Mother's Day, Muffins, and Murder Page 4

  Afternoon pickup at the elementary school was as practiced and as tightly timed as a symphony performance. Parents swooped in through the parking lot, bypassing the turn for the rows of parked cars that filled the back half of the lot. Instead, they followed carefully marked-out yellow lines, which separated us into two lanes that curved up to the front of the school and then continued on to the exit on the other side of the lot.

  The car circle was a loop that, in theory, should move smoothly and let cars flow through with a brief pause to pick up their students. In reality, the double lines moved in fits and starts. Drop-off or pickup time meant gridlock for the streets surrounding the school as the car circle line backed up and clogged the roads. Kids waited on benches in areas designated according to their grade, and the teachers and staff sorted the kids into appropriate cars, relaying names of students along the walkie-talkie network as their turn arrived. Like a conductor, Mrs. Kirk supervised it all, directing all the various players so that the line moved fairly smoothly—most of the time.

  To Livvy and Nathan’s great disappointment, we lived too close to the school to be included on the bus route. I’d told them they would have to wait until they were in middle school to enjoy riding the bus. I wasn’t looking forward to Livvy riding the bus to school next year—as a friend said to me once, all the bad stuff seemed to happen on the bus—but I thought it would probably be one of those things that appeared to be great at a distance, when they were impossible, but quickly lost their luster with day-to-day familiarity. But that was still several months away, and although I was really good at worrying about things in the future, I put those worries away and concentrated on the here and now.

  Gabrielle’s worry about the body turning up in a classroom must not have been realized because all was normal. Otherwise, I doubted the car line would move smoothly and that the kids would be as relaxed as they were. Shrieks and laughter and chatter flowed in through the open door as Livvy and Nathan climbed in.

  As Nathan settled into his booster seat, he asked, “Mom, is it true that there was a zombie in the storage closet?”

  Okay, so not everything was completely normal . . .

  * * *

  “And so now a kid in Nathan’s class told everyone that he saw a zombie in the closet,” I said into the phone later that night.

  “So I bet that made bedtime fun.” Mitch’s voice came over the line faintly. Usually the connection was good no matter where he was in the world, but this time he really did sound like he was on the other side of the ocean, which he was. His job as an Air Force pilot had taken him to Europe, where he was participating in exercises that would last for the next two weeks. It was the middle of the night where he was, but he’d just finished a night sortie and had called after he landed. We worked in our phone calls whenever we could because the time zone difference made it a challenge to connect.

  I had been walking around the living room, picking up action figures and books with one hand while we talked. “Yes. Livvy said the zombie thing was ‘moronic.’” Livvy had taken to dropping words she’d learned while reading into conversation, which I thought was great. I was glad her vocabulary was growing, but Nathan had thought she’d accused him of being a moron, which had resulted in an argument.

  “That’s my little word geek,” Mitch said after I related the story. Then his voice turned serious. “But do you think Gabrielle really saw a body?”

  I put the books and action figures on the coffee table and curled up on the couch, tucking my feet under me. “I don’t know. She was certainly frightened when she backed out of the closet, but there was nothing there when we checked later. And I mean literally nothing. Not even a scrap of paper or a bit of dust. And Mrs. Kirk checked on all the teachers and staff. Everyone was accounted for.”

  “But the school was full of parents—moms—right?”

  “Yes, but Mrs. Kirk checked the sign-in system and everyone had signed out again, and there weren’t any stray cars left in the parking lot.” I picked up one of the action figures and propped it up on the arm of the couch. “And Gabrielle and I looked everywhere we could think of around the school, except in every classroom. Gabrielle wanted to check the storage closets in each room, but I knew Mrs. Kirk wouldn’t stand for that.” I sighed. “I don’t know what Gabrielle saw.”

  “Probably nothing,” Mitch said. “She probably imagined the whole thing.”

