Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  She had only picked at her chili—the plump bean here, the chunk of ground beef there. An occasional ring of soft-cooked jalapeño. She leaned back in her chair, suddenly Madame Interrogator again.

  “You know what it’s like to be a bastard.”

  Professional interrogator. Always went for shock value.

  “Yeah. It means your mother is called names for the sin of being trusting and honest. Is there a woman in the world who gets caught in such a situation who anticipated it, or wanted it?”

  “Maybe only the Virgin Mary.”

  “She got a warning from an angel.”

  “So. I know you resented, even hated, your stepfather. Have you also resented your real father?”

  “This business of ‘real’ parents is interesting. There are genetic parents, and spiritual parents, and stepparents. Any and all of them can be horrible, or great.”

  “I don’t need generalizations.”

  “That’s mostly what’s out there, like it or not.”

  “I like it not.” She took a swallow from the beer mug. “Mariah’s father is in town.”

  “The guy … from Los Angeles? Your—?”

  “Yeah. My ‘question mark.’ I tried to divert him by setting Kinsella on his trail but then I ended up with two snakes on mine.”

  “How does Max come into this?”

  “Max! Even that’s a damn anagram, not a given name. Michael Aloysius Xavier Kinsella. The man’s a puzzle from the most elementary fact.”

  “All good Irish-Catholic given names,” Matt said, savoring the effect.

  “Like Matthias,” she lashed back.

  “Not particularly Irish Catholic. Look, I know this is serious, but I also think you’re seriously hung up on Max Kinsella. He’s not the father of your child, and that’s who’s really got you riled.”

  She huffed out a sigh, part anger, and part exasperation. “You’re right about that. Screw Max Kinsella. He’s off my most-wanted list. It’s this other guy.”

  “You mentioned him to me a long while back. The one you were living with in L.A. who got you into that ethical corner of unwanted pregnancy. To abort or not to abort. Didn’t you think he’d pushed a pin through your diaphragm?”

  “I can’t believe I’m sitting here discussing this in depth with a priest.”

  “What do you think I did all those years of being a priest? Discussed the unthinkable with the unwilling. I’ve heard it all.”

  “But you haven’t lived it all.”

  “No. That’s my weakness.”

  “What’s mine?”

  “You think you’ve lived it all. So this guy is here in town now.”

  “Worse. He’s finally put two and two together. He realizes I live and work here. Next thing, he’ll find out about Mariah. Your little friend is pretty helpful in that quarter.”

  “Temple? How so?”

  “She’s hooked up with him somehow. She fairly reveled in having him pretend to nab a perp in my last case. I admit I was on her about Kinsella but that’s no reason to sell a thirteen-year-old down the river.”

  “Wait a minute. Temple wouldn’t do that. She doesn’t know this guy is Mariah’s father.”

  “You didn’t tell her?”

  “No. The time you mentioned it to me, he didn’t have a name, much less a local mailing address. I’d have never told Temple anything about it. That was … confidential.”

  “Confessionally secret?”

  “Not technically, but as far as I was concerned. I’d virtually forgotten about it. Believe me, Carmen. No one knows but you and me, and I’m not talking. Ever. Not even to you if you want it that way.”

  She took a deep breath, leaned back in her chair, rubbed a hand over her forehead, disarranging her Dutch-cut bangs.

  “Never ever?”

  “Never ever.”

  “Then do you think I have to tell Mariah about her so-called father, or vice versa? Can’t he just go away?”

  “What do you think?”

  She paused to do just that. “There’s unfinished business. He won’t go away, now that he’s found me, because I went away from him all those years ago.”

  “I can’t believe Temple would champion him.”

  “I rode her about Kinsella for over a year. I imagine it’s sweet revenge.”

  “Temple isn’t vengeful.”

  “What you know about women I could put in a thimble.”

  “Do you sew? Not very useful then. So what are you asking me?”

  “Do I need to let Mariah know about him before he finds out about her and tells her himself?”

