Free Deadly Gamble: The First Charlie Parker Mystery by Connie Shelton Page B

a killer's name would jump out at me.
Again, the obvious differences I'd noticed before. The group was
pretty evenly divided between the haves and the have-nots. Neither
group had been particularly informative. Maybe I'd try backtracking
to each group's common ground, their hangouts.
    That decided, I spent the rest of the
afternoon catching up on my own work. Ron had left a crumpled pile
of travel expenses in the middle of my desk. I organized them by
category and filed them where I could find them again when the
credit card bills arrived. Accounting tends to pile up when I'm not
looking. One week everything is done. The next week, a new month
has begun and suddenly I'm behind again.
    I usually bill clients on the first and
fifteenth, so I was already several days behind on that.
Fortunately, since Ron was out of town there weren't a lot of new
entries in his log book. That part of it only took an hour or so. I
posted the billing into the computer, reviewed the past due
accounts, and printed statements. Very few of our cases are as
clandestine as Stacy's with the client paying in cash. Most of the
work is done for law firms or insurance companies. Those people
like everything in writing and neatly organized. Ron isn't the most
organized person in the world so that's where I come in.
    By four o'clock I had a neat stack of
envelopes on my desk ready to drop in the nearest mailbox. Tomorrow
I could post the expenses and run some preliminary month-end
figures. Then I'd have the tax returns to work on. I'd almost
forgotten them. Normally I'd have done them by mid-February, but my
computer had been in for repairs for two weeks, which had really
thrown a kink in things. Another reason I should have sent Stacy
away when she first showed up.
    Rusty rode with me this time. First stop,
Tanoan Country Club. I hoped to arrive before the dinner crowd,
perhaps while the wait staff was setting up. For once, I got my
wish. The maitre d' I'd seen in action the other day was bustling
around, sans jacket and accent, barking orders at the waiters. I
hung to the side, not particularly wanting to attract his
attention. He wasn't the sort to talk about the clientele. No, I
wanted somebody with either vengeance or gossip on his mind. Within
three or four minutes the maitre d' had been called into the
kitchen on some emergency, and I spotted my chance. A young
waitress (probably called a server here) was laying out place
settings on a table for eight near me. She looked about twenty. Her
blond hair was pulled into a pony tail at the very top of her head,
where it spewed forth like a waterspout. Her head bobbed up and
down in time with some internal tune she hummed between chomps on a
huge wad of bubblegum.
    "Excuse me," I whispered. "Could you come
here a minute?"
    She glanced around to see who might be
watching. The boss safely out of sight, she sidestepped toward
me.
    "Do you work here on Friday nights?"
    She nodded, the gum popping again.
    "Could I ask you a few questions,
privately?"
    She checked out the room again, hesitating.
The other waitpersons seemed oblivious, each wrapped up in their
own tasks. The boss had not reappeared yet. Still, she seemed
nervous. I dug into the side pocket of my purse and came up with a
ten dollar bill. At the same time, I indicated a small alcove off
the entry. It was out of sight of the dining room.
    "Okay," she agreed, "just a couple of minutes
though. Andre gets really ticked off if he catches us goofing
around."
    I produced the photo of Gary Detweiller. "Do
you remember seeing this man at the Friday dinner dances a few
times?"
    "Oh, yeah. For an old guy, he was real sexy.
He had this smile. . . you know. Well, I don't know how to explain
it, but it kinda made your heart go faster when he turned this
smile on you."
    "Did he flirt a lot? Like with all the girls
here?"
    "Look, you're not his wife are you?" She eyed
me suspiciously.
    "Not hardly. Just tell me about him."
    "He mostly flirted with the club members.