Free Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery by Susan McBride Page A

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