The third instalment of Laura Alden's PTA Mystery series sees Beth Kennedy, secretary of the Tarver Elementary School PTA and children's bookstore owner sleuthing away to solve the murder of a customer. Amy Jacobson died of bee stings, but Beth finds this suspicious as Amy was extremely wary of going outside and it seems early for bees to have been out in Wisconsin. Although Beth didn't know Amy well, she knew enough of her to know some of her habits from making regular book deliveries to her house, and she wants to do what she can to solve this mystery, especially since the police don't seem interested.
Unfortunately, Beth seems to have alienated the local police chief, but she doesn't know what she's done to rub him the wrong way. Every effort she makes to extend the proverbial olive branch ends up making things worse. He sees her efforts to find closure in an acquaintance's death as meddling in a closed police investigation (at best) or proving him incompetent (at worst).
Beth's problems don't stop there, though. She's also managing the PTA's spring Senior Story Project, which pairs a student with a resident of the Sunny Rest Assisted Living facility. The students will write up the residents' stories in a book that will be sold as a PTA fund-raiser. The PTA vice-president, Claudia, Beth's nemesis, is determined to undermine the project and point out all of Beth's shortcomings to the rest of the PTA team.
Once the project gets underway, one of the residents presents another puzzle to Beth. Her son gets paired up with Maude whose great-niece Kelly died under controversial circumstances many years ago. Maude, who knows that Beth has a reputation for poking around and solving mysteries, asks Beth to figure out once and for all what happened to Kelly.
And, in the meantime, Beth's boyfriend Evan is showing signs of getting serious. But is Beth ready for the next step? They've been dating for quite awhile, and he's met the family. She knows she needs to either commit or let him know that this isn't working, but she just isn't sure... yet. Which way will she go?
Good thing Beth Kennedy likes to multi-task. As a PTA
secretary, childrenโs bookstore owner, and single mom, Beth
has to work hard to schedule time for sleuthingโฆ
Beth is excited about the spring PTA projectโthe
Senior Story Session, which pairs elderly residents of Sunny
Rest Assisted Living with Tarver Elementary students to
produce a book that the PTA can sell as a fundraiser.
But her enthusiasm is dampened when she discovers
one of her regular customers at the bookstore, Amy Jacobson,
has died from bee stings. What are bees doing out so
unseasonably early in Wisconsinโand why wouldnโt Amy, who
was deathly allergic, have taken greater care to avoid them?
Now itโs up to Beth to get the buzz on who used
killer bees to send Amy Jacobson to her eternal restโฆ
EXCERPT
I bumped up the long drive, parked, and went around to the
trunk to get Amy's books. My feet didn't make any noise
on
the driveway, gravel once upon a time, but now grown over
with grass and weeds. Amy cut everything back in October,
but since she didn't drive, she didn't see the need for
much in the way of weekly maintenance. Like, none.
Shutting the trunk with my elbow, I walked up the path
that led to the house. Here, with trees growing close and
birds singing overhead, it was hard to believe that Amy
lived in the heart of Rynwood.
The back door looked as it always didโin need of
paint and new weather stripping. I pulled open the
woodenโframed screen door and knocked on the door's
glass window. "Amy?" I called loudly. "It's Beth."
There was no answering call, but that was normal. It
usually took three sets of knocking and calling to convince
Amy to come to the door.
Knock, knock. "Amy?"
Knock, knock. "Hello? Amy?"
It wasn't until the fifth set, that I realized what any
rational person would have figured out some time ago: She
wasn't home. Which didn't make any sense, because Amy was
always home.
Always.
My knuckles were getting sore from knocking. "Amy? Amy!
"
She had to be here. Any second now she'd scurry to the
door and apologize for making me wait. She'd . . . been in
the attic. Sure, that was it. She'd been looking forโ
"Looking for Amy?"
I whirled around.
A man stood in front of a long row of lilac bushes;
their waving branches on this breezeless morning solid
evidence of his passage. Which was a good thing, because in
this fairy taleโish setting, his small stature and
thick white hair gave him a very elfin look.
"Yes," I said. "She's not sick, is she?"
He walked to the porch and trotted up the stairs.
Somehow the fact that he carried a pair of pruning shears
didn't bother me a bit. Elves just aren't threatening
creatures.
"Thurman Schroeder is the name," he said. "Selling
cars
is the game. Or it was, until I retired. Now I clip shrubs
and try to pretend I'm useful. My wife says she'll keep
me
around as long as I can take out the garbage, but I don't
want to push my luck."
He grinned and I grinned back.
"You're not selling anything," he said. "Not dressed
city enough. And you're not one of those church ladies;
not
old enough. You're . . . say, I know." He snapped his
fingers. "The book lady. That's who you are. Amy liked
you,
you know."
"Today's book delivery day." I nodded at the box I'd
set
next to the door. "I can't believe she's not here."
The elf's cheerful smile turned upside down. "Oh,
dear.
You haven't heard."
"Heard what?"
His next words explained everything; why he felt free to
stand on Amy's back porch, and worst of all, explained his
use of past tense.
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