Cat in a Sapphire Slipper

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “It’s swelling already, and bruised,” he decided. “You’ll need to elevate that.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Molina said. “You’ve already proposed, from what I hear. You may pick up the bride-to-be and put her down on the long sofa in the bar area. There’s an interrogation going on there that you may be useful for. Coroner, I really think you have more pressing matters upstairs. I sent the crime scene crew up first. Leave the alley cat for the vet.”

  Soon all have dispersed but the Sapphire Slipper nursing unit. Louie deserted his cooing chorus of ladies, squirming until they were forced to let him down to limp after the exodus to the bar.

  Matt had been focused on Temple from the moment the limo stopped. He’d taken her out of the front seat, spotted her scraped ankle at once, and picked her up, so this was her second stint of bridal carting.

  No one noticed them much, though, Temple saw. The barroom was jammed.

  Fontana brothers were lined up on and between the barstools. Their girlfriends were scattered at the round tables. Molina had joined two serious, suited men at a table with four semiautomatic pistols on it.

  “I take it,” she was saying, “that these are the firearms that shot out the tires.”

  One man nodded. “You’ll want to confirm that, for the record.”

  The other man looked up and Matt turned to confront him, shocked. “Frank.” He turned back to Temple. “You knew.”

  She nodded as the man walked over. He was tall and lean with scissor-sharp features and a receding hairline.

  “Matt. I do find you in the most interesting places these days.”

  Temple smothered a smile. Frank Bucek was also an ex-priest. He’d been Matt’s teacher in the seminary, but was now an FBI agent. The other agent was getting the girlfriends’ names and addresses, so they made a confidential trio conferring on the sidelines.

  “Okay,” Matt said softly, still obviously shocked. “So you were the one Temple called from my cell phone address list. How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I was in L.A. And your . . . fiancée, is it, from the good lieutenant’s comments in the foyer? . . . had a bout of curiosity that set a huge fuss in motion.” Bucek grinned. “Congratulations, kids. Am I invited to the wedding?”

  “When we decide on a place and a time,” Matt said. “But—”

  “I’ll buy you both a celebratory drink in town later, and give you some big explanations in private. Right now, we have a last piece of the puzzle I need to pry out of these women before we leave the crime scene to the able lieutenant.”

  Temple was about to scream if she heard Bucek put one more praising adjective in front of Molina’s title, but then she was a bit wrought up from seeing the limo driver’s eyes nearly scratched out by a posse of infuriated domestic cats, led on by the awesome cries and growls of her own cuddly bed partner.

  “My midnight radio show—” Matt began, his brow furrowing.

  Bucek leaned close. “Carmen is not in a good mood, for many reasons I can guess and some I can’t, but I did get her to promise you’d flee the mass interrogation in time to make your live radio commitment.” He glanced at Temple with some amusement. “You she has plans for. But it’s a small price to pay for Matt getting sprung from a brothel ASAP.”

  Temple just shrugged. “How can I help you, Agent Bucek?”

  “Tell me which one of these lovely ladies was mad enough at a Fontana boyfriend to help set up a mob hit.”

  Temple caught her breath. Putting Madonnah’s murder in those terms took the whole last eighteen-hours’ chaos from the comedy of errors it felt like to the tragedy it was.

  Sitting on a leather sofa with her legs up and her foot on Matt’s thigh like a shoeless Cinderella, now that he’d sat down again, made her look about as effective as a poetic Victorian invalid on a fainting couch. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, say. Temple had to twist her neck to eye the eight women she’d come to recognize and know.

  She’d suspected one of them had been involved with more than engineering a surprise prank. The FBI man was relying on her crime-solving instincts to tell him who.

  Wow. This was the Big Finale and she already looked like a limping fool who’d walked into a trap and become a hostage.

  Actually, Louie had done the walking and she had followed, but he was being coddled by courtesans and she was merely being ankle-massaged by Matt . . . which was enough to turn her knees to hot melted butter. As well as her brain.

