She and Mariah huddled together on one of the giant leather ottomans that dotted the house’s domestic landscape, in a corner of the murder room where everything else was thankfully obscured.
Morrie Alch squatted down before them, as you would with children, leaving his petite Asian-American-princess partner, Merry Su, to do the looming.
A man in his comfy fifties, he was graying a little, gaining even a little more around the middle, and putting a heck of a strain on his aging knees at the moment.
“You’re the young lady who made the sad discovery,” he told Mariah. “Mind if I sit down here and ask you some questions?”
Her earlier sobs had quieted into the occasional hiccup. She knew Detective Alch but she wasn’t supposed to show it. Her color grew high and feverish, and her dark eyes burned with anguish.
“I guess.”
“Okay, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
Like he didn’t know! Temple thought.
He got up, knees creaking, and sat beside Mariah, pencil poised over a narrow-lined newspaper reporter’s notebook.
His pencil needed sharpening. It didn’t need his gesture in licking it first but the whole act made him into Uncle Morrie, a man to be trusted.
Temple know no homicide detective was a man to be trusted, including Mariah’s own mother.
“Who are you?” Su asked Temple in a far less gentle tone.
“One of the other contestants.”
“So which of you got first dibs on the corpse?”
Morrie cleared his throat to signal Su to go easier. He might as well have waved at the moon.
“Well?” Su insisted.
“I was here first,” Mariah said. “Alone. I found … her.”
“She had an appointment,” Temple pointed out quickly. “That’s why, when I heard the scream and recognized her voice, I knew where to go. I must have reached the scene only seconds after she came in and found Mrs. Klein dead.”
“I’ll thank you not to put testimony in the girl’s mouth, Miss—?”
“Ah, Ozone.”
“Ozone?”
“It’s a stage name. Like Axl Rose. Or Sting.”
“Why don’t you step this way, Ms. Ozone Sting?” Su suggested.
Temple hated to leave Mariah to the mercies of kindly Detective Alch. The kindly part was true, and he was certainly well aware he was interviewing his boss’s kid, but all of that only went so far in the homicide biz. Temple, meanwhile, was totally undercover and totally suspicious.
“Now.” Su sat Temple down on a most uncomfortable modern sofa in the room’s opposite corner. “You tell your story.”
“It’s not a story. Mariah and I are roomies. Roommates. She’s a ‘Tween Queen candidate and I’m a Teen Queen one. They pair us up, little and big sisters.”
“So you feel a responsibility for the girl?”
“Yeah, right. Of course.” And why wasn’t Mariah’s mother here now?
“You’ve never met her before?”
Maybe that was why. Conflict of interest. Not wanting to finger her own kid. Or her own kid’s secret babysitter. Temple was on her own here. Thank heavens for Xoe Chloe.
Su’s almond Asian eyes were bent to her notebook. Temple danced around the truth as if it were a Maypole. “Nope. We’re all strangers here.”
“And you are?”
“Xoe with an X.”
Su’s ballpoint pen (unlike Alch, she was unlikely to change her mind or anything else) stopped dead in the middle of one line. “And how do you spell Zoe with an X?”
“Easy. X-o-e. Zoe-ee.”
“And ‘Ozone’ is your last name? Do you spell it with an X?”
“No. And I actually go by Xoe Chloe Ozone.”
“Where do you go by this?”
“Performance art. In the clubs. You know. And at the Rollerblade havens.”
“You’re a Rollerblading performance artist?”
“That’s it. Body and soul. Synthesis. That’s my thing.”
“So, what did you find when you entered the crime scene?”
“Uh, you mean, the room?”
“Yes.”
“Well, um, the scale.”
“The scale?”
“Yeah, the weigh thing. I do not like scales. I don’t suppose you much avoid them, being one skimpy girl, but we’re all on television here and every ounce looks like a pound.”
“That’s why the dietitian was part of the package. You were all supposed to lose weight?”
“Yeah. Pretty much all of us. You can never be too rich or too thin:”
“What does money have to do with it?”
