Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (8 page)

Malone watched me, his head tilted to the right, his eyes narrowed, and I felt warm despite the air conditioning.

“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” I dared to ask, though I could guess his response by the disbelief on his face.

He smoothed a hand down his tie and cleared his throat. “No, Andy, of course I don’t think you’re nuts.”

“No?”

“I just think you’re tilting at windmills. Your mother said you’ve always been a sucker for lost causes.”

“Is that so?”

“And that you had an overactive imagination.”

“I see,” I said through gritted teeth and flushed from ear to ear. I wondered what else Cissy had told him behind my back. Did he hear about the time I was suspended from school for a day because I’d refused to dissect a frog in biology? Did he know the size of my shoes or the score on my SATs?

Focus, Andy
, I reminded myself, because anything my mother did could too easily distract me.

We’d been debating whether or not someone could have been hiding in Jugs when Bud attacked Molly.

I reconsidered the scenario I’d described, and there didn’t seem to be anything “overly imaginative” about it. It was perfectly plausible to me. So I challenged him, “Will you at least admit it’s not impossible?”

“Nothing’s impossible this early on. Not from where I stand.”

Well, that was progress, wasn’t it?

“Tell me what else the preliminary autopsy report has to say about the body,” I asked, changing the subject entirely. I could tell I was going to have to convince Malone a spoonful at a time. Maybe he’d been born in Missouri, the “Show Me” state, because he obviously liked to rely on “just the facts.”

Some people, huh?

“I’ll give you what I can, okay?” He glanced at the papers on his desk. “There was a superficial laceration on Hartman’s face . . .”

“You see!” I jumped in. “That must’ve been where Molly caught him with the knife when he had her pinned against the counter in the kitchen.” I smiled smugly. “She told us the truth.”

He nudged at his glasses. “I’d like to believe that.”

“It accounts for the blood on her shirt and shoes.”

He pressed his fingertips together in a steeple, probably waiting for me to stop interrupting.

“What does it say about the money bag?” I prodded.

Malone again rifled through the papers, though this time it took him longer. “The only place it’s even mentioned is in Molly’s statement. She claims she put the cash and the credit card receipts from the register into the bank bag and placed it on Hartman’s desk. But no such bag was found by the police.” He shifted in his seat. “Look, Andy, the D.A.’s office got a copy of her credit report, and Molly’s in debt up to her eyeballs. They’re going to contend she stole the cash herself, maybe even killed for it.”

I scooted to the edge of my chair. “Then why would she even bring it up?”

“Because they would’ve found out it was missing sooner or later.”

“So where is it?” I asked point-blank. “Did they find it when they searched her place? Was it in her car?”

“No.”

“Aha!”

But my moment of glee was short-lived.

“They’ll say she hid it somewhere, planning to go back for it later.”

I sniffed. “Give me a break.”

“It gives her a motive, Andy.”

Why did it seem like he was fighting me instead of taking up the battle cry of Molly’s innocence?

“Look, Malone, she said there was at least four or five thousand in cash, though she didn’t do an official tally. She told me Bud always made up the deposit slips, never the wait staff. Maybe he did that for a very good reason. Like he was being a little creative with his bookkeeping.”

Malone scratched behind his ear. “You’re the one who’s getting a little creative here. Let’s stick to the facts for now, please.”

Facts schmacts.

I pressed my lips together, saying nothing, but my mind was making such a racket I was surprised he couldn’t hear it. If Molly didn’t take that bank bag from Bud’s desk when she ran off just before one o’clock, clearly someone else had been there.

Whoever it was, I’d figure it out.

I left Malone’s office and headed to the only place with any answers.

T
he sun was sinking fast below the flat horizon as I drove north on the tollway and exited at Preston Road.

I pulled off at the sight of the Golden Arches, detouring at McDonald’s just long enough to drive through and order a Filet-O-Fish and fries. I’d missed lunch, what with going down to Lew Sterrett to see Molly and stopping by ARGH, and my stomach had started a vicious rumbling that didn’t stop until I washed down the last fry with a chug of cold soda.

Across the street, most of the vans from the local TV stations still camped in the parking lot at Jugs.

