Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

Temple leaned over to inspect his watch face. “Oh. Ten thirty. You have to leave for work soon.”

Matt shut his eyes. Then he opened them and got out his cell phone. “I’ll alert Electra to be there to help you out when we get home. I can make the radio station in fifteen minutes from the Circle Ritz. You deserve to see Molina eat more crow. And I’m curious too.”

*

An oddly unofficial group of vehicles formed a second circle at the small paved maintenance parking lot for flood-control workers at the end of Aloe Vera Drive, directly behind Violet Weiner’s property.

The pale slash of empty concrete riverbed through the desert and the unlit empty acres that constituted one of Las Vegas’s hundred or so retention basins made civilization seem far, far away.

Matt pulled the Miata to a stop next to Detective Alch’s Crown Vic, obviously Molina’s ride home, because she leaned against its side.

Dirty Larry’s Impala looked low-down and dirty compared to the contemporary vehicles. He sat on the front hood, feet dangling and head down, like a juvenile delinquent.

Rafi Nadir’s black SUV was parked opposite the white Crown Vic. Interesting position and effect, Temple thought.

It wasn’t until Matt off-loaded her and sat her on the Miata’s hood that Temple noticed Max standing on the fringe of the group, sans vehicle. They had converged on this site from all directions for an oddly unofficial, but appropriate, conference.

And it turned out that it all began and ended with … Dirty Larry.

“You planted that Barbie doll in my house,” Molina told Dirty Larry. “Was whatever reason you did it worth your career in law enforcement?” Molina moved into close-confrontation distance.

“We burned the Barbie Doll Killer, didn’t we?” Dirty Larry’s words were a mumble, and his cynical, defiant eyes were downcast for once and stayed there.

Temple couldn’t help thinking that Podesta was a latter-day Rebel with a Cause. But what cause, what point?

“You risked more lives,” Molina said. “Miss Barr’s tonight, for one. And you literally toyed with mine by making it look like my daughter was in danger.”

“And my daughter,” Rafi said, moving toward him, fists balled.

Molina put a hand on his arm. Rafi was off the force, too, and had been for a long time.

“You are through on this police force and any other,” she told Larry.

He shrugged. “For what cause? Flirting with a homicide lieutenant with intent to catch a killer?”

This time Molina took an infuriated step toward the guy, and Rafi put a cautioning hand on her arm.

Alch just pulled out his cuffs. “Lieutenant?”

“Obstruction,” she said between set teeth. “Dereliction of duty. Endangerment of a minor. Public endangerment. Give me a minute. How can I count the ways?”

“Everybody might want to cool down,” Max said from his position aloof from the group. “You all could do each other a lot of career damage, and the loose canon is right: the main objective—identifying and stopping the Barbie Doll Killer—is a done deal.”

“And you’re an expert on not doing oneself a lot of damage,” Molina argued bitterly.

“Yeah. I’m an expert.” Max looked over at Matt, holding Temple protectively tight. “You’re scaring the civilians, officers. Hell, you’re scaring me. You better get your stories straight for the paperwork. Petty vengeance is not going to see any of you through.”

They quieted as his words reminded them no one official had acted entirely “professionally” for the past few months.

Matt eyed him curiously. “You’re not furious this guy got Temple going head-to-head and hand-to-hand with a serial killer?”

“You forget ‘heart-to-heart.’” Max smiled at Temple. “Gandolph chided me for underestimating you. I didn’t even remember you at the time. Sorry about that. Look, Devine. You’re an advisor, a mediator. There’s too much fear and fury bubbling under the surface here. Help us out.”

Meanwhile, Temple couldn’t keep her eyes off the case’s odd man out.

It was rewarding to see all the crime-solving pros with their feathers ruffled over little her stumbling across the Barbie Doll Killer, but it was Dirty Larry who’d bullied the others into pressing forward on the case, no matter what.

“Did you know,” Temple asked Larry, “that you messing with the lead detective’s head and maternal instincts to get her personally involved risked making you a suspect yourself?”

“Sure.” He quirked her a smile that could easily pass as a smirk. “Whatever it took.” His glance ricocheted fast off of Molina’s and Rafi’s. “All I ever wanted was the guy who did that to my stepsister—strangled her almost to death and put her in a living nowhere—stopped. I don’t care what happens to me now.”

Another uneasy silence was turning into wakelike solemnity.

“Sure you do,” a voice said.

Molina’s. And she had more to say.

“And you have a lot more to enlighten us on, but Kinsella is right. We all went off the reservation, either on this case or … related issues. I don’t know all the whys and wherefores of what you did, Larry, and we will go over every bit of it, but I still can’t stomach letting you stay on the force.”

Dirty Larry shrugged again.

Temple realized, hey, gosh, he’d probably grown up in the same nurture-starved environment as his stepsister and suffered from the same lack of—ta-dah—that psychobabble favorite: self-esteem. Actually, that terrible crime had motivated him to get into law enforcement and make sure the elusive killer was caught. So he was as obsessive in his way as the Barbie Doll Killer.…

Max was right. Temple was a bleeding heart. She looked over to find him winking at her.

Meanwhile, Matt was giving her an encouraging hug. Ooh, she was going to ache all over tomorrow from doing the Fireman Drag tonight.

“I’ll mediate for you police persons,” Matt said. “Someplace way more comfortable and conducive to compromise than this wilderness.”

Rafi made a considering face and turned to D. L. “There’s always private security work in Vegas.”

“Not Vegas,” Dirty Larry muttered.

Lieutenant C. R. Molina looked so relieved she actually quirked a smile at Rafi Nadir. He did a Dirty Larry and lowered his glance.

Temple smiled at Matt. He took that for an OK to kiss her hard back into the land of the living.… Danger was an aphrodisiac.

“Devine,” Molina said, not commenting on the kiss. But she could have been, Temple thought. “I’ll pick a neutral location and e-mail you. We’ll … put all the pieces together before breakfast tomorrow.”

Matt gave Temple a look. The last thing he needed tonight was an early morning call, but it sure wasn’t going to put a kink in anything. When he turned to lift her off the hood and into the Miata, she saw Max had vanished. Where had he parked, anyway? Had to be mysterious about everything.

Alch caught up with them before Matt could start the car to leave. “You kids. Get outta here. I’ll calm Carmen and Rafi down,” he told Matt, leaning in the driver’s side open window. “You’ll have sane people to deal with in the morning.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be one of them,” Matt answered.

Alch patted his shoulder. “Sure you will. Mister Midnight knows Elvis.”

“You listen to my show?”

“Hey. I work late hours and live alone. There are worse things to do.”

Alch moved back to the trio of boss and her two onetime suitors.

“I’d hate to be in Larry’s shoes,” Matt said, thinking the same thing Temple was. “For someone as buttoned-down as Molina is, she sure has stirred up a lot of sticky man trouble.”