Cat in an Aqua Storm

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “That’s why the area’s barred.”

  “Right.”

  “And Savannah Ashleigh found the body? Bodies.”

  “Dialed nine-one-one. A perfect witness. Too shaken to leave the area. The first squad on the scene found her in the dressing room, like this.”

  “Gone,” Savannah wailed again, in utter bereavement.

  “I had no idea that they were that close,” Temple whispered.

  “Whatever. See if you can settle her down. We can’t interrogate a siren.”

  Temple edged into the room, seeing her cheerful outfit in the mirror. She felt like a clown, but there was no way to approach Savannah gently, not with these heels on this floor.

  She slipped the shoes off and left them by the door. She could see in the mirror that, behind her, Molina lifted one eyebrow in mute surprise, like Mr. Spock. Come to think of it, they had a lot in common.

  Temple approached Savannah. “Miss Ashleigh? Miss Ashleigh?”

  At the sound of her own name, the panting picked up tempo. Savannah’s eyes were wide open and dazed, as was her mouth. Her long-nailed hands clutched the pink purse on her lap, twisting its straps, tightening on its sides as if it were dough she was kneading.

  “Gone,” she repeated.

  If Savannah Ashleigh had been able to put the variety of tone and inflection into her film lines that she put into that one word here, she would have had a remarkable career.

  “Yes,” Temple said, “sometimes people are gone. But we are here.”

  Savannah Ashleigh stared at her blankly.

  “I’m Temple Barr, the new PR person. We talked Tuesday, remember? A lot of the national media is coming in for the show, did I tell you?”

  Savannah’s head began shaking in petulant denial. “Media? What do I care? Gone! Gone, gone, gone!”

  “I know it’s upsetting. I found someone dead once myself.”

  “Dead? Dead... dead?” Her wide eyes went wild as her voice hit the high notes of hysteria. “She’s dead?”

  “Both are dead.”

  “Both. Both?”

  Temple could see why Molina had let her talk to Savannah. She tried to picture the lieutenant subjected to one-word answers, repeated noisily and ad nauseam.

  “That’s what the police say,” Temple said.

  Savannah’s head bowed over her lap, over the pink bag in her lap. Her glamorous bleached platinum hair looked like an old woman’s disordered mop. And then Temple understood. She reached for the bag, but Savannah wailed and clutched it closer.

  “Dead. And gone.”

  Temple was at least able to pull off the woman’s hands and brush away enough hair to glimpse the “Yvette” sewn atop the bag—not a purse, but a cat carrier. From the crushing way the actress clutched it, the contents were obviously absent.

  “What happened?” Temple asked. “You came in, went down to the dressing room, left Yvette and went upstairs again. When?”

  The word “Yvette” worked wonders. Savannah looked up, her face as radiant with shared knowledge as young Helen Keller’s at the breakthrough moment in The Miracle Worker. No one had been speaking Savannah’s language before. She had been shocked to discover the bodies, but what had devastated her was simultaneously discovering the absence of her cat.

  “Yvette,” she repeated in heartbreaking tones. “Who? Why?”

  “Am I right? The dressing room was fine when you came in, changed and left Yvette?”

  Savannah nodded through tears that would not fall, her face twisted into a mask of tragedy.

  “What time was that?”

  “Nine,” she wailed.”

  “And when you came back?”

  Savannah shook her head. Time was not a priority with her. “Later.”

  “And the bodies were there, dead.”

  Savannah nodded ponderously.

  “You called nine-one-one?”

  Another lethargic nod.

  “And then you remembered Yvette and went back? That was very brave. But Yvette was gone.”

  “Ye-es. Gone. You say dead—”

  “Not Yvette. Not... yet. How could she have gotten away?”

  Savannah’s Hollywood-white teeth bit her bottom lip until it matched their pallor. “I left her in her carrier and shut the door. I thought she was safe.” The sentence ended on another long wail. “Safe... safe,” Savannah repeated like a mantra, rocking. “What will... the killer do with Yvette? Do to Yvette? A killer’s got her!”

