Carole Douglas - Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

Temple wanted to squirm for the first time. She was starting to wonder what kind of case the police were building against Electra. And what she might say that would seem harmless and could be damning instead. How could Molina ever believe Electra capable of murder, a nice elderly lady like Electra—with a kooky youthful spirit, granted. Darn.

“More afraid of the neighborhood he was in,” she said.

“What property was involved?”

“Some land near Electra’s residential building.”

Molina consulted the contents of the file. “Property that Jay—not an initial, J-a-y—Edgar Dyson had promised to offer to Mrs. Lark before he sold it to anyone else?”

“Yes. That’s what she said.” Temple winced to hear Molina being as precise as a coroner like Grizzly Bahr doing an autopsy in recording information for the casebook. This was super serious.

“But he had sold it to someone else?” Molina asked.

“It looked like that, but he was vague about how far the deal had progressed.”

“He said that in his motel room?”

Temple nodded.

“Respond vocally please,” Molina instructed.

“Yes.”

“What was the tone of the discussion between them?”

“Tone? Um, mixed.”

“Mixed?”

Temple eyed Savoy, who’d been scribbling illegible notes on a yellow legal pad with an edge soaked in brown liquid, either coffee or tobacco spit. He didn’t look up, so she committed truth.

“Electra wanted him to live up to his promise—”

“So she was angry.”

“More…adamant.”

“And Dyson?”

“He was apologetic. He complained that the people interested in the land had flown him into town, put him up at hotel, and then, when he lost at the gaming tables, started pressuring him to sign over the property to cover his losses.”

“ His tone as he revealed this?”

“Whiney,” Temple answered promptly. She saw Alch stifle a smile.

“And Mrs. Lark’s reaction?”

“She was…upset.”

“Angry.”

“Yeah.”

“She threatened him?”

“Not exactly.”

“How inexactly was it?”

Temple sighed. “It was sort of a political correctness thing.”

“Political correctness?”

“She implied he was taking up too much space on the planet.”

“Well, it’s worse now.”

“How?” Temple asked, startled.

“The space Mr. Dyson’s taking up now is horizontal, not vertical.”

“Oh.” Temple imagined Jay Edgar laid out on Grizzly Bahr’s autopsy table and shuddered. A much too ugly mental visual.

Molina turned over some papers. “You left the victim’s room at the Araby Motel at…?”

“Two twenty a.m.”

“How did you know the time?”

Temple thrust her left wrist forward to display her unusually large analog watch. “My job depends on good timing. No LEDs for me. I keep my eye and trust on the big hand and the little hand at all times, and I was eager to get home. Back to the Circle Ritz.”

“Because?”

“It was late, the area was shaky…and my fiancé was due home from work at a night job.”

“So you told him—it is a him? One never knows these days.”

“That you very well know, Lieutenant.”

“So you told him about your offbeat expedition.”

“No.” Temple shut her mouth, irritated. Molina’s ridiculous last comment had been calculated to needle her into giving a knee-jerk answer. And she had. The truth.

Temple glanced at Savoy. He held a shading hand over his eyes, and she couldn’t read his expression.

Molina had tuned out his presence. “So you didn’t mention this midnight outing to anyone.”

“No.”

“Not your fiancé, and not even when you and he flew off the very next day for Minnesota?”

“No.”

“Not even when you spent five hours captive in airplane seats with plenty of time to converse.”

“No.”

“What did you talk about during the flight?”

Temple sighed. “I don’t know. The latest national news. Who was going to drive the rental car. My various relatives’ names and ages.”

Molina leaned forward, narrowed her eyes. “Who did drive the rental car?”

“I did,” Temple snapped. “I knew the area. I didn’t need a GPS.”

“And you’re sure Mrs. Lark never said anything that threatened Jay Dyson?”

“I, ah, didn’t say that.”

“Oh, she did?”

“He was reneging on a deal made when they were divorced. She wanted him to know she expected him to keep his word.”

“Someone’s word is not legally binding.”

Temple turned to the Fontana family lawyer, who’d been irritatingly silent. “I don’t know. We have a lawyer in the room. Is it legally binding, Mr. Savoy?”

“Depends,” he said.

“And I should probably put you in some of them for all the good you’re doing here,” Temple answered, immediately realizing Molina had pushed her into making an irritated response again.

The lieutenant smiled like a shark. “Never mind, Miss Barr. We have witnesses who heard Mrs. Lark being very specific in her plans for Mr. Dyson if he didn’t do as she wanted.”

“Witnesses?” Temple remembered the hookers. How much had they seen or heard that was damaging?

“I also understand that you claimed to be a member of the Sisterhood of the Streets, that you and Mrs. Lark were a ‘sister act’. Is that something Vice might be interested in? Or perhaps your evidently long-suffering, kept-in-the-dark fiancé?”

“You know that was a joke.”

“Maybe, but you’d gone way out of your normal fields of operation to tell it, and this follow-up situation is definitely not a joke. Even if it’s because you gave me a rare opportunity to use a classic line.

“Don’t leave town again, Miss Barr.”

22

Off Duty

Ernesto, the expert chauffeur-psychiatrist by virtue of his job shepherding limo-loads of tourists around Las Vegas, reversed his recommendations on the next leg of the long, long trip from the airport in a long, long custom car.

The dimness behind the dark tinted windows soothed unsettled nerves and Ernesto did more to achieve that by getting to work again as mixologist at the glittering bar. Temple leaned back in the channeled red leather upholstery and sighed deeply.

Ernesto smiled. “For the sophisticated lady recovering from a wearing interrogation, I recommend the Daiquiri, a drink created to soothe the vintage soul.” He handed Temple a delicate, footed cocktail glass.

“For the dyspeptic, displeased gentleman, I suggest a Peppermint Schnapps.”

“I’ve got reason to be dyspeptic,” the usually affable Matt snapped, accepting the Schnapps.

Temple hid her amused expression behind a sip of the Daiquiri, fearing it was far too ladylike to soothe the savage soul of a dishonest hussy like her.

“Ernesto,” she asked, “how did Electra’s husband die? I hope it wasn’t by gunshot, because Electra brought one in her purse to the Araby Motel. I’m afraid the ladies of the night saw it.”

The limo slipped smoothly into motion with Julio at the wheel, but the emotions inside decidedly did not match the ride.

Matt turned into Molina and started interrogating Temple. “You went out in the dead of night with Electra to a notorious local motel and didn’t tell me? Makes me wonder what else you didn’t tell me.”

“It was Electra’s secret, and her ex-husband. She couldn’t sleep not knowing if he was selling his interest in the land adjacent to hers.”