“Those long, spare gowns in your singing wardrobe aren’t right for Temple. More something frilly from the thirties and fifties. You’re straight bobs or upsweeps. She’s waves and ponytails.”
“My, haven’t you become the expert.” She shook her head. “You remind me of Rafi. He’s quite a pop culture marketer, you know.”
“And adaptable. Do you realize Mariah is in the pop singer sweepstakes? If he was so supportive of your aspirations and a child was on the way, why did you split up?”
This new Mellow Molina vanished in a millisecond. “Because there was a child on the way!”
Matt flinched at her frustration.
“On the police force,” she explained, “Rafi and I weren’t just fighting prejudice from the white male officers and a lot of the public. If any staff cuts came, it would be among us minorities. While we were united against in-unit sabotage, we were also competing with each other.”
She sat back to sip some beer. “I guess you need to know the intimate details if you’re going to help me, us, with Mariah. Are you going to do that?”
“I’m stuck,” Matt said, “but how intimate?”
“I didn’t want to get pregnant. I wanted to establish my career, despite the odds. I like odds. I especially didn’t want to leap into motherhood after years of helping to rear half siblings. Rafi was on board with that.”
“I get it. The young Catholic Latina woman used birth control, even if it was against the Church’s position.”
“Well, the woman had to do it then, didn’t she? Nothing really effective for men, no little pink pills for girls then. Men were pill-allergic until Viagra and the little blue-for-boys pill came along. Medical insurance would cover Viagra for men, but not contraception for women. They were making single mothers. How crazy is that?”
“Whatever, something didn’t work for you.”
“I doubt this is your area of expertise and way too much information for you. It will be graphic. The pill didn’t agree with my system. Diaphragm and foam, together, that was pretty effective. Then, a period didn’t come. That was shocking. Even more shocking was finding a pinprick in my diaphragm. Not a manufacturer’s flaw or the material thinning, but a big fat pinprick I could see with my naked eye under the medicine chest’s top fluorescent light.”
“You thought Rafi had—”
“To get me out of the running. He’s from a religious and ethnic tradition where women’s place is in the home, having babies.”
“And your conscience was in a bear trap,” Matt said. “Barrier contraception is one thing. Abortion is quite another.”
“He’d said he wanted kids someday. I figured it for a two-with-one-blow.”
“You’re off the career fast track on maternity leave.”
“It wasn’t even a fast track, Matt. It was survival. I had school loans only a steady job could pay off.”
“And you immediately suspected him, not some manufacturing issue?”
“We all were edgy and paranoid. And manufacturing issues aren’t perfectly round pinpricks.”
“Some malcontent in the manufacturing process could have done it as a prank.”
Molina blinked her Isle-of-Capri-blue eyes. “You? Mr. Optimism? Coming up with a sick scenario like that? Product-tampering. Could be. And if I’d been the woman I am today, I might have come up with some benefit-of-the-doubt options too. But I didn’t. I panicked. I left. I ran.”
“Like Max Kinsella did to protect Temple from his past.”
“Don’t compare me to him! I was protecting my baby’s future. I’d never let my child become a pawn, or a bone of contention.”
“You’re the woman you are today because you did that. You chose to become a single mother and have done an admirable job. But your trust issues are higher than the Eiffel Tower on the Strip.”
She swallowed. Not beer. Just the bad taste in her mouth. “I was wrong. I made a rush to judgment, as the phrase goes. I underestimated Rafi. All my own baggage buried him. I can’t explain it now myself. Only… I know, I see, disappearing so utterly without a word, was the worst thing I could have done to him. Because, and we’ve talked about this, he was innocent.
“He thought I’d been kidnapped, killed. He thought he’d been powerless as a cop and a partner, the worst thing to do to a man. He almost sank after that. Did sink. Didn’t care, drifted, lost touch with family and friends. He made the department cut him. And always, he was looking for me, maybe dead, but looking for me.”
