Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

Molina tossed down another image.

Rafi Nadir. Her ex-lover, father of Mariah, long ago abandoned, or fled from, in L.A.

“I like Rafi,” Temple said.

Molina’s head reared back in surprise.

Temple smiled to herself to have shaken the cool authority figure this woman had created as much as the hot jazz singer Carmen. Talk about bipolar! Then again, “woman cop” had been an impossibility in her mother’s generation.

“He seems okay,” Alch conceded. “Still has a chip on his shoulder.”

“Still has a daughter who doesn’t know who he is,” Temple told Alch.

Alch nodded. “Fathers and daughters. It’s a … special relationship.”

“Will you two shut up?” Molina had lost her cool control. “I asked you here because I want your memory banks and your objective considered opinion. If I’d wanted personal snipers, I’d have asked … someone else.”

“Asked?” Temple asked Alch.

“It’s her way,” he told Temple. “Guys wouldn’t listen if she wasn’t emphatic; then they called her a … you know.”

“I’ve been called uppity,” Temple admitted.

“Funny. You don’t look black.”

“Same biased principle.”

“Shut up!” Molina bellowed. “You two aren’t listening to me as much as any sexist pig.”

“Do you mean ‘pig’ in the sense of an unattractive female?” Temple began.

“Or a cop?” Alch finished.

In answer, Molina slapped down the next and apparently last head shot.

“Dirty Larry all cleaned up,” Temple said in surprise.

The guy had what used to be called a crew cut, his skull shape exposed under a blondish mowed lawn, and such a beard-free shaved jaw it would have appeared naked on HDTV, which was saying something. His gaze and features were clear and sharp. He looked like the class valedictorian.

“He must be a terrific actor,” Temple said. “He totally owns the Dirty Larry persona now.”

“He’s a cop,” Molina said, eyeing the photo with an odd, almost rueful distance. “Under cover, but a cop. Probably a good one once.”

She shook off her mood and gestured to all the mug shots.

“These are the five people who were here, besides me, the evening I discovered Mariah had run off. These are the people who were here when we found, and didn’t find”—she eyed Alch—“the mutilated Barbie doll in Mariah’s bedroom. I’ve ruled out you two as having anything to do with the … manipulations that night. I want you to remember everything, every detail your naturally observant brains saw but didn’t process in the one, wacky way that would explain … everything. I’m convinced we three know something we don’t put much importance on, but it’s the key to why this house, and perhaps me and Mariah, have been targets the past few weeks.

“I want you to put your thinking caps on, study the photos and sit here until they light up and you proclaim, ‘Bingo! Eureka! Jimmy Choo-choos!’—or whatever rings your bells.”

“Jimmy Choo shoes,” Temple corrected.

Molina stared at her.

“They call them Jimmy Choo shoes. Details are important to get right, lieutenant. I believe that’s what you’re telling us. I will bet you a pair of Stuart Weitzman flats for Louboutin platform heels that we will crack this conundrum in an hour flat.”

“And I want a beer,” Alch added. “A bottle of Tutankhamun Ale, available for a king’s ransom.”

“Dream on,” Molina said. “I can offer you both a cold Dos Equis after the job’s done.” She scanned the rogue’s list of suspects. “One of these people had to have left the Barbie doll in Mariah’s bedroom that evening. It had to be an inside job.”

“You’re missing someone you didn’t even think of.” Temple leaned back with a smug expression.

“Who?”

“You.”

“Like I’m going to…” Molina unbent from leaning over the photos. “You’re right,” she told her captive guests. “Everyone should be accounted for. Back in a minute.”

Molina did a rapid soft-shoe back down the hall, which startled Temple. On the job, Molina walked with an emphatic low-heeled-boot stomp.

“You can be annoying,” Alch said, with a sigh. “Carmen’s been seriously aggravated enough by personal matters lately. I wouldn’t push it.”

Temple just shrugged. She saw where Molina was going. “She’s set up this game of real-life Clue, detective. We need every piece in place to play it.”

“Does anyone even play board games anymore?”

“On computers.”

By then Molina had returned with one last printed-out eight-by-ten.

Molina threw the last “card” down on the table, her own straightforward police ID mug shot, her expression dead serious because a woman had to mean business 24/7 in a man’s world.

That reminded Temple why she so enjoyed working in a liberal-arts area, with words, where being small and smart and female was not a triple handicap. She had to wonder how much Molina’s height—whether you considered it mannish or high-fashion-model tall—had helped her career.

Temple had seen archives on the first women in police work a couple decades back. They tended to be petite, entry-level officers with ultrafeminine hair, makeup, and nails, who made cop wives uneasy. Had they been law-enforcement groupies, or had they just not known not to use feminine wiles? Not Molina’s problem!

“What do we do now?” Alch asked in the lengthening silence as Molina studied the row of faces.

“‘Try to remember…’” Temple sang from the sentimental song.

“‘That kind of September…’” Molina dropped the singing voice and finished, “is months off.”

“‘September Song’ is my theme nowadays,” Alch said, and leaned forward to contemplate each black-and-white face. “You must have forgotten you could put the HP printer on color, Carmen,” he told Molina, “but the starker likenesses will probably shake up our memories more. This feels like a film-noir showdown, only all our suspects are mute.”

“Yeah,” Temple said, sitting up, refreshed and alert. “They can’t talk back, confuse the issue, or spout lies and alibis. Okay. You two were here when I dragged in Crawford Buchanan, per my instructions.”

“We need to go back to before you arrived, hard as that may be for Miss Zoe Chloe Ozone’s ego to take.” Molina snatched up a photo and waved it. “Dirty Larry Podesta was also here when you arrived. Do you remember seeing him?”

Temple nodded. “I remember thinking I couldn’t decide if he grew up as military brat or a plain street punk.”

Alch chuckled.

Molina glowered.

“Carmen,” Alch said, “I never figured why you were letting that insubordinate loner hang around.”

“I needed someone to do what you’ve been doing for me lately, Morrie.”

Temple sat forward, all ears and eager hopes. Just what had Dirty Larry and Morrie Alch been doing for Molina lately? If only it was something juicy that proved the hard-boiled homicide dick had female hormones.

Nothing further was said. The next photo Molina had snatched up was … Awful Crawford’s.

“You arrived with this piece of … garbanzo beans,” she told Temple, “and I needed to do a private interrogation on him, so I dragged him down to Mariah’s room, sat him in front of the computer, and showed him his questionable lecherous kiddo-performing site, which Detective Alch had found on Mariah’s ‘Favorites’ list.”

“Wait a minute,” Temple said. “Could Awful Crawford have planted the Barbie doll during your bedroom interrogation? Wow, that sounds as sleazy as he is.”

Luckily, Molina had found Temple’s idea arresting and ignored her editorial comments.

“Mariah’s room is the usual ten by eleven and piled with girlie mess,” Temple went on, “with clothes and school materials and makeup and stuffed toys and posters. It’d be easy to sneak one more item in.”