“Ghastly! I had no idea you dealt with such things.” Kit the former actress and current novelist, a creature of empathy, was devastated.
Temple shook off the past and its eternal losses. “Marjory Klein was the most unlikely murder victim in the place. Do you know anything about her?”
“We had meetings together, ate together, compared notes on candidates. Yeah, I knew her, Horatio.”
“Wait!” Temple waved the hand the glass happened to be in. “Is that Horatio as in Hamlet and the skull of Yorick, or Horatio as in CSI: Miami? Given your theatrical background, it’s hard to tell.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I tell you the woman was harmless. Good-natured. A widow. Um, two, I think, grown children. Utterly committed to her field of work. Been in eating disorder consultation for years. Thought this stupid show was an opportunity to set an example for teenagers with bad, even dangerous, eating habits across the country. She was a much better person than I was, and now she’s dead.”
“That’s a very good point. If one of the coaches or judges was going to be killed, why not Dexter Manship, say?”
“He’s insufferable, yes. And it just isn’t an act. It’s all the time. So tiresome. Egotistic. Elitist. Everything well-balanced people love to hate. But … it’s also his shtick. He’s an entertainer. Killing him for being irritating would be like … offing Jerry Lewis. He’s a whipping boy for the rest of us, which is very healthy. And the French would be devastated.”
“The feelings of the French are not a national priority right now.”
“Oh, pooh. They’re supposed to be that way, as Dexter Manship is supposed to be the way he is. I just don’t understand why poor Marjory was killed. Strangled, I heard.”
Temple considered and decided to keep the suspected manner of death to herself. Not that Kit would tell but she might not be able to down another legume in her life, and that would be a sad betrayal of Marjory’s mission. Temple knew she was taking a very dim view of lima beans right now, as if she wasn’t already skittish about them. Who knew?
“What should I do?” Kit asked.
“Keep an eye open. Does anybody here strike you as suspicious?”
Kit sipped and considered, considered and sipped. “That dark dangerous-looking guy that Savannah Ashleigh calls a bodyguard.”
Temple frowned. “I know him. He’s not Mr. Good Citizen but—”
But. Rafi was taking questionable jobs around Vegas, and she’d met him doing muscle at strip clubs. He’d been a strong suspect for the Stripper Killer. Just because he was Molina’s loathed ex was no reason to become his champion. What if this time he really was up to something … ugly?
Molina would have her scalp. And neck. And rear end if she underestimated Nadir’s reasons for being here when Mariah was on the premises and involved. Molina would have her skin for not mentioning that Nadir was here, period. Maybe she’d better tell her … and have Molina on-site, in everybody’s face? Not productive.
“What are you scheming, niece? I see whole Elizabethan tragedies running through your mind.”
“You have a theatrical imagination, Aunt Kit. It’s fun but off base. Some of the dramatis personae in this thing are a little dicey, is all. It’s the strangers I wonder about. We don’t know enough about anybody to figure out who might want to kill them. Are any of the judges and coaches previously acquainted?”
“Sorry. Not a one. To hear them tell it. From my point of view, they act like strangers.”
“Then … what about the people who put us all together?”
“Who? Oh. You mean the producers.”
“Yeah, why are they so shadowy?”
Kit shrugged. “They always are, whether it’s a Broadway play or a TV show. Only a very few producers develop a high public profile. I’m thinking of Don Hewitt of Sixty Minutes, and, my God, that show’s been on since God made Eden. So sheer longevity gets his name out. Stephen Cannell, a lot of people know him, fans of The Rockford Files and a few dozen other TV hits.”
“I’ve been calling our absent producers Goodson Toddman.”
“Oh, yeah! A play on the names of the old game-show kings, Goodman-Todson. But you’re in publicity. You know the people behind the people. The public doesn’t.”
“Wouldn’t that be a great way to set up a sting, a revenge plot, a murder, then? Produce a show as an excuse and pop off your enemy. Or enemies.”