  I didn’t really agree with him. Gabrielle was about the least imaginative person I knew, but I knew Mitch was trying to help me not worry. And with him thousands of miles away, I didn’t want him to be anxious about us, so I said, “Maybe.” I knew being stranded in a foreign country was no fun for him when things went wrong. Of course, we were usually talking about fairly minor things, like leaky pipes or the washing machine suddenly not working.

  But he must have had reservations as well because he said, “Ellie, be careful, okay?”

  I heard a noise from down the hall and uncurled my legs. “I will. Zombies or no zombies, I’ll watch out. I think Nathan’s up. I’ve got to go.”

  “Okay, put the little man on,” Mitch said.

  Nathan’s head appeared around the corner.

  “Oh good, you’re up,” I said, and Nathan looked surprised. “Dad wants to talk to you.”

  I held out the phone and listened to Nathan say, “Okay” about seven times. He hung up and said, “Dad says not to worry, that zombies don’t really exist. They’re just made up.”

  “Good. That’s good,” I said, and didn’t add that I’d told him the same thing at least twenty times tonight. “Let’s go back to bed.” I escorted him back to his room, tucked him into bed, read him a Nate the Great book, and didn’t hear a peep out of him the rest of the night.

  Organizing Tips for PTA Moms

  Routines to keep school year running smoothly

  Use a wall calendar to keep track of doctor and dentist appointments, music lessons, sports practices, and school events.

  Try to schedule activities into blocks to save time. Can you coordinate music lessons for one child with the orthodontist appointment for another child? Try and plan evening activities so that they fall on a few nights of the week, giving you some “at home” nights each week.

  Do as much the night before as possible. Pack lunches, lay out clothes, and prep backpacks with homework.

  Chapter Three

  “Sunscreen, bug spray, water, snack bars, camera, and water bottle,” I said as I checked my tote bag. I removed my folding chair from the back of the van and closed the hatch. “I think I’m ready for Field Day.”

  Abby, standing next to me by her car, said, “You forgot a hat,” and handed me a baseball cap, then squinted up at the clear blue sky. “I think we’ll need it.” Field Day was scheduled for the coolest time of the day, first thing in the morning, but the air already had a steamy quality, and I knew that by the time we left in a few hours, we’d both be drenched in sweat.

  “At least you get to wear blue tomorrow.” Abby repositioned her orange cap, which matched the orange T-shirt she wore. Abby taught third grade at the school, but she’d taken today off so she could spend all of Field Day cheering on her son, Charlie. Otherwise she’d have had to spend the whole time on another part of the field with her class and missed the seeing Charlie participate in any of the events. There were a couple of other teachers who were also moms, and they were covering for each other during Field Day.

  Each grade wore a different color for Field Day. Nathan and Charlie were the orange group. Tomorrow, the older grades would have their Field Day, and Livvy was in the blue group. To encourage school spirit—and raise funds for the school—the parents also ordered matching shirts, which meant that I had an orange, as well as a baby-blue, Field Day T-shirt.

  We joined the throng of parents making their way into the school. We stopped off at the office and signed in; then, with our name-tag stickers on our T-shirts, we headed through to the back of the lobby and out the doors that
led outside. We crossed the blacktop marked out with lines for a basketball court and joined the mass of kids and parents on the wide open stretch of grass directly behind the school that was known as the back field. A thick belt of tall pines lined the right-hand side of the back field, extending from the school to the far end of the property. The open, grassy area beside the wooded area wrapped around to the front of the school, and that area was called the side field, even though there was no clear separation between the fields. A chain-link fence enclosed the side and back fields, but not the woods.

  Unlike so many of the newer neighborhoods that had popped up around North Dawkins before the housing bubble popped, the school was located in an older neighborhood. Small Craftsman-style homes from the twenties, thirties, and forties ringed the school, and I could see some parents departing from them and making their way along the chain-link fence to the school’s main doors.