Xoe Chloe (she was baaaaack!) shrugged. “Hey, we get named Teen or ‘Tween Queen, we get money, fame, and a new car, not to mention a date with a sex symbol.”
“What passes for a sex symbol on a reality TV show these days?”
“Nobody you’d recognize. Frankly, nobody I’d care to share a straw with. Much less … well, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Miss Ozone. That’s why I’m asking you questions.”
“Here’s the deal. I hear the scream, like everyone else I come running, except they’re all going in the opposite direction. I find poor little Mariah shrieking her head off in the middle of the room, and poor Marjory looking all laid back in her desk chair. How on earth did she die? Heart attack? Her face was all dark. As a card-carrying Goth girl, that doesn’t frighten me, unless it’s done without makeup.”
“Speaking of cards, let’s see yours.”
“My what?”
“Your driver’s license.”
“Uh, I don’t have one.” Actually, Temple had a fake one from Molina she could flash later but figured Z. C. would only produce a plain-Jane name under intense pressure.
“You don’t? Why not?”
“I Rollerblade, silly. Don’t need a license for that.”
“What about when you go into bars?”
“Hey, I may be Goth but I’m not a lush. I don’t go that much into bars.”
“But when you do.”
“Simple. I don’t drink. Would you believe I’m a born-again Christian?”
“No.”
“You’d be right but I still don’t drink. I just rock and roll along and nobody bothers me.”
“Well, they will now. We’ll want your fingerprints and some legitimate ID.”
“I was born illegitimate,” Xoe Chloe said, “but you can have my fingerprints. Like everyone else’s, they’ll be in the room. We all had appointments with Marjory.”
“And what did she recommend for you?”
Temple let her nose squinch up. “More fruits and legumes. Heck, there are enough fruits around here to form a conga line of Carmen Mirandas.”
“Not funny. You are no longer on Candid Camera, Ms. Ozone. You are in the sights of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Crimes-Against-Persons Unit. You know what that means?”
“Of course. CAPers! I love it. Such a merry word for the murder unit. Bring ’em on.”
“Oh, we will, Ms. Ozone.” Su stood, all wiry four-feet-eleven of wily Asian-American brains and martial-arts-buff body.
Su glanced over to where Alch was bidding Mariah adieu with a friendly pat on the shoulder.
“Mariah’s thirteen, you know,” Temple said.
Su must already be aware of Mariah’s age and maternal unit but didn’t bat a black eyelash.
“Most of the suspects on this scene are under twenty,” she noted. “That doesn’t mean we won’t investigate all you ‘tween-teen types, from date of birth to date of last period. Get it?”
Temple did.
Temple “showered” solo that evening.
Mariah, pale and tired, slept the sort of long drugged sleep teenagers major in. No wonder Sleeping Beauty remained such a popular fairy tale.
Meanwhile, Temple sat on the commode, the shower pelting into the tub and steaming up the mirrors. She speed-dialed Mama Molina’s private home-phone number.
“Agent Ninety-nine reporting.”
“Cut the quips. This has gotten serious. How the hell did you allow my daughter to blunder onto a crime scene?”
“She didn’t blunder. She had an appointment. I’ve been thinking about it and find that significant, don’t you?”
“Someone wanted Mariah to find the body?”
“Someone wanted a ‘Tween Queen candidate to find the body.”
“Why would anyone be after Mariah?”
“They know her family connections?”
“Who, besides you?”
“Awful Crawford is here. You know, Crawford Buchanan, the KREP-radio guy. He gets around enough to know who’s who in Las Vegas. Wouldn’t take a master’s degree to figure out that Mariah Molina might have relatives in high police places. And …” Temple paused, really hating the other possibility that had occurred to her.
“And what?”
“Most of these ‘tween and teen candidates are hardy veterans of the beauty wars. They’re obsessed with their physical appearances.”
“Mariah’s not.”
“No. No JonBenet Ramsey, she. You reared her right. But …”
“But what?”
