Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

“He’s also Electra’s ex-husband,” Temple announced.

“No!” Alice started scribbling furiously in her notebook. “One of us had better check out the Araby Motel and Mr. Double X in person.”

“Two of you,” Temple cautioned. “And take a Fontana brother with you. Pick one you like the looks of and go.”

This caused a ripple of anticipation among the feathered hat brims.

“There are more Fontana brothers?” Starla batted metallic purple false eyelashes.

“Several,” Temple admitted. “Just ask Emilio outside for a name. Tell him where you’re going, and why, and that I said you need an escort. Alice and Mary Lou, you’d better do that.”

There were pouts all around the table, but not on Alice and Mary Lou.

“Meanwhile,” Temple said, “what else do we know about the victim?”

“Well—” Phyll leaned forward. Her tone was the familiar one of a woman letting her hair, or hat, down to give the real story.

“Oleta Lark had written a memoir, her local chapter tells me. About her lousy life, before and after Elmore Lark. A New York publisher was willing to pay big bucks, she said, but it was going to investigate her, now that everybody knows people make up things about their lives, as why wouldn’t we? Given how boring things can be?”

“Any copies of this memoir?” Temple asked.

“Large chunks of it on e-mail, to assorted Red Hat Sisterhood members. Nobody knows who all was on the list, but there were a lot of them.”

“I suppose her friends were encouraging her.”

“Right. And she was leading them on with juicy detail after juicy detail.”

“Like what?” Temple said.

“This isn’t good for Electra.”

“Like what?” Temple said in a sterner tone. “We have to investigate, whoever it hurts. Or seems to. The truth is like the Lone Ranger. It’s always out there, it’s often masked, and it always sets you free.”

“Oh, that’s deep,” Starla breathed.

“Not really,” Temple said modestly. “What was in her memoirs about Electra?”

Judy cleared her throat. “I’ve interviewed several e-mail recipients. Oleta said Electra couldn’t give Elmore the hot sex life he needed. That she cared more about their son and was always after him to father the kid. I guess Elmore was a wild and crazy guy. Party animal.”

“No doubt that’s where he met Oleta.” Starla pronounced “Oh-leeet-ah” in an exaggerated catty tone.

Everybody laughed.

Not Temple. If the dead woman was runnlng Electra down not only in her memoirs, but in leaks to other Red Hat Sisterhood members, that only upped the ante on Electra’s being a credible suspect.

“And then there’s that reference to Oleta having married a bigamist,” Phyll said.“A bigamist? Let me see that e-mail.”

This was bad. Bigamy, and exposing it, was no laughing matter. It affected a lot more people than the victim and perp.

Such as her dear landlady who was soon to find out that her long-gone ex may not be an ex.

Chapter 14

Film Noir

The meeting with the Red-Hatted League had Temple walking on figurative Airsteps instead of Argenti for a change. That was an investigative team!

She merged with all the other hatted women milling in the Lobby, jazzed by their energy and verve.

Kit, a symphony in lavender and pink, came skittering up to Temple like a glamorous water bug.

“Kiddo! I’ve got a hot lead.”

“I’m all hat.”

“There’s a woman here.”

“No kidding.”

“And she’s filming the event.““Filming?”

“Yes. You get it. She might have filmed something suspicious. She might have even filmed the murder.”

“Wouldn’t she know it?”

“That’s just it. She’s running around with this cute little camcorder in front of God and Her Royal High-Hatness and all, but she’s also carrying a tote bag big enough to smuggle in a Spielberg track camera.”

“And you think—?”

“I think the cute kitty-eye on that bag front could go headto-head with your Midnight Louie.”

“Another camera? A hidden camera?”

“You ever see TV news show exposés? Besides, I’ve seen the indie filmmakers use that trick dozens of times, when they want ‘authenticity.’ It’s very easy to record people surreptitiously nowadays.”

“Why would she do this?”

“You’re the shameless shamus, not me. Find out. Anyway, I’m due for a drink with Aldo in the Crystal Court

.”

“How will I recognize her?” Temple asked, eyeing the sea of red hats surrounding them, along with islands of pink.

“She’s wearing the uniform, although her colors are burgundy and eggplant, but her shoes are green snakeskin platform espadrilles. So appropriate, I suspect. You’re the shoe maven. Follow the green snakeskin road.”

Kit dashed away like she had someone tall, dark, and handsome … and Italian to meet.

Temple sighed. She had someone tall, blond, and handsome … and betrothed to meet. When she could get away from this chaos.

So she did what she did best, wandered and looked hard.

Most of the footwear here was low, well padded, and comfortable. Red Hat Sisters had pizzazz, but they weren’t fashion victims.

Temple’s heart thrummed to the thrill of the hunt when she spied a pair of hot pink Ferragamos, but that was just Savannah Ashleigh doing her media thing.

Green. Either Irish or jealous. Or both.

It took a couple of hours of dedicated foot watching for Temple to find the shoes in question.

The woman wearing them was the incarnation of Little Mary Sunshine. Everywhere she went, her cooing voice coaxed celebrating women into standing and delivering a great group shot.

And every group shot was backgrounded by something not so wonderful.

Like HRH getting into a face-to-face with a Vanity Fair magazine interviewer who was obviously gay in the Truman Capote mode. Seeing over-the-top females and flagrantly gay men together made Temple wonder why some gay men identified with often-troubled ultra-female women divas like Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. And they all made great drag queens.

Maybe because being “different” was a universal badge. And expressing yourself completely was only human.

Even Electra had been “different” for her time. She’d pulled loose from a bunch of husbands and had ended up running her own unique little world off the Strip here in Las Vegas.

Aha! There were those grass-green snakeskin six-inch-high platform espadrilles again!

Temple dodged out from the mob and turned on the threadbare charm for Snakeskin Stilts.

“Hi, there. I’m a local PR woman. You seem to have a good handle on this event. What’s your secret?”

“Empathy,” said the woman, turning and scanning behind Temple as if expecting a network camera to be focused upon her. “Isn’t empathy always the secret in the media game?”

“Or the scam.”

“Aren’t you the little cynic?”

Temple hated it when taller, older women pointed out her size.

“My name is TempleBarr. I really need to ask you some questions someplace quiet.”

“Around here?”

“How about the Crystal Court

bar? I bet you could stand to get off those high-rise shoes. I know I could use a break from mine.”

The woman eyed Temple’s pink pumps and nodded. Curtly. “Natalie Newman. What’s this about?”

“The murder.”

“Oh.” Natalie was about forty, an angular, skinny woman who adeptly substituted urban chic for natural beauty. “A freelance stringer can always use a lead on murder. Lead me to this island of peace called a bar. It’ll probably be standing room only.”

It was, except Aldo spotted Temple at the entrance instantly. He abandoned Kit to snag a small table tucked under the Hawaiian-lush greenery that surrounded the bar area.