Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit

by Carole Nelson Douglas

He’d told enough necessary lies in his undercover work to recognize a story that was stapled together. Temple was gone, all right. Not to Minnesota though, and not to tend an ill father she hadn’t even mentioned to Electra Lark. No, she’d just asked the landlady to look after the cat.

  Speaking of Midnight Louie, Max had better be on the lookout for him. He wouldn’t put it past the territorial old boy to trip him in the dark, since they both always wore black and were fairly invisible at night.

  The French door lock gave to a few passes of Max’s tiny metal wand. He’d told Temple to secure these doors again and again, but she probably didn’t want to interfere with Louie’s comings and goings.

  The main room was unlit. Faint night-light glows came from the office and kitchen, another concession to Louie probably.

  He pulled out his slim high-intensity flashlight. The coffee table looked normal, including its clutter of scattered newspaper sections. Temple, an ex-newsie, was lost without newsprint nearby. None of the stories laid face up seemed relevant to anything: long security lines at McCarran Airport; one hotel mega-conglomerate offering billions for another; a reality TV show setting up shop in a deserted Vegas mansion. The usual nonsense that had made Las Vegas famous.

  Max ran the light around the floorboards but no Louie lurked. Either crashing on the king-size bed or out to play while his mistress was away.

  The bedroom would tell the tale of the trip. Max paused in the doorway, then shut the door and turned on the light.

  Temple had definitely left in a hurry. Louie was not lounging on the bedspread because it was carpeted with clutter. Clothes, underclothes, and shoes were scattered everywhere. Everything but pantyhose. Temple hated hot, sticky hose. Never wore them. An admirable habit.

  Empty thin plastic shopping bags also dotted the landscape, bearing names Max had never seen here before, like the Icing and Marvella’s Marvelous Wigs.

  Temple needed a wig to visit her sick father? Max started a serious search of the closet. Was she on some crazy undercover crusade again? All of her seriously dressy heels were still here. Her summer slides were scattered over the parquet floor, obviously tried on and stepped out of, but never put away.

  She’d been in a hurry. She’d put a wardrobe together in a flurry. At the dresser by the wall, a drawer had been plundered and left open, shutting askew and sticking, and then abandoned.

  Max smiled to imagine Temple’s hasty explosion of creative swearing. She never cursed with common expressions when a wacky euphemism was at hand.

  The offending drawer was Temple’s Sacrosanct Scarf Drawer, holder of every maternal Christmas present that had been found wanting, along with rosy purchases that soon proved completely wrong. All the things she didn’t use but couldn’t bear to throw out for one reason or another.

  Max realized he missed the intriguing and amusing clutter of a female housemate. He missed Temple’s clothes and sound and smell. He went over to set the drawer on its proper track, to stuff the colorful, gauzy scarves that refused to knot and tie properly for her back into their place of exile. As a magician, he had a far better way with scarves than she did. Maybe he’d make a bouquet of all her rejects and surprise her with it when she got back. From … wherever.

  A tiny round box caught his eye, the cover off and something winking at him from inside it.

  What winked was a ring, an inexpensive sterling gilt and cubic zirconia ring. The bottom of the box still had its adhesive price tag, thirty-eight dollars. One step above a Cracker Jack box trinket. Yet uncannily like the Tiffany opal and diamond ring he’d given Temple last Christmas when he’d come out of hiding and entered her life again. The ring that had been taken from her by a renegade magician named Shangri-La and had ended up in an evidence baggie in Lieutenant Molina’s gloating custody.

  Temple had spotted this cheap substitute somewhere and had bought it. Not worn it. Bought it. To remind her of the real one, and then tuck it away like something shameful.

  Max could have strangled Molina if she’d been there. Could have kicked himself. He’d only learned what had happened to the ring recently. He should have gotten Temple another one ASAP, not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute.

  Not left it to her to comfort herself with a substitute. The echo of that phrase sounded suddenly sinister.

