Plotting at the PTA

by Laura Alden

  Spot and I plunged into the green mass. We waded up the drive, around the side of the house, and into the backyard.

  Here, where overgrown bushes shaded much of the grass, the lawn looked not so much abandoned as merely unkempt. Which was a good thing, because I needed to take a close look at . . . well, at all of it.

  Spot and I stood in the middle of the yard. I turned all the way around, trying to remember if I’d ever heard the details. All I knew was that she’d been found here with an EpiPen and a can of bee killer.

  Spot bumped his head up against me and I rested my palm on the soft fur over his eyes. “We’ll do a grid pattern,” I said. “Start over there”—I pointed to the right—“go to the opposite side of the yard, then come back across. If we don’t find anything, we’ll start there”—I nodded at the far back of the yard—“and work back and forth toward the house. See? That way we’ll cover everything at least twice.”

  The dog seemed as interested in a leaf tumbling across the grass as in anything I’d said.

  “You could at least pretend to listen,” I muttered.

  We started in the lilac bushes next to Thurman and Lillian’s house. Their windows were shut and the shades down. I hoped Thurman was doing well and that they were off on an adventure somewhere.

  I studied the ground. Leaves, twigs, dried-up pieces of flowers, and nothing else. The over-warm weather had pushed the lilacs to bloom early and their light scent was almost gone.

  “We’ll start here,” I told Spot. “Ready, set, go.”

  Every few steps I glanced up and re-aimed myself at the garage. Walking, head down, I saw grass, grass, more grass, then the fading white paint of the garage.

  Sidestepping two feet, I called, “About face!” I spun in place, moving the leash from one hand to the other. “Forward march!”

  Back across the yard we went, marching into the lilacs, looking hard, finding nothing, then back to the garage. Back and forth, going deeper into the dark, overgrown backyard, bushes closing in from all sides. Amy had died in here, it was right here that she’d gasped her last breath, right here. . . .

  Suddenly, Spot’s warm and panting presence was a great comfort. I went down on my knees and hugged him tight, then pulled back and looked into his face. His big brown eyes gazed into mine, then he lunged at my cheek with his wet tongue. Smiling, I wiped my face and gave him another hug. “I love you, too.”

  Then I stood up and started walking again.

  Back and forth, back and forth, searching for something, searching for anything, finding nothing.

  Back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  It was on approximately the forty-second trek across the yard, which was about fifteen minutes into the sinking feeling that this was a complete waste of time and that I should have gone back to the store long ago, that I looked at the largest bush, a thick thorny mass whose branches grew low to the ground. “It’s going to be in there, isn’t it?”

  Spot looked up at me and didn’t say anything.

  “Of course it will be,” I said, sighing. If forty-one years of life on planet Earth had taught me anything, it was that answers weren’t usually found by seeking the easy way out. Which was too bad, really, because it sure would be nice, at least once in a while, to learn something without great pain and agony.

  I put my arms over my head and plunged into the darkness.

  Sharp scraping of skin, tuggings at hair and clothes, a sudden black panic thanks to a long-ago TV nature show about snakes living in trees, pushing branches back over my head, fighting through, on my knees, looking down, looking, looking . . . and there it was. What I’d hoped to find. What I’d wanted to find.

  But now that I’d found the evidence, I realized that I hadn’t really wanted to find it at all.

  * * *

  The entire weekend I thought about what I’d seen. Throughout dinner with Evan, throughout the romantic happy-ending movie colored warm by a lush score, and throughout our hand-in-hand walk in the warm evening, I kept thinking about Amy. Amy and her killer. Because I now knew, without a single doubt, that she had been murdered. The question was, what did I do with the knowledge?

  The obvious answer was to go to the police. But the local police were satisfied that Amy’s death had been accidental.

