Cat in an Orange Twist

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  And who, Temple wondered, had been expected to find her like this?

  Some unwary shopper?

  A fellow worker?

  Surely not Temple herself, who even now had her cell phone in her shaking hand and was dialing 911. Looking around, she couldn’t even spy Midnight Louie. The store, and she, was truly deserted at the moment.

  She glanced over her shoulder, hunting a murderer-at-large, or ghosts? Simon’s ghost? He had been murdered much less brutally than Beth Blanchard, and his body had been hidden, not displayed like a hunting trophy.

  Temple shivered. She thought she heard footsteps on the slick surface, felt disembodied heavy breathing on the back of her neck. At least she didn’t have to bring the news of this death to a loved one, like Danny.

  All she had to do was remain calm and alert the authorities. But Temple suddenly felt so very alone by her trusty cell phone. She could call Max, but he wasn’t answering lately. She’d never called Matt much and hated to involve him further. Maybe Electra was right: she’d blown it. Two men interested in her, once so close and yet so far lately. Now this, the second murder on her professional turf; a dead body to watch twisting slowly in the wind of the air conditioning, and who was she gonna call? Ghostbusters?

  Why not the police? They’d be more likely to come running than any significant other male recently, except for Midnight Louie. She had Molina’s number on her instant-dial list, but Temple’s finger just wouldn’t go running to Molina. She’d call the general number and let police routine have its way.

  She didn’t want to attract Molina’s attention to her any more than she had to. Or to Matt, who had actually become involved with May-lords through Janet. Or to Max, though he was miles away from this crime milieu, unlike the last one they all had in common, thank God. She was looking out for her friends and lovers. Lover.

  Where the heck was Max keeping himself these days anyway?

  Witless Protection

  Program

  Temple perched on the leopardskin chaise longue on the perimeter of Simon’s vignette, feeling more like prey than predator.

  Beyond her crime-scene technicians videotaped and photographed the gruesome Halloween poster child that Beth Blanchard had become.

  Opposite Temple sat two of C. R. Molina’s best: detectives Morrie Alch and Merry Su.

  Their eyes were set in deep-purple bezels of fatigue. You could tell they’d been on the Maylords case—now cases—night and day.

  Alch was a comfortably fifties guy. Not the era, the age bracket. He did not have abs or eye pouches of steel, but he broadcast a laid-back sort of humanity that was very refreshing in the 24/7 Las Vegas world.

  Su . . . well, she was a shih tzu (not feng shui) on amphetamines. Pure canine tacking machine in a tiny overachieving body even smaller than Temple’s.

  “Why did you come early to the Maylords reception?” Su’s black felt-tip pen was poised, like a dagger, to strike.

  Alch wielded a pencil, a mellow yellow number two. And he seemed ready to cut Temple a break. “So you do PR for Maylords as well as the Crystal Phoenix?”

  “Maylords is a new client,” Temple told Alch, ignoring Su. Probably not a good idea, but comforting.

  “And you knew Beth Blanchard?” Su asked.

  “ ‘Knew’ is too strong a word. I ‘encountered’ her in the store, during the course of doing my job.”

  “ ‘Encountered.’ Was it friendly?”

  “Absolutely, Detective Su. I’m a PR person. All my encounters are friendly, or I’m out of a job.”

  “So it wouldn’t have been friendly if your job hadn’t depended upon it?”

  Before Temple could rise to that occasion and protest too much, Alch intervened.

  “Miss Barr means that she had no personal relationships with anyone on staff.”

  Su’s face tightened into an I-don’t-believe-in-sugar-plum-fairies visage. “I’ll be the judge of what Ms. Barr means.”

  Uh-oh. Someone had been taking Molina lessons. Temple quirked a knowing smile at Alch.

  He quirked back, which annoyed Su no end.

  “Tell us,” Alch suggested, “everything about how you found the body.”

  Temple told it.

  Then they asked her about the deceased.

  She wasn’t willing to cite Glory Diaz as a source. “Fag hag” sounded a bit prejudicial, to everybody.

  “She had an abrasive personality,” Temple settled on saying.

  “How abrasive?” Su asked. Abrasively.