“Gosh,” Matt said, “you two are made to order for my new talk show. Dr. Phil would kill for you.”
She half-lurched up. “You even think that…if that oily Oprah hanger-on ever got near me and mine—”
Matt started laughing. “Angst is not going to get you and Rafi past the tremendous hurdle that is Mariah, Mama Bear. Humble pie is.”
“What does that old expression even mean?”
“Forget your own regret and guilt, and play district attorney. Make the best and most honest case you and Rafi can before the judge and jury that is your daughter. Look. She’s a teen. Conflict with her mother is cool. Listen. Rafi has eased into her life and done the same mentoring he did for your singing talent. He’s won her respect all by himself. That’s what you don’t want to sabotage at any expense. You’re the villain of the piece. All you can do is repent.”
“Grovel, you mean.”
“Prepare for the shock and betrayal she’ll feel toward both of you.”
“And you’ll be…?”
“Refereeing, I hope. Rafi does know you’re planning to do this intervention?”
Molina swooped up the beer bottles and headed for the kitchen. “Yes, but not when.”
“So when’s when?”
She poked her head around the barrier wall. “He and Mariah should be back from rehearsing any minute now. I think we’ll switch to Dr Pepper.”
Matt stood. “Carmen Molina, you have got to be kidding me.”
“Pulling off scabs is best done quickly. Glass or bottle?”
“Er, bottle. Better not to have contents easily thrown.”
“How do we start?” Molina wiped her palms on her jeans.
“We put Mariah on the defensive. Have her tell me about her switch in escorts.”
“Isn’t that a bit manipulative?”
“Aren’t you trying to defend yourself against years of major lies?”
14
The Skype Hype
After she dropped Kit off at the Crystal Phoenix, Temple returned to the Circle Ritz, singing in the elevator and dancing down the hall. “I’m in love with a wonderful guy” from some musical soon morphed into “I’m in love with a wonderful dress”. Call her elated. She was just exuberant enough to commit to a bold move she’d planned to put in motion.
Waltzing from the living room into her office, she noticed Louie wasn’t in there either. He must be out and about via the neighboring bathroom’s partly open window.
Her business card lay near the desktop computer in her office It read Temple Barr, P.R., as in Public Relations. Friends, and even Matt when they’d first met, had joked she really should put “P.I.” as in Private Investigator on that card. She did have a knack for crime-solving.
Ordinarily, she worked casually around all the rooms, slouching on a chair or sofa or bed with her tablet or smart phone, but this was a delicate situation.
So she sat at her rarely used desktop, staring into the dark computer screen, sobering up fast. She was about to attempt the most dishonest, manipulative, necessary, and desperate “public relations” campaign of her career. Right now she was calling on every “knack” in her large tote bag of tricks and taking full, lavish advantage of an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Her top clients, Van and Nicky Fontana of the Crystal Phoenix hotel-casino, had called Temple into Van’s office as soon as they heard she had wedding plans waiting on Matt’s Chicago career options. Van was the executive. Nicky was the mob family white sheep who’d mad
e a go of a “legit” enterprise in a Vegas gone (relatively) straight.
“Listen,” Nicky had said. “You’re one of our most valuable employees, even if we may lose you to Chicago. Your family wedding is our Family wedding. Tut.” He held up a well-manicured hand. Only Fontana brothers could make manicured fingernails sexy rather than an affectation. “My brothers tell me there may be flies in the ointment.” He glanced at his cool, contained blonde wife, Van von Rhyne, who nodded.
“There always are in this town,” Van said, rolling her baby-blues.
Nicky nodded. “That’s your business, Temple, and my bros’ business, yet I cannot help but think nine Fontana brothers will be useful as more than groomsmen for your nuptials if there are any bumps in the road.
