Foul Play at the PTA bk-2

by Laura Alden

  We pushed through the only old business item, the upcoming Father-Daughter Dance, and all through the dance committee’s report my mouth grew drier and drier. If I tried to talk, would my voice work, or would it just squeak?

  “Next up is new business,” Erica finally said. “Item number one is a new spring project.”

  My hands were sweating. What if everyone thought my idea was dumb?

  Erica looked at me over her glasses. “Beth, you have the floor.”

  “Thanks.” I took a deep breath and looked out at the audience. Isabel Olson was in her son Neal’s seat. Sam Helmstetter, dubbed the Nicest Guy on the Planet, his nice brown plaid scarf still around his neck, had his head tilted toward Tina Heller, who was giggling. Sam’s expression was one of patient fortitude. He was used to Tina. The Hellers and the Helmstetters, in addition to their close proximity in the alphabet, lived backyard to backyard.

  Also out there was a mother newly arrived in town, though I couldn’t remember her name. Plus there was Debra O’Conner, formerly known as the Rynwood Woman Who Most Intimidates Me; Heather Kingsley; and CeeCee and Dan Daniels. Marina was home, watching over my children.

  I knew almost all of these people. Most of them I knew very well. I sold them books and stickers and stuffed animals, for heaven’s sake, so why was I suddenly so nervous?

  “First off,” I said, “please accept my apologies for changing the meeting date at such short notice. What I’m proposing”—my throat froze shut for an eternal moment—“is a story session between the children of Tarver and the senior citizens of Rynwood.”

  “At Sunny Rest Assisted Living,” Erica added.

  “That’s right.” My face lost its heat and my potential embarrassment suddenly seemed like a silly thing to worry about. “I think we’d all like more interaction between generations. My idea is to match Tarver students with Sunny Rest residents. The students will write stories about their residents, and the end product will be a book that both Sunny Rest and the PTA can sell as a fund-raiser.”

  “Lovely idea,” Erica said.

  I breathed a little easier. There’d be at least one vote for my motion. Well, two, including mine. When I’d first come aboard as secretary, I’d asked who made a tiebreaking vote. Erica looked thoughtful, Julie started paging through the bylaws, and Randy said he couldn’t think about things like that on an empty stomach. The question hadn’t been answered, and I’d forgotten all about it. Until now.

  Debra O’Conner raised her hand.

  “Yes, Debra?” Erica asked.

  “You said stories. What kind of stories?”

  I leaned forward, eager to explain. “The kids decide. But they’ll have a list of questions that need to be answered. Where the resident was born, what they liked to do as children, what music they listened to—oh, all sorts of things. We’ll decide on a minimum and maximum length, and the PTA will edit them.” I’d do the editing, probably, but the project was my idea, so it was only fair.

  “So more like an interview than a story,” Claudia said.

  Why did a comment that was factually accurate come across as derisive? I tried to separate tone from content and focused on the meaning. “Exactly. The kids will learn about lives very different from their own, and the residents will get their stories in print.”

  The room went quiet. I picked at my cuticles. Should I make the motion? Wait for someone else to make the motion? If no one else did, I’d have to, but that would look like failure from the get-go.

  Randy stirred, but said nothing.

  I pulled off a too-big piece of cuticle and watched red ooze to the surface.

  “Okay,” Claudia said. “I guess I’ll make a motion that the Tarver Elementary PTA coordinate with the school and Sunny Rest for a story session between the kids and the residents, details to be determined at a later date.”

  “Second,” Randy said.

  “All in favor?” Erica asked.

  There was a chorus of ayes.

  “The motion has passed.” Erica adjusted her glasses. “Next on the agenda is a gluten-free bake sale.”

  I tried to look interested, but on the inside I was doing cartwheels and pumping my fist into the air as if I’d won the Stanley Cup. They’d listened to me and paid attention to me and by golly they’d voted for the idea I’d proposed all by my lonesome. I couldn’t wait to tell Marina.

