Murder at the PTA Luncheon Read online

  “Hello?” Years of experience in the kitchen had taught her to cup the receiver in the crook of her shoulder and get on with her cooking while talking.

  “Just making dinner. How are you?” First salt the frying pan. Start the water heating for the corn. Everything would happen automatically now. She listened to the voice at the other end of the line and thought out her choices. She could either tell all about it now or hope that someone else would do the dirty work. If there were people who enjoyed repeating over and over the details of finding the second murder victim in two months, she wasn’t one of them.

  When she realized who the caller was, she relaxed. Tell the town gossip something and let her pass around the news—she’d love every minute of it.

  “Angie, good to hear from you … just cooking hamburgers for the kids … what are you doing?” Despite her decision to talk about this most recent tragedy, she was hesitant to be the first to mention it.

  The voice on the other end of the line showed no such hesitation. “I thought you were at the Club this afternoon. That is, Marsha said she thought you were there.”

  “I was.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  “Paula was murdered.”

  “That I know. Did you see her? Do you know what happened?”

  Susan cringed at the lack of sensitivity, then consoled herself with the thought that if Angie were a nicer person, she wouldn’t do a good job of spreading the story. She hadn’t realized before that there probably was no such creature as a sensitive gossip. Gossip was using the problems of others for your own enjoyment.

  “Susan? Were you there? Was it too horrible to talk about?” The tone of the question was hopeful.

  “It was horrible,” Susan confirmed. She took a deep breath before continuing, “Paula was poisoned too.”

  “Something she ate? Like Jan?”

  “In some iced tea that someone brought her. At least, that’s what I heard a policeman saying. There was a half-full glass—you know the kind the Club uses for pool service—on the ground by her side.”

  “You saw her?”

  “Everyone saw her. Well, not everyone. You know Kevin Dobbs, that nice boy who’s working at the Club this summer? Well, he must have seen what was going on right away because he herded all the kids away from the pool and onto the tennis courts. So I don’t think many of the kids saw, but pretty much everyone else did.

  “I had been lying on one of the chaises near the pool and Paula was on one of the ones near an umbrella on the grass—just behind me, in fact. She was still in the chair when I saw her. Her hands were …” Damn, another set of hands. “Her arms were dangling off the sides of the chaise. The glass was on the ground—”

  “You said that.”

  “She was dead.” Susan started to shudder.

  “You said that someone gave her poison in her tea? How did you know that she didn’t get it herself?”

  “She wouldn’t put poison in it herself, would she? Besides, she was napping. In fact, I was talking to her and—”

  “What was she talking about before she died?”

  Enough was enough. Susan pulled herself together and finished. “Someone put poison in her tea and she drank it and she’s dead. The police were very nice. They let everyone collect their things and their kids and go home. After getting everyone’s name and phone number, of course. They said they would question us later. I thought it was sensitive of them. We don’t need the kids involved in this.” She’d had it. There was nothing else to say, and if Angie didn’t believe that, she could call through the membership list and ask everyone on it the same goddamn insensitive questions. “I’ve got to feed the kids,” she insisted. “I’ll call back later. Bye.”

  She hung up without waiting for another question or protest. Actually, the dinner was ready. She popped the meat into the buns, placed the corn on each plate and called the kids.

  “You guys can eat in front of the set—if you can agree on a show and if you fix your own burgers and carry everything to the den.” She pulled two glasses from the Praittzi cupboard and filled them with milk from the refrigerator. The kitchen had been remodeled two years before and she still felt a little foolish cooking everyday family meals in it. Its chic, smooth Italian lines and hand-painted tiles seemed to insist on something more gourmet.

  “I’ll carry the milk. You guys take everything else.”

  “We can take the milk too, Mom,” offered Chrissy, her twelve-year-old daughter. “Just leave it on the table.”

  “I can’t …”

  “Yes, you can, Chad.” Chrissy stopped his protest. “You take your plate and I’ll come back for the rest.”

  Susan noticed the stern look that passed from older sister to younger brother. She knew it meant that they were watching something they didn’t want her to censor. She was too tired to care. She had long ago decided that being a perfect mother meant always giving 100 percent and she had accepted that that was impossible.

  “Wonderful. Try to keep the food from getting all over everything. There are some cookies in the jar for dessert—three apiece.”

  “I’m going to go out back and check out the roses that your father planted.” She smiled at the kids, waited until they had left the room, then grabbed her wineglass from where she had left it behind the little kitchen TV, poured herself another glassful, and headed out the back door.

  Jed, her husband, was the suburban version of a workaholic. Very successful in advertising (financial side), he worked hard all week in the city. To relax on weekends, he worked hard in the suburbs. To him tennis was a game to be worked at and won; a car was a machine to be washed and polished until it glowed; and his property, his home, was a place to be improved. Recently, he had laid out a bluestone patio, matching the colors with care, and selected an elegant and expensive set of Victorian garden furniture reproductions. Susan had given up wondering why the kitchen was sleek and modern and the garden was becoming more rustic every year. It seemed to be the same with all her friends. Tonight she was just grateful for a comfortable place to sit. Or, at least, a place. The Victorians hadn’t been noted for their lounging positions and their furniture designs reflected that.

