“What about alerting the police?”
“Oh, I don’t think we need to involve them in these malicious little pranks.”
“Do you mean that ‘these malicious little pranks’ are part of the show script?”
“We are unscripted!” Indignantly said.
“No. No, you’re not. Somebody’s pretty good at writing in a lot of ‘unauthorized’ scenes. If you figure out how my roomie and I are going to get a decent night’s sleep after this, send us a memo. Just don’t leave it unsigned on our pillowcases. We need our beauty rest, you know.”
Chapter 27
Midnight Assignation
It was during the Night of the Living Lipstick (okay, it was nail polish but that does not sound as good) that I decided I must take what they call “a proactive role” in the proceedings.
I, of course, had remained cleverly concealed, listening in with my awesome radial antennae (i.e., pointed little ears) when my Miss Temple and little Miss Mariah discussed the defacement of their bathroom mirror.
Now, I am not much for mirrors, though I long ago figured out that the suave gentleman in black I glimpsed in them was merely my own self. Many of my kind are convinced they are viewing twin littermates. These benighted sorts are not candidates for more sophisticated roles in human society, such as shamus.
As an ace gumshoe, I immediately decided I needed more inside operatives and must call on the Ashleigh girls.
I did say “girls,” did I not? I have already discovered that they are well acquainted with mirrors but are among the deluded type who mistake their own image for a rival (although a bewitchingly attractive rival) for their mistress’s affections. It is bad enough that there are the two of them. Luckily, both are inverse images of each other, so they will never mistake a sister for a twin. If that makes any sense.
I paw their bedroom door, shivs politely retracted. That subtle sound, rather like a steel brush hissing across a snare drum skin, instantly perks up the ears of my kind. It has the advantage of sounding like some leaf blowing along a sidewalk, a phenomenon universally ignored by Homo sapiens.
And speaking of Homo sapiens, surely Miss Savannah Ashleigh must be the sappiest around.
So, in a moment, a curled soot foot is pushed under the door frame and then come tempting little jiggles of the door, abetted by my leaping to apply my weight near the doorknob until the catch springs … and out through a narrow opening push the pretty-in-pink noses of the Persian sisters.
When I compliment them on their pink proboscises, they feign ignorance of the word “proboscis” and state that the breed standard for their kind’s noses is the color rose.
So a rose nose is a rose nose is a rose nose, but plain old pink in my book.
Once in the hall and over our terminology debates, I explain that what I need is not noses, of whatever shade you want to call them, but eyes and ears.
“Quite right, Louie,” Yvette says with a shaded silver brush along my side. “Noses are a canine sense: loud, snuffly, and vulgar. We can see and hear without being seen and heard, in perfect silence.”
“I agree,” say I, “especially about the perfect part.”
Behind us, Solange makes discreet retching noises. It may be the common malady of a hair ball, or it may be an editorial comment.
I know better than to be caught between them. That would be like being the Jack of Spades sandwiched between the Queen of Hearts and the Queen of Diamonds. Lunch meat.
I tell my new staff about the latest Zorro attack: evil words on a bathroom mirror.
“Our mistress writes in the steam on the bathroom mirror all the time,” Solange offers.
“Indeed. You would say she is a skilled graffiti artist then?”
“I would say,” Yvette puts in, with a corrosive glance at her sister, “that family secrets are family secrets. She writes down the phone numbers of her various gentleman friends so she does not forget them.”
“Why would she not use a little black book, or a computer?” I wonder.
“Blackmail,” Solange purrs thrillingly. “Too easy to access. The tabloids are always stalking her.”
I do not point out that they do so because Miss Savannah Ashleigh always provides them with useful opportunities, such as sunbathing in the nude with Yvette and her litter of unwanted kittens. The tabloids got a lascivious closeup of Yvette nursing with Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s bare anklebone in the background that time.
“We could use some tabloid photographers on these crime scenes,” I point out. “The only cameras here are indentured to the producers. They will either be suppressed so the show can go on, or … even more devious, the show planned these disruptions and this is a Fear Factor pattern rather than a makeover pattern.”
