The Trouble with Talent

by Kathy Krevat

  I took that as my cue to leave and handed Freddie my card. “Can you call me tomorrow to talk some more?” Although maybe she wouldn’t be as forthcoming when she was sober.

  “Sure,” she said. “I have a lot more stories for ya.”

  I went back to my dad’s car and started the drive home, wondering why they thought it was okay to smoke pot at their kids’ elementary school. Would they drink a beer? Smoke a cigarette? Did the principal know? Maybe she was so grateful for the support of the PTA that she let it go.

  Then the whole issue became moot as I saw flashing lights of two police cars pulling into the parking lot! I was already on the other side of the school and saw the moms scatter like teenagers at a rave. I couldn’t resist pulling over to watch the drama unfolding right in front of me.

  Unfortunately, some of the PTA moms were much slower than teens and were quickly rounded up by the four officers. I wondered if any of them would squeal on the others who got away.

  I opened my window to hear better and Freddie scared the crap out of me by opening the door and getting in. “Drive!” she commanded, frantically swiveling her head to see what was happening back at the school.

  Catching her urgency, I gave a nervous laugh and followed her order, heading away from the school.

  “Did you call those police?” she demanded.

  “No!” I said. “I was just there a minute ago. They would have got me too.” Now they could only get me for aiding and abetting an escaped criminal.

  “It seemed longer,” she said, sounding unsure.

  “That’s the pot talking,” I said.

  She kept turning to look behind us and then staring at the rearview mirror. “I think we lost them.” Her voice was breathless.

  “Don’t you think they’ll check all the cars parked in the lot?” I said, trying not to laugh at her freaked-out expression.

  Her eyes widened for a moment and then she breathed out. “Oh thank goodness I parked on the street.”

  I was pretty sure it was standard procedure for the police to check any neighboring cars to figure out who ran away, but maybe they’d settle for the slow-pokes they caught. I could just imagine the scandalous headlines tomorrow. And the gossip on the NextDoor app would be wild.

  Freddie’s phone rang and she pulled it out of her purse. “Grace? Are you okay?”

  I could hear Grace clearly. Of course the fact that she was practically yelling helped. “I told you that was a bad idea! Why did you even bring it?”

  Ooh that was interesting. The PTA president was the one luring the rest of the board into a life of crime. This was a Netflix series waiting to happen.

  “Where are you?” Freddie asked. “Did everyone get away?”

  I started to remind her that we saw people get caught, but she sent me a warning glance and held up her hand to stop me. Oh, she was acting dumb.

  “No!” Grace sounded scared. “A bunch of your board members were arrested!”

  “Like, actually arrested?” Freddie asked. “Maybe they were given a warning?”

  “What is wrong with you?” Grace said.

  “Well, I’m still a little out of it,” Freddie said, but she had definitely sobered up by now.

  “You mean ‘high,’” Grace said. “You got your board high and then ran out of there like a scared rabbit.”

  Freddie didn’t answer her. “I’m going to walk back. I’ll let you know what I find out.” She hung up in the middle of more of Grace’s complaints.

  “Sounds like you’ll be having some trouble with your board members at the next meeting,” I said.

  “Yeah right,” she said. “They all begged me to be president so they wouldn’t have to do it. They can take my job anytime.”

  “Should I drive you home or do you want to risk going back to your car?” I asked.

  “Let’s go back,” she said.

  I circled the block to turn around. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense to smoke pot on school grounds, you know.”

  “That’s part of the fun,” she replied, but seemed to be reconsidering that idea.

  “You don’t look like you’re having fun now.”

  She didn’t answer.

  I realized I was wasting my time when I could be questioning her. I slowed down and she didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, can you tell me more about the other women in your Facebook group? Was anyone more into Benson than the others? Like, did anyone make threats against him?”

  We arrived on the block where she’d jumped into the car and she stared intently toward the school while I pulled over to make sure it was safe. “His latest ex sounded like the wrong person to cross,” she said absentmindedly.

  “Really? Who is she?”

  “Her name is Opal and she’s the counseling secretary at the high school. Not someone you want to get on the bad side of.”

  I almost jumped at the sound of her name. “Why not?”

  “Well, Benson didn’t have kids, so it didn’t matter to him, but she could screw up your kid’s application and you’d never know it. Or slow walk your recommendation requests. She has a lot of power. People don’t realize that.”

  “Is she the kind of person to do that?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. Parents have been trying to get her fired, or at least moved out of that job, for years.” She looked all around, I guess making sure no police were hiding.

  “Do you want me to drive you to your car?” I asked.

  At her nod, I pulled out. “What did she say about Benson that made her stick out to you?”

  “She said she and Benson worked for the same person, and that she was going to royally screw him over.”

  What? Benson didn’t work for anyone. He was a teacher and had his own quintet. Basically his own boss. Then I remembered the GPS tracker on my car. Maybe he did work for someone. Someone who was a little too interested in me.

