Midnight Louie 05-Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  This bird also has an awesome beak that could tear the hide off a rhinoceros. Luckily, I cannot see this biting, ripping, eating machine, for a small but sinister leather hood covers the creature's head.

  This will be like interviewing an executioner.

  I clear my throat with a low-throttle purr.

  The hooded head jerks in my direction and eight lethal claws bite wood. I note that the perch is pitted with such marks. Better it than I.

  Normally, this dude's relatives are prey for my family. But the birds we hunt are small, spry types, and this specimen is larger, and a raptor to boot. The velociraptors in Jurassic Park, the motion picture, scared the skin off many humans who saw them in action.

  My interview subject is a surviving descendent. A hunting hawk.

  I do not speak bird well, but I can croak out a few words in pigeon. I begin cautiously. "You alone."

  "Awwk," it agrees, cocking its unseen head toward me.

  "You not ride master's wrist."

  "Last master buy hunter, not true hunter."

  "So you not like Fabrizio?"

  The feathered body sways from leg to leg, its claws tightening and loosening on the perch. Guess not.

  "You would be star in show, though."

  "Would rather hunt."

  "He is dead."

  "I hear but not see."

  "You know new master?"

  "No. She feeds."

  "You sit on leather perch."

  "Human arm."

  "Where is gauntlet?"

  The bird edges down the perch toward me. I cannot tell if it has grown tired of my interrogation or is just hungry.

  "What are you?" it croaks.

  "Investigator."

  A silence. Birds do not have the keen sense of smell my kind does, but their eyes are A-one. Luckily, with their heads hooded, raptors are deprived of their most vital sense and are easy to deal with.

  "Smell blood," it says.

  "From the stage."

  "Do not know 'stage.'"

  "From a stream's width from here?"

  "Yes. Two times."

  "From the ... glove?"

  "Do not know 'glove.'"

  "Leather perch on human."

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "Since three hunting moons ago."

  The hair rises on my back. Although our lingo is primitive and sketchy on tenses, my avian source seems to be saying that he has smelled blood ever since Cheyenne's murder, which means the gauntlet is still in the area.

  "Where?" I ask.

  The bird rocks from side to side again, a gesture I now realize is frustration.

  "Near. Too near. Hungry."

  Although he is welcome to eat the glove by my lights, I cannot allow this when it is evidence.

  "How near?"

  "On ground."

  I examine the stage floor, which is as bare as a bodkin. I even leap down to make a methodical search. Nothing. Nil. Zero. Zilch. I hate it when a snitch steers me wrong, but I am not about to take my ire out on this big bird. Resuming my own perch, I begin again.

  "Glove on ground?"

  "Yes. Just below."

  "I do not see it."

  "I do not see also."

  Of course the hawk would not see the glove when it is hooded! What an Einstein. Then I realize that the numbskull is me.

  I force myself to an unpleasant task. I examine the cage that contains the bird. It is large and square, made of strong wire. Because birds are caged, their litter boxes must come built into the bottom.

  I look down to see a newspaper liner on which lies a dozen impressive-sized droppings, some clearly used and others dabs of fallen ... body parts. Because this is a large cage, the bottom tray has a deeper dish than a Chicago pizza, pardon the parallel under the circumstances.

  The papers are probably changed daily by the person known as "she," but the tray would be rarely removed. I reach up, snag the rim and pull. The tray is stuck. I pull with all my might. The tray moves toward me, but so does the entire cage.

  Mr. Hawk and I are about to have a nasty fall. I tell him to hang onto his tailfeathers and then we hit the stage floor in a flurry of clashes, feathers and flying organic waste. As soon as I land on my feet, I dash behind a black curtain, where I am perfectly invisible.

  The clatter has brought a full cast of characters to the site, including the PR woman who tended the bird for Fabrizio ... and Danny Dove.

  They gawk at the mess, and the hawk flapping its clipped wings in the cage, then quickly right it. The tray remains half out, so the PR woman tries to wrench it shut. Then Danny Dove takes over and decides to pull it all the way out before reinstalling it.

  Smart fellow. When the tray comes out with a screech that would irritate the nerves of a jackhammer operator, so does something else.

  I watch with satisfaction as the stage crew stares down at something black and crumpled and reeking of mouse on the floor.

  The Bloody Glove.

  A sensation ensues, while Danny Dove insures that no one touches the glove.

  Blessed are the peacemakers.

  I stroll away, so satisfied with myself that I decide to investigate another little matter of wearing apparel that has been overlooked by everybody else.

  No, it is not my signature shoe--not yet--but it is not far off.

