Cat in an Orange Twist

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Molina stood, the Sprite can’s contents baptizing the apartment’s hopeless carpet.

  “Temple Barr was kidnapped? From Maylords’s loading dock? Why the frigging hell didn’t anyone tell me about it?”

  “Maybe because it wasn’t your case, Carmen. You are Homicide, right?”

  “CAPERS we call it now. Crimes Against Persons.”

  “Same diff.”

  “I can’t believe the drug task force would overlook that.”

  “They had big, bad me to round up. Probably on your orders.”

  “No. I had nothing to do with that. I want nothing to do with you, get it?”

  “Yeah, but maybe you better forget that long enough to find out what happened to this little red-haired girl.”

  Three o’clock in the morning.

  Molina barreled into the Circle Ritz lot and killed the motor.

  This was a world away from the tawdry neighborhood Rafi Nadir had bought into. Quiet. Crickets screaming, but quiet crickets, relatively speaking.

  The black marble building shone like a polished shoe in the night lights, everybody in it decently abed.

  Except possibly Temple Barr.

  Molina got out of her serviceable Toyota and shut the door as quietly as she could. She paused to survey the lot. Something softly echoed her car door’s bang and she turned. A sleek silver car puddled like mercury under the big palm tree.

  A man stood by the car door. The security light made his blond hair a molten gold.

  “Matt.”

  He walked toward her. “What are you doing here, Carmen?”

  “And you, I might ask.”

  “I just got off from work.”

  “So did I. There was a big drug bust at Maylords tonight.”

  “My God, you’re kidding.”

  “You know me. I haven’t got a kid in me, excepting Mariah.”

  “Yeah, but . . . why are you here, then?” His eyes flashed up to the Circle Ritz’s second floor.

  “I just learned your neighbor was there, and whisked away by a rogue motorcylist.”

  Matt met her eyes for the first time. “Rogue motorcyclist? You don’t think Elvis—?”

  “Forget Elvis! That was a demented fan. This was a drug-dealing biker gang, rendezvousing at Maylords, and one got away.”

  “With Temple? Why aren’t you shaking the city down for her? Why come here?”

  “I have to start somewhere. If she isn’t here—”

  They both turned for the building, trotting.

  Banged through the lobby doors. Took the stairs without waiting for the elevator.

  Rushed down the short hall to Temple’s apartment and rang the buzzer. She rang. He rang. They waited.

  Suddenly Molina looked down. “Ugh! Poison cat hair on my navy blues.”

  Matt confirmed her sighting. A big black cat was silently twining though their legs, depositing hair as if they were twenty-four-hour banks.

  “It’s Midnight Louie. Why’s he locked out in the hall? He always goes in and out through the bathroom window, which is always left open for him.”

  Molina’s grim blue glance crossed his. “Unless it wasn’t left open tonight, as usual.”

  “Then Temple wasn’t here earlier—”

  “I don’t know when she was here,” Molina said, “I just know that if she isn’t here now we’ve got something to worry about.”

  Matt rattled the door handle until the hinges shuddered.

  Molina stepped back and unholstered her weapon.

  Temple opened the door, and gaped at them.

  She was wearing a Bugs Bunny T-shirt and bunny slippers.

  “Yes? Thank heavens! At least I opened the door to reinforcements.”

  “Weren’t you kidnapped from the Maylords parking lot tonight?”

  “You mean this morning, Lieutenant? No, not exactly kidnapped. I left, hastily, when I realized I was interfering with police business.”

  “Nadir said—”

  Temple turned a limpid gaze on Molina. “A well-meaning guy, but sometimes he sees conspiracies everywhere.”

  “Well-meaning guy?” Molina was stunned.

  “Thanks for stopping by,” Temple told them, glancing from one to the other with sleepy, innocent eyes. “I’m fine. I just need to get a little rest.”

  The door shut. The dead-bolt snapped to. The chain lock grated into place.

  “She’s safe,” Matt said.