“Weight’s an issue with her. The dietitian had Mariah in her sights. As far as I could tell, she’s the one with the biggest weight issue here.”
“She’s barely a teenager! So she could lose fifteen pounds. It’s not a killing offense.”
“Everything’s a bigger deal here. Maybe better, maybe worse. Someone could say, testify, that the dietitian was particularly hard on her. Mariah complained to high heaven, publicly, about eating beans and rabbit food.”
“That’s not a murdering offense.”
“We mature women wouldn’t think so but these are all girls, and most of them drama queens. Mrs. Klein had a vote on the winners. If someone was getting enough of a hard time … .”
“Killing a coach or judge will stop the show cold. Not productive.”
“Not to our incisively logical minds. But our hormones have settled down. I assume. I can’t speak for you, of course. Have you forgotten how desperately important every little thing is at that age?”
During the long pause that resulted, Temple couldn’t help thinking that she and Molina were conspiring on the phone like teenage girlfriends planning a parentally unsanctioned outing.
Bizarro!
“I’d rather not remember,” Molina said at last. “How’s Mariah holding up?”
“Okay. It wasn’t a pretty scene. What killed the poor woman?”
“The autopsy hasn’t been done yet but Coroner Bahr tells me she was likely choked.”
“No way could Mariah be a suspect then, that takes strong hands, right?”
“Right, but not that kind of choking. It was lima beans.”
“Oh. She was a huge advocate of bean eating. And lima beans are dry. I can see how she might be wolfing them down for a quick lunch at her desk. She did have a small fridge and microwave in that office and—”
“Nice fairy tale, Barr. Now I see why you’ve hung in there with Mr. Unreliable Max Kinsella for so long. You’re an optimist to the point of pathology. They were stuffed down her throat, probably spiced with Jalisco peppers hot enough to set her choking in the first place. It wouldn’t take long to disable her that way, especially if the attack was unexpected.”
“She was stuffed to death?”
“It may be a little more complicated than that. An allergy or some lethal substance may be involved that caused her throat to swell up on contact.”
“What would this have to do with the defaced Teen Queen contest posters?”
“Nothing we can see. By the way, Alch and Su find Xoe Chloe—where do you come up with these things?—a suspicious character, but they haven’t made you yet. You must have put together some disguise.”
“At least I’ve never been fingerprinted.”
“Yet. I’m thinking about it.”
“The illusion of Xoe Chloe won’t hold much longer anyway. The makeover process is stripping away all my best points.”
“The show is suspended for now. It suits us to keep you all bottled up in the house, and maybe even let them start filming and recording again. It’s like Candid Camera, Crime Watchers’ edition. We’re going over everything they recorded so far.”
“The producers must be frantic.”
“Are you kidding? They love it. They’re planning to pick up the pageant as soon as we clear the scene and spin the show into Dying for Beauty or some such title.”
“Then we’re all stuck here, like a sequestered jury?”
“Right.”
“But there’s a killer among us. I guess I can do some snooping.”
“Please. You’re a glorified babysitter. Don’t get a notion of being a professional snoop.”
That hurt. Temple found Xoe Chloe pouting into the cell phone. Good thing Molina couldn’t see her. She wiped her brow of the sweat the steamy bathroom had deposited. Better to assume the producers lied and that cameras and mikes were still recording.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Stay with Mariah as much as you can”
“What’ll we all do?”
“Exercise, eat or don’t eat, watch each other. Alch and Su will be there too. I’ll make sure they look for a suspect a little farther afield than Chloe Zoe.”
“Xoe Chloe.”
But Molina had disconnected.
Temple sat there puzzling. The least likely person on the premises had been murdered. Why? And what about the lurid threats to the show and the mischief inside the house? That seemed to be from an entirely different script than Marjory Klein’s quick, deviously planned death.
Script. Maybe a script for mock mayhem was part of the “reality” here. And someone had taken advantage of the distraction it provided to commit murder for a totally unrelated reason.
