Carole douglas - Cat in an Indigo Mood

Lieutenant Molina, being a seasoned veteran, comes to where the action is.

"Did you get enough on tape?" he asks her.

"Plenty, especially at the surprise climax. Did you hear what he was screaming? 'You're dead.' Proves he was on the crime scene."

"I do not see why, and how did these cats get here?"

"Hitched a ride in your saddlebags. We saw them disembark from outside."

"And just let them come in and disrupt things? Why?"

She points at poor Wilfrid, who is sitting ignored and dejected at the center of the empty circle. "That is the missing and presumed dead cat of Monica Orth. Apparently the killer swatted him during the attack and left him for dead. A neighbor lady found the cat and called animal control, but by the time the van came out the next day, the corpse was gone. We found signs of digging in the back yard, and presumed, ah, someone had buried the cat.

But when we excavated, there was nothing beneath the disturbed ground but insects."

"So . . ." Mr. Matt looks a bit drained as well. "The cat came here and freaked out---"

"Lieutenant?" A personage as petite as my Miss Temple is standing behind the group, looking like a schoolgirl who just got all As on her report card. "The suspect not only has an awesome set of fresh cat-scratches on his torso, he has scabs and inflammation from a set of old cat scratches."

"Awesome," the lieutenant agrees. "Alch can take him in. Call a squad and have these animals taken to the Circle Ritz apartment, care of either resident Temple Barr, or landlady Electra Lark."

The young woman frowns. "The uniforms will not like it."

"Tell them they are conducting a material witness." She glances at Wilfrid, who is licking traces of blood from his wispy foot hairs. "A very material witness."

"It is all right," Mr. Matt puts in. "l will get there on my motorcycle first and can take delivery."

"No, you will not." Lieutenant Molina's voice means business.

"I have a date with my daughter in"--she checks one of the ugliest wristwatches l have ever seen, it does not sparkle or have loose little rhinestones or do any tricks whatsoever but tell time-"twenty minutes and I am not breaking it. You can come along."

She has turned to supervise the detectives and uniformed officers who are taking their man away.

Before Mr. Matt can object to her plan. he is surrounded by the other men, who are clamoring to know what happened. Mr. Matt mentions the operative word: murder.

"Not Damien," they say. "Not one of us."

That is what they always say, and I do not have much chance to hear more, as Wilfrid, Louise, and I are scooped up and held fast against chests clad in beige shirts and lots of metal and leather accouterments of a sinister sort, not to mention buzzing, shoulder walkie-talkies.

We know enough to be utterly docile in custody; besides. Louise and I are anxious to return to the Circle Ritz. Wilfrid, he could not care less where he goes; he has seen his duty and done it royally.

So the cops, who are fretting aloud about not having facilities for our transportation in the squad car, are pleasantly surprised to find that we sit like three little statues in a row in the back seat for the entire ride, and make not a peep the entire way to the Ritz.

"Beats hauling dogs every time," one comments when we arrive.

Higher praise I have never heard.

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

Our triumphal return to the Circle Ritz finds Miss Temple Barr and Miss Electra Lark in residence, although a bit surprised at our uniformed honor guard.

"Gee, I do not know why," one officer answers when questioned about the details of our arrival. "The lieutenant says deliver these cats here, we deliver these cats here. She does say one is a material witness."

Naturally this causes great cooing between the ladies. There is nothing like a little notoriety for stirring up the ladies.

Anyway. I am received back into Miss Temple's arms, and an officer is drafted to convey Miss Midnight Louise upstairs in our quarters. Apparently I will have to share the place for the moment. An imperfect end to a perfect master plan.

Miss Electra Lark takes one look at the bedraggled Wilfrid and sweeps him into the muumuu-bower of hydrangeas decking her person.

"You poor abused thing!" she cries. "I will take you right up-stairs where it is soothing and dark and quiet."

And filled with Karma, I think to myself. Me, l would not want to mess with Karma in a weakened state, but perhaps Miss Electra believes that some psychic surgery is just what Wilfrid's much-abused brain needs.

Me, I have had such an exhausting evening, especially in the knapsack affixed to Hesky, that I am even ready to nibble some Free To Be Feline before I lay me down to sleep in my own home, sweet home.

Chapter 64

I'll Be Seeing You...

"I've never been ordered to eat pizza before," Matt commented loudly. "It's a novel experience."

"Sorry," Molina shouted back across the table. "I didn't have time for amenities. And I thought you'd want to discuss the case."

"Here?"

It wasn't quite Chuck E. Cheese's, but it was a flattering imitation: upbeat music, video arcade adding percussion to the-noise, crowded tables, kids screaming, adults consequently screaming at each other, either in frustration, or just trying to talk, like Molina and himself.

"Where's Mariah?" he shouted.

"Games." She gestured to an area of the restaurant that resembled a mini-casino for kids.

Matt picked up his mug of red beer and moved to the empty chair at right angles to Molina.

"How does you and me sitting here and Mariah off feeding quarters to video games add up to an outing 'together?' "

Molina grinned and swigged beer from her massive glass mug. "It's the thought that counts.

Nowadays, this counts for 'quality time.' Besides, we're celebrating, aren't we?"

Matt leaned his head down; it was easier to hear closer to table-level. Or maybe the beer mugs acted as sound enhancers. "What's to celebrate?"

"The Blue Dahlia killing is solved."

He nodded. Of the three deaths, that was the one that had hit her closest to home. He could see what she had to celebrate. "I'm not in the mood to celebrate. Guess that's where your job and mine differ."

"You were right about the murder weapon. The order Monica Orth had belonged to were the large, waistband rosary with the habit that was de rigueur when she professed her vows.

She probably kept it as a memento and her killer probably took it. We'll find it, if he wasn't smart enough to destroy it thoroughly."

"Why would he kill, though?"

"Now I'm guessing. I think he was attempting to reach out for a first romantic relationship.

He connected with Monica through the Christian dating service, looking for a woman whose ethics were as stringent as his. Wouldn't you know he'd click with an ex-nun. She probably didn't tell him until the relationship had gotten physical, or the physical had at least been attempted.

Maybe she had to explain herself. But when he found out he'd defiled, or been defiled by--with his mind-set it's hard to tell which--an ex-nun, he freaked, driving her away. But he couldn't leave it alone, of course. He had to punish her to punish himself for being human."

"And why the Blue Dahlia lot?"

"Probably considered it the opposite of Blue Heaven, a night-club version of Blue Hell. He left her body there both to confuse us as to the time and place of the actual death, and as a statement of what he thought about ex-nuns, and maybe all women, who attempt to be sexual beings."

"Poor woman! The first time in her life she tries to make a connection, and she draws a psychopath."

"Extremely neurotic, certainly, but not psychopathic. I doubt he'd killed before, and I doubt he'd do it again. I told you it's dangerous out there in dating game." Her eyes narrowed. "Make one 'connection' to the wrong person. and it can haunt you for the rest of your life."