Foul Play at the PTA

personally.”

In the back, Cindy’s face lit up, but the rest of the group didn’t look impressed. “Who cares what some politician did?” Claudia’s scorn was so deep that she splattered a little spit on the p of “politician.” “Everyone knows they issue those things at the drop of a hat for whoever contributes most to their campaigns. Pardons are a get-out-of-jail-free card; they don’t mean you weren’t guilty in the first place.”

Any minute now she’d implode from having too many conflicting opinions. I just hoped it wouldn’t be in my store. “But—” I stopped. If she didn’t understand that an acquittal and a pardon were two different things, then it wasn’t likely this would turn into a teachable moment.

“She was convicted of murder.” Claudia’s strident tones rang through the store. “There’s been a murder in Rynwood. I have no idea why the police haven’t arrested her, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”

My head started to ache. “Yvonne didn’t kill anyone,” I said. “Ever. You’re making a big mistake.”

Claudia’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re the one making mistakes. First, thinking you can run the PTA. Second, hiring a killer. The streets of our town won’t be safe—our children won’t be safe—until that woman is behind bars.” Claudia raised her mittened hand and, from what I could make out from the movements inside the wool, pointed her index finger at me. “And you can bet I’ll do all I can to get her there. Ladies?”

She turned and the group filed out. As the last one left, a gust of wind grabbed hold of the door and flung it wide open. I hurried to grab the handle and tried to pull it closed, tugging hard against the wind.

The group was huddled together outside the store, and my movements caught Claudia’s attention. Her gaze locked on mine and she pointed at me again. She mouthed some words, but since I was horrible at lip reading, I had no idea what she said. It could have been, “Have a nice day,” but it probably wasn’t.

I smiled at her pleasantly and shut the door.

“Hokey Pete,” Lois said. “Looks like Claudia has taken a turn for the worse. Say, maybe she killed Sam. Wouldn’t be the first time the real killer has tried to insert herself into an investigation.”

I wanted to ask on which episode of CSI that had happened, but I stopped myself in time. “Gus said all the people at the PTA meeting that night were cleared.”

“Well, shoot.” Lois slouched and crossed her arms. “Just when you think you have things all figured out, the facts have to rush in and confuse things.”

I knew exactly what she meant.

“Wonder what Claudia was talking about?” Lois mused. “How is she going to get Yvonne into prison?”

“She’s not. She’s just—” My mother’s admonition against gossip bounded into my brain. Thanks so very much, Mom. I sighed and restarted the sentence. “She’s just worried about her children.”

Lois snorted. “All I saw was Claudia being seriously mad at you.”

Which is what worried me. Claudia had been born and raised in Rynwood. If she started marshaling her troops against the store, we could be in real trouble. “Lois,” I asked slowly, “who do you think killed Sam?”

She sighed. “Oh, honey. I wish I knew. He was just so darn nice.”

“Didn’t he ever get into a fight, even as a kid?”

“Not so far as I remember. Though there was one thing . . .” She pinched her nose, then shook her head. “Nope. Can’t remember. Had to do with sports, though. So, high school?”

Or junior high, or elementary school. Or college, since he’d played baseball at Wisconsin. All it would take to figure it out was some time. Good thing there was a new day every morning. Twenty-four fresh hours to fill with kids, work, housework, starting up the PTA senior story session, and hey, let’s solve a murder, too.

Beth Kennedy, Renaissance woman. Either that, or Beth Kennedy, overcommitted woman destined for a breakdown.

One of those.

I pulled out a notepad. With Lois’s help and a phone call to Flossie, I’d soon have a new list, this one titled “Sam’s Former Teammates.” If I talked to enough of them, maybe, just maybe, I’d find a Clue.

All I could see of Todd Wietzel was his bottom half. His top half was so far inside a car’s engine compartment that it was invisible. Todd’s wife (Mindy, mother of ten-year-old Caitlin and five-year-old Trevor) had told me I’d find him in the garage. “I think it’s the water pump,” she said, “but he’s sure it’s electrical.”

