“You don’t have to convince me, Mol,” I assured her, wishing I could leap past the clear partition and give her a hug. “I’ve believed from the beginning that you’re innocent. So does Malone,” I added, sensing after my last conversation with Brian that this wasn’t stretching the truth anymore. “You have to trust us. We’re doing all we can to fix this mess.”
“I know you are, Andy,” she said, but didn’t appear any too encouraged. “And I can’t thank you enough for that.”
I leaned nearer the Plexiglas, as if I could whisper my next words to her instead of breathing them into the receiver. “I got the job at Jugs,” I informed her, and her eyes widened. Though I left out the sob story about my pretending to be alone, penniless, and pregnant. She might think my artful lie was imitating her life a tad too closely. “I started yesterday, and I’m working the dinner shift today.”
“Have you found out anything new?”
“A few possibilities.”
She leaned forward, eagerly. “Spill.”
I hardly needed prodding. “Well, for one, you’re certainly not the only waitress who felt Bud was an octopus. I met Rhonda, Christie, and Ginger, and each of them had stories about Hartman coming onto them, despite his so-called relationship with Julie Costello.”
“It’s like I said, Andy.” She frowned, tension pinching her features. “Bud was a big guy. He was physically powerful. If he wanted something, he just took it. What a waste of nice packaging. If only he hadn’t been such an ass on the inside.”
“Well, someone other than Julie must’ve ignored what was beneath his slick-boy exterior. I heard about a girl named Sarah who worked at Jugs for two weeks, then abruptly disappeared. The other waitresses said she had a thing for Bud.”
Her brow wrinkled in concentration. “Yeah, I remember her. Cute girl. She was young, maybe eighteen.”
“Bud bait,” I repeated what I’d been told. “How well did you know her?”
Molly pursed her lips. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to her too much. I mostly worked the late shift, which can be crazy. Lots of guys coming in after softball games or hanging out to watch sports. But, the few times I did speak to her, she seemed too anxious for me to like her. Like she was desperate for a friend.”
“Did she really follow Bud around like a puppy?”
“Some girls have no taste.” Molly smiled shakily. But it was short-lived. “Sarah was supposed to help Bud close the restaurant one Friday night a while back. I was actually scheduled to work with her the next day. But she never showed. All Bud would say was that she wasn’t coming back, but I had a feeling something happened between them when they were alone.”
“Do you recall her last name?”
“Oh, damn.” She squished her eyes closed, and I crossed my fingers, hoping she could retrieve the information from wherever it was buried in her mind. Then she opened them and said, “Sarah Craven. Wait, no. That wasn’t it. Carson? Something like that, anyway.” She looked crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Andy. We’re pretty much on a first-name-only basis at the restaurant.”
“It’s okay,” I assured her. That shouldn’t be too tricky to find out.
“I just wonder . . . ,” she said, but the words trailed off.
“Tell me, please.”
She whispered into the receiver, “I wonder if what happened to me, happened to Sarah. Only what if she didn’t get away from him?”
I had been wondering the same thing. Yet, I figured that, if Bud had actually assaulted Sarah, she would have filed a police report. Which, I assumed, she hadn’t. Otherwise, the cops would’ve taken Bud in, and, the way the grapevine moved at Jugs, everyone would’ve heard about it. There’s no way Bud could’ve hushed that up.
Maybe there was nothing nefarious about Sarah’s no-show at Jugs at all. What if she’d been convinced not to return by a sweet-faced woman in the parking lot?
“What do you know about the Mothers Against Pornography?” I suddenly asked her, thinking of Peggy Martin and her contingent of female crusaders. “Are they harmless? Have they ever kidnapped anyone? Like the people hired by parents to snatch brainwashed kids from cults?”
“Kidnapped?” The tension in Molly’s face eased, and her mouth twitched, like she wanted to chuckle. “My God, Andy, I doubt they’d abduct a girl just to keep her from doing her shift in hot pants. I mean, the worst they ever did was corner me in the parking lot and try to convince me to quit degrading myself by serving beer ‘half-naked,’ as they put it.” She smiled weakly. “One of them even offered me a job at a doctor’s office, filing papers for seven-fifty an hour.” She shrugged. “It was annoying sometimes, but I actually felt safer when they were there. I never had to worry about some creep lurking around my car.”
Although a lurking Mother can be creepy enough, I thought.
“Did you know the shopping center security guard, Fred Hicks?”
She shrugged. “I saw him around sometimes. He’d tip his hat to me. Usually when I left, he was hanging out at the Zuma Beach Club. Sometimes he’d be talking with a few MAP members in front of Jugs.”
Did Peggy Martin know Fred Hicks? I wondered.
Molly’s eyes suddenly darkened, and her forehead puckered. “Oh, man.”
“What?”
“I just realized something. If I’d gone home after my shift, the Mothers would have been around. But since I stayed to help Bud close, all the Moms Against Porn had packed up hours before. Too bad, huh? Because otherwise one of them might’ve seen something or someone . . .”
“Or clobbered Bud with a protest sign,” I remarked.
Molly brightened. “I could’ve sold tickets for that.”
“Standing room only.”
She nodded, her gaze drifting off for a moment, so I could tell her mind had shifted elsewhere. Not surprisingly, she asked, “How’s my baby?”
Beyond the ache in her voice, it was plain in her face how much she missed him.
“He’s doing great.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s the newly crowned Go Fish champion at Mother’s house,” I told her, causing a smile of pure delight.
“The kid’s a con man.”
“You’re telling me.”
She chuckled, eyes bright for a moment before the sadness crept back in. “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, Andy. He’s the only thing I’ve done right. I can’t let myself imagine not being able to hold him again. It’s too awful to even consider.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and I felt my throat constrict as I watched her brush them away with the back of her hand.
This wasn’t right, I kept thinking. It wasn’t right at all.
I changed the subject, as much for my sake as for hers. “You don’t happen to have the password for Bud’s computer, do you?”
Molly blinked. “You’re planning to break into Bud’s system? You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
Why did she look so surprised? Computers were my forte, not serving beer in tight shorts to guys who thought every woman’s name was “babe.”
“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 adventu
re 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.
Chapter 17
Sweat 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 h
is 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.
Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery Page 14