Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (18 page)

“Hey, I’m dying to check out the books, see if Bud was doing a little creative cooking. And I wouldn’t mind peeking at his payroll records, which would give me our elusive Sarah’s name and address. If I could find her, she might have something worth saying.”

“Just when do you plan to do this?” she breathed into the receiver, sounding as nervous as I felt merely saying it out loud. “Because, I guarantee you, Julie will find out if you’re up to no good. She’s got eyes in the back of her head.”

“She won’t find out.”

“No?”

Well, at least I hoped she wouldn’t.

I swallowed, not letting her anxiety deter me. It was the only way. “I’ll wait until the restaurant’s closed and everyone’s gone. Julie won’t even know.”

She stared at me. “You’re insane.”

“But in a good way, right?” I grinned like it was no big deal, telling myself it was simply an adventure and probably less dangerous than Cissy’s matchmaking.

Still, I’d never broken into anyplace before. And it wasn’t something I wanted to do more than once. So I had to do it right the first time.

Which reminded me.

“Did the police confiscate your key to the restaurant?”

“They took my purse, and it was on a ring with everything else.”

I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

Okay, no big deal. It just meant I couldn’t deadbolt the door behind me. Maybe no one would notice if the self-locking mechanism at the handle was set. It was a chance I’d have to take.

I quickly moved on.

“If you closed up the restaurant, you must know the code to the alarm system,” I said, remembering the blinking keypad by the back door. All I needed was to trip that up and have the cops catch me red-handed. Then the jig would be up for good, and I might be joining Molly behind the Plexiglas.

She gnawed on a nail as she spoke into the phone. “Yeah, I’ve got the code. It’s 1-9-8-9. The year Bud got kicked out of Texas Tech and ended his football career.”

I dug out a pen from my purse and scribbled the number on the inside of my hand.

“Usually Bud would close up Jugs and turn on the system. On rare occasions, Julie did it, but otherwise it was usually me.”

I smiled and flashed her my palm. “Now I know it like the back of my hand, or the front, anyway.”

But she didn’t smile back. Her face looked more pinched and worried than it had before, if that was possible.

“Is there a motion sensor?”

“No.” She bit her bottom lip.

“Hey, relax. It’ll be a piece of cake,” I promised, wondering if that’s what Bonnie had told Clyde before bullets rained down on them.

“Please be careful,” Molly whispered. I could see how tightly she gripped the receiver. “If anything happened to you because of me, I’d never forgive myself.”

“What could happen?” I ignored the knot in my belly and flashed what I hoped was a devil-may-care grin. “If worse comes to worst, I can always make up a story. Say I went back for my purse and got locked in. That I was sick and passed out in the bathroom. I’ve got a million of ’em.”

Molly hardly looked reassured.

“Look, if they toss me in jail, I’ll have Mother bail me out. Can you imagine that? I’d be the first deb dropout to make the Metro crime report
and
the society page with my mug shot.”

Molly didn’t laugh.

“It’ll be okay,” I told her. “Really.”

The guard approached, and Molly glanced up at the uniformed woman and nodded before turning back to me and saying quickly into the receiver, “Oh, God, I almost forgot. It’s pecker.”

“What?”

“The computer password. Julie only told me because she’d dreamed it up and thought it was ironic.”

The fact that Julie even knew what irony was seemed ironic to me.

“Pecker?” I repeated, still not sure I’d heard correctly.

“I gotta go, Andy.”

She hung up, and I watched the guard lead her away. Slowly, I replaced the receiver, but I sat there for a moment, not moving.

Pecker.

The password was
pecker
?

Classy.

As I left the downtown jail and walked toward the lot where I’d stashed my Jeep, a thought flashed across my brain. Something Cissy had once told me.

We’d been watching
To Kill a Mockingbird
on video, because I’d read the book for school and wanted to see the story come to life. Halfway through, my mother had sighed in a very unmother-like fashion and had remarked on how attractive Gregory Peck was. Only she’d called him “Gregory Pecker.” When I’d giggled, she’d realized what she’d said and had confessed that it’s what she and her school chums had called the movie star way back when.

Even now, thinking of the oh-so-dignified Cissy Blevins Kendricks saying the word “pecker” made me grin.

