Poison at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  As he talked about the three phases, about the nausea that can accompany the first phase, about the second phase that starts twenty-four to seventy-two hours after the overdose, the phase that indicates increasing liver damage, about the third and final phase, as he talked about all of that, what I kept hearing was “It’s not hard to overdose,” over and over again.

  When Gus paused, I asked, “So it was an accident? She wasn’t really poisoned, right?”

  “At this time we have no reason to suspect anything else.”

  “You’re going to do an investigation?”

  He nodded. “But I honestly don’t expect to find anything. Simple case of accidental overdose.”

  Simple, but so very sad.

  “So if anyone asks”—Gus tilted his head in the direction of the pink-socked Lois—“feel free to tell her what I told you. Probable accidental death, but we’re still investigating.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said. “It’s nice of you to stop by.”

  “You and Debra O’Conner were her only visitors in the hospital. I figure you both deserve an in-person stop.”

  He left, and for a long time I sat there, staring at the wall. It was an accident. Cookie had been poisoned, but she’d done it to herself. My heart ached for the pointless tragedy of her death. What a waste and so terribly sad, but there was nothing hidden under the rug this time. No need for anyone to even whisper about murder. No need for nightmares.

  I sat there a moment longer, thinking about Cookie, wondering what she’d left undone, wondering what she’d wanted to do but never had, wondering what she’d have done with the rest of her life, if she’d had it given to her.

  Then I went back to work.

  Chapter 5

  At half past noon, I had both kids in the car.

  “Mom’s kidnapping us,” Oliver said, giggling in the backseat.

  Jenna tugged her knit hat down over her eyes. “She blindfolded us and everything.”

  “Yeah, she blindfolded us!” My grinning son yanked his scarf from around his neck and wrapped it around his head. “Think there’ll be a ransom? I have thirty-two dollars and eleven cents in my piggy bank. Will that be enough?”

  Jenna snorted. “It’s not the people who are kidnapped who pay the ransom. It’s the people who want them back.”

  There was a short silence while Oliver thought through the concept. “But if Mom’s the one who’s doing the kidnapping, who’d want us back bad enough to pay money for us?”

  Smiling, I let them play their game. Jenna would be thirteen in June and she’d likely soon grow out of the whimsical nonsense that Oliver reveled in. I hoped not, though. I hoped that they’d both let themselves be silly, at least once in a while, the rest of their lives.

  “Where are we going, Mom?” Jenna pushed her blindfold up.

  It was the end of the semester for the middle school and the end of a marking period for Tarver Elementary. Both kids had half days through Wednesday, and my intervention instigators were bound and determined that I make the most of their free afternoons.

  “We’re going to get some lunch,” I said.

  “You mean at home?” Oliver asked tentatively. “Like peanut butter and jelly?”

  Jenna peered through the windshield. “But we’re not going home. Or downtown. So we’re not going to the Green Tractor or to the Grill or to that fancy new place.”

  Oliver bounced in his seat. “It’s a mystery! Where are we going, Mom?”

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a mystery, now, would it?”

  “Keep your blindfold on,” Jenna commanded. “I’ll give you hints and see if you can guess where we are.”

  Ten minutes later, when Jenna described a huge parking lot with a really busy road on one side and a really, really big building on the other side, a building that had lots of stores inside, Oliver yanked off his scarf. “The mall! We’re going to the mall!”

  And so we were. As the owner of a downtown business, I eschewed mall shopping as much as possible, but there were times it just wasn’t possible. Today, for instance. Joe, a fellow downtown business owner, had a pizza place named Sabatini’s. He’d opened a mall store just before Halloween, and while I’d been meaning to eat there since before Thanksgiving, somehow it just hadn’t happened.

  With Jenna on my right and Oliver on my left, we scuffed through the dusting of snow that was falling and entered the mall red-cheeked and breathless with cold.

  “I know where the new Sabatini’s is.” Jenna danced ahead. “My friend Alexis told me. It’s this way. She says it’s really neat. They have a cool basketball game and one of those table shuffleboard things. Oliver, do you want to play?”