  The rest of the meeting passed by in a rosy haze. Finally, Erica said, “Meeting adjourned,” and banged the gavel.

  A general leave-taking commenced. People stood, pulled on their coats, and went out into the cold, dark evening. I gathered up my legal pad and tape recorder and pushed them into the worn bag that had, once upon a time, carried diapers.

  “Beth, do you have a minute?” Erica asked.

  Except for Harry, we were the last people left in the building. Harry, the janitor who doubled as security guard, always checked that the doors were locked. I’d caught sight of him on the way into the meeting, walking like a shadow through the halls in black pants, black long-sleeved shirt, and black sneakers so old they were back in fashion again. Ever since Harry and I discovered a mutual passion for hockey, we’d never run out of things to talk about. He cheered for the wrong team, but I was working on that.

  “Um . . .” I glanced at the wall clock above the whiteboard. There was a push to purchase interactive whiteboards, but the school’s budget barely allowed replacement of worn-out regular whiteboards, let alone anything technologically cool. The Tarver Foundation, funded by the estate of the late Agnes Mephisto, had been approached by the interactive advocates, but as yet there was no answer. “Marina’s watching the kids, but I have a few minutes.”

  “Excellent.” Erica, slim, elegant, and gray-haired, was the woman my mother had wanted me to be. Assertive without being aggressive, kind yet not a pushover, with the courage to stand up for what she thought was right.

  She’d been widowed as a young mother and parked her three children with her parents while she attended law school. She graduated with high honors, one of two women in the class. Erica found a job at a midsized firm in Madison and moved herself and her children north. Ten years later she was a partner. Five years after that she’d become senior partner and led the firm to be the largest in the region.

  Only now, in her retirement, did she have time for joining the library board and the garden club, and heading up the PTA. It was a good thing she was retired; otherwise, I would have had to reevaluate my vow to keep all lawyers at a quarter-mile distance.

  “This project of yours,” Erica said. “How deeply are you committed?”

  Deep? I blinked. What would be a good answer—five feet committed, but not six? “Um, deep enough to see the project through.”

  Erica chuckled. She did this regularly, but I was always surprised to hear such rich, easy laughter come out of the patrician framework. Bad Beth, for clinging to limiting stereotypes.

  “You’ve been spending too much time with lawyers,” she said. “Even recovering ones maintain a particular mind-set.”

  “Um . . .”

  “Back to your project. You came up with the idea yourself, correct?”

  “Yes, but I doubt it’s original.”

  “Hmm.” She drummed her fingers on her leather briefcase. “We can put our own spin on this.”

  I got the stomach-dropping feeling that “we” meant me. “What do you mean?”

  Erica buttoned her black coat. How she managed to have a dog and three cats and own a coat free of pet hair, I had no idea. Between the black from our cat George and brown from Spot the dog, pet hair was a permanent part of my wardrobe. “How big do you think?” she asked.

  Yet another open-ended query. Maybe I’d missed the e-mail that today was Hard Question Day. “Bigger than a breadbox, smaller than the solar system.”

  She laughed. “Do you think in terms of the entire state?” She lifted her leather case off the table, I picked up my ratty diaper bag, and we headed for the main entra
nce. “I think it has the potential to get big,” she said. “Fantasize with me for a minute.”

  My fantasies usually had more to do with grandchildren or a certain tall, blue-eyed man, not the PTA, but I could play along.

  “The Tarver PTA completes its first senior story session in June. We send out press releases across the state. We get newspaper, television, and blog coverage. We are suddenly the PTA to watch.”

  The two of us pushed through the metal double doors and the outside air slammed hard against our bodies. Erica kept talking, as if she hadn’t felt a thing.

  “Think of it, Beth. We could start a program that sweeps statewide. If we organize this well, it could go nationwide.”

  We walked across the lonely parking lot. Erica’s highheeled boots made clicking noises on the asphalt. My clunky trail boots made a quiet thud-thud as I hurried to keep up. Another mystery of life—how did any woman walk in high heels, let alone walk as fast as Erica did? I’d have to ask my physicist brother about it someday. Or not. If I asked, he’d tell me, and I’d be required to feign interest throughout the explanation.