  He sat on the bed and stared at the ring, then glanced at one of the abandoned shoes and picked it up. It lay on his large, strong hand like a curio. A curve of red silk-covered sole, a slender heel, a bejeweled band across the instep. Size five. Cinderella accessory, hands, and shoes, down. Made for a foot fit for a prince. One who actually showed up for balls.

  Max put the shoe back down. He put the cover back on the box because he couldn’t bear to look at the ring. Temple didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve, or her disappointments on her finger. Obviously, his ring and its loss meant more to her than she’d allow to show. As had the promise he’d given with the ring that someday he’d be free to be a real boy, with a real girl for a wife and a public career again and a house somewhere full of the magic of her laughter, with a dragon of a scarf drawer he could tame into submission with the flick of one finger.

  Another opened ring box caught his eye from across the room, this one plainer. He got up, put his hand out, then pulled it back as if contemplating touching white-hot metal. What the holy hell was this doing here? Gold metal. Real gold. A size big enough for a man’s hand.

  The ring was shaped like a huge snake coiled into a circle, its jaws closing on its own tail. The Worm Ouroboros. An ancient symbol of eternity. Given to Matt Devine by Max’s own personal demon, Kathleen O’Connor, as a symbol of her undying hatred of them both.

  Kathleen was gone. The ring had disappeared even before she had, to hear Devine tell it.

  How the devil had it ended up here, in Temple’s scarf drawer? Had Devine given it to her? Why? And when? And how could Max ask Temple without revealing that he’d come slinking around while she was gone, worried about her but even more worried about them, suspecting she’d lied to him? Now he was certain she had. About this trip, and about how much else?

  How much had she had to comfort herself with a substitute?

  He had to know. It couldn’t be too late.

  Chapter 55

  Shoe Biz

  To avoid an overstaged look, the madeover ‘Tween and Teen Queen candidates would strut their stuff on a small stage near the pool at twilight time in Las Vegas.

  Temple had thought the arrangement rather tacky until she saw the area that afternoon. Fresh lavender and yellow lotuses and lit candles floated in the pool. A semicircular array of clear Plexiglas folding chairs filled the large concrete expanse between pool and house. Banks of flowers turned the planting areas into mini gardens of Eden, with more candles burning on tall lily-shaped holders staked into the ground.

  The raised stage was draped with pastel organza and seemed like a huge orchid cloud when viewed from the house.

  Temple stared at the area’s transformation into a kinder, gentler place, realizing that what would happen here tonight meant a lot to girls like Mariah. This was a kind of coming-out party, with the addition of killer media pressure.

  “She may have seemed flakey,” a voice behind her said, “but this event was really important to Beth Marble.”

  Temple turned to her Aunt Kit, who knew nothing of the woman’s real identity, or her very dark history and issues.

  “It reminds me of a garden wedding scene,” Temple said. “I wonder—?”

  “What?”

  Temple only shook her head. She had wondered whether Crystal Cummings had married Arthur Dickson in this very spot. She’d have to look it up when this was over. If it ever would be over.

  “Beth planned every detail of this setting,” Kit went on. “It seemed to mean something special to her.”

  Temple nodded, glad that the police hadn’t made the connection that the dead girl in the parking lot was Beth’s granddaughter until after
Beth herself was dead. Glad that she herself hadn’t made that connection any sooner than now.

  Even if Beth’s hyper-happy exterior hid a vengeful heart, there must have been some healing energy there somewhere. The bald head under the wig screamed “cancer.” Knowing you were likely to die might make the most stable person a bit crazy, maybe even for, or especially for, a long-delayed vengeance.

  “You ready to wow them?”

  Temple grinned at her aunt. “I’m ready to do the most unwinning act you ever saw. Get out your pencil and prepare to draw goose eggs.”

  “You should give it a real shot. I think Xoe Chloe could hit as one of those alter-ego personalities. Like Martin Short in the fat suit as Jimmy Glick on TV.”

  “Oh, Lord, no! There are enough closet performers in my circle.”

  “You mean Max?”

  “Ah … yeah.” She’d meant Carmen Molina but why confuse her aunt.