  “Maybe Yvette ran out when the women or their murderer entered. Yes! She could be hiding among all the costumes down here. You know how cats are: won’t come out even though you beg and plead. Give it time. I’m sure she’s all right. Who would hurt a cat?”

  “Think so?” Savannah was sniffling slightly now, a good sign that the hysterics were ebbing. She pressed the police-issue handkerchief to her delicate nose, then recoiled at the stiff linen and tossed it onto the dressing table.

  “It’s the likeliest scenario,” Temple said. “Cats are too clever to get caught by anybody, even a murderer.”

  “Yvette was so sweet, so trusting—”

  “She’s still a cat, and you don’t often catch a cat napping when it comes to crime.”

  Savannah nodded with childlike trust. Temple peeled her rigid hands away from the crumpled carrier.

  “Yvette will need this when she comes home. Why don’t you leave it open down here? Give her a chance to come back and curl up when it’s quiet again. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “Promise?” Savannah beseeched, her big hazel eyes floating in a pond of tears. “Promise she’ll come back?”

  Oh, great, Temple thought even as she nodded reassuringly. Now she had to produce another missing cat at an event she was running, as well as face up to the fact that the puzzling and terrible death of two more women had proved her fiendishly clever murder theory was nothing more than child’s play.

  27

  Louie in a Jam

  I am no Einstein (and would never allow my hair to go so obviously untended) but even a Roads Scholar of the self-made variety can see that the dressing rooms and ballroom of the Goliath Hotel are no fit environment for the likes of the Divine Yvette.

  In fact, nothing would get me within one hundred yards of this scene of dirty dancing and naked death, were not this sweet little doll of my acquaintance in the vicinity. From the first, the Divine Yvette has been forced into a position that offers the worst of two worlds. She has been left untended, yet confined to a canvas cage. She had been abandoned and trapped at one and the same time.

  Naturally, I have kept a close eye on the Divine One's disposition and comings and goings. It is no great feat to arrive at the dressing area early in the morning in anticipation of Yvette’s arrival on the arm of her mistress, Miss Savannah Ashleigh.

  Usually the latter can be counted upon to arrive no earlier than ten in the morning, and then only under duress. However, I wish to take no chances and post myself in the cavernous costume storage area by nine, the better to avoid attention.

  I admit that I am playing more here than the love-stricken swain. In the back of my mind is a notion that I may have an opportunity to get a better look at Black Legs. Given the demise of the lissome lady in the ballroom while wearing an ensemble, such as it was, that paid tribute to my breed, I am more eager than ever to cross paths with this murderous abuser of little dolls, be they human or feline.

  As I await the arrival of my feline friend, I recline on and under the ruffled train of a Flamenco skirt, inhaling an unhealthy attar of powder, sweat and mothballs.

  Such contemplative times are my favorite. I picture myself tracking and cornering Black Legs in the fatal dressing room. I see an admiring circle of humans agape at my exploits. Miss Temple Barr sheds tears of remorse and promises never again to take me to the House of Dr. Death.

  There will be another photograph in the local rag, of course: tiresome, and hard on the peepers, but I am so photogenic. Perhaps a
lso a small reward—a goldfish, say. Or several. And the lovely Yvette standing by, unnoticed by the applauding police and officials, her big blue-green eyes beaming with pride and adoration.

  I hear the night maintenance man shuffle out. Other occasional footsteps come and go. My ears prick and flatten at each advance and retreat of shoes. High heels clatter past twice, but not in the rhythm favored by Miss Savannah Ashleigh (arrogant, yet languid) or my own Miss Temple Barr (brisk and snappy). Softer footsteps come, An odor of chemicals pushes past the ajar door to my sensitive nostrils. My whiskers twitch, then my back. I shut my eyes at this noxious smell. Miraculously, it blends with the other unpleasant scents and becomes a background note, sharp but less shrill among the many others.

  At last! Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s sullen steps. She stumbles outside my lair and mutters a rude expression. I wince to think of the Divine Yvette’s pink-and-silver ears flattening at the sound of such language.

  Her mistress clatters and curses on, toward the dressing room they share. All is quiet for a time. I rise, stretch until my belly touches the floor (contrary to the impression of some, this does not happen without my making a special effort) and amble to the door.