  “Like number-thirty sandpaper.”

  Su consulted Alch.

  “The coarse-grained, really rough stuff,” he explained. “Will wear down steel.”

  “What you say,” Su allowed, “agrees with information we got from other employees.”

  “In fact,” Alch said, “Blanchard was a chief suspect in the Simon Foster killing.”

  Su scowled at him like a foo dog on palace guard duty for revealing that.

  “What motive?” Temple asked.

  “None of your business,” Su said.

  “Actually, yes, it is. I am PR maven for this enterprise. Do you have any idea of what having blinking police-car headache racks circling the front door and ambulances screaming away and crime-scene technicians crawling all over the expensive wool area rugs can do to a glitzy furniture store opening, and only me here to fend off every kind of media from the local sharks to Hollywood Access and Women’s Wear Daily?.”

  “My Jimmy Choos bleed for you,” Su said sarcastically.

  Temple gawked at the detective’s size three feet (her own were a comparatively large five), but saw only Sam and Libby’s retro-Mary Janes, clunky but cool. Probably a kids’ size.

  “Anyway,” Temple said, “it behooves me to help the police as much as possible and get this opening extravaganza done with as little bad publicity as possible while still keeping Maylords in the feature spotlight. So I need to know what’s happening to keep the media out of my hair, and yours. Getting back to Beth Blanchard. Are you thinking she was indulging in sexual harassment?”

  “Obsessive crush,” Alch explained. “Discovered the object of her affections was gay.”

  “That wouldn’t be front-page news around here,” Temple said. “Straight guys are the exception.”

  “Some women do have a habit of falling for the unobtainable.” Su’s dark eyes drilled into Temple’s as if she had secret information about her soul.

  Tell me about it, Temple thought. “I believe they’re called fag hags,” she said instead. Demurely.

  Alch’s shaggy pepper-and-salt eyebrows raised at her use of the term. Her father all over again!

  Su zeroed in. “What might Amelia Wong have to do with this Maylords bunch?”

  “Very little. She’s high-cost, hired-celebrity help. She comes in for an outrageous amount of money, does her media thing for a week, and is soon off to some other continent.”

  “She has had death threats.”

  “I’ve heard. So has every other media household name.”

  “First a serious sniper shooting,” Su said, “that almost smacks of terrorism. Something distant and impersonal, more directed against an institution, a building, than the people in it. Then a knifing and the display of the corpse in an outré location. The prize Murano. Somebody was saying this Simon Foster was a prize nobody could have. So we’re talking a personal target, an intimate suspect. Love triangle maybe. Now a second stabbing, with an even more elaborate display of the victim. Plus the overkill of the knife and the picture wire.”

  “You’re thinking Blanchard killed Foster, and then someone killed Blanchard? Revenge for the first killing?”

  “Blanchard was . . . mounted in the late Simon Foster’s design area. Apparently she took it upon herself to rearrange the works of others. Now she herself has ended up ‘rearranged’ into a gruesome addition to the first victim’s interior design.”

  Alch clapped softly. “Nicely done. A design for dying.”

/>   Su did not pause for praise, but thumbed through her notes. “Are you familiar with a Janice Flanders?”

  “I was familiar with her name, as an artist some friends of mine . . . admired. I only met her last week, here at Maylords, where she’s now an employee.”

  “Apparently she was one of the people irritated by Beth Blanchard, but she was the only one to protest in a formal memo to management.”

  “If you’ve met Janice, you know that she’s not afraid to speak out.”

  “She is also the girlfriend of a man who has no particular relationship to Maylords, but who bears an amazing superficial likeness to the dead designer. Do you know a Matt Devine?”

  Did she? Temple wondered. “He’s a neighbor.”

  Su was surprised enough to dart Alch an inquiring glance. He retained his affable poker face, letting Su lead.

  “And,” Temple added, “a friend of Lieutenant Molina, as well.”

  “Molina!” Su reared back as if snakebitten. “He’s a friend of hers?”

  Alch smiled into his mustache.

  Temple was beginning to really like him.

