Free Curse of the PTA by Laura Alden

the level you found inside one of those slick city-style bistros
     with hard floors and brick walls and tin ceilings, the kind of restaurant I stayed
     away from whenever possible.
    I looked from one friend to another. All talking, all waving their hands, all seeming
     to be having the time of their lives. I made my thumb and middle finger into a circle,
     put it in my mouth, and blew.
    The resulting earsplitting whistle had the desired effect. Silence.
    “Thank you,” I said. “Now. While in many ways I understand your curiosity about last
     night, I do not appreciate how a man’s murder seems to have become entertainment.”
     Everyone had the grace to look ashamed. Everyone except Glenn.
    “Oh, come on, Beth,” he boomed out in his bigger-than-life voice. “Have a heart. We
     know it’s a tragedy. But you can’t blame us for wanting to get the story straight.
     You were there, and we weren’t.”
    I sighed. “Okay. But don’t you dare transmogrify what I tell you to something more
     exciting.” I gave Glenn the same look I gave my children when they were about to tell
     me “Yes, Mom, my homework is all done.” “I know where you live, and I will hunt you
     down if you change one single word.” I scanned the small crowd. “And that goes for
     the rest of you, too.”
    Heads nodded, so I forged ahead and related the events of the previous night. As I
     spoke, I tried to see the scene in black and white, trying to keep away from the vivid
     red I so didn’t want to see. It worked. Mostly.
    “And that’s all I know,” I finished. “Gus said the sheriff’s office is taking over,
     so from this point on, I won’t know any more than what we’ll read in the papers.”
    “You don’t really think it was someone in the PTA, do you?” Rachel looked at me, worry
     showing in the twist of her mouth. “Who do you think did it? I’ll need to tell the
     kids something.”
    “Yeah.” Glenn’s bald pate shone in the halogen lights. He’d lost the majority of his
     hair before he was thirty and had started shaving his entire head soon after. Now
     in his midforties, he claimed to have no idea if he still had any hair. “You’ve caught
     more killers than Gus has. Who do you think did it?”
    No way was I going to tell this group that I’d spent half the night going over and
     over the meeting in my head, trying to remember anything and everything. If I mentioned
     a single name—not that I had a name in my head; of course I didn’t—half the town would
     have that person tried and convicted before lunchtime.
    “I’m not thinking about it at all,” I said firmly.
    Glenn started laughing. “Tell that to someone who might believe you.”
    I turned to Sara. “I’m not thinking about it at all.”
    She shook her head. “Sorry, Mrs. Kennedy. Your ears are going all pink.”
    Foiled again by my body’s stupid reactions. “Fine. I may be thinking about it, but
     I don’t know anything and I’m not going to guess. The fine people from the sheriff’s
     office will find the killer soon. That’s what they do.”
    Debra looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I knew what she was thinking, though,
     or close enough. How soon was soon? How long would we have to walk down the street
     knowing there was a killer roaming free?
    I crossed my arms, cupping my elbows with the opposite hands.
    Soon. It would be soon.
    The nonemployees in the room straggled away, and soon just the three of us were left.
     I turned to Sara to ask if she wanted a cup of tea, but she preempted my question.
    “I know you were just being nice about me being late.” Blond and blue-eyed, tall and
     thin, intelligent and bookish, Sara had been all bones and angles when she’d first
     come to work for me three years ago. Now she was finally getting curvy, and, although
     she didn’t yet know it, she was going to be a drop-dead-gorgeous woman.
    “I’m really, really sorry,” she was saying, “and I promise it won’t happen again