Plotting at the PTA (23 page)

Every hair on my arms stood up. Was this what it felt like to be tossed under a bus?

Keith marched over to my car and stood with his arms crossed. “And you are?” he asked, looking down at me.

I’m nobody, who are you? “Beth Kennedy. Remember a while back? I called and asked you about Kelly Engel.”

“And?”

His posture didn’t indicate a softening of his can’t-make-me-talk attitude. How on earth was I going to convince him to confide in me? What could I possibly say to make him want to open up?

“Do you remember Maude Hoffman?” I asked. “Kelly’s great-aunt?”

“No, I don’t.”

For the first time, I looked directly at him. Before, I’d been looking at his shoulder, or at his forehead, or at his neck. Now I looked him straight in the eyes. “Aunt Maude is the most lovable human being ever born.” I said flatly, stating it as pure fact. “If you say you don’t remember her, you’re lying.”

He rearranged his arm-crossing stance. “Okay, maybe I remember. What does that have to do with blocking my car? I can call 911, you know.” But he didn’t reach for the smart phone clipped to his belt.

“Maude asked me to find out what really happened to Kelly that night. Auntie May says . . . you know Auntie May, don’t you? She says Maude won’t rest easy until she knows for certain what happened.”

Keith’s shoulders slumped to an angle that suited the creases of his jacket. “Kelly’s death was an accident.”

I looked at him. “Lots of people say she killed herself.”

“Lots of people have their heads . . .” He stepped back and raked at his hair with his fingers. It settled back in the exact same position as it had been before. “Look, Kelly didn’t commit suicide. There was no reason for her to do a thing like that.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

He tipped his head back, tightening the skin on his neck, and breathed in deep. “I’m sure not. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to go home. It’s been a long day and—”

“People say she killed herself because you broke up with her.”

For a moment he looked right at me. In the sloping set of his shoulders I saw grief worn red and raw and fresh. In the lines of his face I saw the sorrow of love lost forever. And in the wetness of his eyes I saw the truth.

“You didn’t break up with her, did you?” I asked softly. “She broke up with you.”

“It was time to move on, she said.” His voice came at me so low I could barely hear it. “That we’d had a high school romance, but it was time to go our separate ways.”

“I thought you two had a plan.”

He shrugged, half shaking his head. “Turns out it was my plan, not hers.”

I blinked as a sudden thought struck me.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “The police checked me out left, right, and center for an alibi. I was working that night at the movie theater. It was still downtown then and I was there, selling popcorn from the first evening show at seven all through the midnight showing of
Rocky Horror
.”

Marina made a noise—she was a huge fan—but I quieted her with a glare. “Did you tell the police she broke up with you? And not the other way around?”

“Every time they came to the door. Over and over. But once they were satisfied that I couldn’t have done it, they went away.” He stared off into the distance, looking back into the past with such a sad expression that I couldn’t stand it any longer.

I opened the car door and got out. “Keith.” I said, touching him on the arm. “Why didn’t you want to talk to me, earlier?”

He glanced at me, then away. “Everyone assumes they know what happened and they all hate me for it. ‘There goes the guy who made Kelly Engel want to kill herself.’ ‘That’s the guy who practically killed Kelly. Why isn’t he in jail?’” He shook his head. “I don’t talk about it. And no one else has, not for years.”

“Barb thinks Faye Lowery killed Kelly out of jealousy.”

Keith nodded. “I know. She might be right, but I don’t know. The only thing I know is Kelly’s dead and a day doesn’t go by that I wish she was still alive.”

Poor Barb. Poor Keith. She was trying her best to keep Kelly alive by insisting on finding the truth. He was trying to keep her alive by staying in the past, driving the same car, wearing the same clothes, keeping the same haircut. Three tragedies, not one.

“Why don’t you move away?” I asked impulsively. “Don’t you think you should move on? Find someone to marry. Have kids. Move to Chicago. California. Anywhere but here.”

“I tried,” Keith said. “A couple of times. But . . . it didn’t work out. Besides, Kelly’s grave is here, you know.”

For a moment I couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. Finally, I nodded. Because, somehow, I did know.

Chapter 19

T
he next morning I woke and had absolutely no idea what day it was. Tuesday? No. Thursday? No. Still mostly asleep, I ran though almost every day of the week until I finally settled on Saturday.