  He finally bestirred himself. “We ran into Mr. Devine during that nutsy Star Trek investigation. I’m surprised, Su, that a savvy young up-and-comer like you forgot a babe like him. Molina certainly didn’t. And you, Miss Barr. You saw both men, Foster and Devine. You knew Devine. Could one have really been mistaken for the other?”

  A key question. Temple gave it the long consideration it deserved.

  “I’d say no, except that their coloring and height was similar, and their clothing shades matched that night. Simon was far more fashion-forward, though.”

  “But from behind—?” Su prompted, on the edge of her seat.

  “In a dim room setting,” Temple conceded. “Yeah. It could happen.”

  “So who,” Alch asked, “would want to kill this friend of Molina’s who was here with Janice Flanders?” He chuckled. “This Devine’s a pretty good-looking guy. Maybe Molina herself?”

  “God, no!” Alch had shocked Temple into a revealing outburst, but it was too late to backtrack. “I said Matt was a ‘friend’ of Janice’s. I meant ‘friend.’ Maybe that’s too strong. Acquaintance might be better.”

  “You don’t invite a mere acquaintance of the opposite sex to a Hallmark moment like the opening ceremony of your new employer.”

  “Janice is a single mother,” Temple told Su. “There are a lot of occasions when a single woman wants a male escort at a social event, just so she doesn’t look like a loner. Or a loser. No one takes that kind of setup too seriously.”

  Alch wasn’t convinced. “Maybe someone did this time, only they axed the wrong guy.”

  “But Beth Blanchard knew Simon and had seen Matt. Why would she mix them up?”

  “Maybe she decided this was the perfect time. Maybe she was hoping we’d wonder who the real target was.”

  Temple mulled over Alch’s theory. The woman had indeed acted like she had a major burr under her instep that evening.

  “Maybe you have a point,” Su told Temple. “Maybe someone didn’t like Devine’s escort duty.” Before Temple could say that was highly unlikely, Su found her own unwelcome link. “You, maybe,” she added.

  “Me?”

  “Your fingerprints are all over this environment and the people in it. I hear you were the one who rushed right over to the Oasis to tell Danny Dove about Simon’s death.”

  “We’re friends.”

  “You’re friends with an awful lot of suspects in this case.”

  “Danny? A suspect? You must be crazy.”

  “Murder is an intimate act, Ms. Barr,” Su said. “We look first at close associates. Spouses, lovers.”

  “I know, but you’re wrong! It’s something here at Maylords. The bad vibes in this place would have knifed Caesar, trust me.”

  “Do you know a Rafi Nadir?”

  “Uh, casually.”

  Su snorted, as if her point about Temple was made.

  Alch leaned forward, elbows on knees. (No wonder his polyesterblend suits were baggy in both locations, like his face, well worn and trustworthy.)

  “This case is a mess, I agree. We got a gangland-style hit . . . on a bunch of display windows. We got a gay man and a straight woman knifed to death. We got friends of friends hanging around this place. Then there’s one Big Mama of a media maven tossing orange peels right and left, into a murder vehicle. I tell you, it gives me nightmares.”

  Not you, Columbo Jr., Temple thought admiringly. Su was the rat terrier, but Alch was the bloodhound on this team.

  “So,” he said, hunching farther forward. “I hear you have something of a reputation for creative crime solving. Who do you think did it?”

  Temple took a deep breath.

  “Nobody I know,” she said.

  Su glared at her. Alch stared at his wing-tip shoes. She stared back. It was what she had heard called a Mexican standoff.

  To PR or not to PR.

  That was the question the LV Metropolitan Police Department CAPERS unit (Crimes Against PERSons) had to decide. Was she going to be considered a suspicious person and put on ice one way or another, or were they going to let her do her job? Which Matt said was too enabling. What did a radio shrink know anyway? Maybe her.

  “As long as we can isolate the crime scene,” Alch said, “I vote we let Ms. Barr go to the atrium and do her ringleader bit.”

  Su frowned. Her eyebrows had been plucked into Chinese brush strokes, an amazing configuration of thick and thin, reminiscent of the handle of the letter opener/dagger that had done in Beth Blanchard.

  Temple always admired creative cosmetics, but didn’t dare tell the intimidating Su.

