Carole Douglas: Cat in an Alphabet Soup

“What about Lanyard Hunter?”

“The name—or the author?”

“The author. What’s his story?”

Lorna lit a new Virginia Slim—her fourth—and studied her copy of the release. “An intriguing case. One of those medical impostors.”

“You mean the guys who dress up in lab coat and stethoscope to become fake doctors in real hospitals?”

Lorna nodded. “We don’t stress it in the release; we call him a ‘medicine buff.’ Hunter conned an amazing number of reputable hospitals into hiring him in an even more amazing range of specialties before his deception caught up with him. Chester Royal signed him to write an autobio, but it came out fiction—and this guy knows his hospitals, believe me. Reading his books would convince me to consult a Roto-Rooter franchise rather than a doctor any day.”

Temple studied the photo of Lanyard Hunter, a handsome, prematurely silver-haired charmer in his early forties with a chamber of commerce smile. “He’s so distinguished and humane-looking.”

“Exactly why they should have run the other way when he presented himself as a doctor. He was too good to be true.”

“It would take a clever, confident man to do something like that. He would have to feel superior to everyone around him. He would have to cultivate a certain distance that could make it easy to murder.”

Lorna nodded soberly. “Lanyard Hunter is fascinating. I interviewed him for that release and if I didn’t know better, I’d let him remove my gallbladder. But he’s made a mint exploiting his knowledge of hospitals, and Pennyroyal Press gave him lead title status; why kill the giant that let him lay such golden eggs?”

“And this last one—Owen Tharp?”

“The compleat hack. He’s written novels in a dozen genres under two dozen names. Owen Tharp’s a phony, by the way. His stuff’s never lead title, but he’s fast, reliable and has a decidedly grisly bent that lends the list a touch of outright horror.”

“Corpus Delicious?”

“Cannibal morgue attendants.”

“Scalpels Anonymous, P.A.?”

“Sadistic plastic surgeons who deface their patients and drive them to suicide.”

“I do have to wonder now, are the people who write these books normal?” Tharp certainly looked normal enough—middle-aged, middle-class, Midwestern.

Lorna beamed like a comedian given a straight line. “Are any writers normal? Of course not. They write whatever fantasies are knocking around their brains and get paid for it, if they’re lucky.”

“There are kinder, gentler things to write about.”

“Like what?”

“Uh... romance, families, the stock market,” Temple said.

“Kind and gentle doesn’t sell. Sex and violence sells. And there’s plenty of it in the stock market, in families and between supposedly loving couples.”

“If you put it that way, it’s a wonder more publishing personnel don’t get murdered.”

“You sure it’s murder? The police haven’t said so.”

“The body looked like it was left there by someone who enjoyed it.” Temple frowned. “Have the police mentioned how Royal was found?”

“Dead,” Lorna said, her eyes narrowing. “There’s more?”

“Not yet, but there may be.” Temple rapped the press releases she had collected from Reynolds-Chapter-Deuce into a neat pile on the tabletop. “Would you ask your people to make themselves available to me? I know the media and police in this town; the more I know, the more I can head them off at the pass—and the presses.”

“You really think that there’s going to be more, rather than less, hubbub over this?”

“You bet your Lily of France lingerie. Las Vegas is a lot more crime-conscious than it is book-conscious, but then you gave me the sad statistics yourself.”

“I’ll take cooperation over hanging separately any day. We’re all in this together,” Lorna Fennick said with a conspiratorially arched eyebrow.

The comment made Temple wonder why an imprint’s editor-in-chief would call his overlord’s publicity director a “ball-busting press-release pusher.”

“You still here?”Temple was not pleased to find Crawford Buchanan sitting at her desk poking a pencil through the wire grating at the captive cat. It was past 6 p.m. and the office was otherwise empty.

“We’re all in this together,” he sing-songed back. “Press solidarity. Speaking of which, Dubbs wants to know—any news on the missing pussycats?”

“Oh, God... Baker and Taylor! Look, I’ve been a little busy running damage control on this dead body.”

“You mean like that?” Buchanan’s lifted elbow revealed the Review-Journal’s PM edition. The headline, “Editor Dead at Convention Center,” leaped up at Temple.

“At least the story’s below the fold.” She leaned over to skim the type.

“Front page, though. Not many details. Went to press too fast. And that Lieutenant Molina’s closemouthed. Dubbs took two Ibuprofens this afternoon.”

“He should take aspirin,” Temple snapped. “At his age, it’s better for his heart.”

Buchanan spun from side to side in Temple’s chair. “A lack of stories like this is even better for his heart, T.B. Hey—ouch! That sucker snapped the pencil right out of my hand.”

“Better pick on someone who isn’t bigger’n you, C.B.”

That got Buchanan out of her chair, but he never stayed angry. He smiled smarmily and rapped his fingers along the top of the cat carrier. “All I can say is, you better uncover those cats and cool this murder, or the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, not to mention the ABA, will not be pleased with you. Ta-ta.”

Temple watched his grizzled mop of curls saunter out of the office, just visible over assorted cubicle tops.

"Shark!” she spit after him under her breath. Then she regarded the almost-forgotten carrier. “Are you okay, kitty? Did the mean little man hurt you? I thought not. Come on, let’s hit the road. I’m tired of this place.”

4

New Boy in Town

The catcarrier banged Temple’s ankle in four-four time as she plodded through the late afternoon sunlight softening the Circle Ritz’s asphalt parking lot to the consistency of a half-baked Toll-House cookie.

Her high heels sank in and stuck at each step, making her feel like a prospector trudging through a desert of hot fudge. She set down the carrier, unlatched the stockade gate, moved the carrier inside, and relatched the gate.

Temple paused to soak up the indigo shade of an overarching palm tree and eye the cool blue apartment pool flanked by yellow calla lilies. Her favorite lounge chair sat empty near the water, just waiting to cradle her weary physique and frazzled psyche in the shade of a spreading oleander bush.... Home, sweet home.

Temple had nearly reached the lounge chair before she spotted the stranger six seats over.

“Oh.”

He looked up from a Las Vegas guidebook. Born-blond hair, caramel-brown eyes, light tan, bright green short-sleeved shirt, muscles subtle enough to be interesting, and a quizzical look—mostly at the cat carrier. “Help you with that?”

“Nope.” Temple resented any deference to her petite size. She deposited the carrier on the flagstones and sat primly on the edge of the lounge instead of collapsing full-length as usual. “I wonder if I dare let the poor thing out.”