Murder Has a Sweet Tooth - By Miranda Bliss Page 0,15

the bar. It featured a sepia-toned photo of the sign that hung above the front door. The coasters were eye-catching, cheap souvenirs. I had no doubt many a patron left with one.

Once a business manager, always a business manager: I showed the coaster to Eve before I slipped it in the pocket of my jacket. “I just wonder. That’s all. I wonder how much they cost per thousand.”

By the time Jason came back, I was ready to steer our conversation in another direction. With any luck, Stacie was right, and he’d be more forthcoming when it came to making it sound like he was at the center of the morning’s excitement.

I caught Jason’s eye. “Stacie tells me you saw what happened this morning.”

“I might have.” He glanced down at the empty bar in front of me.

And I got the message.

I reached into my purse, fished out a twenty, and set it on the bar. Frugal business manager that I am, I kept my fingers on it. After all, I was paying for information. And so far, I wasn’t getting much of anything from Jason.

“The man who was arrested—”

“Drunk as a skunk. Even this morning.” Suddenly more talkative, Jason glanced briefly at the twenty before he returned his gaze to me and Eve. “When the cops tried to walk him to the patrol car, he couldn’t even stand up. They had to call an ambulance.”

This tallied with what Alex had said. He said he didn’t remember anything that happened after he ran out of the restaurant after Vickie. If he’d been that drunk . . .

That didn’t tally with what I knew about Alex. He liked a beer or two or three. But in the weeks I’d known him, I’d never seen him drunk.

“They say there was a knife in his hands.” Eve must have known I was lost in thought. That’s why she asked the question.

“Obviously not when I saw him.” Jason glanced at the money again before he looked toward three women who’d walked in the door. They were loaded with shopping bags and I heard them say something about martinis. I knew Jason had to take care of the paying customers before he worried about the nosy ones, so I had to move fast.

“How did the police know the body was there?” I asked him.

Jason grabbed one bottle of gin and one of vodka. “I heard one of the cops say something about an anonymous tip.”

That might be helpful. It might not. I filed it away for future consideration and drummed my fingers against the twenty. “Who worked the tables last night?”

“Jennifer does an extra shift on Tuesday nights.”

“And Jennifer is . . . ?”

He glanced over to where a platinum-haired waitress with a nose piercing had finished taking an order and was walking toward the kitchen.

Just before I popped up to follow her and signaled Eve to come along, I slipped my hand off the twenty.

Surprise, surprise! Jason, it seemed, was something of a magician as well as a bartender. The money disappeared in a flash.

So did we. While the door that led into the kitchen was still swinging, Eve and I slipped inside. We were just in time to see Jennifer go out the back door, and before anybody even noticed us, much less had time to stop us, we followed her outside.

By the time we got there, she was already angled against the back wall of the restaurant, lighting a cigarette.

“You worked last night. You waited on Vickie, the woman who got killed.”

Something told me it wasn’t the first time that day that Jennifer had been singled out. That’s why she wasn’t surprised by us or by what I was talking about. No doubt I’d see her quoted in the next day’s newspaper, or on TV that night. She naturally assumed Eve and I were just part of the army of reporters who had already talked to her that day. She pulled in a lungful of poison and before she let a stream of smoke out of her mouth, she turned her head away. I liked Jennifer already.

“Waited on them every Tuesday. I thought they were a cute couple.”

“But not last night.”

Jennifer flicked ash off the end of her cigarette. “Nothing seemed strange to me. Not until right before the woman ran out of here.”

I was getting good at picking up on nuances. “Alex didn’t drink more than usual?” I asked.

“Alex? Oh, the red-haired guy. Yeah, you’re right. I remember a couple weeks ago, he