Xoe Chloe was going to have to snoop around plenty. Luckily, she had the personality for it. Temple stood up, still puzzling. She didn’t dare leave Mariah alone now though. What to do? She couldn’t be with her all day; they had separate exercise schedules. Mariah would actually appreciate the show’s suspension; she could make more progress.
What to do about Mariah? But wait! Temple knew an “inside” man already on the premises, a pro for her to recruit. It was a fiendish idea, but Molina was giving her no rope so she’d just have to live with any lifeline Temple could come up with on such short notice.
Chapter 36
Diet Drinks
A soft knock on the bedroom door awoke Temple sometime between midnight and five A.M.
She glanced across the gigantic bed. Mariah was a completely concealed lump under the covers. When she was in this state, Temple had discovered, not even an earthquake-style shaking could wake her.
Temple crept to the door nevertheless and turned the interior key in the lock. The person in the hall was about her height, so she edged the door open.
Her aunt scuttled in.
“Are we alone?”
Temple nodded at the giant tortoise shape on the bed. “As good as. But come into my office.”
Once they were ensconced in the bathroom, Temple turned on the small fluorescents surrounding the mirror. Kit Carlson wore her trademark big-frame eyeglasses, and an elegant vintage nylon peignoir set—red, studded with rhinestones which were somehow very attractive on a small, energetic woman. She also carried a Manhattanbig tote bag. From it, she pulled a bottle.
“I never travel without my dessert sherry.”
“Oh, thank God.” Temple pulled the toothbrushes out of the matching water glasses and rinsed them at the faucet “I deserve a break today, even if it’s tomorrow. What time is it anyway?”
“Three A.M.,” Kit said in a spooky voice. “When ghosts walk.”
“You spot Mrs. Klein in the hall on the way here?”
“No. But I had the oddest impress
ion that someone saw me. Maybe it’s just a hangover from this twenty-four-hour oversight we’re getting.”
“The spy machines are off for now. The homicide lieutenant on this case told me so herself. The show is ‘suspended.’ We’re all stuck here until the police know whodunit.”
“Oooh! Ten Little Indians. Agatha Christie stories made great plays.” Kit lifted her clumsy glass with the toothpaste spatters on it and clicked rims with Temple’s.”You found her dead, poor thing. Drink up, then tell me all about it.”
“I don’t know if I should,” Temple said after a slow sweet swallow. “I’m here on police business myself.”
“Listen. I am one nervous Nellie, niece. A coach was killed. They’ve got us judges and coaches cooped up in one wing, easy pickings. Who’s next? Apparently, someone doesn’t much like being made over.”
“Maybe it’s someone who doesn’t like women reinventing themselves,” Temple said.
“Like who? The Taliban?”
And that remark of her aunt’s put Temple in mind of the lone Middle-Eastern man on the premises: Rafi Nadir. But hadn’t he made over Carmen Molina, to hear tell? It didn’t compute.
“Any controlling man,” Temple said. “The kind who can’t stand women getting out from under their thumbs and becoming themselves. Maybe it’s a cliché, but there’s truth under the truism. I’ll never forget this case I covered when I was a TV journalist in Minnesota. A woman. A wife. A mother. A nurse. Just lost some weight. Just trying to enhance her self-esteem. Soon clear why. The husband—he had to have been abusive—attacked her in the family garage with an electric drill. And she lived. And stood. And he set her on fire. And she burned. And she lived. And she stood. And he ran. And they found her, burned over ninety percent of her body. And she spoke. Save her kids from him. They took her away. And she died. And, you know what, nobody would report what happened to him. Maybe a mental hospital. Maybe he’s out there. I tried to trace where he went, but my station wouldn’t support me. Everything about her was public. Nothing about him was. Reminds me of the vanishing Arthur Dickson.”
“Arthur who?”
“There are too many men who don’t want women to remake themselves. And apparently Arthur Dickson, the man who built this place, was one of them.”
Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit Page 21