Carole douglas - Cat in an Indigo Mood

Oh, God , Temple thought. This is really serious .

Suddenly his wringing hands burst apart, like freed birds.

"I found a 'source' at the club. A young stripper. Not even a stripper. Some girl trying to drink enough to pretend to be a stripper.

"She was easy to ask about Nadir. So I did. And, then, I felt sorry for her. They can seem so brassy, but they don't have much self-esteem, strippers."

"I know."

"How do you know?"

"I did PR for a strippers' contest. While you were . . . gone. In some ways they're liberated ladies; in some ways they're perpetual schmucks. Really confusing."

He nodded. "Maybe that's why l got confused. Was l an undercover operative, or a social worker? I decided to get her out of there. Part of it was I wanted to interrogate her privately.

Part of it was, she was really drunk, and l thought if she needed to be that drunk to do this, maybe she could do something else."

"So--?"

"I didn't learn that much. But Nadir confronted me when I picked her up. I . . . blew her welcome there. She had to go to a new club. I never did learn anything much from her." Max stared at the magazines and mail on Temple's coffee table as if they held the Holy Writ of the Synth and needed decoding. "I planted some suggestions for a normal life. I left. She was going to have to work at another club the next night. When she did, she died. It said so on the morning news."

"Oh, Max."

"You're not . . . dubious about my consorting with a stripper?"

"No. I wanted to take a few home myself."

"Temple. You are incredible. I came over here half-ready to explain myself, and you already know."

"So why are you so mad at Molina?"

"Probably because I'm so mad at myself. But she didn't indicate this guy could be a serious candidate for the parking lot murders. She was so laid back: 'just find out what happened to him in L.A., where he's gone. . . .'

"He's gone, all right! Gone all the way to Las Vegas. And now I can't help thinking--him being the control freak that he is, and my snatching away one of his docile charges-he might have tried to get her back the only way he knew how to make sure of her. Dead."

" 'He's gone.' " Temple repeated. as if in a trance. "Not so different from 'she left.' "

"Yeah, she left. She left the club. With me. Now she's dead. She was just a kid, Temple, just a baby."

"Shhh." Temple was thinking. "The woman who was found dead in the Blue Dahlia parking lot--did you know that the words 'She left' were found on Molina's car door, beside the body?"

"Yeah, l heard that. But that's such a signature of the abusive male." Max lifted his head, inhaled air as if it were a drug. "Yes!

The same pattern. Damn bloody Molina! A third, and probably unnecessary, death."

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Why do you say that?"

Temple took a deep breath. "I think we should bring Matt in on this discussion. Matt Devine."

"I know the bloody name! I don't know why we should bring him in."

"Because Molina hasn't just been calling you in on the case.

She's been using Matt, and me, too."

"Bloody hell!"

Temple nodded. "Maybe we've all been patsies. And maybe Molina is a patsy too. Let me try to call Matt. "

"Oh? It's so difficult to reach him, one floor above?"

"Jealousy does not become you. While you've been busy working for Molina, Matt's been busy becoming a media celeb. Oprah wants him."

Max frowned. " That Oprah?"

"The very one." Temple had picked up the phone on the coffee table and was dialing. "But maybe he can manage to make a little time for us." She winked.

Max just shook his head. But his eyes had focused beyond his own guilt and grief. Wild Irish Grief. Temple was glad she hadn't been there when his cousin had died . . . and then she was sorry that she hadn't.

Matt was in, reluctant to come down for a consultation with Max without knowing why, but finally game.

"So." Temple hung up the phone. "Tell me about the hair."

He shrugged. "I had it cut, badly, on purpose, for my role of sleaze-about-town at Secrets."

His expression softened. "Then I was talking to Cher, and it seemed she had once cherished ambitions of being a cosmetologist. So I let her clean it up. She really did a good job. You should have seen it before this."

"I'm glad I didn't." Temple carefully touched his hair. "You only tried to help her."

"And may have killed her."

"Maybe not. There's a bigger picture to all of this. Max, and know, because I've glimpsed it from several angles. Your story just added a new one."

"What bigger angle? These killings are visceral; the work of one madman."

Temple's shrug conceded nothing. "We all have different pieces of the puzzle; yours is just the newest. I discovered who victim number two was."

"Is that the woman you call Parking Lot Lady?"

"Umhmm. Found in a fringe church parking lot. A real Las Vegas type, Spandex leopard-skin leggings and plastic surgery scars." Max made a face. "Don't typecast her, you may have known her once."

"I might know another victim?"

"Her name was Gloria Fuentes." When he continued looking blank. Temple went on. "She used to be Gandolph's assistant, for years, when he was practicing magic."

"No, l didn't know her. But I've seen photographs. She'd be . . . fifty-something by now."

"Only her plastic surgeon knew for sure."

"How did you manage to identify her?"

This time Temple wrung her hands, with hesitation. "Well, you were out of town so much, and l was concerned about those weird messages on your computer, so I went to the UNLV to consult Professor Mangel. He has a history-of-Las-Vegas-magic exhibit over there. In the meantime, Molina had put a sketch of the unidentified victim in the newspaper, which I always read assiduously, and there she was, waiting on the wall for me to identify like a suspect in a vintage lineup."

"But, but if Gandolph's former assistant was a victim--?"

"Then the killings could tie into Gandolph somehow. If only we knew who the first woman killed was. But l did learn some' thing else very interesting from the professor: The same cast of creepy characters from the Halloween seance are all in town right now; there's a psychic conference going on at the Opium Den."

Max's face registered a rainbow of emotions ranging from surprise to suspicion to rejection.

Before it had run through the full spectrum of expressions, the doorbell rang through its mellow changes.

For once, Temple wanted to scream at it to shut up after the first note, but she jumped up and raced to the door instead.

'We've had some upsetting news," Temple greeted Matt, by way of warning him. She rolled her eyes toward the living room.

She watched the wariness in his eyes become extreme wariness.

"There's been a third woman killed," Temple explained, not wanting Max to have to go through a personal recital again. "She was found in a strip-joint parking lot, and this time her ID

was left on her. Max knows who she was. He ran into her while looking into something. And the second victim? I found out that she used to be Garry Randolph's assistant; you know, the stage magician Gandolph."

"The guy who was killed not long ago?" Matt sat down on the sofa without exchanging any territorial looks with Max; he was too taken aback to worry about it.

Temple nodded. "It looks like two of the three victims have a very remote connection to . . .

us." Matt didn't know that Gandolph had been Max's mentor in areas magical, and otherwise.

Nor that Max was living in the house that had belonged to Gandolph.

"Then"--Matt was still flabbergasted--"it's even worse. Molina told me she'd figured out the identity of the first woman from the Blue Dahlia . . . and she was a former nun."