Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28)

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  The pinprick of light in the dark of the rearview mirror grew larger, but lagged and seemed to stop.

  No wonder. Holy St. Sepulveda. The entry lane to Highway 91 was right…here. Hard, hard right. The car squealed genteel protest at rough handling, but smoothly entered the highway, unclogged by heavy traffic at this wee hour of the night.

  Matt tried to spot a motorcycle following along on the access road, but found no sign of a light.

  He continued on into Las Vegas proper (if one could ever say that about Vegas) via the notorious “Spaghetti Bowl” interchange at a mannerly and legal sixty-five miles an hour.

  That successful maneuver had reminded him of another big cat, this one domestic.

  Midnight Louie never hesitated to leap into action against foes bigger than he. He’d lunged for the intruder in Temple’s bedroom and forced him onto the balcony for Matt to attack from the floor above.

  Matt shook his head to shake thoughts of his second Elvis audio experience. There would be buzz about that on the social networks, but if you don’t go there, you don’t have to answer for anything.

  4

  Home Evasions

  “And the squad car drove off with Electra in the backseat?” Matt asked six neighbors standing by an outdoor table with an overhead umbrella useless at night.

  The scene was surreal.

  Matt felt he had driven from one end of the Twilight Zone to the other since leaving WCOO thirty minutes ago. First the reappearance of the mysterious motorcycle rider, now a rerun of Electra Lark being a suspect for a death.

  “Drove right off with her, yes,” a balding guy wearing a checked shirt answered.

  Matt had exchanged chitchat before with Jim Jordan and his wife, Jan, from the third floor, in the entryway and parking lot. Now they were all part of a buzzing cluster of tenants just outside the Crime Scene tape, watching a forensics crew operate under floodlights in the shrubbery bridging the Circle Ritz’s white marble façade and the pool house decking.

  The thirtyish couple was just star-struck enough to stay up into the wee hours to watch the real-life true crime show.

  “It was just like on TV,” Jan said, eager to share.

  “The shot guy,” Jim added, “fell right in front of Bill Hays’ first-floor patio doors. The whole side of the building was lit up by squad car headlights and those red and blue flashing lights. Inside there, Bill must have passed a pachyderm.”

  “It was like one of those ‘Blue Light Special’ lights flashing at K-Mart,” Jan added. “Then the ambulance came screeching and screaming up.”

  “What about Temple?” Matt had been scanning onlookers for a glimpse of shoulder-high red hair. She was easy to lose in a crowd, especially without her three-inch heels on.

  “Oh, she was here before we were, walked right up and talked to the guy in the unmarked car that came last,” Jim said.

  “I wouldn’t have wanted to approach anybody official, like a detective, on a murder scene,” Jan said with a faux shudder. “Draw attention to myself.”

  The chills had to be for effect because the temperature at the station had read seventy-two.

  Matt pulled out his cell phone and saw he’d missed a recent call. Temple’s.

  He muttered “Thanks” at the couple and sprinted around the building to the parking lot door.

  Inside the small lobby, he didn’t wait for the quaint elevator but headed for the nearby stairs and galloped up them two at a time as quietly as he could.

  All the units had a short private entry hall with a big front door and doorbell. Matt slapped the flat of his hand on the wood. The doorbell’s gong chimed for about five seconds.

  Then the door flew open as if Temple had been waiting right there. “Matt! Thank God! It’s been insane here. I called your cell when you were on the road.”

  She jumped into his arms and he made a circle at the same moment that brought them both pressed against the inside of the shut front door and securely inside home, sweet home. She was wearing her favorite fifties-vintage, red chiffon, baby doll pajamas. His favorite too.

  Matt shut his eyes. “I could kick myself into next week. I had my cell phone turned off. After a dozen weird call-ins tonight, I didn’t want to hear another disembodied voice, not even phone spam. I never dreamed you’d call. You make a point of not doing it.”

  “I never dreamed I’d have to. I know you need your cool-down drive-time coming home.”

  He felt a reflexive pang. Temple knew from living with a magician who had done two evening shows that night gigs were hard to come down from.