  “Agent Bucek, I haven’t a clue to who the guy who abducted me really is, except that he was a hit man hiree who replaced the real driver, and it suited him, in turn, to be replaced by a Fontana girlfriend. He probably rode out here concealed in the Rolls’s trunk never expecting to be found out in a million years.”

  “That’s okay. We know him. We just don’t know which girl aided and abetted, and whether she really knew what she was doing. Whether she was a victim, or a villain. Can you help us?”

  Lord, she wanted to! Every Fontana except Macho Mario had believed in her smarts. She eyed the old guy, having a big cigar lit by Miss Kitty while the other agent gave him the sixth degree, at least.

  But if she wrongly dissed a loyal Fontana girlfriend, sold her out to the Feds. If she was wrong, and got an innocent woman in trouble. . . .

  “If the girl won’t confess, we’ll never get this right,” Bucek said.

  Temple eyed them all. Neurotic Jill, so insecure. Buoyant Meredith, the life counselor who might have failed in her own choices. Headstrong Alexia had been mentioned as possibly bolting the fold.

  But only one was a likely suspect.

  Temple beckoned Bucek to bend down to her.

  She whispered, “It’s kinda obvious. Asiah, the substitute driver. She wore fishnet hose with just high heels and a skimpy blazer.”

  Bucek glanced at Matt. “You do travel in style these days.”

  “Later, she’d changed to palazzo pants. I’m betting she had them in the trunk and changed stockings for pants right then. Did she spot the fake driver then and go along with whatever story he was handing out . . . he was part of the prank, say? I’m betting he was inspired to grab her stockings as a murder weapon after she left the vehicle. It would keep her quiet afterward about what would look like complicity in the murder, wouldn’t it?”

  “That it would.” Bucek eyed the girlfriends.

  “The African-American woman with platinum-blond hair.”

  He nodded. “We’ll be discreet about cutting her out from the herd when we do our interrogation at the LVMPD. Who’s the unlucky boyfriend?”

  “Ralph, the second youngest. Another thing. Asiah told me she was totally uninterested in marrying her Fontana boyfriend, that she was along for the ride for the thrill of it.”

  Bucek nodded.

  “She’s a showgirl. She has a curtain time tonight too.”

  He glanced at Matt. “She doesn’t have friends in high places. She’ll miss her high kicks tonight, and for a lotta nights. Thanks. Listen to Matt on that ankle. Maybe you’ll stay out of trouble for a while.”

  “Amen,” Matt said.

  Farewell, My Lovely

  “Keep in touch. Phone sex is a favorite sideline around here,” Miss Satin notes from her position on the floor by the door.

  I am about to be hustled back to town, along with Midnight Louise and Ma Barker, in the Rover with the Misses Von Rhine, Barr, Carlson, and Lark.

  Usually I consider being the only male among a passel of devoted females as my birthright, but this feels like I am being shuffled away from the best parts of crime and punishment. Like grilling the suspect.

  “Phone sex is not what I consider ‘keeping in touch.’ ” My vibrissae plays footsie with her vibrissae.

  “Maybe I can visit you in Vegas sometime. I kind of bonded with your family.”

  “Maybe by then I will have the details about our joint collar. I expect my Miss Temple will not rest that ankle until she knows the who, what, when, and why of all this. I am gl
ad to have encountered you again, however briefly. And I am glad that we were all able to bring matters here to a conclusion, to an end, to a climax, so to speak.”

  “Forget it, Louie. I am done with that nonsense.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “You should forget your romantic aspirations and worry about your roommate getting off scot-free. That body upstairs is ripening by the minute, and the trouble your associates could get into with the officials is getting stinkier by the second.”

  “Yeah, but us nailing the perp should banish any bad odor that might cling to my associates.”

  “Us?”

  “You, me, Ma Barker, and the number one daughter.”

  “I thought you said Midnight Louise was someone else’s baby.”

  “Probably is, but now that she thinks she has found mommy dearest, who am I to disillusion a pathetic orphan? Would you want to?”