“What is a makeover?” Yvette asks with touching curiosity.
“Humans,” I explain, “do not all come with luxurious coats of fur, airy whiskers, dainty limbs, kaleidoscope eyes, and expressive tails. Many of them are handicapped from birth. Hence their need to remake themselves in a better image.”
“Poor things!” Solange cries.
“But our own,” I point out. “I am sure you wish to serve Miss Savannah Ashleigh as much as I do my Miss Temple.”
“But, Louie.” The Divine Yvette’s voice rises to an imperious tone. “Your Miss Temple is not here.”
Ooops.
“That is correct, Yvette. As usual, your perceptions are formidable. However”—I am thinking, thinking, thinking—“however, little Miss Mariah is here, and she is not only an acquaintance of my Miss Temple, but in my own view, she and her mother, a noted law enforcement personality in this town, are to be commended for adopting a pair of”—here I gaze soulfully at Yvette—“striped homeless kittens last fall. In my own view.”
A silence holds. Yvette unwillingly bore a litter of yellow striped cats once erroneously purported to be mine. They were given up for adoption, naturally, once the tabloid interest had died down. I cannot believe that Yvette is indifferent to those who adopt striped nobodies.
She sniffs. I cannot tell if it is the usual French sniff, as is used to dismiss an inferior wine, or a snuffle, as is used to record a deep but unacknowledged emotion.
“I understand, Louie,” she says finally. “Your devotion to the underdog does you credit.”
Hmmm. This is an edged compliment at best but I let it pass.
“Yvette and I,” Solange agrees in the flash of an eyelash, “will happily aid you in protecting the Mariah kitten.”
Hallelujah! It is not easy to turn purebred Persians into legmen. Er, leg ladies. And I certainly expect a lot less back sass than I get from Midnight Louise. Having claimed to be my relative, she is therefore free to call me anything she likes.
Devoted is not on that list, along with a lot of other sterling qualities.
Chapter 28
Contingency Plan
“I’m glad Old Cold Marble isn’t calling in the police,” Mariah said. “My mom would be all over this place, and I’d be outed.”
She was sitting on the bedroom carpet with Temple, leaning glumly against the end of the bed and facing the door.
They’d decided to do their own guard duty. Light from one of the bedside lamps cast a soft campfire glow on the lavish furnishings.
“Why does someone hate the contestants so much?” Mariah asked after awhile.
“Let’s see. It could be one of us.”
“No way! Why would anyone ruin her one chance at fame and fortune?”
“Fame and fortune, my latest Lash ’n’ Flash eyeliner! Did you read the contest rules? All the contestants get is a non-invasive makeover and a few new clothes. That doesn’t begin to offset the fortune your mom paid for your Teen Queen clothes. So the two division winners get a highly chaperoned date with some boy band has-been and a few more new clothes and a rhinestone crown you can get at a dozen outlets in Vegas. So what?”
“And a car!”
“And a car. A really sexy Dodge Neon, sure
. Don’t you have three years to go before you could drive it anyway? That’s forever in Teen Time.”
“two and a half years. Then I get a learner’s permit.” Mariah’s dark glance slid toward Temple. “You’re one to sniff at a car. I’ve seen that red Miata you drive. You got yours. And you can diss boy band guys. I hear you have a real Bad Boy on the string.”
“Really? Exactly how did you hear that?”
“It’s a small house. I can’t help overhearing things. I heard my mom and her friend Matt talking about him once. Max.” Mariah slid her another glance. “He sounds cool.”
And lately Max was being way too cool, Temple thought. “Your mom’s mistaken about Max.”
“She’s not usually wrong about her job.”
“She’s wrong this time. Max is not a criminal. He’s just a magician. Sometimes they act similar.”
“All I know is my mom doesn’t much think about men but he’s sure got her paddle holster in a snarl.”
“So. You see a lot of Matt at your place?”
“Some.” Mariah picked at a fleck of nail polish on her thumb cuticle. “He’s a little old to be in a boy band but he sure is cute. My mom says I can ask him to my father-daughter dance at school. The other girls would be so fried!”
