Carole douglas - Cat in an Indigo Mood

"l have a baby tape-recorder I use sometimes; cigarette-pack-size. But anything you got on a concealed tape recorder would be illegal. I think. I'll, uh, ask Max."

"Yeah. I bet he's one wired guy." Matt grinned. "I'll ask Molina."

"Can I come?"

"You don't look like an ex-priest."

Temple made a face. "I could pretend to be a reporter, wanting to do a story."

"Great cover. The suspect would be sure to blurt out incriminating evidence in front of a reporter."

"Oh."

"No. It's got to be just us guys. I can use the dynamics of the group to put pressure on him."

"You can?"

"I hope so. At least I know something none of them does, and that gives me an edge."

"Which is?"

"That one of them had to be at the dead woman's house, and left a distinguishing scent."

"Pretty thin evidence, Devine."

He smiled. "I'm an expert at extracting confessions, remember? And every suspect in that room should at least have a conscience to examine."

"Killers are conscienceless, aren't they?"

Matt shook his head. "Not in this case."

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

"Wow. Another costly little gadget I can't live without."

Matt was in Temple's apartment, examining her tiny tape-recorder that took mere thumbnails to move its Nose E.-size buttons. The casing was blush-colored metallic, rather like a cosmetic case, but the tiny cassette inside turned like it meant business.

They had practiced recording with Temple moving around the room to determine mike setting and range.

In the course of her rambling, she had dislodged Midnight Louie from his usual sprawling zone on the upholstered loveseat. When he moved to a nice sunny spot in front of the French doors, Temple's high heels had shortly after relocated to this vicinity as well.

He rose to rearrange himself on the faux goatskin rug, and shortly thereafter found himself in the path of yet another of her testing positions.

He finally lumbered off to the kitchen and jumped up on a counter.

"Poor Louie," Temple said when she noticed his defection.

"Why do cats always arrange themselves just where you are going to want to be?"

"Because they know all the comfy spots." Matt, fascinated, was still playing with the Lilliputian controls. "This is incredible. It picks up from quite a distance, even through my jacket pocket."

"Molina, or even Max, could probably get you something really professional."

"I don't need a body wire. These are fellow ex-priests. They trust me. Or they do now."

Chapter 59

And Louise, She Has Secrets to Conceal...

Midnight Louise is one of the most disgruntled operatives I have ever worked with.

Of course, I have never worked with many operatives, for the simple reason that l work best alone. But sometimes even a lone wolf needs a female of the species. Among wolf-dogs, such are called bitches. Draw your own conclusions.

I find Miss Louise back under the usual oleander bush, in the unusual-for-her Mandarin Position of Patience Eternal: lying down with her forelimbs tucked before her. An ant is wending its way up the the side of her nose.

"You would think I was guarding Buckingham Palace," she hisses, looking somewhat cross-eyed at the ant. "Come on, you six-legged tourist! Just try to make me smile."

"Cats do not smile," I reply.

"Particularly when they pull nanny duly." she sniffs.

"Is the, uh, little nipper doing well?"

"As well as can be expected. Why?"

"I may need a witness."

"Do not we all!"

"No. Off the premises."

"I do not know if your witness can travel."

"How can you find out?"

"Move the poor bugger, and if it lives . . .

"I could use a more optimistic projection than that."

"Then rent a movie! Preferably not Titanic. "

"You are certainly tart today."

"I have been squatting here on and off for days, when not called away for your dog-herding detail, engaged in the feeding and care of an invalid, on no more say-so than you can come up with. The ground is hard, the food is literally lousy, and the ambiance would give an insomniac narcolepsy. What do you expect?"

"How about you move your assets----and your, uh, charge---to this address?"

Miss Midnight Louise eyes the coordinates I scratch into the dusty ground before her. "That is one long hitchhike, Daddio."

"I think you can do it."

"With dead weight?"

"With whatever."

"Humph. And what is the payoff?"

"The payoff is a confession of murder."

"Murder is a contradiction in terms among our species."

"We are lucky. Humans are a lot less lucky."

"I know. They are not feline."

I nod. There is no arguing with a dame, especially when she is -sitting on your best witness.

Chapter 60

Footwork

She felt like a schoolteacher who had just found a shiny red apple on the middle of her desk.

There were Su and Alch in their places with bright, shining faces: standing before her desk, with an in-depth report on the man the little dog from Reprise Record Shop had cocked a clever head at.

"Any idea what tipped the dog off?"

Alch and Su exchanged a disappointed glance. They wanted to start their recital with triumph, not dog tricks.

"Never mind. It wouldn't hold up in court anyway. So. What's his story?"

"Incredibly apt," Su said.

"She means he's tied into this killing like twine around a stack of newspapers," Alch translated.

"They don't use twine to bundle newspapers anymore." Su radiated the disdain of the under-thirty for the over-fifty. "It's plastic."

"Well, they did when I was a paperboy."

"Either way," Molina intervened, "neither substance was the murder weapon. The lab has confirmed that it could be a string of pearl-onion-size wooden beads."

Alch nodded. "The religious angle. We got a lot of tie-ins, whatever the substance. First, Reno."

"They both lived in Reno until recently."

"They both had used a dating service. Get this: Blue Heaven."

Molina leaned forward. "Weird name. What was its clientele?"

"Middle-aged people with Christian backgrounds." Alch said promptly.

"Christian? That encompasses every denomination, but usually fundamentalists claim the term. You're sure it wasn't Catholic backgrounds?"

Su shook her head. "No. Christian. But Catholics were ineluded, obviously."

"Okay. Enough suspense. Any evidence that they did date?"

"Plenty." Alch was happy. "Not only do the Blue Heaven records indicate the usual meeting in the neutral public place, but shortly after that both quit the service."

"Naturally," Su added, "the service checked up with both of them, because there's nothing a dating service likes better than a satisfied customer, unless it's two."

"And-- ?" Molina prompted. A provable relationship between the two would be, well, heaven-sent.

"Everything okay," Alch said, flipping through his notebook.

"Except . . . the former neighbors of Monica Orth said about a month after that, she became very withdrawn and agitated, and a month after that, she was out of her apartment and down here in Las Vegas with a new job and a new place."

Molina sat back. "So she left."

Alch and Su nodded.

"Not only the church, but Reno, and the relationship, whatever it was, with this guy."

"You could say she got outa town fast, Lieutenant."

Molina nodded and sighed at the same time. "Woman on the run. But not far enough.

Anything else interesting?"

Su's blackberry eyes sparkled like a brandy spritzer. "A couple even more interesting things.

About him."

Molina leaned forward over her desk.

Alch and Su leaned over her desk.

If the figurative apple Molina visualized atop her desk were actually there, and were a microphone, it would have picked some A-plus tidbits from these prize pupils.