  Matt didn’t hesitate a moment. “If there’s the danger of the latter, yes.”

  “That is not what I wanted to hear.”

  “Yes, it is. You wanted to hear the truth from an uninvolved person. And you did.”

  “You’re uninvolved?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “What does that make you, then?”

  “In worse shape than you are. Oughta be some comfort.”

  She smiled and scratched her neck. “Actually, it is.”

  Matt insisted on helping with the cleanup, which mostly involved soaking the dishes in one side of the sink while Tabitha patted the bubbles.

  “You remember seeing me wear a blue velvet dress at the Blue Dahlia,” Carmen asked out of the … well, blue.

  “No. I remember a ruby-purple one. And black. But not blue.”

  “I’ve got one in my closet and can’t ever remember wearing it, much less buying it.”

  “You don’t wear them that often, do you? Especially lately.”

  “That a hint that I oughta climb back onto that stool and sing?”

  “It must be hard to keep your voice up if you don’t exercise it regularly.”

  “True.”

  The doorbell rang, catching them both with hands in soapy water.

  Carmen tossed Matt a towel after she’d blotted her palms, and headed for the front door with raised eyebrows, obviously not expecting company.

  Matt heard voices from the living room. The other one was male so he ambled out there, just in case, although Molina was a match for most men on the planet.

  A guy about his size in a black jeans jacket was just inside the door, talking faster than a Fuller Brush man.

  Seeing Matt stopped him dead. “You’ve got company, sorry. I thought you wanted these documents right away.”

  “Tomorrow at work would have done,” Carmen was saying coolly, but her manner was edgy.

  The guy was one of those dirty blonds whose face was all angles sharp enough to cut you. You could see him as the scrappy kind of kid who always got into playground fights. Tough in an oddly admirable way. He seemed too lean and hungry to be a beat cop; those guys tended to have sloppy beer bellies and neat mustaches, and the deceptively laid-back attitudes of those who know they’re in authority.

  In the ensuing silence, Carmen did introduction duties, clearly loathing every word.

  “Larry Paddock, Matt Devine.” She emphatically avoided saying what either of them was.

  Paddock nodded, Matt nodded back.

  Matt was the guy with chili powder on his breath, so Paddock had to leave.

  He ducked his head and backed out, looking none too pleased.

  Carmen put the small manila envelope, unopened, on the TV cabinet. “This job never leaves you alone.” Larry Paddock’s drive-by visit had broken the off-hours mood.

  Matt fished for the car keys in his pocket, making leaving noises himself.

  “Don’t rush off,” she said, “right after I’ve drafted you for manual labor.”

  Did she think Paddock might be waiting for him to go? So he settled on the living room sofa and accepted a tiny glass of Tia Maria liqueur and commented on the cats until her unexpected visitor was long gone enough so he could go too.

  The night outside was as warm as a sauna. Larry, he thought later. New one. Matt got in the Crossfire, sitting for a moment to lower the windo
w for some breeze—now they had a convertible version out—and to savor the newness of everything, the new-car leather scent, the dramatically night-lit dashboard, before starting the engine. New Car Whine.

  Carmen came running out of the house, her bare feet slapping concrete, and reached him before he could shift into reverse.

  “Matt! Can you come back in for a moment?”

  “What for?” Trust an ex-priest, on seeing a woman run after him, to know it was for some reason quite impersonal.

  “To find out if I’m going freaking crazy or not.”

  Chapter 15

  Sweet Tooth

  Matt followed Carmen back into her house.

  By the time he caught up with her, she was pacing back and forth in the tiny fifties foyer like a tiger in a rabbit cage.

  “I can’t believe it. While we were here talking! It had to be.”

  “What?”

  “You have to see it. Come on.”

  He followed her through the living room and down the long narrow hall. Most of Las Vegas’s older homes were one-story and built like rat mazes. What kept the sun out also kept the interiors dark and cramped. Matt had never been more appreciative of the Circle Ritz’s round construction style. There, every unit had an outside wall of windows.