  And who else could I talk to? I knew a deputy with the sheriff’s department, but she’d defer to local jurisdiction for something like this. “This happened in Rynwood?” she’d ask. “Then I’m sorry, but you need to talk with your own police department. Have a nice day and don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”

  “Beth?” Evan pushed back a strand of my hair. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Mmm.” No, I wasn’t. I was heartsick that Amy had been murdered, and conflicted about my next course of action. Talking to Sean would be easy, but it wouldn’t create the results Amy deserved. Talking to Gus would be harder than telling my daughter that she couldn’t go to the mall with her friends until she was older. Once upon a time he’d understood. Once upon a time he’d believed in my instincts. And listened.

  “What do you say we head back home?” Evan asked, swinging my hand. “I have a nice bottle of wine just waiting to be uncorked.”

  “Mmm.”

  So all I had to do was get Gus to listen. Of course, the last time I saw Gus, he’d as good as thrown me out of his office and told me to never come back, not in a million years. Or words to that effect.

  “A nice Malbec,” Evan said. “And I found a new brand of organic dark chocolate to try. How does that sound?”

  “Um . . . nice.”

  It would be appalling to face the man who used to be my friend. It would make my stomach hurt and tangle up my tongue so that my words would come out silly or stupid, or both.

  So easy to let it go. So easy to disregard what I’d found. So easy to pretend that it didn’t matter.

  But it did. Amy had mattered, and her death should be—even in my head I hesitated to say avenged; melodrama was more Marina’s style than mine—should be shown for what it was. Murder couldn’t be swept under the rug. If you tried, it would sit and fester and grow until it filled the room, the house, the whole world.

  So I had to talk to Gus.

  I had to try.

  * * *

  The next morning I prepared for church with a trepidation I hadn’t felt since I’d been selected to sing a solo in junior choir. With even a little bit of luck, my upcoming talk with Gus would turn out better than my singing had.

  Choosing to talk to Gus at church was, of course, a seriously weenielike decision. I’d wait until after the service when he had coffee in his hand and his wife at his side. The social programming of generations would insist that he answer my questions politely. Perfect.

  The plan should have cheered me, but it didn’t. The drive though the morning sunshine should have perked me up, but that didn’t help, either. And when Gus didn’t show up, my spirits drooped even further.

  “No Gus?” I asked the choir director.

  Kay shrugged and shook her head. “Scale of C please,” she said, and raised her arms.

  Milling around in the lounge afterward, I tried to find anyone who knew anything about Gus’s whereabouts. “Nope, haven’t heard.” “Sorry.” “No, and I haven’t seen Winnie lately, either.”

  It was true; I hadn’t seen either Gus or Winnie at church . . . well, since Gus and I had fallen out.

  “What’s the matter, Beth?” The gentleman I’d asked was frowning. “Have you heard something about the Eiseleys?”

  I hadn’t heard a thing. Didn’t know anything, didn’t want to know anything, especially if it had to do with me being the reason Gus and Winnie had left the church.

  No. It couldn’t be. I was taking my tiff with Gus much too seriously. Families didn’t leave a church they’d attended for decades because of a minor argument with a fellow church member.

  But they did. I’d seen it happen with wretched regularity.

/>   I magicked a smile onto my face, reassuring the man with whom I was talking, but it wasn’t doing anything for me. Because now that I couldn’t talk to Gus at this congenial location, I’d have to do it tomorrow. On his turf.

  * * *

  Monday morning was so busy that it wasn’t until after lunch that I could take time to slip out. Usually I enjoyed walking through downtown, drinking in the sights and smells of Rynwood, waving at the ever present Cindy Irving and complimenting her on the lush landscaping. Today, however, the sun had heated the world past the point of happiness. August temperatures in May? Ick.

  I gave Cindy a limp wave and walked in as much shade as I could find. Trees, awnings; I even slowed for a moment in the shadow of a parking meter. Even using all the precautionary measures I could find, my forehead was still damp with sweat when I opened the front door of the police department.

  “Oh . . .” I’d expected to be immersed in a bath of air-conditioning, and what I was got instead was a stuffy and slightly warmer version of outside. My face, already hot, flushed a little hotter.

