Poison at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  Uh-oh. “About what? The weather? How he didn’t get what he wanted for Christmas? That he wants to retire?”

  Marina sat up straight. “Gus is retiring? He can’t do that! That’d be like Auntie May turning into a nice little old lady.”

  There were times when I truly did not want to know how Marina’s thought processes worked. “How are those two things the same?”

  “Because neither one bears thinking about. Life without Auntie May to spice it up just wouldn’t be the same. Just like life wouldn’t be the same if Gus wasn’t our chief of police.”

  That almost made sense. “What was Gus talking to Ashley about?”

  “He’s not retiring?”

  “I was joking. As far as I know, he’s going to stay chief until the next millennium.”

  Marina blew out a breath that fluffed up her red bangs. “Whew. You had me worried. Anyway, Gus was asking Ashley all sorts of questions. Like if Cookie had arguments with bank customers, or if she’d ever said anything about feeling threatened by anyone.”

  I didn’t say anything but sipped more tea. It was lukewarm.

  “Don’t you see?” Marina asked. “That means Gus is thinking that Cookie was murdered, that he doesn’t think she took that acetaminophen accidentally. Or even on purpose.”

  “Or it could mean that he’s following procedure.”

  “What procedure?”

  “Police ones. I’m sure there are things that have to be done when anyone dies unexpectedly.”

  Marina sat back and studied me. “You’ve talked to Gus, haven’t you? You know something and you’re holding out on me.”

  There was no way I could to lie to her. She’d pick up the faintest whiff of prevarication in a single sentence. “I promised Gus.”

  “Promised him what?”

  “That I wouldn’t talk about . . . about the investigation.”

  She pounced on my hesitation like a cat on an untied shoelace. “You know something, don’t you?”

  “I know lots of things. I know where Nauru is and I know—”

  “And what I know is you’re not telling me something.” She fixed me with a steely glare. “You’re breaking rule number one of the best friend code.”

  I glared right back at her. “Okay, then, who were you with in the mall the other day?”

  Marina’s ruddy cheeks faded to a sickly white. “No one,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came alone and left alone and there’s nothing else to talk about.” She stood up. “And I just remembered. I need to run to the store for some lettuce for tonight’s dinner.”

  I looked at her kitchen counter. An unopened bag of romaine hearts sat right next to her favorite salad bowl. A shiver of sorrow rippled through me, because she was lying to me. Flat-out lying. “Are we going to talk about this later?” I asked softly.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Good. I’ll see you later, okay?”

  She grabbed her purse off the counter and went out into the cold January night just like that, no hat, no boots, no gloves, no coat.

  • • •

  Even though I didn’t have to cook dinner, there was still a pile of dishes to wash. More than once I’d been tempted to go to paper plates and plastic utensils, but every time I started to open that particular cabinet door, my mother’s voice started reverberating inside my head.

  “Elizabeth Ann Emmerling, don’t you start taking the easy way out. That’s not how I was raised, that’s not how your father was raised, and that’s not how we’re raising you.”

  At the time, she’d been lecturing me about not moving the dining table chairs before I vacuumed, but somehow her words had sunk deep into my brain and become part of my psyche. I wasn’t so sure that my own children were being raised quite the same way, because never once had my mother left her Christmas decorations up until the end of January, and never once had my mother tossed the entire household’s dirty clothes into the bathtub and shut the shower curtain so the new minister wouldn’t see how we really lived.

  Then again, Mom hadn’t been a single mother and business owner.

  I pushed away Mom’s oft-expressed opinion my single mother status was my own fault, and took the large bowl Jenna was handing me to dry.

  “Why can’t we put this in the dishwasher?” she asked.

  “Because this was your great-grandmother Chittenden’s bowl. It was made before dishwashers were invented, so it wasn’t designed to take the heat of a dishwasher. If we put it in the dishwasher, that pretty yellow color would fade and the material would weaken and chip or even break.”

  “Then why don’t we use it to hold, like, apples and oranges or something, and buy a new bowl to use for mashed potatoes?”

