Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (12 page)

I tried to focus on what she was saying but was distracted by the sight of a man busily chopping stalks of celery with a chef’s knife grasped in a plastic-gloved hand. The sound of the blade’s steady whack sent a shiver up my spine.

“You got any questions?” Julie asked, and I managed a shake of my head. “All right, then I’ll take you to the wait station and the bar.”

Before she dragged me out of the kitchen, I caught a glimpse through the rear door as someone took a trash bag outside.

The white Lincoln was gone.

I cursed myself for not having paid it more attention. I couldn’t remember a single letter or number from the license plate.

Some spy I was.

I also noted a panel of buttons blinking by the door. The alarm system. Something I’d have to figure a way around if I were going to do any after-hours snooping.

The sudden reality of what I was doing hit me like a speeding Humvee.

My heart fluttered, knowing I couldn’t afford to slip up, not when Molly’s hearing was a week away.

Julie pulled me with her into the dining room of the restaurant. “Over here is your station,” she told me, indicating a patch of tables near the bar. “And in case you forget, there’s a map at the hostess podium. Got it?”

I assured her I did.

As she nattered on about putting orders into the computer, I absorbed the room around me: the hillbilly décor complete with faux squirrel skins (at least I hoped they were faux), racks of shotguns, patchwork quilts and even an autographed photo of the guy who’d played Jethro on
The Beverly Hillbillies.
Rows of earthenware jugs lined the bar.

I wondered if Bud had thought himself clever when he’d named the joint. I imagined him howling with amusement as he’d come up with a list of euphemisms for “breasts”—knockers, headlights, melons—and then had crossed them off one by one until he’d found the right gimmick to hide behind. I mean, he obviously couldn’t have called the place “Tits” and pretended it was a family restaurant.

Nope, Jugs had fit the bill. A straight-faced father could explain to his young son that a jug was used for drinking while elbowing his buddy in the ribs. If Bud had kept the secret to himself instead of putting up a billboard resembling a perfectly round pair of bosoms or dressed his waitresses more like Miss Ellie than Ellie Mae, then the Mothers Against Pornography would have stayed home.

Still, I’ll wager Bud had seen the protestors as a perk, a way to draw extra attention to his business. The same way it pleased Julie to have more publicity even if the reason was homicide.

“. . . push the bartender’s specials, okay? Drinks add up, ya see? So do the jugs of beer at fifteen dollars a pop.”

I blinked away my mental meanderings and focused on the tap Julie used to fill a jug with beer and neatly top it off.

“You’ve gotta be careful to avoid too much head,” she warned, and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from snorting. “Or the foam makes a really big mess.”

“Got it.”

“Usually the bartender will do this for you, but, if he’s busy, you’ve gotta know the ropes.”

I assured her I could manage.

She patted my arm and said, “Good girl.” Which was better than “little mama” in a pinch.

By the time Julie had wrapped up my orientation and given me a laundry list of responsibilities, I’d picked out plenty of places where Bud’s killer could have remained hidden until Molly had run out and Bud was left alone in the kitchen.

The only trouble was my suppositions were just suppositions. As Malone had so carefully pointed out, my imagination was not admissible in court. If I couldn’t come up with anything more solid than “what if,” how would I ever convince the Dallas P.D. that Bud’s assailant was someone other than Molly?

I headed back to the locker room to realign the padding in my bra and to reapply my Paradise Plum lipstick. What I walked into was a scene straight out of Hugh Hefner’s daydreams.

Three women disrobed in a flash of toned limbs, breasts, and rear ends. Memories of adolescent girls changing after gym class flickered through my mind, and I felt my cheeks warm. Modest as I was, I nearly raised my hand to my face to cover my eyes with my fingers until the coast was clear.

“Hey, you must be new.” The tall brunette spotted me as she wiggled into her skimpy shorts. “Guess you’ll be filling in for Molly, right? No offense, honey, but I do hope it’s only temporary.”

I suppressed the urge to grin. It was good to know that Molly at least had someone on her side.

“I’m Andrea,” I said.

“Christie,” she replied then gestured to the tiny redhead on her left. “This here’s Ginger and this is Rhonda”—she hooked a thumb in the other direction, toward a dark-skinned woman with cropped black hair. All three had the rock-hard bodies of aerobics instructors.

