Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Leopard Spot

Temple glanced at Matt, who grimaced his sympathy. The law on the trail of a vulnerable witness was not a pretty sight.

“So,” Molina said with satisfaction. “The leopard was set dressing. I thought so.”

“I thought of it,” Leonora said, lifting her mishapen face, tossing her leonine mane.

“You?” Molina hesitated, no doubt thinking of Miranda warnings. “You could be an accessory to murder,” she said, spewing the ritual faster than a TV huckster.

Leonora, having abandoned fear, was unstoppable. “I don’t care. I let him into the animal area, punched in the security code. He did the rest. Brought the leopard along, brought it inside. Didn’t need anything but his voice. And then he left. That’s a crime? Letting a man release a leopard?”

Molina looked at Leonora for a long moment.

“There are extenuating circumstances,” Temple blurted.

Molina did not look at her. “Call a lawyer,” she advised Leonora softly. “Meanwhile, I’m taking you all in.”

“All?” Temple asked.

Molina still did not look at her. “I assume you can drive Mr. Devine home, Miss Barr.”

When Matt made a move in protest, Molina answered it, edging near so Temple couldn’t hear. “I’ll give you a police-car escort. That ought to keep the bogeywoman away. Now.” Her voice escalated to public level for Temple’s benefit. “Off with you. I want to do my job.”

Temple gave Leonora a thumbs-up as she edged over to Matt.

He put an arm around her. Her bare arm was cold and goose-pimpled.

It was getting dark. No self-respecting stalker, he was willing to bet, was hanging around this headache-bar-lit crime scene.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“No. And I don’t understand any of it, except poor Leonora.”

“What happened to her?”

“What didn’t? If Molina—”

“I think she gets the message. She’ll treat her with kid gloves.”

“Since when has she treated anyone with kid gloves?”

“How about her own kid?”

“You think so?” Temple glared at him, an aftershock of the evening, then her expression softened. “Matt, what on earth were you doing with Mother Macabre anyway?”

“I had a confession to make.”

“Oh! Joke your way out of it! All right, I give up. Take me home.”

“I’ll have to stop to pick up the Vampire at Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

“You weren’t kidding about the confession,” Temple said.

“I never kid.”

She paused in stomping off the overlit scene to smile at him. “I wish you did. Sometimes.”

Two officers in summer khaki examined their IDs before they were allowed to get in the Storm and drive away.

Chapter 52

AnticliMax

“I hope it’s not too late,” Matt said.

“For you, never.”

Sister Seraphina swung the convent door wide, but Matt still checked his watch as the hall light fell on the dial. Ten-thirty. He’d been taught not to inconvenience the good sisters since he was six years old.

Old nuns had placid, plain faces, most of them, and Sister Seraphina’s was as honest and perceptive as ever.

“Want a snack?” was all she said though, leading him toward the building’s rear kitchen.

“I’m terribly sorry about standing you up for dinner. It was…well, a police emergency.”

She stopped and spun to face him, the small gold crucifix at her breastbone glinting spanglelike for a moment. “Police emergency?”

“Not mine,” he reassured her. “I just happened to be along for the ride. I don’t suppose I can explain too much.”

“Of course not. Police business. Besides, mystery becomes you. You always were too honest.”

She turned and led him on.

Too honest? Funny thing for a nun to say. Maybe she meant people who seemed to live in broad daylight all the time were less interesting than people with hints of shadow, as in Janice’s sketches. Janice always sketched shadows behind her portraits of perps. A shadow that put their faces in the spotlight and made them look more substantial, if sinister.

The deserted kitchen, brightly lit by an overhead oval of milk glass, felt as utterly functional as a school cafeteria. Maybe it was the blond Formica table-and-four-chairs units dotting the floor like bastard Swedish modern flotsam on a vinyl-tile sea.

Sister gestured him to an empty table and had whisked cotton place mats and sets of plain stainless steel silverware onto the bland Formica before he could sit down.

“Can’t I—?”

“No. We take turns at kitchen duty and today’s mine.” She grinned over her shoulder as she headed for the stove. “So you just sit there like Father and get waited on as usual.”

“Ouch.”

In half a minute she had set a bowl of stew in front of him and sat down with her own at the place opposite. “Just my little joke.”

“How did you happen to be up?”

“Happen nothing. I knew you’d come by.”

“Why?”

“Guilt. A Catholic grade school teacher, retired or not, has a nose for guilt that would make Pinocchio’s longest lying nose look like a toothpick.”

“I really regret the change in plans.”

“Yes, but that’s not what you’re guilty about.”

He was flabbergasted, and showed it.

“You’re guilty about whatever you were up to when you invited us to mass in the first place.” She waved a hand before his stupefied face. “But don’t worry about it. You don’t have to tell me a thing. Eat your stew.”

Matt picked up the soup spoon, then set it down. “There are some things I just can’t tell you. Shouldn’t tell you.”

“I should hope so.” She took several gusty swallows of the thick medley of vegetables and beef cubes.

Matt suddenly realized he was ravenous, and decided it was better to obey than to equivocate.

“Water?” she asked after a while. “Or the bishop’s brandy?”

“The bishop can keep his brandy,” he said, laughing. “Water’s fine. This is great stew.”

“You’re hungry.” She got up and bustled. “I bet you have three cartons of yogurt and some frozen dinners at your apartment.”

Matt didn’t bother disagreeing. She brought big plastic water glasses to the table. He discovered he was thirsty too. Must be a salty stew.

“So,” she said, seated again. “I never see that darling redheaded girl you brought to mass.”

“She’s thirty.”

“She’s still a darling girl.”

“Yeah.” No point in debating the truth. “I think so too.”

Molina drove home, the streetlights stroking across the Toyota’s hood and windshield like slow-motion strobes.

The light, motion, and rhythm were hypnotic, an environmental sleeping pill acting on her exhaustion. Even keeping the windows open didn’t help. Street noise came muted and rhythmic too. Everything conspired to lull her into numb complacency.

She drove deliberately, with extreme caution, trying not to think of the events behind her at work, or farther behind her at Rancho Exotica. She finally spotted the lit spire of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and let her tense muscles relax. Only a couple of blocks more to go. Here she was back where she had started—what? Only six hours ago.

The sound of the motor turning off after she’d pulled into the driveway was sweeter than hearing “Summertime” sung by Lady Day.

She sat in the car, hands still on the wheel, and envisioned the scene at headquarters.

Thanks to cell phones, more lawyers had descended on the place than cops and suspected killers.

The animal-rights people had called in the big-time lawyers to defend the Animal Oasis and Kirby Granger. An operation like his had its celebrity supporters, but this was ridiculous. The final straw had been when Johnnie Cochran had shown up, representing the Cloaked Conjuror.