Free Poison at the PTA by Laura Alden Page A

Christmas Past finger at me. “There she is!”
    “Hello, Glenn.” I eyed the insurance man warily. Glenn Kettunen was funny, smart, and interesting. He also couldn’t keep a secret if the lives of ten thousand people depended on it. “What’s up?”
    He sidled close. “I hear you have the inside scoop on what happened to Cookie Van Doorne. Tell all to your Uncle Glenn, dearie.”
    “What makes you think I know anything?”
    He spread his hands, palms up. “Come on, Beth. Everybody knows you took Cookie home that night, that you went to see her in the hospital, and that Gus came in here to talk to you the other morning. Patient man that I am”—he crossed one ankle over the other, stuck his hands in his pockets, looked at the ceiling, and hummed for three seconds before breaking the pose—“I’ve waited two days for you to seek me out. Now here I am, still waiting.” He drummed his fingers on the glass counter.
    There was a petty part of me that wanted to let him wait until doomsday, but I relented and said, “It was an accidental overdose.”
    “Overdose of what?” Glenn asked. “Heroin? Crack?” He rubbed his hands. “Meth? Come on, you gotta tell me.”
    “Acetaminophen,” I said. “Gus said it’s actually fairly easy to overdose on it. It’s in a lot of other medications and if you’re susceptible you can OD and not even know what you’re doing.”
    Glenn’s face had gone still. “Plain old acetaminophen? I take that stuff all the time.”
    “It’s perfectly safe,” I reassured him, “as long as you don’t take too much. If you have any other meds, check to see if it’s in there. I’m sure you’re fine.” But my last words were said to his back because he was already rushing out the door.
    Lois cackled. “Did you see the look on his face?” She slapped her thigh. “Never seen ol’ Glenn look so scared.”
    Great. Now I’d started a panic.
    And a very small part of me, way deep down inside, smiled.
    •   •   •
     
    That night was the regular January PTA meeting, the second meeting to have Claudia’s indelible stamp on it. During the November meeting, Claudia had insisted on adding “refreshments” to the agenda. “Food will add to the PTA camaraderie,” she’d stated. “We’ll get to know each other better.”
    Treasurer Randy Jarvis, his mouth half-full of corn chips, had agreed. Secretary Summer Lang had shot me an apologetic look. “I like the idea.”
    I didn’t. I thought it added even more burden to the already busy PTA members and had the potential to add pounds to my hips, but I’d been outvoted three to one on the topic of having coffee and some sort of dessert snack after every meeting.
    In December I’d had the will to stay away from the Christmas cookies. Tonight, however, Carol Casassa had brought dark, gooey brownies. With walnuts.
    There they were, on the far side of the classroom we commandeered for the meeting, on the table Claudia had persuaded Harry, Tarver’s janitor, to set up for us. The table sat directly underneath the cabinet that Claudia had coerced the classroom’s teacher to let us have Harry install. The cabinet was small, but large enough to hold coffee supplies, napkins, and the multitude of other items that went along with having refreshments. The only thing that didn’t fit in the cabinet was the coffeemaker itself, but Claudia had convinced the school to let us store it in the kitchen.
    I called the meeting to order. All went smoothly until we came to the only agenda item of any real importance. “Storybook Sale Proceeds.”
    Just under a year ago, the PTA had paired Tarver Elementary students with residents of Sunny Rest Assisted Living. The end product was a paperbound book telling the life stories of the residents as seen through the eyes of the children. Sales had done much better than expected. and for the first time ever, the Tarver PTA had serious money.
    But, as everyone except me had probably anticipated, not