  “Midnight Louise does not strike me as pathetic. In fact, in some ways she is more worldly than you, Louie! This is all that remains of my one and only litter?”

  “What do you mean, one and only?” I ask with bated fish breath.

  “My ladies are very conscientious about birth control. I have been fixed.”

  “No! You still waft the tempting perfume of a lady who can work up a heat storm now and then.”

  “Dream on, Louie. I, for one, am pleased to know that none of my darling babies are out on the byways facing horrible dangers.”

  “Well, I am out and about, and I face plenty of danger in my job.”

  “That is different. You always were a scrapper. I think you were born with a silver can opener in your mouth. Certainly you have a silver tongue, and have seduced your human into lifelong devotion. Not all of us are that fortunate. Look at your own mother.”

  “Ma Barker runs a street gang, not a small achievement at her age.”

  “Come on. She has mentioned the posh ‘retirement home’ you are setting up for her and her gang. You know she is too old for the streets.”

  “But I am not.”

  Satin shrugs her slim shoulders under the turquoise cape, which sets the marabou feather trim in vibrant motion. She is not fixed enough for me!

  “I would like to visit this Circle Ritz retirement home sometime. I do not intend to go out with my sapphire slippers on in a bordello. I might want to invest in the right property.”

  Hubba, hubba, hormones! If the well-seasoned Miss Kit Carlson can get inspired by the right dude, perhaps Satin is not a lost cause. I live to defy the odds.

  Traveling Music

  The hay was fresh and frothy. Clean-cut.

  He awoke breathing unrecycled air, hearing birds chattering, and a meadowlark uncorking an aria. All he needed was the Disney mice wrapping his withered legs with elastic bandages.

  The illusion shattered as he realized he needed to piss, badly, and was in no shape to get himself up, hobble off, and do it. Pink and puckered indeed.

  As he looked around, he saw he was alone. He could manage a discreet shift to the side. Then use his ass and elbows to move far away.

  Thriller films never dealt with the ugly realities.

  Then he was free to crab-crawl until he found his partner in flight. A quarter of the way around the haystack, she was seated, tying two loaves of bread and a jug into a large lightweight wool shawl. Their latest travel rations.

  She noticed his crablike approach and hefted her saw.

  “The last cast. Then we see how well you can hobble.”

  At least his more recent hospital garb had not been gowns but flannel pajamas, the legs snapping open along the inside and outside seams like infant wear would, he imagined.

  She unsnapped the pants over the leg still in a cast. In the bright morning light she cut away that cast in about fifteen minutes.

  “A quick learner,” he said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Randolph. So, I imagine, are you. You survived a night on the icy Himalayas with two broken legs. How will you do in the more temperate summer Alps with two half-healed legs?”

  He eyed the gnarly walking sticks she had cajoled out of some upland farmer’s cottage. He hadn’t stood unassisted for as long as he could remember, but a maimed man was a dead one on this steep slope, no matter how tepid the daytime climate. He could ditch the flimsy, aluminum crutches.

  He turned to face the upward slope of the meadow, took the sticks in his hands, ready to push down until he rose up. The cudgel-like canes chewed into divots of sod as he levered himself up twelve degrees, then twenty. Then forty-five. Sweat was raining off his brow and chin. His arms were shaking with strain. Sixty.

  She slipped under the angle of his body to position a shoulder under one of his. Early hospital training.

  Up. More. More! For a moment he tottered fully upright and almost tipped over backward. But the thick wooden cane bases dug in under his weight. He was standing, his arms and shoulders bearing most of his weight.

  “Good,” she said, slapping him lightly on the iron bicep. “You’ll regain leg strength.”

  Nice of her to think so.

  They edged sideways down the steep meadows, his weight forcing the thick sod to give so his homemade crutches could get traction.

  After an hour he was exhausted. He collapsed to the ground. They drank dark ale until it was gone. The rush of a mountain stream lured her away, to return with bottles foaming with bubbles.

  He didn’t think about where they were going, or about what they were eating and drinking. This was on-the-job therapy. The mountainside was a million-dollar retraining program.

