Carole Douglas - Cat in a Red Hot Rage

“The man who performed CPR never came forward, and never could be found. The only description was medium everything—height, weight, and age—in dark clothes.

“That's when I became interested in the incident. I sent some detectives to the scene. The fatal bungee cord couldn't be found. All the bungee cords hanging from the apex of the interior pyramid at the Neon Nightmare club were fine. Whole. Unbroken, and uncut. Everything was normal.

“It must have been an act, my detectives concluded. It must have been the magician's spectacular exit from a job he'd tired of.

“No unclaimed bodies lie in the morgue. Sometimes, when illegal Mexican workers die, their friends and family stuff the body in a truck or a car trunk and race back into Mexico to bury him. Nobody official in the U.S. knows a thing about it. That could have happened here, except Mexicans are a shortstatured people and everybody at Neon Nightmare agrees that the Phantom Mage was tall and imposing, a thrilling acrobat and illusionist. Really too good for a nightclub act at the Neon Nightmare. The crowd misses him. Maybe you do too.”

That was such a low blow that Temple wanted to shriek at the woman, but she wasn't giving Molina a shred of information about Max, good, bad, or just damn scary. This might be the last chance she had to shield him from Molina's obsessive desire to find him guilty of something.

She wouldn't spill her hard-won speculations about Kathleen O'Connor and Shangri-La, which Molina would never take seriously anyway.

Most of all, she wouldn't tell Molina about how Max's very private, hidden house had changed, and changed hands, so supernaturally fast, and so finally.

“I'm not Max's keeper:' Temple said. "I never was. Maybe he left town to get away from you. I sure would if I were a man." There! A low blow in return.

Molina stood. "So you won't help me. You won't say if you know where he is. Or even that he is."

“I never did before."

“No, you've been utterly consistent, if never utterly convincing. I can't see for the life of me what he ever did to win your loyalty, but it's first class, if blind.”

Temple didn't trust herself to speak.

Molina turned and headed for the door.

“What are you going to do?" Temple called after her. "What it takes," she answered.

Molina was utterly consistent too.

Temple sat only after Molina had left. Sank would better describe the motion.

An elongated chirping sound distracted her, as Midnight Louie jumped up on the sofa beside her. The big black cat paced on the soft seat cushion, leaning into her shoulder to rub back and forth. He pushed his chin against hers and purred.

She wasn't used to him being so lovey-dovey.

Things must be really bad.

It must be true. But then who had sold Max's house, if he was dead? He'd always lived alone after he'd returned from his year's disappearance. They'd never lived together in Las Vegasafter that fabulous first year of loving dangerously at the Circle Ritz.

Max fell and had died, and no one had known?

No. Maybe Max fell. Hundreds saw it. But hundreds and thousands had seen Max fly, onstage. And had believed it.

Temple shook her head, surprised by a blur of blond at the edges of her eyes. That did it. As soon as this mess was over, she was going to get her hair back to its natural red shade. There had to be a hair wizard in Las Vegas that could put her hair back where it had been. Even if no one could put her world back where it had been.

And . . . Matt had briefly been under suspicion, thanks to her trying to put PR "spin" on a protest. And Electra still was. She had to concentrate on them. On those present. On the provable living.

If there was anything unusual to see in the vicinity of the oleanders, it bypassed her attention.

Chapter 37

Electra Lite

The oleander bushes surrounding the Circle Ritz parking lot were doing a lot of blowing in the wind these days, Temple noticed as she stood on her balcony overlooking the parking lot.

Funny. The breeze wasn't whipping her longer hair around; it was just stirring the oleander leaves far below.

If she hadn't had so much on her mind—Max's whereabouts, the new scenario she'd dreamed up for Kathleen O'Connor and her alter ego, Electra's pending murder rap, talking marriage with Matt—she might have investigated.

But her mind was on huddling with Electra to get a handle on the two Red Hat Sisterhood convention incidents connected to her complicated past.

The building's small elevator was a wood-lined bundle of fifties charm the size of a confessional, but it sure could crawl up the wall at a snail's pace. Make that a slug's pace.

Temple's pink low-heeled slides danced an impatient jig on the car's parquet floor until it creaked to a stop at the penthouse level.

Ringing Electra's doorbell produced the usual long wait. Temple finally pushed on the door. It wafted slightly open.

Pushing through, she found Electra's pathologically shy cat, Karma, sitting on the threshold. The mirrored vertical blinds lining the octagonal entry hall reproduced a host of Karmas, cream-colored coat, white-tipped paws, and dark brown mask at her eyes.

“Electra?" Temple called.

Karma remained the usual inscrutable. Temple hated to cross into the cat's territory without its mistress present. The animal broadcast an air both eerie and intimidating. Its heavenly blue eyes seemed transparent at times. At other times, Temple had seen them gleam red, like a demon's.

“Electra?"

“Coming," the landlady's cheery voice caroled from deep within the shadowed rooms.

Electra kept the light out of her living area because of Karma's shyness, Temple had been told. Now she wondered if Electra was simply used to living in the shadows of her own hazy past, and husbands.

“What's happening, dear?"

“Elmore will survive and Matt is no longer a suspect in the attack."

“That's wonderful. About Matt, I mean. Who is suspected?"

“You knew him best, they say."

“Not for years. Sit down. You look stumped."

“I am. I don't even know what was used on Elmore. Alch does, but he'll only give me aggravating hints."

“Oh, that charming detective. I should think you could coax more than hints out of him."

“One would hope. But he's raised a daughter; he's personally dealt with a teenage girl. He is no longer susceptible to coaxing from females. He did admit that Elmore was poisoned.”

Electra gasped. "Oh! That's a terrible way to die. Elmore was a lying creep, but he didn't deserve death by poison. Maybe a jalapeno enema, but not poison."

“Electra! Talk like that will not get you taken off the suspects list."

“Why not? I'm not threatening any lethal damage, just a whole lot of pain."

“The object is to look and sound as innocent as the early morning rain."

“I am, Temple, that's why I can afford to tell the truth about the bum. The world wouldn't have missed him much. I never did. And that's why I wouldn't wait all this time and then try to kill the jerk."

“The question is how the poison was administered. I've suggested every method I can think of to Alch. He just beams like Buddha and says I'm not even warm."

“What did you strike out on?"

“A hip flask. Alcohol is strong enough to disguise a lot of lethal substances."

“No." Electra shook her purple-sprayed head. "He liked his liquor well enough but I wouldn't see him as the hip flask sort.”

“I thought maybe nicotine, but he didn't smoke."

“No, never smoked."

“You're no help. Alch admitted, implied, that if it was something he carried in his back pocket, it could be metal like a cigarette case." Temple kept silent for a moment, stumped. "Why would Alch say that Elmore wasn't toasting his own health? He wouldn't anyway, because he wasn't a known drinker."