And not just Saturday, but Saturday on a holiday weekend. A long weekend during which I was banned from the store, and in which I had no children to feed or clothe or clean. Or hug. Or kiss. Or—

The phone rang. I sighed and reached over to pick it up. “Hello?”

“Quit that,” Marina said.

“What?”

“Whatever it is that you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Exactly! And that’s your problem.”

“Um . . .”

“I know how you get, moping around when the kids are gone. What did you plan for today? No, let me guess. Going around the house on your hands and knees and cleaning the baseboards? Scouring the shower grout with a toothbrush?”

My plans had included washing the kitchen floor and renting a carpet shampooer to clean Jenna’s and Oliver’s rooms, but she didn’t need to know that. “It’s sad, isn’t it?” I mused. “How Keith’s never got over Kelly.”

“Yeah.” Marina blew a sigh through the phone line and into my ear. “What a waste. Guy needs to buck up a little, don’t you think? I mean, honestly. Blowing his entire life because his high school sweetheart died? Get a grip. Romance is nice and all, but this is carrying things too freaking far.”

I thought about that. I knew what she meant, that Keith was wallowing in his misery beyond all sense, that he should snap out of it, get some help, and start living. But . . . was there really such a thing as a perfect match? A soul mate? I’d never thought so, but what if I was wrong? What if I’d been made for a particular man? And what if he died? After him, anyone else would be second best and it might be best to live alone. But . . . could being lonely ever be the right answer?

“Yo, Beth. Are you there?”

“Kind of. What are you doing today?”

“Trying to decide between making a cake for my neighbor’s son’s graduation party, entering a skydiving competition, and working on a cure for forgetfulness. How about you? And I don’t want to hear about your list of chores. Tell me something fun.”

“Is vacuuming the car considered fun?”

“Not on any planet in the solar system.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to solve a couple of murders.”

* * *

I stood on the sidewalk opposite the police station, trying to assess the likelihood of Gus being on duty. The police car parked out front was the most obvious sign that at least one officer was in the building. It was Saturday, on a holiday weekend. Yes, he’d probably scheduled himself. So, no, I didn’t want to go in.

“Coward,” I muttered.

“What’s that?” Cindy Irving was behind me, pushing a cart full of weeds and grass clippings.

“Just trying to convince myself to do something I don’t want to.”

“Beth, you are such a Goody Two-shoes. What are you going to do, turn yourself in for parking in a no parking zone?” She held her wrists together, in anticipation of the handcuffs. “Take me now, officer. I’m a menace to society.” Laughing, she picked up the handles to her cart and trundled off.

“Don’t be such a pansy,” I told myself, then before I could change my mind about jumping off the high dive, crossed the street and barged into the Rynwood Police Department.

“Hey, Mrs. Kennedy.” Officer Sean came to the counter, smiling. “What’s up?”

I looked around. “No Gus?”

“The chief’s out on a call. Fender bender at the mall entrance. Is it important? Because I can call him.”

“No, no,” I said quickly. “Just wondered, that’s all. I, um . . .” Coward. “I lost a spiral notebook the other day. I don’t suppose anyone turned one in?”

“Haven’t seen one, but let me look.” He crouched down behind the counter. “Gloves, mittens, hats, cell phones if you can believe it, and a boot. Look familiar?” He held a bright red child’s boot up high. Left foot.

“Sorry.”

“Makes you wonder where the other one is, doesn’t it?” He stood up. “No notebook. Did you check at the stores? Maybe someone turned it in where you dropped it.”

“Thanks, I’ll do that.” Or not. Cowards don’t have to do such things. “I have another question. Remember I was asking about Amy Jacobson?”

“The lady who died a month or two ago. Sure, I remember.”

“Did you, did the police, take anything from her house?” He started to say something, so I hurried up to keep him from talking. “Because I was talking to Jean, the editor of the paper, and she said Amy was always carrying a three-ring binder.”

“A . . . binder.”

I blinked at Sean. He’d sounded just like Gus. Casual and interested, but also reserved. It was a lot to pack into two words, yet he’d managed it easily. Was this something they learned at the police academy? Or was it learned on the job, taught to you after a certain length of time in uniform? “Well, rookie,” the chief would say. “You’ve been on the job six months. Tomorrow we teach you how to talk.” “Yessir!”