  My ears shut down while they started to wrangle about rules for a game I’d barely heard of. I loved my children dearly, but that didn’t mean I loved to hear every word that come out of their mouths.

  Standing a few dozen yards ahead of us was a pair of women, shopping bags in their hands and strained smiles on their faces. Or rather, I knew for a fact that one of them was suffering a little stress, because when she was anxious her mouth always went a little wide, deepening the curves around her lips. Right now the curves were deep as the Grand Canyon and even her red hair, loose today, wasn’t hiding the fact.

  But I didn’t know the young woman Marina was with. A little taller and much slimmer than Marina, light brown hair, long fingers wrapping around the handles of her bags. As far as I knew, I’d never seen her before, and while I was horrible at names, I was pretty good at remembering faces.

  Marina’s head turned slightly and I raised my arm in a grand wave. The motion caught her attention, but instead of the smile I expected to see, Marina’s eyes widened and her mouth opened. She grabbed her companion’s wrist and dragged her into the nearest store, a RadioShack, a store that she had heretofore never seen a reason to enter, and vanished among the store displays.

  I came to a complete stop. After a dozen paces, the kids realized they’d lost me and ran back.

  “Mom, the restaurant’s up here,” Jenna said. Then she cocked her head. “Are you okay? You’re not getting sick or anything, are you?”

  Oliver grabbed my hand and looked at it. “At school they say to wash your hands, like, all the time. When’s the last time you washed yours? Bet it’s been hours!” he said gleefully.

  I rubbed his hair. “And now my germs are all over you.”

  He put his palms to his chest and started fake-coughing. “I’m dying! I’m sure of it. Take me to the hospital, quick!”

  “Bet some pizza and bread sticks will take care of it.” I took his hand. “If you’re still dying after lunch, we’ll see about going to the emergency room.”

  I smiled at Jenna. She smiled back, believing that my smile meant that Mom was fine, that I wasn’t sick, that I wasn’t hurt, that I was fine and always would be, because that’s what Moms are supposed to be like.

  Only I wasn’t fine, not quite. My best friend was hiding something from me and I had no idea what it was. And worse, I had no idea why.

  • • •

  The waitress served us two pizzas on metal pedestals. Cheese dripped over the edges of the dough and I had to make dire threats of dark punishment to keep both kids from leaning into the cheese with their tongues out.

  “Not appropriate behavior,” I said sharply. “You’re both old enough to know better.”

  “But, Mom,” Oliver pleaded, “it’s just asking us to eat it that way. Look at it.”

  “It’s tempting you, not asking. It’s a test, and you two are on the edge of failing.” I took hold of the triangular pizza server and doled out one piece each.

  “Yeah.” Jenna grinned at Oliver over her plate. “You wouldn’t want your new girlfriend to see you fail at pizza eating. Ow, quit kicking!”

  “Inside voices,” I murmured. “And I don’t care who started it.”

  “That’s what Coach says.” Jenna picked up her piece of sausage, pepperoni, and double cheese.
“He says that it’s not the player who makes the first illegal hit that gets caught—it’s the player who retaliates.”

  “Your coach is right.” I’d been a hockey fan since I’d grown out of my sister’s old figure skates and laced on my dad’s old hockey skates. I’d been eight at the time. In those days there were no girls’ hockey teams, but for years I’d spent winters playing pond hockey until it grew too dark to see the puck. My mother had been marginally horrified that her dainty daughter was out playing a contact sport with boys, but my dad had laughed and convinced her to let me play.

  My children chewed contentedly, and it wasn’t until I handed out the second pieces of pizza that I went back to the earlier subject. “So, Oliver, what is she like?”

  He went still. “Who?”

  Jenna opened her mouth, but I quelled her with a look. “Is there a new girl in school?” I asked. Oliver had a penchant for getting a crush on the new girl, and I wasn’t aware of any family who’d recently moved into town. There’d been a couple of families who’d moved into the area in August—PTA presidents made it a point to know these things—but that was far too long ago for the New Girl effect.