  Matt pushed away the past. “Electra is under suspicion of something again? How many crimes can an over-seventy grandmother commit in a month or two?”

  “Ernesto said residents heard shots, Matt. It has to be self-defense, but that shady attempt to rob Electra of her ex-husband’s property is a closed case. I can’t see what anybody would gain by continuing to harass her at her own home and an established property like the Circle Ritz.”

  “Well, those ‘shady characters’ trying to cheat her out of a building that held a valuable gambling license likely had mob ties.”

  “But there’s nothing left of the mob except for a certain sleazy entertainment value.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Matt said fervently. “And speaking of which, wasn’t there a Fontana brother or two sleeping gratis on the property after the damage last month?”

  “Fontana brothers don’t come home until three in the morning. They have their hotel and custom limo service to run, as well as lady friends to entertain.”

  “And what about our missing landlady?” Matt fretted. “She’s in the slammer overnight. That’s outrageous, Temple.”

  “There’s nothing anybody can do before morning. Which is coming fast. The bros are getting their lawyer up right now. And you were tired from counseling lost Las Vegas souls,” she added. “I wanted to get you tucked into bed first.”

  She led him into the bedroom and patted the new high-thread-count sheets, invitingly turned back. “Get undressed and make tracks for some exciting catch-up sleeping before we go to bail Electra out in a few hours.”

  It didn’t take long for him to do as she suggested and forget the undercover work he was hiding from her for the undercover coziness of lying with heads propped up on pillows and the night’s events to discuss. The events at the Circle Ritz, not those at WCOO. Electra’s home invasion had kept Temple from getting an impulse to tune in and hear “Elvis” on the air again. And Woody’s crude threats. Matt was relieved.

  “At least I’m sleeping at your place now,” Matt said, “so I know you’re not the person who took a fatal dive off the balcony.”

  “I do think you should visit Metro Police headquarters first thing and charm the details from Molina. She’s getting tired of my smiling, mug-shot-ready face.”

  “At least that gives me an assignment that will explain why our elderly landlady is Suspect of the Week with the LVMPD.”

  Matt sat up against the upholstered headboard, worried as he had been lately, but tucked in and ready to talk. Temple laid her cheek on his bare shoulder to snuggle. She was more upset about the recent hullaballoo than she’d let him see.

  Matt glanced at the soft white globe of a modern nightstand lamp. “I like what you’ve done with the place lately.”

  “Thanks.” Temple smiled. She’d been slowly redoing the room, from the upholstered headboard to the bedside lamps on dimmers, changing it over from everything “Max”.

  “And…” Temple furrowed her smooth brow for the first time, “Louie is not napping in tonight. He so loves to growl and glower when you come home to bed and evict him. I’m a bit worried.”

  “So you think my presence has added to your cat’s domestic drama? That’s a PR woman for you, putting an optimistic spin on a man-cat duel over her. Which one is going to the mat? Spelled with a small ‘m’ and one ‘t’.”

  “Not the man. Louie will have to adapt and slee
p in his zebra-print carrier if he’s miffed.”

  Matt found that a cue to sweep her into his arms.

  “So where do you think His Majesty is?” Matt frowned at the vacant foot of the zebra-pattern coverlet.

  There were two things Temple couldn’t change. Midnight Louie’s droit de seignior claim to the bed and especially that coverlet he loved to sprawl on so artistically. Cats’ color vision was shaky on the reds, but every one of them infallibly chose the most flattering color background for sitting and reclining on. Zebra-stripe with crimson piping made Louie a handsome pin-up boy.

  “Yes, that is odd. Louie disappeared after the squad cars came. He hasn’t been that spooked before,” Temple said.

  “Spooked? Louie?” Matt laughed. “Pigs would fly first and he’d probably soon have them hitched to a cat sleigh in the sky. Or maybe his own private passenger drone.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve come to terms with cattitude. Seriously, I’m thinking of putting a rather expensive but cool zebra-stripe cat bed near the television chest.”

