Cat in a Leopard Spot

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  She grimaced as she got out, reacting to both her ride on the jolting Jeep and his lame joke.

  “It sure wasn’t a climax,” she said, “but it was a good A.G. moment: an isolated camp in the desert, a cast of privileged and power-hungry people, the roar of the beasts in the distance, killing outside and in—”

  He took off with a wave, the emerald ring safe in his breast pocket. Temple slogged toward the building, wishing the old pool had a new hot tub. She’d have to mention that potential improvement to Electra.

  In fact, she saw the landlady’s pink Probe pulling in right now…only it was white.

  Huh?

  Only the driver wasn’t Electra, but Matt.

  Double huh?

  She stopped cold. “Am I seeing things?” she asked as he got out and headed toward the side door without noticing her.

  Matt whirled as if she had shot at him. “What?”

  “Your Elvismobile is parked over there. What are you doing driving Electra’s car? And when did it turn white? Curiouser and curiouser.”

  Matt eyed the lot, nervously. “We’d better get in.” He trotted for the door and stood holding it open for her like a parking valet.

  She looked at the sky. No rain coming. And she couldn’t hurry at this point. She trudged toward the door. “I don’t get it.”

  The minute she put a foot on one small step into the building, he was pushing behind her and shutting the door.

  He practically pushed her right into the wall.

  “Matt! What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. I’ve been awfully busy lately, that’s all. I’d better get upstairs and check my answering machine.”

  “What? No lobby chitchat?”

  “Sorry. It’s been frantic.”

  He preceded her down the hall to the building’s small black marble-lined lobby so quickly that she couldn’t keep up with him.

  When she got there, the space was empty. Both elevators were on the main floor, doors open, so he couldn’t have taken one. He was using the stairs?

  Curious, she went to the stair door and opened it, listening for footsteps above.

  Nothing.

  Either he had run up the stairs already, or…he had simply vanished.

  Or…The opposite door to the hall leading to the wedding chapel caught her eye.

  Maybe…

  She was never too tired to solve a puzzle. Besides, she had a deep personal dislike of men disappearing on her.

  Temple opened the door, listened to the silence beyond, then penetrated it.

  Electra’s drive-by wedding business was booming, but the big hotels with their fancy chapels had stolen the wedding bells from the tiny, quaint Lover’s Knot.

  The room with its corny bower wreathed in plastic flowers and white pews crowded with Electra’s soft-sculpture people was dim and empty.

  Maybe because it was dim and empty and neglected, it had the solemn silence of a real church. Temple hadn’t been in one in years, except for a couple services at Our Lady of Guadalupe with Matt. Masses, that’s what they were.

  She noticed a familiar silhouette among the fabric people and started. Oh. Only Elvis.

  Smiling, she sat down beside the King.

  She had seen more than a few versions of Elvis at the Kingdome recently, but this one had snow-white hair.

  “Hello, Izzy,” she said softly. “Is real? Not this time.”

  If Matt was driving Electra’s car, then Electra must be driving the new silver VW a supposed Elvis had left for him at the radio station.

  Why would they switch cars? Why would Matt give up a perfectly nice new car for an old one? Why would he give up Elvis’s last gift car?

  Of course it hadn’t been left by Elvis, but by a delusional fan. Or something like that.

  Temple sat in the quiet, brooding.

  She knew Matt was busy, that he had speaking engagements and media and all that stuff to deal with. But it didn’t mean he should stop dealing with her.

  And that’s what she had felt like just now. Snubbed. Brushed off. Run out on.

  Just like when Max had vanished without an encouraging word. She hadn’t been so shocked in ages, and was not again until he came back like a clap of thunder echoing out of a clear blue sky.

  Max on her second-story patio, back.

  She supposed that incident might make her a little oversensitive to newer perceived desertions.

  Still, it hurt to feel not wanted, especially by somebody she had flattered herself to think would always want her. Maybe Matt had found someone else. As well he should. But that didn’t mean their friendship had to end.

