Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (19 page)

He sounded like the woman from Mothers Against Porn, which only made me all the more ticked-off at him.

I put my palms on the table and glared at him. “Of course she doesn’t!” I hissed through clenched teeth, “Not unless somebody told her.”

He wriggled a finger beneath his collar, like he needed more air. “Do I look like I have a death wish?”

I squinted at him, thinking that, if he wasn’t telling the truth, that death wish might come true.

“How’d you find out, by the way, because I don’t recall mentioning it?” I was nearly nose to nose with him now.

He shrugged and fiddled with the gingham-checked napkin. “Maybe I figured it out on my own, did you ever consider that? I could’ve asked myself, ‘What’s the craziest, stupidest thing Andy could do to rescue her friend?’ And I came up with this.”

“If that were true, then you win what’s behind door number two.” But I didn’t believe it for a minute. He was a far worse liar than I was.

“Hell, it doesn’t matter how I found out.” He didn’t appear amused. “How
could
you?” he said under his breath. “This is insane.”

“It’s part of the plan, Malone, which you’re going to send up in flames if you hang around here, spilling the beans about me to Julie Costello.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this, Andy.”

“How else am I supposed to help Molly?” I asked him, feeling steamed. “It was the only way to get inside and find out the truth about Hartman and who wanted him dead.” I looked past Malone’s shoulder and saw Julie near the bar, watching us with unbridled curiosity. “I just hope you haven’t blown my cover.”

His bespectacled eyes flickered over me in a less than lawyerly manner. “I’d say you’re hardly covered at all.”

“Stop it,” I warned and felt heat rise in my cheeks.

His gaze froze on my breasts. “My, how you’ve grown.”

I straightened up and crossed my arms over my chest. “Give it a rest, four eyes.”

He grinned. “I think I like this side of you, Kendricks. Tiny shorts, big hair and even bigger . . .”

“Finish that thought,” I cut him off, “and I’ll have Mother spread the word at the firm that you’re a cross-dresser.”

He looked tempted, but he closed his mouth like a good boy.

Julie still hovered at the bar, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was keeping tabs on Malone and me. I quickly pulled my pad and pen from the band of my hot pants and held them poised in front of me.

“So, seriously, how’d you know where I was?” I asked, pretending to scribble an order as we spoke.

“Molly phoned me from jail.”

What?

I nearly dropped my pen.
That
wasn’t what I’d wanted to hear. “How much did she tell you?”

He wiggled a finger at me and I bent nearer. “Oh, maybe just that you plan to do a little breaking and entering tonight.”

Gulp.

Shit, meet fan.

Now I was going to have to come clean.

“I’ve got no choice, Malone,” I pled in a whisper and stared at him, daring him to try to convince me otherwise. “So don’t try to talk me out of it. It won’t work. I’ve made up my mind.”

He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “I swear, Officer, I didn’t know a thing about theft of computer records. In fact, I don’t even recognize this woman.”

He laughed.

I didn’t.

Instead I stared at him, daring him to stop me. “I’m not changing my mind, okay? So if you’re through pestering me, you’re free to leave.”

“Andy . . .”

“I mean it.”

He nodded, and I started to go.

But he reached out and caught my hand, holding on tightly for a moment before releasing me. “Can you sit down for a minute? I’ve got something for you. It’s about the license plate you asked me to run a check on.”

“Now?”

“Pretty please?”

I eyed the bar from where Julie had been keeping vigil, but she was absorbed in conversation with a bulked-up guy in snug jeans and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt.

So I reluctantly took the seat catty-corner from him and waited.

Malone removed a folded paper from the breast pocket of his white button-down. He spread it smooth on the table in front of me. “The tag number was issued to ERA, Incorporated.”

My mouth hung open for a moment before I had the presence to close it. “That’s the company that holds partner’s insurance on Bud Hartman.”

“One and the same.”

Curiouser and curiouser.

“It gets better,” Malone assured me, excitement coloring his face. “I tracked down the only name I could find listed on the corporation papers. This guy was pegged as the CEO, president and chairman of the board.”

“Hartman?” I guessed.

But Malone shook his head. “Larry Jones.”

“Who?”

The name meant zilch.

