“You better hope he’s not, because you have police witnesses to wishing him dead.”
“Not seriously—”
“Everything here is serious now, Electra. Don’t let the happy high of the Red Hat Sisterhood lead you astray. We are hip-deep in trouble.”
It was only then Temple noticed that the black cats had slipped out of the conference room on the heels of Elmore and Merry and Morrie.
Oh, shoot. She and Electra weren’t even serious enough players to keep the attention of a couple of cats!
Louie and Louise, how could you?
Chapter 21
The Third Degree
“That was not very nice,” Louise observed as we shimmied through the air-conditioning vents.
The Las Vegas summer was firing up for the main event, and I have to admit that my seasoned joints were not doing the horizontal crawl with youthful enthusiasm.
Miss Midnight Louise, of course, was going for a world record in on-land airshaft-swimming.
“What was not nice?”
“Leaving the ladies behind so we could tail the cops. That Detective Su is as mean as a Persian queen in heat.”
“She is just annoyed with our Miss Temple for beating her out on the undercover job at the Teen Idol competition. They are like feuding sisters and Miss Lieutenant Molina is their mama.”
“Do not let Miss Temple hear that idea. She would take you off at the tail.”
“Tut. I know how to handle these human females, unlike most human males. A little purr and rub here, a little manly huff and puff there, and they are all eating out of the palm of my paw.”
“Especially Miss Detective Su.” She is being sarcastic, and I forbear to reply to that comment.
“That is why we are going over ground. Once we reach the vent into the Lalique Suite, we will hear and see all while remaining not seen and not heard.”
“Like very lucky human children.”
“Hush! We are almost, hah! There.”
We hunker down, side to side and face to face, all the better to see and hear through the grille.
“I am jest an innocent bystander,” that heroic lonesome cowboy, Elmore Lark, is whining to the two detectives. “I jest came down from Reno to check on my little fillies.”
Even a good ole boy like me can see that the phrase “little fillies” is not going over with Miss Detective Su. Even Mr. Detective Alch winces at that one.
“Look, Elmore,” Su says. “I can call you ‘Elmore,’ can I not?”
“Sure, lady. Uh, Lieutenant.”
Alch chuckles.
“Detective will do,” Su tells him. “Are you saying that you never divorced Electra, wife number one?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Divorce is a very exact thing, like murder, Elmore. Which is it?”
“The papers were not quite right.”
“And you did this because—”
“Oleta was a hot potato.” He glanced at Alch for backup, but Alch was too savvy to do more than look as stony as a new president on Mount Rushmore.
Elmore shrugged. “Fun, but . . . touchy. I figured I could always get Electra back—”
Su put a trouser leg up on the chair next to Elmore. It was a fancy Italian leather chair, but she had no shame at resting her mall shoe-shop ersatz leather boot on top of it. (I have learned a few things from my Miss Temple and her extensive shoe collection.)
“You are a dirty dog, Elmore. I bet there are a lot of women who would like to see you swing for murder.”
“Ah, they do not hang people anymore.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Ye-ah.”
“And the worst part of your cheesy operation is you set one woman against another and then slip away all innocentlike. You are not innocent, are you?”
“Of murder, yes.”
“So who do you think offed Oleta? Between us.” Su’s boot swiveled like it was about to crush out a cigarette. Elmore’s gentleman’s area was directly across from it on the next chair.
I swallowed in fellow sympathy. Even the sinister Hyacinth had never touched claw to my, er, play balls.
“She has got him on the run,” Louise chortled next to me. “Or having the runs,” she adds with that peculiarly feminine zest for certain forms of violence against men who done them wrong.
“I do not know what has gotten into the China Doll of the LVMPD,” I say, truly amazed.
And that is when my man, Detective Morrie Alch, rises to the occasion.
“We will need to see your marriage and divorce papers,” he tells Elmore Lark. “To both women, and any others you may have promised to love and obey for all time.”
