A Time to Swill by Sherry Harris

Author:Sherry Harris [Harris, Sherry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Books
Published: 2021-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Each one of the people who’d disappeared that night had had some brush with the law. The information was part of a follow-up article about them from about five years ago. Raquel had been caught shoplifting at Dillard’s in Fort Walton Beach. Cartland had a DUI on a boat on Choctawhatchee Bay. Susan trespassed and Blake wrote a bad check. It was all a long time ago. I couldn’t find anything else on any of the incidents, so I reluctantly left. I needed to find out more about each of these people, but first I had to work.

* * *

I scurried into the Sea Glass at eleven fifteen. Thankfully, things were slow and Joaquín had things under control.

“Oh, you did all the grunt work,” I said when I realized the fruit was cut and the barstools were all down.

“Believe it or not, this place ran even before you showed up. And in the bartending profession we actually call that the barback work.”

“Unless I do it? Then it’s grunt work?” But I smiled to show I was teasing. “I guess I’ll just put my feet up and read, then.”

“Right after you help that group that just settled out on the deck,” Joaquín said.

I went out and took orders, trying to pay close attention while my mind worked on the sticky knot of the four people who disappeared on the Fair Winds. I handed the order to Joaquín to fill. It seemed likely to me that maybe their family members had some motive for wanting one of them to disappear. The others might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Chloe?” Joaquín asked. “Are you here with me?”

I snapped back to the real world. “Of course. Right here.”

“I told you a few seconds ago that the order was ready, and normally you fill the beer and wine orders.”

I looked at the tray of drinks Joaquín pointed at. Two beers, two glasses of Pinot Grigio, and a boxcar—whatever that was. “Oh, sorry. I’m just a bit distracted. I’ll tell you about it in a minute.” I picked up the tray and hurried out to our customers. I set two of the drinks in front of the wrong people, which wasn’t something I usually did. I apologized and admonished myself to get my head in the game. Joaquín and I shared tips and I didn’t want my being distracted to hurt his income.

I went back in, poured some peanuts in the shell into a bowl, and carried them out. “These are on the house.” We usually only handed out peanuts if someone asked for them. Sometimes they were in the shell and sometimes they weren’t. I guess it depended on what was on sale. “You can just toss the shells on the deck.” It would be a mess to clean up, but if it made this group happy, I wouldn’t mind the extra sweeping. I also put an empty bowl on the table. “Or you can put the shells in here.

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