“He lives in Pine Bluff, Arkansas,” he continued. “Just a good ol’ boy from the sound of it when I called him and mentioned I was an attorney from Big D. He must’ve thought ‘lawsuit,’ because he made no bones about telling me he wasn’t anything more than the company figurehead. Said it was done to keep the privacy of the real partners, one of whom happens to be his brother-in-law, who resides in Plano, Texas. A certain James Robert Barker. Ever heard of him?”

James Robert Barker.

It took a few seconds for the proverbial light bulb to flick on.

Oh, Lord.

“The Reverend Jim Bob,” I said in a breathless rush. “The pastor of the Church of Perpetual Hope, where Bud’s memorial service was held this morning.”

“You went to Hartman’s service?” Malone squinted at me. “Hell, Andy, what else haven’t you told me?”

That Malone was miffed made no difference, not when I was too pumped up to think of anything except the fact that my hunch had paid off.

So there was a real tie between Bud Hartman and the Reverend Jim Bob. A legal and financial bond. Only it didn’t make much sense.

“Why would a prominent church leader who runs a big television ministry and preaches about morals and family values involve himself with a guy like Hartman?”

“You’ve got me,” Malone agreed, apparently through giving me a hard time. At least for the moment. “The plot thickens all the time. I only wish I could flip straight to the last chapter and find out how it ends.”

I echoed his sentiments, but my voice was drowned out by a loud call of, “Hey, babe! We need more beer!”

“Babe?” Malone repeated, his mouth lurching into a smirk.

“Shut up.” I sat and rose from the chair with a push, scrambling to keep from losing my pen and order pad. “I’ll bring your order when it’s ready.”

“My order?” he yelped. “What order, Andy?”

I gave him a wave over my shoulder and headed off.

Fifteen minutes later, I unloaded a basket of wings, a jug of beer, and a Jethro burger with “the works” in front of him.

He looked stunned. “You expect me to consume all this?”

“You’re a full-grown man.” I patted his back. “You can handle it. Just don’t forget to leave a big tip.”

“Oh, I’ve got a tip for you all right.” He stared up his thin nose at me. “If you knew what was good for you, you’d drop this charade and go back to your web designs.”

“That kind of tip you can keep to yourself,” I shushed him and skirted the table, vanishing to the kitchen to pick up my next order, telling myself to forget about Brian Malone and the ketchup stain on his silk tie.

I wasn’t gone more than a couple of minutes; but when I returned with a loaded tray balanced carefully at my shoulder, I nearly dropped everything and fled.

I blinked twice to make sure the blur of blue was no mirage.

But the specter I saw didn’t go away.

Cissy stood at the hostess podium, wearing pearls and a robin’s-egg blue Escada silk suit, her blond hair, as always, perfect. She looked as out of place at Jugs as George Hamilton at an albino convention. I could smell her Joy perfume through the stench of hamburgers and fries, and my stomach turned.

She must’ve just walked in, because it didn’t look as if she’d spotted me yet—or Brian, for that matter—so I still had a chance to run. Then her head tilted toward Danielle, the buxom brunette playing hostess. Danny nodded, glanced around, and raised her arm to point me out.

Dear God.

I pirouetted in my sneakers like a prima ballerina, and I hurriedly set the tray down on the nearest table before I lost my grip.

I gulped in air and slowed my racing heart enough to avoid passing out, though fainting wouldn’t have been such a bad idea if so much spilled beer hadn’t made the linoleum stickier than flypaper.

“Andrea!”

My ears rang with the sound of my mother’s voice as I forced myself to turn around.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Cissy’s tone rose well above its typically well-bred decibels and pierced the noisy buzz of conversation, the clink of dinnerware, and the Maverick’s ball game with the power of a bullhorn. I felt the place go silent around me. Or maybe it was my imagination. It was as if she wanted everyone to hear her.

I stood and stared, my sneakers glued to the floor, my feet unwilling to move, despite my brain telling me to run, to throw a block on Cissy and rush her out the door.

“Poor misguided child, this is no place for you!” she trilled.

I stayed motionless, my mouth open but producing no sounds, as my mother came toward me, stopping only long enough to yank a checkered cloth from an unoccupied table, sending the condiments and jug of wildflowers crashing to the ground.

Julie Costello shrieked at the bartender.

Malone leapt to his feet.

