Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alphabet Endgame

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Matt said. “You directed me to Woodrow Wetherly. I thought he was trustworthy.”

Molina leaned back in her new adjustable chair. “So, bereft of car and wearing apparel, you found Wetherly tethered and helpless and immediately called the police, idly jack hammering the concrete between his feet until they arrived? I didn’t know you had experience in construction.”

“Summer jobs during seminary. I was trying to turn the dang thing off.”

“Sure. Play the ex-priest card. Miss Barr, are you still convinced you want to marry this unfrocked prevaricator?”

“Are you sure you’re not jealous?”

“ Et tu , amateur.” Molina shrugged. “I will make up for my justified skepticism by singing at your wedding for real, not just as a substitute for Mariah at a faux wedding. There. Are you happy now?”

Temple gaped at Matt. “Do we want this?”

He laughed. “Anyone who wants to participate in our wedding who isn’t a major felon plotting to use it as the occasion for an illegal treasure hunt is fine by me. That old man not only killed a major mobster way back when, he buried the guy’s gruesome signature ‘weapon’ in the desert. His big mistake was digging it up. Maybe he was getting senile. Or sentimental over his illegal coup decades ago.

“But, Carmen, uh, Lieutenant,” Matt turned to ask her, “why did you send me to a major crooked cop, when I just wanted to be sure that local criminal elements weren’t still after Temple?”

“You never mentioned fears for Miss Barr’s safety, only to investigate Cliff Effinger. I also simply wanted you out of my hair, all right? I’m relatively new to the Metro Las Vegas police. I had no idea who or what Woody was. He was recommended as an old-timer who knew the score. I do know he’ll be key in clearing up a lot of cold cases from our books now, and we won’t need a jackhammer to get that out of him.”

“Clearing cold cases with Woody?” Matt was incredulous. “He was an out-of-date bonanza hunter, maybe, and a tool for some bad people decades ago. But…mostly a go-between. Look at how badly that Our Lady of Guadalupe caper went.”

Temple plucked on Matt’s replacement Emenegildo Zegma sports coat sleeve, courtesy of Aldo Fontana, fresh off his back with a deep bow when he had dropped them off at police headquarters.

“I know it was stupid of me to run off like that,” Matt told Temple, “but no harm done. Darling.”

She tugged again.

“Dear,” he said, “you’re going to get Aldo’s Emperio Armani underwear in a wad if you distort the tailoring by jerking away at it.”

“Oops.”

“After all, we’ll be seeing Aldo tonight at the real wedding and reception and he’ll want a full accounting of your and the sports jacket’s adventures—”

Temple heaved a dramatic sigh and turned to Molina. “What you’re not saying is that my dear, overprotective, mad-as-hell fiancé nailed Jack the Hammer thirty-some years after his ‘death’, didn’t he?”

“Nicely done, Miss Barr, sweet deduction, despite having wedding cake and trip-worthy trains on the brain. There may be hope for you yet.”

“What?” Matt was indignant. “The old cop was the murderer of the criminal, not the criminal.”

“Miss Barr?” Molina tossed the ball.

“Oh, call me Temple. Anyone who sings as well as you do and volunteers for my wedding should be on a first-name basis.” Temple leaned forward in her chair. “It’s obvious. Giacco Petrocelli was aging and out of favor with the mob bosses, and off his game, just as his dogged pursuer, Woodrow Weatherly, was facing putting in his thirty years and retiring. The Mojave desert is no country for old men. Giacco lured Wetherly out there, and buried him with his famous namesake weapon nearby in no man’s land.”

“What?” Matt was stunned.

“And…” Temple loved her scenario as it blossomed in her mind, “since age makes most men lose their hair, their waistlines, and swap their twenty-twenty vision for glasses, what was to distinguish one absent, aging, liver-spotted sixty-year-old fading from potency in both crime and law enforcement from another?”

Molina laughed. She’d been watching Matt. She could hardly stop, a first occasion of unbridled public mirth from the Iron Maiden of the LV Metro Police.

When Molina could finally talk again, she addressed Matt, who looked like he’d been slugged with a jackhammer. “She certainly makes men’s vows of eternal loyalty and fidelity sound unattractive thirty years on.”

Temple glanced at Matt. He did look confused. She hastened to reassure her white knight, who had gone charging out after the wrong man entirely.

“You see how cleverly it happened,” she explained. “‘Missing’ Giacco Petrocelli killed Woodrow Wetherly, then ‘disappeared’ by taking over his victim’s house and identity. He had the driver’s license, and you know how bad those photos are even with young people. He became a post-retirement Wetherly, bitter and ready to float a lot of schemes with a new generation of would-be mobsters, principally aimed at finding the last of Benny Binion’s buried fortune.”

Molina wiped her eyes. The laughter flush was almost as becoming as Urban Decay cheek tint. Temple resolved to get Danny to improve Molina’s makeup for the wedding tonight. Meanwhile, they needed to get out of there and finish reception arrangements.

Meanwhile, Matt was puzzling out his own scenario.

“So I was dallying with Jack the Hammer? Why would he have or keep the jackhammer buried in the desert and then import it to his basement?”

Molina shrugged. “A lot of cops, when they retire, are allowed to buy their service weapon. K-nine cop retirees can often purchase their partner dogs at a very reasonable price.”

“A jackhammer is not a pet,” Matt said. “And Petrocelli was no cop.”

“A K-nine dog is also a deadly weapon,” Molina reminded him. “Cops and crooks can get strange attachments to their tools.” Molina smiled and glanced at Temple. “The animal-partner bond is the most understandable one. These creatures have extraordinary instincts that have saved lives.”

Temple nodded, accepting the unspoken accolade for Midnight Louie. When it came down to it, a cat “walks by himself”, as Kipling put it, and is more suited for subtle investigative work. A canine, with its pack loyalty, tracking gifts and noisy bravado, does the advance scouting and takedown work.

“And don’t forget Louie’s key role in luring Wetherly’s gang to the faux wedding. Electra Lark, the target of your suspicions twice, Lieutenant,” Temple said sternly, “had a photo of Louie as Ring Bearer in white-tie collar and ring box. She ‘leaked’ it and the place and date of our ‘faux’ wedding to gossip columnist Crawford Buchanan. The piece went viral and Giacco couldn’t have missed it.”

“Good thing Buchanan didn’t show up,” Molina said.

“He ran into a Fontana brother and had car trouble,” Temple said. “I would never want that oozy, oily sexist to attend even my fake wedding.”

Matt was still processing a total turnaround of dead bad cop and live crook. “So no one ever found poor old Woody’s body and IDed it?” Matt asked.

“No. Presumably buried in the desert. Miss Barr must have a theory.”

She did. “I’m remembering the ‘pre-buried’ dried-out body found on the site of Mr. Farnum’s futuristic ‘invisible’ attraction recently. Later, Santiago, who seemed to be on a treasure hunt of his own, died there. Could that first body have been the real Woody’s mummy? Can DNA be done on it?”

Molina knitted her wooly dark eyebrows. That Brooke Shields look was decades out of date. Temple so itched to give them a wax job. Or sponsor a bachelorette party ice-cube, eye-brow plucking marathon. Maybe, in Molina’s case, for past snubs…without the ice cube to dull the pain. Too bad there wasn’t time.