Cat In A Neon Nightmare Part 3

After ten minutes she returned to the living room. "I figured the place would be clean, but better safe than bugged."

"I am bugged, Lieutenant. I am bugged that you're here, this early, upsetting my domestic routine. And my . . . cats."

Molina eyed the duo, who were returning from accompanying her every move. They settled in tandem in the exact same spot she had first seen them. Obviously she was not used to cats that behaved like paired Dobermans.

"These animals are acting like police escorts and I don't like it."

"So sit down, chill out, and don't move. I'm sure they'll stay put then. Can I get you some coffee?"

" 'May I,' " Molina corrected automatically, and then had the grace to look embarra.s.sed.

Temple guessed that she was getting the grammatical correction reserved for the lieutenant's daughter, poor little Mariah. Well, the twelve-year-old wasn't so little anymore, she was taller than Temple! But she was still "poor" for having Molina for a mother.

Temple forgot the coffee and sat. "Is this going to be a maternal lecture or a police warning?"

"With you wearing those slippers-?" Molina's dark caterpillar eyebrows lifted as she stared at the paired bunny faces on Temple's toes.

"My mother gave these to me for Christmas, so what's it to you?"

Molina lifted her hands in tandem, presenting the palms of peace, and forestalling further banter.

"Far be it from me," she said, "to critique a mother's abysmal choice in Christmas presents. I've inadvertently committed a few of those myself. I can see that anthropomorphic slippers are off my list forever. For that I thank you. The lecture part is this: you are a civilian. You have no business playing undercover investigator at striptease clubs. You have no right to risk Midnight Louie's happy home life by risking your own life in a dark parking lot. I don't care that it came out all right and the perpetrator was captured. You could have gotten killed, and, believe it or not, Miss Barr, I would be very unhappy about that. But you know all this and will take me about as seriously as you would someone who would give you bunny slippers for Christmas."

"I am wearing them," Temple said uneasily.

"That's the lecture part," Molina went on. "The police part is this: you may think I'm off base keeping an eye on you and your a.s.sociates, but as of last night you are now involved with not one, but two murder suspects. Some people might consider that a coincidence. I am a law enforcement professional and I consider it a weakness."

"Two? What's wrong? Is persecuting Max not enough for you now? That's why I went to Baby Doll's, you know, because you were so bound and determined to nail him as the Stripper Killer. Were you off base!"

"In this case. That doesn't change the fact that he was all over the scenes of the crimes in various guises."

"As were you!"

"Me? What gives you that idea?"

"Max. Max saw you more than you saw him. He is a magician, after all. You want to talk about me taking risks! What about a homicide lieutenant who's secretly undercover investigating her own ex ... whatever as a murder suspect and trying to pin the rap on my current ... whatever."

Molina's nostrils flared. Temple shut up. She'd been goaded into committing truth, but realized that the truth always came with a sting in the tail: the other person's particular truth. Molina would lash back.

"This is not about Michael Aloysius Xavier Kinsella," Molina said shortly.

Sails collapsed, Temple could only wait for Molina to paddle on. Meanwhile, she bailed brains to figure out what Molina's point really was.

"This is about Matthias Anthony Devine."

"So you've looked up everybody's birth certificates. What's my middle name?"

Temple had asked for it, and she got it.

"Ursula," Molina intoned promptly with a smirk. "I believe that's a saint who founded an order of nuns."

"I'm not Catholic. I'm Unitarian. Ursula is a nonsectarian name in my case. I don't know why it's in the family. An aunt got saddled with it too. So, what about Matt? You're going to accuse an ex-priest of murder?"

"It's not that unthinkable. Non-ex-priests have been accused of a lot of felonies lately."

"Right. Matt. You have really flipped."

Even as Molina sat back on the sofa, a black cat jumped up on either arm, as if to say: I'm all ears.

Feline muscle, or eavesdropping, did not dissuade her.

"All I can say," Molina went on with a relish Temple would have to describe as personal, "is that you sure know how to pick 'em. So I can't prove Kinsella was involved in the matter of the dead man in the Goliath Hotel ceiling over a year ago, so I couldn't prove he was the Stripper Killer, but he's guilty of something, and proving it is only a matter of time.

