Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

Temple sat in the idling Miata before a wide black wrought-iron gate, looking for the security box.

It was, of course, too highly placed for her to use without getting out of the car that was as short as she was, automotively speaking.

Even standing nose-to-nose with the stucco pillar she had to stretch to push the button.

The box remained silent. She waited a decent interval, then pushed again.

A voice answered, either hoarse or distorted by static. “Yes?”

“Temple Barr to see Danny Dove,” she told the sun-bleached, painted steel box that acted as major domo.

Temple always felt like an imposter using one of these screening devices. As if she were a demented fan desperately seeking an idol, or some flunky delivering garlic. As if even someone who knew her wouldn’t possibly admit her to an inner sanctum.

The gates clanged as an electronic link ordered them open. It seemed a long time before they swung wide enough to admit even an automotive midge like the Miata.

Temple jumped back into the sun-warmed leather seat and nudged the gas pedal down as soon as the portal was wide enough.

The house beyond was a two-story fantasy domain. Assorted white stucco wings studded with rows of glass blocks turned it into an albino Mondrian painting. Since Mondrian paintings were usually colorful, it was like viewing a ghost … a ghost painting, a ghost house.

The greenery along the driveway and around the house was clipped like an Irish poodle into topiary shapes set off by the house’s sun-washed walls.

Despite the place’s post-Art Deco geometry, it also felt very Mediterranean. And the rectilinear lines couldn’t help but remind Temple of white-marble graveyard monuments and mausoleums.

The Miata stopped before the low steps leading to the entry. Ever the photo stylist, Temple knew the car’s shiny red silhouette would gleam like a ripe tomato against the greenery and white stucco, creating an Italian flag color scheme.

She also knew that the inside of the big white house held nothing lively now, only the depressing aura of recent loss and death.

Glass blocks bracketed the sleek double doors. She sensed watery movement behind them before she could knock or ring. Then, one door opened.

She didn’t know what she expected. Not Danny himself, wearing a black silk turtleneck with the long sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and black denim designer jeans.

“Come in.” He pulled her inside with one hand. One cold hand.

The foyer was two stories high, all white and silver and black, with filtered sunlight pouring through glass blocks along a stairway that curved up one wall, a sinuous brushed steel railing snaking alongside it like a platinum anaconda.

The floor was blackand-white marble and the effect was spectacular.

She didn’t dare say so to the ghost of Danny Dove who had greeted her, his Harpo Marx blond hair looking as dry and gray as a steel-wool pad against his ashen skin tones.

Still, his hand squeezed hers. Hard.

“You are a ray of red in a monochromatic life,” he said. “Thanks for coming to the interment. I didn’t have a chance to say so before.”

Temple had been an awkward mourner at a mostly gay community ritual. The others had seemed inured to early death, thanks to the AIDS epidemic. She had been there, paid her respects, and left quickly.

“All that golf-course-tended sod must have been hell on your Via Spiga heels,” Danny added.

Temple almost gasped. “You noticed?”

“You were the only one there in heels smaller than a size ten. You were no ‘darling Clement-turned-Clementine in big old bootsies number nine!’ Don’t think I didn’t appreciate it. Cross-dressing may be amusing, but it is damn out of scale. You are a perfect size five, right?”

Temple just nodded. She hadn’t expect Danny’s trademark acerbic wit … not yet.

“Everyone is avoiding me like the plague.” He led her into a vast two-story living room. “You’d think I was HIV positive instead of suffering only from the fact that life is a bitch, and sudden death is infinitely worse and there ain’t no overtime for the survivors, no matter how much we might wish it.”

While Temple perched on the spindly-legged moderne sofa he led her to, Danny turned his attention on a steel-and-glass bar cart accoutered with authentic ’20s cocktail glasses and a chrome soda siphon.

“Want a drink? Please say yes. I will not allow myself to drink alone. I have been damnably sober for the three worst days

of my life and I am dying for a martini. I promise to sip it.”

“A martini it is.” Temple set her tote bag on the floor beside her. “Danny, the house is spectacular.”

“So glad you noticed. I suppose if a man must have a memorial, better it be a house than some graveyard sentimentality nobody ever sees. This is Simon’s true headstone. This house and everything in it.”

“Including you,” she pointed out.

Danny came over with two low, footed glasses. “For now. I know that he wouldn’t wish me to languish here. He was an amazingly generous soul. Ah. Bombay Sapphire with just a whisper of vermouth. Now. What business are you here upon, Little Red? And what have you in your basket as you trundle through the woods? I believe that you were hunting wolves, the last I heard.”

Danny sat on an Eames chair-an original ’30s black leather Eames chair with matching ottoman. He regarded Ternple with the inquisitive look of a sparrow begging bread crumbs.

That’s when she understood the role in which fate and Danny had cast her now: part detective, part avenger, and part

therapist.

“That Maylords opening was a … an opportunity and a hope for so many,” she said. “Simon. My friend Matt’s friend

Janice.”

“Friend?” Danny called her on it. “Isn’t that a weasel word? Remember, I met your ‘friend’ Matt some while back. Unfortunately straight, but otherwise delectable. I can’t believe that you haven’t noticed yourself.” Danny sighed. “He was, of course, the same physical type as Simon. Could he have been the intended victim?”

“I looked into that. It’s possible, but Simon’s murderer may have been a woman named Beth Blanchard, and Matt only met her at the opening night, and barely then. She did mistake Matt for an employee, though.”

Danny’s blue eyes focused into lasers. “Beth Blanchard.” The name dripped with disdain. “Who was she?”

“The past tense is right. Beth Blanchard was just found dead at Maylords herself. Stabbed as well-and, as an additional decorative touch-hung by picture wire in Simon’s Art Deco vignette. From the chrome bedpost. I found her.”

Danny took in all that information while sipping rapidly from his petite martini glass.

“Did Simon ever mention her?” Temple asked.

“A woman? Hardly.”

“But this one was mean. She loved to ride roughshod over everybody at Maylords, and apparently management let her.”

“The classic management distraction tactic.”

“They wanted the other employees to hate Beth Blanchard.”

“And thus to ignore their own hateful ways.”

“Simon told you this?”

“No. Simon told me nothing of his problems at Maylords.” Danny sounded self-accusatory.

“Then how did you know?”

“Munchkin mine! I’ve been around the block and, what’s more germane, around major production companies for aeons. Creative temperament is my middle name, and group politics is my master’s degree. It’s the oldest management trick in the book: create an untouchable monster for all the troops to hate. Presto! It’s a diversion while management pulls a lot of nasty strings and no one notices. If Maylords was tolerating a Gorgon, something must have been wrong there.”