  All the windows were open in an unfulfilled attempt to bring in a cross breeze. No wind, no air, nothing but stifling heat that wanted to knock me to my knees. How could anyone work like this? I peered over the edge of the counter. Maybe Sean had fainted and was lying on the floor, near death from heatstroke. Or would it be heat exhaustion? One was worse, but I could never remember which.

  “Be right with you.” The voice was polite, male, and headed my way. It was also the voice of Gus.

  I backed up, putting one hand behind me, looking for the door handle, finding it with my hip. I turned in preparation for a quick exit, but I wasn’t quick enough.

  “Sorry about the broken air conditioner, and the wait.” Gus and his footsteps came into the room. “We’re short-staffed today and—oh. Hello, Beth.”

  The top half of my body turned around, but the bottom half remained pointed in the outward direction. “Um, is Officer Zimmerman around?”

  “No.”

  That was too bad. I’d convinced myself that I could get Sean to listen to me. Now I had no choice. I hated when I didn’t have choices. Of course, I didn’t always like having choices, either, especially in the grocery store. Was I a horrible mother if I didn’t take the time to study the numerous brands of paper towel? Was I neglecting my children if I didn’t research the pros and cons of the newest variety of peanut butter? Grocery stores were full of temptation and guilt and wouldn’t it be nice if you could just order groceries online?

  “Do you have a question?” Gus asked.

  “Sean’s okay, isn’t he?” I glanced at the counter. I hadn’t seen him down on the floor, but maybe he was behind the desk where I couldn’t see him.

  “Vacation. Do you have a question?” Gus asked again. The consonants came out clear and strong. “A real crime to report?”

  I searched for something to say. Surely there was a topic the two of us could discuss that would establish some common ground. Get a firm base first, then move on to more troublesome topics. At least that’s what the management articles said.

  “Didn’t see you in church yesterday,” I said. “We missed you and Winnie both. How is she these days? I haven’t seen her in weeks, it seems.”

  “Winnie’s fine! Leave her out of this.”

  I blinked. Gus rarely raised his voice, not even when doggedly running after miscreants and ne’er-do-wells. “Um, I’m glad Winnie’s doing okay.” And what a dumb thing to say that was.

  Gus glared at me and I began to take a serious interest in my shoes. Which, now that I looked at them, were in dire need of polishing. It was rarely a good idea to look at your own shoes.

  “Since you don’t seem to have anything to say,” Gus said, “I need to get back to work. Have a good—”

  Then it all came blurting out. “I went back to Amy’s. I found something. Proof that she was murdered.”

  “Amy Jacobson’s death was an accident.”

  “How sure are you?” I edged forward, but still kept one hand on the doorknob. “Absolutely positively one hundred percent sure? Sure way deep down inside?”

  Gus’s shoulders rose and fell. “What, exactly, did you see?”

  He was using the patient voice. I’d hated that voice when my brother used it, hated when my former husband used it, and now I was hating it all over again.

  “A broken wasp nest.”

  Gus gave me a look. Not the one I’d been hoping for, the aha-that’s-the-missing-piece look, but more a what-is-she-talking-about expression accompanied by a side order of slipping tolerance.

  “A wasp’s nest,” he said.

  “And it was broken.” I waited for him to arrive at the inevitable conclusion, but he didn’t seem to go anywhere. “Don’t you see? Someone tossed that nest into Amy’s backyard with the intent of having the wasps sting Amy. This proves it was murder.”

  Gus didn’t move. Didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe, as far as I could tell. “It proves nothing,” he said, “except that there’s a wasp nest in the yard, much like every other yard in town. Why are you so intent on murder?”

  “Because she was so allergic to stings that she would have had any wasp, bee, or hornet’s nest removed as soon as it got started.”

  “New or old nest?”

  A question! He’d asked a question! Maybe he was listening to me, maybe he was taking this seriously. “I’m not exactly an expert on wasp nests.”

  “Me, either. No one here is, if you can believe it.” Gus spread out his arms to include the entire building.