"Then there's nice Matt Devine. I must admit that I was rooting for you to ditch Kinsella for Matt. What's not to like? Sincere, ethical, untouched, good looking, apparently honest-"

"What do you mean, apparently?"

Molina shrugged, shifting the polyester-blend navy-blue jacket on her shoulders.

Polyester-blend, navy-blue. Ick, Temple thought, trying to distract herself from the ugly news that was coming. Who could believe anything that came from the lips of a P-B, N-B-wearing person? The unlipsticked lips of such a person? Whose eyebrows needed a serious shrubbery tr.i.m.m.i.n.g.

But no matter how much she denigrated Molina's persona, Temple couldn't banish the chill, sick feeling in her stomach. Molina wouldn't be here unless she had some serious stuff on Matt. Molina wouldn't be here unless she thought she could use Temple to turn Max-or now even Matt-against his own best interests. Temple curled her toes in the bunny slippers until they dug into the walnut parquet floor and braced herself. With a cat it would be called digging in; with a short woman, it would be called maximum resistance.

"Who, where, when, or why could Matt ever be a suspect of murder?" Temple asked. Give me your best shot.

"A call girl, at the Goliath Hotel-your favorite and Kinsella's too for mayhem-last night, because he freaked at the idea of s.e.xual intercourse, or he had s.e.xual intercourse and freaked afterward. Take your pick."

Whew. Temple's toes did not uncurl, nor did her hidden fists unfurl, nor did her breath stop being held.

"That's your idea," she finally said, "of who, where, when, why. I still don't get the why. Why on earth would Matt be there with that kind of woman to do that? Never in a million years. I don't believe it."

"One answer, three little words, your own, and quite brilliant in their way. I can see why you're a public relations ace: Kitty the Cutter."

"Kitty O'Connor? The poison ivy of Ireland? Oh. She a.s.saulted Matt once, but that was a long time ago."

"It didn't end there. She's been stalking him."

Temple said nothing. She couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe that Kitty's attacks had continued, and especially couldn't believe that Matt hadn't told her.

"My own daughter was involved."

"Mariah? That's crazy. What would she have to do with Kathleen O'Connor?"

"t.i.taniCon?" Molina asked, invoking the recent science fiction convention at the New Millennium hotel. "The car that chased you from the parking ramp over the pedestrian bridge and crashed into the hotel's gla.s.s doors while your party escaped down the escalator? You, Matt Divine, and my own daughter. Oh, yes, I heard about it. Matt said that every female in his company was in danger at that event, including Mariah. Kitty had claimed him for her own; either he'd cooperate, or she'd take heads."

"He didn't say anything to me."

"Amazing. Can it be that anyone in Las Vegas fails to confide in Temple Barr, amateur sleuth?"

"Sarcasm does not become you, Lieutenant. I like it better when you're just plain mean."

"I am not mean," Molina answered rather astoundingly. "I am trying to save lives, including my own daughter's. The fact is that Kathleen O'Connor elected Matt the most dangerous man in Las Vegas to know. Her price was his virtue, and he's probably the only man in Las Vegas who still has . . . had ... any."

Temple was on a dizzying mental merry-go-round fixated on tense: has ... had. She had no idea she cared that much. Or did she?

"So . . . to save all the women he knew, he had to find a woman he didn't know and . . . render himself undesirable to Kitty the Cutter?"

Molina nodded.

"Hence the call girl. Last night? But-?"

"But what?"

"I mean, we were all so busy last night, you and Max and I, chasing each other and trying to catch the Stripper Killer all at the same time, Matt was ... oh, poor Matt. How'd he ever find a call girl?"

She looked to Molina for an answer, admitting her superiority in this one, sleazy instance, and met an evasive gaze, a slightly flushing face, a guilty expression.

"You? You turned him on to a call girl? And you're really Catholic!"

"This not about religion. This is about abusive stalking."

"Which is not the stalkee's fault."

