Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

“Oh, ma’am,” the man in question couldn’t keep from intervening. “She hasn’t been diverting at all. In fact, I am delighted to be released from the presence of my, er, ex-wife and associates, into the custody of such a fine member of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.”

“Shut up,” Su said. “And sit down, hands on the table. Away from the hat.”

Elmore shrugged at Temple and Electra, and the cats, and did as ordered.

Alch came up behind Su on little cat feet. “Let’s take him upstairs for questioning,” he suggested.“I suppose you think this is funny,” Su said, her dark eyes fixed on Temple.

“No,” Alch said, intervening. “I think you’re right. This is po-lice business. We’re the police and we’ve got the right to question Mt Lark. Let’s do it someplace private, is all I’m saying.”

“Yeah.” Su turned away from the table. “Do you want to tell the old broad not to leave town, or should I?”

Alch’s eyes shut for an instant. They opened to regard Electra. “Miss Lark, we’d advise you to stay in town, in case we want to talk to you again. It would be even better if you didn’t abuse your permission to be at the convention by getting into arguments with the victim’s ex-husband. It could look suspicious.”

Electra had really appreciated that “Miss.” Especially now.

She began beaming at the start of Alch’s speech but gradually lost her glow and was fervently glum by the ending word “suspicious.”

“Thank you, Detective. You can count on me concentrating on Red Hat Sisterhood activities that are completely amusing and innocent.”

Su snorted like a horse. Or a Shetland pony, in her instance.

Luckily, she didn’t stamp a petulant hoof.

From the rubber-soled clunky Mary Janes she wore, Templethought the petite thump she could produce would lack a certain heavy-metal pizzazz that horseshoes and tap shoes share.

“Lightweight:’ Temple muttered under her breath as Elmore Lark left the room under the oddball escort of Alch and Su.

Beside her, Electra let out a deep breath and let her head droop to the tabletop. “Holy hypocrite! That bastard lied. About everything. I’m amazed he isn’t the dead body in the morgue.”

“You better hope he’s not, because you have police witnesses to wishing him dead.”

“Not seriously—”

“Everything here is serious now, Electra. Don’t let the happy high of the Red Hat Sisterhood lead you astray. We are hip-deep in trouble.”

It was only then Temple noticed that the black cats had slipped out of the conference room on the heels of Elmore and Merry and Morrie.

Oh, shoot. She and Electra weren’t even serious enough players to keep the attention of a couple of cats!

Louie and Louise, how could you?

Chapter 21

The Third Degree

“That was not very nice,” Louise observed as we shimmied through the air-conditioning vents.

The Las Vegas summer was firing up for the main event, and I have to admit that my seasoned joints were not doing the horizontal crawl with youthful enthusiasm.

Miss Midnight Louise, of course, was going for a world record in on-land airshaft-swimming.

“What was not nice?”

“Leaving the ladies behind so we could tail the cops. That Detective Su is as mean as a Persian queen in heat”

“She is just annoyed with our MissTemple for beating her out on the undercover job at the Teen Idol competition. They are like feuding sisters and Miss Lieutenant Molina is their mama.”

“Do not let MissTemple hear that idea. She would take you off at the tail.”

“Tut. I know how to handle these human females, unlike most human males. A little purr and rub here, a little manly huff and puff there, and they are all eating out of the palm of my paw.”

“Especially Miss Detective Su.” She is being sarcastic, and I forbear to reply to that comment.

“That is why we are going over ground. Once we reach the vent into the Lalique Suite, we will hear and see all while remaining not seen and not heard.”

“Like very lucky human children.”

“Hush! We are almost, hah! There.”

We hunker down, side to side and face to face, all the better to see and hear through the grille.

“I am jest an innocent bystander,” that heroic lonesome cowboy, Elmore Lark, is whining to the two detectives. “I jest came down from Reno to check on my little fillies.”

Even a good ole boy like me can see that the phrase “little fillies” is not going over with Miss Detective Su. Even Mr. Detective Alch winces at that one.

“Look, Elmore,” Su says. “I can call you ‘Elmore,’ can I not?”

“Sure, lady. Uh, Lieutenant.”

Alch chuckles.

“Detective will do,” Su tells him. “Are you saying that you never divorced Electra, wife number one?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Divorce is a very exact thing, like murder, Elmore. Which is it?”

“The papers were not quite right.”

“And you did this because–”

“Oleta was a hot potato.” He glanced at Alch for backup, but Alch was too savvy to do more than look as stony as a new president on Mount Rushmore.

Elmore shrugged. “Fun, but … touchy. I figured I could always get Electra back–”

Su put a trouser leg up on the chair next to Elmore. It was a fancy Italian leather chair, but she had no shame at resting her mall shoe-shop ersatz leather boot on top of it. (I have learneda few things from my MissTemple and her extensive shoe collection.)

“You are a dirty dog, Elmore. I bet there are a lot of women who would like to see you swing for murder.”

“Ah, they do not hang people anymore.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Ye-ah.”

“And the worst part of your cheesy operation is you set one woman against another and then slip away all innocentlike. You are not innocent, are you?”

“Of murder, yes.”

“So who do you think offed Oleta? Between us.” Su’s boot swiveled like it was about to crush out a cigarette. Elmore’s gentleman’s area was directly across from it on the next chair. I swallowed in fellow sympathy. Even the sinister Hyacinth had never touched claw to my, er, play balls.

“She has got him on the run,” Louise chortled next to me. “Or having the runs,” she adds with that peculiarly feminine zest for certain forms of violence against men who done them wrong. “I do not know what has gotten into the China Doll of the LVMPD,” I say, truly amazed.

And that is when my man, Detective Morrie Alch, rises to the occasion.

“We will need to see your marriage and divorce papers,” he tells Elmore Lark. “To both women, and any others you may have promised to love and obey for all time.”

“I am not the greatest housekeeper,” Lark says. As if one could not tell that from the wrinkles in his checked shirt. “Aren’t there records you people can check in the blink of a computer cursor?”

Su leans closer, all glare. “Sure. But we want to see what you are flashing around, claiming to be genuine.”

“And where were you yesterday morning?” Alch asks.

“At home in Reno. I drove right down when I heard about Oleta on the nightly news.”

“We had not released her name to the press yet.” Su is re-lentless. “Not enough information about next of kin. If you were on any lists in that regard, you sure did not show up.”

“We divorced too. A few years ago.”

“So why are you really in town?” Alch slipped that in with such an easygoing tone that Lark was answering before he thought about it.

“Some old business with Electra.”

“She knew you were coming?”

“Nah. I did not even know all these red-and-purple ladies would be in town.”