  Other voices murmur from the farther dressing room, the very location in which Miss Glinda North went West and I first encountered Black Legs. I detect the sound of makeup jars being unscrewed and an ongoing family argument. The sweetest sound of all is that of Miss Savannah Ashleigh’s heels scraping along the concrete as she retreats up the stairs.

  Alone at last. I am halfway to the dressing-room door before you can say “Puss-in-Boots." Luckily, theatrical sorts do not close dressing-room doors behind them, always expecting a hurried return. Also, they are not much on privacy unless they are up to something of a naughty nature.

  So I throw myself casually against the door just below the doorknob, and my weight pushes it open enough for me to enter without cramping my midsection.

  First I sniff. The Divine Yvette is a victim of air pollution as well. Some odious drugstore perfume poisons the air. I carefully avoid a gleaming slick of spilled powder and walk to the loveseat. There, beside its white wicker legs, rests the soft-sided cell containing my lost love.

  She has long since sensed my arrival, and is waiting with round, limpid eyes at the mesh window to her cell. I must silence her welcoming cries with a quick lash of my tail. Who knows when her mistress wilt return?

  The Divine Yvette accepts my admonition gracefully. She is, she tells me with a tender purr, happy to see me again so soon. Miss Savannah Ashleigh has been most trying of late, as nervous, in fact as a cat in a Doberman kennel.

  "Speaking of which,” I tell her, “it is high time for me to attempt what I came to accomplish.”

  What, she inquires sweetly, is that?

  I explain that I am here to bust her out of this sissy cell.

  At first the black-tipped hair lifts along her spine, sending shivers down mine. The Divine Yvette protests that she must not leave the carrier, that she is not "safe" outside of it

  “Bullfinch feathers!” I answer. I tell her that she has been sold a bill of goods. Besides, with me here, she could not be safer.

  She lowers her head to lick nervously at her ruff, a soft silver collar that shimmers with an unearthly glimmer. Then she bats her silver eyelashes and agrees with me.

  I lift up to examine the carrier's fastening—a long pink-painted metal zipper that takes two right turns before it stops. This is Miss Savannah Ashleigh's fatal mistake. Had she purchased a trap with a paw-proof closure—say. one of those blasted doorknobs—my goose liver would have been cooked. (Not that I mind a little warm food from time to time.) But a zipper is kitten’s play. Since I encountered the Divine Yvette’s pink-canvas house, I have been practicing, in fact, on a few of Miss Temple Barr's dresses in the privacy of her closet

  I lean over the pink metal tab on the operative end, hook an incisor in the convenient hole, and pull with all my nineteen-point-eight pounds so thoughtfully revealed to me at the House of Dr. Death. The sweet metallic squeal of zipper teeth parting is my reward. Despite some trouble at the corners, between my tooth and its teeth, we make tracks together to the end of the line.

  Yvette, who has been straining to watch me achieve this feat, pokes her adorable little face up through the pink canvas flap. I cannot restrain myself from a long nose-to-nose encounter, followed by billing and cooing of a feline nature. It does not behoove a gentleman to go into specifics, but let us say that I am no slouch with what you could call hot licks.

  The Divine Yvette confesses that she has never been so transported.

  "You see, this is better than a cat carrier any day,” I point out. When I look into this flimsy cage while preparing to assist Miss Yvette out, I notice a pile like a pink angora mouse in one corner.

  Oh, says Miss Yvette with a soft little trill, those are my beauty supplies.

  I paw through them, never having seen the like, and overturn a steel-tooth comb and a powder puff (the erstwhile pastel mouse) with a satin ribbon on one side on which is written the ineffable name, Yvette, in silver script.

  I flip this frippery over again. “Do you mean to say that Miss Savannah Ashleigh powders you? For fleas?"

  Oh, no, Miss Yvette answers, shocked. Miss Savannah Ashleigh powders her, she tells me, so that her hairs will be clean and fluffy and smell good.

  I can attest to the efficacy of this beauty regimen as I push the front of the carrier flat, the better for Miss Yvette to step out An almond-scented wave of fur brushes past.