This was big news, I realized. Juicy scandal. The owner of a restaurant famous for its half-naked waitresses had been stabbed to death. One of those half-naked waitresses had been arrested and charged with the crime. The story would likely knock the latest Dallas Cowboys’ escapades off the front page of the
Morning News
, at least for a couple days.

There was no need to think WWND (What Would Nancy Do—as in Drew), because I had that all mapped out. Like a rubbernecker drawn to a highway accident, I was magnetically pulled across the street.

I drove over and slid the Jeep into an empty space at the Zuma Beach Club since it wouldn’t open for hours yet.

Yellow crime-scene tape fluttered across the front doors of the restaurant. The enormous pair of jugs on the billboard high above seemed to stare as I approached.

Now I understood why the anti-Jugs protestors had once painted a giant pink bra over them. They were rather disconcerting.

I wondered how Molly had felt about coming here night after night, having to work for a guy like Bud Hartman who, from what I’d heard, seemed to think his waitresses were his personal possessions. Did the men who frequented the place have the same macho outlook? Had they treated her with more respect than Bud, or had Molly been responsible for fending off their advances as well with little more than a smile as her defense?

I felt steamed just thinking about it.

A blue-and-white Dallas patrol car was parked near the restaurant’s front entrance, and I noticed one of the uniformed officers stationed outside the door. He kept turning back the reporters who approached him with microphones and minicams at the ready. Apparently “no” wasn’t a word they’d learned at J-School.

The cop had his arms crossed over a beefy chest. His black mustache only emphasized his scowl, which deepened with my approach.

“Sorry, lady, but no one gets inside till tomorrow morning,” he said before I’d even opened my mouth. “As of now, this is a secured area.”

“No problem, Officer,” I replied, thanking him for the information, which is all I’d really wanted.

So Jugs would reopen tomorrow. By then, they’d have Bud’s blood cleaned off the floor, all the mess left behind by the crime lab technicians scrubbed away, and everything in perfect order again as if nothing had ever happened.

That suited me fine. I wasn’t a big fan of blood. It was reassuring to realize the place would be tidied up when I returned to apply for Molly’s position.

I skirted the camera crews and vans scattered around the four corners of Jugs like swarms of buzzing insects. But they apparently weren’t the only ones attracted to the murder scene.

A minicam’s bright light overexposed a reporter with mike in hand, interviewing a contingent of picketers lifting signs that read: MAP—M
OTHERS
A
GAINST
P
ORNOGRAPHY
and
STOP DEGRADING WOMEN
! I got close enough to hear a youthful woman with a baby in a sling between her breasts shout that “Bud reaped what he sowed!”

Lovely sentiment.

Which got me thinking more about what Molly had said, about Bud’s hitting on the waitresses and pressuring them for sexual favors. I had asked her why no one had called the EEOC or some other agency that purported to protect workers against harassment, and Molly had simply shrugged. “The money’s too good, Andy. I can get three hundred each night in tips, easy. The only way I could do better would be if I took my clothes off and let a bunch of drooling dogs stuff bills into my G-string.”

I didn’t think putting up with an abusive boss was worth any amount of money, but then I’d never had to worry about how I was going to pay my bills or put food on the table. There was a lot I couldn’t comprehend about the world Molly lived in, no matter how much I sympathized.

“It wasn’t an awful place to work. The customers were pretty decent. Just a few bad apples now and then, but no more than if I’d been working at IHOP. Putting up with guys like Bud was part of the job, and I could do it if I had to,” she’d explained. “For David’s sake as well as mine.”

It wasn’t fair, I decided. But then life wasn’t about justice. Some people seemed to get all the breaks and others just got broken.

I went around to the back door and spotted another blue uniform keeping people away.

A blonde accessorized with microphone and cameraman seemed determined to get the officer to utter more than a “No comment.”

“Is it true that Bud Hartman was illegally watering down the drinks he served his customers?”

The cop squinted into the minicam’s light and said gruffly, “I’m trying to do my job, ma’am, so if you’d kindly step away.”

“I heard he may have sexually preyed upon his female employees,” the blonde tried again.

“Could you step back, please?”

“Was he a date rapist?”

The officer turned beet red. “Are you hard of hearing?”

