"At least that leaves Temple out for once," he retorted. "She'll be pleased to learn that lukewarm Unitarianism has such protective qualities."
"No, it doesn't. Miss Barr is a born victim of guilt by association."
"You're referring to the magician."
"And others." Molina's single arched eyebrow had far more effect on her stoic face than it would have had on anyone else's, The Mr. Spock syndrome.
"That's what I was going to suggest, that you check the background of everyone involved with Miss Tyler. You must have ways of finding out everything from how many fillings they have in their teeth to what their confirmation names are."
"We have ways, as you well know. Are you still miffed about my discovering your absent driver's license?"
"No."
"Or reporting it?"
"Maybe."
Lieutenant Molina had turned so that they were strolling into the hot sun and back to the convent. Matt glanced at the sports watch on his left wrist as a burst of childish screeching exploded somewhere behind the church. Mid-morning already; the kids had been let loose for recess.
Molina stopped dead, her head lifting like an animal's-- alert and relying on some secret sense. Did she consider her young daughter, playing so near what could be the scene of a particularly cruel murder of a defenseless old lady? But all murders were cruel.
Then her corrosive gaze rested on him again.
"So you're still annoyed that I looked you up?" she pressed.
"I still wonder why. Maybe you were trying to protect Temple from another mystery man."
"She needs protection." Molina's voice grew low, almost angry. "That woman should not be let out without a leash, or at least a license. No, it's not Miz Barr I worry about." Molina leaned nearer. Matt was struck by her solid size, her height so like his own, the training that made her formidable in many ways not expected in a woman. "I want Max Kinsella," she said, her words underlined with an intensity he had never heard from her. "Nobody does a vanishing act without leaving traces. In his case, the only clue so far is a dead body at the Goliath Hotel. Nobody gets away scot-free with an open file on my desk."
"You think he'll come back," Matt said with sudden in-sight, "For Temple."
"Why not?" Molina's tone grew defensive, as if she'd had to defend her interest in this old case before, to colleagues and superiors. "Look at how Kinsella arranged for the condo, even before he vanished. Everything set up in both their names so Miss Barr could simply take it over. He knew he might be leaving."
"You think Temple knew that, too?"
She backed off suddenly, even gave a small laugh, a laugh that dismissed her own passion and pursuit. "Maybe, maybe not. Certainly she didn't stage her own attack. Those men meant business. It's a good thing you're teaching her some self-defense. If she's going to keep sticking her neck out, she should learn how to keep it from being chopped off. How does--did--a priest get involved in martial arts?"
"We're allowed hobbies, you know. And prayer and meditation aren't too different from the contemplative side of many martial arts. But, to answer your question, I wasn't always a priest. I started tae kwon do in high school."
"Catholic high school in Chicago?"
He nodded.
Lieutenant Molina stopped walking again and glanced toward the church, past it to the unseen school and playground. The streets were quiet now. Recess was over. "I don't know if I'll keep Mariah in Catholic schools. It's a solid education, and God knows, there's less violence and gang activity than in the public schools, so it's good for her now. But later it might betray her."
"Too Catholic, you mean?"
She nodded, and then looked away. Matt realized that she had fallen into the trap everybody did, that of consulting him, without him even trying to encourage it. She stuck a hand in her jacket pocket, angry about forgetting herself, her position, her authority, and his position as a possible suspect, however remote.
"Did they betray us," he asked softly, "or did we betray them?"
She recognized an ambiguous question, too, especially when it was so germane. Her look was swift, and as swiftly reestablished their relationship of hunter and hunted.
"Maybe it was a victimless crime," Lieutenant Molina said briskly, stepping up her pace toward the convent. "I'll check out everyone's background--I was going to do it anyway--beginning with you. What seminary did you attend?"
"Saint Vincent."
"Where?"
"Batesville, Indiana."
"How did a confirmed Midwesterner like you end up in Vegas?"
