Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“The seam was a bit off. And I was desperate. Those women hooting up a storm in the hall were heading my way. I had no idea proper young women could be so rowdy, and bawdy.”

“Oh, Matt,” Temple said, “they probably ate up a tour of a bordello by its residents the way I’d devour a backstage tour of a major Vegas magic show. I’m a little weird that way, preferring magicians’ illusions to peeks into a bordello. Women find ‘naughty’ very interesting.”

“Men too,” Nicky added.

Matt said nothing, just sighed pointedly.

Temple studied the room. “Definitely on the kinky side. You’re sure the mirror above the bed is not see-through?”

“No,” Matt and Nicky said in unison.

“No, or not sure?”

“It’s pretty irrelevant. When I found Matt in here bending over the girl on the bed, doing CPR,” Nicky said, “I just checked on her condition, dead, and his, in shock, and got us the hell out of there.”

“What did you learn from bending over her?” Temple asked Matt.

“That her eyes were blue, to match the decorating scheme. Maybe it was a color-coordinated murder. And the thin black scarf around her throat flared at the ends so I could see it was a fishnet stocking. They are stockings, aren’t they, not panty hose?”

“I’m not an expert on fishnet stockings,” Temple said. “They have a long rep as sexy entertainer accessories, on the trashy side, although they came back into high fashion briefly a couple of years ago. The manufacturers are always trying to get women back into hose again, even in this suffocatingly hot climate. Didn’t work with me.”

“Does with Van,” Nicky said. “She’s an executive woman; dresses to the nines.”

“I dress to the Easy Eights,” Temple said with a smile, offering her bare calf and foot in its medium-heeled mule.

“Speaking of the Not-Easy Eights,” Nicky said, “we need to discover if this corpse is one of my brothers’ significant others, or one of the resident ladies.”

“The madam didn’t recognize her.”

“Okay, she might be somebody entirely unknown, but then how did she end up here?”

“How did most of us?” Temple asked. “You twelve guys were hijacked.”

“An imported body,” Nicky mused. “That’s kinky. I suppose she could have been imported in the limo trunk without anyone the wiser. Where do you hide a semi-naked dead woman you want to ditch?”

Matt added, “We need to identify her. Is she known to the people who are here now? Not that they wouldn’t lie. How can we try to identify her without entering the room again?”

Nicky flourished his cell phone, hit a button and rapidly clicked through close-up and distant photos of the seminude dead woman. “While I was guiding you out of the crime scene, I took these. You were pretty stunned. Giving CPR to an almost nude dead woman would do that. Damn cell phone may not get great signals way out here, but the photo feature works swell.”

Temple shivered to see the woman’s features close up in the small screen, as blank of expression as a doll’s face. She was young and pretty enough to be either a sex-for-hire object of desire, or a Fontana girlfriend. Such a waste.

“First thing,” Nicky said, “I’m going to search around here for her clothes. I doubt she arrived here undressed, and even a resident would start with more than some inciting lingerie at least. Maybe she was undressed just before, or after, her murder.”

“Why?” Matt asked, appalled.

“Confuses the issue of who she . . . was,” Temple said, “and therefore, who might have killed her. Whoever did it must have acted on impulse. You couldn’t set up a situation like this.”

“Well,” Nicky pointed out, “eight vengeful bridesmaids did. Maybe one of them figured she could off a rival while she was at it.”

“But your brothers surely weren’t ever customers here?”

Nicky frowned at Temple. “I’d say no, they don’t have to patronize brothels. But there are a lot of them and I certainly don’t keep up with their entertainment and personal lives.”

“And there’s always Uncle Mario,” Matt put in.

“Of course!” Temple eyed Nicky. “An older man might need more . . . exotic stimulation.”

“Hey. I do not speculate about my uncle Mario’s affairs, criminal or personal. You’d have to ask him.”

“Or the madam,” Temple said hopefully, trying to avoid a fate worse than death, a fate that might be death if she inquired too much into Macho Mario’s virility. “That Miss Kitty is getting to be on friendly terms with him, come to think of it. I’ve spotted them canoodling in the bar.”

“You’re the detective,” Nicky told her. “Your fiance and I are your prime suspects and none of my family is absolved. Go to it. Dig up all the dirt on all and sundry that you can.”

Mama Molina!

“Hey, Ma!”

Mariah came tearing into the bedroom, throwing her backpack on the bed’s foot.

“Slow down, chica!” Carmen pushed her pistol and remote close to the pillows.

Mariah had moved from tween to teen keeping Hispanic slang, but not other words. Hence her mother was no longer “Mama” but “Mom” or “Ma.”

“I forgot! Next week is What Your Daddy Does. I was wondering if you could—”

“No problemo . Uncle Morrie will be happy to show up and help.”

“‘Problemo!’” Mariah whined. Whine was the new “beg.” “You’ve already been there and done that. That is so boring! To have cops for both days. Can’t I, can’t you—”

“You don’t like Uncle Morrie? Honey, he has kept us going when I’ve been off work. You don’t realize what he’s done for us, for me.”

“He’s good. I like him fine. Only I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if . . . if we did the same thing as for the father-daughter dance next fall? You know.”

She was trying to make Mom come up with daughter dear-est’s obvious and only conclusion. What She Really, Really, Really Wanted.

Only Carmen’s head had ached all day, in pulsing tempo with her stitches. Next fall was a long, long time away. This was only May and school would be ending soon. Luckily, Carmen would be on her feet by then. In a few days. Good as new. Hah!

“Honey . . .”

“I want him! Matt. It would be so cool. I mean, he’s famous. He’s on the radio.”

Mariah was not alone, Carmen reflected. Thank God he was finally taken. Temple Barr had won the brass ring that lonely, late-night, radio-listening women all over Vegas lusted for, including her alarmingly hormonal daughter.

She thought as fast as she could.

“I don’t know, honey. He said okay for the fall dance, but this is coming up so fast. He’s a busy man.”

“He works nights, and this is a daytime gig. I mean, middle school. Come on, Mom!”

Mariah’s cheeks glowed rosy with emotion, warming her dark eyes. She had the as-yet-unmade-up beauty of the young.

“I’ll think about it.”

Mariah made a face, but left to make supper for them. Something microwaved that would be tippy on Carmen’s lap tray and leave oily, red-dye-tinged sauce on the paper napkin and on the bedspread, if she wasn’t careful.

Carmen sighed. It still hurt.

Damn . Matt was Temple’s official guy now. She couldn’t keep drafting him for absentee father duty. Even the fall dance was a terrible imposition. He was an ex-priest, for God’s sake. Children were the last thing he had signed up for.

She wondered if Temple wanted any. If they would have any.

None of her business. Mariah was her business. Mariah and her phantom dead dad. The cop killed trying to assist a stranded motorist.

The fake. The figment of her mother’s imagination.