Poison at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  I stopped dead, halfway up the stairs. “Oh, Claudia. I never would have done that. Never.”

  “Yeah. I should have known better. Um, thanks.”

  Hot embarrassment flamed my face. Happily, Claudia was behind me and couldn’t see. “Don’t mention it.” Please don’t. But I knew she would. She’d tell her husband and her children and her friend Tina and her friend CeeCee and . . . I sighed.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she asked.

  “I will be.” Eventually, I’d be fine.

  “So now what?”

  “We call Gus.”

  • • •

  After listening to my short but concise explanation of the evening’s events, a hoarse Gus asked me where we were.

  “In Claudia’s car,” I said. With the doors locked. Claudia had insisted on looking at my cut before I called. After cleaning up the blood and sticking bandages on me, she’d pronounced that I didn’t need to go to the emergency room. It was nice that we agreed on something.

  “And her car is where?” Gus asked.

  I frowned. What difference did it make as long as we weren’t in the basement about to die? “In Cookie’s driveway.”

  “You need to leave immediately.”

  My frowned deepened. “We’re fine. We even have the doors locked.” I forced out a chuckle. “You know, just in case.”

  “Get out of there now!”

  I blinked. Gus had used the chief of police voice on me. He wouldn’t have done that unless he had a very good reason. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll—”

  “Go to the police station. Don’t worry about calling the gas company. I’ll take care of that and the neighborhood evacuation. Just leave. Now!”

  He was gone. I handed Claudia the phone. “He wants us to go to the police station.”

  “What for?”

  And that’s when I remembered what had happened a couple of years ago. How a gas leak in a house had caused an explosion that had flattened the house and taken walls out of the houses surrounding it. How the explosion had caused structural damage to houses in the next outer ring. How people had died.

  “It’ll be more comfortable there,” I told her. “This might be a long night.”

  • • •

  The nice Officer Sean Zimmerman greeted us at the door. When we were settled, decaf coffee in hand, he started asking questions. He was still asking questions when I needed to take a bathroom break and he was still asking questions when Gus came in.

  “Haven’t you finished yet?” Gus pulled a chair up to the interview table and sat heavily.

  “Almost, sir.” Sean scanned his notes, then looked up. “So after you cut the string, disabled the furnace, broke the window, and got out of the house, you called Chief Eiseley from Mrs. Wolff’s car. Is that correct?”

  Claudia and I nodded.

  Gus put one elbow on the table and rested his chin on the heel of his hand. “Sean, did you ask them why they were there in the first place?”

  “Yes, sir, I did. Mrs. Wolff said, and Mrs. Kennedy corroborates, that they were making sure the house was secure. They said . . .” He checked his notes. “They said that they’d been at the bookstore. During a conversation about the PTA, they’d started to worry about Mrs. Van Doorne’s house being empty for so long, and they decided to check on it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Gus didn’t sound convinced. Which wasn’t surprising, since Gus had known me for a long time, but Claudia and I had come up with a story and we were sticking to it. Not a bad story, really, and it was almost true.

  Well, it was a little bit true.

  “So what happened?” Claudia asked. “Did you get him?”

  Gus folded his hands. “Mr. Olsen is in custody and being held at the county jail. Evidence is being collected. Your statements will be of great assistance to the investigation.”

  Later, I would learn that Gus and a fellow officer had burst in on Kirk at his stockbroker’s office. Since he hadn’t been able to get into the bookstore—thanks to me giving him last week’s security code—he’d taken out his frustration on an innocent back door by denting it with his fists and feet. When they’d found him in his office, he’d been online, booking a safari trip to Africa.

  Later, I would learn that Kirk had embezzled more than two hundred thousand dollars from his clients and from his employer. Later, I would learn that he’d been let go by his previous employer, Glenn Kettunen, because of accounting discrepancies. Later, I’d learn that Kirk had a storage locker full of brand-new golf clubs, new power tools, a new sixty-inch television, and a new boat.

  I would learn all that later, and none of it would make me happy, because all I could think about was Isabel. The pregnant Isabel. What was she going to do without her husband? How was she going to manage? How would Neal and Avery and the upcoming baby manage without a father?

  “You okay?” Gus asked.

  I shook my head. Then nodded. I wasn’t okay, but I would be. I’d feel much better after I got home and snuggled into my own bed with my cat and dog. And I’d feel even better after calling Pete, because more than anything, what I wanted was to hear his voice. “I’m fine. Can we go home?”

  “Sure. We’re done for the night.”

  I started to stand, then plopped back down. “My car is still parked near Cookie’s house.”

  “No problem,” Gus said. “I’ll give you a ride.”

  But it was Claudia who stood and held out a hand to help me up. “Let me,” she said, and smiled at me. A real smile that made her look almost like . . . a friend.

  • • •

  The next day was Saturday. I hadn’t been scheduled to work, but after I found myself wandering aimlessly around the house with a dust rag for an hour without having dusted a single thing, I drove to the store.

  A wide-eyed Lois and a shocked Flossie listened to my story of What Happened Last Night with only the occasional “Get out of here!” and “Oh, dear” for interruption.