  “Your story sessions,” Erica was saying, “could open a national conversation on ways to improve relationships between generations. And it all starts here.” She stopped at her car, a silver sedan from some foreign country. “It starts with you, Beth. How big do you think?”

  Why did my friends keep trying to talk me into doing things? More specifically, why did they try to talk me into doing things I didn’t want to do?

  A gust of wind blew down from the north, slithered around my neck, and snuck between my layers of clothing to hit skin. I shivered and the small of my back tightened with cold.

  “We have time to consider the ramifications,” Erica said. “But we should agree on how far we want to take this by the January meeting.”

  I’d turned to put my back to the wind, and doing so gave me a view of the far corner of the parking lot. An SUV sat all alone, surrounded by nothing but empty parking spaces and dormant grass.

  “This has the potential to be a life-changing project, Beth. Think of the people who could be touched by these stories.”

  Whose SUV was that? I squinted at it, trying to see in the gusting wind. What I noticed most about cars was size. After that, color. After that . . . well, there wasn’t anything after that. I frowned. It was hard to make out true color underneath the orangey hue cast by the parking lot lighting.

  “The possibilities are tremendous,” Erica said. “I have a few ideas for—”

  “Sam,” I said.

  “Helmstetter?” She flipped up the collar of her coat. “I hadn’t considered him, but you’re right. No reason not to tap into the business community.”

  I shook my head. “No, over there. That SUV is Sam’s.” He often took the parking spot the farthest away. The walk did him good, he always said. Plus, he’d add, why not leave the closer parking spots for someone who didn’t have two good legs.

  Erica turned. “Sam left long before we did.”

  The wind was rising, roaring with the threat of winter. A small sliver of a moon appeared briefly through the scudding clouds, then disappeared as if it had never been. There was no good reason for Sam’s SUV to be sitting there. If he’d been having car trouble, the hood would have been up and he’d have been waiting for a tow truck inside, where it wasn’t thirty-five degrees with a wind chill that cut to the bone. If he was having an illicit assignation, he wouldn’t have left his vehicle out for everyone to see.

  Not that Sam would be having an affair. He and his wife still held hands in public and sat shoulder to shoulder whenever seating arrangements allowed.

  “I suppose . . .” Erica sounded uncharacteristically indecisive. I glanced over and, even in the poor light, saw anxiety and concern on her face.

  “I’ll go check,” I offered. “Probably he had car trouble and someone gave him a ride home.”

  “Yes.” Her relief was obvious even in the one syllable. “How clever of you to come up with a likely explanation.” I started walking, and after a half-step hesitation, she came along. “My mama always said I made things more complicated than they needed to be. She said I was born to be a lawyer.”

  My mother had told me I was born to make her hair go gray, but I didn’t pass that comment on to Erica. I’d never understood Mom’s exasperation until I had children of my own. Oliver probably hadn’t understood my reaction when he shoved his multitudes of stuffed animals in the washing machine and added a bottle of detergent. And Jenna probably hadn’t understood how I could be angry when she’d taken the scissors to her bangs. “It’s my hair,” she’d said, weeping. I’d wept, too, over the quarter-inch-long tufts sticking straight up out of her head.

  Erica and I approached Sam’s SUV, her boots clicking, mine thudding. “Do you have any plans for your garden next year?” she asked. Erica was a master gardener and her garden was so spectacular that the Madison newspaper had done a Sunday feature on it.

  “Oliver wants to plant cucumbers.” The SUV’s windows were tinted slightly; I couldn’t see through them at all.

  “He’s eight? An excellent age to have his own gardening space. Old enough to have full responsibility and old enough to understand the direct relationship between hard work and the payoff hard work can bring about.”

  Why was Erica talking about gardening? She almost sounded nervous. “Old enough to pull weeds?” I couldn’t quite see into the driver’s seat. To gain some elevation, I walked on the balls of my feet for a few steps, but it didn’t help.

