Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

“Of course, Elmore would tell Candy. He was penny-ante, and so were his schemes. All he wanted, I think, was to keep his errant wives out of the picture up in Reno. He wanted to see and get Oleta’s book because the bigamist charge would alert Electra to their legitimate marriage and her stake in his property. He must have searched Oleta’s house in Reno after she came down here, for the book and not found it.”

“We searched the house after her death,” Alch admitted. “There was a computer, but the hard drive was missing.”

“Right. Elmore disabled the computer, but didn’t find a printout there, so that’s why he was hanging around the Hatorium setup hoping to search the stuff Oleta brought down here. When Electra was discovered with her body, he faked his own poisoning to help get Electra sent upriver. He may even have thought Electra did the deed. With both of them out of the way, in his limited way of figuring it, the fortune in uranium was histo splurge on a grasping woman like Candace Crenshaw. Reno’s always been a big uranium area; I bet Candy found out about his land before he did.

“His expedition in Candy’s clothes to snag the hatbox was his own hot idea, I bet. She may have let him do it, but mainly to muddy the waters about the death of Natalie Newman, whom she’d always recognized as a bigger threat than the police. She attacked my aunt, thinking it was me, to muddy the waters even more, using the scarf I’d bought at Oleta’s booth and left in the conference room. Notice how those Red Hat outfits make everyone look alike at first glance? Candy was just another anonymous leaf in a forest, and she could always throw Elmore to the wolves if someone came too close to suspecting her.

“Elmore may never have suspected that Candy was the killer. And he sure didn’t know Natalie was dead, or he’d never have put himself in disguise on a murder scene.”

Alch was silent while the room hummed around them with reports of crimes in the making.

“All conjecture. Luckily, now that we know about Candy Crenshaw, we can build a good case. What’s interesting, though, is that we found Newman’s camera and equipment when we checked her hotel room. And there wasn’t any recording media in that itty-bitty camera with the viewing eyehole through her tote bag. Nada.”

Temple gaped. “Have you tested the bag for Elmore’s or Candace’s prints?”

Alch smiled. “No, but we will now, though even Elmore may have been smart enough to wipe off the purse, and Candy certainly was. It’s one of those big tote bags like you carry, and people don’t always remember where their fingertips have been. Our crime lab is almost as good as those pretty TV folks at bringing up latent prints. If we get a good print, we have that copied video recording of yours, which will then be worth something.”

Temple nodded, and looked around for Molina again. “She’s under the weather,” Alch said. “Off work. I’m sure otherwise she’d be here to congratulate you.”

Temple rolled her eyes. “That assumption would not hold up in court, Detective Alch.”

“You never know about people,” he told her, his gaze both intent and kind. “You never know.”

The truism was, well, true, but it made Temple think about Max again, and about never knowing. Never.

But, then again, Molina wouldn’t either.

And that made all the difference.

Chapter 62

A Dazzling Engagement

While thousands of Red Hat Sisterhood members and their hatboxes spread through McCarran Airport on their way home hither and yon, confounding security personnel, the Crystal Phoenix and Circle Ritz crowds had taken over the revolving rooftop restaurant known as the Crystal Carousel.

The central head table was reserved for Nicky and Van, Temple and Matt, Kit and Aldo, and Electra Lark. Surrounding tables of four held a mixed bag of guests. Two hosted the black-tie glory of the remaining Fontana brothers. Their uncle “Macho” Mario Fontana and wife and “private secretary” and bodyguard occupied another table. The Circle Ritz residents filled four more tables. At another table sat Detectives Alch and Su. Lieutenant Molina had sent her regrets. She said she wasn’t feeling well.

Temple would bet she wasn’t, having again failed to lay an-tither crime at the feet of Temple’s ex-nearest and dearest.

Even Savannah Ashleigh had been invited, and commandeered a whole table for her Rodeo Drive–attired pair of Chihuahuas. Yvette and Solange, the Persians, were undressed for the occasion. Their magnificent coats shone like actual silver and gold under the restaurant’s sparkling mirrored ceiling lined in crystal lights.

Danny Dove was there, with Leticia Brown, aka Ambrosia, Matt’s WCOO-FM’s producer-personality. And somewhere, on the dark carpeted floor, Midnight Louie and Midnight Louise were doing security detail mixed with a casual nosh offered by various diners now and then.

The Fontana males were resplendent in Gangster-Hollywood formalwear: cream silk ties on black silk shirts with black dinner jackets and cream trousers.

Very near them were two tables of the Red-Hatted League, all glittery in red rhinestones and a crimson rage of satin and flowered and feathered cocktail hats.

Temple wore an emerald taffeta fifties dress that was short in front but had a long bustle-topped fall in back, all the better to show off her Stuart Weitzman Midnight Louie Austrian crystal pavé pumps with the green-eyed black cat silhouette on the heels.

The dress was short at the knee, tiny at the waist, and had a band of vestigial off-the-shoulder sleeves.

Her blond hair was smoothed into a Van von Rhine updo, probably the last time her hair would be blond and sleek.

After dinner she kept her left hand in Matt’s under the table. It was cold, something new for her warm nature. Her engagement ring was in its box in Matt’s pocket. After the after-dinner speeches, they were going to rise and announce something of their own, their engagement. Some in this room knew about it already, but this would be the formal, public, official announcement.

Temple only pecked at her plate all through the many dinner courses, which kept Louie and Louise at her side, catching the morsels of chateaubriand steak she dropped down to them.

“I’ve never seen you this nervous,” Matt leaned in to whisper. “Not even when a killer was coming for you.”

“Killer-schmiller,” she whispered back. “They’re a dime a dozen in this town. Now, an engagement announcement, that’s a one-off for me.”

His brown eyes warmed. “Glad to hear that. Happy to be here for it.”

She took a deep breath. Nicky had stood and was playing master of ceremonies with the usual Fontana aplomb.

“Van and I are especially happy to welcome you all here for a rather unusual celebration. A celebration of a whole host of things.

“First of all, we celebrate the Crystal Phoenix’s successfully hosting the largest convention group in our history. They are going, going, gone now, but here’s to the Red Hat Sisterhood!”

“Here, here,” cried Electra, rising along with her Red-Hatted League members. Her hair was all snowy flyaway flips under the red-rhinestone-dotted cage of a tiny pillbox with an immense veil. She looked marvelous, darling.

“And, then:’ Nicky said, “I suppose I should recognize the notorious among us.”

Macho Mario and the Fontana brothers stirred like a flock of starlings pointed out by the city fathers.

“I refer,” Nicky went on, “to our esteemed but vindicated murder suspects, Miss Electra Lark of the Circle Ritz and Lovers’ Knot Wedding Chapel—”

Electra had remained standing, circling her right hand gracefully in the royal wave affected by Queen Elizabeth II.