  Max, of course, would disagree. And maybe he was right. He usually was.

  Temple took a long shower as soon as she got to her unit, then decided to face the mazurka, and called Leonora.

  “Temple Barr. I can’t tell you how impressed Mr. Maximilian was with your layout. Couldn’t stop talking about the ranch house and the facilities.”

  Leonora purred her thanks.

  “And as for myself, there’s something terribly personal I’d like to ask you. I might as well just jump right in. Maxi was raving about your magnificent cheekbones. I’d noticed them on my first visit.”

  “Everybody does,” Leonora interrupted, sounding pleased.

  “May I ask—? It’s terribly rude of me, but I wondered.”

  “Everybody does. I loved your ring, by the way. Wherever did he get it?”

  Okay, reciprocating girl talk. “Fred Leighton’s.”

  “Of course!”

  “And your cheekbones? You see, I’d like to get some myself.”

  “Yes, you are a little flat-faced.”

  Flat-faced! That freak!… “I know. It’s been the bane of my life. If you can recommend a good plastic surgeon, one that might be able to do something major with my…flat…cheekbones?”

  “I’m sure Doctor Mendel can help you out. He has offices on Charleston.”

  “You recommend him? Personally?”

  “But of course.”

  “Come to think of it, I’ve heard he does Savannah Ashleigh.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Well, good luck. I would certainly do anything I could to keep your Mr. Maximilian happy.”

  You did it yourself for Mr. Van Burkleo, Temple thought, and look what it got you both.

  “My face is my work of art,” Leonora added.

  Cubist period, Temple added mentally. Hamlet was right, much as she despised the line: Vanity! Thy name is woman.

  “I’ll look right into it,” Temple promised.

  As soon as she hung up, she opened the Yellow Pages. Dr. Mendel, huh? She already knew him. She’d buffaloed him before, so she probably could flog some information about Leonora and her surgeries from him.

  She dialed the office and asked for a consultation, soon. The matter, she said, was urgent.

  Chapter 37

  Human Error

  Although I am the first to assert that my Miss Temple is a pretty sharp cookie you wouldn’t want to try snacking on without a lip guard, I must admit that she does have her unguarded moments. Usually when Mr. Max or Mr. Matt is around.

  These moments also occur when she is in the act of entering or exiting a motor vehicle, which I find a most convenient failing. Especially if Mr. Max or Mr. Matt is also in the car.

  In this case, it has been a real lifesaver for me and my partners in crime solving.

  Thus it is that we three—me and the Terrierable Twos, Groucho and Golda—are safely sheltering under the oleander bushes bordering the Circle Ritz parking lot by the time she accosts Mr. Matt shortly after Mr. Max has driven off.

  I say “accost” because Mr. Matt Devine is behaving as I have never seen him do before. Instead of suffering from an inability to take his eyes off Miss Temple, he is darting them around the parking lot as if aware that I and the Dustball Twins are under the oleanders. He is, in fact, looking like a minor character in a
bad detective novel. Were I in such a production, I would be forced to describe him as looking shifty.

  Fortunately, I am not and can instead say that he is moving his gaze around the parking lot perimeter as if worrying that even the bushes have eyes and ears.

  Which they do at this time, thanks to my stage-managing a discreet exit from the backseat floor while Miss Temple has the passenger door open and one dainty foot brushing the pavement while she is arranging an exchange of diamonds and emerald with Mr. Max Kinsella.

  Handing off fifty thou or so in vintage jewels is sufficiently novel that they keep their eyes firmly on the ring and each other, and not on any side issues escaping out the ajar door.

  The G-forces have been admirably obedient during our escape from Rancho Exotica via the Animal Oasis.

  Thanks to their keeping their yaps glued tighter than a showgirl’s false eyelashes, we have all been as silent and surreptitious as ninjas.

  Wrrowwww-wrrowww-wow-wow-wow, goes Golda, ruining my self-congratulatory soliloquy.

  Wrrowwww-wrrowww-wow-wow-wow, goes Groucho, doubling the odds of our attracting unwanted attention.