  “Old enough by far to detect the difference between a weed and a desirable plant. I had my children taking care of their first tomatoes by the time . . . ah, it appears that he just fell asleep.”

  “He’s been putting in long hours, trying to get his business off the ground.”

  “Well, he can’t sleep here all night. His wife will worry, and besides, he’ll freeze to death.” She rapped on the window. “Sam, wake up.” Her knuckles made a dull sound against the glass. “Sam?”

  I edged closer. Inside, a shadowy form sat in the front seat, slumping forward against the shoulder strap. If he slept like that much longer, he’d get a horrible stiff neck. As a business owner myself, I understood all about long weeks and fatigue and wearing myself thin, but I’d never fallen asleep in my car. At my desk, yes. On the couch trying to make sense of invoices, yes.

  “Sam!” Erica pounded on the window with her fist.

  Unease prickled at the back of my neck. I’d had this feeling before, and it hadn’t turned out well. “Um, Erica?” I dropped the diaper bag, pulled off my mittens, and reached into my purse for my cell phone. I flipped it open, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. “Erica, something’s wrong. There’s no way Sam is asleep.” Not even Jenna, my out-like-a-light daughter, could possibly sleep through all that window whacking. I punched the first number. Nine.

  “Sam?” Erica called. “Are you all right? Sam!” She grabbed the door handle and lifted it.

  I stabbed at the second number. One.

  Erica yanked the door open. “Sam? Are you—” Her question ended in a gasping shriek. Sam fell toward her, his scarf too tight around his neck. There was no life in his slumped body and his open eyes were seeing nothing but death. “Sam!” Erica screamed. She jerked off her gloves and felt for a pulse, then dragged Sam’s body out of the SUV and onto the cold ground. As she started the pointless job of CPR, I pushed the last button. One.

  There was a single ring. Then: “Dane County dispatch. What is your emergency?”

  Chapter 3

  Gus Eiseley, Rynwood’s chief of police, looked at me. “I hear you have the perfect alibi.”

  “It’s all my fault.” I clutched a cup of coffee as if it might be the rock that would sustain me. It wasn’t, of course. It was a blistering hot liquid that, thanks to its caffeine, would keep me awake most of the night, but after seeing poor Sam like that, it wasn’t likely that I’d be able to sleep anyway
. I blew at the coffee, making small ripples.

  “Your fault.” Gus turned a chair around and sat, putting his arms on the back and looking as comfortable as he looked in his living room. “Are you ready to make a confession?”

  I shook my head and almost slopped coffee over the side of the foam cup. “It’s my fault that Sam’s dead.”

  Gus propped his chin on his hands. “This, I can’t wait to hear.”

  The coffee’s temperature had dropped to merely scalding. I took one sip, then another, as I tried to think out a way to say what I had to say without sounding like a complete idiot. No matter what, Gus would be kind and understanding because that’s the way he was, but he would also poke me in the back at the next church choir rehearsal and make fun of me.

  I took another sip of coffee. “It’s my fault because if it hadn’t been for me, he would have been home tonight.”

  “And you think that would have made a difference?”

  “Well, yes.” I took another swallow. My drink of choice was tea, but Gus didn’t believe in anything brewed from leaves. “If he’d been home maybe his wife would have seen the signs and called 911 before he died.” Even though we were inside the school, I could see the revolving lights of the ambulance that arrived much too late to save Sam’s life. Around and around they went.

  “Signs?” Gus asked.

  I gestured with my cup. “Of a heart attack, or whatever it was. PTA meetings are always on Wednesdays. It was because of me that we met tonight.” Me and my dumb story session idea. I’d wanted the project approved, I’d wanted to get going on plans, I’d wanted to—

  “He didn’t die from a heart attack,” Gus said.

  “Oh.” I stole a look at my watch. Barely an hour had passed since I’d called 911. How Gus could know cause of death already, I wasn’t sure, but maybe forensic conclusions really did happen as fast as they did on television. “Um, stroke?”