head back and laughed. “Can I take that promise back?”

“Not a chance.”

He wiped his eyes and let his laughter fade. “So,” he said, sighing, “more circumstantial evidence that Cookie was murdered, but no hard evidence. What do you think?”

“That I really, really wish she hadn’t sent me that letter.”

He nodded and fingered the envelope. “Alaska. Wonder what that’s all about.”

I had no idea, and said so. “Why is it that the older I get, the more I realize I don’t know anything?”

“Some people might call that wisdom.”

“And some people use an apostrophe to denote a plural, but that doesn’t make them right.” I got up to go. “Anyway, I thought you should see the letter.”

“Thanks, Beth. You’ll call if you come across anything?”

I nodded and headed for the door.

“You’re smarter than you think,” Gus said.

In a low voice I said, “Remember the fax number,” and left with Gus’s laughter trailing after me.

•   •   •

When I unlocked the store, the darkness inside felt harsh and heavy. I flicked on every light switch and immediately felt better. So much easier to look on the bright side of life when the stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bears were happily lit with sparkling halogen rays.

“Good morning to you, too,” I said to the short row of rag Madeline dolls.

I turned on my computer and made up a mug of tea.

My hand reached out for a pad of paper to start the day’s To Do list, but my fingers stopped just before my fingers wrapped around the pen.

First things first.

I opened e-mail and was momentarily distracted by the distressing number of incoming messages. “I’ll deal with you later,” I told the e-mails, and started typing.

Dear Ms. Neff,
I wrote.
The president of the Tarver Elementary PTA wishes to meet with you at your earliest convenience. While the president understands your schedule is filled with the demands of the day, she would like to impress upon you the urgency of this request. Please consider this a priority.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Ann Kennedy, President, Ezekiel G. Tarver PTA.

I read over the e-mail, thought a little more, then added
P.S. Marina, please talk to me. I know there’s something wrong and I want to help. If I’ve done something to hurt you, I didn’t mean it; if I’ve—

“Stop it,” I said out loud, and deleted the entire postscript. Then, before I could think about it too much, I clicked the
SEND
button.

I imagined it flying thought the wires, zooming from downtown Rynwood over the treelined streets to Marina’s house. Saw it arrive on the laptop she kept in the kitchen. Watched as it pinged onto her screen.

It was after nine o’clock. Right now she’d be having her day care kids playing some energetic game in the basement. When she finally saw the e-mail, would she answer? If she did, what would she say?

I wrapped my hands around my mug, but the tea had cooled to room temperature. No comfort there. I pushed back my chair and offered up a thank-you to whoever invented the microwave. If it wasn’t for that wonderful appliance, half of my tea would be dumped down the drain.

My e-mail pinged. I blinked. Marina had answered already.

I swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm tea. Swallowed another, just to remind myself just how much I disliked tea at that temperature, then opened the e-mail.

We’re headed to the hill as soon as I get their boots on.

That was all she’d written. Not exactly an invitation, but not anything close to a go-away-forever, either.

Lois popped her head through the open door. “What’s up for today, boss?”

“Looks like I’m going sledding.”

•   •   •

The sky was so low and gray, it made me wonder if the cloud cover was stuck to the upper layers of the atmosphere. Maybe we’d never see the sun again and—

“Look out!”

The soprano shriek startled me into awareness. With a quick hop, I jumped out of the way of the kid sliding past on the saucer.

“You came.” Marina, red-cheeked and red-nosed, gave me a quick glance, then went back to studying the sledders. “That Joshua is going to age me before my time. Joshua!” she called. “Don’t you dare go any higher than halfway up!”

A small boy in a blue snowsuit looked over his shoulder. “But, Mrs. Neff—”

“If you don’t do what I tell you, we’re going back to the house.”

His shoulders drooped with what was obviously a heavy sigh, but he turned his tub sled around. “Banzai!” he yelled as he took a running jump and landed face-first on the sled.

I winced, but the kid whooped with delight all the way down the hill. “Where are Noah and Kendra?” I asked.

