Saturday Night Cleaver (A Barbara Marr Murder Mystery #4) by Karen Cantwell

was my imagination run amok, but I sensed Bob sizing me up. Alright , he was thinking, Betty, Bob, and Barb, a threesome of Bs .
    “Barb!” bellowed Bob. “We’ve been expecting you.”
    Oh no! He was sizing me up. I grabbed Howard for support. This was heading in the wrong direction far too quickly. We needed Shin Lee, not a romp in Pee Wee Bob’s Playhouse.
    Bob peeked around as if checking out my rear end. “Where’s the tequila?” he said, grinning.
    I thought I might faint when the doorbell rang and a second later the kitchen erupted in joyful shouts of, “Barb! Finally! Barb!”
    Spinning toward the door, my eyes landed on a face I never expected to see in a million years. Dandi Booker—all four feet of her. Her dyed blond hair was semi-teased into some style that I assumed was supposed to pass for sexy. It just looked like squirrels had nested there instead. She wore a low-cut dress so brightly orange that it could burn retinas, and she had her boobs all pushed up tight into a vice-like bra to give the illusion of cleavage. Yeah, I thought, when that thing comes off tonight, some man is going to be very disappointed.
    “Hey, ya’ll!” she cheered, all cheerleaderish. “Ready for some fun and margaritas?” She bounced a few times while lifting a party-sized bottle of tequila high into the air for everyone to see. I nearly expected her to break out into a chant: Give me a T, give me an E, give me a Q...
    Bob turned his smile upside down. “You said you were Barb.” His tone was accusatory.
    “I am,” I said, very confused.
    Betty and Bob exchanged disappointed glances and walked off in what I detected was a huff. Our first rejection. I didn’t know if I should be relieved or embarrassed. I thought about sniffing my pits to make sure my deodorant was still working, but reconsidered.
    I whispered to Howard. “I know that woman, and her name isn’t Barb.”
    “Who is it?”
    “That’s the friend-stealer, Dandi Booker. I can’t wait to tell Peggy about this.”
    “I thought you didn’t like gossips.”
    “That’s not gossiping. That’s telling the truth. I’m here, and so is Dandi, pretending to be someone else—me. If that’s not a good truth to spread, I don’t know what is.”
    My phone rang while Howard was rolling his eyes at me. I slipped it from my purse, trying to look casual. “It’s Clarence,” I told Howard.
    He pointed. “I’m going to wander into the kitchen. See what shows up there.”
    I gave him a thumbs up and answered, moving into the far corner of the room, away from the voices that made it hard to hear. “Clarence, are you there?”
    “Yeah. Hey, so we spent all afternoon researching this Saturday Night Fever and eventually Guy wound up on a discussion board and found out all kinds of cool stuff. This club has its own jargon and they refer to their parties as dances and guess what? They’re having one tonight!”
    “I know. I’m there right now.”
    “Really? So are we.”
    The doorbell rang.
    “Clarence, what did you say?”
    The boisterous, freckled guard who had answered the doorbell yelled out for the house to hear, “Hey! We got two gay guys!”
    A resounding round of positive hoots and hollers echoed from every corner of the place.
    “They don’t have an invite, should we let ‘em in anyway?”
    More hoots and hollers and “Alright!” and “Show ‘em the way!” and “It’s cool to be gay!”
    I was hearing this from both the house and the phone in my ear, so I knew the guys at the door were queer, but not gay. Pounding across the never-ending living room to the front door, I spied the long and stringy haired, younger version of Colt smiling proudly next to the pointy-nosed, fedora topped Guy Mertz who looked like a deer wishing he’d been caught in some headlights instead of caught in a possible panty parade.
    “What are you doing here?” My tone was possibly a tad too motherly.
    “It was his idea.” Clarence pointed to Guy whose