Slang wasn’t exactly my mother’s style, especially when it referred to a man’s private parts.

But what had amazed me even more was to imagine Cissy as a teenager, hanging out with her friends, going to the picture show, eating popcorn, and gushing over a movie star like Gregory Peck.

I’d always envisioned Mother emerging from a giant clamshell—like Venus—a full-grown society maven clad in a pink Chanel suit with matching bag and pumps.

Which was far easier to believe.

S
weat dripped down my back as I slid into my Jeep and turned on the AC, which blasted warm air for what seemed the longest time before it finally cooled down. I maneuvered my way through the one-way streets downtown, bypassing the steel and glass tower that housed Malone’s firm, finally getting onto the northbound tollway toward home.

The ever-brilliant sunlight glinted fiercely off the windshield, and I blindly rummaged through my purse on the passenger’s seat, foraging for my shades. I was afraid to take my eyes from the road as a gray Cadillac ahead of me—its driver on his cell phone—wove unsteadily across the lanes and back again.

When I finally located my Ray-Bans, I grabbed the wheel with both hands, pressed my foot on the accelerator, and surged around him before he caused an accident that might involve yours truly.

Cadillacs
, I smirked and shook my head once I was safely past, though I realized Daddy was surely driving one in heaven.

Acuras, Infinitis, and Beamers with vanity plates zipped by me as if I were moving at a snail’s pace though my speedometer registered sixty-five. If I drove any faster, I couldn’t concentrate. And there was much on my mind to think about.

I mulled over all I’d learned thus far about Bud Hartman’s life and death, frustrated by the loose ends still dangling. There were too many unanswered questions, though I knew I was inching ever closer to finding the truth.

If I were lucky, Bud’s computer would yield a few answers.

If I wasn’t so lucky, I might be sharing a cellblock with Molly at Lew Sterrett by morning. And orange didn’t exactly become me.

Exiting the tollway, I took 635 to the Preston Road exit, fighting a nervous stomach all the way to the condo.

There were no messages on my voice mail, not even a wrong number. So I grabbed an apple from the fridge, settled down in front of my Dell desktop, and started working on some ideas for the children’s artwork web site. A local cancer society and the Children’s Medical Center had hired me—okay, I’d basically volunteered—to put together some pages that featured drawings by kids with cancer. The artwork was featured on note cards and calendars that could be purchased online or in the hospital gift shop, and all profits would help fund research.

I spent a couple hours immersed in the pages, happily arranging the drawings into categories: flowers, pets, hearts, places, and people. I loved looking at the colorful ways the kids had expressed themselves, each one so joyful and vibrant: families holding hands, a cluster of smiling daisies, cats and dogs rubbing noses, a curious moon peering down at the Earth from space.

Mother didn’t understand why I took jobs that paid pennies or, sometimes, nothing at all, especially when she had wealthy friends with prosperous businesses that could afford to shell out generous fees.

“This is why,” I wanted to tell her, as I smiled at my monitor. Besides, taking a handout from Cissy—or one of her cronies—put me in her debt, and I could only afford to do that sparingly. I was surprised she didn’t understand the choices I’d made, especially when she’d spent her whole life giving her time to worthy causes. Though I had a feeling she wouldn’t have been so preoccupied with my balance sheet if I’d been married. As far as my mother was concerned, being somebody’s wife solved just about every problem on the planet, including the greenhouse effect and nuclear proliferation.

My father had understood, even early on when I wasn’t sure how I would use my passion for art in the real world.

Daddy had run a pharmaceutical company, one his grandfather had built from the ground up and his father had helmed before him. He’d been working on contracts, sitting at his desk in his study on Beverly Drive, the day he’d died, and I’m sure he’d wanted it that way. “You have to love what you do, baby girl, or it’s not worth getting up everyday.”

I do, Daddy
, I wanted so badly to tell him, though I figured he knew.

The sun had shifted, weakening the light that filtered through the window blinds, as I signed off and shut down my computer.

I checked my watch, noting I had enough time to heat up a Stouffer’s lasagna, eat, and change before I was due at Jugs for the six o’clock shift.