Marina pointed to the far side of the hill where a red snowsuit and a yellow snowsuit were falling down and getting back up again. “They both got snowboards for Christmas.”

“I didn’t know they made snowboards for four-year-olds.”

“They shouldn’t,” she said. “And no one should ever have bought a pet rock, either, but they did.”

After that, the conversation languished. I watched the kids; Marina watched the kids. We stepped aside for an incoming sledder. We watched the kids. Time ticked away. My toes lost all feeling.

“So,” I finally said. “I have a proposal.”

“About what?” Marina kept her gaze fastened on the snowsuits, which were now sitting down and tossing snow up into the air.

Not all of what had kept me awake last night had been Cookie’s letter. “About how we deal with whatever it is you don’t want to talk about.” I watched her closely, but her expression didn’t change. Which in itself was a sign of strangeness, since on an average day, Marina’s face was constantly on the move.

I plunged ahead. “Something is bothering you. Before I present my proposal, there’s one thing to clear up. Have I done something to upset you? Is this my fault?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

I waited her to say something. She didn’t. “Then here’s what I suggest. I truly wish you’d talk to me about whatever this is, but I respect your feelings and assume there’s a good reason you’re keeping this to yourself.”

She made a small nod.

“Okay. Do you think you’ll ever talk to me about this thing?”

For a long time, we stood there. Tectonic plates shifted, continents collided. When the sea level had risen and fallen again, Marina said, “Yes. Someday.”

A spring that had been coiled up tight inside my tummy relaxed. “Good,” I said. “Do you think we can pin down a date?”

“Beth—”

The raw pain in her voice tightened the muscles back up again. “Just tell me this. You’re not sick, are you? No one in your family’s sick?”

For the first time, she looked straight at me. “Is that what you think this has all been about? That I’ve been diagnosed with . . . with something awful and I didn’t want to tell you?”

I swallowed. “Maybe.”

She thumped me on the shoulder with her mittened hand. “Silly old you. Of course I’d tell you something like that. I mean, really, Beth. Of all the things to think. Puh-leese.”

“What was I supposed to think? You haven’t given me much to go on here.”

“I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry. I just . . .” She looked away. “Just can’t right now.”

A compromise was in order. “Okay. So there’s something going on in your life that’s troubling you, and though talking to your best friend would undoubtedly help, you can’t or won’t do so.”

She nodded.

“Then I’ll wait,” I said. “You’re my best friend, and I’ll help you in any way I can. If that means standing back from this, then I will.”

Marina made a choking noise, the weird snort she made when she was trying not to cry. I usually heard that noise when we were watching sappy movies and every so often when we were talking about our families, but this was the first time I’d heard it out in public.

“But I won’t wait forever,” I warned her. “If you haven’t told me by . . .” By when? Clearly, this was a Big Thing for Marina, so I had to give her time. But too much time and this divide would widen until it might split us apart. I thought fast, then made up my mind. “If you haven’t told me by Mother’s Day, I’m going to camp on your back deck until you start talking.”

She wiped at her eyes with the back of her mitten. “Mother’s Day. I’ll tell you by then, I promise.”

I marked the date in my head with a big fat red felt pen. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I know,” she said, and thumped me on the shoulder again.

A glow of happiness warmed me. Marina and I were all right. One thing in the world was straightened out, only three point two billion things to fix. The glow faded and I reached into my pocket. “Read this,” I said, and handed over Cookie’s letter.

Marina’s eyes opened wide as she read. “You’ve got to be kidding me. A letter from the dead? That woman watched too many soap operas. You’re not taking this seriously, are you?” She folded up the letter and studied my face. “You are taking it seriously. Oh, jeez . . .”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “We have a problem,” she said to whoever was on the other end. “Emergency meeting at the sledding hill. Right now. Do what you can.”

I frowned as she turned back around. “Don’t tell me,” I said.

She grinned. “Yep. We’re having an emergency meeting of your intervention team.”