Murder at the PTA Read Online Free

percent,” she’d written on the monthly financial figures. “Party?” This meant our September sales were down two percent from the previous year and Lois’s idea for spurring sales was a Halloween party. Which meant decorations and costumes for the staff, and cookies and cider and spooky music—probably a machine to make fog, too. Lois didn’t do things in a small way.
    As I sat heavily in the scratched wooden chair, also a holdover from the last owner, the wheels squeaked. They squeaked again as I stood. Teatime—I had to make decisions, and no way could I do that without a mug of tea.
    “Good morning, Beth!” Lois breezed into the tiny kitchenette. She was twenty years older than I was, three inches taller, ten pounds lighter, and, since the death of her husband, infinitely more adventurous in her clothing choices. My idea of cutting-edge fashion was adding a paisley scarf to a navy blue blazer. Today, Lois wore canvas high-top tennis shoes, a plaid kilt kept closed by a brass pin, a pink ruffled blouse that miraculously managed to go with the kilt, and noisy metal bracelets. She twirled a black velvet cape from her shoulders and pulled off her red beret, hanging them both on hooks. “Got that tea water going?” she asked. “I have a new kind of chai. Vanilla peach spice.” She waved a small box.
    “Lois, about a Halloween party. I’m not sure—”
    “We can afford it? Don’t worry. It’ll cost hardly a penny. We’ll print a few posters and hang them around town. We’ll make some flyers and stuff them in bags. Half sheets, to save paper.” She talked with one hand on the handle of the almost-hot teakettle. “We’ll get the staff to bring a treat each, and I have boxes and boxes of decorations at home.”
    The whistle began its throaty chirping. Lois snatched it off the electric hot plate and poured water into two mugs. The tea bags steeped as she talked. “I checked the attic last night, and I have oodles of orange lights. Only things we’ll have to buy are cider and plastic cups.”
    “I have cups.” The words were out before I knew I was going to say anything.
    “Excellent.” Lois dunked the tea bags a few times and dropped them onto a cracked Peter Rabbit dish. The store carried child-sized dinnerware of Peter and his sisters. Breakages happened on occasion, and I had a varied collection of repaired dishes at home. The kids considered themselves too old for such babyish things, but I didn’t mind eating toast with Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail.
    “I’ll bring in my special Halloween CDs.” Lois wrapped her hands around the mug. “And my sister has a neighbor who has a friend who bought a fog machine for his last Halloween party. I bet I could borrow it.”
    Sometimes I wondered if Lois knew whose store this was. Sometimes I wondered if I knew.
    “Hello? Is anyone here? Beth?”
    I put down my tea and hurried out. “Good morning . . . Oh. Hi, Debra.”
    Nathan’s mother, dressed in a skirt-and-jacket set two shades darker than her pale blue eyes, put her hands on her hips. Light glinted off her multicarat engagement ring. “Is it true?” she demanded.
    “Umm . . .” I tried to like Debra. She was pleasant. She watched her son’s soccer games and didn’t scream at him. She attended church every Sunday and held hands with her husband on walks. I’d even seen her brush snow off an elderly woman’s windshield, but I just couldn’t like her. Marina said it was my inferiority complex rearing its butt-ugly head. Maybe knowing Debra was afraid of water would give me an edge. Not that we were in competition.
    “I couldn’t make it last night,” Debra said. “What is Agnes Mephisto doing now?”
    Last night’s PTA meeting came back to me in a rush—Agnes and her anonymous donor. And since for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, there also came the remembered instant opposition to Agnes’s proposal. “Would you like a copy of the meeting minutes?” I