  A few parents slipped in through the woods, which were strictly off-limits to the kids during recess, but I didn’t blame the parents for taking the shortcut. Mrs. Harris was there in her yellow first-grade shirt and wide-brimmed straw hat, fluttering around the parents who emerged from the trail that cut through the woods, welcoming them to Field Day, and then shifting them toward the school building, reminding them to check in at the office before staking out a spot on the sidelines. The shade under the tall pines looked cool and inviting, and I thought longingly of the little trail that ran in a rough diagonal line through the trees and came out on the far side of them, at the street that ran along that side of the school. I knew many kids who lived on that side of the school took the tree-lined path home, a route that cut their walk in half. I’d taken a turn on it myself a few times.

  I wasn’t big on running or aerobics, so I tried to walk as much as I could. That usually meant walking in our neighborhood after dinner, when the sun had dropped below the treetops and the air was a bit cooler, but I also tried to add walks in during the day when I could. Sometimes I finished up my volunteer work at the school and had a little time to burn before dismissal. If the weather wasn’t too sweltering, I’d check out at the office, go through the woods, and then walk through the surrounding neighborhood streets, working my way around to the parking lot, making a loop, and getting in some steps before waiting in the car line.

  “Here’s second grade,” Abby said, staking out a spot beside a fresh chalk line. I turned my back on the woods and unfolded my chair, got my camera ready, and settled in to wait for the first event. It was a carnival-like atmosphere, with the kids and parents in their brightly colored shirts and the happy chatter of several hundred kids.

  Abby and I were scheduled to man the refreshment booth, a table under a blue shade canopy stocked with bottled water and juice bags, during the second hour, so we were free to be spectators during the first round of events.

  The classes in each grade competed against each other, and I spotted Nathan in line behind Mr. Spagnatilli. Nathan was talking to Charlie, who was in line beside him in another line for another classroom. The word “upset” didn’t begin to describe how he and Charlie had felt when they had been assigned to different teachers this year, but although the beginning of the year had been rough, it had worked out to be a good thing. Nathan now had a few more friends, and I thought Charlie did as well.

  The bullhorn screeched, and we all cringed. Then Mrs. Kirk’s magnified, yet hollow, voice said, “Welcome to Field Day, students and parents.” She usually wore suits, but today she had on a T-shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes.

  A high-pitched shout of excitement went up from the student sections, which were spaced around the schoolyard. The parents clapped, and a few of them, including Abby, whooped. Mrs. Kirk gave detailed instructions that I’m sure most of the kids totally missed, but the teachers knew what to do and got their classes lined up for the first event, the three-legged relay race.

  Nathan and his partner, a girl with her blond hair in dog ears, both looked embarrassed—until Mrs. Morrison, the P.E. teacher, took over the bullhorn and raised a starting pistol high over her head as she announced the first event.

  Silence fell over the field like a blanket, muffling all sounds except for the distant bark of a dog. Mrs. Morrison’s voice came through the bullhorn. “Three—two—one.” When the report of the blank echoed over the field, the students and parents came to life, shouting and cheering. I managed to get some photos of Nathan and his partner, who both suddenly became so focused on making it from one end of their narrow lane to the other and back to the starting point that they forgot to be embarrassed. They loped back and touched the next group of kids, then collapsed, giggling, on the grass.

  Nathan’s class came in second, and the results were reported to a group of teachers stationed near the blacktop, who kept track of the outcome of each event. At the end of the day, each kid would go home with a collection of different-colored ribbons for the place their class had finished in the different events.

  The next event was the egg race, and instead of focusing on speed, the kids were now carefully treading with a heel-to-toe stride as they balanced an egg on a spoon. Next up was the bottle-fill race, which took forever as the kids carried a single cup of water to a huge bottle at the far end of the their lane. Charlie’s class won that event, and he grinned happily at Abby as the kids high-fived each other. The second-graders went off for a break and ate Popsicles under several shade canopies while Abby and I went to man the refreshment booth, where we handed out water bottles dripping with condensation to students and parents; then we went back for the second half of Field Day, which included sack races, the fifty-yard-dash relay, and the Frisbee toss.