  “Anyway,” Kit said, squeezing her arm. “I think you underestimate Xoe’s Midas touch. Break a leg.”

  On that contrary show biz good wish, Kit disappeared back inside like a fairy godmother off to minister to other Cinderellas.

  Temple regarded the beautiful scene, not fussing about her little upcoming roller-rap routine, but about how to trick a killer into the open.

  Beth Marble had dreamed up this entire event just to lure and kill a woman who had failed her daughter.

  Who had penetrated Beth’s carefully applied fake identity and used the hunter’s trap to kill the hunter?

  “Is she there?” Mariah tugged on Temple’s ostrich-feather fringed sleeves, long enough for a medieval minstrel.

  Temple pulled back from the crack in the side curtains.

  “Yes. Your mother is about two-thirds of the way back, wearing ‘our’ outfit, with some guy.”

  “She’s with some guy? That must just be Detective Alch.”

  “Alch is sitting elsewhere in the audience.”

  “Then it’s some other girl’s father or something.”

  “They were whispering with their heads together.”

  “Must be a cop.” Mariah stuck her head through the curtain. “Must be … oh, gross. They’re, like, laughing.”

  “Mariah. Audiences have a lot of time to kill. They do things like that.”

  “Where’s Matt?”

  “Out of town, I think. The guy does look like a cop, though. I wouldn’t want to mess with him.”

  “That’s not Xoe Chloe speak.”

  Temple pulled Mariah back to check out the open bar and the three bartenders. One of them was Su.

  The videographers prowled the perimeter like hungry wolves, filming the audience, the scene, even the cat who dogged their footsteps, Midnight Louie.

  In fact, he was doing more than dogging their footsteps, he was sniffing them, like a dog.

  She spied Crawford Buchanan on the sidelines interviewing a Teen Queen candidate so tall he could look up her skirt by pretending to drop his notebook, which he was bending to pick up at the moment.

  Creep.

  Louie, perhaps drawn by the rolling pencil, had rushed over and was now sniffing his shoes.

  Must be the muck that stuck.

  “What’s my mother doing now?” Mariah asked.

  “She’s, ah … pulling out one of those little mirrored lipstick holders and putting on lipstick.”

  “What? She never wears lipstick. It must be a secret signal.” Mariah pushed past Temple to peek again.

  “She is! And that guy is watching her. Ick! That is way too … too.”

  “I’m sure it’s a signal,” Temple said confidently. That was the truth. Public lipstick applying could be. But she looked again. Yup. The guy was watching Molina’s every move. That kind of signal didn’t usually bring on the tactical squad.

  “Listen,” she told Mariah, feathering her fingers through the new haircut for maximum “perk.” “Just think about getting up on that stage without tripping and doing your talent routine. That’s our job tonight. Let the police and your mom do their jobs.”

  “I wish Matt was here.”

  “I don’t.” Temple put a hand to her straight blonde hair, the lime green ostrich feathers on her long sleeves fluttering like wings in the corner of her eye. He’d have a bird!

  “You look really … different.”

  “Higher praise I could not get. Now we better get into our lines and get ready to suffer through twenty-eight three-minute presentations. You know how long that is, counting applause, if we get any?”

  That forced Mariah to think and get her mind off her mother’s performance in the audience.

  That’s what it had to be, Temple decided. No way Molina was flirting. No way.

  “Sixty,” Mariah was saying, “an hour. And … twenty-four minutes.”

  “Add another forty minutes for the judges to score each act and for people to waste time getting on- and offstage.”

  “We’ll be here forever!”

  “Certainly will feel like it.” Temple pinched the curtain shut and prepared to be trapped backstage while all the action was going on out front.

  Theater was like that. She just hoped the police found some likely suspect for the string of murders that had wiped out three generations of one family so far, a family already decimated by a miscarriage of justice that never ended.

  Every blonde seemed to be ahead of Temple on the play list and every blonde seemed to do a Britney Spears song with every Britney Spears move ever patented.

