Juni nods. “That’s right. And you remember my mama, Georgie, and my friend, Bizzy. We were all there the night that book dude got whacked with the working end of a butcher knife. I still see his blood in my sleep.”
And there goes any hope of pleasant conversation. When will I learn my lesson with this woman?
At least they’re not interrogating her.
Georgie leans her way. “What about it, toots? How well did you know the deceased? And was that his blood on your hands?”
Brooklynn blinks back. “I didn’t have any blood on my hands.” Did I?
“That was me.” I make a face over at my comrades in investigative arms. “I’m the one who had blood on my hands.” I nod over at her. “What’s the drink of the night?” If I weren’t driving, I’d ask for twelve.
“Purple Rain,” Brooklynn answers with a genuine enthusiasm for her job. “Vodka and cranberry juice.”
Georgie waves a few bills at her. “We’ll take three.”
“Make mine a virgin.” I shrug over at her.
Brooklynn wrinkles her nose my way as she gets right to work. “You’re the DD, huh? Designated driver?”
“Yup. That would be me.”
She ticks her head to the side. “I’ll add a few syrups to it and jazz it up a bit for you. So were you ladies getting lucky on the dance floor?”
“That would be my mother.” Juni reaches over and steals the cherry off a drink from the lady on the other side of her.
Georgie snaps her fingers. “I’m slaying it, as the kids like to say.”
Brooklynn belts out a laugh over the music. “Somehow I knew you would. How could you not in that dress? What did you make it out of? One of those emergency sleeping bags?”
Georgie glances to the ceiling. “I’ll have you know they made those sleeping bags out of my dress. Or in the least they’re cut from the same cloth. So what’s the deal with the bartending gig? I guess it’s true what they say. The law doesn’t pay.”
I cringe. “I think the saying goes, it doesn’t pay to break the law.”
Brooklynn lands all three of our drinks before us and both Georgie and Juni dive after them as if it were a free-for-all.
Georgie takes a few heroic gulps and immediately spits it out. “Bleh.” She pushes it my way. “I think I got your poison.” She pulls in the drink that was sitting in front of me and takes a careful sip before giving a thumbs-up. “There’s the vodka.” She touches her elbow to mine. Go ahead, Biz. Lay the heat on her. I’m here for the show. Make her weep into her Gray Goose. Nothing goes better with vodka than the tears of a killer’s regret.
I take a breath as I smile over at Brooklynn. “I’d ask what a legal eagle like you is doing in a place like this, but I think I know the answer.”
Brooklynn’s left brow hikes a notch. “You do?” Although it’s entirely plausible the word has spread already—hot gossip usually does—I doubt any of these women run in legal social circles.
I nod. “I used to wait tables and the tips were phenomenal. They were sort of addicting, actually. I still miss them.” Honest to God’s truth. But I wouldn’t trade working at the inn for all the tips in the world.
Her mouth parts before she bites down on her glossy pink lip.
“You got me.” She laughs. “I won’t lie. Things aren’t going so well on the legal front, so having this place as a fallback has really come in handy.” Fallback? More like the only monetary show in town. She squints my way. “Hey? Did you ever lawyer up? Is the sheriff’s department giving you a hard time?” She seems like a nice kid. I’d hate to see the legal system hammering down on her for no reason. She was white as a sheet that night as soon as she realized what really happened to the poor guy. I felt sorrier for her than I did for him.
“My brother.” I nod. “But he’s not really doing anything. I haven’t had any problems because of it.”
Georgie gives a sly wink. “She’s sleeping with the lead detective. Bizzy has been known to use her body to get out of a tight spot now and again.”
“Hey—whatever works.” Juni is quick to toast me with her Purple Rain, and I can smell the vodka pluming off her breath.
I shake my head over at Brooklynn. “None of that is true. Sort of. Anyway, I’ve been cleared as a suspect. I don’t know who did that to Wyatt, but it wasn’t me.” A thought comes to mind. “Hey, before he passed, I think he mentioned that you held an interest in the store.” He didn’t, but that’s neither here nor there.
She narrows her eyes until they form perfect half-moons. “I do. Did. But I sold my share almost a year ago.”
“Oh?” My interest is piqued. “Who bought it?”
She shrugs. “Some investment group. Anyway, that’s old history. And now Wyatt is gone. It’s all a bit surreal to me.”
“Who do you think could have done something like this?”
She takes a breath. Me, for starters. But then half the people in that room could have said that. “His girlfriend is what the Brits like to call a nutter.”
No sooner does she say those words than Juni sputters with a choo-choo train-like laughter.
“Nutter.” She smacks Georgie on the hand, and now the two of them are sputtering with laughter together and all the while spraying Purple Rain in their wake.
Leave it to Georgie and Juni to turn an innocent bar into a biological hazard.
“Molly Shay?” I ask. “I think I met her that night.”
Brooklynn lifts a bottle of vodka my way as if acknowledging the fact before getting back to mixing a drink.
“Yup,” she says. “Although there were others that had a beef