“Was he killed in self-defense by that waitress?”

This time, our friend in blue pointed a finger in the nose of the reporter. “Unless you want to be the victim of self-defense, you’ve got two seconds to get that microphone out of my face.”

I stood back a couple yards, enjoying the exchange, rooting for the cop and hoping the reporter didn’t move. I wouldn’t have minded seeing her take a pop to her collagen-enhanced pie hole. There had been times I’d wanted to punch her myself.

Unfortunately for me, the blonde with the mike did a 180-degree turn and drew a finger across her throat. “That’s a wrap, Kevin,” she told her cameraman, who cut the high-powered light and lowered the contraption from his shoulder. “If you’ve got enough footage, then we’re done here.”

She very nearly walked through me, but I lifted a hand in a small wave and said, “Hey, Cinda Lou.”

Only then noting my presence, she stopped and stared through the descending dusk until recognition dawned. “Andy Kendricks? Is that you?”

“Last I checked.”

“Well, whaddaya know.”

Oh, hell, I knew plenty.

Cinda Lou Mitchell had been in my class at Hockaday. If she wasn’t the most popular girl, she was runner-up. Mother had always hoped Cinda and I would strike up a close friendship, but it hadn’t happened and never would. It didn’t help that I could hardly stand to be around the girl for more than five minutes. Still, her mother and mine cochaired so many society soirees that I’d never completely lost touch, occasionally bumping into her at whatever dinner or dance Mother guilted me into attending every once in a blue moon. I knew Cinda had already been married three times, and each divorce had left her wealthier than the last, so that her reporting gig was basically a hobby.

“For heaven’s sake,” she murmured and, still clutching her microphone, set her hands on the hips of her red tailored suit. The trademark smile for which she was renowned throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex beamed so brightly I felt like a deer caught in headlights. “I haven’t seen you since Cissy dragged you to last summer’s charity ball to raise funds for the homeless.”

“I’ve been busy with work,” I explained, and it wasn’t a total fib. “I don’t have much time for a social life.”

Cinda Lou tossed pale-gold curls, a knowing look in her eyes. “Well, I guess Cissy has social life enough for you both. I don’t think she’s missed a charity event in thirty years. Why it wasn’t but two days after your daddy passed that she showed up to emcee at the Calf Fry and Rodeo for Battered Women.”

Leaving me alone to bawl my eyes out, I wanted to add, but held my tongue. Mother had always been—and would forever be—a social butterfly. It’s what had kept her going since Daddy died, and I didn’t begrudge her it. It’s who she was. Even in grief, she could air kiss with the best of them.

“So what brings you over to the Villa Mesa parking lot?” Cinda asked without further ado, peering at me as though I were hiding a deep dark secret. “Don’t tell me you managed the web site for this outfit? Though I can’t imagine our goody two-shoes Andy getting her hands dirty working for a guy like Bud Hartman. I heard he was a real swine despite being great-looking and”—she bent her head toward mine—“wild in bed.”

I felt a blush creep into my cheeks. “No, no, I don’t work for Jugs.” Not yet anyway. “I’m doing a favor for Molly O’Brien.”

Cinda Lou lifted finely plucked brows. “The woman they arrested for stabbing Hartman?”

“She went to school with us,” I reminded her, though Cinda’s expression was blank. “She was my closest friend.”

“The waitress from Jugs went to Hockaday?”

“Yes.”

She squinted at the purple sky, then her eyes abruptly rounded. “Oh, my God! The scholarship girl. She lived in a foster home or something.
She
’s the one who stabbed Bud Hartman?”

“Well, yes and no”—I squirmed—“but she didn’t kill him.”

“Geez, Andy, thanks for the tip.” She yelled for her cameraman. “Kevin! Call my mother, would you? Tell her to dig up my yearbooks so we can swing by and pick ’em up on our way back to the studio.”

“Cinda Lou.” I tugged at her sleeve, but she was already focused on creating a new angle for her story. Thanks to my big mouth. “Keep Molly’s private life out of this, please. She has a little boy. Besides, she’s innocent until proven guilty, right?”

“Sure, sure, whatever.”

Cinda brushed me off like lint. Her mind was already at work. I could practically see her eyes spinning.