Instinctively, I sucked in my belly. “Nice to meet you,” I replied, quickly adding, “Though I’m sorry about the circumstances. What a terrible thing, your boss getting killed.” I wondered if that was the reason for their somber expressions. “It must be hard on everyone to deal with.”

Tall Christie glanced sideways at flame-haired Ginger, who in turn looked at Rhonda.

“Yeah, we’re sorry, too,” Rhonda spoke up in a raspy voice. “Sorry that Molly’s the one who got arrested. She’s a cool girl. A real hard worker.”

“I can’t believe she stabbed Bud,” Ginger said as she fashioned her locks into braids that looked not unlike Pippi Longstocking. “He must’ve really put the heat on her. The guy could come on real strong sometimes, and maybe Molly couldn’t find a graceful way out.”

“They’ll get her off on self-defense, don’t ya think?” Christie asked her comrades, and their heads bobbed agreeably. “Bud could be so aggressive. Especially if he’d been drinking.”

“Tell me about it,” Ginger remarked and rolled her eyes. “Molly used to call him the octopus.”

“He was trouble,” Rhonda added.

Had they all endured Bud Hartman’s come-ons? Because that’s the picture I was getting. If so, it’s likely that Molly wasn’t the only waitress he’d tried to force himself on. What if someone else hadn’t been able to get away? What if she’d come back and sought revenge after Molly had escaped?

I couldn’t count out that scenario.

Crossing my arms, I leaned against a row of lockers and asked them, “If Bud was as bad as all that, why didn’t anyone press charges?”

I’d posed the same questions to Molly and, though I understood her answer, it didn’t make sense to me that seemingly intelligent women would routinely have subjected themselves to Bud Hartman’s unwanted advances without doing anything about it.

“There are laws against sexual harassment,” I said, and they all stared.

Rhonda jerked her chin, her expression strained so that pale creases stood out against her dark skin. “You got kids?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I admitted, reminded of the fib I’d told Julie. Suddenly uncomfortable, I shifted on my sneakers, sensing where this was going.

“You got a man to take care of?”

“No.” My mouth felt dry as Lubbock.

“You caught up on your rent? Is your car paid off? How about your credit cards? Got a zero balance there, too?”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t find my voice with the three of them watching me so microscopically.

Rhonda pressed on, “Betcha have a mommy and daddy who’ll slip you a few bucks when things get tight, huh?”

What was the deal? Did I have a neon sign on my face that said,
ASK ME ABOUT MY TRUST FUND
?

“You’re wrong,” was all I could squeak out, finding it harder to lie to these three women than to Julie Costello. “I’ve got no one to help me, and I’ve got a ba . . . a barrel of trouble in my life at the moment.”

“Give the girl a break.” Christie nudged her friend, and my shoulders sagged with relief that she’d come to my rescue. “Andrea wouldn’t be here either, Ronnie, if she didn’t have bills to pay.”

Rhonda studied me, her features suddenly less fierce. “You’re right. Hey, forgive me, Andrea. Sometimes I’m a pain in the ass. I’m just jittery is all. Like we didn’t have enough to deal with before Bud got himself iced. Those Mothers Against Porn had already stepped on my last nerve. Get this. One of them tried to do another intervention with me last night in the parking lot.” She rolled her eyes. “Since when is waiting tables a crime? There’s plenty of filth on the Internet to keep ’em busy. All we do is serve burgers and beer.”

Ginger finished applying crimson gloss on her lips and chimed in, “Guys bring their kids in, for shit’s sake. It’s all in fun, ya know? They just want to get an eyeful. Maybe the wife’s not in such good shape. Maybe she’s got stretch marks. So he wants to fantasize a little. It’s not like we’re doing lap dances.”

But wasn’t dressing up like this degrading?

And how about putting up with a boss who was constantly trying to cop a feel? Or worse?

Didn’t that make their working environment less than ideal?

“There are always a few girls who can’t hack it,” Rhonda said as she ran a wide comb through her short dark curls. “Take that girl, Sarah whatever-her-name-was. She was all gung-ho for a week or two. Then she stayed to help Bud close one night and never came back.”

“Really?” The hair stood up on my nape. “No one saw her again? What happened? Was it something Bud did?”