“As for the costs of all involved, it’s on the house. Our house. Whomsoever you want to import for the occasion to stay in a private suite, for the reception and before and after parties, etcetera, etcetera. We will even tolerate random government agents, and local fuzz,” he said with a wink. “We are as clean as a toothpick at the Crystal Phoenix. Bring ’em on, all the conventional and unconventional guests. Just don’t get hurt. Capiche? And I hope you will include Van and I in the festivities, or riots, as it may be.”
Who could carp at that ungrammatical “whomsoever” and “I”? Nicky Fontana was a prince and Van his perfect princess partner. Words were Temple’s business, but elegant hospitality was theirs, and she was lucky to have the use of it.
“Yes, sir,” Temple said. “With pleasure.”
So since Temple had means, she had opportunity. She was going to be nervy and pitch some Very Important People to attend not only her and Matt’s wedding, but a surprise family get-together afterward. She figured it would only work if she contacted them in person. Enter Skype, the free video call computer face-to-face program, which Temple didn’t use much herself and which would be outright foreign to an older generation.
To do this, Temple felt she needed to sit upright in her desk chair and play a pilot at the controls. Her fingers had tapped a paper list of names and phone numbers on the desk’s right surface. Everything had to be concrete, firmly at hand.
She’d always been a tad leery of the digital. That was why she wore a round watch face as large as her slender left wrist, with a Big Hand and a Small Hand ticking off the exact second. It flashed some Austrian crystals, as did her big round sunglasses. As a tiny woman she wasn’t afraid to accessorize big. People remembered that, and remembered her. And trusted her to Think Big too.
Before she pressed the starter, engaged the ignition, and took off into the wild blue Internet, she skimmed the list once last time. She had to keep an eye on who was who and who was where. She could not afford to make a mistake.
She’d confronted a murderer or four, and a psychopath or two, but this head-to-head was even worse. It was Family. And even worse, OPF, not other people’s money, but families. That wasn’t public relations, but private relations.
She took a deep breath, dialed the first number, and lifted her chin, remembering this was going to be Skype and computer cameras always shot upward to provide the best double-chin angle, like at the police booking room or the driver’s license photo renewal set-up.
Not that she had a double chin.
Before she could take a second deep breath, she was looking at Max Kinsella, thirty years older, on the screen, full head of black hair graying in dramatic white swaths, but the eyes still piercing and demanding accounting.
This was the most delicate and volatile contact. Survive this and it just got easier.
“Miss Barr,” the older Max said, “I presume. This is a bizarre…method of contact and communication, but you say it involves our son.”
The woman beside him seemed petite, like her (oh, cra…ah, crepuscular moon!). Temple tried to swear, even to herself, as she did everything else, creatively. Don’t even think you reminded Max of his mother!
The man went on. “If this is some Internet scam, I assure you, young woman, we will prosecute you to the full extent of the—”
“Cat!” the woman exclaimed.
Temple gritted her teeth while maintaining her friendly smile, a PR professional necessity.
Midnight Louie’s big head had pushed over her shoulder, either recognizing a certain “Max” timbre in the man’s voice or a verbal threat from the screen.
“Louie,” Temple tried to shrug him out of view. “Butt out, there’s nothing to eat here.”
The woman advised her husband. “A con artist wouldn’t bring a cat along.”
He was not soothed. “We’ve heard very little from our son lately, scanty communication for years, in fact. That’s the only reason we agreed to this mad meeting over the ethernet.”
“I’m so glad you knew someone acquainted with Skype. I know you need to see me for myself, if not my cat. I work at home. Are the Kellys with you, as requested, Mr. Kinsella?”
Husband and wife exchanged consulting glances.
“Who hired you?” Kevin Kinsella barked.
“Nobody hired me. Your son would be very unhappy to know I’d contacted you and the Kellys.”
“Unhappy?” That one word from Max’s mother was a cry from the heart. “Is it something we did wrong all those years ago?”
It was something you failed to do right, Temple thought, but an ace PR woman couldn’t say that.
