remember that much.”
With a mischievous grin, Marisol swished the wine around in her glass and said, “Because she was drunk.”
Connie’s jaw tightened. “Dammit, Marisol! This is why I never—” She stood up, pressing her little dog against her chest. “I’m leaving.”
Marisol shook her head. “Calm down, Connie. Honestly. You’re too high-strung. Sit.” She turned to Josie. “We were Vera’s clients. But that was a long, long time ago. We were all in our twenties, married to successful, powerful men. Bored out of our skulls. Weren’t we, Connie?”
Slowly, Connie sat back down, loosening her grip on her dog. “Speak for yourself.”
Marisol laughed. “Please. You were just as bored as the rest of us.”
“The rest of you?” Josie asked.
Marisol said, “Well there was a group of us, Vera’s clients, we became friendly. It was Connie, myself, Tara—” she leaned in toward Josie and Gretchen and in a stage whisper said, “The Mayor.” Leaning back, she said, “Who else, Connie?”
Connie’s back was ramrod straight. “I-I don’t know. How would we know Vera’s clients?”
“I’m talking about our WORMM club.”
“WORMM club?” Gretchen echoed.
“That’s with two ‘m’s,” Marisol explained. “It’s an acronym. Wives of Rich Missing Men. WORMM.”
Connie’s eyes flitted to the dog in her lap. She stroked its head. “Our husbands all traveled. That’s why we called them ‘missing men.’ You forgot Whitney.”
Marisol snapped her fingers. “Whitney! Yes. She didn’t live around here, but she did join us for some of our parties.”
Gretchen took out her notepad and flipped a few pages. She found the list of names they’d gotten from Sara Venuto. Whitney was one of the women on the list they’d discovered to be deceased.
Josie said, “What kinds of parties?”
Connie said, “Oh, they really weren’t parties.”
Marisol said, “Sure they were.”
“A handful of us sat around drinking and complaining about our husbands,” Connie said. “That is not a party.”
Marisol gave a shrug as if to say “whatever.”
Gretchen asked, “Was Vera Urban ever at any of these parties?”
“She was,” Connie said.
Josie looked back and forth between the two women. “Mrs. Prather,” she said. “What is it that you and your husband do?”
“She doesn’t do anything,” Marisol teased. “Her husband is the CEO of a software company.”
Connie bristled. “I have a job.” She turned toward Josie and Gretchen. “I’m the head of the Prather Foundation. We give out scholarships to female college students who want to major in STEAM—that’s Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Josie said.
Connie smiled, a true smile for once. “My oldest daughter is an epidemiologist, and my youngest is a computer network architect,” she said proudly.
“You must be very proud of them,” Gretchen put in. She turned to Marisol. “We know what your husband does, but what about you?”
She sighed and gulped down the rest of the wine. “I am Kurt Dutton’s beautiful, dutiful wife. I sit around all day looking good and coming up with inventive ways to spend his money. That’s what I do. That’s what Connie used to do before she became the alcohol police.”
Connie glared.
Josie tried to bring the conversation back to Vera. “The two of you as well as Mayor Charleston and this Whitney—you were all well-off, you all had busy husbands, and spent a lot of time together and you invited Vera? Your stylist?”
Connie swallowed. “Yes. Vera was a friend.”
Marisol slammed her wine glass onto the table, eyes flashing. “Oh for goodness’ sake, Connie. Just tell them. What does it even matter now?”
Connie’s eyes widened but she didn’t speak.
Marisol looked at Josie and Gretchen. Laughing, she said, “Vera was our drug dealer.”
“Mar!” Connie exclaimed.
“Oh please,” Marisol said. “What? You think they’re going to arrest us for buying pills from some hair stylist thirty years ago? Come on.”
“Your husband is running for Mayor, Marisol!”
“And if he doesn’t get elected, it will be good news for everyone,” Marisol said with a laugh. She picked up her wine glass to sip again, realized it was empty, and set it back down.
Gretchen said, “We’ve already heard from some other sources that Vera supplied painkillers to many of her clients. We’re not here to arrest anyone or get anyone into trouble. We’re just trying to find out as much about Vera as we can. We’ve been unable to locate anyone who knew her well at the time that her daughter was killed.”
Marisol said, “Yeah, well, after she had her daughter, we all grew apart. Stopped hanging out. Didn’t really keep in touch. Connie left first, didn’t you, Con?”
Connie nodded. Her eyes were on the table. “I had to. My