Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery (22 page)

I mean, I adored my gynecologist, but I don’t imagine she’d appreciate my using her place of business as a return address.

Whatever the answer, I didn’t want to wait any longer than necessary to find out. I put the Jeep in gear and headed off for the Women’s Wellness Clinic, determined to find Sarah.

I
took Central Expressway, driving south to Walnut Hill.

The clinic was situated just off the exit ramp, and I made a fast right into its small parking lot after leaving the highway. The building was a squat red-brick number with stickered windows and signs stuck in the dirt warning of monitoring by Smith Alarms. There were bars over the windows, something that was becoming more common in the neighborhood, despite its close proximity to Presbyterian Hospital and the seemingly omnipresent traffic.

When I entered the front door, a security guard in blue uniform gave me the once-over, then nodded as I passed. I thought of Peggy Martin protesting outside Jugs and wondered if the Women’s Wellness Clinic hadn’t experienced some protests of its own.

The receptionist glanced up from behind a Formica countertop as I emerged into a utilitarian-looking waiting area. Atop her cropped brown hair sat the band of a telephone headset, the gear reminding me of the clunky retainers kids used to wear.

She smiled nervously as I approached. “Can I help you, ma’am? Do you have an appointment with the doctor?”

Despite her calling me “ma’am,” I smiled back and said, “I’d like to speak with Sarah Carter, if I could.”

The curve of her lips disappeared. Her nervousness didn’t. “Sarah Carter?” she repeated.

Maybe the earphones made it hard for her to hear.

“Yes, Sarah Carter. Does she work here? Or maybe she’s a patient? Either way, I need to find her, and I was given this place as her forwarding address. I hoped she might be around.”

“You were given our address . . . for Sarah?” She looked at me oddly, and I started to feel self-conscious. Maybe I should’ve talked to Malone before driving down. If Sarah were a patient, they were hardly obligated to reveal that information.

“Please, it’s a matter of life or death.” As soon as it was out of my mouth, I could hardly believe I’d uttered the cliché. It sounded so dramatic, though I reminded myself it was true.

“Maybe you should talk to Ms. Martin.” The guarded expression softened the slightest bit, and I saw her fingers punching buttons on the telephone, even as she suggested it.

“Peggy Martin? She’s the nurse who runs Mothers Against Pornography, right?”

“Yes.”

So Peggy knew Sarah? Had she stopped her in the parking lot after her shift at Jugs one evening, just as she’d done with me? Had she convinced her not to return? Maybe that was the reason behind Sarah’s disappearance. Bud could have abused her one time too many, until she’d had it, paving the way for Nurse Peggy to ride in to the rescue.

“Your name, please?”

“Andy Kendricks,” I told her, even spelling it. “I met Ms. Martin the other night at Jugs. She might remember me. Tell her I was the girl in the Jeep.”

The receptionist blinked, light dawning in her eyes, and I could practically see her brain shifting gears. “Oh, you work at Jugs. I see,” she murmured and watched me closely as she fiddled with her headset, probably listening to the telephone ring in another part of the building. “She’s not answering her extension, so she must be with a patient. I’ll try buzzing that exam room.”

I tapped my fingers on the counter and waited.

After a few seconds, she nodded and said, “Will do,” into her headset. Then she looked up at me. “If you’ll have a seat, Peggy will be out in a few minutes.”

“Thanks.”

There were only a few other women in the waiting room: a very pregnant one who seemed about my age and another who appeared far too young to have even driven to the clinic on her own.

I sat down in the nearest blue vinyl seat and picked through a ragged pile of magazines on the adjacent table.
Parenting Today, Good Housekeeping, Highlights for Children.
Not exactly my cup of tea.

Selecting the topmost issue of
Good Housekeeping
, I thumbed through it to find page after page torn in halves or fourths or missing altogether where someone had apparently lifted the recipes.

“Miss Kendricks?”

Setting aside the mutilated magazine, I rose to my feet and smoothed the wrinkles from my khakis. Peggy Martin’s familiar round face with the worried eyes stared at me from the doorway. She had on pink scrubs and Reeboks with reflector strips on the sides that made her look as if she were about to go for a run.

“You wanted to see me?”