“It’s something you can do very right,” she said. “I’m a friend of…Michael’s, and he suffered a serious fall some time ago, during his magic act. It caused traumatic memory loss.” True. “His pride has taken a body blow from the accident. He was always so self-sufficient.”
Mrs. Kinsella reached for her husband’s arm off-camera, and his grimace showed the full force of her grip. “He’s mobile, he can communicate,” she begged. “He’s recovered?”
“All recovered, except for pieces of his memory of you and your husband and his best friend and cousin, brother really, Sean, whom he deeply mourns, and his aunt and uncle. The Kellys are there, as I so I hoped they would be?”
“Here, but dubious, as we are,” Max’s father said.
“May I speak to them?”
The couple parted sheepishly and a pair of very different features pushed through to stare at her, with hair red and curly as opposed to black and straight.
Temple could sense the couples’ discomfited body language at being forced to crowd together around a tiny screen, but they all were eager for more news. Finally.
“You don’t know me,” Temple said. “I hesitated to contact you, but I think it would help Michael’s memory so much, and help you to understand the long silence, perhaps between you all on your side of the generations too.”
Silence.
“I’ve contacted you because I’m getting married soon.”
“To Michael?” Eileen Kelly had spoken sharply. Temple understood why. Michael was getting married? Her dead son, Sean, never would.
“Oh, no,” Temple said. “I’m marrying another wonderful man, a man named Matt.” She appeared to think a moment. “But Michael will attend the wedding. We both think so highly of him, and thought that if you all could attend, it might break him loose from the prison of his amnesia.”
“Catholic, are you?” Patrick Kelly asked.
“I’ve been known to attend Our Lady of Guadalupe in Las Vegas.” True.
“Las Vegas!” Maura Kinsella was taken aback.
“Michael had performed here under another name until forced to take a sudden leave of absence.” True. “This amnesia has gone on for a long time.” Well, a few months.
“Hey, people. I would be the happiest bride on the planet if your families could come to my wedding. It might break the veil of Michael’s memory. I represent the Crystal Phoenix Hotel, the most tasteful boutique hotel in Las Vegas. The management will fly in anybody I think essential to my dream wedding, and include paid-for luxury suites and the reception.”
“Smells like one of those time-s
hare vacation schemes,” Kevin Kinsella grumbled in the background.
“Got it on Google,” whispered a loud young male voice, presumably the nephew acquainted with Skype. “Hot Kardashian sundae, that place rocks!” A lad after Temple’s heart. “Five stars. On Yelp. That’s golden. Quit angsting, oldsters, and go for it.”
“I assure you,” Temple said, “it’s a five-star wedding gift to me, like Michael and his folks,” Temple said.
Temple didn’t need to say another word. She merely stared hopefully in a starry-eyed bride way, into the screen.
The saying went, “Never let them see you sweat.”
With Skype, that was possible.
Temple wiped her palms on her poplin capri-clad thighs and dialed again.
“Temple! This is such a treat. I can see you perfectly.” Matt’s mother’s welcoming face on the screen made Temple’s tensed shoulders loosen.
“That the mighty mite from Vegas?” Matt’s crushing young cousin popped her Goth post-punk face into the Skype view. Krys considered herself as an also-ran for the bride role.
“Kyrstyna,” Mira said, “is the only one I know who can get my computer to do this face-to-face trick. So we’re talking from Krys’s apartment, that we shared before I remarried. You remember it from your visit? It’s very warm in Las Vegas now, isn’t it? Not so much in Chicago.”
It was very warm on Skype with Temple about to invite Mira and her new husband and his brother and long-time wife to the wedding.
“What is so important that we have to Skype?” Mira asked.
“Matt and my wedding plans are on speed-drive all of a sudden,” Temple said. “Your new side of the family are invited, but it’s coming up fast. You’ll be flown in by the Crystal Phoenix, with luxury suites and the best wedding reception ever.”
“Am I a side of the family?” Krys stuck her face into camera range to ask.
Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28) Page 12