Кэрол Дуглас: Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“That’s impressive,” Matt said.

“My theory?” she asked.

“No, I don’t know where the heck that’s coming from. But you did use the proper usage of ‘who’ and ‘whom’ in your last sentence.”

She had to laugh. “Comic relief. Always welcome.”

“Especially,” Max said, “when you’re unraveling a cosmic tangle.”

“Cosimo Sparks,” Matt said, “is now a murder victim himself, any murders he might have committed are just speculation.”

“So,” Max noted, “is the Table of Crime Elements before us, but Temple’s adjustment makes sense. There was a mini-attempt by the remaining Synth members and their followers to heist the million-dollar treasure chest at the Oasis last week.”

Max glanced ruefully at Temple from under quizzical brows. “Now that you’ve cleared away the underbrush, we stand a better chance of finding out where—and why—Kathleen O’Connor was lurking during the past two years of unsolved Las Vegas crime scenes.”

“Kathleen O’Connor.” Matt picked up the sheet of paper, then tossed it back down as if wanting to wash his hands of it. And her. “She’s become a myth, an invincible antagonist at the edges of all our everyday lives. If you believe,” he told Temple, “that the Synth guy, Cosimo Sparks, accounts for several deaths, that doesn’t leave much to blame on this … implacable banshee from Kinsella’s Northern Ireland past. How and why did you get so cozy with the Synth that they told you all about these murders and then just faded away?”

“They may not have completely faded,” Max said. “The IRA didn’t either.” His pause left a silence Temple had to fill.

“Surely, Temple, you didn’t go back alone to that hellish nightclub?” That’s what Matt really wanted to know. “It was bad enough you were snooping around it enough to crash one of the Synth’s meetings a bit back.”

This was awkward. She indeed had gone back there, and Max had been on scene as well. She didn’t want to lie to Matt.…

“I wasn’t alone,” she said.

She could feel the rising tension in Matt from two feet away. Max and she had not only once been live-in lovers heading toward marriage, but he’d also been the professional backup on her amateur investigations from the very beginning. Before Matt moved into the Circle Ritz.

“Midnight Louie and some of his feral cronies were there,” she said, quite truthfully.

The cat took a bow by rising and thumping down to the tabletop. He cocked a head at the paper under discussion, then yawned and thumped down to the floor. And Midnight Louie, all twenty pounds of him, did thump. Yet not a thing on the table had moved during his ponderous passage.

He lofted up to the couch arm right behind Temple, a bodyguard settling into position.

“That cat follows you like Mary’s little lamb in a Big Bad Wolf suit!” Matt sounded exasperated. That unlikely fact was true and they all knew it. Midnight Louie got around Vegas like a tumbleweed—fast, erratic, and often ignored. “After I saw his performance on our trip to Chicago, I have to admit he’s pretty formidable.”

Temple beamed with pride as she turned to view his latest perch. Louie had assumed a Cheshire cat position, his eyes narrowing, basking in the sunshine of full credit for his übercatness. He almost seemed to be smiling, but maybe that was because some of his snazzy white whiskers turned up at the ends. Any moment, she expected his lazily watchful form to vanish … everything but those whiskers.

“Plus,” she said fondly, “Louie makes a darn good ring bearer at weddings.”

“All hail the cat,” Max said impatiently. He’d been out of the country during the recent weddings of Temple’s Aunt Kit and Matt’s mother, both mature brides. He’d never seen a dapper Midnight Louie wearing a white formal tie with a ring box tied to it. “We’re not here to discuss weddings.”

Temple and Matt exchanged a glance. She was struck by how much of her life Max had missed during only a couple months of absence.

Max was still talking. “Tell Devine how you managed to solve several murders with one fell swoop of inspiration.”

Matt’s eyebrows remained arched inquiringly.

“First,” Temple said, “we need to consult the Table of Crime Elements, because my new version shows the theoretical crimes committed by Cosimo Sparks before his own recent death.”

Matt tapped the paper. “I see you’ve still got me down for Vassar’s death at the Goliath. Don’t I get a free pass for being your fiancé?”

Max snorted. “You just don’t like being paired with your slasher, Kitty the Cutter.”

Temple had expected Matt to challenge that one, but instead he just glared for a second and looked away.

Awkward, awkward, awkward. She and Max had never been formally engaged, but Matt probably hadn’t realized that. If she wanted to practice crisis-managing PR, doctoral level, she had the chance here and now.

“Sorry, guys. I am an equal opportunity speculative sleuth. I still have Max down for the Goliath murder that seems to have started this sequence.”

“I have to admit I’m cloudy on the latest happenings on the Las Vegas crime scene,” Matt said, “what with my career and family matters going full throttle in Chicago lately.”

“Come to think of it,” Max said, leaning back in his chair and then leaning back the chair to balance on its rear legs, “the Chicago mob was involved in founding Vegas. What?” he added, as Temple and Matt exchanged significant glances.

“What don’t I know?” Max asked.

Temple and Matt spoke at once, the sounds gibberish because they were saying different things.

“Okay,” Max said, “what I’m hearing is that Matt’s evil stepfather, Effinger, was kidnapped by the mob.”

“True, the unfortunate Effinger was bagged, gagged, and sent to a watery grave here in Vegas months ago,” Temple went on solo, “but in Chicago, last week, Louie was kidnapped from Matt’s mom’s apartment by a couple of lame mobsters who wanted something from a locked file box Effinger had left behind long ago in Chicago.”

Max leaned forward to stab the pertinent line in the table with his forefinger. “If any death on this list reeks of mob involvement, it’s Effinger’s. I happen to know that certain parties do not want folks snooping around at the Oasis and especially near that sinking-ship attraction. Or around that casino ceiling at the Goliath where the first guy on your unsolved list died and I was suspected of being the perp.”

Matt folded his fists atop each other on the table and leaned his chin on them as he studied the paper again. “The other mob death could be Sparks’s. Back in the day, they liked to leave their victim’s bodies messy and where they could be found.”

“True,” Temple said. “The suspect in the Sparks death is a way-out Chilean architect who goes by one name like a rock star. Santiago. There’s some blood evidence, but not enough to indict.”

“He still in town?” Max asked.

“I doubt it,” said Temple. “Speaking of ‘mob,’ in a good way, the Fontana brothers put the fear of God into him.” She couldn’t help smiling.

“What’s to smile about?” Max asked.

“Oh, I just found out my aunt Kit has been reporting on me to my mom back in Minnesota, who now thinks ‘a nice big Italian family’ is looking out for me here.”

“They are,” Matt said. “Not to mention the alley cat Mafia.”

“The Cat Pack,” Temple corrected him. “Louie and the ferals make the human Rat Pack in ’60s Vegas look lame.”

“Who was that?” Matt asked, speculating. “Singers Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin, right?”