Unknown - 22_Cat_In_An_Ultramarine_Scheme

The former reporter in Temple was working up a righteous rage, but the Magdalen atrocities had long been revealed, though the hidden sins of the Roman Catholic Church in that regard persisted the way Wall Street CEOs’ unbelievable millions in “bonuses” persisted after the entire country’s economy crashed in 2008.

You had to admire Revienne for wading into that cesspool of damage with her fresh shrink credentials and, well, media-ready personal attributes. This woman definitely looked “Illegally Blonde.”

Jeesh, thought Temple, staring at another image of Revienne, designer-suited up and sleek, what is it with these European femme fatales? Thirty-seven, single, dedicated to her work. It didn’t seem … natural for a woman this attractive to have no marriage history or romantic links, but she was a Frenchwoman. She’d have no trouble connecting with men wherever she went.

Temple wondered why this perfect, and even selfless, career woman gave her the creeps. A big black bar flashed across the screen and slapped Revienne Schneider right in the elegantly aloof blonde kisser. It was a furry tail.

“Louie! You scared me. When’d you get home? And from where? And why are you playing computer-screen smackdown with the beautiful blonde stranger in town?”

He hunkered low on the desktop, covering Temple’s notepapers and pen and a quarter of the computer keyboard. He began grooming his slap-happy paw and purring loud enough to imitate a queen bee hive.

“Apparently,” Temple said, “you don’t like gorgeous blonde interlopers on our crime scene, either.”

Louie just yawned to show his carnivore-red mouth and flash his white baby-shark’s teeth.

Temple was still mooning at this image of tall blonde perfection when her old-fashioned doorbell rang. Avon calling? Maybe.

Right now she was about convinced that finding the right facial foundation might make her look taller. She padded barefoot to the entry hall, and voilà …

“You!” Temple was sorry she’d answered her doorbell, though it was too nice of a one to ignore. Now she wished she’d just stood behind the closed door, enjoying a long, sonorous melody of bells until her visitor had given up and gone away.

Unfortunately, her visitor was not the type to give up and go away. Ever.

“I thought my life had been too blessed to be true lately,” Temple grumbled as she stepped aside for Amazonian homicide officer C. R. Molina, in the extenuated flesh. And wearing flats! “And here I thought we were drinking buddies,” Lieutenant C. R. Molina said, crossing onto Temple’s black-and-white-tiled entry-hall floor with her giant Big and Tall Women low-heeled loafers.

Flatfoot was right!

Even without high heels, the homicide officer still towered over her. Well, why not? Temple not only went mostly barefoot at home, she knew she looked particularly shrimpy at the moment, wearing her longest T-shirt belted as a short knit dress.

Molina was eyeing Temple’s bare pink toes with their scarlet nail polish looking like blood drops on the black-and-white checkerboard of cool marble.

“So that’s your secret to stomping around on spikes all over the Strip. At home you’re a closet toe nudist. Even Mariah had more ‘toe’ at age nine.”

“My toes are off-limits. How is Mariah?”

“She’s fine. I understand from Van von Rhine that you’ve recently met an old school friend of hers, Revienne Schneider.”

“Just in passing in Van’s office. Why on Earth would you be interested in Van’s European school friends?”

“So you’d never heard of or met this woman before?” Molina asked.

“Nope. Why’d you ask about her?”

“After the body in the vault—oh, Lord, that sounds so Agatha Christie!—everyone new at the Crystal Phoenix is a person of interest to the police. Detective Ferraro has his hands full with the cast of dozens on the scene. I decided to consult your friends and business associates in the Fontana crime family. They were quite forthcoming about such exotic recent imports as Mr. Tomás Santiago and Miss Revienne Schneider.”

“Santiago was Nicky’s find,” Temple said, taking the chance to defend herself while she had it. “The body in the vault was a freak accident, I swear. I didn’t do it to drum up publicity for the hotel, and I don’t think Crawford Buchanan did it, even though he deserves a murder rap, and I am totally cooperating with Detective Ferraro and any minions he may have, because the Crystal Phoenix really needs to shut this incident down.”

“Not a stupendous opening stunt for a mob museum,” Molina agreed, eyeing the pale living-room sofa for big black blots with claws in residence.

“Santiago is, unfortunately, all for real,” she went on. “His avant-garde architectural work is well known and respected internationally. Revienne Schneider shows up as a world-renowned expert in her field. Her only flaw—Well, I looked as hard for some as you probably did, but I found only two things awry.”

“Two things! What a relief.” Temple sighed.

“One would think an international expert doing a workshop at a local university would be a much ballyhooed event on the Web site, at least, if not in a course catalog. Not so with Dr. Schneider.”

“Van seemed to be hosting her at the eleventh hour too,” Temple noted.

“She’d come here directly from Zurich, which is not her home or office base.”

“But she and Van attended a Swiss prep school. They would have Swiss friends in common.”

“Being a proud graduate of Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy in East L.A.,” Molina said, “I wouldn’t know about Swiss prep-school friends. Interpol tells me there was some sort of recent upset at an Alpine Swiss clinic. Dr. Schneider left abruptly and notified the clinic later from Zurich that she wouldn’t be returning.”

“Maybe the visiting professor here needed her to bail him out.”

“So you don’t find her presence just before the murder was discovered to be suspicious?”

Now was the time for Temple to blab or babble about the Synth and the forgotten thirteenth sign of the zodiac and the suspicious shape of the victim’s red cloak lining.

Yeah, Molina would really crack the whip and have Ferraro follow those lines of inquiry.

“This is clearly a local affair,” Temple said. “Weird but all too local. That’s Vegas.”

Molina eyed Temple hard, then nodded her satisfaction.

“Good,” she said, plopping down on the cushions like she owned the place. “I’ll take something cool and slightly alcoholic. Don’t fuss. Whatever’s handy.”

She smiled and lifted the strong, dark eyebrows Temple had always thought were in desperate need of plucking. On the other hand, the Brooke Shields look had worked for her for years. So … Molina was working her, Temple?

Think again. She banged around the tiny kitchen that suited her just fine and returned with two tall, festive glasses filled with something the color of watermelon juice.

“Pretty pale sangria,” Molina commented, taking a sip.

Temple sat on a chair at the end of the glass-topped coffee table, checking to see that her no-sweat, absorbent stone coasters were out. As usual, what was left of daily newspapers these days littered the coffee-table top. No PHOENIX REVIVAL ACT FOR BIZARRE BODY IN HIDDEN HOTEL VAULT was the gripping three-line head over the one-column front-page teaser story for a more-detailed inside report.

“Front page,” Molina commented. “A publicist’s dream. Unless the topic is antiproductive. What is this stuff?”

“Newsprint? How soon they forget. Oh, you mean the drink. It’s not like I keep a fully stocked bar.”

“What is it?” Like all homicide detectives, even off-duty Molina wanted answers, pronto.