Unknown - 23_Cat_In_A_Vegas_Gold_Vendetta

“The first two photos of Alexandra playing with her cats came to Violet from Tucson. I think the Barbie doll photo was sent to Violet’s daughter in Tucson and she reclaimed it on Alexandra’s death, along with her daughter’s cats. Alexandra was probably collecting Barbie dolls as an adult, but Rowdy took them before Violet arrived, and kept them to … experiment on, and leave at his death scenes later.”

Matt couldn’t contain himself any longer. “That guy would be sick beyond belief. He must have hated the mother and possibly tried to kill her through her daughter. And the dolls.”

“Voodoo Barbie dolls,” Molina said. “I like it. I’d most like to see you try to sell that theory to a prosecuting attorney, Miss Barr, but that’s not possible now.”

“It makes sense if you realize that one of the three rooms beyond the hallway shrine to Alexandra was kept locked. That wrinkled satin-ribbon bookmark in diary number two is kinked because a key was tied to its bottom. I thought at first it was a weight or a commercial decorative touch, but it unlocked the door to Alexandra’s bedroom.”

“The fire room.” Alch’s seamed forehead grew more rumpled. “A bedroom is a psychological battleground in some murders.”

“Enough already, Morrie.” Molina was growing impatient. She was the one used to holding forth on sequences of events.

Temple decided she needed to present the heart of her case, what she had discovered here last night in Violet’s house, besides heartbreak and delusion and missing cats.

“I opened the bedroom door and walked in. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling in stacked Barbie doll boxes, maybe two layers deep. I recognized some of the most collectible models from the Web.”

“Obsessive,” Matt said, “but a motive for murder or attempted murder?”

“They’d be worth plenty, the whole collection, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars, but that’s not the point. Nobody knew about them but Alexandra and Violet. Ironically, any greedy hangers-on would have had a jackpot, but the collection is only ashes now.”

“Not even a shapely Barbie gam left to ID,” Molina put in. “All the melted goo in the room puzzled the fire investigators.”

“What are little girls made of nowadays?” Temple mused. “Not sugar and spice, but skin-soft vinyl bodies and synthetic hair. Not even the rare porcelain-bodied ones survived?”

Molina shook her head. “Must have shattered on impact from falling to the floor. All that cardboard and cellophane packaging was highly flammable tinder. Those hundreds of glamorous dolls melted like the Wicked Witch of the West. So why was the collection secret? What is the point, Barr?”

Things were getting tight when Molina dropped the “Miss” from Temple’s surname.

“The point is that Violet never let Alexandra open a doll box. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be to a kid? No wonder she grew up into a Barbie kind of girl and woman and auditioned to become a star in her own right as a model. Alexandra probably began listening to her mother’s put-downs of Rowdy Smith and dumped him.

“He found her shallow, and superior, so his infatuation turned into fury, such fury that he needed more than the clever, undetectable murder to end it. He needed to destroy all the Barbie doll women out there who in his mind would reject him again and again if they lived to be able to do it. He started to practice defacing the Barbie dolls and then targeted Alexandra/Barbie look-alikes auditioning for fame on the reality shows. The first he attempted to strangle was Teresa Paddock, Larry’s stepsister.”

Matt and Molina had both been nodding agreement during Temple’s recital.

“Meanwhile, he moved to Las Vegas on the pretext of being near the bereaved Violet, who still had no time for him. But he clung on, playing the good guy and waiting for Violet to weaken so he could undo her fondest hopes. He’s the one who was letting the cats out, leaving Violet bereft as he had been and blaming her dislike of him for Alexandra’s death.”

Molina stirred on the sofa. “What would you call that, Mister Devine?”

“Turning the victim into the villain. Someone else is always responsible for the person’s destructive actions.”

“Rather like,” Molina pointed out, “the nut-job abuser who blamed you for convincing his wife to leave him through your radio counseling show. Your job seems almost as perilous as being a public-relations expert.”

She pointedly returned her high-intensity blue gaze to Temple.

Golly, that laser-light stare would convince Temple to confess to something, even to acting as a private investigator for Savannah Ashleigh. She dearly hoped that little detail never had to become public knowledge beyond this small circle.

“Tell us,” Alch urged, “how you ended up an action hero and saved Jayden’s skin while the Barbie Doll Killer went up in smoke.”

“I’ll need an official statement taken at the office,” Molina said. “Meanwhile, the jury of two is out on Larry Podesta, so we need to know all the facts you think you know.”

“I think Rowdy Smith killed Pedro. He wasn’t just letting cats out. He was trying to kill them so their bodies would be found and word would get back to further torment Violet. Pedro probably caught him attempting that by the flood channel.”

“Speaking of cats,” Molina interrupted, frowning at her khaki denim pants legs, against which a pair of tortoiseshell cats was rubbing … in between long, connoisseur sniffs of same, “where are all of these coming from?”

“They’re all Violet’s. They’re coming back from wherever they went when they were let out. They smell your own housecats on your clothes. It’s nothing personal.”

“It’s damn annoying.” Molina bent to brush the red and black hairs from her khaki denim pants leg, but they clung like burrs.

“It’s a great sign that some of Violet’s cats survived Rowdy and the fire,” Temple said. “To answer your question, Detective Alch, I was probably becoming too visible a snoop when I returned the box and albums I’d ‘borrowed’ to take home and study. Rowdy had probably arrived before me to find Jayden announcing the will had finally been signed, the last thing he wanted, a prospective heir-cum-executor taking over the care of Violet and the house.

“I’d, um, discreetly entered the locked bedroom and was standing there bedazzled by those walls of Barbie dolls, realizing the three cases were linked.”

“Pardon, Miss Barr.” Molina’s voice was steel silk. “Just what ‘three cases’ are you referring to?”

“The Barbie Doll Killer case and death of Violet’s handyman…”

Temple knew better than to say in front of Detective Alch “my case” investigating Pedro’s death. It was bad enough that Molina knew she’d signed on as a PI for Savannah Ashleigh. “And the attack on Larry’s stepsister. I’m betting Teresa was found with that Barbie doll and it was taken for a talisman of hers personally, not a sign of a freshman killer’s contempt, dropped before he could violate it, as well as before he’d actually strangled Teresa quite to death.”

Matt’s hand reached the unbandaged top of her left hand, ringless until she healed enough to ditch the dressings and the messy ointments. “And I think I handle some dark subject matter on my radio show,” he said.

“The successful investigator,” Molina answered him, “has to face the blackest depths of human nature and speculate from there.”

Alch jumped up to dislodge a longhaired brown tabby cat that had come up on the sofa to settle in his lap and listen attentively to the proceedings.

“I heard that one called Maverick,” Temple said. “All the cats are coming back. Isn’t that interesting?”