  She shifted her weight to a more comfortable position and took what must, she had to admit it herself, be called a gulp of her wine. What was going on? Why had two of her friends been killed—murdered—in the last two months?

  “Mommy! There’s a man at the door!” Her son’s yell came through the open kitchen window.

  She put her glass down on the patio near the leg of her seat and hurried into the house. Who would be calling at this time of night?

  She rushed through her kitchen, out into the airy center hall of her home, and to the black-enameled front door, not even stopping for her customary glance into the hall mirror or to straighten her hair. Putting a fixed “for strangers” smile on her face, she approached the still-open entrance.

  The man standing there made her all too aware that she was still wearing her swimsuit and cover-up, was without makeup, and couldn’t remember the last time she had combed her hair.

  He was young … well, not old. Probably about thirty-five, Susan thought. He was tall and blond and blue-eyed, but he didn’t resemble a youthful Paul Newman, nor Robert Redford. In fact, she thought both actors would look pretty pale beside him. He was gorgeous.

  So don’t salivate, stupid, she told herself. He might be a mass murderer, for all you know. But then he smiled and she knew that was impossible.

  “I’m looking for Susan Henshaw.”

  “I’m Susan Henshaw.” That’s all you can say? Is that going to make the impression you know you’re dying to make? she asked herself.

  “I’m Brett Fortesque.”

  Brett. Fine. But Fortesque?

  “From the state police.”

  Susan looked at the photo ID he held out to her. Of course, he photographed well. And there was that name again. Fortesque?

  “I’m here to
ask you some questions.”

  “Of course. Please come in.” She opened the door wider and moved back for him to enter, then was suddenly aware of being alone with her kids in this house. “May I see your ID again?”

  “Sure.” He passed it to her and waited patiently while she examined it carefully. But did she really know what an official Connecticut State Police identification card looked like? Could this be forged? Did people forge things like this?

  “You and the kids alone?” he asked, seeming to know what she was thinking.

  “My husband should be home soon” was her response.

  “So why don’t we sit out on your front lawn and talk,” he suggested.

  Susan was so grateful for the suggestion that she forgot that people in the suburbs sit behind, not before, their houses. But he had understood her hesitation about being alone with him and the kids and that made her trust him.

  “There are chairs around back. Why don’t we go there?” she offered.

  “Good suggestion.”

  My God, he was even more good-looking when he smiled!

  He followed her around the side of her house and down the three steps to the patio. She hoped he wasn’t looking at her thighs.

  “You’re here about …” A horrible thought struck her. “Nothing’s happened to my husband, has it?”

  “Your husband? Why should something have happened to him?” He waited for her to sit down first.

  “I thought … well, you’re a policeman. I thought maybe a crash of the commuter train or something …”

  “No, nothing like that.” He moved his legs and kicked over her left-behind glass of wine. “Oh, I seem to have spilled something.” He stood up, saw the problem, and righted the glass.

  Lots of people have a glass or two of wine after five on a hard day, so why did she suddenly feel like a secret alcoholic? “I was just having a drink when you called. I don’t usually …” Why was she babbling like this? She took a deep breath and regrouped. “Would you like a drink?” Now why did she say that? He was on duty. He wouldn’t drink …

  “I’d love one … oh, I know. In books and on TV, cops don’t drink when they’re on duty. But that’s not real life, and it’s been a long day,” he added, seeing her look of surprise. “Why don’t you get yourself another glass of wine to replace the one I spilled and join me?”

  Another smile.

  “What would you like?” She stood up and accepted the glass he was holding out to her.

  “Scotch. On the rocks, with just a little water.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Too bad he wasn’t royalty and she couldn’t back into the house. He wasn’t going to be able to miss her thighs if she kept leaving him like this.

  She stopped on her way to the kitchen to peek into the den. Chad was stretched out on the couch asleep, his mouth open and his damp hair plastered against a needlepoint pillow she had spent two months making. Her daughter was sitting on the floor, watching a disco show and sipping a forbidden diet soda.

  “Hi, Mom.” A furtive attempt to hide the soda stopped when she saw her mother’s smile. “Chad fell asleep,” she added, stating the obvious.

  “Fine. Just let him sleep. Your father can take him upstairs when he gets home. I’m going to be out back with Officer Fortesque. Call me there if you need me.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Already she was back concentrating on the endless gyrations of the dancers on the screen.

  Susan detoured to the liquor cabinet in the living room before returning to the kitchen. This called for the good stuff kept there. She grabbed a bottle of Chivas and headed for the kitchen. Five minutes later she returned to the patio, a full tray in her hands.

  “Hey, great. How did you do all this so quickly?” was the appreciative comment when the officer saw the bottles, glasses, ice in a crystal bowl, and assortment of hors d’oeuvres laid out on hand-carved wooden servers.

  “Just stuff we had in the house.” She tried not to remember the state of her emergency shelf in the cupboard after this raid. Even a mouse would have a hard time finding something to eat there now. But it was worth it, she thought, watching this man dig into the smoked oysters, pâté, and other delicacies that she kept around for emergencies.