It could have been a flat tire, for all I knew about cars. All that mattered to me about any internal combustion engine was that it worked when I turned it on. But, as I traipsed down the few steps from kitchen to garage floor, even I could see that the car Todd was working on was something special.

It was what they called a muscle car—a nickname that had never made any sense to me—and probably looked better than it had when it was new. Dark red paint gleamed under the garage’s fluorescent lights, and inside the red, small bright flecks caught the light and sparkled golden. The chrome rims shone, the tires were so black they seemed to swallow light, and the window glass was cleaner than any glass in a garage had a right to be.

“Hey, honey, could you hand me the timing light?”

I glanced at the array of tools spread across a nearby workbench. Looked at the stacks and stacks of red metal drawer sets that held a multitude of mysterious tools. Cast my eye at the floor, where a number of unidentified objects lay scattered about. “Um, what does it look like?”

Todd’s head popped up. “Hey, Beth. I thought you were Mindy. What are you doing here?”

I knew Mindy from PTA, and I knew Todd because Caitlin and Jenna played on the same girls’ hockey team. Caitlin played defense and was working hard on developing a wicked slap shot. Of all Sam’s former teammates to talk to, Todd was the easy first choice.

“Aren’t most show cars put away by now?” I asked, using the only thing I knew about the subject.

“Yah.” Todd levered himself up and out, then leaned backward in a long stretch. “Out of the blue this guy calls about buying this girl and the electricals aren’t right.”

“But . . .” I looked from the vehicle to him and back again, remembering all the stories I’d heard. “Didn’t you spend three years restoring this car? Didn’t you enter it into the Rynwood Car Show and win first place?”

“Yup.” He smiled at it fondly. “Judges said I could win car shows in this class all over the state.”

“And you’re going to sell it?”

“It’s the restoring that’s fun,” he said. “Going to shows is fine for some people, but I’d rather be in the garage tinkering.”

It made sense, in a warped and twisted sort of way. Kind of like raising children. You get them to where they might be rational human beings, and zoom! Off they go, to college or the military or the work world or into marriage or—

“So what can I do for you?” Todd wiped his hands on a rag.

Right. I wasn’t here to look at cars, I was here to ferret out clues that could lead me to a killer, clear Yvonne’s name, and keep me and my children out of that second-floor apartment.

“You know I’m secretary of the Tarver PTA? Well, we’re starting a scholarship fund. Mia and Blake are the first two recipients, but if the fund gets big enough, it’ll be endowed, and we can continue to give out scholarships forever.” Unless every dollar contributed was matched by a thousand from the Ezekiel G. Fund, it was unlikely that it would ever grow large enough to be self-perpetuating, but Todd didn’t have to know the whole story.

“I heard about that,” Todd said. “Caitlin got a sore throat Saturday afternoon, so we didn’t go to the dance.” He fumbled in his back pocket. “Here. Let me see what I can do. Sam’s kids . . . man, that whole thing is rough.”

He handed over a fifty-dollar bill. After the dance, I’d marveled at the stacks of fifties and hundreds in the cash box. I’d had no idea that men carried that much cash in their wallets. And I still had no idea why they did.

“I wish they’d find the killer,” I said. “That would help a little.”

“They’d better catch him soon.” His face was set in hard lines. “Sam and I went way back.”

“You played baseball together, right?”

“Since we were this high.” Todd held out his hand at belt level. “T-ball, Little League, heck, everything on up through high school. I started working for my dad the Monday after graduation, so no college ball for me.”

“Was Sam nice even as a kid?” I asked.

“He should have been one of those kids that kids love to hate, but everyone liked him. How could you not like a guy who’d take the blame for any trouble we cooked up?” He smiled. “Sam would tell the coach to let the second- and third-stringers play. That it wasn’t fair they had to sit on the bench all the time. And his sister, Megan? She