Mother Knows Best (A Margie Peterson Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

out the window, tongue flapping in the breeze.
    “I visited your new school today, Elsie,” I said brightly. “Are you excited about starting first grade at Holy Oaks?”
    There was an ominous growl from the backseat. I had to admit, I kind of agreed with her. If Blake’s parents hadn’t offered to pay her tuition, we’d probably be at the public school down the street. I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t be happier there.
    “Why does Elsie have to go to a new school?” Nick asked. “Doesn’t she like Green Meadows?”
    “She liked Green Meadows,” I said, stretching the truth a bit—she and the headmistress had not seen eye to eye on a few things, such as wearing a dog collar and biting fellow classmates—“but she’s in first grade now, sweetheart. Green Meadows only goes up to kindergarten.”
    The growling got louder.
    “Mommy, Elsie’s baring her teeth at me.”
    “Elsie,” I said sternly. “If you bite your brother, there will be no brownie in your food bowl tonight.”
    “No brownie?” She sounded like I was threatening to take her to the veterinarian for shots. On the plus side, I told myself, at least she was using words. A moment later, she made a sound like a car whose muffler had fallen off.
    “I’ll tell you what. If you can go without biting or growling the rest of the afternoon, then after supper, you can have a brownie . . . and ice cream.”
    The growling stopped, and when I glanced into the rearview mirror, my daughter had stopped baring her teeth. “Thank you,” I said.
    “What about me?” Nick said.
    “You too,” I said. There goes the Mother of the Year Award, I thought. Not only had I spent the afternoon at a strip club, I’d had the kids for five minutes and already I was bribing them with food. I would read each of them three stories tonight, I told myself. And make them a healthy dinner with vegetables; all the parenting books said you should keep offering them to your kids, even if they didn’t eat them.
    “But that’s not fair,” Elsie protested. “Nick doesn’t have to do anything.”
    “He has to not bite or growl at you, too. That’s the way it works. No biting and growling, lots of brownies and ice cream. Okay?”
    “Okay,” they both agreed, and I turned right, wondering where I was going to come up with brownies.

    Blake’s car, a BMW that always looked like it had just been detailed (usually because it had), was already in the driveway when I pulled in and put the van into park. While his car looked great, our house wasn’t nearly as spiffy. I tried to ignore the too-long grass neither of us ever got around to cutting, not to mention the large hole in the siding that appeared to have little tooth marks around the edges, but that I kept telling myself was wood rot.
    Since I’d started my job at Peachtree Investigations, I’d been too busy working and keeping laundry and dinners on track to worry about the house’s exterior, and the neglect had started to show. The front yard was looking more like a pasture than a lawn, with knee-high grass and rose bushes that were encroaching on the sidewalk. In fact, I thought as I walked up to the front door, I should probably get the shears out; it looked like the bushes might swallow a passing pedestrian sometime soon unless I took measures to get them back under control. No notice from the homeowners’ association had turned up in my mailbox yet, but I suspected it was coming.
    Rufus, our incontinent Siamese cat, yowled at me from behind a dead fern in the front hall as I herded the kids in through the front door. His food bowl must be empty—again.
    “Blake?” I called as Nick toddled through the front door, throwing off his shoes. One of them almost landed on Rufus. I tried to catch him and return him to the laundry room, but he streaked away before I could grab him, leaving me wondering where he’d deposit his next offering. Last week it had been my closet. I was hoping this time it wouldn’t be my