Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

Matt lifted an eyebrow, but nodded and went to the window. Charley's was a small, tumbledown shack on a lowly street, no glitz, no glam, just the best darn hamburgers in town. And they were way politically incorrect on the fat and grease meter.

Molina was right. No amount of napkins could save a car from the lethally good grease of a Charley's burger. He ordered the Philly steakburger for himself, then made his way over the lumpy dirt of the lot to the passenger's side of her car.

She had the driver's seat pushed way back to accommodate her almost six-foot frame. Matt scooted the passenger seat, setfull forward for Molina's teen daughter Mariah, back all the way so they could talk face-to-face.

First they bit into the huge burgers, chewing them down to eatable height.

“What's new?" she finally asked. "Besides having your fingerprints all over a possibly lethal pitcher of hotel water?”

“That what this is about?"

“Among other things." Molina bucked in her seat.

Probably the semiautomatic at the small of her back felt bulky against the car seat, Matt thought. Packing iron must get uncomfy in this overheated climate.

Molina was an interesting woman, strong, complex, unpredictable. Temple scoffed at her no-nonsense looks. Matt had seen nuns in civvies who dressed with more style. Her dark blunt-cut hair and strong, unmanicured eyebrows suited her. He liked her a lot, but she was a cop and she never let you forget it. And at the moment he was the dork in the center spotlight with a possibly poisoned man two places to the left and languishing in Never-Never Land at the local hospital.

“Tell me why," Molina said after eating her burger. She rolled her grease-soaked tissues into a small hard ball inside a fistful of flimsy diner napkins.

He understood instantly what she meant. "Temple—”

“Oh, God."

“Temple does PR for the Crystal Phoenix. You know that.”

“So she's ring-mastering those wild and crazy red-andpurple women around the hotel?"

“The Red Hat Sisterhood has its own homegrown PR force, I understand. Temple got involved because of Electra Lark."

“Alch told me." Molina gave him another "Oh, God."

“So you asked me here for spiritual advice?" he said.

She gave him a narrow look. "You should be so lucky. I agree that you and Electra Lark are two of the unlikeliest murder candidates in ClarkCounty, but you do have the Circle Ritz in common, not to mention the ever-dangerous TempleBarr. So how did you get up on that podium between two warring factions in the battle of the sexes?"

“It was . . . Temple's idea."

“Of course. So now she has two Circle Ritz pals in the bull's-eye for murder."

“Fiancé," Matt said, not knowing why he'd spilled the beans. Maybe that word "pal" had done it.

“Fiancé? Who's the fiancé?"

“Me, I'm told."

“Temple and you are . . . engaged?”

He nodded.

It took a lot to shake the stoic expression off Carmen Molina's face, but that admission had done it. She couldn't have looked more shocked if he had confessed to killing Elmore Lark, or Abraham Lincoln.

She took a deep breath. "Well, that changes a whole lot of modus operandi around this town.”

He knew she was thinking of Max Kinsella, but Matt didn't want to go there. He said nothing while she absorbed his new status as if digesting a singularly disagreeable meal.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, but . . . look at you! Now you're in the middle of a murder investigation. That's what squiring Miss Temple Barr around town will get you. I tremble to picture you two as the Nick and Nora of Las Vegas, but this town always did lean to the ridiculous. You done eating here?”

He nodded.

“Good. Take me for a ride in that eye-candy car of yours.”

He shrugged and followed her out of the Toyota, which she locked manually after dumping the hamburger leavings in the nearby trash can. He followed suit, beeping the Crossfire open when they were twenty feet away.

“Show-off." She smiled finally, though. "Small, isn't it? Will I fit?”

He nodded, but Molina had to scoot the passenger seat back because it was set all the way forward, for Temple.

“My kid," she commented, "and your pint-size fiancée. At least my daughter will outgrow the full-frontal seat position in my car."

“Where do you want to go?"

“Ninety-three north. There's a speed trap six miles south of one-sixty-eight, then it's clear sailing until Ash Springs.”

“You want me to speed, Lieutenant?"

“I want to blow my mind clear, Devine."

“About the Crystal Phoenix death and attempted death?”

“About Fontana brothers and Red Hat dames, and cabbages and queens.”

Matt didn't know how to respond to lines from Alice in Wonderland, so he eased the low-slung car over the pitted dirt lot and onto smooth asphalt.

He kept the windows down, and soon the wind was whipping their hair around.

“You keep a neat car," she noted.

“Tied down:' he suggested.

“Now you really are tied down," Molina commented.

Matt flushed in the dark, remembering Temple's teasing promises for his cooperation in moderating this fatal debate. Which had now made him an attempted murder suspect.

“How did this all happen?" Molina asked. They had to shout over the wind.

“Temple needed a likely moderator for the Red Hat Sisterhood, Black Hat Brotherhood debate she dreamed up to defuse the shouting match in front of the hotel, so—"

“Not that. The momentous engagement. You cut out the great and powerful Max Kinsella. How'd that happen?”

Matt was feeling really, really modest. He knew that Max Kinsella had cut out Max Kinsella by not being there for Temple. Matt felt like the lucky man by default.

“I finally asked," he said. "That simple."

“Knee, ring, and all that?"

“Ring. No knee. Is there a reason you want all the slushy details?"

“Maybe." She'd leaned her elbow on the open door with the window rolled down and the wind howling past her face. She pulled herself back into the car again. "So. Is Max Kinsella out of town in some romantic funk, or something?"

“Why?"

“No more stalking incidents for a whole six days, that's why."

“That's a record?"

“Lately, yeah.”

Matt mulled the situation.

For several weeks, Molina had discovered, her modest bungalow in Our Lady of Guadalupe parish had been entered by a stalker. Items she hadn't owned had shown up in her closet, then on her bed, then in her daughter Mariah's room. The objects had been harmless, but sexually taunting, including a trail of red rose petals through the house to Mariah's bedroom and then to hers.

She was sure Max Kinsella was behind it. She'd never been able to pin on him a double murder at the Goliath Hotel the night he left Vegas for a year. It was no secret that she had hounded Temple ever since then for information on her missing live-in lover. Even when he came back, Max had resumed a role as Temple's phantom lover, easily evading Molina, though she knew he was in town. Only Temple and Matt knew that Max's suspicious actions were related—not to his cover career as a magician—but to his secret role as a counterterrorist.

Molina's unquenchable suspicion of Max was a problem for Matt. Now that he finally had won Temple to have and to hold, the last thing he wanted was Max and what he was or was not doing at the forefront of his life again.

“He could be out of town," Matt said shortly. "Temple can't reach him."

“Why would she want to?" Molina's expression of amazement felt complimentary. Pride goeth before a fall, though. "She wanted to say good-bye."

“Wow. He wouldn't want to hear that. Sure he isn't just ducking her?"