Carole Douglas - Cat in an Alphabet Soup

They ambled away, renewing old acquaintanceship and maybe more. Mavis Davis came out last, her unshielded eyes puckering against the sunlight. She looked ten years older.

“I—” She fell silent, gazing miserably down the Strip where the others were vanishing into a haze of heat and shimmering signage.

“When did you change your name to Mavis?” Temple asked quietly.

The nervous eyes fixed on her face at last. “Why... you know that, too?

Temple smiled. “Maeve Gilhooley was an impossible name for a book jacket. Even a newcomer to publishing like you knew that. Besides, you wanted to escape the past. I imagine you went by your foster family surname for so long that ‘your’ name didn’t seem yours, so why not use another? That’s why you wouldn’t take a pseudonym when Reynolds-Chapter-Deuce asked you to. Mavis Davis already was one. And Mavis is Celtic, too, as in the old Scottish song, ‘I have heard the mavis singing.’ Like your brother, you kept your original identity in some way. Guess writing ability ran in the family.”

“I didn’t know the truth about my mother’s death, or even that I had a father—or all those brothers and sisters. Imagine!” Mavis smiled, but sudden tears filled her eyes. “The scandal shattered the family, which was poor to begin with. Eoin, like the other older boys, left home to earn money. Us younger ones were parceled out quietly to other families. You could do that without official interference in those days. Eoin has told me that Da was never himself after Ma died. He drifted, drank. Eoin sent what money he could. He never forgot, never forgave. Of course, I was too young to remember the trial and the troubles.”

“Eoin told you all this? When?”

She reached up to remove the sad mantilla. “Eoin came to me only two days ago. It was like one of the thrillers we wrote that I never really believed—a long-overdue reunion, sins of the past, revenge. He’d deliberately begun working for Pennyroyal Press to wait for his chance. He had kept track of me through the years, of all of us, though he never contacted us—”

“That’s one way he betrayed himself,” Temple put in.

Mavis frowned. “By keeping track of us kids?”

“I overheard him tell Lieutenant Molina that you were from Kankakee. But how did he know? Later, it hit me. That information wasn’t in your author bio. That’s when I figured out there must be a hidden connection between you and Owen Tharp.”

“Poor Eoin. He may be a murderer, but he didn’t tell me sooner about our relationship because he didn’t want the rest of us to suffer for his crime if he were caught, though he thought he’d go free. He was newly furious about how... Mr. Royal was treating his sister. When he told me everything, when I saw how I’d been lied to all my life—denied my own mother’s memory, kept from knowing my father and family, and from believing in myself—when I realized that Chester Royal had managed to ruin my life twice... well, it made me angry, too, so I did what Eoin wanted. He was my brother.”

“All you had to do was play dumb and pick up the ransom money, though?”

She nodded. “I’ll send the money to Emily Adcock.”

Temple grinned. “Pseudonymously, I hope.”

“You mean—?”

“No one needs to know. Why do you think I kept my mouth shut? You didn’t do anything wrong except abet a relative in a catnapping; that’s hardly Murder One. You’re finally free of Chester Royal. Certainly you’ve paid in advance for any wrong you might have done, simply by working with the old ogre all those years. Just go home and write that Big Book.”

“I won’t abandon Eoin now that I’ve found him. Our mother’s death marked the older ones, and I can’t blame them. Sometimes, Miss Barr, ignorance is bliss. I’m glad I didn’t know what Chester Royal was earlier. I might have done what Eoin did.”

“I doubt it.” Temple bent to pick up Midnight Louie. “ Oof , what an armful.”

Mavis daubed at her eyes with a lacy comer of mantilla. “Thank you. Goodbye, and thank you.”

Temple watched Mavis Davis join the migration up the Strip, her back straighter than Temple had ever seen it. Most of them would be racing back to hotels and into airport limos. They’d soon forget the Las Vegas ABA.

Meanwhile, guess who was stuck here? She turned and lugged the cat inside.

Electra was flitting among her fiber people, removing their mourning garb.

“That was more exciting than a wedding any day,” she said. “I thought that lieutenant would never get here. Not very grateful, if you ask me. And those publishing people! I had no idea they were such a kinky bunch. ’Course, when you consider what goes on in some books nowadays.... I bet you’re glad this ABA job is over and you can concentrate on normal clients, like the mud-wrestling federation.”

“I’m going back to the apartment, Electra. I’m ready to collapse, and Louie wants his lunch.”

“Fine, fine.” A matronly dummy lost her swath of veiling and her wig in one sweeping gesture.

Tired, Temple ambled through the breezeway, the cat at her heels. The tepid halls were deserted. She felt she moved in warm Jell-O, like a dreamer wading farther and farther away from the shoreline of reality.

When the elevator stopped on her floor, Louie paused midway in the door to consider his next move.

“In or out, you lug? Make up your mind.”

He finally deigned to amble along the arc of the building’s central hallway. When Temple reached the long shadowy passage that led to her door, she stopped.

Matt Devine, now. in civvies, was leaning against the wall, with what looked like frosty margaritas in both hands.

“Thought you could use a refresher after the show. That was quite an ordeal.”

Temple perked right up. “Great idea, thanks. Say, what was that slow-tempo funeral march you played at the beginning of the memorial?”

He grinned. “Curiosity will be your downfall. How do you know it wasn’t Mozart?”

“It wasn’t.”

Matt sighed, and studied the contents of his glass. “ ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale.’ Procol Harum.”

“One of my favorite songs! Really?”

Matt nodded, then pointed to the business card Temple had put into her nameplate slot. “I saw this when I was installing your chain lock. I think it’s wrong.”

She stared at her card as he handed her a hand-chilling glass. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

Matt’s glass clicked against hers. “It should read ‘Temple Barr, P.I.’ ”

She liked the sentiment, and the compliment, and especially the source, but she said modestly, “No, not really. Never again. I solemnly swear.” She was actually contemplating matters more intimate than detection.

Midnight Louie, ignored at their feet, didn’t believe a word of it. He indolently stretched his forelegs all the way up to the doorknob and gave it a royal whack.

26

Louie’s Last Meow

N o one is happier than yours truly that this ABA thing is over. For one thing, I no longer have to worry about being nabbed on a homicide charge. Although I sport a couple fistfuls of switchblades, few even in this town would confuse any one of them for a knitting needle.

I have also reached a satisfactory arrangement with Miss Temple Barr on my domestic accommodations. She now leaves the guest bathroom window open just enough so that I can shimmy in and out of an evening.

At first I am afraid that Baker and Taylor’s close call in the city pound will encourage her to curtail my, ah, movements. But she lightens up once the wrong-doer is caught—and even more once Mr. Matt Devine makes a friendly overture—and I have no trouble swaying her to my way of thinking.