  Matt was in her bedroom before he had time to think what a leap in intimacy that involved. He’d never been in any woman’s bedroom before, except a guest room in a convent, which hardly counted. And Temple’s. But only in passing.

  This room wasn’t such an exotic locale, after all. It was furnished with the usual suspects, in this case serviceable furniture store-style bed, dresser, and nightstand.

  Molina was at her closet door, holding up a curtain of velvet for his inspection.

  “First this.” She shook it like Exhibit A in a courtroom.

  He went over to see it better, recognizing one of the dark velvet vintage gowns she wore to sing at the Blue Dahlia.

  “These old evening gowns are beautiful. What’s wrong with it?”

  “What’s wrong with it is that I don’t remember buying it. I have a deep forest-green one, a wine one, a scarlet one, and several black ones.” She pulled the skirts of the gowns in question out into the light to illustrate her point. “I’ve never had a blue one.”

  “I don’t see why not. It complements your eyes.”

  “You don’t get it. This isn’t a wardrobe crisis. I wasn’t sure at first, but I never bought this thing. It just … appeared in my closet.”

  “You’re busy. Super busy. You must have forgotten.”

  “That’s what I thought. Until this arrived.”

  She threw the blue velvet gown across her bedspread and bent to pull a box from the lowest drawer in her nightstand.

  Matt eyed the box. Not a simple square or rectangular box, but curvy. Candy-box shaped. He was beginning to get it. “How did it arrive?”

  “Showed up on my bed. With a card.”

  Matt frowned at the handwritten note through the plastic baggie that encased it, displayed like a fresh scalp in Carmen’s uplifted hand.

  “‘Sweets to the sour,’” she quoted the message inside. “The first really wrong note.”

  ‘“Note’ indeed. Sour note. You baggied it.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Like you bagged Temple’s waylaid ring from Max,” he couldn’t resist adding. She winced at the comparison. “So someone’s been snooping in your closet.”

  “And now this. The latest. Just now!” She handed him a small plastic device, now bagged. It took him a moment to recognize the late-model Game Boy. Except someone had stuck a Post-it note on it reading “Game Girl.”

  “I found this in Mariah’s bedroom. Thank God she’s away from it for a while.”

  “You’ve got a stalker,” Matt said quietly, remembering his recent and violent liberation from one. “Why, do you think?”

  Carmen wrapped her hands around her elbows and began her Big Cat-pacing again. “I don’t know, but whoever it may be is circling closer and closer. Classic pattern. Cowardly psychotic creep—!”

  “I know. They’re good at that. Sure can’t be mine transferring affections to you.”

  “No. Nothing to do with you, except you were here when that piece of slime snuck this last little token into the house.”

  “Mariah’s away, you said. How long ago could it have been left?”

  “Six hours, maybe? I checked her room for anything she might have needed at the … at the place where she’s staying. That little bomb wasn’t there then.”

  “Where was it?”

  “On her pillow.”

  “You’re right to be upset. Can’t you, of all people, arrange for surveillance?”

  She stopped to hug her elbows to her rangy frame. “No. No, I of all people can’t do that. Not openly. Not officially. This … stuff could be from her father.”

  Chapter 16

  Monday Morning Coming Down

  Xoe, aka Temple, arrived at Hell House, aka the Teen Queen Castle, first.

  Cameras were rolling, and so was she.

  In fact, she wore Rollerblades. And skin-tight capris, a sweatband reading Go Gurrrrl, and a hot pink sports bra liberally assisted by various boob-building devices.

  Xoe! Zowie!

  The cameras followed her as she did a wheelie at the mansion’s front door.

  What an entrance. The doorway, not hers. Double doors, of course, of embossed copper with pewter hardware. The effect was more like the entrance to a bank vault than a residence.

  She noted the security camera leering down from above and blew a huge bubble of well-chewed pink bubble gum right at it before she entered. On Rollerbladed feet.

  Beth Marble, the show’s guardian angel, was waiting for her in the marble-tiled foyer.