  “Temple, he’ll never use it any more than he will the zebra-stripe carrier you bought him. Face it. We’ll have to take this coverlet to Chicago, but maybe ship him by stork.”

  “Chicago? Really, Matt?” She sat up, accidentally knocking her Elle Decor magazine off the nightstand. “You’ve seemed so torn about that move lately.”

  “I am torn. My memories of Chicago aren’t the greatest. You know the family situation is even more awkward now. And I don’t like keeping things from people I care for. It’s a strain on me, and my mother, knowing I’m her new husband’s brother’s secret son. You can’t even say that without wondering where to the put the apostrophes. And then, me being the celebrity in the family.” Matt shook his head.

  “Hey, Matt. That’s a classic part of the celebrity backstory. Family secrets. You come with yours built-in. And forgotten decades ago. Besides, you wouldn’t be committed forever. Those contracts are short, especially for a new project.”

  “Sure, remind me I’m on trial approval.”

  “Not with me.” Temple’s warm palm on his forearm, the warmth in her gray-blue eyes…he drowned in a wave of love followed by a strong current of nasty undertow. He had to keep secrets here, in Vegas, too. Even more so now that the violent death tonight echoed the break-in on Temple here a couple weeks ago.

  Damn Effinger, Matt thought. Not letting him die and rot was the worst mistake he’d ever made. And now he really couldn’t let it go, until he’d proved to himself that Temple wasn’t the target all along. Her and maybe the ingenious map she’d made of an elaborate scheme written in the stars and somehow living long after him.

  “Lighten up.” Temple was leaning in to kiss his cheek. “All these choices we have to make are good. I’m okay with Chicago too.”

  “Practically speaking,” he said. “I don’t know what you’d do there career-wise. Or how Louie’d take to high-rise life. I suppose the À La Cat food ad sequence can be filmed anywhere. You’re from Minnesota, so you know the winter snow up that way can make Antarctica seem a breeze. And…doing something in the daytime that’s more interactive is sounding pretty attractive.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you warm. I’m glad we talked about this, Matt! I didn’t want to push you, but we need to make plans. Now that Evil Kitty is out of the picture we can finally commit to our dreams and lives.”

  “If Evil Kitty didn’t come back to push that man you saw taken away off the balcony. That’d be more likely than Electra doing it.”

  Temple sat up. “Don’t even think that! But that reminds me of something else we need to clear up after you go first thing in the morning to spring Electra.”

  “I can hear that ‘Something Else’ has capital letters in it.”

  Temple sighed. Heavily.

  “Spit it out. You’ll never catch me in a better, more penitent mood, coming home to pandemonium and knowing I’d closed down your call.”

  “Okay.” She wiggled to sit up against the headboard too.

  “Look, Temple, I’ll make a wild guess that this involves the Mystifying Max.” Using the guy’s stage name made it easier to say.

  “You know Evil Kitty led him to his cousin Sean in Ireland. Alive.”

  “Alive and mostly recovered from that IRA bomb years ago.”

  “Sean had sustained some bad injuries and PSD and memory loss. His DNA was found in the ruins of the bombing site so everybody assumed he was dead. And you know Max went—”

  “Yes, yes. Sean’s a poor soul and a saint miraculously recovered. I’m waiting for the streaming Amazon video to come out.”

  Temple gave him a Look before continuing. “So teenage Max—Michael then—went home alone to Wisconsin, where he found cousin Sean’s family suspicious that he’d escaped damage, at least physical damage, but not Sean. And the mothers, sisters, couldn’t get over that, so the Kellys and the Kinsellas were equally wounded and broken.”

  “That’s almost predictable, Temple. And…’Michael’ had to cover up the stupid girl-chasing that had separated the boys. He was not Max yet, Max the magician. The parents would detect that awkwardness, the lies, the unsaid Something More.” Matt leaned forward, alert.

  “What?

  He embraced and kissed her.

  “Nice but… What?”

  “You’re a very healing person, you know that?”

  “Not my most lavish compliment.”