"Looking for luck, I guess. Aren't you from someplace else?"
"I'm asking the questions."
"I couldn't find a job anywhere else," he admitted after a moment, "Too much Catholic education."
Her smile was wry, but not unfriendly. "I couldn't either.
Do me a favor and get Miss Barr to drive you home or something. I could use a vacation from her inquisitive face."
He nodded and waited in another patch of shade by Temple's Storm, Las Vegan enough to know to get out of the UV's. In Chicago, snow had been the element worth fearing; here, it was unheard of, and something as simple and treasured as sunshine could be lethal.
When Temple did come out, it was from Miss Tyler's house. She joined him by the car.
"That is an excessive number of cats," she commented, "especially when you feed them and clean their boxes."
'That going to be your job for a while?"
"Super pooper-scoopers, I hope not! Peggy was busy selecting clothes for the funeral with Sister Seraphina, so I pitched in, literally." Temple pantomimed pitching out something, presumably feline waste. "Say, you don't want a cat or two, in case they're not covered in the will?"
"Not after what you've described," Matt said hastily.
"Ready to go?"
"Yeah, I want to close down the cat show and make sure no more malicious tricks have been pulled." She started around to the street side of the Storm, then stopped and stared almost as narrowly as Lieutenant Molina, down the road to the church. "Say, isn't that the wimpy lawyer we met yesterday who just pulled up at the rectory in the silver Camry?"
Matt squinted into the bright sunshine. "I'm not sure--"
"Well, let's find out."
Temple threw her jangling key ring back into her tote bag, hoisted the bag high on her shoulder and began pacing toward the car in question in a no-nonsense manner.
Matt was startled to find himself jogging to keep up.
"Temple! It's none of your business."
"Do you spell that 'nun'?" she shot back over her shoulder with a grin. "Sister Seraphina called you in as a consultant, and I came along for the ride, or the drive, rather. I bet what's-his-name has got the will, and inquiring minds want to know what's in it."
He caught up with her. "Do you think the lawyer or Father Hernandez will tell you?"
"No, but I'd bet that Father Hernandez will tell you. He looks like a man desperately in need of a sympathetic ear of the right sort."
"What sort do you mean?"
"Someone in your unique position."
They were huffing up to the rectory door now, the effort of walking fast in unshaded sunshine sheening their faces.
Matt began to see what Lieutenant Molina meant about a leash. He stopped Temple at the threshold by grabbing her arm. She did not seem to take exception to the contact.
"What's so unique about my position?" he asked, knowing he was asking for it, whatever it was, but inquiring minds need to know, as she had pointed out.
"You know the priesthood, its pressures and rewards.
You're out of it, so you're hardly one to point fingers, no matter what Father Hernandez has done."
"And what has he done?"
"Dived into a bottle, for one thing." She bit her bottom lip. "But there's more to it than that. I bet you could find out if you went about it the right way."
"Why would I want to?" he asked stiffly.
"Because it might be import
ant to why Miss Tyler was murdered."
"The jury isn't in on that yet."
Temple sighed and rolled her eyes. "Of course she was. And maybe all the other stuff--the phone calls, the cat shaving and crucifixion--was just diversion." She shrugged.
"You can keep me in custody if you want, but what would it hurt to go in and ask?"
He released her quickly, realizing that his grip had become tight, almost desperate. He definitely did not want to become unofficial confessor to Father Raphael Hernandez. He had left all that, hadn't he?
Temple was shameless. Public-relations work must do that to even the most sensitive soul, Matt concluded. Once inside the rectory, she clicked down the hall on her pert high heels and didn't pause until she reached the ajar office door. Then she nudged herself through.
"Sorry to disturb you, Father Hernandez," she apologized brightly. "I didn't know you had company. Oh, Mr. Burns!
Do you happen to know yet if the cats were covered in the will? I've just been feeding them, and I don't know how long poor Peggy can fend off the animal-control people once their number is generally known."
