Unknown - 16_Cat_In_An_Orange_Twist

Temple smiled. “Just go with it. It’ll wash out in time.”

“Washed in the blood of the lamb.” Matt looked very serious. “Surface and substance. It’s hard to separate them sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Always. Especially in this case.”

Matt wanted to work it out. “Like Beth Blanchard being so petty as to rearrange other designers’ furniture? Just a cover for a deeper motive. Or Danny Dove playing the ever-eccentric gay choreographer. It’s just a cover for being different from the norm, and the norm often ends up being abnormally cruel, or hypocritical, or greedy.”

Temple shrugged. “It’s so hard to judge. Maybe we should let a jury do it.”

“Juries are us.”

Chapter 59

Model for Murder

The lights, action, and cameras had departed Maylords. So had the invited guests.

Only insiders remained: the store’s management staff-and Jerome, still giddy with the rare feeling of winning-and the Wong party.

Temple had requested that they linger. That they did: the Maylord couple, Kenny and Barb; Mark Ainsworth, clearly present as his own self despite the captured man’s close resemblance to him. Then there was Amelia Wong with her world-class gofers: Baylee and Pritchard, tall blond-and-black twins; Tiffany Yung, Temple’s short twin in black Asian bob and spectacles instead of contact lenses; Carl Osgaard, the tall blond Swede who personally trained Amelia Wong in who-knows-what. These things get nebulous among the rich and famous.

In turn, these separate but allied camps eyed Temple’s impromptu staff, the Magnificent Twelve: Matt, Danny, Rafi, the nine Fontana brothers, with a certain disapproval. Temple made it the Unlucky Thirteen. It did look like the road show of some musical comedy not yet written.

And then Midnight Louie jumped into view from a nearby sofa, did a belly-brushing-floor stretch and swaggered into their midst. They were now the Fortunate Fourteen.

Whew. Temple was glad to see that Thirteen made history.

“How’d that cat get in here?” Kenny Maylord asked.

Temple was surprised by Louie’s presence, but even more by the fact that he’d finally announced it publicly. She was too cool to show it, though. She was always accompanied by her trusty feline companion. Right.

“You’d be better off,” she told Kenny, “asking how drug smugglers and murderers got into this store.”

Barb Maylord frowned. “Someone tried to buy him the other day. That cat. The sales associates were frantically searching for a SKU number and price on a stuffed black cat that the cust-er, clients wanted.”

“He’s priceless, believe me,” Temple said. “But a stray cat is the least of Maylord’s problems. I think we all better get our stories straight before the police come.”

“Our stories!”

“The police?”

“All? We’re not all Maylords employees.”

Temple watched the Maylords and Wong factions eye each other with resentment once their incredulous gazes had left

her.

“We’ve got,” she said, “ladies and gentlemen, and cat, the person who killed Beth Blanchard locked up in the fruitwood

Mediterranean wardrobe on the bedroom furniture aisle.”

This shut them up and sat them down. Everyone sank onto the nearest seating piece, except Amelia Wong.

“How splendid for you, Ms. Year of the Tiger. I imagine that you and your cat are quite proficient rat catchers. My Lhasas confine themselves to Jimmy Choo shoes. But Wong has nothing to do with these matters. We will leave before the police come.”

“I agree with you.” Temple was firm about this part. “Wong has nothing to do with the strange events at Maylords. And everything.”

Amelia frowned even more. “You are being exceedingly yin and yang at one and the same time.”

Temple smiled but eyed Mark Ainsworth.

“We have captured a twin. An evil fraternal twin. I know it’s clich�d, but there it is. Maybe we should haul him out and see who recognizes, or claims, him.”

The discomfort level of all parties rose. Temple heard shoes shifting on carpet and polished tile, throats cleared. She watched eyes shift and retreat.

Raf and three Fontana brothers turned and left the scene.

Louie lofted up onto a chair and leaned down to pat at the ankle ties on Amelia Wong’s nine-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choos.

Wong’s upper lip lifted in a petite canine snarl, but she didn’t move, or even acknowledge Louie’s familiarities.

Temple’s minions returned four minutes later, the same, wrinkle-suited, pudgy man in their custody.

“It’s Mark!” Barb Maylord announced with a gasp. Ainsworth himself stepped forward to greet his craven image. “I can’t believe it!” he said. “We never used to look alike.” Amelia Wong had involuntarily stepped forward as well.

“Can it be? Really?”

The man refused to look up, his hands, bound with drapery cords and trailing tassels, clasped in front of him. His face was as red as Ainsworth’s hypertensive features.

Amelia Wong edged forward, then pronounced a verdict.

“Benny! Benny Maylord. I wondered what had become of you, but Kenny said that you were handling the international furniture buys. You’re supposed to be in Ulan Bator.”

“I’m not.” Wong’s words had loosed his tongue. “I never was.”

“The World Wide Web,” said Temple into the elongated silence, “is a wonderful thing. I wondered when you mentioned, Ms. Wong, that your early mentor at Maylords had been Benny, not Kenny, where Benny had got to. But I didn’t pay that comment much attention. I’d researched the company on the Web. I knew all the latest articles and mentions, going back to the mid-’90s. Then, when all this bad stuff started happening here, I looked up earlier incidents in the Indianapolis and Palm Beach newspapers. They went back, I discovered, to the early ’90s. The shocking events we witnessed here, the shooting out of windows, happened long before, as well as recently.”

“But no murders.” Ainsworth was still staring at his living effigy, as if shell-shocked by his own tawdry image.

“No:’ Temple admitted. “But Amelia Wong Inc. was not present at the other stores in person then, not after the early ’90s. After that, Kenny ruled, and Benny was … banished. Vanished. Why?”

The man in custody finally lifted his head.

“My brother:’ he said with loathing. “It was a coup. Our father started the business, and I nursed it along, made it, but somehow baby brother Kenny decided he wanted it all. He assembled a management team loyal to only him, because only he knew all their secrets. I was out before I knew what happened.”

“Out:’ Temple noted, “but not inactive. You disappeared, like your brother wanted. Only then you started harassing the corporation. Hiring local thugs to shoot out windows.”

“I had to. Kenny was turning the family business into Medici Inc. Maylords had always employed gay and straight people. Talent was the criterion, but Kenny made it an Usagainst-Them operation. He had no confidence in his management skills. I’d done all that. He needed enforcers who owed him. Everything changed. I was ashamed.”

“So,” Temple said, “you tried to bring down the Evil Empire. Shootings, I can see. They weren’t meant to target anyone, just cost the company. But drug smuggling?”

“I didn’t do it.” Benny fought his luxurious bonds. “I didn’t kill anybody either.”

Temple was not impressed. “You just resented Kenny, and drowned your sorrows in food and drink and eventually realized

e you could pass as Ainsworth when this stor was opened.”

“Who would recognize the Prodigal Brother?” He stared at Amelia, looking sheepish. “And I wasn’t handling foreign accounts. I was ousted. Kenny turned the old man against me for the good things I was doing with the store. Made it sound like I was the problem. Who would believe your brother would do you in for a furniture store?”