  I drove past the parking lot, which still held a few cars. I had a feeling they belonged to the moms who had been arrested. “Can you invite me to be part of that Facebook group?”

  “Sure.” She pointed to a burgundy minivan. “That’s my car.” She pulled out her phone and brought up her Facebook app. “What’s your profile name?”

  I gave her my full name and she found me. “Meowio Batali?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s my company.”

  “Cute,” she said while she typed away. “I sent you an invite. All you have to do is click it and you’ll be able to see what everyone wrote.”

  “Can you think of anything else she said about who they work for?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “She wished she was dating the boss instead.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he had a lot of money and drove a great car,” she said.

  It looked like I had to go back to the high school again and talk to Opal.

  Chapter 13

  Elliott was in bed by the time I got home. When I checked on him, he was snoring, and I took his latest zombie book out of his hand and put it on his nightstand.

  Before telling my dad about the GPS tracker, I softened him up with a comedic retelling of the PTA moms smoking pot and the arrival of the police. He actually had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard.

  My voice must have changed, because his face went serious as soon as I started my story about the tow truck guy finding the GPS tracker.

  I ended with, “So can you drive me to the rental car place tomorrow morning?”

  He ignored my question and shook his head. “A GPS tracker? You have to stop looking into this murder.”

  “Dad,” I protested. “We don’t know for sure that it’s connected. Benson was a freakin’ oboe teacher, not an international hitman.”

  He frowned and pointed his finger at me, just like he used to when I’d done something wrong as a kid. �
�Don’t give me that BS. You know it’s connected. You just don’t know how yet.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Most likely, it is. That doesn’t mean I should stop. There’s been no, like, threat or anything.”

  He clenched his jaw and stared at me with narrowed eyes.

  “Look, this time I’m giving everything to Norma,” I said. “She’s on top of it. It’ll be fine.”

  I used feeding Trouble as an excuse to get away from his accusing eyes and found her sitting in the dining room staring at the small chandelier over the table. I agreed that it wasn’t the most attractive light I’d ever seen. It was original to the house and resembled a six-legged octopus holding small candles. “You’ve seen that light a thousand times,” I said. “Let’s get you some dinner.”

  At the word “dinner,” she hopped up to follow me and I took my time dishing out her Fish Romance, trying to think of some defense for continuing the investigation.

  My dad quickly hung up the phone when I returned to the living room. Then he tossed me his keys. “I can use Annie’s car if I need it,” he said and turned the volume up on his TV show.

  If I wasn’t so tired after all that happened that day, I might have been offended at being dismissed. Instead, I was relieved that he wasn’t arguing with me and went up to bed.

  * * * *

  The next morning, I was up early, waking with a jolt but unsure why until I remembered the tracker.

  Disgusted, I went down to grab coffee and pulled out my laptop to check out the We Hate Benson Tadworth Facebook group. Instead, I got distracted by a bulletin about the Sunnyside Elementary School PTA.

  Overnight, the news broke that almost the entire board, including Freddie, was arrested for smoking pot on school premises. I wondered how the police got her—did the others rat on her or were they waiting for her at home? The principal got involved and helped to make a deal that the moms would resign from the board in exchange for dropping the charges. I could just imagine that phone call to the principal. I don’t think any training encompasses how to handle PTA moms getting arrested for smoking pot behind your school.

  Besides, the punishment was making them resign? What was up with that? For a lot of moms, that was rewarding them for bad behavior. Would they get a free trip to Las Vegas if they embezzled PTA money?

  But the deal was leaked somehow, and the news went viral. Pothead PTA Moms Burn Out was my favorite headline, and the rest of the country was having a great time making fun of the oh-so-California story.

  Now the district attorney announced that he was reviewing the deal. Oh man. That couldn’t be good.

  I logged onto NextDoor and had never seen so many comments on one posting before. I didn’t have time to read them all, but the consensus seemed to be a general condemnation of the PTA moms for breaking the law and being poor role models for the children who would hear about this.

  One lone mom wondered which of the chastising parents was going to volunteer to replace them. I wasn’t at all surprised to see that no one responded to her comment.

  The next Bad Moms movie was writing itself.

  I switched over to Facebook, bypassing a lot more “bad mom” postings to get to the We Hate Benson Tadworth Facebook group, and was almost late waking Elliott up with all the drama I found. The angry posts seemed to feed on themselves as more women joined in with their stories of abuse by Benson. If he wasn’t dead, he’d be a poster boy for Man Who Should Be Banned From Every Online Dating Website. And warnings should be posted in women’s bathrooms all over the city.

  Everything Freddie had told me was reflected in the postings. Heartbroken women who had overcome a lot of cynicism and baggage to allow themselves to fall in love with the quirky, passionate musician who convinced them he’d finally found his match, only to dump them—without actually letting them know they were being dumped—once he’d conquered them.