  “No edged instruments allowed inside the house. That includes Rollerblades.”

  “That also include fingernails?” Temple fanned her impressive ten.

  “Fingernails are feminine. Allowed.”

  “That’s what you think.” Temple bent to detach the Rollerblades.

  “You’re an interesting case.”

  “I thought a case had an alcohol content.”

  “You’re not as tough as you act.”

  Duh!

  Temple sneered. Being a bad, ballsy little broad, as Rafi Nadir had named her once, not mentioning the bad, was fun.

  “Here, honey.” She handed over the heavy, bulky blade set. “Hang this on your hope chest.” She stared pointedly at the angel’s decidedly flat version of same. “You need one.”

  No hope there.

  “Listen, kiddo,” the woman said, dropping her voice into a soft, warning tone. “I came up with the Teen Queen concept. Consider me the show shrink. Part of your makeover involves an improvement in attitude. If you want to have a chance at the Teen Queen slot, you’ll use your time here, with me, to get that beehive-size chip off your shoulder.”

  “We gotta see each other?”

  “Every day for an hour. Be prepared to open up your baggage or drop to the bottom of the first wave of wannabes on Day Three.”

  Xoe made a face but kept further comment to herself.

  Beth thrust a shiny hot-pink folder toward her. “Here are the house rules and your daily schedule of self-improvement appointments. Remember, we work on body, mind, heart, and soul, so be prepared to bare all four.”

  “You sure this is legal? A lot of these girls are underage.”

  Beth’s patient smile hinted at perennial martyrdom. “We’re well aware of that. We’re assigning rooms on a Big Sister/Little Sister basis, so roommates won’t be competing at the same level. The name of your Little Sister is in the folder.”

  “A mini-me! How hip. Who is the little devilette?”

  Temple let her long fingernails do the walking through the half-inch wad of loose papers inside the folder.

  Mariah Molina. Her roomie. The gods, or at least the Great Goddess Cop, had smiled on
her so she could ride shotgun with poor little Mariah.

  Why any right-thinking kid would want to coop herself up in a phony media circus like this was beyond Temple, but then Temple was too far beyond the Teen Dream stage to remember.

  Beth Marble glanced around all sides of Temple and then nodded her satisfaction.

  “Glad you’re not dragging any more than your one bag and your bad attitude in here. The ‘Tween Queen branded sweat suits and other workout wear you’ll be using during your makeover are in your room, in the proper size. Your personal stylist will confer with your personal trainer on your new wardrobe, when it’s time for your ‘reinvention.’”

  “Meanwhile,” Temple observed, “it’s in the army now.”

  “That’s right.” Beth’s Stepford Wives smile never faltered. “You are a private and we are the commanders. We’re here to help you but only if you’re willing to commit to helping yourself. You may go to your room until our Cheering Session at five P.M. tonight.”

  “It sounds more like PMS,” Temple muttered as she shuffled off in her stocking feet.

  “What?” Beth asked, a trifle uneasy.

  “Nothing you’re not too old for.”

  Two faint frown lines on Beth’s forehead indicated she might have sensed an insult.

  Awesome! The woman seemed made of the same impervious veneer as the remade toothy smiles on the women from the makeover shows.

  The house was huge. It was a perfect pick for a castle because of the copper-topped towers that surrounded the huge copper dome at the place’s center. These mysterious copper roofs glittered enough to be seen from the Strip. They’d been treated to keep their bright copper-bottom-pan gleam and not age into a verdigris color with wear and weather.

  That new-penny look always bothered Temple when she glimpsed the place. It was rather like Burt Reynolds during his cosmetic face-peel stage: so shiny and smooth that it gave you the creeps.

  It especially gave Temple the creeps. Las Vegas was the kind of high-profile place where new scandals and sensations constantly made yesterday’s atrocity fade into prehistory. Yet she’d learned the horrific history of this house when she’d first come to town two years ago. And a good PR person never forgets.