  “She’s lying,” Molina said.

  “I’m happy to have her alive and lying,” Matt said.

  “Then you’re a fool.”

  “Maybe, but I’m a happy fool. Can you say the same about yourself, Carmen?”

  She took the fifth, and left.

  Louie, Louie

  Naturally, I have eeled unnoticed back into my home, sweet home before my Miss Temple slams the door shut on unwanted humans.

  Despite the aplomb with which she answered the door and shooed away human interference, I can tell something is wrong. If she has failed to notice me she is nervous.

  She immediately trundles herself into our bedroom, where I am distressed to find Mr. Max Kinsella stretched out on the king-size bed as if he owns the place. Not lately, buddy.

  It does not matter that he is pseudowounded. He has no right to be hogging my zebra-pattern comforter, not to mention the midnight comforts of my little doll.

  “Who was it?” he asks.

  “Your favorite couple: Molina and Matt.”

  He grins, devilishly. “Didn’t I tell you they were an item in the making?”

  Miss Temple concentrates on pulling the comforter up under his chin. “I wish I knew what had happened after we left.”

  “Give me twenty-four hours to recover from that rubber bullet and I’ll look into it.”

  “Max, those weren’t rubber bullets. That was the real thing. And the only reason you’re even conscious now is that you wore that Kevlar vest.”

  He lays back, right where I am accustomed to burrow my weary head nightly, and sighs.

  “Yeah. Man of Steel meets Bullet of Magnum Force.”

  “I cannot believe you got me out of there.”

  “I cannot believe you put yourself into a position you needed to be gotten out of . . . actually, I can, and rather fondly recall—”

  “You’re delusional.”

  She notices my faithful bedside presence and has the grace to turn scarlet. I do so love the human capacity to change fur color. Also the fact that my Miss Temple takes my presence personally.

  “Just rest,” she tells Mr. Max, “and we will figure out what happened in the morning.”

  Right. That is what they all say.

  Dead Ends

  If a horse throws you, you’re supposed to get right back on it.

  If a motorcycle gang throws you, maybe you just breeze back into work the next day as cool as you please.

  That’s what Temple did, leaving Max dreaming the dreams of the young and the restless. He hadn’t been kidding about being exhausted. Temple, awash with gratitude for all his good points, regretted that their reunion wasn’t a bit more up close and personal.

  She also wondered what else he was doing besides writing Gandolph’s book and secretly following her adventures at Maylords. It would take a lot more than that, and a bullet or two in the back, to put Max down for the count in the sack.

  Midnight Louie had awakened her with an orgy of licking and purring, seeming to press a certain advantage.

  He too looked a bit worse for wear—could he really have been among those lean and hungry feral cats that had mixed it up with the motorcycle gang? Nah. She must have hallucinated his presence. Not Louie. Another black cat. Poor homeless creatures. They probably thought those saddlebags contained food.

  She’d have to see that Maylords did something to help those poor cats, and Maylords, i.e., Kenny and Barb, would probably be eager to do anything now that would result in good publicity.

  Temple could just see the sou
nd bites and headlines: “Drug Bust Results in Homeless Cat Rescue: Catnip Trumps Cocaine.”

  Temple sighed as she hit the unlock button on her key-ring remote control.

  Matt and Molina together? At her door. At an ungodly hour of the morning. Both looking equally desperate.

  Now, that was a story she was dying to cover, chapter and verse.

  Apparently they’d heard about her rip-roaring abduction.

  She expected Matt to care about that, but Molina?

  Okay. The woman was a law enforcement official. No matter how much she harassed Temple about Max, she certainly didn’t want an innocent bystander like Temple spindled, folded, or mutilated by some anonymous druggie biker. Maybe.

  Temple still felt twinges about turning Matt away from her door.

  He’d just gotten off work, poor guy. He comes home and hears about Temple’s spectacular vanishing act. From Molina, probably. He must have been frantic. He would have been tired, but maybe not too tired to demonstrate just how frantic he had been. . . .