  By night all his muscles were shaking, and he was moaning, whether awake or asleep. She fed him bread, some water. In the morning, she returned from another foraging expedition with sausage and cheese. He didn’t ask where, when, how. A lone beautiful woman who spoke several languages would be able to concoct a dozen stories to win sympathy and supplies.

  He knew he’d never worked so hard, and was glad his arms and shoulders were strong from the shower rod chin-ups. He never complained, she never coddled.

  By the second day he could get up and down by himself. By the third he was using only one cane and wanted to approach the farmhouses with her.

  “That will be harder to explain,” she objected. “They’ll want to take you to the nearest village, and we’ll be discovered.”

  “You mean it’ll be harder for you to cajole goodies out of these remote farmers with a man along.”

  “Goodies?”

  “Good food, good drink.”

  “You have a point.” She pulled the untidy knot at her nape out of its tie, freeing her s houlder-length honey-blond hair. “I’ve been neglecting to appear vulnerable. I’ve simply been paying so far, after a tale of a hiker with a sprained ankle. But we’ll need fresh clothes soon and it will be good to have further inducements to help. Unless, of course, I’m dealing with a farmwife, who will be suspicious of a city-dressed hussy wandering the mountain meadows.”

  He shook his head ruefully. “Say that your husband had been in a clinic recovering from an accident and you had taken me for a ride. Our car engine failed on one of the high passes. No one came by or stopped, so we had to go in search of assistance and got lost. It’s about time we took someone’s offer of a ride to a nearby village or town. Just how much money do you have on you?”

  “My euros are almost gone, but limitless.” She produced a continental credit card, rather proudly. “I thought to take my wallet from my purse before we left the clinic.”

  “Bury it. Whoever wanted to kill me can easily trace your credit card.”

  “But . . . how will we buy food, transportation, housing?”

  “We won’t buy. Let me worry about it.” He was calm, relying on skills he assumed would reappear when needed.

  Her reliance on her credit card was rather endearing . . . or a clever plot to convince him she was a babe in the woods when it came to survival on the run. She was a babe in the woods, he thought, and she must have
interpreted his grin correctly, because she snapped the credit card away from his fingers.

  “I can hide it on my person.”

  “Not well enough to fool a pro. Lose it. It’s a death sentence. For me, certainly, given the likely lethal hypo meant for me. And, now, because you’re with me, for you too.”

  “We’ll be helpless without it.”

  “But alive. Trust me. It’s totally compromised. By now they know you’ve vanished too. If the hypo people aren’t after us, the authorities are.”

  And Garry Randolph, maybe. He hoped. His talks with Randolph had given him the confidence to see past his injuries and memory loss, to see himself as wily and competent and apparently well trained for this rough flight down the mountains.

  Was there anywhere he could head where Garry would find them? Probably, but he didn’t remember it. Yet. There was muscle memory, which would help his damaged legs work better and better as they got stronger and stronger; there was also mental recuperation, which would slowly repair the severed pathways of his memory. Hopefully. And there was gut instinct. He guessed that was his best ally at the moment.

  “Get some suitable walking clothes for us at the next farmhouse. We need to clean up and dress the part before we actually bum a ride from anyone.”

  “‘Bum’ a ride?”

  “Beg.” He cocked his thumb. “Hitchhike.”

  She nodded at the gesture. Narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “ ‘Clean up.’ Does that mean we’ll have the cliched mountain stream bath of unacquainted couples on the run?”

  He nodded. “Excellent therapy. Might motivate my legs to do a better job at moving me around. Fighting the running water, that is.”

  “You may not remember much, Mr. Randolph, but what you do remember is choice.”

  With that she tossed her freshly loosened hair and moved through the long grasses to the steep wooden roof of a farmhouse in the distance, one with a ramp that allowed cattle and other stock into the warmer living area during the long, snow-deep winters. It had been done that way here for centuries. Despite the three days’ struggle down the mountain meadows, Revienne Schneider looked cool and very hot at the same time.