Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

She’d brought a separate envelope purse that would hold a reporter’s narrow notebook and papers, and with it tucked under her arm, she entered the fluorescent-lit atrium surrounded by leafy plants.

The late middle-aged woman at the reception desk was indeed the Florence Nightingale of St. Rose’s Nursing Home, Barbara by name tag.

“I called earlier,” Temple said, introducing herself. “I’m with the Review-Journal.” Which was perfectly true; she had a folded copy in her handbag.

The woman shook her slightly silvered head. “I suppose it’s good that someone remembers the anniversary of the attack that as good as ended this girl’s life.”

“Her parents don’t visit?” Temple got out her old notebook and pencil, jotting down details.

Barbara ran through the short, sad details.

“Her mother ran off when she was eight. Her father remarried, but the family was hardscrabble, poor and uneducated. Lived in motels, worked the temporary jobs at the low-end of the Strip, handing out flyers for ‘private dancers.’ Let the kids fend for themselves.”

“Kids?”

“The father had a son from a previous marriage. He went into the military later, was quite a bit older than Teresa. Lord knows what chances this girl ever had in life. She’s a ward of the state now. No wonder she was living in an area where such a brutal fate overtook her. I suppose there’s a kind of peace in her current state. You’ll want to see her, I suppose.”

She started to lead Temple down the hall, then paused to stare hard at her. “Have you ever seen anyone in a coma?”

“No, but someone I know was in one recently for a few weeks.”

“And recovered and became functional?”

Temple nodded, carefully. “Memory loss about almost everything before the accident, though.”

“Not uncommon, but the rest … a miracle. Cheer up. Those memory issues can be temporary.”

Somehow Temple was not cheered. Things were complicated enough as it was.

They’d paused beside one of those superwide hospital doors needed to accommodate gurneys, a big blond-wood slab with brushed steel hardware.

“You never saw your friend during the coma?” Barbara asked in a hushed voice.

“No. It happened out of the country.”

Barbara frowned. “Your friend doesn’t happen to be tall, dark, and gauntly handsome?”

“No. No way. No such luck.” Darn that Max! He could make a lasting impression on a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

“His story is oddly familiar to a recent visitor’s case. Well, dear. Sometimes long-term coma patients can look pitiful, but this one’s a regular Sleeping Beauty, a little Kewpie doll, sixteen forever. Pale and peaceful. Is that a comfort or a greater tragedy? I don’t know.”

On that ambiguously encouraging note, Temple stepped into the room.

And stopped.

That damn Max could have warned her. But he wanted her immediate, unvarnished reaction.

“Teresa does look peaceful,” Temple softly told the nurse-receptionist. “Very cared for.” She approached the bed, silencing her heels by tiptoeing. She felt like she was attending a wake. Max could have ended up looking like this, forever.

“She only has one regular visitor, the stepbrother,” Barbara said. “I don’t know if he left the doll for her, or if her parents did before they disappeared. She’s always had it, it seems like. No one has the heart to remove it. We undress and bathe it now and again, just as we do her, daily. They’re a team.”

Temple nodded, hoping her pounding heart wasn’t audible or visible.

“Victim one,” Max had said.

Teresa looked younger than her sixteen years. Had she somehow set off a serial killer? Or had she just happened into someone’s path when he’d gone psycho for some reason?

“Very sad,” the nurse said, the cliché really the only comment possible. “I imagine a reporter must see a lot, that is.”

Temple nodded and backed away, noticing the vase of fresh flowers on the bedside table. She smelled the small tea roses nestled among bigger scentless blossoms, daisies, and carnations.

She didn’t take an easy breath until she was back outside and under the well-lit portico, trying to recall which slot in the dark parking lot beyond held the Miata.

Parking lot. Parking lots, plural.

They were the favored killing ground of the Barbie Doll Killer. The news reports said Teresa had been attacked in a shopping-mall lot, and that was five years ago, before the current fad of auditions for reality TV were everywhere.

Temple skittered fast to the spot where the Miata was barely visible between two oversize pickup trucks. It would be murder backing out past those behemoths without getting her taillights dusted by some passing speed demon.

Parking lots were unsafe in so many ways.

Temple was glad she always put up the car’s top when she parked. She was happy to be back in her small automotive cave, safe, awake, too old to attract the Barbie Doll Killer. Of course, everybody took her for younger. At least her hair wasn’t the blond it had been dyed during the teen reality-TV show, speak of the devil.

She backed the Miata out of its slot, cautiously, slowly.

And a good thing.

A big ole car from the gas-guzzling decades rumbled past with its self-advertising engine. She didn’t know if guys who drove giant trucks or road-hogging rust buckets irritated her more.

She braked to watch the arriving car cruise by in her rearview mirror. The portico lights made the driver’s profile into a sharp silhouette, a familiar one. There was nothing wrong with her memory. What was he doing here? Following her? Creepy.

And then Temple knew. It was the anniversary of Teresa’s attack and the faithful stepbrother would be visiting, for sure.

Dirty Larry Podesta had a very close connection to the disabled girl.

That was why Max couldn’t use Molina or Alch to research her background and the case. He needed to know more before he brought the police in on it. So he had used ever-eager-to-crime-solve Temple Barr.

Dirty Max!

Chapter 40

Boxing Day

Dirty Larry and his truly disturbing connection to what might be the first Barbie Doll Killer victim was best left to pros like Molina and Max, Temple decided.

She had her own case to solve.

When she returned to her place she left a long phone message for Max, with the particulars of Teresa’s background and attack and a sarcastic “Thanks” for sending her in blind.

Teresa’s history, though, had uneasy echoes in Alexandra’s life and death. Temple was starting to get a vague vision of a possible nightmare: two young women, one dead and one as good as, both within the geographic operational area and time frame of the Barbie Doll Killer. Vegas and Tucson. And maybe Jayden’s Sedona, Arizona, too.

Alexandra, though, had died from a fluke and had been much older than the BDK’s teen victims. Somehow, though, Alexandra still felt like a victim to Temple, of her mother’s ambitions and control, if nothing else. Could Alex have had a secret advocate who was bringing grief to her mother in revenge?

Temple decided to reexamine the “treasure box” of Alexandra’s life that she had “borrowed” from the hall shrine. Taking it had been a dumb move. Who did she think she was, Nancy Drew?

Well, yeah.

Violet’s health was so fragile. Temple should return these keepsakes fast if she couldn’t find anything productive here. Once the will was signed, everything in the house would belong to whomever would inherit on Violet’s death.

Temple settled on the living room sofa, Louie by her side. She frowned sternly at him. He never did her the courtesy of lowering the Free-to-Be-Feline bowl a few healthy nuggets while scarfing up the tasty seafood toppings, even though she changed the Free-to-Be-Feline twice weekly. Not one nugget.