  “Maybe you could call the university and talk to an entomologist. Get him to come take a look?” I felt around in my purse for my notebook and pulled it out. “I’ve been taking notes and—”

  “This isn’t a TV show,” Gus said, his voice going loud. “And the answers aren’t always what we want them to be. It was an accident.”

  “And why are you so insistent that it’s not murder?” My voice was getting loud, too. “Why can’t you see another point of view? Are you always so right that you can’t take a second look at your conclusions?”

  “You have no right to question this police department.”

  I was suddenly glad I was gripping the door handle. At least this way I knew which way was up. “I have every right,” I said, more quietly. “If I see a wrong, it’s my duty to see that it’s corrected.”

  “Beth Kennedy, fighter of evil.”

  He smiled, but it was more a smirk than a proper smile, and it looked all wrong. Where had the real Gus gone? Who was this unkind stranger who had taken over his body?

  “All that is necessary for evil to triumph,” I said, quoting somebody or other, “is for good men to do nothing.”

  “And you’re the good man in this case?” Gus asked.

  “I’m certainly not the bad one.”

  “You’re implying that I am?”

  “I’m trying to get you to do your job.”

  The words hung in the air between us, dry and bony and ugly. We stared at each other through the invisible letters. I saw a lined and weary face, one that I loved like a brother. What he saw I did not know.

  I took a small step forward, hand out. “Gus, I didn’t—”

  “Yes, you did.” His shoulders rearranged themselves inside his uniform, under the Armor Express vest all on-duty officers wore. “You meant every word of it.” He nodded. “Thank you for your comments. I’ll study the file. If I have any questions, I’ll let you know.”

  He spun around and marched off. Three seconds later, his office door shut. Firmly, but not loudly.

  I opened the front door. Cell phones and cordless handsets had taken away the satisfaction of ending a phone call with a bang, but at least there were still doors to fill the gap.

  Slam!

  “I knew he wouldn’t be any help.” All the way back to the bookstore, I had my head down, muttering to myself. “Amy was murdered, I know she was. And so was Kelly.” But t
he proof of that was even more ephemeral than a wasp’s nest. Gee, Chief Eiseley, how do I know Kelly was murdered, Chief Eiseley? Because, that’s why.

  “Faye was lying,” I told the sidewalk. “Maybe Barb was right, maybe Faye did kill Kelly. Maybe Amy found out, somehow.” The idea took hold and I started to run with it.

  “Sure. That makes a lot of sense.” I almost stumbled into Cindy Irving, who was backing out of a planter bed. Some atavistic instinct made me dance out of the way of her garden cart. I waved at her absently, and carried on with my monologue.

  “Yes, Amy found out. Faye had to keep Amy quiet. Everybody knew about Amy’s allergies, so all Faye had to do was find a wasp nest and lure Amy outside.”

  My words were coming out clipped and my breaths were puffing out in short bursts.

  “Amy found out and Faye found out that Amy had found out. . . .”

  I slowed from a fast, arm-pumping walk to a slow and lethargic saunter. Because my logic had just fallen apart. How would Faye have known what Amy was doing? More to the point, how would reclusive Amy have known what Faye was doing?

  There was something I was missing. A big fat piece of the puzzle wasn’t in the box.

  “Think, Beth,” I told myself. “Think.”

  “About what?” Al from the antique store was out in front, sweeping the sidewalk clean.

  I jerked out of my daze. “Um, about the likelihood of Alice making a calorie-free cookie that tastes just as good as the real ones.”

  He laughed, shook his head, and kept on sweeping.

  “Think,” I said, putting one foot in front of the other, working on movement, hoping for momentum, praying for any thought that might help.

  But nothing came.

  * * *

  The next few days zoomed past in a blur of final story session editing, signing permission slips for end-of-school field trips, and covering for Lois at the store. “It’s my youngest,” she’d said on the phone. “You know, the daughter with multiple college degrees and a successful career as a Chicago computer geek? Well, not only hasn’t she had time to get married or provide me with a few more grandchildren, but it turns out none of those cooking lessons I gave her stuck in her pointed head. Especially the one about leaving potato salad out in the sun.”