Murder at the PTA (2010)

coming back until I replaced them with something else. I crossed off Claudia. “Next is Randy Jarvis.”

“Ah.” She looked left and right. “He’s my favorite,” she whispered.

Their relationship had been strained at best since the time she and Randy had gone at each other hammer and tongs over the end-of-school gift the PTA gave out. Randy had pushed for root beer floats; Marina had wanted to hand out paperback books. After too many hours of discussion, Erica banged her gavel and said they’d hand out gift certificates to the Children’s Bookshelf.

“Randy and Agnes were having it on,” Marina said. “I’m sure of it. I know he didn’t look grief-stricken at the memorial service, but he’s a man, and he’s from Wisconsin. He wouldn’t show public grief if his mother was run over by a truck right in front of him.”

I didn’t see how Randy’s not crying at the memorial service proved he’d been involved with Agnes, but I didn’t pursue the issue. “Randy didn’t kill Agnes,” I said.

“Yes, he did.” She spread her arms wide. “Here’s how it worked. The meeting at the school ended. Everybody left. Randy hung around, left his car at the school, and walked to Agnes’s house for an assignation. They had an argument. In the heat of anger he picked up something heavy”—she picked up an invisible object—“and hit her on the head.” Her arm swung down. I winced as her hand thudded against the table. “After that, he sneaked out the back door.”

“You really think Randy would have walked three blocks?”

She wavered, in love with her theory, but seeing the flaw. Randy hadn’t walked that far in years. “Well . . .”

“Marina, Randy wasn’t even in town that night.”

“Don’t be silly. Where else would he be? No, wait. Let me guess.” She started playing an air guitar. “He plays guitar for a classic-rock band. They play in nasty little bars all over the county. But, wait! A discerning crowd hears the emotion Randy pours into the solo for ‘Free Bird,’ and the applause doesn’t stop for half an hour.” Her hair bounced all around as she bobbed her head in time to music only she could hear.

Suddenly I was tired of the game. A murderer was roaming free while my children were watching Free Willy. Not that, deep down, I thought they were in any danger, but still . . . “On Tuesday nights,” I said, “Randy is a volunteer.”

Marina’s mouth slacked open. “He’s a what?”

“Every Tuesday and one Saturday a month. And don’t ask where he’s volunteering, because I’m not going to tell you. Confidential sources.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Don’t you hate it when someone you can’t stand turns out to be a good person? What a waste of a perfectly good suspect. Who’s next on the list?”

I rattled off the rest of the names. “Nick Casassa, Dan Daniels, Cindy Irving, Joe Sabatini, Erica Hale, Harry the janitor, Lauren Atchinson, and Gary Kemmerer.”

“Lauren Atchinson?”

I shrugged and told her that Nick, Lauren, and Gary all had solid alibis.

“What are they?” Her eyes were bright.

“Not saying.”

“Come on, pretty please?”

“Nope. Not a chance. Move on to the next question, please.”

She pouted and flounced her hair a few times, but I didn’t budge. She sighed dramatically. “How about Agnes’s ex-husband?”

“Do you want the long or the short version?”

She cocked her head, listening to the sounds emanating from the family room. “Isn’t that the start of The Willy Show? We have time for all the details.” She rubbed her palms together.

I dug into my purse for another set of notes. If I was going to keep on with this investigating stuff, I was going to need a bigger purse. “John Mephisto remarried a week and a half after his divorce from Agnes.”

Marina blew a soft, sympathetic whistle. “Ouch.”

“Yup.”

“What was that all about?”

“Agnes and John got married the summer after they graduated from college. University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. After driving around the country for a summer in a VW bus—”

“How very seventies,” Marina said.

“Agnes went on to graduate school here in Madison. John Mephisto started working as a junior loan officer for the State Bank of Madison. Agnes, one of a handful of females in the doctoral program—”

“Agnes had a PhD?”

“She was taking her studies very seriously. Mephisto was left to his own devices in a town where he knew very few people.”

Marina made a slicing motion across her neck. “Never mind the rest. So what wife is Mephisto on now? Three? Four?”

“Still on two, actually. They live near San Diego.”

“Hmm.” Marina frowned. “Doesn’t sound like he holds a grudge against Agnes.”

“Plus he was in Las Vegas the week Agnes died, attending a regional business leaders’ conference.”

Marina’s face lit up. “So he could have sneaked out and flown here. Done the deed and zipped back to Vegas.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “At the approximate time Agnes was killed, he was accepting an award for ‘most environmentally friendly office management.’ ”

“Well, shoot.” Marina stuck her lower lip out. “It would have been okay if he’d done it.”

“Sorry.”

She flicked at my notes. “Where’d you get this, anyway?”

“A few phone calls, a few Web site searches.” Actually, most of the information had come from Agnes’s sister, Gloria. I’d called, ostensibly to confirm that the photo album had arrived. With only a small push, she’d been more than pleased to dish up the dirty on her sister’s failed marriage. Turned out Mephisto had also been from Superior. “He was slime,” Gloria said. “He went after Agnes for one reason and one reason only.”

Marina leaned down and picked a fallen scrunchie off the floor. She set it on the table and spun it around her index finger. “So many people with alibis.” Twirl, twirl. “This never happened on Dragnet.” She held on to the table and tipped her chair back. If any of our children had done that, we’d have scolded, “Four on the floor.” But since it was just us, we didn’t have to be adults. “So now what? Do you want to split up the rest of the names, or are you still gung ho on doing this yourself?”

“Mom?” Zach ran into the room. “We get to watch another movie, right?”

The chair thudded down, and Marina spread her arms wide. “Come here, my son, and let me bestow upon you the kiss of motherhood.”

He wrinkled his nose and looked like a young male version of his mother. “Aw, quit. I’m too old for that.” Marina’s arms drooped and her lower lip trembled, but Zach only rolled his eyes. “Stop that, too,” he said. “Hey, can we have popcorn during the second movie?”

Marina heaved a loud sigh. “Despite the scorn heaped on my head, I will indeed labor and sweat to bring you corn that is popped.”

“None of that air crap.”

“Young princeling, your wish is my command.”

“Cool.” He ran off, then turned and trotted backward. “Thanks, Mom! You’re okay, even if you do talk funny sometimes.”

“He’s getting so big,” Marina said softly. “A few more years and he’ll be gone, too.”

I was quiet, remembering that sunny September day when I’d taken Oliver to his first-grade classroom. Preschool and kindergarten hadn’t seemed real, somehow, filled with naptime and tambourines and construction paper. First grade was the beginning of Oliver’s true education, and the real start of his growing away from me.

“Well.” Marina pushed herself to her feet. “That’s what motherhood is all about. Love ’em and leave ’em go. Want some popcorn?”

“Sure.” The reason I even owned a stove-top cooker was because I’d tasted Marina’s popcorn. That