“Oh, great. Now I have to worry what producers I might have ticked off during my distant acting career. I’m just a paperback writer now. Please, sir, no more. Don’t kill me.”
But Kit’s touching theatrics didn’t touch Temple. She was standing up, then pacing in the bathroom’s limited space. She liked that idea very much. Don’t look at the Teen Queen show as what it purported to be but as someone’s elaborate revenge plot. And it had to be revenge. You don’t kill someone the way Marjory Klein was killed for any other reason.
So. Reality TV as a setup for murder. Maybe … for multiple murders.
“Kit! You’re a genius. I’ve got a whole new take on this thing. Pick up thy bottle and toddle on home.”
“But, Temple, if it is indeed a setup and some of us, maybe all of us, aren’t here by accident, I was invited. Out of the blue. For no discernible reason.”
“Some people were invited as cover, like maybe all the contestants.”
“Cover. I’m cover. That’s good. I can live with that. I wouldn’t know anybody in common with a dietitian, would I?”
“Of course not. Where was Marjory from?”
“Ah, Los Angeles, I think she said.”
“See. Wrong coast, Manhattan baby. You’re safe. They say not, but I think the police must have someone undercover here.”
“Besides you?”
“I’m told I’m only good for babysitting.”
“Not your forte. I know. I’m your aunt.”
“Keep that under your hat, if you have one with you. And we both better keep an eye out to see that none of the little girls get hurt.”
“Sure. But, Temple, all of the girls had appointments with Marjory. Maybe she really ticked one off with her healthy eating crusade. Maybe she found one who was seriously anorexic and was determined to have her put into treatment.”
“And therefore removed from the competition. I didn’t want to reveal the total grossness of the death scene, but I suppose a girl who purged herself would consider stuffing food down someone’s throat a suitable punishment.”
“Stuffed down her throat?” Kit put a hand to her own neck. “God, what a way to go. I hope nobody ever hates me that much.”
She pushed the cork back into her illegal bottle, as if she couldn’t swallow anything more. The gesture reminded them both that no liquor was served in the Teen Queen Castle.
Imagine, Temple could turn in her own aunt for violating the dorm rules! Teenage angst, revisited, made for many motives for murder.
Kit saluted at the door, then scurried back down the hall to her own wing.
Temple turned back to the room. Mariah was still doing the turtle under the bedcovers. Temple wished she could be as dead to the world and the schemes that must be swirling around here as Mariah was at this moment.
Chapter 37
American Tragedy
“You want what?”
Molina looked up from the phone receiver pinched between her cheek and shoulder. She held up a hand to signal Alch and Su to hold on a minute.
“I have more to do right now than act as a glorified file clerk,” she went on.
Under the desk her toe tapped an impatient drumbeat on the vinyl tile floor.
Alch and Su exchanged glances.
“All right. I’ll find someone to do it, although God knows we’re understaffed. Yes. ASAP. My messenger boy may have to be a bit unconventional. Fine. Good.”
She hung up with an undisguised sigh.
“More paperwork, Lieutenant?” Alch asked sympathetically. Paperwork was the bane of accountants, schoolteachers, and law enforcem
ent types.
“Nothing germane.” Molina sat. “What’s happening at that damn house?”
“Nothing more. We have some uniforms on the set, so to speak” Alch said.
“Meanwhile,” Su added, “I’ve found a lot out about Marjory Klein.”
“And—?”
“She was somebody, Lieutenant. She has several books about nutrition and eating disorders on Amazon.com and eBay.”
“Second coming, obviously,” Alch mocked. “Amazon and eBay. The new carnival hucksters.”
“The point is,” Su said, pointedly, eyeing Alch askance, “that she was something of an expert in the field.”
“Credentials accepted. What about her personally?”
Su flipped pages, quoting. “Associate Professor at Great Western University in Michigan. Blue-collar school but well regarded. Assisted various nationally known psychiatrists in treating eating disorder cases. She had some professional chops.”
“In other words,” Alch summed up, “she was an expert of a sort.”