  Arrgh! Temple yelled at her own overripe imagination. Just get in the car and go to work like the rest of the working stiffs.

  Do not go there.

  Go to Maylords, and do your job. Especially the part that is none of your business.

  At least this time shattered glass didn’t strew the store’s public areas.

  All the damage had been done out back, where it didn’t show, as she ought to know.

  The storescape seemed oddly peaceful, especially without Beth Blanchard around to bully the staff.

  She peeked her head into the designers’ area, and noticed a lot of empty cubicles. Either madly out working, or . . . mad at the management and . . . out, for good. Hard to tell which.

  Rafi wouldn’t be here. He’d been let go a day early. So she’d lost her inside man.

  Molina would love the inside man on the drug deal to have been Raf, but Temple didn’t think he was. Last night was not an act. The incriminating thing was that he had her gun, and no one knew it was her gun. She was sure Molina wouldn’t think to ask, and Rafi would be too stubborn to say so if she had.

  Of course there were fingerprints, but Temple had never been printed, although Raf probably had, even if just for the police job. If Molina tried to say he was part of the biker gang, and if he didn’t kill her for it and end up with a murder charge, Temple might just have to come forward and speak up for him.

  Imagine. She was not often a potential advocate for everybody’s worst enemy.

  She shrugged to herself as she wandered the circling stone path, hearing Amelia Wong’s fountains and bells tinkling in the distance. They were pleasant sounds in a sere desert city, Temple had to give feng shui that.

  Some people laughed at the idea that fountains and hanging bells could affect an environment. Not Temple. She had read that feng shui translated to “wind” and “water.” Look what those unseen and liquid elements had done to shape the desert landscape and the life upon on it: animal, insect, reptile, and human. Sometimes it seemed that reptiles and some humans were more closely related than thought possible.

  But that was giving reptiles a bad name.

  Tonight Amelia Wong would end her duties with a bang and another cocktail reception. This event would climax with the drawing for the winner of the Cadillac CTS.

  Wouldn’t it be great if tonight would also unmask the inside man? Or woman. Too bad Beth Blanchard wasn’t around anymore to take the rap.

  And she would miss Simon, just because he had been so nice to have around.

  It didn’t make sense! The nicest and nastiest Maylords employees had been killed. They had nothing in common except their workplace.

  Now that the drug deal was history, the inside person had to be nervous. And angry. Money was not going to be forthcoming.

  Rafi had helped queer the deal (would he love that expression!), but he was gone. Temple had done it too. She still had one more night to work, and then she’d be gone as well.

  She stopped near the kelly green vignette, again aware of how easy it was to get lost and isolated in this circuitous floor plan equipped with several dozen rooms leading into each other or sudden dead ends.

  She heard a shoe scraping stone, as if someone had abruptly turned. Or ducked off the path of the hard surface flooring, so as not to be heard.

  Ooh. She was as good as alone here.

  The inside person would know she had suspicions about the operation, or she wouldn’t have been out by the loading dock last night.

  That person would have no idea how much she knew.

  Temple turned in a circle, seeing only gorgeous, empty rooms.

  Water pattered into bronze bowls. Bells swung and rang in the draft from the air conditioning.

  Temple examined every dust ruffle in sight, the sides of every entertainment unit or bookcase, hunting a lurker.

  Whoever had stabbed Simon and Beth (and there could have been two someones, or only one if Beth had stabbed Simon), was still in the store.

  Another sound. Temple jumped. Then followed it, setting her rubber-soled clogs down flat and silent on the polished stone.

  The rustling had sounded almost like an animal worrying at something. Maybe the cat colony from last night had sneaked into the store during the confusion.

  Temple moved into a room setting filled with heavy furniture perfect for lurking behind. The sounds seemed to come from there.

  She peered around the false wall dividing the setting from its neighbor and saw a pair of suede shoes protruding from the bed’s brocade dust ruffle.

  Another victim!