  When I finished, Flossie touched my arm. “And you? How are you?”

  “I’m . . .” Fine, I almost said. But something held me back. Maybe it was the empathy in her pale eyes, maybe it was the kindness in her voice, and maybe it had something to do with not having called Marina last night. Whatever the reason, instead of the standard “I’m fine,” what I said was “I’m not sure.”

  Lois blinked. “But you’re always fine. Now you’re suddenly not?”

  “The social ‘I’m fine’ does not equate to truth,” Flossie said. “She says ‘I’m fine’ because that’s what you want to hear.”

  “That’s not true.” Lois squared off to face her opponent. “Heck,” she said, “I’d rather hear someone say, ‘Oh, but that looks good on you’ than hear Beth tell half a lie. A quarter of a lie. And I’d rather hear someone say—”

  But by then I was out the door and walking down the street.

  “Thought I’d see you this morning.” Gus waved at his guest chair. “What’s on your agenda today? Catch another killer?”

  “I sincerely hope not,” I said, unzipping my coat. Not this morning and, with any luck, not ever again. “And it’s a little disheartening that I’m so predictable.”

  “Means you’re reliable. Stolid. Trustworthy.”

  “Stuck in a rut. Boring.”

  He smiled. “Boring people don’t break into empty houses to try and find a clue to a killer’s identity.” He held up his hands as I started my obligatory protest. “I know, I know. You and Claudia Wolff had a story, and you’re sticking to it. Speaking of which, you and Claudia working together is unexpected. How did that happen to come about?”

  “Bad luck, really.” I rolled out the backstory of the previous night, then said, “What I don’t understand is why. Why did Kirk . . . you know.”

  Gus leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Cookie Van Doorne considered herself an arbiter. She was law enforcement, prosecutor, jury, and judge all in one handy package.”


  I frowned. “It sounds as if you knew this for a while.”

  “Oh, yes. Cookie’s style of justice had not escaped our notice. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about this earlier, but it wasn’t knowledge I could release. Even to you.” He smiled briefly. “Most of her ‘projects,’ as she called them, were relatively harmless, and, no, I’m not going to say who they were and what they’d done.”

  As if I wanted to know. Well, maybe I did, a little, but it would be best if I never knew anything about any of it.

  “Anyway,” Gus went on, “I told her that someday she was going to get herself into trouble. That if she didn’t stop being a one-woman Justice League she was going to get hurt.”

  “But she didn’t stop,” I said.

  “No.” He sighed. “She didn’t. At the time—last summer, I think it was—she smiled and said she had it all worked out. That she’d told all of her projects she had revealing information about them. That if anything happened to her, all the dirt would come out.”

  “And did she?”

  “Have the information?” He shrugged. “I imagine she did, somewhere. But we searched the house top to bottom and didn’t find . . .” He dropped his hands and his gaze sharpened. “What’s the matter?”

  “The box,” I whispered.

  “Box? What box?”

  “The box Cookie had a neighbor of hers send to me after her death.”

  “A box you never thought to mention to me? No, wait. Never mind. I’ve been out sick, and you didn’t want to show it to anyone else.”

  I nodded. “Plus, what’s inside is . . . well, it’s weird.” I started to describe some of the contents, but he interrupted.

  “And where is said box right now?”

  I stood. “At the store. I’ll go get it.”

  Chapter 22

  As I hurried up the sidewalk, my purse started singing “The Good Old Hockey Game.” I dug for my cell phone.

  “Hey, Mom,” Jenna said.

  “Hey, yourself. How are you this lovely morning?” And it was a nice morning, I decided, looking around. The sky was clearing, and while it was too cold for many birds to be twittering, there were signs that spring was indeed coming. Not many signs, but warmer weather would be here soon. I was sure of it.

  “Guess what happened.”

  “You got your weekend homework done already.”

  “Mom.” She shaped the single syllable into approximately six. It might have been more, but I lost count.

  “Can I have one more guess?”

  “No,” she said. “Coach called me this morning.”

  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “What did he say?”

  “I’ve told you about the new girl? Hannah?”

  “At least once.”

  She blew over the trace of irony I’d let slip into my voice. “Our game this afternoon . . . um, you’ll be there, right?”

  “Of course I will. Pete and I both. And we’ll be holding up signs with your name on them.”

  “If you do, I will die of embarrassment. Just plain die. Anyway, Coach says I’ll be starting the game today.”

  I started to say congratulations, but she wasn’t finished.

  “I start first period and Hannah plays second period. Then whoever has the lowest goals-against number for the game will play the third period.” She sounded pleased with the concept.

  “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Yeah, it’s a good idea. Hannah’s a good goalie, too, so she should get a chance to play. Splitting the periods is about as fair as you can get, don’t you think? Coach is pretty smart.”

  “He’s the King Solomon of coaches.” I thought for a moment about the wisdom of Solomon, then asked, “Your muscles won’t get too tight sitting out a period, will they?”

  “Mooom, don’t worry so much.”

  Oh, my dear, you have no idea how much I worry. Every day of my life I will worry about you—about your safety, about your health, about your happiness—and there is no changing that. It’s what moms do.