“Could we talk privately?” I asked, not wanting any stray ears to hear the questions I needed to ask her.

“Of course.” Her brows arched, betraying her curiosity. “Follow me.”

She led me up a narrow hall past those metal scales that always added five pounds to your weight, between walls plastered with posters depicting the dangers of STDs and diagrams graphically depicting a woman’s body in the various stages of pregnancy.

I actually felt relieved that I was sleeping alone by the time I’d walked that gauntlet.

She entered the first opened door on the left, and I followed her inside to find an exam room with a stool, a single chair, and a paper-covered table with metal stirrups that made me want to cross my legs.

Peggy shut the door behind us, but remained standing. I sat on the stool and surveyed the blue countertop behind the examining table. There were glass containers with tongue depressors, gauze, and huge Q-tips as well as labeled boxes full of disposable thermometer tips, syringes, gloves, and other sterile items.

Cabinets above the shelf and drawers below likely hid even more interesting medical paraphernalia. Things that poked and prodded and generally made me want to stay out of doctors’ offices as much as possible.

I swallowed hard and turned away.

Peggy was watching.

“Uh,” I started, ever eloquent, “I don’t know if you remember me, but we met the other night in the parking lot of Jugs.”

“Oh, I remember you, dear.” She smiled, and her Moon Pie face crinkled. “I’m so glad you’re here. It gives me great comfort to know that I’ve reached just one of you. That it’s not too late.”

I shifted on the stool. “Actually, I haven’t come to talk about myself. I’m hoping you can help me find a missing person.”

“A missing person? I don’t understand.” Peggy did a quick look-see at the door, as if to make certain she’d closed it. Then she took a step forward, her hands clasped. “Who are you trying to find?”

Obviously, her receptionist hadn’t mentioned to her that I’d asked about Sarah. Or maybe she had and Peggy was purposefully avoiding the subject.

Suddenly uncomfortable, I shifted on the stool, unsure of how to do this. Lying to Peggy Martin didn’t feel right. So I said without further preamble, “I need to find a woman named Sarah Carter who used to waitress at Jugs until a couple weeks ago.”

“Why would you assume I’d know anything about this missing waitress?” Peggy’s expression remained benign, so I couldn’t read anything into it.

“I dropped by her apartment this morning, but she’d moved. The only address the manager had was this one . . . for the clinic, so I figured she was an employee or possibly a patient,” I plunged ahead, finding myself more discomfited with each word and not entirely sure why. But I didn’t back down. There was too much at stake. “So is she here?”

Peggy tapped a finger to her lips. Then she dropped the hand to her side and shook her head. “I can’t discuss personnel information with you or confidential patient records for that matter,” she said firmly, so I figured she’d take a lot more convincing. “What do you want from her, anyway?”

“I’d like to ask her some questions.”

“About what?”

Man, she wasn’t giving an inch.

I held my purse tight against my belly, needing something to clutch. “About Bud Hartman,” I said. “About why Sarah left Jugs so abruptly and never returned, not even to pick up her paycheck.”

Peggy crossed her arms over her chest and said nice as you please, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can tell you.”

So why didn’t I buy it?

It had partly to do with my gut, and even more to do with a remark Julie Costello had made earlier.

“You’re only the second waitress I’ve ever seen them come inside to grab like that.”

“Who was the first?”

“That nitwit Sarah who drooled all over Bud.”

Mothers Against Porn had been awfully intent on removing Sarah from the restaurant, even against her will from the sounds of it.

So I couldn’t help wondering why Nurse Peggy was giving me the brushoff, when there was obviously so much more to this.

I hesitated, wetting my lips, trying to formulate what to say next to make her understand, because I knew she wasn’t getting the full picture.

“Please, Ms. Martin, if you know where Sarah disappeared to, tell me now. I don’t want to get her in any trouble, but I have to find her. I think she might know something that may help clear an innocent woman. My friend’s future is at stake because of Bud Hartman . . . because she was arrested for killing him . . . but she didn’t do it. Someone else did.”

She stood still, not interrupting, which I took as a good sign. At least she appeared to be listening.

So I went on. “The waitress who was arrested is Molly O’Brien. She’s my friend and the mother of a six-year-old boy.” I thought of David and my voice softened. “He’s the light of her life, and she misses him terribly. As we speak, she’s sitting behind bars at Lew Sterrett, and she wants nothing more than to go home.”

