Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

The first, at 9:45 P.M., was from Rochelle.

“Grace! Those women from the other divorce camp sessions are here. They’re on their second round of free drinks. You need to get back here and talk to them.”

Shit! She’d totally forgotten her mother’s plan to leave free-drink coupons on the windshields of Paula’s other divorce campers. She couldn’t believe her mother’s crazy scheme had actually borne fruit.

The second call, ten minutes later, was also from her mother. “There must be seven or eight of those divorce women in here,” Rochelle said, her voice cracking, either from excitement or desperation, Grace didn’t know. “What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you here? These women all have hollow legs. They’re drinking me broke!”

The third call was from Mitzi Stillwell, and she didn’t sound happy. “Grace? It’s ten fifteen in the evening. And I have a deposition at 8:00 A.M. I just got a call from your mom, insisting I get over to the Sandbox, to talk to some women she claims have some important information about Stackpole and your therapist. I have a vague idea where you might be right now, but I’m going to claim attorney-client privilege and not divulge that to Rochelle. Instead, I’m going to get out of bed, get dressed, and drive over to that bar to check this out. All I can say is, this had better be good. And he better be good, too.”

*   *   *

Rochelle was practically beside herself by the time Grace walked into the bar, shortly before nine.

“Didn’t you get any of my messages last night?” her mother demanded. “I kept calling and calling!”

“I’m sorry,” Grace said. “Vandals broke into the cottage on Mandevilla sometime Wednesday night. It was a huge mess. They splattered paint all over the place and tried to burn it down. I kind of had my hands full. I had to try to get the paint off the floors and the appliances before it dried, and wash everything down. It was late by the time I got done, and I kind of just collapsed. I didn’t get your messages until this morning.”

“Vandals?” Rochelle asked. “Did you report it to the police?”

“Arthur did,” she replied. “He’s dealing with them.” She walked around to the back of the bar and poured herself a mug of coffee. She took a sip and seated herself on a barstool. “Did you find out anything from the women who showed up here last night?”

Rochelle took a sip of her own coffee. “I found out a lot of stuff I didn’t want to know, that’s for sure. Husbands who are cross-dressers. Husbands who like to hang out in public bathrooms and expose themselves to little boys. Husbands who like to watch their wives have sex with strangers…”

“Eewww,” Grace said. “Stop. I get the picture. I mean, did you find out anything about people who’ve been referred to Paula by Judge Stackpole?”

“Yup,” Rochelle said, looking immensely pleased with herself. She turned to the bar back and pulled a spiral-bound stenographer’s notebook from the drawer. “I took notes,” she added.

“I must have put twenty or thirty of those coupons in the cars in that therapist’s parking lot,” she continued. “I didn’t get over there ’til nearly eleven yesterday, and by that time, there were five women coming out of her office. I just handed them the coupons, and, since they were watching, I had to put them on the other cars. I got back over there after the lunch hour and hung around an hour, and another group of women, and one man, drove up and went into her office, so I put coupons on their cars. Then this big, burly, scary-looking guy came out of that tattoo place, and he wanted a coupon, so what could I do? I had to give him one. And then…”

“Mom,” Grace said gently. “You did a great job handing out the coupons. But could you just cut to the chase? How many people actually showed up here last night who said they were in Paula’s divorce camp?”

Rochelle didn’t like having her story interrupted. “I was getting to that. I guess there were nine women who came in last night over the course of the evening with those free-drink coupons. I was trying not to act too nosy, just, you know, talking them up, asking how their day was going. A couple of them got kind of snotty with me. Just drank their free drink and left, without even leaving me a tip! What kind of woman stiffs a bartender who’s giving her free drinks?”

“Probably one whose husband got to keep all the money in the divorce,” Grace said.

“Eventually, though, four women sat right here at the bar. I think they were all in the same divorce group, because they were calling each other by their first names and kind of joking about their action plans. One of them said her action plan was to find herself a new sugar daddy. So I kept pouring the free drinks and playing dumb. Finally, I asked the chattiest one, this gal named Ginger, how they all knew each other, and she said they were in the same divorce-recovery group. I told Ginger I was going through a divorce myself, and how did she find out about something like that. And she said it wasn’t her idea. The judge in her divorce case told her she had to go to a therapist. And not just any therapist. It had to be a therapist named Paula Talbott-Sinclair. That’s when I started calling you.”

She glared accusingly at her daughter. “And when you didn’t call me back, I called Mitzi Stillwell. And she came right away.”

“And that’s when things started getting really interesting.” A woman’s dry voice came from behind them. Grace swiveled around on her barstool. “Mitzi! I thought you had an early deposition.”

“I did, but when I got to the other attorney’s office, he asked if we could reschedule. So here I am.”

Rochelle took