Matt groaned inwardly at her bull-in-a-china-shop routine, except that with Temple, it was more like Bambi in a Baccarat-crystal showroom. Unlike Lieutenant Molina, she was not physically impressive; in retaliation, she could on occasion become as cute as hell and achieve the same ends. Her victims talked, despite themselves.
He heard the surprised--and dazed--voices invite her over the threshold and tagged along behind.
A legal-length white document of several pages was indeed splayed atop the flotsam on Father Hernandez's desk.
The pastor was looking far more dazed than the attorney. Neither man challenged the newcomers' right to know. Matt suspected that had less to do with Temple's unruffled chutzpah than with the contents of the will. He found himself becoming seriously curious.
Temple settled with Shirley Temple confidence in one of the comfortable chairs built to hold more than twice her bulk. Matt took another and assumed a neutral expression.
"The cats." Father Hernandez ran his fingers through his thinning, sterling-silver pompadour. "It appears that they are indeed in limbo." He quirked an apologetic smile at Temple. "You may not be familiar with the term."
"Oh, but I am. Does that mean that they're to be . . .evicted?"
"No, no . . ." He waved a soothing hand.
Matt recognized all the proper murmurs and gestures--patented Good Shepherd, parish-priest style--and recognized that they were being performed by an automaton.
Father Hernandez had just had an unexpected shock. He turned, as Temple had, to the lawyer.
Lawyers love an audience.
Burns riffled lovingly through the long pages that had been folded four times and tended to curl shut.
"I know that this document created much speculation," he admitted, "but I couldn't reveal the late Miss Tyler's latest will until it was a matter of record, as it certainly is with her unfortunate death. Father Hernandez has just had some excellent news." He cast a puzzled, almost hurt glance at the shell-shocked priest.
Lawyers are not often the bearers of good news and when they are, they like to enjoy it. But Father Hernandez wasn't doing that, so he turned to his new audience, announcing with a smug flourish, "Miss Tyler did not change her will as she supposedly threatened to do. She was more bark than bite, if you will forgive a canine analogy used in connection with a feline-lover of such long standing."
He bowed to Temple, then glanced triumphantly back to Father Hernandez.
"I happily report that Our Lady of Guadalupe is the sole beneficiary of the will. That means a considerable boost to the parish-development fund, but first I must inventory the contents of Miss Tyler's safety deposit box to estimate the exact amount."
Father Hernandez silently tented his prayerful fingers and propped his long face upon them. He did not look like an administrator who had been granted his dearest wish.
"She made no provision for the cats at all?" Temple asked in surprise.
Burns shrugged. "No. I mentioned it, as a matter of fact, but she insisted that when one is facing the afterlife, one must not be bound by the things of this world."
"But--" Temple was not taking this well. The intrepid investigator had vanished into the persona of a crusading animal advocate. "They'll be caged and shipped off to the animal shelter! In sixty hours, most of them will be dead, and they're house pets, not feral animals. It's . . . awful. Can't anything be done?"
Father Hernandez bestirred himself. "The church is also heir to her house?"
The lawyer nodded.
"And its contents?"
Again, a nod.
"I suppose we can delay the disposition of the cats." His hand brushed his forehead as if checking for a headache that he could not quite feel but suspected was there. "The . . .sisters can take care of them, perhaps arrange some better solution."
"The city authorities will not tolerate substandard conditions for long," Burns put in discreetly.
"No one is living in the house any longer," Father Hernandez said impatiently. "Why is it anyone's business but ours?"
"Because it is public knowledge now," the lawyer replied.
"Yes." Father Hernandez sounded depressed even further by this obvious news. "Public knowledge is all, even in matters of life and death. What will the public think? Well, be damned to the public!"
Matt winced at the fury in Father Hernandez's voice. He sensed that this very fury was what the pastor had been trying to douse in quarts of tequila.
"You don't mean that," Burns was saying in obvious contradiction of the facts.