This bit of news offered Temple two opportunities for choking on her next words: surprise that Matt was becoming a domestic fixture at Casa Carmen Molina, or horror that poor Mariah didn’t know that the man actually entitled to escort her to the father-daughter dance was right here at the Teen Queen Castle right now, doing surveillance.
“Are you falling asleep yet?” Mariah asked.
Not after this discussion. No way. “No. But we do need to get some rest. Why don’t you try to sleep and I’ll watch? Then we can switch.”
“By then it’ll be morning,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s okay. Dark circles around my eyes just save me applying my Smudge Pot kohl eyeliner in the morning. Nothing like lost sleep and hollow eyes to make a modern girl look hip and interesting.”
“Add enforced starvation.” Mariah tilted her head to listen to her tummy growl.
“Now you got the program!”
Kids were amazing. Mariah was off to sleep sitting up before Temple could count to thirteen.
That left Temple on guard duty, and therefore free to brood.
Matt was taking Mariah to the school father-daughter dance? Max was a topic of Molina household discussion, and not in flattering terms?
Temple was feeling decidedly like the odd woman out with everyone she knew. Xoe Chloe, the rebellious loner, began to seem less like a role and more like a dose of reality.
Temple sighed deeply, wondering what was going on in her life, and if she would be the last to know.
Screeches two decibels lower than a klaxon in pitch and strength ripped down the hallway outside their bedroom door.
Mariah awoke, as punchy as a toddler having a nightmare.
Temple was on her feet. “Stay here! I mean it. Sit. Down. Freeze.”
She sprinted out the door, paused to identify the direction of the god-awful noise, and raced left.
Their room was near the end of the wing housing a third of the contestants, so she wasn’t surprised to hear vague buzzes and shuffles behind her.
The guttural cries and high-pitched shrieks ahead never faded.
Temple charged through the ajar door between her and the unceasing hullabaloo.
Lights were glaring but everybody in the room was still blinking, so Temple had to assume the lights had just been turned on an instant before her arrival.
She crossed the threshold and stopped, stupefied.
It wasn’t what she saw. It was who.
Savannah Ashleigh. White-faced, straw-haired, and shaking, wearing a filmy mauve peignoir set off the cover of a 1970s paperback Gothic romance, the kind with the big house with a light in the window behind the fleeing figure of a nightgown-clad woman.
Rafi Nadir. Clad in durable black denim jeans and a heavy cotton turtleneck shirt alarmingly like a Kmart version of Max’s garment of choice. Puzzled, angry, and uneasy.
Midnight Louie, his fur punked up into damp spikes and his tongue hanging sideways between his bared white fangs.
Savannah’s purebred Persians, one silver, one gold, and both with their coats messed up as if by a whirlwind, still snarling and spitting, mostly to themselves.
“What on earth happened here?” Temple asked, raising her voice into Xoe Chloe’s more hyper range. This would put the Xoe Chloe makeover to the acid test. Both Savannah and Rafi were acquainted with Temple though they’d never expect to see her here, in this guise.
“That’s what I want to know,” Nadir said, still staring accusingly at Savannah. “I turn on the light and get one hysterical female and three pretty raggedy cats, all ready to chew my ass.”
“I glimpsed him,” Savannah shrieked like a wind-up doll that, having been set for one mode, can’t escape it. “He wore black.”
“I’m your bodyguard,” Rafi said. “I just got here. I came when I heard the caterwauling. Are you saying some guy in black came in here and attacked you?”
“In black like you, yes.”
“Bodyguards wear black. Especially at night. It’s useful if people don’t notice us. I came as soon as I could. Did you maybe glimpse the cat? He’s all in black.”
That directed Temple’s attention to Midnight Louie. Again. He was sure dogging her footsteps on this one.
Savannah’s eyes dilated even more. “That cat!!! That devil! He’s been the ruination of Yvette and now he’s come to get me. That’s Midnight Louie, I know it!”
Rafi’s dark eyes narrowed as he assessed Savannah. “You superstitious about cats? Is that it? Ma’am?”
