Esther looked surprised. "Oh. Okay. Because I know I wasn’t popular in school. I had more enemies than friends. But I never had anything to do with any murder. I don't even follow the news."
"You were Molly's friend?" May asked. "Tell me about your friendship."
Esther considered that question for a while. “Look, Molly and I were close. I found that she was quite a cool person, actually. I respected her. Most of the girls there were sluts. Including me, at times. But she never was. I thought her dad must have raised her with a very strong set of values, or else, she was terrified of him. I was never sure which it was." Esther stared thoughtfully at the wall.
"I don't think she was terrified of him," May felt compelled to say. "Perhaps it was more like she idolized him."
"Yeah, that could have been the case. Idolizing him." Now, she sounded thoughtful. "Anyway, I never had any problems with her. We were good friends. The rest of the bunch, that was a different story, I will admit it."
"You never fit in?" May asked the obvious question.
"I used to hang out with a bad crowd. I was a bad girl. I was friends with the worst people at school. I was a rebel in every way."
"Did you take much notice of other people? If we told you who the victims were, could you say if they had anything in common with each other?" May asked. She knew it was a hopeful question, but why not ask it? After all, Esther was a tattoo artist, and she must have an observant eye to do that job well.
"Sure. I can give you a character analysis on them."
More likely a character assassination, given Esther's blunt and forthright way, May suspected.
"Well of course, as you have heard, Ed Blair is one. What’s your take on him?"
Esther practically rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I told you I know about that. It’s very sad. Nobody deserves to die, but I must say, I never had any time for Ed and thought she made a terrible choice. I knew him at school, but they only got together after school. She must have been in college when they started dating."
"Did you warn Molly, or tell her that you thought he was wrong for her?"
"Why would I do that? I can’t live other people’s lives for them. Obviously, she made her own choices in life, and we weren’t so close anymore at that stage, but I’m amazed she couldn’t see that he was a loser."
"Why do you say that?" May asked.
"He was one of those guys who was handsome and good at sports at school, and he basically rode on that and didn't develop a personality at all. Or even try that hard in his studies. He thought he could just get by on what he had, and in my opinion, that wasn’t much," Esther observed disparagingly. "He was in the weightlifting team, that I remember. And he was a good swimmer too. I think he might have been a school captain, but I've forgotten what for."
"And that was enough to impress Molly?" May wondered how Molly could possibly be attracted to a man like that.
Owen returned with a tray of coffees and set them down.
"What do you mean, enough to impress Molly?" Esther said. "She had brains, she was a good girl. I suppose she just thought that a nice sounding, sporty man like that would be all she needed. And I guess he looked alright on paper, to impress her dad. She was all about impressing her dad, with him being in the police."
"But you didn't think he was right for her?" May asked.
"No. She should have seen that he was no good for her. But I guess he was different enough from her last boyfriend. Now that was a bad choice, and her dad really wouldn't have approved, so she never told him."
Now, Esther was on a roll, and May needed to stop her. After all, she hadn't come here to listen to a litany of Molly's past boyfriends. She'd come here to look for any common threads between the three victims. She needed to get this conversation back on track, but now that she was talking, it was difficult to stop Esther.
"Yes, Molly made a big mistake with that previous one, and I guess that’s why she chose Ed next. She and the previous guy got together right at the end of school, and I was seriously worried that she might end up marrying him and turning her life into a disaster zone. Even more so than she ended up doing. He was a real party boy and rather a womanizer. I mean, I also played the field for a while, and it takes one to know one."
"That's very interesting, but—"
"Yes, it would have been a huge mistake." Esther stirred her coffee thoughtfully. "But then again, I guess she'd never have told her dad about him, so she'd never have done it. She always did idolize her dad, and just as well when it came to that man. I doubt her dad ever knew about him."
"Did you know Ed in college at all?" May tried, but Esther was still too busy talking about the next boyfriend.
"Sometimes, I thought to myself that Molly seriously had no taste in men. She was a smart girl with a good head on her shoulders, and she was beautiful. She could have had anyone. She was gorgeous, and still is."
"Do you know who his closest—" May tried again.
"And this guy, the one before Ed, was just not right for her," Esther said, interrupting. "He was just a big, dumb jock. I did tell her that too. But she just kept on saying that it was the best thing for her. There were so many good guys who liked her, and she never seemed to look at them. She must have been blind. I remember telling her that."
"Yes, that's very interesting, but what we need to know now is whether Ed ever—"