  I am about to take matters in their foreordained direction, when my alert senses detect voices growing louder in the hall. I have not been forewarned by the sound of nearing shoes, a puzzlement that immediately becomes an annoyance.

  “Quick!” I hiss at the Divine Yvette, slapping the empty carrier farther into the shadows and pushing my companion rather rudely underneath the sofa.

  Not a moment too soon. A trio of feet enter, two bare but painted with the gaudy color of the twenty-four-carat trim on a Cadillac Seville, the other wearing black sneakers. No wonder I heard no approach. Beside me, Yvette's airy whiskers tremble at the dust we have bestirred beneath the sofa, but I clap a paw over her nose before she sneezes.

  “Here it is,” announces one of the barefoot girls with cheek of gold (from my position I can see more of the scenery than the Divine Yvette).

  "Let me finish you off,” a new voice suggests.

  I hear a plastic cap being unscrewed and am nearly leveled by a strong odor with an undertone of glycerine. Beside me, the Divine Yvette trembles in fear.

  I begin to appreciate her reaction, for I do not like what is transpiring in the room beyond us one bit. The two girls talk, as girls will who are undressed and used to it, of many things.

  “We have never argued like this before,” one says apologetically.

  “That's because we never faced the past” the other answers.

  “Your past,” the first says, “is not my past.”

  A silence increases the tension. Then the second girl says, “Be sure to leave an apple-sized spot.”

  And the first says, “Oooh, that’s cold. Oh, well, almost done.” And the second says, "I feel kind of... faint”

  And the first says, “Gypsy?”

  Next I hear the boneless thump of a body to hard concrete. The Divine Yvette’s body is plastered to mine. I can feel her heart beating like a berserk metronome. Peering out with my chin on the floor, I see a golden horizon of legs and arms and torso. Another golden girl bends down beside the first, utters a little Yvette-like cry, and crumples beside the first.

  Beyond them stands Black Legs. I curse myself for not peeking sooner and tense to spring out for a good look. What can Black Legs do to me?

  The Divine Yvette curls her long nails into my shoulders, clinging for dear life. If I shoot out from under the sofa now, I will scrape her off like yesterday's mud.

  While I watch helplessly,
Black Legs leaves on quiet cat feet, unidentified.

  28

  Louie Takes a Powder

  Matt Devine was shadowboxing, Asian-style, by the pool when Temple returned to the Circle Ritz at four that afternoon.

  She paused under the shade of the solitary palm to watch until he finished an arcane sequence, straightened and smiled at her.

  “Did your regular caller reach you last night?” she asked.

  He shook his head and walked over. His white exercise clothes were clean and unwrinkled. Nothing about him spoke of heat or effort. The man was supernaturally cool, Temple thought, not for the first time. Yet his face was troubled.

  “She didn’t call. If she hasn’t—I doubt she will again.”

  “What do you think happened?” Temple asked with concern. She hated people dropping out of her life before their stories were resolved. Matt made his living by dealing with such frustration.

  Matt sat on the lounge chair, despite its dusting of wind-blown oleander petals. “What happened? Good or bad. Nothing in between. She could have solved her problem and left the abusive guy. She could have gone back to him, broken. I’ll never know.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “I’ve got a feeling. That’s what you go by when you counsel people over the phone, in the dark. Instinct. I feel that... she’s gone, one way or the other.”

  “She was in an abusive relationship, but had hopes of getting out?”

  “Yeah.” He regarded her with new curiosity. “Not a new story.”

  “And she had called every day until, was it Tuesday night?”

  “When I wasn’t there, right,” he answered a bit self-accusingly.

  “Hey, she still didn’t call, even if you had been there. Ever think of it that way, Mr. Guilt Trip?”

  He smiled ruefully. “You’re looking better, and you must be feeling better, if you’re delivering pep talks. When are you going to get serious about working out, learning some self-defense?”

  Temple sighed heavily, then sat on the end of the lounge chair now that Matt’s weight stabilized it. The shade was pleasant, the sound of the muted traffic predictable, almost peaceful.