  The program alternated ‘Tween and Teen Queen candidates, and Xoe Chloe was programmed dead last … wonder how that had happened, Temple thought, eyeing Dexter Manship at the judge’s table. The peeping place she’d found was far stage left, behind a gargantuan array of gladioli spears. Nobody backstage or in the audience had spied her, so she was able to watch her competitors swivel and shake their way to true mediocrity.

  When Mariah came through the curtain, it was like watching a tennis match. Snap her head to check her roomie’s poise. Great. The judges. Positive. Mama. Stunned. The guy with her had to put a hand on her arm to keep her in her seat, or maybe to keep her from going for her semiautomatic.

  Mariah looked, what? Girly grown up without seeming trashy. She looked all of nifty fifteen. She let the music precede her, as opposed to walking up to the mike and waiting like the other girls had, amateurs all. Make ’em wait. Then she began the strong yearning song of the lonely young Wicked Witch of the West from the Broadway hit, Wicked. Lyrics and melody showcased Mariah’s girlish contralto. Even Molina was relaxing, tilting back in her chair. Shocked, awed, and smiling. “Defying Gravity” along with her daughter.

  Way to go, roomie!

  Temple joined the applause and watched the judges’ pencils scratching high on their rating forms.

  Somebody poked her in the back.

  “Who is that?”

  She turned. Rafi Nadir loomed over her and did not look happy.

  “My roommate.”

  “Not the kid. She did okay. Who’s that with—?”

  He wasn’t going to say but he was glowering at the unidentified man with Molina. Or maybe he was glowering at Molina.

  Rafi did not know that Temple knew their personal history, so she just played dumb.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. I’ll go check the crowd.”

  He eyed Savannah Ashleigh, who had both cat carriers at her side. She’d take one or the other cat out from time to time and pretend the kitty was writing in the scores. Of course, she got lots of closeup camera attention every time she produced one of her gorgeous Persians.

  Rafi vanished without another word, leaving Temple time to look around for Louie. Louie loved Persians, from her observation.

  Yup. He was under the judges’ table, the old dog! And snuffling at Dexter Manship’s shoes. Maybe the old boy’s sniffer was getting a little dull, to be diverted from nearby unfixed Persian pheromones to a neighboring guy’s shoes!

  Now he
was nudging the Elvis impersonator’s boots.

  Louie must be losing it.

  Oh, well, it happened to the best of them. Who knew how old he really was? Right now she herself felt about forty.

  And nothing was happening.

  The judges were watching. The audience was watching. And the police personnel were watching. Just watching.

  Not only that, the evening event was almost over. Temple suddenly discovered a whole herd of butterflies in the pit of her stomach.

  Xoe Chloe was up in two shakes of a blonde mane.

  Time to stop fretting over hidden killers and start thinking about something serious, like sudden debilitating stage fright.

  Why had she ever agreed to this debacle? Sure, it’s fine for Xoe Chloe to make a fool of herself, but Temple had inherited some legitimate theater genes that demanded a decent performance.

  Oh, well. Temple closed the curtain on her peephole and withdrew backstage to wrestle her contrary muse, Xoe Chloe, to the mat. Hopefully shaving foam free … .

  The preprogrammed karaoke trio segued into the theme from James Bond.

  Xoe Chloe burst through the side curtain, not the center one, on Rollerblades.

  She spiked concrete on the space before center stage. Threw off her bicycle helmet, kicked off the blades. Tap danced up the three stairs to the mike.

  She grabbed that sucker by the throat, tilted it almost horizontal like a rock star and strutted around it while rapping in rhythm, kick boxing, clapping, ostrich feathers flapping, on a beat in a counterpoint to the snare drum scratching and her high-heeled boots stamping and her blonde hair shaking and she said and she said, who knows, but the rhyme was the rhythm and rhythm was the reason and this was the Xoe Chloe season and … one … more … time, and then another … we speak to the sisters and we speak to the brothers and we walk around the world and watch it spin, and then we take it out for a walk and let the bows begin.

  The applause was the climax to the routine. The judges were scratching furiously. Temple was blinking like the idiot she felt she was: standing center stage, the mike slowly swinging back to its proper upright position.