Knowing I was being dismissed, I stood up and took my last shot, “Gee, you mean you’re not taking in your Lawrence Welk records?”
“Good-bye, McCain.”
“Jerry Vale?”
“I said good-bye.”
“Kate Smith?”
She’d never given me the finger before. She looked sort of cute doing it.
5
Molly Weaver was leaning against my red Ford Ragtop when I reached the parking lot behind the county courthouse. In her yellow shirtdress and tortoiseshell glasses, she gave the impression of remaining crisp on this sultry day. But the small face was anything but crisp. Dark circles under the eyes and way too much makeup. I’d never seen her like this before.
“I suppose you’re mad at me.”
“Hell, no, Molly. Not after I thought about it.” I pulled my keys from my pocket and walked around to the driver’s side. She followed me. “We were just friends. You didn’t owe me anything.”
“Well, I think we were a little more than friends, McCain. We slept together.” Her words were apparently heard by an elderly couple emerging from a tugboat-sized Chrysler. Their heads whipped around as if Jesus had called them.
“Talk a little lower,” I whispered.
“Well, it’s true, we did sleep together.” A much quieter Molly now.
I took her arm. “Look, Molly. You’d been dumped and I’d been dumped. We used each other to get through the worst of it. It was kind of like taking medicine. But we both knew that as soon as we found people we really wanted to go after, it’d be over between us. You found Doran.”
That was when she broke down and fell into my arms, sobbing. “He didn’t kill anybody, McCain! He really didn’t!”
The elderly couple had just about made it to the courthouse, but Molly’s cries stopped them. They turned around and stood there watching us. This was a lot better than daytime TV any day.