Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

Temple had never seen so many sparkling eyes, whether under white hair or gaudy wig. Every gal here was a one-woman support group for every other gal here. One, in her late eighties, had driven in from California, Red Hat regalia packed in her red convertible.

The red and purple colors everywhere made even the feeblest woman look vibrant. Temple was soaking up energy. Zap! Thatshe had even for a moment thought thirty-one was a significant birthday seemed so incredibly shallow now that she wanted to run around the block thirty-one times in penance, and a Las Vegas Strip block was gigantic!

And penance was a Catholic concept, Matt’s hang-up, not hers.

And yet. She was beginning to see that she’d be as baffled by Max’s instant and unhailed defection in thirty years as now. And that a sixty-something her would still have a thirtyish heart, and memory, as these women did.

So. This killing and perhaps attempted killing weren’t silly senior citizen affairs, but possibly came from the still-living heart of what may have happened decades ago. Our bodies aged, but our deepest, dearest … and darkest … emotions didn’t.

How could a callow, thirty-going-on-thirty-one filly like her solve mysteries of the heart leading to murder at the other end of the age kaleidoscope?

Chapter 30

Mad as a Hatter

“I am so humiliated,” Miss Midnight Louise says.

I am so amazed. I did not think anything could humiliate this feline Gloria Steinem.

Gloria Steinem is a passé name in the media world now. Have you noticed what rare birds major media feminists are nowadays? Myself, I could not be happier about it. After witnessing the brouhaha outside the Crystal Phoenix, I am thinking my sympathies lie with the Black Hat Brotherhood. I do not wear a hat, but I am black.

Miss Midnight Louise is black like me and she does not wear a hat, but I sense that we have our differences, as usual.

“Those Black Hat Brotherhood thugs,” she fusses. “Turning my turf into a circus act.”-You think that the Red Hat ladies were not already doing that?”

“Only in the sense of admirable joie de vivre.”

Okay, my “joie” is about to go DOA. Dead On Arrival. “You have to admit that they are a rather … feathery … lot,” I say. “It is all in the name of fun.”

“The last time I looked, pursuing feathers was in the name of survival for our species.”

“Only in the wild. And in the wild, the male of the species is usually the more colorful and flagrant. That is so unfair. It is only right that these Red Hat Sisterhood ladies opt for a brighter plumage in their mature years.”

“So what can I look forward to you wearing in your mature years, which are admittedly a fair ways off?”

“Not a flamingo fedora:’ she says, referring to my unfortunate brief stint as a cat food commercial huckster wearing that obnoxious article.

Gadzooks, Midnight Louie is cooked! I did not think anyone remembered my ill-fated venture into TV stardom. The greatest and most effective weapon of a female, what makes her indeed deadlier than the male, is a long memory.

“This was a put-up job,” I comment.

“I thought so too. Your MissTemple was caught flat-footed, which is hard to do with a person as prone to wearing stiletto heels as she is.”

“Flat-footed at first. That is permissible. The last I saw, she was flying around like a madwoman trying to put a lid on things.”

“I see we are back to the subject of hats,” she notes.

“Yes. It is odd that no one much wears hats today, and yet they are so central to this case.”

“Central how?”

“A plethora of hats at a convention can hide a lot of things.”

“Identities,” she suggests.

“Yes.”

“Weapons?”

“Could be. The crown of a hat can conceal a lot. Not to mention all the hatboxes being toted into this hotel.”

“Humph. The best concealing headgear so far is the high-crowned ten-gallon hats those would-be cowboys affect.”

“Yup,” I say.

“They are the loose cannons in this convention.”

“But they are not in this convention. They are convention-crashers.”

“I wonder why.”

“They have grievances, or think they do.”

“Still, why make a spectacle of themselves?”

“Their so-called ex-better halves are having all the fun?”

“That is a silly motive. Men are used to going off and drinking beer and shooting things all on their own. Why should they deny the women in their lives the harmless hobbies of shopping, spending money, and looking outrageous?”

“All those things you describe could be addictions to the weak human personality.”

“As if you are not addicted to catnip and female gullibility!”

“Females? Gullible? Louise. Please

“Some are,” she says softly. “And these women with their red chapeaux and Chardonnay and brave spirits are fighting off what could be a lonely old age with others of their kind. Ma Barker is such a one, with no mate, no certain home, and many dependents to look after.”

“She will have a home,” I growl. “At the Circle Ritz. I just have to get my people’s attention off the hullabaloo and homicide here so I can enlighten them on what is needed under their very noses and on their doorstep.”

“That is very noble of you, Dadster.”

I cringe, as usual, at the impudent form of address.

She muses on. “I am not about to let Mr. Max go gently into that dark night. I find the doings at his address most suspicious and intend to stake it out indefinitely. So I guess you will have to spring Miss Electra Lark from suspicion, or Ma Barker and her gang will have traipsed the length of Las Vegas, at your recommendation, from Nowheresville to Nothingsville for naught.”

Sigh. Miss Midnight Louise sure knows how to sand the luster off a guy’s topcoat.

But the kit has it right. If I wish my easily distractible Circle Ritz gang to get on with the program and help my disenfranchised kind, I will have to solve this murder for them. Again.

Amazing. I take on a little job of rehabilitation for the homeless. Then, suddenly, I am whiskers deep in homicide and red hats and it is not even a Vatican conspiracy thriller. Call it my Givenchy Code.

Only in Las Vegas.

Chapter 31

E-mailed to Death

While musing about murder and the middle-aged woman, Temple was almost run over by a red scooter manned … womaned by a P and R lady with a gorgeous golden Persian cat riding shotgun.

Hey ! Wasn’t that one of Savannah Ashleigh’s Persians? Louie had been sweet on the silver one, to the point of earning him a false paternity suit. The golden one had been sweet where her sister and mistress had been sour.

But … would Savannah Ashleigh really allow one of her precious Persians to hot-rod around the convention floor on a hot red scooter? Nah. Not if she knew, and maybe her attention these days was all on Taco and Belle.

Meanwhile, Temple’s hot silver cell phone text messagerevealed a call to order. The Red-Hatted League required a “confab,” having dug up lots of “sensitive info.”

Temple returned to her designated conference room, the door still manned by a Fontana brother, just a different one every time. “The ladies have preceded you into the room,” Eduardo said. “I’ve ordered several light cocktails to hold them. At great personal risk,” he added. “They have a propensity for doing weapons searches.”

“On Fontana brothers, or the general population?”

Eduardo frowned. “Lamentably, they seem inclined to bless us with the most personal attention. ‘Lend a woman a Lexus, and she thinks she owns it. Give a woman a wink, and she thinks she owns you’ These are fun ladies, really. Remind me of my grandma Belladonna.”