Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden Page B

my brain.
    I needed a hobby.
    In the months since that walk, I’d gone through knitting (too much counting), scrapbooking (too many options), and baking (too much weight gain). I’d settled into journaling. My writing sessions had seen me through the worst of the effects of the separation and the post-divorce aftermath. In writing to myself, I took my share of the blame for the marriage’s failure. Through writing, I calmed my fears for the children and my fears for myself. I wrote about coming to grips with my status as a divorced mom, and I wrote about my high hopes for the future.
    Jenna and Oliver and I were a family, and Richard was a good father, even if he did live on the other side of town. Together, we’d make this work.
    But would it work with a dog?
     
    On this Wednesday night, the four board members of the PTA met in Erica’s kitchen.
    “Are you sure this is legal?” Randy Jarvis asked around a chocolate-chip cookie. His concern about PTA proprieties didn’t extend to ignoring the plate of treats Erica offered.
    “I checked the bylaws,” said Julie. Our vice president had lowered herself onto a ladder-back chair, eschewing the padded window seat on the grounds that the bump wouldn’t fit behind the table. “We can call special meetings without the rest of the members as long as we publish minutes afterward.” Even when discussing murder at the PTA, Erica was bound and determined that we would follow all bylaws.
    She put down a china cup and saucer of decaf in front of me. Cream, no sugar. “Beth, you ready to start taking notes?”
    “On it.” I extracted a spiral notebook and pen from my voluminous purse.
    Erica slid into the window seat next to Randy. Julie and I sat in chairs facing the window. Even on a dark October evening and only partially illuminated by floodlights, Erica’s garden was beautiful.
    “This special meeting of the Tarver Elementary PTA is now called to order.” Erica lifted the half glasses that hung from a chain around her neck and put them on the end of her nose. I called the roll.
    “As this is a special meeting,” Erica said, “we can dispense with a reading of the minutes and committee reports and move on to the topic of the night.”
    “Agnes,” Julie breathed. “Oh, it’s so horrible.”
    I remembered Marina’s fairy tale of Randy being involved with Agnes. If he and Agnes had had a relationship, surely he’d be distraught. On the verge of tears. Full of sorrow and grief. But as far as I could tell, the only thing Randy was, was hungry. He was already chewing on his third cookie, and I guessed he’d go for a fourth any second.
    “Yes, we must decide what to do.” Erica put down the very short agenda and looked at us over her glasses. “Now, Agnes was born and raised up in Superior.”
    “Really?” Julie’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t know that.”
    Neither had I. Superior lay due north an amazing number of miles, about as far north as you could get and not be in Lake Superior. You heard stories about life up there. That you knew it was cold when the keg of beer on the porch froze solid. That if you milked a cow in January, you got ice cream. That in spring they didn’t spring clean the house—they defrosted it. And so on. People from that far north usually made fun of us downstaters for complaining about a long winter. That Agnes had never once mentioned her hometown seemed odd.
    “Did you know she was from Superior?” I asked Randy.
    He shrugged and took another cookie.
    “Considering the distance,” Erica said, “I don’t think the PTA needs to send a representative to the funeral. It’s too far, and we don’t have the budget. But there are two things we can and should do. One, we’ll all sign this card.” She handed me a sympathy card. “Two, the PTA should phone Agnes’s family with a condolence call.”
    “Good idea,” Julie said.
    “Appropriate,” Randy agreed.
    Only then did I realize my three committee comembers were