  But then a shoe moved, and the owner backed out into the room.

  “Jerome! What are you doing here?”

  He turned to see her over his shoulder, looking startled. And guilty as sin.

  “M-Miss Barr. What are you doing here?”

  “I asked first.”

  He pushed up on his knees, then pulled himself upright by a bedpost.

  Jerome’s plaid shirt and baggy khaki pants made him seem like a little boy, but she noticed that his upper body strength when he pulled himself up was pretty effective. He’d done a lot of carting and toting for the late Beth Blanchard.

  “I was replacing the lamp.” He pointed to a floor model topped by a fringe-draped shade. “There’s supposed to be an outlet under the bed, but I can’t find it.”

  “I guess it’s tough not to have Beth Blanchard around to direct the displays.”

  “You must be kidding. Nobody misses that woman but the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Now I can get some real work done, instead of undoing everybody else’s at her command.” He gave Temple a pointed look.

  “I’ll leave you to it. We do want Maylords nice and shipshape for tonight’s gala.”

  “At least it’ll bring the press in. They always show up when there’s free food. As for customers, looks like the only steady clients we had were the ones ripping off the place from the loading dock.”

  “Do I take it you won’t be working for Maylords long?”

  “Oh, they won’t can me. I do the daily grunt work around here when I’m allowed to, and I don’t have any stockpiles of customer names to feed into the computer for the Furniture Fairy to download.”

  Temple nodded. Rafi had told her the same thing. The interior designers had been hired only to be ripped off and abandoned.

  One could have figured that out, and decided to get even.

  She edged away from Jerome’s area. It was like talking to prussic acid, he was so bitter. Part of his irritation was no doubt because she was Matt’s friend, and he was just an old acquaintance.

  Temple started down the beige brick road, and then stopped at the next vignette.

  This one had busts of Caesar and his legions everywhere, with rounded columns marking its boundary.

  And around one column a string of pearly fingertips protruded.

  Temple stopped. Watched. Someone had been watching her.

  Som
eone was still there, lurking. Inside accomplice?

  Temple edged right to see more of the barely visible hand.

  The fingers slid left and out of sight.

  Temple edged farther right, following the fingers.

  They kept retreating.

  This was ridiculous!

  She leaped left, into the travertine pathway.

  And saw a hunched, suited form cowering behind the pillar.

  It edged farther away, then glanced over a wrinkled polyester shoulder, showing a red face surmounted by a thinning tuft of gelled curly hair.

  The eyes beneath that unattractive poll finally noticed her watching his undignified, posterior-backward retreat.

  He decided to embrace his embarrassment and wrapped both arms around the pillar. Struggling to lift it enough to move, he nodded at her and shuffled it sideways three inches.

  That moved it half up on the area rug, so it tilted like Pisa’s Leaning Tower.

  He gave her an ineffectual grin. Stepped back. Dusted off his hands as if he had actually accomplished something other than spying on her from behind a featherweight Styrofoam pillar.

  Mark Ainsworth was the manager of this store and creeping around like a frat boy on a panty raid?

  Not executive material except in a Three Stooges movie!

  So . . . not a murder suspect?

  Temple gave him a withering look and turned her back.

  Even incompetents can kill. If he was this interested in her movements, he might very well have a lot to hide, besides his unappetizing profile.

  Temple gave up on wandering the aisle and headed for the central area.

  Beyond the foyer atrium, and the customer café with its wrought-iron fence and another Amelia Wong fountain, lay the Accessories area.

  This was Temple’s favorite, because everyone could afford a lamp, or a vase, or silk flowers, or a hip-high statue of a sitting black panther, which is what Temple’s lustful eye was really on.

  Or . . . a piece of wall art, framed.

  Framed.

  Hmmm. Could Janice be a suspect?

  Just because Molina, and Matt, knew her didn’t exempt her.

  She was a sturdy woman. She was an artist. She used picture wire. She probably matted and framed her own sketches and paintings. That took strength. Upper body strength.