The address of respect had been added way too late.
“Just that one. I’m sure that’s the one that ruined my darling Yvette and he’s here to ruin me.”
Temple actually felt a twinge of pity for the woman. Obviously something had occurred to frighten her, and she was all alone in this suite, unlike Temple and Mariah. Temple suspected that Louie had come running, just like her and Rafi. Temple had tried to ignore Louie’s skulking presence around the place but now she understood it. He’d always been sweet on the luscious Yvette, who now sat shaking and licking her pretty little front paws by turns.
Time for Temple’s new persona to sink or swim. This was Zoe’s second run-in with Rafi. Brash Xoe Chloe’s extreme looks and attitude would either fool these two close-up. Or not.
“Hey, lady!” Temple kept her naturally foggy voice high and a bit nasal. “This is just a black stray cat. Chill. I don’t know who this ‘Louie’ is. Your bookie? But this ole cat here is just some innocent stray. I mean, could those big green eyes lie?”
Here Xoe Chloe turned to eye Rafi Nadir up and down much more thoroughly than Temple would ever do. His eyes were in no way green.
“And this man can’t have been here earlier,” she decreed. “Look! Those cats have lost a lot of nail sheaths engaging someone in this room tonight.” A few pearly scythes still glinted from the navy carpeting. “Some would have clung to that denim and cotton-knit and showed up like dandruff on all that black. Someone else walked out of here dripping nail sheaths. But not your bodyguard. Look again! There’s another one by the door.”
“Oh.” Savannah looked from Rafi to the carpet to the door, but not at Xoe. She pressed a hand to her bony chest and sank into seated posture on the end of her bed. “Then I did see someone in black. Just not this man.”
“Maybe.” Nadir bent to the rug, glanced at Temple with no great favor, then followed the trail of nail sheaths to the door. Opening it, he encountered a herd of pink-shirt-clad contestants, looking like agitated sorority sisters.
He quickly shut the door. “What happened?” he asked Savannah, his voice brusque with urgency. “How exactly were you attacked?”
“It was dark. I heard the door open. When I got up, someo
ne or something pushed me back onto the bed. Then there was this shrieking, like bats or banshees or something.”
“Cats,” Xoe said. “It sounded like a cat fight from forty feet down the hall.”
“My cats were fighting something big,” Savannah insisted, pushing herself upright on the bed. “I glimpsed a man’s figure, just as the lights went on. And off again. And on again.”
Rafi rubbed his forehead. “I came in and hit the lights.”
“No. No, he must have been gone by then. You had to have passed him in the hall.”
“I didn’t. Nothing to run into, not even a current of disturbed air. Nobody went out of here.”
Temple swaggered to the door in Xoe’s motorcycle boot gait, which is hard to do in bunny slippers.
From Rafi Nadir’s expression, he’d come to the same conclusion as Savannah.
“Hey.” Xoe Chloe blew a kiss at her own bizarre reflection. Totally not-Temple. “You got a full-length mirror here. Next to the door. How’d you rate?”
“Yes.” Savannah was pleased by her observation. “That’s part of my contract wherever I appear. A full-length mirror installed next to the room door. So I can check myself just before I leave. So many women end up dragging toilet paper on their shoes or with hitched-up skirts or worse from not checking their full-length reflection in a mirror before they leave a hotel room.”
“You’re saying—?” Nadir pressed Temple/Xoe with the same weary skepticism his no-longer-significant other used.
“I’m saying the mirror by the door, in dim light, could confuse a witness. Or a victim.”
“A victim?” Savannah’s voice—never sweet, gentle, and low—rose to new hysterical heights. “I was to be a victim?”
Temple nodded, though she wasn’t entirely sure about that. “The cats must have sensed a problem and attacked the man in black in the dark, before the lights went on. Their eyes don’t require much light to see.”
“The cats.” Savannah glanced around. “My little darlings! Fighting for their mommy tooth and nail.”
“Nails,” Temple corrected, pointing out another lost sheath with the pink felt nose end of her bunny slipper.
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