  “I’ll try,” I said, which was a total and complete lie. “I’ll see you this afternoon, sweetheart. Where’s your brother?”

  “Hang on.” The phone clunked down and I was treated to what sounded like a battle from a nearby war zone. Odds were good that the kids were playing one of the video games their father had purchased for them, but you never knew. Maybe rival gangs had infiltrated Richard’s condominium complex and—

  “Hi, Mom!”

  A teensy shred of worry wafted off into the sunlight. My children were fine and all was right with the world. Well, almost. “Good morning, honey. What did you three do last night?”

  He launched into a bite-by-bite account of the take-out Chinese meal they’d eaten. I heard about the hot-hot-hot! bite of Szechuan chicken he’d tried from his father’s plate and how funny shrimp look. I heard how much he liked the crab rangoons and how they’d played rock-paper-scissors for the last one.

  “Who won?”

  “Dad did.” He giggled. “Dad used thermonuclear holocaust, but then he split the rangoon, so Jenna and I got half each.”

  Who knew so many King Solomons were in our midst? Certainly I’d never suspected my former husband of being one, but perhaps he was rising to the occasion as the kids grew older. “Sounds as if you had fun.”

  “I guess so.”

  His tone was a little distant. A new worry jabbed at me. “Oliver, are you feeling okay? You’re not coming down with a cold, are you?” This was the result of his nighttime trek in the snow. Only a cold at first. Then it would devolve into flu, then pneumonia. He’d be hospitalized and it would be my fault for not being a better mother.

  “I’m good,” he said. “It’s just . . .” He sighed.

  My grip on the phone tightened. “What, honey? Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.” Hundreds of concerns flashed through my brain. He’d broken his dad’s computer and was afraid to tell him. He wanted to take up the bassoon. He wanted to take up go-cart racing. “Talk to me, Ollster,” I said gently.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “What’s better for a girl, to have brown hair or to have yellow hair?”

  I started walking again. This was his question? “I’d say hair color doesn’t matter at all.”

  “Yeah, but what’s prettiest?”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” I said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Different people think different things are pretty, just like different people like to eat different things. Your dad likes spicy foods. You don’t. Either way is fine.”

  “So I can like yellow hair best?”

  “It’s fine to prefer blondes, but what counts more is if the girl is nice.”

  “I think,” he said dreamily, “that Mia Helmstetter has the prettiest hair of anyone in the whole school.”

  “You . . . do?”

  “Do you think she might ever like me someday? I mean, when we’re grown up and stuff?”

  I smiled into the phone, smiled at my son, smiled at the whole world. “Anything is possible, Oliver. Anything.”

  • • •

  My smile lasted down the block, across the side street, down most of the next block, and through the front door of my bookstore and into its warmth. Then it stopped. Lois and Flossie were at it again.

  “I have no idea why you think the writings of J. K. Rowling are any comparison to the outstanding prose of Katherine Paterson,” Flossie said, frowning at Lois, who didn’t miss a beat.

  “A little angst is fine,” she said, “but bring a little humor to a story, will you? Life isn’t all dark and dreary. I don’t care who you are or what’s happened to you. You need to lighten up sometimes.”

  Flossie kept on. “It’s the job of a storyteller to tell the story. If the story isn’t amusing, there’s no need to add levity for the sake of levity.”

  “Oh, yeah? Uh . . .” Lois faltered, then got her second wind. �
�What about Tom Sawyer? Didn’t you say that’s your favorite young adult book ever? Maybe it would have been better if Twain had taken out all that stuff that makes you laugh.”

  I saw a dark expression fall across Flossie’s face. Oh, dear. Lois had crossed a line. Making fun of someone’s favorite childhood book was something you just did not do. Not in my store, anyway. I put my fingers in my mouth and blew.

  The piercing whistle had the desired result. The two women stopped arguing and turned to face me.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Lois asked, scowling. “We’re just having a friendly disagreement.”

  “Yes.” Flossie nodded. “Very friendly. I can’t imagine a friendlier disagreement.”

  “I know exactly what you’re disagreeing about,” I said, “and it’s time to stop.”

  Lois’s scowl kept going. “So you want us to stop talking about books. That seems a little much for a bookstore.”

  “You’re arguing about me and you’re going to stop. I am not an issue in a tug-of-war, I am not a bone of contention for you two to growl over, and I will not tolerate another argument.”

  There was a short silence. “Paoze,” Lois muttered. “I’m going to wring his skinny little neck.”

  “You say anything to him about this and I’ll fire you.”

  “Oh, come on, Beth, you—” Lois stopped and gave me a long look. “You would. You really would.”

  “Wouldn’t want to, not in the least, but I also can’t have you two going at each other whenever I’m out of the store. Now, I’m going back to my office.” I cast about for a plan. Found one and smiled a slightly evil and Lois-like smile. “By the end of the day, I would like everything taken off the tops of the bookshelves, dusted, and put back. A much easier task if you work together, yes?”

  Though I dearly wanted to watch the expressions on their faces, I didn’t want to ruin my exit line, so I spun on my heel and marched to the back of the store.