Foul Play at the PTA

“Nice.” Faint applause noises came through the phone. “What I called to say is this.” She paused dramatically. “Are you ready? Brian Keller didn’t kill Sam.”

As revelations go, this one wasn’t stunning. Roughly one hundred percent of the interested population had reached the same conclusion days ago. “Glad to hear it.”

“I knew you would be,” she said. “Could I have a drumroll, please?”

“No.”

“Now, Beth,” she said patiently. “All good theories must be released with proper fanfare.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. Drumroll, please.”

Sighing, I pulled the fox off my hand and tapped the phone’s receiver with my fingers, simulating a drumroll with as little effort and embarrassment as possible.

“Is that the best you can do?” Marina demanded.

I kept tapping.

“Okay, okay. This time I really do know who killed Sam.”

While Marina wasn’t likely to posit that an alien from another galaxy had sucked the life force out of Sam, she could have come up with something almost as unlikely. “Great. Shall I notify the media?”

“Sam was killed by . . .”

She left the sentence unfinished, so I finished it for her. “The butler in the library with a candlestick.”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

Only if the killer was a complete stranger. If he was someone I knew, well, no, I didn’t want to hear.

“Okay, then,” she said into my silence. “Sam was killed by a jealous husband.”

The idea was so unlikely that it was ridiculous. I started laughing. “Come on, Marina, you don’t really believe that Sam was . . . you know.”

“Of course not,” she said indignantly. “The man didn’t have an adulterous bone in his body. But what if some poor misguided soul thought Sam was having an affair with his wife? What if Sam, nice guy that he was, stopped to help a woman change her car tire. What if she was so grateful that she sent him a card? What if her husband saw it, and he’s the wacked-out type who can’t stand if his wife so much as breathes in another man’s direction? Ergo, he killed Sam.”

As ludicrous as her theory was, there was a warped logic to it. And if morning talk shows were any reflection of reality—which they weren’t—then she actually had a valid point. There was only one problem.

“Who’s the jealous husband?” I asked.

“Who? You ask who?” She sounded like an owl. “How would I know? That’s for the police to figure out.”

I was getting a headache. “Marina, you can’t honestly expect me to go to the police with—”

“Oopy,” she said. “Hear those children screeching? Got to go play referee. See ya!”

In a very adult manner I stuck my tongue out at the phone. I’d see Marina soon enough, and in very certain terms I’d tell her there was no way on God’s green earth that I’d take her harebrained theory to the police. I could just see the pitying look on Gus’s face. “Did Marina put you up to this?” he’d ask.

No. I would not do it.

“You’ll do it.” Marina pushed a stack of cellophane bags across her kitchen table. “This is what investigating is all about. Pushing at things that don’t want to be pushed, pulling at things that won’t be pulled.”

“Why am I always the one who’s getting pulled and pushed?” From the piles in front of me, I chose six Tootsie Rolls, two sets of stickers, a small sack of candy corn, and a miniature plastic turkey wrapped in clear plastic, then, frowning, put it all into one of the bags. The whole concept of goody bags irritated me. “Tell me again why we’re giving candy and cheap gifts to kids who already eat too much sugar and have too many toys?”

“Ours not to reason why, my dear,” Marina said sadly. “It is the will of the PTA’s dance committee. We are mere minions to do their bidding.”

“How can you be a minion if you’re part of the committee?”

“Alas, I am only one vote.”

True enough, but how had the whole goody bag thing gotten started? I hadn’t received them when I was a kid, so when—

“You’re thinking again.” Marina tossed a Tootsie Roll at me. “Keep it up and those frown lines will become permanent fixtures. Then where will you be?”

“Same place I am now, only with frown lines on my face.”

“And Evan won’t be too pleased about that, now will he?”

She sounded a little snippy, which was completely un-Marina-like. I looked at her.

“What?”

Still snippy. “Are you feeling okay?” She did look a little flushed. Maybe she was coming down with something.

“I feel fine,” she said. “What, can’t I make a joke about Evan without you getting all defensive?”

She swallowed and I saw her throat bobble a little. Scratchy throat, for sure. Now came the tricky part: how to take care of Marina without her knowing I was taking care of her.

I stood up. “Do you still have that box of chamomile tea? A mug sounds good right now. And I was thinking, your theory about Sam being killed by a nutso jealous husband is a good one. Let’s make a list.” Not that I’d take it anywhere near the police station, but I’d find a way around that.

While I bustled about, doing tea-type things, Marina started naming the men who might be considered candidates. This included the husbands of every woman who had a child at Tarver, the husband of every woman who attended the Helmstetters’ church, the husband of every woman who shopped downtown, because Sam’s business was on the last block to the west, and the husband of every woman who shopped at the mall, because Sam often took the kids to the mall on rainy Saturday afternoons.

If Marina had run through the names alphabetically, she could have used the Rynwood phone book.

I placed two steaming mugs on the table and we both wrapped our hands around them, letting the warmth seep into our bones.

“Do you really think one of those men killed Sam?” I asked.

Marina put her face to the tea and breathed deep and long. “No. But we have to start somewhere.”

And, of course, she was right.

Chapter 10

The day of the Father-Daughter Dance dawned like a lot of days in November, overcast with a spatter of rain. This time every year I was reminded of the vacation conclusion I’d come to years ago: November was the month I’d love to travel.

“It’s raining,” Jenna said morosely. She was kneeling on the family room couch, her arms hanging long over the back, chin propped up by the tweedy brown upholstery. Raindrops trailed down and wind gusts buffeted the glass.

She heaved a huge sigh. Either she was spending too much time with Marina or she was about to enter the eye-rolling stage. Since I couldn’t do anything about either possibility, I opted for the next best thing. Distraction. “I saw a woman with green hair the other day.”

No response. She didn’t even turn around. I wasn’t sure she’d even heard me, because the next thing she said was as thorough a non sequitur as I’d ever heard.

“Do I have to go to the dance?”

I blinked. A week ago she’d wanted me to teach her how to waltz. Two days ago I’d come into my room and found her holding up one of my dresses, swishing the black chiffon around her legs and humming. She hadn’t noticed my approach, and I’d backed away with a smile of bittersweet happiness on my face.

Now I frowned at the back of her head. What didn’t I know about? Trouble at school? Had something happened between her and her father?

Thousands upon thousands of my synapses were firing simultaneously, but even so, it was going to take