Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

“A sick friend,” Temple said.

“I found this in a Vegas antique shop, actually, so you have to promise to return it unclutched.”

“I will. You’re right. This paper ephemera could be worth something someday.”

“Anything for my pensionless old age. Or do I mean penniless?”

“You’re not that old.”

“No, but I’m on my own.” Louise glanced ruefully at Gloria’s photograph. “Like she was. Gloria had a lost personal history and a lost career behind her. She ended up working as a cashier at one of the Circus Circus restaurants.”

“That’s a big family venue. The restaurant must have been lively, with lots of kids coming and going.”

“Lots of families reminding her that she didn’t have any.” Louise sighed. “I try not to identity with these cold case victims, but sometimes it’s hard not to. You married?”

“Not yet, but it’s a near thing.” Temple lifted her left hand from her lap to flash significant bling.

“ Ooh. He sure likes a-you. You’re young. No, don’t argue. If you have something going, hang on to it, kiddo.”

“I plan to.” Temple smiled. “So … what was with the church parking lot attack? Was the killer a repeat act?”

“Not that anyone found out. Gloria was active in her church, St. Jude’s. I interviewed the old priest. They all seem to be very old these days. The young ones left.”

“I suppose so,” Temple said, trying not to look guilty.

“He indicated that she might have worked for a short while for another of those top hat and cloak magicians. I couldn’t trace him. Parks? Anyway, Father Delahunt said she was very faithful, very ‘old school,’ he called it, and he was older than the Mojave Desert. “Daily early Mass, novenas, stations of the cross, confession. He said it was a wicked world if so much piety hadn’t preserved her from the death that was visited upon her.”

“Piety.” Matt went to Mass, she knew, and prayed, although not with her, maybe for her, fallen-away UU that she was. Temple was feeling guiltier and guiltier.

“Father Delahunt said something strange,” Louise went on, leaning inward for emphasis. “He said Gloria was overscrupulous and vulnerable to the ‘other side’ of religion. What do you suppose he meant by that?”

“I have no idea, but that’s an interesting comment. It might tie in to the ‘she left’ on the body in the morgue.”

Temple didn’t mention she wondered if the Synth, or even that ever-lurking font of all evil, Kathleen O’Connor, was behind Gloria’s murder. Gloria had “left” a magic career because age had forced her to. Maybe that was the wrong aspect of her life to focus on. Had Gloria also “left” the Church, just before she was killed or in a more permanent way. Like Matt had “left” the priesthood. So maybe she was a victim of Kitty the Cutter’s vendetta against Catholics.

But Kitty should have applauded Gloria leaving the Church.

In fact, Temple had known, and could not share, that Gloria died right about the time a woman’s dead body was found by Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s old Volvo car in the Blue Dahlia parking lot. Molina had come out late after the usual impromptu gig as jazz singer Carmen and found the body, along with the SHE LEFT message fingered onto the dust on her vehicle’s side.

The victim in the Blue Dahlia lot had turned out to be … an ex-nun.

Wow. Times were harsh for ex-religious and ex-magicians, and Temple had a big stake in both those categories.

“So what can you do for me?” Louise was asking as if they were in an echo chamber. “Temple? Are you still with me?”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay. Have you heard of a University of Nevada at Las Vegas professor named Jefferson Mangel who was killed on campus last March?”

“No.” Louise’s pencil was making cryptic marks only she could read. Temple wondered if they spelled “Ophiuchus.” “Tell me more.”

“He was murdered on campus in a classroom converted into an exhibition of magic show placards from pre-Houdini days to Siegfried and Roy and the Mystifying Max.”

Temple watched for Louise’s reaction to the last magician’s name, but she was only dutifully scrawling it down, as Temple would have.

“A professor.” Louise screwed her lips into a moue and nodded. “That’s a change of profession for Las Vegas. I’ll look into it.”

“Meanwhile, I can scan and return your photo of Gloria and Gandolph?”

“Sure. You think it would help solve the case?”

“I think it might make my sick friend happy.” Or not. She had no idea what would break through Max’s memory loss, or what would set him back.

Temple rose and tucked the photo carefully into a hard-sided folder in her tote bag. “Thanks, Louise. You’ve been a great help.”

“Ditto.” Louise stood to shake hands with her.

Temple trotted out to the clickety-chuckle of computer keyboards, hoping they weren’t laughing at her for pursuing such a long shot.

Chapter 42

Back to School

Max strolled through the shady thronging university campus. It was almost as incredibly lush and green as Ireland. Acacia, sycamore, and oak trees thrived among the cacti and majestic desert willows. Discreet signs advised that the landscaping was desert-appropriate and water-saving. Max tried to let natural beauty and memory wash wavelike over him under the blazing blue sky, though he doubted he’d had many reasons to visit the site when he’d lived here earlier.

Students rolled past him in waves, energetic and vital, chirping like grasshoppers. They made him smile. Why did he feel so old?

“Mr. Randolph,” a female voice hailed him, stunned him.

It was throaty and mature.

He turned. She was blond, she was confidently striding toward him, and she was the only woman he remembered ever sleeping with.

“Miss Schneider.” Revienne. Her lovely first name, the word in French for “return.” And here she was again, a beautiful but bad penny turning up?

Her smile remained dazzling yet mysterious. “So whom do I discover on this amazing campus in the entertainment capital of the world but my very recent … shall we say, exchange student from abroad?”

He stared at her, suspicious yet enthralled.

“And you’re walking well. Very well,” she added encouragingly. Like a teacher.

Normally, people would say, “You’re looking well.” No. This was a renowned psychiatrist, and a clever one. With one phrase she revived every moment of their recent escape/escapade through Switzerland. You’re walking well.

“Thanks,” he said. “Care to stroll, then?”

She hoisted a gold-metallic leather bag large enough to hold papers to her shoulder. A Prada silk scarf was loosely knotted around one strap. The gesture released a whisper of perfume into the dry desert air.

“This entire campus is designated as an arboretum,” she commented, adopting the role of tour guide. “Isn’t it lovely? I have no pressing engagements so I took a walk.”

“That’s lovely too.”

“What about you? What are you doing here, Mr. Randolph?”

“Not skiing in St. Moritz,” he said, reviving the fiction that he’d been injured in a skiing accident and had naturally ended up at a Swiss clinic. The four-week coma had not been so natural. And he’d let her think Garry’s surname was his. That was how he had been registered at the clinic.

“And your memory, it is returning?” she asked.

“In bits and pieces. Enough to make things … interesting.”

They ambled together, staid adults among hurrying students on foot and riding bikes.

“What an astounding coincidence,” she said in her perfect but charmingly inflected accent, an icing of German, a tantalizing trace of French, to match her genes.