  “Because . . .” I stopped. What I’d been about to say was because that’s the bowl Grandma Chittenden always used for mashed potatoes. I thought a moment, then said, “Actually, Jenna, that’s a good question. I do it because I really like the idea that we’re using the same bowl for the same thing that my grandmother, your great-grandmother, did.”

  Oliver, who was putting away the silverware, looked up at the ceiling. “Do you think maybe she knows when we use her bowl?”

  I smiled. “It’s a nice thought, isn’t it? Maybe she does. It’s kind of a nice way to remember our ancestors, isn’t it? Using something the same way they did.”

  My son was sold, but Jenna looked unconvinced and somewhat troubled. “Who are you going to give the bowl to? I mean, if you give it to me someday, do I have to use it for mashed potatoes?”

  I wanted to laugh, but my children’s faces were so serious that I didn’t dare. “Whoever gets the bowl can use it for anything she or he would like.”

  “A dog dish?” Oliver asked, bouncing up on his toes and grinning.

  Jenna looked at the simple bowl that was so precious to me. “I think it would make a good place to put extra hockey pucks.”

  “Anything.” I stowed the bowl away in the cabinet. Just a piece of glass, but every time I touched it, I felt the love of my grandmother. Someday it would break, and though of course I knew that nothing lasted forever, I’d cry over the loss. Then I’d find some other way to feel my grandmother’s love and forget all about the bowl. Almost. “Okay, kiddos, you two can finish this up. I need to take a look at today’s mail.”

  I walked into the small room off the kitchen. George was curled up in the desk chair. He squawked when I picked him up, but started purring when I sat down and put him on my lap.

  “You’re a big faker,” I told him. “I’m pretty sure you make that horrible squawking sound just so I feel sorry for you and let you stay on my lap and get black cat hair all over my pants.”

  He kept purring, which I took as confirmation of my new theory.

  Cats.

  The mail was the typical mix. Junk mail, catalogs full of things that I didn’t need and couldn’t afford, bills, and a letter. A handwritten letter.

  “That’s not typical,” I told George. “Do you know how not typical it is?”

  George yawned. Apparently, he didn’t care. And he didn’t care even when I told him the last time I’d received anything handwritten outside of Christmas cards, birthday cards, and the occasional wedding invitation was in 1997, when my college roommate had sent me a letter announcing that she was pregnant with twins.

  I studied the envelope. Standard number ten, common flag stamp, no return address. I didn’t recognize the handwriting, and the postmark . . . I squinted. The city name was a long one, but it was so smudged, I couldn’t make out most of the letters. The state letters were also smudged, but I was pretty sure they were AK.

  Weird. Why on earth would anyone in Alaska be sending me a letter?

  I slit open the envelope and pulled out the single piece of paper it contained. Tri-folded, plain white copy paper. I unfolded it and began to read.

  Dear Beth, if you’re reading this, I’m dead.

  My vision tunneled until all I sa
w was that single sentence, then a smaller and even tighter circle until all I saw were two words. I’m dead. There was no air to breathe, no life in the world, no nothing save that single stark phrase.

  I’m dead.

  My breath eventually came back and my vision gradually widened enough for me to look at the bottom of the page for the name. Cookie Van Doorne.

  I put the letter down. If I didn’t read it, I wouldn’t have to know what Cookie had wanted to tell me. There was little to no chance that what she’d written was something I wanted to know. Did I have to read it? Was I obligated to read it?

  Well, yes. I was.

  I picked up the letter.

  Dear Beth,

  If you’re reading this, I’m dead. For a few weeks now, I’ve suspected someone has been trying to kill me. I even talked to a police officer, but I could tell he thought I’m a batty old lady with cobwebs in her head who has nothing better to do than be scared of things that go bump in the night. In his defense, though, I have no proof. A car that came close to running me over on a rainy night and noises in the backyard aren’t things that show up on those investigation shows.

  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.

  Chapter 10

  The 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?”