  The women were all very different physically—short, tall, thin, heavy, many different backgrounds—but they had two things in common. They were divorced and newly dating. And he took advantage of that, using the same combination of soulful artist and flattering companion on all of them.

  If he wasn’t already dead, I’d have wanted to kill him myself just for solidarity with women in general.

  Fortunately for Quincy, but unfortunately for me, this Facebook group gave us a whole bunch of new suspects. I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to look into all of them. And part of me felt like getting the police questioning these women was going to victimize them all over again. That was above my pay grade. Time to hand over the list of jilted lovers to Norma.

  The only one I wanted to tackle on my own was Opal Volker. She’d scared me off before but I wasn’t going to let her get away with that again. I texted Zoey to let her know I’d be in late and went straight to the high school.

  I waited in my car in the faculty parking lot and saw her just as she was getting out of her small SUV. “Opal,” I called out. “I’m glad I caught you.”

  She stopped walking toward the administration building and waited for me to get closer with a near-sighted squint that made me realize she didn’t know who I was. As soon as I was close enough for her to recognize me, she turned around and started walking again.

  I rushed to catch up. “I found out a few things about Benson that I need to discuss with you.”

  “I’m not telling you anything.” Her tone teemed with malice, making me mad.

  “Really?” I stopped walking. “Then maybe I’ll just tell the police about your postings on the We Hate Benson Tadworth Facebook group page.” I pretended to pull it up on my phone and read. “I’ll get him back. I’ll get him back good.” I tilted my head at her. “A little overly dramatic, but I bet a jury would eat it up.”

  She turned around and gave me a menacing glare. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Just answer my questions and I’ll go away,” I said.

  “Fine?” she said, impatience dripping from the word.

  “Did he write recommendation letters for money?” I asked and then held my breath. I wasn’t convinced that this would lead to murder, but it would help me figure out what kind of person Benson was.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He told me,” she said.

  “You said that you and Benson worked for the same guy,” I said. “What does that mean?”

  She blinked at me, realizing the connection I was trying to make.

  Something flickered across her face that might have been fear.

  “We both did freelance work on the side. What’s the big deal?” she said.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked.

  She took a few steps toward me, and even though she was a few inches shorter, the malevolence on her face startled me to silence. “I don’t need to tell you anything,” she said. “You’re not the police. If you come here again, I’ll have you arrested for harassment.”

  * * * *

  Somewhat shaken, I tried to make myself feel better by texting what I’d learned to Lani before I got on the road. My typing was a bit erratic, and I had to correct the autocorrect guesses more than a few times.

  Lani must have sensed my distress, because she called me right away. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said, although I didn’t sound it.

  “I didn’t think so,” she said. “What happened?”

  It took me a minute to figure it out, but Lani waited patiently. “Opal confirmed that Benson wrote recommendation letters for money. But then she got really nasty. I wasn’t going to let her scare me away again, but I think she’s just naturally that mean. Talking to her made me even more nervous on top of what happened yesterday.” I realized that I hadn’t told her about the GPS tracker. “Oh man. You will not believe what happened.”

  “I already know about the GPS thing,” she said.
“Your dad called me last night. He wants me to stage an intervention.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed. “He thinks you might be getting too attached to these projects of yours. He told me to bring Piper as reinforcement.”

  “Right,” I said but couldn’t dismiss the idea that maybe I was in over my head. Again. But even after seeing the look on Opal’s face, I had no intention of stopping. “He may have a point. I think I just talked to someone capable of committing murder. Maybe that’s progress.”

  * * * *

  Lani moved Opal up on the suspects list and suggested that I have Tod look into the possibly homicidal counseling secretary.

  I called him on the way to work and he answered right away. “Maybe Benson was a spy,” he said, sounding excited. “And that’s why I can’t find out much about him online.”

  “According to Tabitha, he’s too busy for that,” I said.

  “Hmm, all those women.” He sounded like he was considering it seriously as a problem to Benson being a spy. Hadn’t he ever been to a James Bond movie?

  He cleared his throat. “I know this is going to sound paranoid, but I think I should send someone over to check your house for bugs.”

  “What?” I tried to say, but it came out more like a squawk.

  “Someone who is tracking your car could be the kind of person who tries other kinds of electronic surveillance.” His tone was reasonable, but on top of everything else, it made my hands shake. I didn’t answer him.

  “Colbie?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “Let me think about it.” I pulled into the parking lot of the commercial kitchen and was about to use it as an excuse to end the conversation but he didn’t argue with me. “I wanted to see if you could look into Opal Volker.” I explained why.

  “Okay,” he said. “But don’t forget about my friend. You should have your house checked for bugs sooner rather than later.” He sounded like a late night commercial for the local exterminators. “Also, I found out some information on that homeowners association president,” he said.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to change the subject.