Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (20 page)

I used the time to pull myself together. I had to be sharp, in control. I couldn’t dwell on the surreal episode with my mother. One thought of David and Molly and what might happen to them if I didn’t do this right, and I felt more focused than jittery.

I stepped into the hallway and stopped to listen, but heard no footsteps on the tiles but my own.

I walked toward the office and knocked on the door, pushing it wide to find Julie at Bud’s desk, counting cash and credit card receipts.

She glanced up as I entered.

“Just wanted to say goodnight,” I told her. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow on my regular shift.” As if I had a regular shift.

Her smile was weary. “Yeah, see you tomorrow, sugar. It’s been a long day for us both, huh?”

“Too long.” And it wasn’t over yet.

“I can’t believe that Mother barged into the restaurant tonight, on top of your old boyfriend dropping by,” she said just as I was heading for the door. “If it helps at all, the guy looks like he still has the hots for you. So maybe he’ll take you back before the baby’s born. Hey, you never know, right?”

Malone looked like he had the hots for me?

Something tickled in my chest, and I bit back a smile.

“We’ll see,” I told her.

Julie wiggled her fingers, a sure sign she wanted me to scram. “Make sure the back door locks behind you, sugar.”

“I will.” Not.

I ducked out and hummed loudly as I headed toward the kitchen and rear exit.

The place was deserted. The dining room was dark, and the kitchen only dimly illuminated. The whir of the dishwashers filled my ears with white noise, but it didn’t completely block out the anxious thump of my heart. My mouth felt dry and no amount of swallowing could moisten it.

I pulled open the heavy back door and let it drop closed with a clang, then I tiptoed to the supply closet and slipped inside, drawing shut the door so that only a sliver remained open. Enough for me to see out so I’d know for sure when Julie left the premises.

Which, I hoped, would be soon.

I pressed the knob on my watch that made the face glow an eerie blue.

Twelve thirty-five.

I settled atop a plastic crate and waited, one eye on the crack in the door.

Twenty minutes later, my chin propped on my knuckles, I heard footsteps and sat up straight. A few ticks after, I caught a flash of pale arm through the shadows as Julie walked past the supply closet and through the kitchen.

I detected the beep-beep of the alarm as she punched the keys to turn the system on.

Then the back door thunked as it shut.

I didn’t dare move, my pulse pounding, afraid she’d come back and catch me with my fingers on Bud’s keyboard.

The dishwasher had stopped nearly ten minutes before, so I could clearly hear the noise of a car engine revving up. The squeal of tires ensued, and I finally let out a held breath.

I sighed and rose from the crate, stretching my arms and legs, working out a crick in my neck.

Then I slipped my purse strap over my shoulder and escaped from my hiding place, scurrying up the hallway to Bud’s office.

T
here were no windows to the outside, so I risked turning on the ceiling light.

“Okay, here we go,” I whispered as I took a seat behind the desk. I removed the empty disks from my purse and set them down on the blotter before I reached across to turn on the tower and monitor. The familiar Windows logo appeared and asked for my password. My fingers quivered as I typed in the word “pecker” and prayed that no one had changed it since Julie had mentioned it to Molly.

When the sound of thunder rumbled from the speakers and a disembodied voice said, “Welcome,” I smiled, rubbing my hands together with relief as the Quicken icon lined up with the rest.

So far so good.

I clicked on the icon and got into Bud’s payroll files first, running down the list of names that appeared on the spreadsheet. I scrolled past Julie, Rhonda, Christie, Ginger, Tiffany, Molly, and at least a dozen others before I found what I was looking for.

A paycheck from the month before that had never been cashed.

There was a notation, stating that the employee had not returned to the restaurant to pick up the money. It was signed
BH
.

I wondered why Bud had never tried to mail it.

The payee was Sarah Carter, the only Sarah I could find on the list of Jugs’s employees, past or present.

One mystery solved anyway.

I jotted down the name, address, and phone number, hoping they weren’t out of date. I prayed Sarah hadn’t truly vanished into thin air and could perhaps tell me something about Bud that would shed some light on what had happened to him.