“Yes,” I said. “A binder. Jean says it was filled with newspaper articles about deaths like Kelly Engel’s.”

“And you think we might have it here?” Sean frowned. “Ms. Jacobson’s death was ruled accidental. We didn’t take anything from her home. Matter of fact . . .” He trailed off.

“What?”

He looked at the ceiling, at the doorway to Gus’s office, down at the counter, and finally back at me. “Some relatives contacted us a couple of days ago. Cousins of some kind.”

“And?”

The way he studied my face made me want to squirm. Not only had he picked up the law enforcement officer’s tone, he’d also made the jump to the Cop Stare, the one that made you feel guilty even though you hadn’t done anything wrong except for going three miles over the speed limit. Well, that and the time in college I was given an extra fifty cents in change at an expressway fast-food restaurant and didn’t notice until I was a hundred miles away. I’d meant to send it back, I really had.

“And,” Sean said, “Ms. Jacobson’s cousins will be in town in the next couple of weeks to take care of things.”

“Take care . . . ?”

A breeze from an open window rattled some papers. He moved a coffee mug to act as paperweight. “Close up the house. Get it ready to sell, I guess. They called to say they’d be there, if any of the neighbors reported a break-in.”

Amy was gone, I’d known that for weeks, but cleaning out her house seemed wrong. So permanent. Getting rid of her belongings as if she’d never existed. Life went on, of course it did, but why did cleaning out a house seem like such an . . . an erasure?

“Mrs. Kennedy, are you all right?”

I put on an instant smile. “Fine, thanks.”

“So what I’m saying is if you want to talk to Ms. Jacobson’s relatives about her binder, just wait until next week. I took down their names. Would you like me to get it for you?”

Wait, wait, and wait some more. All I’d ever done in my entire life was wait. Waited to grow up and graduate from high school. Waited to get out of college and to get married and to get a real job, waited for my children to be born, waited for them to get older, and now I was still waiting.

I was tired of it.

* * *

The next morning the alarm woke me before dawn. I slapped it off and sat up. The windows were a medium shade of gray and it was too dark to tell if it was going to be a sunny day or a cloudy one.

I nudged the cat. “What do you think? Sunny?”

George opened his eyes a fraction of an inch. Stared at me—obviously telling me to leave him alone—and shut his eyes again.

I kissed the top of his head and was rewarded with a purr. I looked down at Spot, who was sitting on the floor next to the bed. “How about you?”

He put his chin on the edge of the mattress and looked at me with his big brown eyes, as easy to read as Oliver’s when he watched the ice cream truck go past.

I patted Spot’s furry head. “Don’t worry, you can go with me.” Because even though the Evan-induced promise to always take Spot with me had worn off with our breakup, I’d discovered that I liked having him along.

Half an hour later I was showered and breakfasted—if you consider a granola bar and a glass of orange juice breakfast, which I did—and Spot and I were on our way.

I parked the car a couple of blocks away and opened the back door. “Ready, boy?” Spot bounded out of the backseat with his tongue half out of his mouth. I clipped his leash onto his collar and we walked—oh, so casually—to Amy’s house.

Halfway up the driveway, my cell phone rang.

“Bethie,” Auntie May said, “Maudie wants to talk to you. Here, Maudie”—her voice went distant—“take the phone. What’s that? It’s too heavy? Okay, I’ll hold it to your ear. Are you strong enough to talk? There you go, honey. Don’t tire yourself out.”

“Beth?” Maude’s voice was thready. “Are you there, dear?”

“I’m here.” My dry throat had a hard time with the words. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, dear. Just—”

“Maudie,” said Auntie May’s faint voice. “Don’t give the girl false hope. Remember what that doctor said.”

“What?” I said loudly. “Maude, what’s the matter?

“It’s just my heart,” she said. “The doctor said . . .” She broke off and took a few panting breaths. “She said I shouldn’t expect my little old heart to last forever, that’s all.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” The hairs on the back of my neck were tingling.

A few more panting breaths. “Well, honey, I’m not quite sure, but when I asked the doctor if I should crochet Christmas ornaments for the great-grandnieces and nephews, she shook her head.”