“I am not the greatest housekeeper,” Lark says. As if one could not tell that from the wrinkles in his plaid shirt. “Aren’t there records you people can check in the blink of a computer cursor?”
Su leans closer, all glare. “Sure. But we want to see what you are flashing around, claiming to be genuine.”
“And where were you yesterday morning?” Alch asks.
“At home in Reno. I drove right down when I heard about Oleta on the nightly news.”
“We had not released her name to the press yet.” Su is relentless. “Not enough information about next of kin. If you were on any lists in that regard, you sure did not show up.”
“We divorced too. A few years ago.”
“So why are you really in town?” Alch slipped that in with such an easygoing tone that Lark was answering before he thought about it.
“Some old business with Electra.”
“She knew you were coming?”
“Nah. I did not even know all these red-and-purple ladies would be in town.”
“Then how did you end up at the Crystal Phoenix?” Su pounced.
Elmore Lark winced and fingered his cowboy hat on the tabletop. Sometimes even your props will let you down. “Oleta e-mailed me to come. Said she knew something of interest to me. About Electra. And I had other interests in town.”
Su and Alch sat back in their chairs as one.
It looked like the long-ago romantic triangle was still plenty alive and kicking . . . until someone had throttled Oleta.
At least there is another suspect on the scene besides Miss Electra Lark.
I hiss as much to Louise.
Below us, the humans are leaving the room.
“Why do you always refer to your human lady friends as Miss when some of them are actually Mrs.?” Louise asks in that annoyed tone females and relatives get when they have nothing better to do than pick on some innocent nearby dude.
“It is a courtesy title, Louise. I even use it with you, at times, though Bast knows you have given me little courtesy. All human females were ‘Misses’ at one time and I honor their eternally youthful origins by using that honorific. And, as you have seen and heard, these ‘Mrs.’ titles come and go nowadays.”
“Do you think that your Miss Temple, now that she is about to become Mr. Matt’s Miss Temple and maybe his Mrs., will soon be a ‘Miss’ again?”
“One never knows in this town,” I answer grimly. If my Miss Temple does decide to reside in a state of holy matrimony, I would hope it would be permanent. I do not like to move from pillar to post office. “And you have made my point, Louise. A man is always a ‘Mr.,’ no matter his marital status. Ergo, I do not see why a woman should not always remain a ‘Miss.’ ”
“I get that, but who is this ‘Ergo’?”
“Merely an expression referring to some Latin lover type, no doubt. Speaking of which, it might behoove us to look up Mr. Aldo Fontana and his doings with Miss Temple’s aunt. They are on the case too, and those Fontana brothers are very well—”
“Built?”
“Connected, I was going to suggest.”
But I admit I am disappointed that even the fiercely independent Miss Midnight Louise can fall prey to a tall, dark guy with a world-class tailor.
Chapter 22
Midnight Madnes
s
Matt Devine sat behind the mike at WCOO-AM, listening to other people’s problems.
His own sounded miniature by comparison: a newfound long-lost father in his hometown of Chicago. A mother who wanted to run from a past too traumatic to remember, including an abusive ex-husband, except that Matt’s real father had been the only good thing in it. And now that Matt had found that man by happenstance and whatever saint presided over happy endings, she wanted to run from him.
Parents. Way overrated once you were past twenty-one.
But he was only four years past thirty, and way too many of those years had been spent as a dedicated Catholic priest. He didn’t regret those years, not even the celibacy. He’d done some good. But time had made clear that he’d run to the priesthood in search of a more perfect father than his abusive stepfather, Cliff Effinger, even if he had to become that “Father” himself.
He’d come to Las Vegas to track down and confront Effinger, but the man he found was too small to fear or hate, and was dead now, anyway. Meanwhile, Matt had stumbled from hotline counseling into a radio shrink job that made “Mr. Midnight” a hot syndicated property.