Between bites, I threaded a needle and secured the shoulder pads into the seamed cups of my running bra so they’d stay put. I didn’t need any added distractions.

In another half-hour, I’d curled my hair and teased it to unnatural heights, applied enough Mary Kay cosmetics to hide every pore, and slipped several empty zip disks into my purse, just to be safe. I’d dressed in black jeans and Tee, my favorite uniform, and a color scheme that seemed to be the primo choice for burglars. I definitely didn’t want to make a fashion faux pas while breaking and entering.

When I pulled into the parking lot at Jugs, the sun had set, and the neon sign at the Zuma Beach Club flashed hot pink.

I settled the Jeep into a spot near Zuma, figuring that if I planned to be at Jugs after closing, I didn’t want my car in an obvious place.

The Mothers Against Pornography were on the march again, about a half-dozen of them anyway, and I ducked around parked cars to avoid the sign-wielding contingent as I made my way to the restaurant’s rear entrance and slipped inside.

The kitchen hummed with activity. Steam rose from grills, and the smell of spices and frying burgers filled the air. I hurried up the hallway toward the lockers.

A few of the servers from the early shift dressed in their street clothes while the rest of us changed into our skimpy outfits.

Several women I recognized from Bud’s memorial service nodded at me, introducing themselves over naked shoulders as they pulled on cropped T-shirts and hot pants.

I gathered up my order pad and pen, shutting the door to my locker and heading into the dining area, which seemed even more crowded than the day before. I spotted a few women and children among those seated at my station but, like yesterday, most of the customers were men.

Halfway through the evening, Julie Costello tapped my arm as I stood at the bar waiting for two jugs of beer to be filled.

“There’s a guy came to see you, Andrea,” she said into my ear, her voice raised to be heard above the noisy crowd and the Mavericks basketball game playing on the television. “He’s preppy, but cute. Asked specifically for one of your tables, though he called you Andy Kendricks. I thought your name was Blevins?”

“It is. Uh, I’m divorced,” I told her, the first thing that came to mind.

She nodded sympathetically. “Gotcha. Anyway, I went ahead and seated him myself. In your section.”

“Where?”

“Right over there.” She pointed her finger across the room, and I followed it with my eyes.

Oh, hell.

It was Malone.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I murmured, though my pulse kicked into overdrive. What in God’s name was Malone doing here? How had he known where I was?

“You don’t look so good all of a sudden.” Her heavily made-up eyes dropped to my belly. “Can you get morning sickness in the afternoon?”

I stared at her, speechless, and shook my head.
Please, please
, don’t let her have mentioned my “condition” to Brian.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Oh, I get it.” She nudged me with an elbow. “He’s the one who dumped you?”

“No. I mean, yes. Er, no!” Even I was confusing myself. “It’s kinda complicated,” I explained, my lies becoming more convoluted than a soap opera plot.

“Is he Junior’s father?”

“Oh, geez, Julie, of course, he’s . . .”—
not,
I was going to say, but clamped my mouth shut and debated this one for a moment. Interesting suggestion. Still, it didn’t seem right to make Brian out to be the heel who’d left me high and dry, not even if it was all pretend.

“He’s what?” She poked me again.

This was one lie I didn’t want to tell, so I did the next best thing. I exited, stage left.

“Excuse me, would you? I’ve got customers waiting.” I picked up the two jugs and delivered them to a table of unruly guys who were yelling at the Mavs game and consuming copious amounts of buffalo wings and chips.

One of them patted my butt as I turned to leave. Oh, boy, was I
so
not in the mood for that. I spun around with a frozen smile and leaned into his face. “Do that again, buster, and the next jug of beer’s on your head. You got that?”

He uttered a word that rhymed with “itch.”

I guess I could forget about a tip.

I wove through the tables, approaching the one where Brian Malone sat. He was studying a menu, head tipped down, brown curls falling onto his brow and glasses slipping halfway down his slim nose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed at him in lieu of the usual “Yee haw, y’all, and welcome to Jugs” shtick.

He glanced up calmly and pressed a finger to the bridge of his tortoiseshell frames, pushing them higher.
The better to see you, my dear.
“I should ask you the same thing. Does your mother know you’re working in this place?” he asked point-blank.