Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“He came here?”

Temple was starting to think beyond the blame game, but she didn’t dare interject anything into the mother–son dialogue.

“Months ago.” Mira pushed her hands into her freshly done hair, ruining it. “He wanted to know where I’d stored things from the two-flat when I’d sold it and moved out. There was one of those fireproof file boxes. I’d looked through, and it was mostly tax forms. He did all that, probably lied, probably got tax refunds I didn’t know about. I always let him have the money because he’d leave for a while then, and leave us alone.”

Temple closed her eyes and wished she could close her ears. It ached to hear so much ingrained misery. She could only imagine how Matt felt to revisit his mother’s awful marriage through adult eyes. No wonder he’d gone into the priesthood straight from high school. He would probably have murdered Effinger otherwise.

“Mom, what about the file safe?”

“The tax returns? I was afraid the IRS … I kept it. It’s stored in the basement.”

“So Effinger took it a few months ago?”

“No. He just wanted to make sure I had it. He said not to touch it.” She winced bitterly. “I didn’t want to. He said to keep it … warm … for him,” she spat out. “I had a big knife in the kitchen block.”

Temple’s eyes went to the countertop, as did Matt. Sure enough, a knife block.

“I thought…,” Mira said. “But I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing he’d driven me to do wrong. Now do you see, Matt, why I can’t marry anyone? I thought I could, but I have too much to hide, too much to hate about myself.”

During the extended pause, Temple saw Matt taking a long look at his mother. “Yeah. You’re right. You can’t love anyone if you hate yourself. You can’t forgive anyone if you don’t forgive yourself.”

Tough love.

“Anyone?” Her voice trembled.

“Anyone.” He was adamant.

Mira swallowed, digesting the back draft of her emotional meltdown, finally listening. “That can’t come overnight.”

“No. But it can start right here, right now. It has to, Mom. We can’t go on otherwise.”

She sighed, her shoulders straightening. “If someone wants what’s in that file safe, I can give it up.”

“First,” Matt said, “we’ll look at what’s in it. Temple and I.”

Mira’s look of panicked appeal at Temple made it hard to insist she really had to see the contents. But it was her cat, her case. She did.

“Possibly fraudulent tax returns might seem scary,” Temple said. “So is what those thugs called to say about my cat. If someone wants what Cliff Effinger had, considering he was probably killed by the mob, we’ll all be a lot better off knowing where and what it is.”

Chapter 22

We Call the Wind Mariah

Rafi Nadir’s palms were sweating.

He’d been street-tested in East L.A. and Watts. He could handle facing down a gun barrel. He’d been among a detail that had subdued some King Kong on angel dust without going all Rodney King on the guy. He’d patted down a transsexual hooker who was armed, drunk, disorderly, and threatening to cut off all working parts in the vicinity, his, hers, and theirs.

But he’d never had to call Carmen Molina and ask if she’d allow him to take her and their daughter out to eat. Maybe Kinsella was right. He should start solo with Molina and work into “them.” He couldn’t decide which tactic would make his ex-significant other more suspicious.

He finally touched the Contact bar on his cell phone, bracing his feet on the hassock in his apartment and preparing to sound confident and relaxed.

“Yes?”

Jeez, she sounded irritated already, and he was sure his home number wasn’t on her cell phone.

“It’s Rafi.” At least he had a distinctive name. There’d be no confusion. Not that she’d had many men but cops calling her at home, or calling on her, just that Columbo clone, Detective Alch.

“I can see that,” she said.

So she did have his number. In the right way. Before he could segue into a casual approach, she continued.

“I’m glad you called.”

What?

“Do you know what your encouraging Mariah’s American Idol ambitions has done now?”

“I know kids need encouragement and ambitions, but I didn’t okay her running off to chase them.”

“Oh, Mariah hasn’t run off.”

Good. Mariah “running away” from home to enter another reality-TV teen talent show had led to exposing Matt Devine and Temple Barr to a deranged killer.

“Or rather,” Molina went on, “she’s run off only at the mouth. She used her friend’s karaoke machine to record a song she wrote and mount it on YouTube.”

“YouTube? Really? What’s the song called?”

Pause. “Bleu Doll-ya.”

“Isn’t that the name of the place you used to sing sometimes?”

“I still could.”

“The YouTube site isn’t coming up on my iPhone. Just the local nightclub.”

“Mariah’s version is spelled B-l-e-u D-o-l-l-y-a. ”

“Bleu as in the cheese?”

“As in the French.”

“I knew that, Carmen. It’s French cheese. Yeah. Here it is.”

“Cheese as in cheesy,” Molina grumbled.

“Let’s see. Production values are nil … tween friend’s bedroom. Standard laptop camera and mic, but the song is kinda catchy.”

“Like the measles.”

“We need to discuss this new wrinkle in person. Maybe we can grab a bite.” He got inspired. “At the Blue Dahlia, say.”

“That’s more than ‘grabbing a bite.’”

“So who says you don’t deserve a quiet dinner out? And I hear the band is good. Where’s Mariah now?”

“Grounded.”

“You have a handy watchdog for her, right? Being you’re on call.”

“A couple live in the neighborhood. I could check. I’m not sure I’m—”

“Ready to go out on short notice? You never wore much makeup. Didn’t need it.”

“Not ready to see you in a social setting.”

“Oh, come on. I helped out on that last case, didn’t I? And we have a big something in common to discuss.”

“Apparently you’re primed to do the town since you got that Oasis assistant security chief job.”

The comment was out of left field and a bit catty for Molina, but Rafi shrugged it off. “I’ll be by in half an hour, okay?”

Another pause. “Angela is off today. I saw her working in her yard when I got home.”

“Done deal.” His thumb ended the call before she could change her mind.

He ran the YouTube song again with the sound higher. The kid had perfect pitch and decent pipes, and she was smart enough not to cover copyrighted songs. Lyrics and melody were not there. She needed to study her mother’s songbook, get some classic underpinnings.

He remained slouching on his secondhand couch, thinking.

* * *

Molina was already regretting her decision. She was glad Mariah was staying in her room while her mother was bumbling around her own bedroom, hunting up nonwork clothes that looked good enough for more than kicking around on errands.

She ended up recycling Dirty Larry odds and ends, like the dressy top she wore to Mariah’s performance at the Teen Queen reality TV show and the side-studded jeggings and … she paused in casing her selection of low-heeled boots, loafers, and moccasins on the floor of her closet. There were those kitten-heeled electric-blue pumps Temple Barr had nagged her into getting, on sale, when they were shopping for undercover clothes for Zoe Chloe Ozone and Mariah for that same show.

She got on her knees to pat down the dark at the back of her closet until she dragged them out. She’d never worn them, needing to minimize her five-foot-eleven height. Tonight … let Rafi stretch his spine a little, kinda like on the medieval rack. She was not kowtowing to male insecurity with him.