"It is if he snaps under the pressure and kills the very woman who is the source of his salvation. You probably know Matt better than anyone. Could he snap? Get violent?"

"No!" Temple spoke from gut defense, before she remembered how Matt had torn his own apartment apart once, almost a year ago, when she'd first met him, when he'd been hunting his abusive stepfather. "No," she repeated more softly, more sanely. Matt had acknowledged the rage within himself. Didn't that banish it? Unless he had been forced into a corner so against his every instinct. "No." This last one sounded pretty unconvincing.

"You defended Kinsella, and look where he stands. Are you simply a sucker for flawed men? There are plenty of women like that. I see them every day."

"You work on the dark side," Temple answered. "The rest of us live in the light. Mostly. Or maybe we just like to think so. But thinking so can make it so. I will never believe the worst of my friends. I won't. You'll have to prove it to me."

"No, I won't. You don't fit at all into this equation. I have to prove it to a prosecutor."

Molina stood up.

Temple stood, too, although in her case it wasn't very impressive. "Are you saying something happened to the call girl Matt was with last night?"

"It's more something that didn't happen," Molina said."She didn't wake up to have a morning after."

On that information she turned on her pathetically low heels and left.

Temple was too shocked to move to show the woman out, which allowed Molina to pause and call through the ajar door, "Fasten your chain-lock. There may be a murderer in the building."

Temple still didn't move. For one thing, she didn't believe for a moment that Matt had murdered somebody. But then she'd have never believed he'd patronize a Las Vegas call girl. And what was this about Kitty the Cutter stalking him? How long had that been going on? And why did Molina really call on Temple with all this bad, if vague, news, other than to lecture and to taunt?

She must have wanted exactly what was just about to happen. Too bad. It was going to happen anyway.

Temple rushed to the kitchen door to grab the keys to her apartment, then her glance fell on her bunny-slippered feet.

"Watch the door," she instructed Louie as she skied over the slick wooden floors to her bedroom to change into proper interrogation garb. "Don't let in any s.e.x killers," 'she mumbled as she fled.

Midnight Louie eyed Midnight Louise. An observer, of which there was no longer one, could well imagine the two consulting each other: Did she say "s.e.x killers" or "s.e.x kittens"?

Chapter 5.

Flaming Sword Midnight Louie did not watch her half-open door while Temple changed into a capri-pants-and-top set with so many chicly beaded hems at the extremities that she felt (and rattled) like a Victorian lamp shade. . . .

He and Louise had absconded the premises by the time she came charging back from the bedroom, her feet attired in black patent leather mules instead of the soft and soulful bunny faces.

Temple's outfit had all the bells and whistles that pa.s.sed for current fad except a pocket, so she dangled her unit key ring from a handy thumb and ran, not walked, up the service stairs to the floor above.

She knocked on Matt's door, rapped really, and was ready to start scratching like a rodent when the door didn't instantly fly open.

"Who is it?" he asked from inside finally, as he had never done.

"It's me!"

The announcement brought silence.

Temple's courage faded at this unhappy omen. Matt was always glad to see her. Well, almost always. Except lately he had seemed . . . distant. How could she have missed it? Dummy! He was trying to avoid the targets of Kathleen O'Connor's hate campaign.

Temple rapped again. "Compared to the women you've been hanging out with lately, I'm pretty harmless, really."

The door jerked open. Matt's face was about as stiff as the mahogany the door was made of.

"What do you know about the women I've been hanging out with lately?" he asked.

"That they're dangerous. Kitty the Cutter. Lieutenant Molina. Your friendly neighborhood call girl."

"How do you know any of that?"

"Molina told me."

"Molina?"

He had spit out the name in a way Temple found totally satisfactory. At last someone else beside her was regarding the homicide lieutenant as the Great Satan, the Enemy, She Who Is Not to Be Obeyed!

"Why in G.o.d's name," he went on, mostly asking himself, not her, "would Molina run right off to you and spill her guts and mine?"

"I think she's trying to do with you what she did with Max: use me to pressure you. But I didn't fall for that the first time and I'm hardly about to do it the second."

"Temple, just your being here is pressure."