Carole douglas - Cat in an Indigo Mood

"Did you know her?" Max asked.

"I don't think so, but I might have run into her. Molina's checking into her background. She was beginning to think the killer was stalking the ex-religious, but this magician's assistant wasn't in the convent ever, was she ?"

"Highly unlikely," Max stated. "But look at the range: an ex-nun to a stripper, and a showgirl in between. 'She left.' A nun had to leave the convent. A former magician's assistant left the profession. The stripper had just left working at one place, for another."

"Was she strangled?" Temple asked.

Max was still trying to piece together a pattern. "Who?"

"The stripper."

"I don't know. The newscast didn't say."

"It's even weirder," Temple added. "The words 'she left' appeared on the body of Gloria Fuentes after the autopsy. It looks like a magic trick."

"Or an afterthought," Matt said quickly. "But who would have known the details of the Blue Dahlia killing but the killer?"

Temple looked from one man to the other. "We need to find out how much the latest slaying imitates, and differs, from the previous two. The best source of that information is Molina. Who wants to ask her?"

"Me." Max spoke grimly. "That woman owes me answers."

"I don't know, Max. She is armed and dangerous, after all, and I might be inclined to look toward my own self-defense if ambushed by you in the state you're in now. Besides, l doubt if she'll respond to your kind of pressure. Matt--or even l--might baby it out of her more readily." Max stood. "This has gone past the point of babying anybody." He glanced from Temple to Matt, and back. "I'll tell her I'm representing a collective." He strode out of the room and a moment later the front door snapped open, then shut. Like this case sure wasn't.

Temple let out a long breath.

"He seems edgy," Matt noted.

"He's more than edgy. He had . . . interviewed the dead stripper just last night."

"Interviewed her? He was planning to hire one? Why?'

"He was making private inquiries for our dear Lieutenant Molina."

"That's ridiculous! She wouldn't trust him to investigate her trash bill."

"Yeah. I couldn't believe she'd do that either. And l wish she hadn't." Temple found her lower lip between her teeth and released it.

"Why?"

"Max feels the stripper's death is his fault."

"Is he right?"

"I hope not," Temple said. She started to sit down in Max's vacated sofa spot, then remembered it was the scene of an indiscretion and managed to sit on the arm instead. "So.

What's happening with you, besides fame and fortune ?"

He looked as if she'd just threatened to hold the soles of his feet to burning coals.

Chapter 50

Gone Yesterday, Hair Today

"We've got a scenario, Lieutenant."

"Then sell it to Hollywood," Molina told Alch. He was on the phone.

"We thought you might want to come out here and look it over for yourself."

"So you've got a weird scenario."

"This is Las Vegas, after all."

"I know where I am. I just hope you and Su do. Okay. What's the address again? I'll be there as soon as I can. Do we need to send any cat hair to Quantico?"

"Negative. We've got enough of it here to do the job."

**************

It was nearly five P.M. before Molina could get away from headquarters. She'd questioned the detectives on the previous night's stripper slaying. Was it related to the other parking lot deaths? But the victim's purse and driver's license had been left at the scene, and the strangling looked manual. No knife in the throat.

Women were accosted and killed all the time. This murder didn't seem to be related, thank God. Then the Captain had wanted to know her progress on the previous two deaths. He was not particularly intrigued by the missing cat corpse on Randall Street, but she hadn't expected him to be.

She took her own car out to the crime scene. Mariah was at Delores's house (and complaining bitterly about not needing a "sitter" anymore). Maybe they'd go out for pizza tonight. Someplace loud with hijinks, though Mariah would protest that she was "too old" for kid stuff. Well, her mother was too old for kid stuff too, but sometimes there was no way out of it.

Molina was pleased to see the Hair and Fibers van still there. At least they were taking this seriously.

She parked by the curb and moved toward the simple one-story house, rented probably.

"Modest" hardly described the genteel poverty of life on this block of mostly aging owners, people who had been lucky to have homes of their own after World War ll, and who had grown old and out-of-date with the neighborhood.

Rocks on the roof. Molina loved that desert habit, that innocent, pre-ecological use of nature as a shelter against the heat.

The lot's soil was sandy and weedy, not the thick mats of green bought at the cost of piped-in water in the trendier suburbs.

That's why she lived in the city. It had character. It showed its wrinkles and was proud of them. Wrinkles were history.

And this house had a history. A recent history, written by the events enacted inside. A cat had died. Maybe. A resident had died, certainly. But where? And why?

Su and Alch greeted her like shining schoolchildren paid a visit by the principal. That was spelled as in your "pal," not "ple."

"You were right, Lieutenant," Su said, beaming. "The cat hairs tell the tale."

"Oh?"

"Look here." Su led her into the bedroom. Alch followed.

Molina had donned a pair of her latex gloves, though she wasn't sure she'd be handling anything. Never hurt.

"The cat was definitely dead," Sue reported happily, indicating the bedside rag rug. "We've found fluid stains on the rug. It's only February, but still warm enough that decay sets in on its inevitable course."

"Could be a title for the screenplay," Alch suggested. " Ineviable Course ."

Su's glance was scathing. "A very interesting thing, Lieutenant." She was all business: rookie detective graduated from efficiency school. "Several hairs on the rug: yellow, brown, black."

"Obviously from a tiger cat."

"Thank you, Detective Alch," Molina said, "but I'll wait for the obvious to be pointed out to me by Detective Su, who's so good at it." Smile.

They grinned. They had gotten into her improbable "scenario" of tracking the cat hair, and it had produced results. Now they prepared to exhibit those results in all their incongruous glory.

"Also found on the rug were three gray hairs."

"Monica Orths?"

"We think so. And a number of . . . stray black hairs."

"The murderer's," Molina suggested delicately.

"The cats'," Alch put in. impatient. Men had no finesse when it came to the ridiculous.

"The rug has been moved!" Su was so proud of herself.

"Moved. Very good, Su. Where?"

"The trail leads to the side door."

"And?"

"And back again," Alch put in like a prosecuting attorney making the fatal point.

"Back again?" Molina was surprised.

"What if someone . . . some entity," Su corrected, "had dragged the victim--"

"The feline victim," Alch was quick to amend.

Molina nodded, listening.

Su gathered herself for the final revelation. "Had dragged the, er, dead cat, to the door and rolled it out, and then dragged the rug back to the bedside."

"I'd say you had a very inexplicable scenario. Why?"

"So as not to raise suspicions."

"That's good. Always a viable motive. So what happened to the dead cat?"

"We think it was buried," Alch said, with a gulp.

"Buried?"

"On the premises," Su added, squaring her shoulders.

"By the . . . draggers."

"Oh, definitely."

''There was more than one dragger?"

"From the quantity of hairs, yes." Su produced a plastic Baggie in which reposed a few fine curves of black hair, long and short.