Spengler had once heard Loren say a man had a punchable face, and she hadn’t understood what he meant. Now she did, because she’d have liked nothing more than to knock every one of Alice Schottelman’s perfectly capped teeth down her lousy throat.
“Marie’s been the PTA president for the last five years,” Alice said. “Even though Maddie graduated last year, she was elected for another term. She still runs the place. Or ran, I guess. There’ll be another election soon to fill her position. I might just throw myself into the race, see what I can do.”
She winked.
“Make Taft High School great again,” one of the other two women said.
All three of them tittered, their sharp, high-pitched laughs bouncing off the walls of the teachers’ lounge and piercing Spengler’s ear like a knife. She cleared her throat.
“Did you all know the Evans family well?”
“We were best friends,” Alice said. “I knew about the trip to Estes. Marie was excited. She said it was Matt’s idea. A nice romantic getaway. But for it to end like this—it’s so awful.”
“Terrible.”
“Horrifying.”
“I think the worst part of it is that Marie fell off a cliff. I literally can’t imagine her falling off anything. She didn’t like the unexpected. She’d plan her days down to the minute, wrote it all down in this thick planner she’d carry around. She put what time she’d be going to sleep at night, can you imagine? Sometimes I wondered what would happen if she’d suffered from insomnia and couldn’t fall asleep according to schedule. It would’ve driven her crazy.” Alice sighed. “I can’t think she’d put her foot down in the wrong spot. But you’re here investigating Matt, right? Because I’m sure Marie didn’t fall. Matt had to have pushed her. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Spengler had discovered that Alice only stopped talking when she needed the oxygen, and then she’d only pause for the briefest moment. Spengler started to respond but didn’t have time to form a single word before Alice started talking again.
“Yes, when I heard it was Marie who’d fallen, I was sure it was a mistake. The media screwing things up, reporting errors. But when it turned out to be true—well, every couple has problems, I guess. But if you’d asked me who’d murder who in that marriage, I would’ve put my bet on Marie. She was great at planning things.”
“Do you remember the time Marie planned that surprise party for Holly?” the third woman asked.
“Or the winter carnival two years ago?”
“Or what about—”
This was one of the most bizarre conversations Spengler had ever heard. These three women were enacting a strange sort of memorial service for Marie, remembering all the things she’d done. She let them go on, trading stories and laughing, although she had her own questions she’d ask when there was a break in the conversation. Was Marie afraid of her husband? Had she ever complained about money problems? Did she ever mention feeling in danger in her own home?
No, everything was no. Nothing like that had ever happened. None of them had ever noticed anything was wrong in the Evanses’ marriage. In fact, they all agreed, Marie and Matt never really seemed to have problems—at least, they didn’t air their dirty laundry for everyone to see. Instead, the three women were more interested in rehashing every memory they had of Marie.
“—that time Marie dealt with Kara Mason?”
“God, that was awful.”
“Yeah, I never thought Marie would take it that far.”
“What happened with Kara Mason?” Spengler asked curiously. The three women exchanged looks, but she didn’t think she’d have to push them to talk about this. They wanted to tell her what’d happened, that’s why it’d come up in the first place. The juicier the gossip, the more satisfying it was to pass along.
“Last year, Marie suggested a change to the school’s lunch menu,” Alice said. “Kara Mason opposed it and things got pretty nasty between them.”
“I’m sure you’ve realized our school is named after former president Taft, who was severely overweight, and obesity is a huge issue facing our children,” the woman to the right said, her eyes lit up with a fervor approaching something holy. “At the beginning of the school year, Marie implemented a program to offer much healthier options to the students. Low-fat, gluten-free, responsibly grown food from local farmers. Artisanal breads, meats, and cheese that comes from free-range, grass-fed cows. Do you know what I mean?”
I had a Pop-Tart for breakfast, Spengler thought, smothering a smile. She nodded, because she recognized the look in the woman’s eyes. It was obsession, plain and simple. For some people their obsession was drugs and alcohol, for others it was plastic surgery or biting their fingernails or gambling. But for women like these the obsession was food, in monitoring every bite they ate, in making careful lists for the grocery store. Organic, gluten-free, grass-fed, seasonal—those were their buzzwords. These were women who had the leisure time to spend hours poring over their meals, who didn’t have to budget their grocery bill. These women drank black coffee blended with coconut oil and a pat of butter, who drank water only if it was full of electrolytes.
