Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

track lighting.

It was embedded in Beth Blanchard’s sunken chest. Yo ho ho. Temple reared back. She saw the track lights reflecting on a metallic hangman’s noose that let Beth Blanchard twist slowly in the air-conditioning.

Picture-hanging wire, Temple thought. Strangled with picture-hanging wire and strung up right in front of the Erte prints she had never been content to leave as Simon had hung them. As she had never been content to leave Simon alone.

And so someone had seen to it that she had been left alone at last.

The body spun again in some whimsy of the air conditioning. She seemed to slow dance in the perfectly lovely vignette. Waltzing with the dagger in her heart.

Which was … the perfect weapon to find in a home furnishings showroom, the perfect weapon to seize and plunge into the passing torso, whether Simon Fosters’s or hers.

A letter opener.

A solid pewter letter opener with a spiky Chinese symbol for a handle that was as sharp as the blade itself.

What we have here is a feng shui felony.

Double felony, Temple thought.

Now that she looked closer-and who could take her eyes off an outr� scene that seemed to belong on the silver screen? -Beth had been hung from the top rail of the chrome four-poster bed.

Let the punishment fit the crime: she had rearranged the designs of others, now someone had arranged her into a death scene of his or her own design, for his or her own reasons.

Although the head was tilted, and the wire had cut into the flesh of her throat, there was little blood and the face was amazingly undistorted. The hanging must have come after.

And who, Temple wondered, had been expected to find her like this?

Some unwary shopper?

A fellow worker?

Surely not Temple herself, who even now had her cell phone in her shaking hand and was dialing 911. Looking around, she couldn’t even spy Midnight Louie. The store, and she, was truly deserted at the moment.

She glanced over her shoulder, hunting a murderer-at-large, or ghosts? Simon’s ghost? He had been murdered much less brutally than Beth Blanchard, and his body had been hidden, not displayed like a hunting trophy.

Temple shivered. She thought she heard footsteps on the slick surface, felt disembodied heavy breathing on the back of her neck. At least she didn’t have to bring the news of this death to a loved one, like Danny.

All she had to do was remain calm and alert the authorities. But Temple suddenly felt so very alone by her trusty cell phone. She could call Max, but he wasn’t answering lately. She’d never called Matt much and hated to involve him further. Maybe Electra was right: she’d blown it. Two men interested in her, once so close and yet so far lately. Now this, the second murder on her professional turf; a dead body to watch twisting slowly in the wind of the air conditioning, and who was she gonna call? Ghostbusters?

Why not the police? They’d be more likely to come running than any significant other male recently, except for Midnight Louie. She had Molina’s number on her instant-dial list, but Temple’s finger just wouldn’t go running to Molina. She’d call the general number and let police routine have its way.

She didn’t want to attract Molina’s attention to her any more than she had to. Or to Matt, who had actually become involved with Maylords through Janet. Or to Max, though he was miles away from this crime milieu, unlike the last one they all had in common, thank God. She was looking out for her friends and lovers. Lover.

Where the heck was Max keeping himself these days any-way?

Chapter 40

Witless Protection

Program

Temple perched on the leopardskin chaise longue on the perimeter of Simon’s vignette, feeling more like prey than predator.

Beyond her crime-scene technicians videotaped and photographed the gruesome Halloween poster child that Beth Blanchard had become.

Opposite Temple sat two of C. R. Molina’s best: detectives Morrie Alch and Merry Su.

Their eyes were set in deep-purple bezels of fatigue. You could tell they’d been on the Maylords case-now cases-night and day.

Alch was a comfortably fifties guy. Not the era, the age bracket. He did not have abs or eye pouches of steel, but he broadcast a laid-back sort of humanity that was very refreshing in the 24/7 Las Vegas world.

Su … well, she was a shih tzu (not feng shui) on amphetamines. Pure canine tacking machine in a tiny overachieving body even smaller than Temple’s.

“Why did you come early to the Maylords reception?” Su’s black felt-tip pen was poised, like a dagger, to strike.

Alch wielded a pencil, a mellow yellow number two. And he seemed ready to cut Temple a break. “So you do PR for Maylords as well as the Crystal Phoenix?”

“Maylords is a new client,” Temple told Alch, ignoring Su. Probably not a good idea, but comforting.

“And you knew Beth Blanchard?” Su asked.

” ‘Knew’ is too strong a word. I ‘encountered’ her in the store, during the course of doing my job.” ” ‘Encountered.’ Was it friendly?”

“Absolutely, Detective Su. I’m a PR person. All my encounters are friendly, or I’m out of a job.”

“So it wouldn’t have been friendly if your job hadn’t depended upon it?”

Before Temple could rise to that occasion and protest too much, Alch intervened.

“Miss Barr means that she had no personal relationships with anyone on staff.”

Su’s face tightened into an I-don’t-believe-in-sugar-plumfairies visage. “I’ll be the judge of what Ms. Barr means.”

Uh-oh. Someone had been taking Molina lessons. Temple quirked a knowing smile at Alch.

He quirked back, which annoyed Su no end.

“Tell us,” Alch suggested, “everything about how you found the body.”

Temple told it.

Then they asked her about the deceased.

She wasn’t willing to cite Glory Diaz as a source. “Fag hag” sounded a bit prejudicial, to everybody.

“She had an abrasive personality,” Temple settled on saying. “How abrasive?” Su asked. Abrasively.

“Like number-thirty sandpaper.”

Su consulted Alch.

“The coarse-grained, really rough stuff,” he explained. “Will wear down steel.”

“What you say,” Su allowed, “agrees with information we got from other employees.”

“In fact,” Alch said, “Blanchard was a chief suspect in the Simon Foster killing.”

Su scowled at him like a foo dog on palace guard duty for revealing that.

“What motive?” Temple asked.

“None of your business,” Su said.

“Actually, yes, it is. I am PR maven for this enterprise. Do you have any idea of what having blinking police-car headache racks circling the front door and ambulances screaming away and crime-scene technicians crawling all over the expensive wool area rugs can do to a glitzy furniture store opening, and only me here to fend off every kind of media from the local sharks to Hollywood Access and Women’s Wear Daily?”

“My Jimmy Choos bleed for you,” Su said sarcastically.

Temple gawked at the detective’s size three feet (her own were a comparatively large five), but saw only Sam and Libby’s retro-Mary Janes, clunky but cool. Probably a kids’ size.

“Anyway,” Temple said, “it behooves me to help the police as much as possible and get this opening extravaganza done with as little bad publicity as possible while still keeping Maylords in the feature spotlight. So I need to know what’s happening to keep the media out of my hair, and yours. Getting back to Beth Blanchard. Are you thinking she was indulging in sexual harassment?”

“Obsessive crush,” Alch explained. “Discovered the object of her affections was gay.”

“That wouldn’t be front-page news around here:’ Temple said. “Straight guys are the exception.”