Foul Play at the PTA

I’ll pay.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “Fast food or the Tractor?”

We settled on the Tractor. Soup and salad for me, burger and fries for her. I handed over a twenty-dollar bill. “Be right back,” she said, and left me in Eric’s office, where I’d be alone for a solid fifteen minutes.

I stood. If I was a secret, where would I hide? In a locked drawer, probably, but there weren’t any here. Maybe it was a purloined secret, and all I had to do was open my eyes. I swept my gaze over walls, desk, and cabinetry. Nothing. The only thing on the walls were two framed Ansel Adams prints. In the name of being thorough, I looked at the backs of the prints. Nothing. The desk, when I’d arrived, had been empty of everything except a desk blotter–sized calendar.

Hmm.

I restacked the papers and exposed the month of November. The first and last weeks had red lines through them with the letters SA written at the left side. The rest of the weekdays were filled with cryptic notes. “NC mtg, 10.” “Cnf cl, 2.” “Stf mtg, 8.”

Some of those I understood. Conference call. Staff meeting. But NC meeting could be a meeting in North Carolina, or it could be a new client meeting, or it could be a no charge meeting, or it could be a new code meeting for the company’s programmers.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” I muttered, restacking the papers. The breeze my frustration created sent a message twirling to the floor.

“Got it.” Devon lunged and snatched it one-handed before it hit carpet. “Uh-oh. Purple. I’m supposed to shred all the purple ones.” She set my lunch on the corner of the desk and laid the change on top of the white foam container.

A clue, Watson, a clue! “What’s so special about the purples?”

She looked at the paper. “No idea. The whole color thing is goofy, if you ask me.”

Yesterday she’d mentioned the color coding and I’d forgotten all about it. Bad Beth. “How do you know what color to use? Did Violet leave you directions?”

She shook her head. “Nothing on paper. Mr. Stull kept saying if I have to write things down, I wasn’t right for the job. But, geez, how am I supposed to keep track of all this stuff?” She threw out her hands. “Red for billing. Black or blue for vendors. Green for . . . oh, shoot, what’s green for? Oh, yeah. Clients. Purple is for people who don’t leave a company name. Brown for nonpaying clients, and orange when anyone from the government calls.”

“And what colors get shredded?”

“All of them,” she said promptly. “Just at different times. Red at the end of the month. Green, when they’re a week old. Purple, when they’re older than one day. And I don’t remember for brown and orange, I just don’t.” Her hair was coming down out of its braid. She shoved a strand back behind her ear, but it came right back out. “The last time I put a box out for Mr. Helmstetter, I’m sure some stuff went out that shouldn’t have.” She pushed at her hair. “I was so scared that something really important got shredded that I almost got sick. Mr. Stull seemed really mad until I said it was all stuff in Spanish.”

My heart thumped hard against my rib cage. “Can you read Spanish?”

“Mr. Stull asked me that. I don’t know any Spanish other than uno, dos, tres. I thought it might cost me the job, but he seemed okay with it.”

Devon didn’t read Spanish, but Sam did. Sam had often talked up the benefits of learning a second language. Sam’s minor in college was Spanish. Sam had been featured in the newspaper annually for leading mission trips to Mexico. Everybody in town knew Sam could speak fluent Spanish.

And now Sam was dead.

“When is Mr. Stull expected back?” I asked. “According to his calendar he should be here today.”

But Devon was shaking her head. “That’s just the calendar he figures ahead with. Most of his appointments he doesn’t even write down. Says they’re safer in here.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

“Where is he?”

“At home. He said his wife was sick. And I think they’re going away for Thanksgiving.” She stood there, looking at the piles of papers. “Do you think he’ll be mad at me? There’s an awful lot I’m doing wrong.”

Welcome to the club.

“You’re doing your best,” I said. “No one can fault you for trying your hardest.”

“I am trying.” She brightened a bit. “Really hard.”

“Then you might as well stop worrying.”

“Okay.” She grinned. “Worrying doesn’t do any good, anyway. I mean, if you can do something, go ahead and do it, right? If you can’t do anything, what’s the point of making yourself all nuts with worry?” She cocked her head. “Phone. Gotta go.”

What was the point indeed? Devon was a lot smarter than I was.

I picked up the purple message she’d left behind. Red, black, blue, green, purple, brown, orange. With a mind empty of ideas, I sorted the messages into piles of colored pens, then spread out the purple ones, one by one.

Why would purple messages want to be shredded after a day? I closed my eyes and thought of possibilities.

Because they weren’t important.

Because they were top secret.

Because they were important and the calls would have been returned immediately.

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with any other reasons. I opened my eyes and looked at the purple names, none of which came with a last name or a company name. Rosie. Chago. Eva. Amelia. Chelsea. Rafael.

Rosie Stull, Eric’s wife. No reason for her to leave a last name. Amelia and Chelsea, Eric’s daughters. Same thing.

But who was Eva? And Chago and Rafael?

None of the slips from Rosie or the girls had a phone number, which made sense. Only one of Eva’s slips had a number, and it had an extra set of digits at the front. An international call then, but since the only foreign country I’d ever set foot in was Canada, the number didn’t mean anything to me.

Eva, Chago, and Rafael.

They could be South American clients. But if so, why wouldn’t they leave a company name and a phone number?

Because they were really good clients and didn’t feel the need?

I was never going to figure this out. Never.

“Eat,” I told myself. “Food will help.”

I slid the change Devon had returned into my purse and flipped up the white lid. A coin I hadn’t noticed rolled off, onto the desk, and down onto the floor. The quarter rolled and rolled and rolled.

If it had been a penny, I wouldn’t have moved. A nickel probably wouldn’t have inspired me to action, either, or even a dime. But a quarter? That was real money.

I went down on my hands and knees. Where had the little bugger gone? Ah. There. Waaaay over, directly under the middle of the desk. Naturally.

I turned to a sitting position, held the edge of the desk with one hand to keep my back off the floor, and stretched as far as my arm would stretch. “The things I’d do for a quarter.” I stretched a little more.

My hand started to slip off the desk and I made a quick double grab. But instead of solidifying my grip, I latched on to Eric’s calendar and pulled the whole thing onto the top of my head.

Papers that I’d just carefully organized came cascading down, and the two months left in the calendar fluttered like wings.

I sat there, papers surrounding me, and thought about joining the circus. Nothing bad ever happened in a circus. I could take tickets. The kids could learn acrobatics. A win-win situation for all.

“Are you okay?” Devon hurried in. “Oh, my goodness! What happened?”

“Um, I was reaching for . . .” The quarter, firmly caught between thumb and index finger mere seconds ago, was gone. “For something. And I fell.” I gave her a sheepish smile. “Slid right off the edge of the chair. Silly, huh?”

Devon was already picking up the loose papers. “I did that once in the middle of biology class. Thought I was