When priests and lawyers tell each other lies, what is to become of the rest of us? Matt wondered. He felt his own unacknowledged bitterness rising like bile in his throat.
He glanced at Temple. She was watching the two men's interchange with the bright, uncommitted gaze of an observant bird. She cared about the cats, but at the moment she was measuring these men and their motives as the best way of defending the defenseless.
He wanted to be out of here, this room of subtexts and unspoken thoughts. To be alone in his bare rooms at the Circle Ritz, so devoid of personality and past, or back in his safe, soundproofed cubicle at ConTact, listening to long distance agony, eavesdropping on life.
Matt's palms felt damp. Much as he hated to admit it, Temple had been right. Something was drastically wrong with the state of Father Hernandez's body and soul. The will in the church's favor had done nothing to restore his peace of mind. The church development fund was the least of his problems. Might murder be the worst of them?
When Lieutenant Molina did as he had suggested, as she had meant to do anyway, and looked deeply at every person involved in this sad and apparently well-plotted death, what would she find?
Chapter 25
One Less Orphan Animal
"This is great!" Chortling, Cleo Kilpatrick pointed to the photos of bizarre-looking cats in both Las Vegas's Saturday morning and evening papers.
Temple nodded at the naked Sphinx on the Review-Journal second front and the semi-naked curly coated Rex in the Las Vegas Sun. She hadn't noticed her successful handiwork, mainly because she'd skimmed the papers for news of the possible killer's successful handiwork--the death of Blandina Tyler.
Beyond the two women stargazing at the local papers, cats, cages and breeders were bustling around the huge exhibition space in the process of shutting down the cat show. An entourage passed. From their midst, the exiting Maurice, the Yummy Tum-tum-tummy cat, gazed out majestically from a carrier emblazoned with his name and a portrait of the product he represented.
"I'm so glad," Cleo went on as her glance paused on the procession, "that you didn't get any more publicity for that dreadful Maurice. Frankly, commercial cat foods are not the best feline nutrition."
"Oh, are you a Free-to-be-Feline advocate?"
"Most definitely."
"Then tell me one thing: how am I supp
osed to get a cat to eat it?"
"It will take a bit of patience at first--"
"Wrong. It takes patience to the bitter end."
"Cats can be finicky."
"Louie isn't finicky. That's the only stuff he refuses to eat."
"Sometimes they have to be encouraged to do what's good for them. Don't feed him anything but Free-to-be-Feline. If he gets hungry enough, he'll eat it."
Temple nodded, not bothering to say that if Louie got hungry enough, he'd leave home. She wanted to avoid explaining that Louie was free to eat elsewhere, lest she get another lecture on roaming cats. Miss Tyler's cats seemed happy enough confined indoors, but they had been abused on the street. Louie hadn't; he had survived quite nicely without Temple or her Circle Ritz condominium. Any cat that showed the ingenuity to ensure that he could come and go deserved his freedom and whatever free lunch he could find, Temple thought.
Then her eye fell on another exiting cat. "What about that little black one?" she asked, pointing to the undecorated cage near the front registration table.
"You mean the Humane Society cat? Apparently no one adopted it. It'll go back to the shelter."
"Oh." Uh-oh. Temple edged over on tentative heel clacks. She didn't need another cat. More untouched mounds of Free-to-be-Feline. More black hairs all over her off-white sofa. As soon as she approached, the cat rose from its sitting position and began rubbing its face against the grille, gazing at her with big harvest-gold eyes, its little pink mouth opening in a series of silent meows. "How old is it?"
"Looks about nine or ten months," Cleo said.
"What is it?"
"Basic domestic shorthair in basic black. An ordinary alleycat", in other words."
"I meant the gender."
"Oh. Probably female. It would have to be fixed."
Temple read the small card affixed to the cage, "Caviar" Forty-five dollars with shots and a discount on spaying.
Cat on a Blue Monday Page 20