Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In An Alien X-Ray

To hear Silas T. Farnum make this declaration before 8 A.M. in the morning over a dripping forkful of kung pao scallops and pancakes was a sure appetite killer.

“What is really going on here?” she demanded, undercutting the surrounding clamor by using her best stage whisper, which made her sound hoarser than a B movie hit man. “Or I’ll walk.”

“And you do that so very well.” The slightly lascivious twinkle in his beady eyes really wasn’t forgivable in a man of his age, say eighty-two. “Especially over that uneven ground. Tell me, you’ve seen a corpse before. Do you think he was marched over all that rough ground before he was shot?”

“I didn’t see this one. He was shot?”

Silas T. patted his lips with the linen napkin. “A small tidy hole right here, where headaches begin.”

Temple put her own fingers to the knob behind her ear. Yes, that would probably do it. “Execution style. You saw that? How?”

Silas T. snickered smugly. “I’d gone over to check the site and saw the reeling young couple acting strange at a certain point on the site. They headed back to the disgusting nearby nightclub from whence they’d come. Probably to call the police and then vanish. So when I looked into what they were messing with, I saw the body.”

“And left without reporting it? That’s interfering with a crime scene! The techs will find their footprints. And yours.”

“Maybe so, but I ruffled the sand around with my shoe toe. I used to dance the soft shuffle years ago, you know, which is tap dancing on sand. I’m used to keeping my balance.”

“Don’t tell me. You were in vaudeville.”

“The club circuit, but that was more than fifty years ago, my dear. I’m a rich man now and don’t have to shuffle for anybody.”

“That won’t help you. You interfered with a crime scene. I’m not going to defend you if the police find evidence of your tampering.”

“Fine. It’s good to have such an upstanding employee. I tell you, that body was old.”

“I know he was a senior citizen.”

“That too, but it looked longtime dead, maybe buried in the desert. Nothing as juicy as features on all the prime-time forensic shows. Did you notice how the corpses got gooier, the more popular those TV shows became?”

“Yes, I did, and the perps sicker, which is why I don’t watch them.”

“Just as well you live in Las Vegas, where in real life road kill nicely toasts away to nothing.”

Temple pushed her plate away. “So what secret will that building reveal when it’s done? If the discovered corpse doesn’t queer all your crazy secret plans?”

“A surprise.”

“Mr. Farnum, I cannot work with such an uncooperative client.”

“You’ll see,” he said, sitting back against the leatherette booth and untucking his napkin from the neck of his shirt. “And sooner than you think. I promise I’ll give you the big reveal once the police are through with the site. And that won’t take long. There can’t be much trace evidence.”

“None of that will matter if I quit.”

She got up from the table and stomped away through the crowds of couples with children.

“I’m paying for breakfast,” he called after her.

You bet he was.

Chapter 18

Law and Order: Crimeshoppers

Temple hadn’t managed to eat much for her breakfast with Farnum, and something was eating at her. She decided to risk a good chewing-out.

“I need to talk to you,” Temple told the phone at noon when Molina answered with a bark of her surname and department.

“Aren’t you doing that right now, unfortunately?”

“I mean … I need a … a meet.”

“A … meet. Like mobspeak. Get thee to a Mob Museum downtown or at the Tropicana on the Strip … or back to your Chunnel of Crime.”

“Not mine. I just publicized the opening of the attraction.”

“You supervised the opening of a funky old underground walk-in safe and unveiled its freshly dead body, which is now on my unsolved case roster.”

“Oh, that old dead body. I need to talk to you about the new one. The one on Paradise.”

The line remained silent for three beats. “You have information?”

“I feel obligated to clear the owner of the new construction in the area.”

“No, no, no.”

“Yes, yes, yes. May I come in to your office now?”

“No! I may want you to keep an eye on this guy, but I’m not some Web site you can look up on a search function any darn time you please. I don’t want you here.”

Temple wondered why. Was Molina implying Temple wasn’t presentable enough for your average homicide office?

“Still, I’m feeling generous about you today,” Molina was saying. “God knows why. I can do lunch in … forty-five minutes.”

“That would be fun.”

“Not what I had in mind.”

“Where?”

“Actually, I don’t know.” Molina’s voice faded in and out as if she was looking around for someone to consult.

Temple would love to see inside the freshly built Metro Police facility and homicide unit, but she sensed her prey slipping away for a lack of ideas.

“Hey, the Premium Outlets–North mall is right near you. It has Stuart Weitzman and Cole Haan and Steve Madden shoes—and Adidas. And clothes from Calvin Klein and Ed Hardy and Hugo Boss and even a St. John Outlet to die for.”

“I don’t know any of those men.”

Hopeless, Temple thought. “And a Chico’s,” she added. They had clothes for older and larger women.

“A Mexican restaurant? That’ll do.”

“No,” Temple admitted, “clothes again. But there is China Pantry and Great Steak. It’s mall food court eating, so you wouldn’t be trapped by having a server.”

“Oh, I’d be trapped, all right. I’ll take the steak.”

“Great. There’s a north parking garage. When you enter the mall, take the Mountain Court down to the Tree Court. You hang a left and go past Juicy Couture, where you get to the Earth Court. The food places are between the Earth and Star Courts.”

“Are you even speaking English now? Is this place a maze for tarot readings or some other New Age nonsense?”

“It’s a nature theme. Relax. We had fun shopping for the reality TV Teen Queen show.”

“You and Mariah had fun. I had overtime supervisory duty.”

“Just sayin’. The new Metro Police building is right on top of some major retail at super prices.”

“What I’m saying is you’ll be paying for lunch and bringing me into that froufrou environment.”

That ended their conversation, but Temple was not displeased. They’d actually had cocktails together in the Oasis Hotel Casablanca Bar after the literal “killer” dance competition that almost did in Matt. So Temple felt she was making inroads on C. R. Molina’s no-frills life and work style.

The policewoman needed to access her inner Carmen again. Temple guessed the in-home stalker messing with her performance clothes, and her close encounter with a wardrobe slasher when she was snooping in Max’s house, had soured her on what she already regarded as frivolous: being a girl.

Temple was happy to plead to that charge. It was the little touches—a bright color, a new bangle or bag—that perked up everyday life. It had nothing to do with youth or gender but joie de vivre. She knew she’d feel the same way when she was eighty.

She hummed as she looked up the mall on her smartphone. The Metro Police campus was in a traffic tangle north of Charleston and west of downtown, where Martin Luther King Boulevard ran parallel to Highway 93 before it split off before heading for Death Valley and Utah.

She checked her wristwatch. She was hooked on that second hand. Smartphone time readouts reminded her of looking at an alarm clock at 6 A.M. She checked the condo. Louie was out and about and could return via the small high open window in the second bathroom. She had no idea why he’d gotten macho and broken into the French doors, but the claw marks were inescapable.