Then I opened up Bud’s files of invoices, noting the regular payments to vendors, to the utilities companies, to TCI Cablevision, and to specialty grocers. All involved memorized transactions that appeared at monthly intervals.

Except for one.

An invoice paid two months earlier to Hi-Tech totaling $15,000. I did a search but found no other checks written to that company.

What was Hi-Tech? I wondered. If I had to guess, I’d say they had something to do with electronics. No matter; it should be easy enough to find out.

So I copied down the check number, date, and name.

The phone rang.

The shrill noise sent me half out of the chair.

A red light blinked, and I stared at it hypnotically, counting each subsequent ring until a loud beep sounded, followed by the click of a machine turning on.

“You’ve reached Jugs, the best down-home restaurant in town. We’re closed for business right now, but we’ll open again tomorrow from eleven ’til midnight. Mosey on by and check out our hot vittles not to mention our hot waitresses. If you’ve been here before, y’all come back, ya hear?”

The machine shut off, and I heard the brief sound of a dial tone before that, too, was gone.

I sat as still as a rock.

Barely breathing.

The voice on the message was Bud’s. It had to be.

Gooseflesh danced across my skin.

“I think I’ve had enough,” I said aloud and quickly shoved a zip disk into the drive to back up the files on the Quicken program. I didn’t even need the second disk I’d brought along. My pulse pounded faster as each second passed, which only further assured me that I wasn’t cut out for the criminal life.

The message on the machine lingered in my head as I shut the computer down and turned off the monitor.

Skittishly, I stuffed the disks into my purse and hurried from the room, hitting off the lights as I went. Stumbling through the darkened hallway I fairly cried with relief when I reached the back door.

And then I came to a dead stop.

The alarm light glared at me through the darkness.

I was so jittery, my brain wasn’t thinking straight.

What was the damned code? The year Bud got booted from Tech?

I checked out the palm of my hand, but the numbers I’d written there had smeared, probably from all the sloppy jugs of beer I’d handled during my shift.

C’mon, Andy.

It was there, in the back of my mind.

Squinting at the keypad, I punched in 1-9-8-9.

I nearly screamed with relief when the red light turned to green. I scrambled to unlock the deadbolt and grabbed the door handle. Then I reset the alarm and slipped out the door, not daring to exhale until I heard the self-locking mechanism safely click closed behind me.

Standing on the back stoop, I peered into the darkness to see only the garbage Dumpster hulking like a dinosaur beneath the faded glow of a streetlamp.

Otherwise, the coast was clear.

Though the strong thump of a bass beat from music at the Zuma Beach Club pulsed through the night air, I saw no one and quickly slithered out the door, rounding the corner of the restaurant, making a dash toward the club where my Jeep was parked.

I cut behind a line of cars, scurrying over to my car, when a hand grabbed hold of me and jerked me around, pushing my back flat against the Wrangler’s side.

I gasped for air and tried to scream, but a palm clamped over my mouth.

“Andy, it’s me.”

My heart, which had almost leapt out of my chest, stuttered to a near stop.

Malone’s shadowed face came into focus, stooping down so we were brow to brow.

Slowly, he peeled his fingers from my mouth as if still afraid I might scream even though I’d clearly seen him.

“Don’t look so pissed. I’ve been waiting here for hours,” he explained. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I promised Cissy.”

He what?

I balled my hand to a fist and threw it into his stomach with as much force as I could muster.

“Ugh.” He grabbed his belly and reeled back a full step until the side of a Ford Focus stopped him from staggering farther. “W-why’d you do that?”

“Are you an idiot?” I cried.

“Hey, keep it down, all right?”

But I was too mad at him to care that I had raised my voice. Besides, I didn’t see anyone else near enough to eavesdrop. Not even the helpful Fred Hicks, who seemed to have gone conveniently missing since the murder. “I can’t believe you! First, you have the nerve to turn up unannounced at Jugs and then you drag my mother into it besides.”

“D-drag her?” he stuttered. “Whatever Cissy did was
her
idea!”

So that explained the wink.

Did Mother assume she was now my sidekick?

Dr. Watson in pearls and Escada?

