Unknown - Cat_In_A_Hot_Pink_Pursuit

“Okay. Tell me about the vic.”

“Well, I think the vic was actually the perp.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

Amazing, Temple thought, how talking the talk cut through the fog. Vic. Perp. That made the so-intenselypersonal act of murder strangely impersonal.

“Or one of them.”

“Say you’re kidding me.”

“I can’t. I do have a rationale for why I thought the perp who is now a vic became a perp.”

“Rationale. Look, Miss Barr, the lieutenant told us about your pseudo-participation in this circus. We are inclined to overlook a great deal. But being found first on a murder scene is not one of the overlookable offenses.”

“How many ‘offenses’ did Molina consider expected?” His expression tightened. “A few. Like breaking and entering on the first death scene. And bringing her daughter along.”

“You guys have taken over the show’s secret recording duties.”

“Darn right. Now. I’ll take you downtown so the lieutenant can debrief you.”

“Mariah—”

“Not to worry. Su’s with her.”

For some reason, Temple felt usurped.

“Why didn’t Molina use Su in the first place? Why drag me into it and then punish me for getting ahead of the curve?”

“You’re a head of something, all right,” he said, gazing at her blindingly blond hair. Then he chuckled. “Don’t sweat it. Somehow I don’t see you as a candidate for stabbing someone through the heart.”

“Was that the murder method?”

Alch put a finger to his lips and mustache. “Not for publication.”

So she was escorted out of the death scene, a defiant Xoe Chloe to the last. Everyone gathered around: herd of tittering blondes, glad to have Xoe off the show; Crawford Buchanan, hissing a blow-by-blow commentary into his live mike; her own aunt, looking aghast but keeping her lips zipped like a good actress; a subdued Dexter Manship; and Rafi Nadir, bringing up the rear to give her a thumbs up, her only supporter.

Unless you counted Midnight Louie at the crowd’s very edge, backed up by a trio of hip kits, one silver, one golden, and one as black as Xoe Chloe’s hair used to be.

Louie did not give her a thumbs up.

But he did wink. Or blink. Whichever. He had a whisker’s chance in hell of helping her.

“What did you think you were doing?”

Molina didn’t waste words. Temple was in her office, which was a good sign. She doubted it was bugged but couldn’t be sure. After living in the Teen Queen Castle, she was fairly paranoid. Police had a license to be tricky.

“I thought I’d lead Detective Alch to the person who’d killed Marjory Klein.”

“Oh, you led Alch to something, all right. Another murder. And what the hell is going on with my daughter? You were supposed to protect her. Instead, your pet sleazebag is running loose on the premises and a pretty prime suspect for any and all of this.”

“I didn’t know Rafi would be there. Savannah Ashleigh hired him as a bodyguard. And Mariah’s fine. Neither of them has a clue as to who is who. You really pulled the wool over Rafi’s eyes. If he found out he had a kid, he’d probably stroke out and your problems would be over. In fact, that might be a nice sneaky way to get rid of him forever.”

“I wouldn’t count on convenient acts of God to get you out of this mess. Some amateur sleuth you are. You just led Alch to Beth Marble. This woman turned out to be a victim, not a criminal.”

“Why does her killer have to be Mrs. Klein’s killer?”

“We have a serial situation here. There was a young girl killed in the parking lot outside the shopping mall where you and your … peers auditioned two weeks ago. We’ve found defaced posters of the show flyer all overthe place. Someone is targeting the competition and its entrants.”

Temple absorbed this, even the additional details, with no surprise. “Those were the arguments you used to blackmail me into becoming Mariah’s chaperon. You’ve always suspected an outside stalker.”

Molina, her face sober to the point of grimness, nodded.

“Look. I don’t for a minute believe that you’d stab anyone in the heart … unless they were going after your sainted Max Kinsella. You can bet I’d never turn my back on you in that regard. But you’ve put me in an impossible position. You were found where you were found. I had to abstract you.”

“‘Abstract?’ Like I’m a hologram you erase?”

“Abstract like ‘take out’ before you’re taken out. First, I’d like to know why you thought Beth Marble killed Marjory Klein. It’s quite a leap of logic.”

“Who do you think killed Beth Marble?”

“Haven’t a clue yet. She apparently was not only the mastermind behind this piece of reality TV tripe but her personality was all grins and roses. A cloying personality type, I grant you, but why target her as a killer?”

“Why should I tell someone who ridicules my deductions and jerks me around like a puppet?”

Molina leaned back in her skimpy executive chair, not even big enough to hide a dead body. She tapped a pen on her desktop.

“You build a good case, I’ll buy it.”

“And that’s worth something?”

“It’s worth our deal about Kinsella continuing.”

“Okay. My reasons aren’t entirely logical—”

“So I’ve been telling you about Kinsella. But go on.”

“I just … felt from the first that the house’s history had something to do with the sinister goings-on now.”

“‘Sinister goings-on.’ Very good. Very Agatha. Go on.” Molina was always a hard house to play. “I think, from the old photos in your fairly lousy news-clipping copies, that Beth Marble was really that blonde trophy wife of yore, Crystal Cummings.”

Molina neither moved nor spoke.

“After all, she didn’t die in the attack years ago. She just went off the radar after all the court trials and hoopla and her estranged husband’s disappearance. So did her seriously wounded teenage daughter. They became the forgotten victims.”

“Have you any idea how many cold case files there are? How many suspects and almost victims drift off into the great anonymity of modern life? It’s easier to lose people than to find them.”

“Exactly. But I figure that this poor kid, Crystal’s daughter, she would have had enormous emotional trauma. Maybe enough to create an eating disorder, which is a cry for control. Enter Marjory Klein, an inflexible, doctrinaire therapist. Believe me, I had to sit in her office swallowing her legume regimen, and poor Mariah—”

“What about ‘poor’ Mariah?”

“You know Mrs. Klein was hard on her weight issue.”

“Hispanic girls often have baby fat but they get it off later.”

“Right. A Weight Watcher would know, wouldn’t she?”

Molina’s face darkened but she didn’t say anything. Kids will blab. Temple felt her ground hardening under her.

“And you’re only her mother and Mariah was only in Mrs. Klein’s hands for a few days and I did tell her to ignore the woman … and already the veins are standing out on your forehead.”

“They are not.”

“They would be if you allowed them to. So figure it’s not just a few pounds and your daughter but Crystal Cummings’s teenage daughter with a serious case of traumaticanorexia or bulimia brought on by the attack in the Dickson house.

“So she eventually dies, the daughter. Cummings would be her last name. Or maybe she’d have the last name of her actual, forgotten father. But maybe Crystal just used her mother’s own last name. I hear that sort of thing happens all the time. Much cleaner, especially if the father has abandoned the child.” Molina’s face was getting grimmer by the second. “The point is, this young girl was only a stepdaughter to Dickson. That was the tragedy of her getting hit by one of the bullets. She was a truly innocent bystander.”