  “It’s worth more than rubies.” He glanced at his engagement ring on her finger. A vintage piece. She so loved Art Deco. Bought on time with his first big-time radio station money. The pear-shaped diamonds and rubies shining like blood and tear drops, something he’d never noticed before.

  That had done it. Temple pointing out, painting an emotional moment in his analyst’s brain that he could identify with: a boy so guilty that he couldn’t stop something bad from happening—whack!, the crack of Effinger’s hand across his mother’s face. Him behind some soft chain-link fence of string bawling. He must have been a toddler in a playpen. “And you next—”

  Matt resumed full counseling mode. “So Michael made himself the Prodigal Son, went all vengeful and returned to Ireland to take on the IRA and became Max. Michael. Aloysius. Xavier. Kinsella. He used his baptismal middle and confirmation names to remake himself.”

  “I never knew about those unpronounceable middle names until later,” she admitted.

  “Survivor’s guilt is a horrible state, Temple, because you can’t do anything about it. And you couldn’t have done anything about Max’s obsession at the time or in those circumstances.”

  “I wanted a partner, not a guilt complex.”

  “We’ve all got those, even you, because you can’t cut loose from Max.”

  “That’s not true. I have.”

  “Have you? That’s what you think, but… Okay. Now they’re reunited, though. The cousins. Sean at least has a happy life in Ireland and Max still wants something from you even though he persuaded you to go to Vegas with him and left you flat in six months.”

  “Nine months.”

  “I was hoping you were delivered from that demon baby.”

  “Not fair! Max was protecting me from IRA guys who thought he had a hoard of American donations to the IRA, even then, that hadn’t been delivered in years.”

  “I’ve concluded that hoard is a mythical beast,” Matt said. “The supposed IRA guys who attacked you in the parking garage may also be. Did they have Irish accents?”

  “Like I’d listen for that while I’m being pummeled? You’re probably right, but back then everybody wanted to know where Max was, from Molina to nameless thugs. That’s old business. New business? Sean and Max owe some heavy explanations to their poor families back in Wisconsin.”

  “Like we recently gave your poor family back in Minnesota.” Matt couldn’t help smiling at characterizing the robust, sports-loving Barrs that way. He narrowed his eyes. “Families are the last to know, but we don’t hav
e to be.”

  Temple took a breath and delivered a long, and probably unwelcome sentence, fast. “Max wants me to accompany him and Sean back to their families in Racine, Wisconsin, as a buffer, I guess, but mainly because I would know more about any holes in his memory since his bungee cord fall.”

  “And only you.” Matt couldn’t keep a tinge of bitterness from his tone.

  “Not necessarily. You’re the counselor. You know everything I know because you heard it from either Max or me at one time or another. So I volunteered you.”

  “What? I’m supposed to come in cold on a situation with two totally confused sets of parents, one pair seeing their long-thought-dead son back, but maimed from bomb blast injuries, the other son probably written off as a bad seed when all he was trying to do was protect them from their inability to handle a tragic situation for fifteen-some years.”

  “See, that’s why you’re so good at these human thorn-bush issues that a TV network wants you to do a show.”

  “That’s just it. This emotional booby-trap stuff is not ‘a show’. I should never have considered doing it.”

  “No. No, Matt. That’s the last thing I want. Is that why you’ve iced the network? You think going live with counseling is immoral?”

  If only he were so noble, Matt thought. He was as capable of being flattered, or seeing value in what he did, and the big bucks as anyone. No, it was the danger he sensed hanging over Temple that gave him cold feet.

  Cold feet. Warm heart.

  She looked so troubled and torn. Temple could not not help someone. Like Electra tomorrow morning. Like someone she’d never met before the other day, or the next day. She called it PR, public relations, making everything run smoothly, but it was insight and empathy and heart and he loved her to death for it.

  And, trying to protect her, he had become as toxic for her as Max Kinsella had ever been.

  “No,” he said. “I’ve decided that a change of place, and of medium, would be good for me. You. Us. But I have a few loose ends to tie up with the radio station. And Letitia.”