“That’s right.” I picked up an armful of stuffed animals and started the routine. “Good night, Rex. Good night, Fred. Good night, Dancer.” By the time I’d finished, Oliver’s eyes were drooping. “Good night, Oliver.” I kissed my son’s forehead. “Sweet dreams and may tomorrow be your best day ever.”
“Okay,” he said sleepily.
Jenna was already out. I took away her
I went downstairs as quietly as I could. After half an hour, Oliver slept like a rock, but for the first thirty minutes a cough two floors away would wake him. I flicked on the desk light in the study and turned on the computer. Good little secretary that I was, I wanted to finish the minutes of last night’s meeting before falling into bed.
The first pages of my handwritten notes were filled with quotes from concerned parents. Each succeeding page had an increasing number of doodles. Every person talking had said the same thing, over and over, the same things I’d heard on the phone all day. And I’d probably had dozens of e-mails on the subject, too.
My own eyes were drooping when I reached the proof-reading stage at one in the morning. Yawning, I printed a hard copy and decided to look at e-mail. After subject lines such as “Tarver Addition,” “Agnes Must Go,” and “Legal Action Called For,” there was a series of e-mails from Marina. “Call me,” said the first one. Then, “Call me—urgent.” There were more with increasing numbers of capital letters and exclamation points. The last message had been sent less than five minutes ago.
CALL ME!! URGENT!!!!
“Why didn’t you call me yourself?” Grumbling, I picked up the phone, but there was no dial tone. “Oh . . .”
Thirty seconds after walking in the door, the phone had rung. Carly, mother of Thomas and Victoria, had wanted to know how we were going to stop Agnes. After I’d finished with her, I’d pulled the cord out of the phone jack. Voila, no more calls.
I went into the kitchen and dialed Marina. “Sorry. I unplugged the phone. You wouldn’t believe how many people have called. What’s so important?”
“Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Sit!”
Marina never yelled at me. She scolded, cajoled, and occasionally henpecked, but she never shouted. I sat on a bar stool with a thump. “Something’s happened.” To Marina’s kids. To her husband. Her parents. Her sister. “Tell me.” My heart pushed blood through my neck in thick clumps.
“It’s Agnes.”
My fear vanished. Annoyance replaced it. “Oh, geez. What’s she done now?”
Marina breathed into the phone. Short, tension-filled puffs. “She’s dead.”
“Dead?” That couldn’t be right. People as obnoxious as Agnes lived forever and turned into Auntie Mays. “As in
“Yes.”
The stool cut into the backs of my thighs. Agnes, dead? It couldn’t be.
“And . . . Beth?” Marina’s voice was so quiet I had to press the phone hard against my head. “She was murdered.”
Chapter 4
The morning after Agnes was killed, I woke early and wondered how to break the news to Jenna and Oliver. “Good morning, kids! Your principal was murdered last night. How about some cereal?”
No, that wouldn’t work. How about: “Mrs. Mephisto’s head had a bad accident with a blunt object.” Or “Last night, Mrs. Neff’s neighbor noticed the back door of Mrs. Mephisto’s house was open and went inside and saw . . .”
Ick.
I flung back the covers and decided to cook the children’s favorite breakfast. This meant two breakfasts, because naturally they couldn’t both like the same thing. For Jenna I cooked bacon and scrambled eggs; for Oliver I made blueberry pancakes and sausage. By the time we sat down to eat, the kitchen was piled high with dishes I didn’t have time to wash.
“Cool!” Jenna slid into her place at the kitchen table. “It’s like a birthday breakfast.”
“We both have birthdays today,” Oliver said.
“Don’t be stu—” She glanced at me and made a sudden revision. “My birthday is in June and yours is in May. No one has a birthday in October.”
“Robert does.”
Jenna heaved a giant sigh. “No one in this family.”
“Then why are we having birthday breakfast?” he asked.
“Because . . .” Jenna, frowning, realized she had no clue why I’d cooked a real meal on a weekday. “You’re going to tell us something, aren’t you?” She stabbed her fork into a piece of bacon.
I leaned over and cut up Oliver’s sausage into quarter-inch pieces.
“You are, aren’t you?” Jenna shoved a piece of bacon into her mouth. “I bet it’s about what Mrs. Wolff said last night.”
“What?” Oliver moved his head to look at his sister around my arm. “What did Mrs. Wolff say?”
I was glad he’d asked, because I couldn’t remember myself.
“She said you were with some man yesterday. She said you were a sly cat. She said—” Jenna blinked, her eyes flashing fast. “She asked if Oliver and me knew.”
My first instinct was to correct her grammar, but I decided to let it go for once.
“Knew what?” Oliver asked.
With a rush, I remembered why I didn’t care much for Claudia Wolff.
“You’re getting married, aren’t you?” Jenna dropped her silverware on the table in a metallic crash. “You’re going to marry some guy we don’t know.”
“No!” Oliver shrieked. “You can’t! I’ll run away. I’ll lock myself in my room. I’ll—”
I made my thumb and middle finger into a circle, put them in my mouth and blew a loud whistle. The kids went silent, albeit with mutinous expressions.
“Number one,” I said, “I am not about to marry anyone.”
Oliver’s face cleared immediately. He speared a piece of sausage and popped it in his mouth with a flourish.
Jenna wasn’t so easily pacified. “But who was that man?”
“A business acquaintance.”
“Then why did Mrs. Wolff say what she did?”
“I’m not sure.” The alternative answer had a lot to do with a word rhyming with ditch. “Jenna.” I reached across the table and held my daughter’s hand. “Do you really think I’d marry anyone without making sure you loved him, too?”
She used the heel of her other hand to push away her unshed tears. “I guess not.”
“You and Oliver are the most important people in my life.” My own eyes started blinking. “No one else comes close. No one ever will.”
“Okay.”
I reached out to give her a hug, but she leaned sideways and picked up another piece of bacon.
“Why are we having birthday breakfasts?” Oliver asked.
I looked from one young face to the other. When I’d woken up so early, the idea of cooking a nice meal had seemed like a great one. But maybe I’d done it more for me than for them. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