  I need not have worried, Miss Temple has sped into the building, and Mr. Matt, with one last shifty glance around, has hastened to follow her. Would that the Yorkies were as consistent with me.

  I sigh deeply as their Wrrowwww-wrrowww-wow-wow-wow duet falls on the slam of the Circle Ritz door.

  Safe at home.

  Then I see what they have been Wrrowwwww-wrrowwwing at.

  Not so safe at home.

  Miss Midnight Louise is sitting not two feet away, tapping the tip of her tail into the dry soil and raising, not Cain, but desert dust.

  I sneeze, but get not so much as a “Bast bless you.”

  “You drove off without me,” she finally says.

  She is so mad that the sound comes out the side of her mouth, like spit.

  “I could not help it. I could not get the interior latch open in time.”

  “You? The city’s primo cat burglar, to hear you tell it? I think you could. I think you just decided to ditch me when the action got interesting.”

  “Ditch you! If I had wanted to do that, I could have done it long before then. You know how heavy-duty those meat-locker latches are.”

  “Yeah. They got to keep the meat from running away.” She is being sarcastic.

  I nod sagely. “Sometimes, depending on the quality of the establishment for which the shipment is destined.”

  She shakes out her ruff in disbelief and begins sweeping her rear member from side to side, raising a small dust devil.

  “That leopard is mine,” she says.

  I am staggered. I have never seen Miss Midnight Louise so incensed, and, believe me, I have seen her incensed. With my deep understanding of psychology, human or feline, I suddenly realize that by feeding the starving leopard, Miss Louise has developed a maternal attachment to it. There is nothing so fierce in the females of my species as the maternal instinct. Unfortunately. True, Miss Louise was made politically correct at an early age. So call her a single mom, an adoptive mom. Obviously, her assignment with the leopard has tapped deep inner needs.

  “Osiris is fine, and being fed plenty at the Animal Oasis. We just saw for ourselves.”

  Beside me, the thankfully mum Yorkie duo nod until the tiny bows on their heads seem to be seen through a strobe light. They remind me of those old-time kewpie dolls with springs for necks. Only these things also stick their tongues out from time to time. Dogs! Yuck.

  However, Miss Midnight Louise is not being repulsed by Golda and Groucho at the moment. She is being repulsed by me.

  “I am sorry,” I say humbly. “The very next time it is necessary to take a long, uncertain arduous trek out to the desert, I will make sure that you and no one else accompanies me.”

  “I bet,” she jeers. She shifts her weight from one slim black foreleg to the other, and deigns to curl her train around her toes. “So what did you learn?”

  I sit down and fold my mitts into each other.

  “The Yorkshire constabulary were actually useful. When we arrived at the ranch, we discovered Osiris had been moved.”

  “Moved?”

  “But luckily, I had a pair of noses along that can cling to the desert floor like twin Hoovers. And where they led me was most interesting.”

  Chapter 38

  Murder Wears a New Face

  The outer office tabletops were buried by Paris Vogue, Elle, and Vanity Fair. Also with discreetly faceless bound folders filled with disgusting before and glorious after photos.

  Temple spent ten minutes filling out a clipboard with her medical history. Then she was invited into an inner office for an interview with a nurse.

  The walls were filled with photos of women who had been transformed by surgery into plastic perfection. Although all were admirably slender, smooth, and gorgeous, none were as extreme as Leonora.

  The nurse was a brusquely blowsy woman, so unlike an advertisement for Dr. Mendel’s procedures that you instinctively trusted her. She must be good to look like this and work here without undergoing continual reconstruction. Forty unneeded pounds pushed the buttons on her bodice to the breaking point. Her hair was a strawberry blond frizzle too undisciplined to be anything but natural, and good humor radiated from her unperfected features.

  “How did you hear about us?” she asked.

  This was better than a Broadway opening. Temple walked right through and to center stage.

  “Leonora. Leonora Van Burkleo recommended you. Well, she recommended Dr. Mendel. Very, very highly.”