“I still don’t see what Sarah has to do with any of this,” Peggy muttered, but so half-heartedly that I figured she wanted to hear the rest.

“The reason I’ve been working at Jugs,” I confessed, “is to search for the truth behind the murder. Someone has to, because the police have stopped looking. They think Molly’s the killer, but I know she couldn’t have done it. If only because she loves her son too much to let him grow up without her. Surely you can understand.”

“You’ve been undercover? Are you a cop?” She seemed confused.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m an artist.”

“You’re a what?” She cocked her head, studying me, probably thinking “con artist” from the skeptical look on her face.

“A web designer, actually. I’ll admit, what I’m doing is unorthodox, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter.”

“You’re working at Jugs to clear your friend?”

“Yes.”

I sat quietly, waiting, hoping Peggy Martin would fess up to whatever she was keeping secret. And it had something to do with Sarah Carter. I was certain of it.

With a weighty sigh, she leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m truly sorry for this girl, Molly O’Brien. It isn’t right that she’s in jail for stabbing Bud Hartman to death. He was a terrible man, a dreadful excuse for a human being. The police should be giving her a medal for fighting back. Someone should have done it a long time ago.”

I’d heard her belittle Bud’s character on the evening news, but there was something in her tone now that I hadn’t caught before.

There was more to Peggy Martin’s dislike for Hartman than the fact that he’d opened a restaurant where the servers wore hot pants.

It sounded personal.

“Did Bud ever hurt you, Ms. Martin?” I asked cautiously.

Maybe Hartman’s bad behavior wasn’t limited to the women who worked within the restaurant walls. Men who forced themselves on others often didn’t care much about who their victims were, so long as they had the right equipment.

“Please, talk to me,” I urged her.

“I can’t.” She wouldn’t even look at me. She stared at the opposite wall, though there was nothing more interesting pinned up than a diagram of the digestive tract.

It was apparent she was struggling with the decision of whether or not helping Molly was worth spilling her guts.

“Did he harass you, too?” I pressed, not willing to let this drop. “Or is it someone else? Have you treated women who’ve been his victims? Some of the waitresses, perhaps?”

Her eyes brimmed, her anguish painfully apparent. Whatever she knew—whatever had happened—had her pretty torn-up. “There are always going to be people in the world who prey upon the weak, upon those who don’t know any better. Bud Hartman was one of them. What else do I need to say?”

“She seemed sad. So anxious for me to like her.”

I recalled Molly’s comments and ventured to ask, “Weak people, like Sarah?”

For a second, I thought I’d gotten her. That she was about to confess whatever it was she was holding back.

She took a step away from the door, brushing her hands on the front of her scrubs, clearly agitated. “Do you want me to tell you that I’ve seen more than my share of women who’ve been taken advantage of and made to feel that they’re less than human because of men who get their ideas about relationships from dirty magazines, from strip joints, and places like Jugs, where females are dehumanized? Well, I have. Is that what you came for?”

Not exactly, but at least she was talking.

“You think Jugs is as bad as all that?” I asked, recalling I’d felt the same thing once, before I’d become acquainted with the women who worked there. Most of them seemed strong and fully capable of managing their own lives, ignoring what was ugly and focusing on what was important.

“Jugs is worse than that, and I’ll tell you why.” Smudges of red stained her cheeks. “The place masquerades as a family outfit, which makes it all the more offensive, don’t you see? It’s merely another haven for males who see women as objects. Are there any men on the wait staff? Not a one. They wouldn’t suffer the indignity of wearing such skimpy outfits.”

I couldn’t disagree with her there.

“Bud Hartman set the tone for that place,” Ms. Martin went on. “He had no respect for us, and his customers could sense it.”

No respect for
us?

“I went there several times to eat, to give the place a chance to prove me wrong, but my visits only confirmed everything I’d heard about it and seen on TV. It was degrading, even as a customer.” She clicked tongue against teeth. “To witness those poor half-naked women have to endure the leers and the suggestive comments.” Her nostrils flared. “It’s hard to believe such dens of iniquity exist in the twenty-first century.”