Christie sat down on the bench and laced up her Reeboks. “All I remember is Sarah seemed to have a crush on Bud, believe it or not.” She made a face. “She followed him around like a love-struck groupie, batting her big eyes at him, which didn’t sit well with Julie. Sarah was a cute kid, too. No more than eighteen, nineteen tops.” She paused, her expression shifting, as if she was trying to fit the pieces together. “She was only around for a couple of weeks before she split, so I figured Julie had Bud fire her. But no one ever had the chance to find out. She was gone when we showed up the next day for our shift.”

“Didn’t she come back to clean out her locker?” I asked.

The women looked at one another and shook their heads.

“Far as I know, she never set foot in Jugs again. She didn’t even pick up her last paycheck,” Ginger remarked. “If she left anything behind, I’d bet Julie threw it away.”

“And no one knows where she went?” I asked, wondering what had made her vanish so abruptly.

Christie shrugged. “Probably ran home to mama. The girl still had a lot of growing up to do. She seemed really needy. Kind of lonely and pathetic.”

“Prime Bud bait,” Rhonda interjected.

“Yikes,” Christie said and checked her watch. “Let’s shake a leg, girls. Unless we want the cheerleader from hell chewing us out.”

The trio headed toward the door, but I didn’t move.

“You coming, Andrea?” Ginger asked, flipping red braids over her shoulders.

“In a minute,” I told them. “Gotta use the john. Y’all go ahead.”

Alone at last, I went into my locker and dug in my purse, retrieving my lipstick. Then I smeared some more Paradise Plum on my mouth and evened out my falsies with help from the mirror.

I looked at my reflection and sighed.

I hated pretending, hated lying to seemingly nice women I barely knew.

This was going to be harder than I thought.

But I had no choice.

When I stepped into the hallway, I glanced longingly toward the door to Bud’s office. No doubt I’d find some answers there, if he had a computer. Which he must. No business these days did without one. If I could just get in and pull up his personnel files, I could track down the mysterious Sarah who’d quit so suddenly.

I wondered if the police had even attempted to interview any of the former or current waitresses at Jugs, though I doubted it strongly. Why use manpower chasing leads that could go nowhere when you had a bloody knife with fingerprints?

No, I’d have to dig up equally damning proof, evidence that pointed away from Molly and toward someone else.

I checked the hallway toward the kitchen and listened for the sound of approaching voices or footsteps. Hearing none, I crept over to the office door and put my ear against it.

Nothing.

Heart racing, I gave the knob a twist and pushed, quickly poking my head into what had once been Bud Hartman’s domain.

I spied the computer instantly, perched on an oak veneer desk scattered with papers. Nearby sat a console holding a TV, a VCR, and assorted electronics equipment that looked expensive and complicated. So many buttons, knobs, and switches made my head spin. Thank goodness his computer was a new-model Dell, one I knew had an internal zip drive. Nothing complicated there.

My fingers itched to get into his system, to see his programs and files, to poke through his books. Something told me a guy like Bud would probably have two sets of numbers.

It took real restraint to close the door and walk away.

I didn’t have time to snoop now. I’d have to figure out a way to slip into Bud’s office when Jugs had emptied out.

“Well, there you are. Did you get lost?”

Julie Costello marched toward me. Her round eyes lit up brighter than a bonfire.

“Uh, I had to use the restroom,” I stammered out an explanation.

“Oh, sugar, I understand, you being in that condition,” she said with a wink and a glance at my now mostly bared belly. “Hey, a big ol’ crowd’s already forming outside the doors,” she said, sounding breathless. “The Moms Against Porn are in full force and a few reporters are still hangin’ around, so I’ll bet we double our receipts today. Come and see for yourself.” She took my arm and propelled me forward into the dining room.

She hadn’t exaggerated about the crowd.

Beyond the locked glass doors, a gridlock of people jammed together. I could hear shouts and spotted an occasional sign that popped up above the line of mostly male heads waiting to get in.

“Can you believe it?” Julie whispered. “If Bud could see this, he’d be grinnin’ like a bull on a dairy farm.”

A cry went up, and I watched as a sturdy gray-haired woman surged to the head of the pack and planted herself flush against the glass doors.

“Oh, God,” Julie murmured. “It’s the Wicked Witch.” “Who?”

“The mother of Mothers.”