Douglas, Nelson - Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Cheyenne had to get onstage in a hurry, thanks to dealing with the horse, so he ditched the evidence boot under the costume rack, planning to retrieve it later."

"There was no later." Temple picked up the scenario, though no one would ever know it for sure.

"Minutes later, Fabrizio used his hawking gauntlet to stab Cheyenne with his own arrow."

"He ditched the glove under the waste tray in the hawk cage."

"A bloody glove?"

"I'm afraid so."

"How did you find it, Lieutenant? How do we know it isn't a plant?"

"Please. Backstage witnesses say a cat trying to get at the hawk tipped over the cage. The tray pulled out and the glove tumbled to the floor."

"A cat? What kind of cat would go after a hunting hawk?"

Molina blinked. "Witnesses say it was a black cat."

Temple refused to comment. "I never suspected Fabrizio until much later, when I learned that a single gauntlet had disappeared from his costume." She smiled wearily. "It's ironic. The only reason I suspected Herbert Harvey was learning that he was going hunting in Canada after the convention.

Then I thought of bow-hunting. But he didn't kill Cheyenne with an arrow, though he finished off Fabrizio with a dagger."

"A dagger borrowed from general supplies in the joint costume cage, by the way," Molina said.

"We got a warrant to search the Harveys's room on probable cause and found the receipt for the coverboys' damn boots concealed in their luggage. In a custom Italian western boot. Hers."

"They put a lot of faith in boots, didn't they?"

"Fabrizio figured he was safe. That Sharon Rose and her husband wouldn't dare tell the police if he kept the diamonds, because they'd have to admit their money-laundering scheme. And the diamonds were a perfect investment; anyone could sell them. Harvey had been backstage with his wife; it was easy to stab Fabrizio in the dark confusion of the lighting rehearsal. They planned to collect his and Cheyenne's boots later, although we had Fabrizio's and one of Cheyenne's boots and you had the other."

"Why was Sharon Rose laundering money? She has plenty."

"All is not enough for some people. You were right about her foreign sales having something to do with this. She's privately sold all her backlist books to the burgeoning Far East market. The money they paid her was converted to diamonds in Hong Kong. If anyone saw her books in Chinese, she could say they had reprinted them illegally; it happens a lot. Then Sharon Rose generously gifted her cover models with the commemorative boots. Voila: models and boots make it unchallenged into the U.S. Sharon Rose wanted to avoid taxes, but now she faces murder/conspiracy, tax dodge/money-laundering convictions."

"So the Arrow Man actually did one of the dirty deeds?" Temple mused.

Molina looked puzzled. "Arrow Man? You mean Harvey. Had Fabrizio's greed not encouraged him to keep the jewels, Herbert Harvey wouldn't have had to commit a murder. Unfortunately, you intervened before either of this murderous, larcenous couple could recover the gems from the boots. And Fabrizio, not knowing he was a marked man, was worried enough about your knowing about his missing glove to try to kill you, even as he was being stalked."

"Poor Herbert Harvey. Such a nice man," Temple murmured. "Apparently."

"Apparently a pawn of his wife's. She was the brain driven by a bright, hot heart of pure greed.

Just now she was claiming that the publishers are responsible for her scheme, for forcing authors to lead such scrimping, uncertain lives."

"At her rate of sales, please! She had it made. Why did she have to mess it up? I still can't picture her low-key husband as a killer."

"Any man who bow-hunts deer wouldn't be deterred by sudden death."

"How could he? Bambi-killer!"

"Some hunters eat the deer they kill."

"Cannibals!"

"They can't be that, unless they eat their own."

"Don't we all, Lieutenant, every day?"

A pause.

Applause.

Behind Temple, a thousand hands clapped as another author reached for the intangible award of professional recognition. Some things money can't buy. Freedom is another.

No one in the ballroom knew Sharon Rose's true award this night: Best Dressed Accessory to Murder. Tomorrow, the newspapers.

Tonight, the simple things.

Temple slipped back to the table and into her chair without undue notice. Her absence looked like a ladies' room run.

Kit had returned her napkin to her lap, and was bright-eyed again. "At last. The interminable published author awards are over. All the dolphins have mated and the ozone layer is saved for posterity. Would that our ears were redeemed. Savannah Ashleigh is about to announce the Love's Leading Amateur Awards."

"Third place is Valerie Menendez ... I mean, Mendez, for Heartbreak. "

Applause. Ecstatic would-be author at the mike.

"Second place is for ... for A Man for All Reasons. Carolyn R. Podesta!"

More applause. More breathless gushing between awardee and awarder.

"And in first place, Elizabeth Lard for--" She squinted at the list to decode the title.

Applause.

No scurrying author.

Silence. Whispers.

Savannah Ashleigh strained to read the list. "Not Elizabeth, but ... Electricity Loss. No, El... Cee Trisha--"

Kit stood up. Kit projected her voice to the ceiling light fixtures. "Electra Lark, you ninny!" Kit roared like a lion in winter.

The audience roared back.

Temple stood up beside Kit and applauded.

"San Andreas Sunflower," Savannah shouted out the winning title.

Electra found her way to the podium and captured a plaque with her name, spelled correctly, on it. The applause never died until she left the stage, so she never said thank you. But her face said it.

She settled back in her chair, breathless, putting the award where the centerpiece should be, for all to see and admire. "San Antonio Sunflower," she muttered when the room was quiet.

"And," a chastened Savannah Ashleigh was saying very slowly and very softly, "a last, special Honorable Mention. For an... unit ... unique entry. A most clever parity--"

Kit stood up again and bellowed, "Parody!"

Savannah Ashleigh looked like she faced a firing squad. "Par-roty," she repeated meekly. "Parroty of the Clichy... water?" She looked around helplessly, a broken woman.

A woman rushed up to the mike, covered it and whispered forcefully to Savannah.

"Cliched stereotype"--Savannah announced by rote, looking to either side and shrugging her shoulders--"of a romance novel. To Tempest Tower ..." She grinned in relief at simple two-syllable words. "Author of Savahge Surrender! Come and get it, Tempest!"

Electra was looking expectantly at Temple.

"I didn't do it!" she swore.

No one came and got it. The audience stirred, bereft.

A camera operator from Hot Heads zeroed in on the podium. Nada. Savannah stood alone, like all cheesy things.

Then someone was walking forward. The audience stirred. Un-certain applause began as a slight figure in a pale suit joined Savannah at the podium.

"I'd like to thank the G.R.O.W.L. committee, and the esteemed judges, and all who recognize literary merit," Crawford Buchanan's deep baritone boomed over the mike. "I never could have done it without all of you published writers as an example. And to my mother . . . keep the tuna casseroles coming, Mom! They're brain food."

He flourished his trophy and strutted back to a distant table, the Hot Heads camera dogging his every step.

"Gross," said someone near Temple.

She turned. Quincey, with a Fontana brother, was sitting only a table away.

Electra was looking disappointed, and looking at Temple. "I thought for sure that you--"

"Not guilty," Temple pled with perfect confidence.

She would never write a romance novel until she had plotted out her own lovelife, and that might take a while.