“Amazing.” Molina was truly surprised. “The show producers actually assembled some credible advisors, unlike our own CSI.”
“It’s a national hit, Lieutenant,” Alch said, “no point in being a nit-picker.”
“There’s always a point in being a nit-picker, Morrie, or at least some pleasure.” But Molina smiled.
“Okay,” she went on. “This woman wasn’t a quack. Could she have professional rivals jealous of her new public profile with the Teen Queen gig?”
“We’re talking academia,” Alch said. “Always rivals.”
“I have the autopsy report.”
“What’d Grizzly say?” Su asked.
Molina smiled again. Her nickname for the burly brusque coroner, last name Bahr, had stuck. It gave her a certain cachet with him. Coroners were always a trifle vain, like Sherlock Holmes’s older brother. They loved the tribute of a nom de guerre.
“Peanut oil. Peanut allergy. Deadly. Victims of this condition usually advertise it widely to avoid any contact with such a common food element.”
“So the lima beans …” Su began.
“Were both a medium and a message, I think.”
“Wow.” Su was speechless for two seconds. “Any one of those girls could have had enough of Klein’s ‘beans and legumes’ philosophy. And peanut oil … it’s everywhere.”
“What about the kitchen?” she asked Alch.
He nodded, consulting his notebook. “Bottles of the stuff, raw peanuts. ‘Natural’ peanut butter floating in oil. Anyone could have accessed it.”
“Wasn’t the kitchen normally off-limits?”
“Yes, but the show reveled in rebels.” Alch looked up at Molina. Pause. “One Mariah Molina made an unauthorized midnight raid on the kitchen Tuesday night. And Xoe Chloe caught her with a hand in the Chips Ahoy.”
A silence held in the small, narrow office.
“I suppose no one is exempt from suspicion,” Molina said finally. “I am at a loss for a motive.”
“According to witnesses, Klein was particularly hard on your daughter,” Su said. “She was on the most stringent diet.”
“Nobody else got bad news from the nutritionist?”
“Everybody had to consume more soy protein, low-fat dairy, and milk.”
“None of that is a motive for murder,” Molina objected.
“Agreed.” Alch sat forward on the damned uncomfortable plastic shell chair. “We need to dig deeper into the victim’s personal life.”
“Hah!” Su crossed her arms over her size zero Donna Karan jacket. “Nutritionists don’t have personal lives. Klein was a divorcee for twenty years, an academic drudge, a nobody outside a very narrow arena of expertise.”
“She was somebody enough to get drafted for the Teen Queen Castle show.” Molina sat back. “Find out more. Find out more relevant facts. Find me a motive.”
Alch and Su stood. “Right,” he said.
“Wrong,” Su murmured as they shouldered out the narrow door together.
Molina leaned back in her chair’s cheesy tilt setting. She couldn’t agree with Su more. This murder was all wrong. The vic was all wrong. They were all wrong, or they would see the connections that were now invisible. But, like a magician’s hidden mechanisms, those threads had to be there.
Magicians. At least Max Kinsella had nothing to do with this case, thank God and Harry Houdini.
Chapter 38
North into Nowhere
The Circle Ritz was a kitschy piece of fifties architecture clinging to the fringe of the exploding ultramodern Fantasia that the Las Vegas Strip had become.
It was round, faced with black marble, and sported triangular balconies at the “corner” units.
Max drove his latest dispensable vehicle, a black Toyota Rav4, into the familiar lot. He knew every dimple in the asphalt and every pothole the heat had burned into the surface.
Temple’s new red Miata, caramel-colored canvas top up, sat under the shade of the venerable palm tree that overarched the lot.
He usually entered the unit he and Temple had shared—until his enforced disappearance eighteen months ago—like a second-story man: by the French doors on the balcony.
Part of that was self-preservation; there were those that wanted him dead. Another part of it was the magician’s need to surprise. Temple had always been a ready audience for the paper rose bouquet, the sudden flash of fire to light a candle, and especially the unannounced midnight assignation.