  The nurse’s warm expression did not so much chill as grow sober.

  “Her cheekbones,” Temple explained, pointing at her undistinguished pair. “I would die to have cheekbones like that.”

  “She almost did,” the nurse muttered as she jotted something down on Temple’s information sheet.

  “I beg your pardon? Oh. You mean she was in an accident and had to be reconstructed?”

  “Yeah. Household accident.” Her mouth twisted.

  “How terrible! Well, she didn’t mention anything to me. Is that why her new look is so exotic? She needed a lot of reconstructive work?”

  “Dr. Mendel reconstructed her whole face.”

  “And she didn’t specifically ask for the, ah, feline look?”

  The nurse laughed bitterly. “Old Van Burkleo might say she asked for it.” Her at-first friendly eyes were blinking nervously. Her entire plump figure radiated throttled fury.

  Temple, bewildered, stumbled on conversationally. “It must have been a very serious fall.”

  “Several.” The woman’s haystack of hair hid her face as she bent over the papers.

  What was she implying? Leonora had fallen down, repeatedly. Drugs? A drinking problem? One or the other so severe that she required full-face plastic surgery? Had asked for it?

  “Look, honey.” The nurse looked up, her eyes glaring. “I don’t want you breathing a word of this to Mrs. Van Burkleo or Dr. Mendel. It’s none of our business. But I can’t have you…Listen. Your cheekbones are fine. You don’t need implants. You don’t need anything. Get out of here. And just be glad you’re not that poor, poor woman.”

  “Leonora? But she’s rich and, and—”

  “You don’t want to look like her, hon, even just in the cheekbones. Everything that’s there today is the only thing modern surgery could do to repair years of battering. If she wants to make a fashion statement out of mutilation, I guess it reasserts some sense of pride, but I can’t let innocents come in here wanting to copycat a tragedy. Young people today. Be happy with who and how you are!”

  The woman handed Temple’s info sheet back to her and walked out of the consultation room.

  Temple sat there stunned.

  Staggered.

  Domestic abuse. She remembered suddenly another face, one that had been on the TV news when she was a kid: Heidi…no, Hedda. Nussbaum. That terrible case w
here that demented abusive lawyer had killed an adopted little girl. Hedda Nussbaum was the woman who had lived with him. Temple’s mind still carried the before-and-after news photos of Hedda, how over the years her features had been pounded like veal scallopini until they were blunter and more swollen than any old-time prizefighter’s mug. Just like Leonora’s ersatz big-cat look.

  This put a whole new complexion on the case.

  Leonora Van Burkleo had motive one for murder, even if you were tempted to call it justifiable homicide.

  Chapter 39

  Collusion Course

  For the first time in her life, Carmen lived up to her name in the mirror.

  For the first time in her life, C. R. Molina really looked at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t realized until now that she’d avoided that for as long as she could remember. The only thing she ever saw were her father’s blue eyes.

  Never had seen the father, just the eyes.

  Damn his eyes.

  But now his eyes were gone. For the first time in her life she was a brown-haired, brown-eyed Latina. With this one, fresh glance she had seen reflected an entirely different life for herself.

  So a glance had become a stare, the stare a plunge into the past. Always standing out, bearing the Anglo brand from her earliest play days in the barrio. “Gringa,” the others had called her. Later when they got older, their taunts grew more sophisticated. And then the boys had begun. “Putona,” they’d called her then. Whore, like her mother must be to have produced a blue-eyed child.

  Only her. The seven children of her mother’s second marriage were all brown/brown, as the driver’s licenses read. Only she was brown/blue. Sometimes black and blue from defending herself and her mother’s honor.

  Everything she was had been shaped by those damn blue eyes.

  She eyed her new image with envy in the mirror. Finally she looked consistent. Even her father’s height, a second birth-curse bestowed on the daughter he’d never lived to see, seemed acceptable when her eyes were brown.

  Amazing what a difference that one color correction made, culturally, psychologically.