He’d also met an empathetic, energetic fireball named Temple Barr who’d made him glad he’d waited seventeen years for her . . . and her heroic significant other, charismatic ex-magician Max Kinsella. Now the men’s roles had changed.
The Mystifying Max, as his stage name promised, had been in—and out—of Temple’s life for so long that the stifled attraction between her and Matt finally had flared. And how. Matt breathed hard each time he recalled every word, every kiss, every touch, every move. With more to come. He’d been infatuated with Temple since they met, but now the cat was out of the bag and it was ravenous.
And still his happiness didn’t feel guaranteed. Max was a powerful presence even when he went AWOL . . . and Matt?
It was past midnight in Las Vegas. Matt had a $48,000 vintage engagement ring in his coat pocket because his betrothed didn’t want to wear it “yet” and he couldn’t bear to inter it in the new floor safe in his newly redone bedroom . . . where he’d done and redone his betrothed even though that was against every rule for an ex-priest maybe on the road to becoming ex-Catholic.
Come to think of it, “Mr. Midnight,” on-air shrink extraordinaire, had plenty problems of his own.
And still freight cars full of free-floating anxiety and angst poured in from the featureless night. From phones in cheap motel rooms and in ticky-tacky box houses, at bars, in dark living rooms, dialed secretly.
“He/she is running around on me.”
“No one can know I’m pregnant.”
“No one can know I had an abortion/adoption/stillbirth.”
“Why does he hit me if he says he loves me?”
“Why doesn’t he boff me if he says he loves me?”
“Why does she run around with every dude on the block?”
“Should I marry him/her even if he/she is physically/sexually/verbally abusive?”
Sometimes, lately, Matt, the most levelheaded of men, wanted to scream, “How should I know?”
But they thought he did, so he tried to give them honest, supportive advice. Sometimes he hung up the oversize foam-padded earphones for the night feeling that he had.
Not tonight. He got into his Crossfire outside the station and drove back to the Circle Ritz on autopilot.
He needed to confront Temple about what wasn’t happening between them. Two-thirty in the morning was a lousy time to do it, but he needed to know.
Besides, he ached to see her again. He’d spent so long subduing all the crazy throbs and fevers of first love, and now it was combined with the wonders and passion of first sex. He was glad they’d been forced to be just friends so long, so they knew each other deep down. Now she’d become a drug he couldn’t get enough of, and that felt so right.
Matt stood in the dim hallway, wondering whether to knock.
He sure wasn’t about to ring the old-fashioned doorbell. That would wake the whole floor.
Max Kinsella, he knew, had made a habit of coming and going unannounced via the patio doors, an unpredictable and dazzling second-story man to the end.
Matt still felt he ought to knock, which was maybe a pretty bad sign. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Temple’s number, feeling like a fool.
The ringing stopped. She sounded groggy, of course.
“Yes?”
“It’s me.” Stupid line.
“Matt? Oh.” He could hear the rustle of sheets as she settled up against her pillows. “It’s been so crazy. I’m so glad to hear your voice.”
He could have admitted he’d been crazy too but that didn’t seem wise at the moment.
“Where are you?” she asked. “Just home?”
“Yeah. Just home.” He leaned against the wall. Her wall.
“I’ve been running around all day at the Crystal Phoenix.”
“Still chaos there?”
“A convention of five thousand divided between the Phoenix and the Goliath? Yes. And . . . well, the usual, at the Phoenix, unfortunately. Listen, if you’re not too tired, and could come down for a while—?”
“I am down.”
“Down?”
“I’m at your door.”
“Oh.” There was a silence. Had he overstepped his bounds?
“Oh! Well! Wait just a sec. I need to put something . . . off.”
The cell phone died in his hand, but he’d definitely detected a perk in her interest level.
Two minutes later the door opened. Temple was wearing something long and red and filmy and dotted with rhinestones that was amazingly deficient at covering her breasts.
