Poison at the PTA by Laura Alden Read Free Book Online Page B

anything, and all her bank coworkers knew was that she wasn’t at work, so I asked around town.
    “Cookie?” Denise, my hairstylist, asked between snips. “Oh, is she in the hospital? That’s too bad. I’ll have to stop by and see her.”
    When I stopped by Glenn Kettunen’s insurance office, he said, “Cookie? Huh. Didn’t know she was still there. I should send flowers, I guess.”
    Instead of sending Jenna to pick up dinner at the Green Tractor, I went myself and asked Ruthie. “Oh, dear. I’d heard she wasn’t feeling good. The poor woman. A hospital is the last place you want to be when you’re sick.”
    Late Wednesday morning, Debra O’Conner knocked on my office door. Once upon a time, Debra-don’t-call-me-Debbie had dressed in city-slick clothes, gone to Chicago to get her hair cut, and been on a career path that didn’t include Rynwood’s local bank as the pinnacle.
    A couple of years ago, after I’d made a chance remark I couldn’t even remember now, Debra had decided she was perfectly content as a local bank vice president, let her hair grow long, and started cooking dinner for her family every night. I squirmed every time she tried to give me credit for her new happiness; whatever I’d said couldn’t possibly have been that profound. I’d happened to say it at a time she was ready to hear it, that was all.
    Since that fateful remark, though, we’d become good friends and I smiled as she came into my office and sat in the extra chair. “Morning, Debra. What brings you here?” Then my brain registered the solemn expression on her face. “You have bad news. Your family’s all right, aren’t they?”
    She nodded, then said, “It’s Cookie.”
    My worries and fears of the last days grew and grew until they filled my head and flew out into the room to bounce off the walls and ceiling and floor and come back to me with the strength of ten. “She’s doing better, right?” Of course she was. She was so much better that she was headed home and needed someone to bring her a few meals. That’s why Debra was here; she was looking for volunteers to help out and—
    Debra sighed. “I’m sorry, Beth, but Cookie died this morning.”

Chapter 4
     
    “Y ou’re not going,” Marina said.
    I picked a cat hair off my black pants. “Thanks for watching the kids. I should be back in a couple of hours.”
    “As the coleader of your intervention team, I forbid you to go.” Marina crossed her arms and stood in front of her kitchen door, blocking my exit. “You promised you’d take it easy, remember? You gave us administrative power over your activities for six weeks, and if I can read a calendar correctly, which I’m pretty sure I can, six weeks isn’t close to over.”
    I zipped up my coat. “If I’m running longer than two hours, I’ll send a text.”
    “Lois agrees, you know. I called her and she about hit the ceiling when I told her you planned on going. She knows how upset these things make you. She’s seen how you get afterward.”
    Where were my gloves? I patted my coat pockets. Ah. There they were. “It’s not about me,” I said quietly. “It’s about Cookie.”
    Marina’s chin went up, and she opened her mouth to say something, but then she sighed and stepped aside. “Why is it that even when I’m trying to do what’s right for you, I get it wrong?”
    I frowned. Marina? Being self-critical? If the world was ending, why hadn’t I gotten a memo? “Hey,” I said. “Is something wrong? Because—”
    She opened the door, letting in a whoosh of cold air that swirled around our ankles. “Go on. You don’t want to be late.”
    No, I didn’t. But I didn’t want to leave this half-finished conversation, either. “You’re okay?”
    “My deah,” she said, slipping into Southern Belle mode, “do Ah look like Ah have a problem?” She did a sideways shuffle and tossed her hair over her shoulder while humming “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.”
    It was obvious that something was