  Su considered. She silently consulted Alch. He beamed encouragement. Even Temple felt the glow. She liked the guy. He reminded her of her father when her mother wasn’t talking him into being anxious about his only daughter.

  Alch winked at her, so swiftly that Su never noticed.

  “All right,” Su said, none too happily. “But if Molina’s not happy with this, it’s your scalp.”

  Alch shrugged. “There’s so little left to scalp.”

  Temple winked back at him. He had nothing to worry about but self-deprecation.

  So she was set free.

  Temple headed for the atrium and the forthcoming media ceremonials. She’d persuaded Kenny Maylord that good PR required coughing up a public donation to the local arts council, since the MADD money donated on TV had originally been earmarked for them.

  She would have to tone down the dyspeptic Mark Ainsworth, make sure Kenny Maylord did all the talking to the press. He always acted like he was on valium, which is what this situation needed. Getting most of the media attention focused on Amelia Wong would bring out her telegenic charm and have Maylord beaming like a winning team owner at the Superbowl. Dogs. She would mention the dogs. Maybe send for them. Media types were dog people, usually. All those hairy, bow-topped little heads would save the day. Maybe some of the Maylords staff could fetch them . . . no, get Amelia’s personal staff out of here on dog duty. The way they swarmed around her made her look too pampered and powerful. Yeah, that would work. . ..

  Temple had lots to think about in a short time. And that was good.

  That meant that she would not think about Beth Blanchard twisting slowly in the air conditioning. She would not think about wishing Beth Blanchard off the planet. Or about who else might have done so, including Janice Flanders, or Matt Devine on Janice Flander’s behalf. Or Jerome Johnson. Or even . . . Danny Dove, who must have known Blanchard had harassed his lost better half.

  For once, the only suspect du jour not on the menu in this case was Max.

  Or . . . could Molina somehow drag him into it? It wouldn’t do to underestimate the homicide lieutenant’s obsession with blaming something on Max.

  Or . . . had he been playing Mr. No-can-see in order to keep a surreptitious eye on her at Maylords? Max had a guardian a
ngel complex. Still, she was sure he’d been up to something she didn’t know about. That meant it was dangerous, but Maylords didn’t seem to be dangerous to anyone other than its own.

  Temple was suddenly glad Max had made himself scarce lately, for whatever reason. She just hoped the reason provided an alibi.

  Imagine Meeting You

  Here II . . .

  A glare of TV lights surrounded the scene in the atrium half an hour later.

  Temple was really sorry to see that. Normally PR people loved to attract the glare of the spotlight for their clients, but not when they had to tell everybody to fast-forward the party and go home.

  She winced to see the thorough attendance her PR wizardry had mustered on darn short notice.

  All of Wong’s minions were present, as well as Kenny and Barb Maylord, and staff members with stress lines drawing down their mouths: the tall, ugly, bucktoothed guy Matt had mentioned making a pass at him; toady manager Mark Ainsworth, sweating hard under the TV lights; a flock of genteel lady decorators, looking sullen.

  Also prominent was the Wong cortege, Baylee Harris, Pritchard Merriweather, Tiffany Yung, and the exercise guru, Carl Osgaard, including the two nameless dudes with sunglasses implanted in their eye sockets. No dogs. Amelia had nixed the dogs.

  And, rounded up fast, the MADD president and some of her staff, the sober-looking women who clustered together like a PTA group.

  Temple decided she would tell the arts council people—luckily, they were a sleed and civil lot—the bad news first. Lingering check-passing ceremonials didn’t belong on a crime scene.

  Especially an extraordinarily well-covered check-passing photo op. Damn, she was good! And that was bad. In this instance. The police had made no bones about it: get the public off the scene ASAP, and leave it to them.

  A local radio personality, a heavyset jocular man called Nevada Jones, was oozing into a mike. Behind him lurked Crawford Buchanan, mouthing a soft-voiced play-by-play into his live radio mike as if he were the ghost of Howard Cosell.

  The whole thing was terminally hokey, nothing Temple would have dreamed up in her worst nightmare. And to her, the phantoms of the recent deaths hung over the proceedings like halitosis.