This time, though, Temple was gone and he’d have to enter by a more conventional route, the side door from the parking lot.
The Lovers Knot Wedding Chapel that landlady Electra Lark operated was in the building’s street-facing front. Back here was only a long hallway, then the buzzer security system for the units.
Max had his own key but he buzzed his destination anyway. This mid-afternoon visit would be a surprise, and he wanted to ensure his quarry was in.
The answer was yes, so he pushed the button for the single elevator and waited for its slow descent. He felt like a visitor here at last, not just an errant resident who’d been AWOL too long. Not a good feeling. No wonder Temple was getting restive about their relationship. Ouch. That was the first time he’d thought of it that way.
The old elevator took him up at its usual charming cranky rate. When the door finally opened, his destination was just three strides away.
The forbidden penthouse.
Another button to push. Rewarded by the nostalgic chime of an old-fashioned doorbell.
“Max!” Electra Lark cast the door wide, her tropical-colored muumuu filling it like a flower-shop display. Beyond her came the chill and hum of air-conditioning. “Don’t be a stranger. Come in.”
“Are you sure? I’ve never been inside before. Most residents haven’t.”
“Tut-tut. You mean you never managed a clandestine exploration, like Temple’s cat, Louie, that bad boy?”
“Magician’s honor.”
“Well, you’re not really a resident anymore. Are you?”
“Not officially.”
“Neither is Louie, but he’s coming and going around here all the time.”
Electra turned and Max followed her through an octagonal entry hall lined in vertical mirrored blinds that reflected his image in disconcerting slivered bits. He felt exactly that fragmented these days.
The rooms beyond were cool, almost cold, and dimly lit. The whole place smacked of an inner sanctum, quite different from Electra’s bright, beachy appearance and personality.
“Have a seat,” she suggested.
He wasn’t sure which hunkering forties sofa or chair would accommodate his six-foot-four frame; they were all bulky, but the seating areas were oddly cramped. He settled gingerly on the maroon mohair sofa.
“May I offer you some sun tea?”
“No.”
Electra sat on a rattan chair by the blond television set that must be fifty years old. “Well, you’re an e
asy guest.”
She herself was eternally sixty-something. Her white hair, normally a canvas for a variety of spray-on colors, like indigo or purple or magenta, was a tumble of golden blonde, giving her the look of an aging Shirley Temple doll on Hawaiian holiday.
“I just stopped by to ask after Temple.”
“What about her?”
“She mentioned she was leaving town.”
“Oh, yes. She asked me to watch her place, and Louie, for a week or so. I have seen about as much of Louie since then as I’ve seen of you in the past several months.”
“That bad?”
“Oh, you bachelor boys have your rounds to make, no doubt, deserting us faithful girls at home.”
Max let that go. “I wondered if you’d heard how Temple’s father was.”
“Father?”
“That’s why she went home. Isn’t it?”
“Goodness, Max! I don’t know. She didn’t mention why she was leaving and I’m not one to pry, not right out anyway. She was in a tearing hurry to leave. I hope it isn’t anything too serious, although at his age … and mine, it could be.”
“She said it was a minor heart problem. A stent.”
“Listen, at our age, heart problems are not minor. Poor little thing. She must have been worried to distraction to forget to mention it to me. Or she didn’t want me to worry. Oh … Max! Wait! Don’t move.”
Of course he froze at Electra’s sudden command. Her eyes had widened like windows and she was staring directly behind him.
Max’s muscles tensed to jump any which way necessary.
“What is it?”
“This is unheard of. She’s … come out and is perching on the sofa back. Just behind your left shoulder.”
“She. You’re not referring to a poisonous serpent or a scorpion, I assume.”
“Lord, no. Shhh! If you move very slowly you might see her.”
Max could move as slowly as a living statue in the Venice hotel’s central courtyard, in other words, almost beyond camera detection. In a minute, he had turned enough to stare into the most celestial sky blue eyes he’d ever seen.
He was facing a cat whose longish silky cream hair was accented with brown and white.
“Karma,” Electra pronounced.
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