  “She’s beautiful,” Oliver said, sighing. He put his chin on his hand and ignored the double olive piece of pizza in front of him. “She smiles all the time and has this happy kind of laugh that makes you want to laugh, too.”

  I shot a look at Jenna. She shrugged.

  “What does she look like?” I asked.

  Oliver considered. “She’s always wearing pretty earrings. She wears shoes that make noise, you know, tick-tick-tick, and she makes her hair do really neat things.”

  My son had a crush on a girly girl? It had been bound to happen at some point, but he was only nine, for heaven’s sake. I envisioned a girl wearing purple and pink, a girl who was happy to wear dress shoes, a girl whose mother had the time and patience to learn updos. I’d never learned anything beyond a French braid, and even those tended to look lumpy. “What’s her name?”

  “Ms. Stephanie,” he said dreamily.

  Ms.? Wait a minute. . . . “Are you talking about Stephanie Pesch? Your new vice principal?”

  He nodded. “Isn’t that the prettiest name? Steph-ah-knee.” He drew the syllables out long. “Steph-ahhh-kneee.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “I told him she probably doesn’t know he exists, but he keeps doing those gaga eyes and making up songs.”

  I looked at her. “It wasn’t all that long ago that you had a crush on someone much older than you. Remember?” Her immediate blush told me that, yes, she did remember, and she’d rather not talk about the weeks she was enamored of Eddie Sweeney, the NHL hockey star who’d done a local hockey-skills clinic.

  Oliver was looking interested in the ancient history. Time for a new subject. “So, how is hockey going?” I asked my daughter. “Your team did well over the holidays at that tournament. Are you working on any new drills?”

  Jenna took another piece of pizza and didn’t answer at first. I waited. She saw me waiting and took a huge bite, a classic delaying tactic since she knew I wouldn’t make her talk with her mouth full. I laid my fork down and waited while she chewed. When she swallowed, I asked, “Jenna, what’s the matter?”

  She looked at her pizza, looked at me, saw what my face looked like—a Mom-combination of patience, endurance, and answer-me-or-there’ll-be-trouble—and put her slice down on her plate. “There’s a new girl,” she muttered.

  “And?”

  “She’s a goalie.”

  Ah. Goalie was Jenna’s position, the only position she’d ever played or wanted to play. She was a very good goalie and her goals-against average was the lowest in her league. “Is she good?” I asked.

  “She’s from Minnesota.” The despair in Jenna’s tone said it all.

  “I see.” And I did. Minnesota was a hockey state. Strong learn-to-skate programs, strong youth programs, strong middle school and high school programs, strong adult programs, and there were ice rinks everywhere. Jenna hadn’t even started playing hockey until two years ago, when Rynwood had built an arena. A girl from Minnesota who’d been playing since she could walk would have a definite advantage over Jenna. “Who’s playing Saturday morning?” I asked.

  “Coach hasn’t said yet.”

  Which could mean anything. “There’s nothing wrong with having two good goalies,” I said. “It’s good for the team to have . . .” I’d been about to say “a backup goalie” but stopped just in time. Jenna would think I’d be assuming she’d be backup. “ . . . to have two goalies. Just like some football teams have two quarterbacks.” Didn’t they? I scrambled to think of one, but couldn’t. Pete was a much bigger football fan than I was. If Jenna called me out, I’d tell her to ask Pete next time he came over.

  But she didn’t question me at all. What she did was start to pick at her third piece of pizza. The girl who usually scarfed down four pieces in the blink of an eye was letting good pizza get cold.

  And Oliver, who’d moved up to three pieces, was picking at the remains of his second.

  Good job, Beth. Take the kids out for a lunch treat and ruin both their appetites. Excellent. If my children had anything to do with the voting, I would not be winning the Mother of the Year Award this year.

  Again.

  For the twelfth year in a row.