She couldn’t miss his appraisal. “One great thing about being a blond now is I can wear red. Vintage fifties nightie. We femmes fatales knew how to do it then. Come in, wandering voice of the night. I could use a sympathetic ear.”
“Your aunt isn’t here?”
“Apparently she has found a roost elsewhere for the duration of her visit. Can you spell F-o-n-t-a-n-a?”
Matt raised his eyebrows, but was rather glad to hear Temple was home alone again. They settled at the stools by the kitchen eating counter. Temple’s gaze settled on Matt, and it was unsettlingly fond.
“It’s so good to see a sane face.”
“Um, ‘sane’ isn’t the adjective I was looking for.”
“It’s so good to see your handsome, wise, sexy face. Can a girl these days just say, ‘Kiss me’?”
Matt found his niggling doubts vanishing as he complied. He wondered if a guy could just say, “On the couch, the floor, or the patio under the stars?”
“Hmmm.” Temple smiled at him from six inches away, so her eyes were as adorably crossed as a Siamese cat’s. Speaking of which?
“Louie?” Matt asked.
“Kind of you to inquire, but he’s not in. Not on the couch. Not in my bed. Anywhere else of interest?”
“I was thinking the patio overlooking the pool.”
“You know I loved to watch you swim from there. Lustfully. Maybe there,” Temple said.
“Electra would see.”
Temple sighed. “Not nowadays, lover boy. That’s what I needed to tell you.”
“Something about Electra?” Matt was confused. He still expected every other sentence out of her mouth to be about Max, not a good sign in her or him.
“She was discovered leaning solicitously over a dead body at the Crystal Phoenix yesterday.”
“You mentioned that, but come on, Electra a murderer? She was just trying to help someone, obviously.”
“The victim turned out to be the woman who took her third husband away from her, so the ‘help’ defense is a bit thin.”
Matt bit his lip. “Not good, but I stand by my first diagnosis. Electra wouldn’t kill a fruit fly.”
“I agree. But that’s something to worry about tomorrow, Rhett.” She leaned forward and took his worried bottom lip in her own. “You tell me:
on the plantation porch, by the plantation pond, or in the master bedroom?”
Matt’s heart stopped beating for about twenty seconds. She meant it. Here. Now. Them. The bedroom once co-owned by Max.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the ring.
“You’ve been carrying this around?”
“I couldn’t leave it in a cold metal safe when my whole heart’s in it.”
“Mine too.” Temple beamed and put it on her third finger, left hand, but her eyes never left his.
Matt made his choice. It was late. They were both a little weary. They deserved a pillow-top mattress. Max was gone. Louie was out.
Matt led Temple into her very own bedroom to make it into a marriage bed.
At five in the morning they awoke. Temple laid her head on Matt’s shoulder and her left hand on his chest while she got something off hers.
“He’s really gone this time,” she whispered, relating all the details about the complete changing of the guard at Max’s former home. “He’d been hinting that this was it, but with Max you never knew.”
“So you can’t ever tell him it’s over?”
“I think he knew. Maybe he had somewhere urgent to be. Maybe he thought cutting the cord was the kindest thing to do. The thing is, I don’t owe him an apology. I did my best to offer him one, but he’s gone again, and I have a brand-new life to live with someone I’ve always loved very much.”
“Always?”
“From the moment we met. I just didn’t dare know it then.”
“Me neither.”
“Now we can dare anything.”
“Except for friends and neighbors and close relatives,” he said with a laugh, lifting her hand to kiss the ring on it.
“It’s about time they knew. We’ll get through it.”
She didn’t say the thing she’d decided during the night when Matt had made her bed theirs.
Once Electra was cleared of murder charges, Temple wanted a civil wedding ceremony in the Lovers’ Knot Wedding Chapel downstairs, with all the soft-sculpture people and their Las Vegas friends present, in front of God, state, Elvis, and everybody.
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