Carole Douglas - Cat in an Alphabet Soup

“We couldn’t have bought better coverage,” Dubbs agreed, “for an unfortunate, er, accident. Any way you could use this big guy to put out an all-points on the missing Scotties? You know, without letting on that they’re actually gone?”

“I’m a publicist, Bud, not a miracle worker. Baker and Taylor may not be eager to announce the disappearance; might cause more problems than solve them. And the missing felines are not ‘Scotties,’ they’re Scottish fold cats. That means their ears come pretucked.”

“Whatever.” Dubbs broadcast his usual air of vague demand. “Round up those cats and I’ll forget about you dredging up dead bodies just before the ABA’s opening day.”

“Body. Singular.”

“Keep it that way,” Dubbs said gruffly.

The staff had melted away during the discussion, leaving Temple and the cat to absorb Dubbs’s directions. The man turned away, then paused. “Better stash that cat somewhere,” he said. “Lieutenant Molina is picking you up in a few minutes.”

“Picking me up? It sounds like an arrest—or a date. Why?”

Dubbs shook his head, one of his more commanding gestures. “She asked for you. Wants a guide to who’s who on the convention floor.”

“Rats! Even I don’t know that yet.”

“Just help her out. And try to keep it discreet.”

Temple sat at her desk to stare soulfully into the baby greens regarding her through the carrier portcullis. “The lieutenant is coming to take me away,” she intoned. “Sorry, pal; I’ll have to put you in the storeroom again; it’s the only place big enough for a roaster pan. Salmon tonight, I promise.”

Temple was shoving Louie into the storeroom when she heard the heavy footfalls of the law. She rushed back to find the police lieutenant looming over her desk.

“Cute.” Molina’s deliberate deadpan tone held no complimentary grace notes. She was staring at the second front feature. “Makes it sound like the force needs a feline division to find its own left foot, much less a dead body. Your creative PR, I assume.”

“It beats ‘Dead Editor at Convention Center.’ ”

“Fiction always looks better than truth. That’s why so many people turn to crime.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, Lieutenant. I thought you wanted a guide to the ABA, not a suspect.”

“I understand you had a run-in with the victim.”

“You must have consulted Claudia Esterbrook. She reminded me of that, too. Except it’s kind of silly to kill someone you never met before and whose name you don’t even know.”

Lieutenant Molina’s eyes—an unearthly aquamarine color capable of fascinating if they hadn’t been kept expressionless—flicked Temple up and down. Her mouth quirked. “Relax. It’s hard to picture you puncturing a man’s stomach and ripping up into the heart with a number five steel knitting needle.”

“So that’s the murder weapon! And, listen. I bet I can do anything you can do.”

Lieutenant Molina allowed a tight smile to thaw her professional façade. “Don’t get competitive, Miss Barr; this is a murder rap we’re discussing. I want you to show me the ropes of this free-for-all.”

“It’s just a normal convention.”

Molina’s eyes rolled like wayward blue marbles. “Twenty-four thousand people! You ringmaster this sort of circus all the time?”

“It’s my job,” Temple said a bit stiffly.

Molina raised a raven eyebrow that needed some judicious plucking in Temple’s opinion. “Don’t tell me: somebody’s got to do it.”

“Right. What do you want to know?”

“How this thing is scheduled. What the daily events are. Who here is connected to the deceased.”

“Let’s hit the floor. First, you’ll need a badge.” She couldn’t help smirking at that, but Molina offered no comment.

Hearing the lieutenant’s low-heeled shoes thudding behind her own crisp high-heel taps on the long way to the registration rotunda, Temple mentally toyed with unkind variations on “flatfoot,” but kept them safely to herself.

People three deep, many of them women burdened with purses, empty canvas bags and a visible film of genteel perspiration, milled in the lobby.

“Is it always such a madhouse?” Molina wondered.

“Always, but the ABA is one of our behemoth conventions—twenty-four thousand book-loving and -selling souls. We can crash the line for your badge. In-house privilege. Thanks, Carrie. There. Before we face the floor, we better face the press room.”

Molina gestured Temple to proceed her.

Their first stop was a quiet room where folding chairs in churchlike order sat slightly askew, as if the congregation had just risen for a mass exit. Temple cruised a long line of tables awash in printed matter along the walls. She paused here and there to snatch up a pair of glossy folders and thrust one of each set at the police lieutenant, keeping the other.

“I don’t need all this paperwork,” Molina protested. “I’ve got plenty of my own.”

“No?” Temple eyed Molina over her electric-magenta eyeglass frames. “Funny, they’re bios on Pennyroyal Press’s top three money-making authors.”

Molina cracked a folder to study a glossy eight-by-ten photo of Mavis Davis and the accompanying press release. “Any of this information actually true?”

“Enough to fill you in, and I can do more of that, if you’ll answer one question.”

“Yes?”

“Why me?”

“Why you—why?”

“Why’d you ask for me to lead this little tour of wonderland under glass?”

Molina grinned. “It was either you—or Crawford Buchanan.”

“What about Bud Dubbs?”

“He has too much at stake. You are a free-lance flack, aren’t you? You don’t owe your rent to the company store for more than a few weeks at a time.”

In answer Temple flipped out her business card, which bore the sketch of a smoking felt-tip pen and the words “Temple Barr, PR.”

“Cute,” said Molina.

“You don’t like me,” Temple said. That was a serious offense; most people did. Charm was part of her professional armament.

“Maybe I don’t like your boyfriend.”

“Ex-boyfriend. And you never even met him. Did you?”

“I’ll do the interrogation here, thank you. I find his behavior suspicious.”

“I find it actionable,” Temple retorted, “but there’s no law against a guy skipping town. It’s been three whole months. I got over it; maybe you should.”

Something flashed in Molina’s icy blue eyes, and vanished. “Maybe you should ask yourself why he skipped. Unless you were part of the reason.”

Temple grimaced. “I ate too many anchovy pizzas, all right? Look, Lieutenant. He just left. Guys do that. It wasn’t because of me, everything was—”

“Was what?”

“Peachy keen,” Temple said through her teeth. “No, he didn’t dig the Vegas scene or the way the Nevada heat curled his hair or—something. Besides, I don’t see why a Sex and Homicide detective is so interested in a magician who took a powder and vanished. Unless you think my sex life is a lot more interesting than yours.”

No flash of distant blue this time. “Depends upon the kind of powder he took. And did you ever consider it might be the Homicide part that involves me?”

“Max? Kill someone? A man who pulls baby bunnies and cockatoos from his coat sleeves for a living? Give me a break.”

“It might be the other way around.”

Temple frowned. She hadn’t expected another grilling on the semi-unlamented Max Kinsella. What was the Iron Maiden of the LVMPD getting at now? The answer hit Temple like a block of ice in the guts. She’d never considered that, not even for a minute in the darkest 3 a.m. brooding session.

“Max? Dead? No! You don’t know how strong and physically fit magicians have to be, how fast, how smart. They are not easy candidates for murder, believe me. You really think that’s why Max hasn’t shown up?”