“Kara was extremely vocal against the changes,” Alice said, leaning forward and lowering her voice. It’d started to feel like she was telling a ghost story around a campfire. “She started spreading all sorts of lies about Marie. Said she’d seen her eating cheese puffs while she was waiting in the carpool lane and that she’d caught her sticking her finger down her throat after a PTA dinner to purge. And then Kara started going around with a petition to have Marie removed from her post as president.”
“And people were actually signing it,” woman number three said, holding up her fingers and counting off the complaints. “They said Marie’s plans weren’t budget friendly. That she was running the school like she owned the place. That she didn’t actually care about the students, just herself.”
“So Marie decided to call a truce. She rented out a banquet hall and had the whole thing catered, made Kara the guest of honor. She told everyone she was waving her white flag, that she wasn’t up for the fight anymore. They needed to put their differences aside and do what was best for the students.”
“I was at the same table as Marie and Kara that night,” Alice said. “You’d think those two were best friends, the way they were laughing and toasting champagne.”
“It was a good party,” number three said.
“Oh, it was a wonderful party,” Alice said. “But I think Kara must’ve had a bit too much to drink, and she started throwing up all over the table and herself. It was disgusting. And the next day, the nudes started showing up on Instagram.”
“Nudes?” Spengler asked.
“Kara claimed her phone had been stolen that night at the party, and her personal photos were starting to pop up on her Instagram feed,” Alice said. “Sexually explicit photos, if you get my drift. They were so obviously Kara, she didn’t even try to deny it. And sometimes they’d be up online for hours before she’d figure out how to remove them.”
“And there was a man in some of the photos. Not her husband.”
Spengler looked back and forth between the three women. They might’ve been rehashing the drama of their favorite soap opera, that’s how involved they were. It was almost scary.
“So Kara’s husband left her, and all she had were her kids and the PTA. But everyone was so disgusted with her at that point, no one would really even speak to her, and her petition died,” number two said. “Then she baked a tray of brownies and brought them over to Marie’s house as a peace offering. Figured the best way to get back in everyone’s good graces was to make nice with Marie.”
“Oh, I was there when she dropped them off. Poor thing looked like a wet, dirty rag, that’s how bad things had gotten for her,” Alice said. “And Marie was so gracious, accepted the brownies and said the family would eat them for dessert that night. But they never did. I was with Marie in her kitchen and that stupid cat of hers jumped up on the counter and started eating them. I saw it with my own eyes. And then that thing started howling and choking, and then it fell over and died.”
“What happened?” Spengler asked.
“Marie took it to the vet and had tests run. They all came back inconclusive, but you know what I think?” Alice leaned closer. Her eyes glittered meanly and her lips had gone razor thin, smearing lipstick on her teeth. “Kara had tried to poison Marie and her whole family because she thought Marie had stolen her phone and published those nudes. And once everyone found out about those brownies and Marie threatened to press charges, Kara was done. She had to pull her kids out of the school and move. None of us have seen her since.”
Alice sat back, satisfied with herself.
“Did Marie steal Kara’s phone and put the photos online?” Spengler asked. She’d thought all three might be shocked and offended at the question, that they’d shut her down and ask her to leave, but that wasn’t the case.
“Of course she did,” Alice said. “I’m sure Marie has done all sorts of crazy things, but she’s smart about it. Doesn’t tell anyone and never gets caught.”
“Like the time Maddie was the understudy in Romeo and Juliet, and Juliet just happened to slip in the locker room and break her leg, so Maddie took the role.” Woman two shrugged. “I could never figure out how she did it, but it had to be Marie. She was furious when Maddie didn’t get the part.”
“Or that time Principal Lee denied Marie’s request for a larger PTA budget, and Lee’s tires were slashed the next week? Officially it was blamed on a student, but—c’mon. Totally Marie.”
“You all knew what she was doing and never said anything?”
“Well, we knew what she was doing, but it’s not like we knew, if you get my drift,” woman number three said. “And it’s not like she ever killed anyone. Well, I always wondered about the cat. I know how it looked, but I couldn’t really see Kara trying to poison anyone. But I guess you don’t have to kill a person to destroy them.”
“So you think Marie—”
“Oh, I don’t think anything. But Marie doted on that cat. Fancy canned food. Always letting it up in her lap, letting it sleep in their bed. When it died she was devastated.” The third woman paused, running the sharp point of her tongue over her lips. “All I’m saying is that I wonder. The cat turning up dead in front of everybody was the best way to get rid of Kara, once and for all.”
“If you stayed on Marie’s good side, she was the most generous, loving friend a person could have,” woman two said. She looked down at her hands while she spoke, spinning the wedding ring on her third finger. “She was always a lot of fun. But she could be crazy.”