Free Murder at the PTA by Laura Alden Page A

but she doesn’t deserve that.”
    Poor Dorrie. I instantly felt guilty for my uncharitable thoughts. At least she was fighting back for her self-esteem instead of crawling into a dark closet and crying. Since I had no cleavage to speak of, if something like that happened to me, I was a candidate for the closet.
    Ruthie stood straight, breaking us out of whisper mode. “I assume you heard about Agnes?”
    “Gus says the investigation is proceeding,” I said.
    She made a rude noise in the back of her throat. “Gus Eiseley is a nice man, but running a murder investigation?” Shaking her head she said, “Agnes had a lot of enemies in this town. Did you know her?” She shot a look up at Evan.
    “No. She sounds . . . as if she must have been an interesting woman.”
    Ruthie chuckled. “The man has tact.”
    “Just taking the lessons of my kindergarten teacher to heart,” he said. “Mrs. Pelton-Banes always said, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say—’” He broke off as he noted the expression on my face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
    “Mrs.—Mrs. Pelton-Banes?” I stuttered.
    “I don’t think she had a first name.”
    “Mrs. Pelton-Banes, the kindergarten teacher at Alice A. Black Elementary School? In Illinois? In Peoria , Illinois?”
    He frowned. “How did you know that?”
    “You’re not Evan Garrett. You’re Evan Hill!”

Chapter 6
    E van stared at me, his face slack with surprise.
    “You’re Evan Hill,” I repeated. “You made fun of me for reading instead of playing tag. You said I wasn’t old enough to read and to quit acting big.” The ancient insult came back fresh. “Even when I read the book out loud, you didn’t believe me.”
    Evan’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t look like a movie god any longer; he looked like a bigmouthed bass. “Beth Emmerling. You’re Beth Emmerling.” He repeated my name over and over and might have gone on for hours except Ruthie started braying with laughter.
    “You two look like Moses just came down from the mountain. Kindergarten pals, eh? This is a small-world story to beat the band.”
    Evan looked at Ruthie. “I think she’s still angry.”
    They considered me. My hands were on my hips, and my chin was jutting forward.
    “Sure looks like it,” Ruthie said. “You’d think the statute of limitations on things that happened in kindergarten would have expired by now.”
    “Do you think an apology would help?”
    Ruthie pursed her lips, making tiny lines radiate around her mouth. “Couldn’t hurt.”
    “How about if I tell her I just wanted to play with the prettiest girl in class?”
    “Probably not a good idea,” Ruthie said. “She’s not big on flattery.”
    “Stop talking as if I weren’t here.” I took a deep breath, willing away the flashback to a childhood pain. “I was never the prettiest girl in any class, anywhere.”
    “To me you were,” Evan said softly. My gaze met his bright blue one, and the electricity that had connected us over lunch sprang back to life. He took hold of my elbow and ushered me toward the front door. “Come on. There’s a park bench down the street that’s waiting for us. Let’s go talk.”
     
    Lois glanced up as I paused in the retelling of my luncheon events. “So how’d he end up Evan Garrett if his name was Evan Hill? He’s not hiding from the law, is he?”
    I smiled, but she was serious. “Evan’s birth father abandoned his mother when Evan was four.”
    “Oh, the poor woman.” Lois clutched a stack of graphic novels to her chest. “That poor little boy.”
    “She waited a year, then ran out of money and moved back to her parents’ up in Green Bay. She married Ed Garrett two years later.”
    “And Evan’s birth father let Garrett adopt him,” Lois said.
    “Not such a mystery, after all.” As a first grader, I’d wondered why Evan wasn’t in school. The day after kindergarten let out, his mother had packed up the station wagon and driven north to Green Bay,