  By the time we got to the last event, the Frisbee toss, the sun was high in the sky and the back of my shirt was plastered to my shoulder blades. The kids’ faces shone with sweat, but most of them were grinning and looking forward to the promised treat of ice cream bars for dessert after lunch in the cafeteria. I knew that the rest of the day would pretty much be a write-off in the classroom, with lots of educational videos being shown. Nathan had already had his turn at the Frisbee throw, and I was lounging back in the chair, fanning myself with the brim of my hat, when one of the boys in Mrs. Dunst’s line put all he had into throwing the Frisbee, but his aim was way off. The Frisbee went sailing over the line of spectators and into the woods.

  Under her sun visor, Mrs. Dunst, who was seven months pregnant, looked exhausted. “I’ll get it,” I said, and hopped up.

  I walked along the hard-packed dirt path that ran along the edge of the woods, then followed it as it turned into the shadow of the trees. The red Frisbee rested a few feet away on a layer of dead leaves and pine needles that lined the path. A woman holding a large ice chest was farther along the trail, deeper in the woods, and stood with her back to me, looking into the trees.

  I tossed the Frisbee back toward Mrs. Dunst. My aim was terrible, too, and it went wide, but Mr. Spagnatilli caught it and handed it off.

  I started back toward the schoolyard, but glanced back at the woman. She hadn’t moved and still stood motionless, her gaze fixed on something off the path. It looked like Karen Hopkins, one of the other moms from Charlie’s class. Her white-blond hair, cut in an inverted bob, was easy to recognize. “Hey, Karen, are you okay?” I called.

  She turned slowly toward me and blinked. She didn’t seem to recognize me.

  “It’s Ellie. Nathan’s mom,” I said, but there was something in her face that made me hurry down the path to her. “What’s wrong?”

  She carefully set down the ice chest as if it were made of delicate crystal. “Get Mrs. Kirk,” she said in an unsteady voice. “There’s a body over there.”

  She pointed through the trees, and I saw it immediately, a trash can turned on its side, half hidden by several pine branches. At the same time, I noticed a low hum as flies buzzed around the trash can. An unmistakably human form, a woman’s head and shoulders, had tumbled partially out of the can. She was turned away from us
, but her short dark hair was visible through the screen of pine branches and needles that covered her. I felt sick as my gaze traveled over what I could see of the figure. One arm extended out from the body, and rested in a pile of fallen leaves. I saw a silver ring with a large oval stone on one of the slender fingers.

  Chapter Four

  Karen spoke and I jumped as she said, “You can see the trail it left.” She motioned at the ground near our feet, tracing the four lines of compressed dirt, leaves, and pine needles that branched off from the main path.

  “I was going to run the ice chest home,” Karen said in her shaky voice. “I didn’t want to lug it all the way through the school and around the fence. It’s so much faster this way. I live on Chestnut, right over there. This way is faster, but then I saw the gray color—the trash can. The light hit it just right, and it caught my eye.” She swallowed and looked away from the trash can and the figure in the woods. “I wonder how long . . . it . . . has been there? Do you think it was there this morning when I walked over?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  “I don’t know,” I said, but the low drone of the flies made me think it probably had been. “You’re right. We do need to get Mrs. Kirk.” I glanced over my shoulder. The kids must have finished the last event. Through the trees, I could see the kids returning to the school in orderly lines with parents and teachers streaming along beside them. A few teachers remained on the rapidly clearing field, picking up equipment.

  “You go,” Karen said. “I’ll wait here.” She glanced at the trash can, then quickly looked away again. “I’ll sit down here and wait.” She plopped onto the ice chest.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes.” She ran a hand over her forehead. “I don’t think I could walk if I wanted to. One of us has to stay here to make sure none of the kids come by. . . . Some of the early release students go home this way.”