  I sighed and lifted my own piece of pizza to take a bite. As I did, I caught sight of a flash of red hair. Marina was at the door of the restaurant with that young woman at her side.

  I lifted my hand in a come-sit-with-us wave.

  Marina’s gaze passed through me. She turned and walked out of the restaurant quickly, her companion tagging along after her.

  Chapter 6

  Tuesday afternoon’s outing with the kids went a little better, as it involved more doing and less talking. I splurged for admission to a water park and we spent the afternoon and part of the evening running and splashing and sliding. Dinner was sub sandwiches on the way home and we fell into bed exhausted but happy.

  Wednesday’s fun was more low-key: I picked the kids up at their schools and drove them home. After first getting promises of dish-doing, I let the youngsters each pick what they most wanted for lunch. Jenna wanted a three-cheese grilled sandwich and tomato soup; Oliver wanted macaroni and cheese. By the time we’d cooked, eaten, and cleaned up, their father was in the driveway, having left work early to spend some extra time with his children.

  I gave both kids a hug and a kiss and waved at them from the kitchen window as Richard backed out of the driveway. Then I went back to the store.

  “What are you doing here?” Lois asked. Her attire was a simple cable-knit sweater over brown tweed pants. The only eye-catching thing about the ensemble was a bracelet of ancient pull tabs from soda cans. That morning she’d said everything she wore came from the seventies. I’d desperately wanted to ask about her underwear, but the phone had rung and the moment had passed.

  Now I pulled off my gloves and shoved them into my coat pockets. “I work here, remember? Matter of fact, if I recall correctly, the owner of the store and I share the same name.”

  “You’re supposed to be spending time with your children this afternoon, not working.”

  “Richard took the kids and they won’t be back home until tomorrow after school.” My former husband lived in a three-bedroom condo and kept the kids overnight on Wednesdays and his weekends. From all accounts, they spent a lot of time playing video games and watching television while Richard fussed with paperwork from his office, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

  Lois grunted. “Then why didn’t you stay home and take a nap or something? I told you we had the store covered.”

  Before I could come up with a good response, the bells on the front door jingled and a tall, wide, bald man walked in. Saved by the bells. “Aha!” He pointed a long Ghost of Christmas Past finger at me. “There she is!”

  “Hello, Glenn.” I eyed the insurance man warily
. Glenn Kettunen was funny, smart, and interesting. He also couldn’t keep a secret if the lives of ten thousand people depended on it. “What’s up?”

  He sidled close. “I hear you have the inside scoop on what happened to Cookie Van Doorne. Tell all to your Uncle Glenn, dearie.”

  “What makes you think I know anything?”

  He spread his hands, palms up. “Come on, Beth. Everybody knows you took Cookie home that night, that you went to see her in the hospital, and that Gus came in here to talk to you the other morning. Patient man that I am”—he crossed one ankle over the other, stuck his hands in his pockets, looked at the ceiling, and hummed for three seconds before breaking the pose—“I’ve waited two days for you to seek me out. Now here I am, still waiting.” He drummed his fingers on the glass counter.

  There was a petty part of me that wanted to let him wait until doomsday, but I relented and said, “It was an accidental overdose.”

  “Overdose of what?” Glenn asked. “Heroin? Crack?” He rubbed his hands. “Meth? Come on, you gotta tell me.”

  “Acetaminophen,” I said. “Gus said it’s actually fairly easy to overdose on it. It’s in a lot of other medications and if you’re susceptible you can OD and not even know what you’re doing.”

  Glenn’s face had gone still. “Plain old acetaminophen? I take that stuff all the time.”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” I reassured him, “as long as you don’t take too much. If you have any other meds, check to see if it’s in there. I’m sure you’re fine.” But my last words were said to his back because he was already rushing out the door.

  Lois cackled. “Did you see the look on his face?” She slapped her thigh. “Never seen ol’ Glenn look so scared.”

  Great. Now I’d started a panic.

  And a very small part of me, way deep down inside, smiled.