Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

“Whose credit card?”

Meredith straightened her spine and shook her silky blond ponytail. “Alexia had Eduardo’s. We thought the punishment should not only fit the crime, but underwrite it.”

“And what had Eduardo done to incur a three-thousand-dollar tab?”

“Let her see his credit card number when buying her some low-end sop to her self-respect.”

“ Hmm ,” said Temple, wanting to kick the smug Miss Bell in the supple shins. This juvenile scheme had put Matt in harm’s way. “What was this ‘low-end sop’?”

“A gold charm bracelet with all their little sweet nothings on it. A piano for the piano bar where they met, a fox for being ‘such a foxy lady,’ an Eiffel Tower for their first dinner together at the Paris, a gondola for the Venice, a peacock for the Crystal Phoenix rendezvous . . . I mean, a peacock, for God’s sake! Couldn’t he at least have found a real phoenix?”

Since the phoenix was a mythical beast, Temple thought a peacock made a good substitute. She also thought this particular peahen was a piss-poor substitute for a real girl.

“Actually,” Temple said, “most men I’ve seen wouldn’t spend that much time or thought or money on memorializing sweet nothings.”

“Aldo managed to come up with the real deal: a high-carat engagement ring. And for some strange woman out of left field.”

“That is my maternal aunt you’re talking about, and although she is a woman she is not strange, nor out of left field.”

“You know what I mean.”

Temple sighed. “Yes, I do. All you girls got poison-green jealous and decided to use the innocent excuse of Aldo’s engagement and forthcoming marriage to pursue your own grievances. Aldo’s significant other died . He was not only a free man, he was an unhappy one. Now he’s happy . . . or was, until you and your crew had to turn a genuinely joyous outing into a petty revenge weekend. And I guess you’re happy now that you messed up my fiance’s life and reputation. What’s an innocent bystander sacrificed here and there?”

“You can afford to get on your high horse. You’re engaged.”

“Fair and square,” Temple said. “No coercion, no kidnapping, no nuttiness involved. No setting anyone up for a murder rap.”

“We didn’t know what would happen! We had no idea someone would die. We were going to give the boys the naughty night of their lives. We were just kidding. Obviously.”

“Obviously, someone found your juvenile idea of ‘kidding’ via kidnapping the perfect backdrop for murder.”

Meredith’s relentlessly upbeat expression collapsed like a tissue-thin tent.

“You have to understand,” she said, upset. “In Nevada, brothels are these sort of slightly sleazy near-neighbors. All the girls were dying to see inside one without having to actually put out. Heidi Fleiss is even starting a Stud Farm for women up near Pahrump. Regular women are finally getting to do all the edgy stuff guys have done all the time. Going to a chicken ranch is supposed to be a harmless, fun thing. That’s what we thought we were getting into.”

“Sex for sale?” Temple asked. “It never occurred to any of you that there could be something seamy about it, even in a health-approved setting? Sex is about power. And where there’s power, there’s abuse, even if it’s subtle and concealed by a lot of flash and cash. Whether on the Strip or way out here in the desert. Isn’t that what you women really wanted, the power to protest? To have the men under your power, even in jest and even for twenty-four hours? Surely a ‘lifestyle coach’ should know that.”

Meredith had no answer. She shrugged. “It seemed like harmless fun, like a coed pajama party.”

“With pros.”

“The guys were going along with us.”

“Until someone died.”

“She wasn’t even one of us.”

“Her ‘lifestyle’ wasn’t worth worrying about.”

“No, but . . . she was just the hired help. I mean, we didn’t need her life messing up ours.”

“Well, get ready for a surprise. Her death is going to mess it up a whole lot more than you can imagine.”

Babes to Boots

Temple’s head was throbbing.

No wonder the golden age of mystery had been in the Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ellery Queen era of the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, the days of cozy, closed-cast murder scenes. Everyone present a suspect. Victims and suspects isolated, so no messy outsider could be pegged as the evildoer at the last moment. A culture clash between the girlfriends and the victim that could have turned lethal. Upstanding citizens could snap when confronted with extreme lifestyles, which is why Matt was such a tailor-made suspect. Upright, uptight clergymen were long fabled as spectacularly snap-worthy. And Fontana brothers were always prime suspect material.

The more desperate Temple was to relieve Matt and Nicky of suspicion, the more frantic she was to wrap this up before it tainted Kit and Aldo’s wedding, the less of a way out she saw.

Nobody here except the Sapphire Slipper residents had any overt connection to the brothel, unless Uncle Mario and brothers were all lying like Milano wool-silk rugs.

One of the girlfriends, of course, might have a slightly shady lady background. She might have a sister in the biz. Who knows? Trouble was, Temple was supposed to find these things out.

She decided she was right to start at absolute zero, since that was all she had anyway. She was doing what those brilliant amateur detectives of almost a hundred years ago had done: observe and trace the time line of the crime.

It had started with the real bachelor party, so she should start with a bachelor and work her way through logically, from person to person.

So which Fontana brother had set up the party? Not Aldo, but someone had to be the front man. She asked Aldo to find the culprit and bring him to the Victorian Room for an interview.

She waited alone in the room’s tawdry elegance. Despite its reputation as an elegant brothel, the Sapphire Slipper was more pretension than class. Temple had used the brothel’s office laptop to survey the competition’s Web sites. (Also to snoop at how it presented itself and use any inside information she could come across.)

Reception was fine, and their cell phones were now registering signals. They had agreed, though, that further isolation would help all involved with the police when they were finally called.

Most legal Nevada brothels were located in the cactus and sagebrush of the boonies, no more than single-wide trailers offering visions of low-end furniture glory.

Compared to that, the Sapphire Slipper was an oasis of sophistication. The “courtesans”—that was the official title for the girls according to their organization site—were freelance workers who set their own prices and menu of offerings. They were rigorously certified as disease-free, and always used condoms. They didn’t languish for months or years at a particular “venue,” but traveled the country like carnies, checking into familiar stands for two to four weeks at a time.

Apparently variety was a big advantage of the brothel menu.

Temple tried not to be judgmental. She understood the argument that legalized prostitution protected both client and provider way more than streetwalking, but she couldn’t picture a life of such casual sexuality. Then she considered the angst she felt in changing lovers, from Max to Matt, with marriage always a likelihood in the equation. . . . And thought maybe that feeling less and experiencing more was not a totally insane way to go.

A gentle knock on the door startled her from her musings.

For a moment she felt like a resident expecting a client. Who would he be? Which one of the men from downstairs? That darling blond guy? Hell, no. He was taken.