But not fast enough. Not before Mother approached and threw the tablecloth around me, her powdered face wearing a horrified expression that made Munch’s
The Scream
look like a yawn.

“Have you no pride?” she cried out, holding the ends of the checkered fabric closed around me and pulling me forward at the same time. “Whatever possessed you to work here? I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen you with my own eyes.”

I couldn’t even respond.

Malone scrambled to intercept Mother on the front end, and I glimpsed the bartender—a beefy weightlifter named “Bulldog”—coming at her from behind. I had a mental flash, of Bulldog tossing her across his shoulder like a sack of designer flour and hauling her outside. As appealing as that might have seemed for a very split second, I didn’t want my mother humiliated. She was worried about me, and I couldn’t blame her.

“Get her out,” I snapped at Brian, sure that he was the reason Cissy had shown up. How else could she have known? I felt pretty confident that Molly hadn’t called
her
up from Lew Sterrett.

“Mrs. Kendricks, please, come with me,” Malone cajoled and pried her hands from the cloth. “You’ll spoil everything,” he beseeched, repeating my earlier warning.

Cissy stopped resisting him and looked right at me. “Leave with me, Andrea,” she instructed in that over-loud voice, and I detected a flicker of something in her eyes. Something a little off.

“Mother, please,” I whispered. “I have to do this.”

“So do I.” This time, she lowered her tone for my ears alone, and damned if she didn’t wink at me. It was so subtle, I thought I’d imagined it.

She backed away with a frown, her features settling into the composed countenance I was used to, and she turned to Brian. “No need to trouble yourself, sir. I can find my way out.”

She tugged on her jacket, lifted her chin, and strode through the glass doors.

Conversations resumed, utensils clanked, and someone notched the sound higher on the Mavericks’ game.

My knees nearly buckled.

“It’s not what you think,” Brian said softly. “I didn’t have anything to do with this, though I might’ve mentioned to J.D. that I was coming by to see you, but he wouldn’t have told your mother about it, would he?”

“Save it.” I wadded the tablecloth and pushed it at him.

I cleared my tray, my hands shaking as I distributed burgers and fries to a quartet of college boys who merely gawked at me. When I’d finished, I headed back to the restroom.

I was holding onto the sink and staring at myself in the mirror, utterly confused about what had just gone on, and hoping everything wasn’t ruined, when Julie trotted in after me, wearing a full-blown pout.

“Oh, girlfriend, are you all right? That Mother was pretty riled up about you being here. Do you know her?”

“What?” I met her eyes, reflected in the silver glass.

“That woman who came after you. She’s one of those Mothers Against Porn, isn’t she?”

I couldn’t believe this. It was like being handed a hall pass when I’d been caught smoking in the bathroom after the bell rang. My cover wasn’t blown at all. In fact, Cissy may have actually done me a favor.

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed. “She’s a mother, all right.”

“The best-dressed one I’ve seen, for sure.”

“That was a nice suit.” I had no earthly idea where this was going, so I fudged my way along.

“Looks like she’s on your case, big-time.”

Only all my life.

“You’re just the second waitress they’ve ever come inside to grab like that.”

This had happened before? “Who was the first?”

“That nitwit Sarah who drooled all over Bud.” She patted my arm, her Barbie doll features pinched. “Just watch your butt, okay?”

Not bad advice. Mother had always said I’d never be too old to spank.

“Thanks, I will.”

I splashed some water on my face and patted my cheeks dry with a paper towel.

Still, I felt as if I’d stepped into an episode of
The Twilight Zone
, and I didn’t know how to get out.

By the time the restaurant closed at midnight and Julie had locked the front doors, my mother and Malone were long gone.

Brian left me a ten dollar tip, the bill folded over a piece of scratch paper on which he’d scribbled two words, “Be careful.”

And I knew he didn’t mean safe sex.

While the busboys cleaned up tables and mopped floors, Julie cleared out the register and disappeared into the back office, closing the door.

I peeled off the shorts and too-small top and redressed in black jeans and shirt, taking a bit longer than usual. As the other waitresses left for the evening, one by one, I hung around the locker room as long as I could. I brushed my hair a hundred strokes and reapplied my lipstick almost as often until I was sure no one had forgotten anything they’d need to come back for.