  He ate for a few minutes and then suddenly seemed to remember where he was and, she hoped, what he had come for.

  “It’s been a long day,” he started half-apologetically.

  “You were hungry,” she replied, looking at the devastation on the tray before him.

  He took a long drink from his glass before answering. “That was the first meal I’ve had today, besides some lousy coffee and dry Danish that I had in the car coming down here from Hartford. But I should be used to that,” he added, waving off the sympathetic comment she was about to make. “It’s part of the job—rotten food, lousy hours, idiot local cops—”

  “Idiot local cops?” she interrupted before she could stop herself.

  “Do you know what those fools did? Of course you do. You were there.”

  Bewildered, Susan took a sip of her wine. Why—why was he here?

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Well, there’s no reason you should. Listen to me; I’ve been around these Mickey Mouse cops so long, I’m beginning to sound like them.

  “Look”—those blue eyes again—“I’m sitting here confusing you and making very unprofessional comments about my colleagues because it’s been a long day and I’m tired and hungry and frustrated. And you’ve had two murders happen in front of you and you’re patiently feeding me and waiting for me to make my point. Who says women aren’t the saner sex?”

  Oh, how I love this man, Susan thrilled to herself.

  “Susaaan! Hey, kids! Anyone home?”

  It was Jed, home from work. Susan jumped up, startled, spilling yet another glass of wine onto the stones of the patio. This time the glass fell also, breaking into about six million pieces around her naked feet.

  “Don’t move. You’ll cut yourself,” Officer Fortesque ordered. He knelt down and began picking up the tiny shards of crystal, placing them on one of the heavy cotton napkins she had brought out. “We’re back here,” he called in the direction of the house.

  “We?” Jed Henshaw appeared at the back door of his home, a perplexed frown on his face. “Susan? What’s going on?”

  Susan had just time enough to realize what a strange picture Jed must be seeing—his wife standing on the quickly darkening patio, a strange man kneeling at her feet; and then to smile at the picture of her husband, standing in the door, his Brooks Brothers suit rumpled from the long train ride home, his hair tousled, and his tired, slightly homely face appearing very dear to her—before she fainted.

  THREE

  There were hands again. This time, floating above her—reaching out. No, not up in the air, but coming down closer. Closer to her. Actually coming at her!

  They were reaching for her!

  Susan heard herself screaming and recognized the hands simultaneously. They belonged to her husband, and he was covering her with the afghan her own mother had crocheted for her one Christmas.

  She sat up.

  “My God, Susan, shut up or that detective will think I’m murdering you.”

  “Jed, I must have fainted.”

  “Or passed out,” he said.

  “Passed out?” She was silent until she realized what he was talking about. “You think I’m drunk. I’m not drunk.” She swung herself up and her legs to the floor.

  “I’m not drunk,” she repeated, but she did feel a little woozy and she leaned forward, supporting herself with her arms. “I did have a drink or two, but you know I wouldn’t get drunk here alone with the kids.”

  “You weren’t alone.”

  “I was mostly. Anyway, how could you think—”

  “Susan, I don’t know what to think.” He looked genuinely perplexed and concerned. She reached out to ruffle his hair. He was worried about her! How lucky she was
to be married for fourteen years to a man who still loved and worried about her.

  “I come home and you’re swooning in the arms of a very attractive young man—broken glasses and wine all over the place …”

  “Jed! Not all over the place. There wasn’t that much wine. I just poured two glasses and I didn’t get to finish either of them. And I was so upset about Paula and Jan and everything. And I haven’t eaten all day. And now you think I’m drunk and—”

  He reached over and pulled his wife against his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Sue. Of course you’re feeling rotten. The detective told me about Paula. I’m overreacting too. You lie down again and rest for a while. I’ll tell Detective Fortesque that you’ll have to see him in the morning.”

  She jerked her head up so fast she clunked him in the chin.

  “He’s still here?”

  Jed felt his lower incisors to see if they were still there before answering. “Downstairs watching baseball with Chrissy the last time I looked.”

  “He must think I’m horrible. Did you get him something to eat?” She extracted herself from her husband’s arms, stood up, and walked over to the dresser for her hairbrush. The poor man was not only hungry, he probably thought she didn’t even own a hairbrush.

  “When would I have had time to feed him? I was busy getting you up here and looking after you, although you won’t remember that. No one has been served around here tonight that I know of.”

  “Oh, Jed, you haven’t eaten either. I’m sorry.” She put down her brush and started for the closed bedroom door.

  “Wait a sec, Sue. I can live awhile longer without food and I’m sure the detective can after all the goodies you stuffed into him. We have some talking to do.”

  “Talking?”

  “Talking,” he replied firmly. “Did you notice anything unusual about your friend’s ID?”

  “He’s not my friend and—” She stopped and turned back to her husband. “It’s a fake.” Her voice rose an octave. “I knew there was something fishy about that name …”

  “Don’t get so excited. I think it’s real enough. Now please close that door and stop yelling down the stairs. We need to spend some time comparing notes.”