“Oh, Maude.” I wanted to sit down.

“Now, don’t you worry about me, sweetie. I know you’re doing your best to help me with Kelly. You . . . what’s that May, dear? Yes, I—” She coughed. Once. Twice. Then a long jag during which my grip on the phone grew tighter and tighter. “I’m sorry, honey,” she gasped out. “I’m just so tired. So . . . tired . . .”

“Maude?”

Short breaths punctuated the murmurings of Auntie May, murmurings that I couldn’t quite make into words.

“Maude?” I called. “Maude!”

“She’s asleep,” Auntie May snapped. “No thanks to you. No respect for your elders, that’s what’s wrong with your generation. You don’t care about anyone other than yourself, and sure not for a little old lady in a nursing home who asked for help.”

“I’m trying,” I said, pleading, begging for understanding. “I’m trying to do my best.”

Auntie May sniffed. “Not good enough, is it?”

Her simple statement hit me hard. I bent forward as if I’d been slugged in the stomach. I wanted to say that she was wrong, that I respected her generation very much, that I spent so much time caring for other people that I didn’t know how to care for myself anymore, that I wished I could spend more time at Sunny Rest. But she didn’t want to hear any of that, and wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told her. “Auntie May . . .”

“
Do
something.”

And she was gone.

I slid my cell phone back into my purse and looked around at the day. Oddly, it was still morning. The sun was just rising, shooting long lines of light through the leaves of the trees. A beautiful morning, all fresh and clean and unspoiled and decorated with dew. From the long grass in Amy’s backyard to the leaves of the trees to the roof of Amy’s house, bright drops of water caught the sun and reflected it back.

Do something.

“What do you think, Spot?”

He looked up at me and wagged his tail.

“Ready for a little breaking and entering?”

* * *

I started my life of crime by knocking on the back door. Maybe the cousins had showed up early. Maybe I’d be able to borrow Amy’s notebook. I’ll bring it back tomorrow, I’d say. Thanks so much, see you then.

But no relatives came to the door. I knocked once more, a third time, then took hold of the doorknob and turned. Locked. “Rats.” I tied Spot’s leash to the white-painted porch post, walked around to the front of the house and tried that door. Also locked.

I blew out a breath and turned in a circle, thinking. Somewhere I’d heard that over seventy percent of suburban Americans hide a house key somewhere outside. Of course, my source was probably Marina and therefore suspect, but I liked the statistic.

Under the flowerpot? . . . Nope, nothing there. In one of the window boxes? On top of the door trim? Tucked somewhere under the back porch? No, no, and no.

I brushed the dirt off my knees. Maybe she didn’t have a key out here. After all, why would you need a key outside if you never left the house?

“Now what?” I asked no one in particular. “Auntie May doesn’t expect me to break down the door, does she?”

Actually, she probably did.

I glanced at the garage. Would Amy have had tools out there? Maybe a crowbar would get the door open without too much damage. I could replace the trim easy enough. Maybe I could talk Evan into helping me and . . .

No. Not Evan.

I winced away from that topic. Took one step in the direction of the garage. Stopped.

Could I do it? Could I really break into Amy’s house? What if one of the neighbors saw me and called the police? What if Gus drove out, siren blaring, and caught me?

Then again, what if Maude died today?

I turned back to the house. What if . . .

The first window I tried was securely locked. So were the second, third, and fourth windows. The fifth window—the smallest one—gave a small screech of protest, then went up.

I studied the size of the opened window. Looked at the width of my hips. Squinted at the window. It didn’t look like a good fit.

Time to get inside before the neighbors heard me. I looked around for something to climb on. I also wondered about the time and paperwork it took to get someone committed to a psychiatric hospital.

“A nice long rest might do me a lot of good,” I told Spot.

He wagged his tail.

The porch stood sadly empty of ladders, chairs, and other devices upon which I could have clambered. But behind the garage I found exactly what I needed: milk crates.

I brushed off the detritus of a dozen autumns and lugged three of them to the side of the house. Two I stacked atop each other, the other I snugged up next to the pile of two. Up one step I went, then up the next, high enough to see into Amy’s downstairs bathroom.