Dear God.

“What have you done?” I moaned, talking to myself, but Malone obviously thought the words were meant for him.

“I’m only trying to protect you, Andy.”

“You’re lucky I wasn’t armed.”

“You own a gun?” He looked mortified.

“No, but I’ve got pepper spray,” I told him and dug the can from my purse to prove it. “And I’m not afraid to use it. So piss me off again, and you’ll get it right in the eyes. Blind you for hours.”

He carefully peeled his hands away from his stomach and lifted them meekly. “Okay, okay, you’ve made your point.”

“I can take care of myself, for Pete’s sake. I don’t need you hovering about and waiting for me to send up a distress signal. And I certainly don’t need my mother sticking her neck in.” I returned the pepper spray to my bag and squared my shoulders. “I’m fully capable of handling things on my own. You should know that by now.”

“Let’s just say I’m learning more about you everyday.”

That hardly sounded like a compliment, but I let it pass.

I reached back into my purse to withdraw the loaded zip disk and held it up to Malone, who plucked it from my grasp. “Find out what Hi-Tech is and why Bud Hartman shelled out fifteen thousand dollars to them eight weeks ago.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You might also want to get a copy of Bud’s bank records and see if the deposits match the information on Quicken.”

“Anything else?”

I thought of the white Lincoln I’d seen parked alongside Julie’s red Corvette at Jugs the morning after Bud’s murder, and I knew without a doubt the car belonged to Reverend Jim Bob. Which meant he’d been the man I’d heard arguing with Julie, something to do with nothing changing just because Bud was dead.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Hartman was blackmailing the Reverend Jim Bob,” I remarked aloud.

“You think Bud was blackmailing his own partner?” Malone leaned nearer.

His breath brushed my cheek. “Yes,” I whispered. “I do.”

The doors to the Zuma Beach Club burst open and a couple staggered out, a blast of earsplitting rock music emerging with them.

Malone pulled away, and I turned to open the door to the Jeep. Before I got in, I looked back at him and said, “Call me when you know something more.”

He pocketed the disk. “I’ll get on it first thing in the morning.”

“It is morning.”

“Are you always right?”

“Like Avis, I try harder.”

He shook his head. “Man, you are something.” He smiled at me in a way that made my mouth dry all of a sudden. Then he turned and sauntered off.

Well, okay.

I climbed up behind the wheel of my Wrangler and started the engine. As I pulled out of the Villa Mesa parking lot onto Belt Line, my heart still pounded. Whether from my escapade or the strange way Malone had stared at me, I wasn’t sure.

It was nearly three a.m. when I got home, but I was too wound up to go to bed.

There was a message from Cissy on my voice mail that casually asked, “Did I pass my screen test, darling?” Which only confirmed what Malone had suggested, that she’d learned what I was up to (probably from J.D.) and, for some insane reason, had decided to play along.

It could’ve been worse, I told myself.

She could’ve thought I’d lost my mind completely and had me kidnapped by the folks who stole brainwashed kids back from cults.

“I have to do this.”

“So do I.”

How could she not have warned me?

I should know to never underestimate my mother.

Cissy had skills that I could never learn, like how to make a seating chart for six hundred that kept apart ex-wives and ex-husbands, Democrats and Republicans, vegetarians and cattle ranchers. She could juggle schedules, florists, caterers, distillers, and decorators without dropping a single ball or putting anyone’s nose out of joint.

“Someday, baby girl,” Daddy had once said, “you’ll look in your mama’s eyes, and you’ll see part of yourself staring back.”

Maybe that’s what Mother’s wink was about.

It was a nice idea anyway, whether or not it was true.

I donned a cotton nightshirt and poured myself a glass of milk before I settled onto the sofa to sort out a few things rattling through my brain.

Bud and Jim Bob.

Jim Bob and Julie.

Bud and Sarah.

My mind stuck on the latter pairing, and I wondered who this young woman was, what Bud might have done to her to make her take off so abruptly. She hadn’t given notice. She hadn’t cashed her last paycheck.

Something was very wrong with that picture.

I drained the milk from the glass and curled up on the couch, closing my eyes.