  Chapter 33

  A Clue to Chew On

  Three boots sat on Lieutenant Molina's desk: Fabrizio's pair and the one found among Cheyenne's confiscated possessions after his death.

  "Why didn't you mention your boot?" she asked Temple.

  "I didn't know whose it was, or that it was related to the case."

  "You found it during a rehearsal."

  "Dozens and dozens of people use the downstairs dressing rooms for the hotel revue. I had no reason to suspect the boot was related to the Incredible Hunk pageant."

  "What about the large size?"

  "Showgirls are all treetop tall, with shoe sizes to match."

  "You thought this was a woman s boot?"

  "Pretty likely, given the glitzy design. Unless they're Country-Western stars, most men prefer something a tad more conservative. And, as I said before, tall women wear big shoes, and every Vegas hotel dressing room is crammed with tall women."

  "Even darling Clementine only wore number nine," Molina pointed out, glaring like a prosecuting attorney.

  Temple kept silent, struck by the eerie coincidence: Molina citing the same folk song that Temple had remembered when finding the boot. She wondered what size shoe Molina wore. Ten, she would bet.

  That "only" had given the great detective away.

  "The boot you found is exactly like these three?" Molina said.

  "Yes ..."

  "Why do you hesitate?"

  "I want to be precisely accurate. The boot I found was different in one respect. Some rhinestones were missing from the heel. Maybe that was why it was tossed."

  "Defective," Molina commented, biting her lip thoughtfully. "Who would have gotten rid of it?"

  "Cheyenne, obviously. It was his pair of boots. He must have been rushing to get onstage and dumped it as he went past the costume rack."

  "Thrown out for a few missing rhinestones?"

  Temple shrugged.

  "I'll get you back to the Phoenix. I want that boot. It belongs with the evidence."

  Temple couldn't argue about that, which often made being with Lieutenant Molina no fun.

  Kit and Electra, however, had fun riding in the back of Molina's Caprice, which was roomy enough for three. Kit and Electra discussed changing genres from historical romance to contemporary romantic suspense, just so they could use the "atmosphere" in their next books.

  Temple thought the atmosphere left much to be desired.

  Once at the Crystal Phoenix, Kit and Electra returned to convention events. Temple escorted Lieutenant Molina downstairs to her humble dressing room.

  "The boot is with my theatrical stuff," she explain
ed as Molina ducked to enter the curtained cubicle.

  "In the bag."

  "Big enough, isn't it?" Molina eyed the duffel bag.

  And then the bag stirred.

  "Don't tell me they have cockroaches down here!" Temple said, peering at her property.

  Molina didn't waste time looking, but crouched down to jerk the unzipped top wide open.

  Midnight Louie sprawled blinking in the brighter light, his forepaws wrapped cunningly around Cheyenne's boot.

  "I've never had evidence contaminated by cat drool before," Molina said sardonically. "Good kitty.

  Give me the boot."

  Temple could have told her she was taking the wrong tack with Midnight Louie. "Good kitty" didn't cut it. As Molina reached to tug the boot away, Louie's paws tightened in possession. He curled his back feet around it, kicking, and began gnawing the rhinestone-covered heel again.

  "Come on!" Molina got her fingers on the heel and tugged. "Ouch." Her blue eyes glared over her shoulder as she appealed to Temple. "Your cat almost bit me!"

  "No, he didn't. Your hand got in the way while he was chewing on the heel."

  "A pathetically weak defense for obvious assault and battery, and why would he chew the heel anyway?"

  "It's leather, which smells good to cats."

  "Probably reminds them of prey. Come on!" Molina fought Louie again for the boot, earning a low, fierce growl that made her jerk her hand away.

  "You get it," she ordered Temple, standing up. "If he bites anyone and breaks the skin, he'll be quarantined for rabies."

  Temple hastened to take Molina's place beside the bag, then grabbed the boot-top and tugged.

  Midnight Louie put all his twenty pounds into keeping it.

  Temple tugged again, hard, so hard that she fell back on her rear when the boot suddenly came free.

  She held the boot up to the light. "Here's the spot that's missing rhines tones."

  Molina cocked her head. "So I see, but I still don't see why the victim threw it away. Hand it up; I'll take back to headquarters so it's with the other effects." She frowned as she accepted custody.

  "Sure is garish, and poorly made if the rhinestones flaked off so readily; maybe the victim was right to toss it."

  Temple stood slowly, still aching from her last tango with Fabrizio. "No, the Four Queens said it was expensive. Rhinestones aren't cheap anymore, Lieutenant."

  "The Four Queens? Some colorful romance-writing team, no doubt, or a quartet of pose-down girls?"

  "Neither. The lead showgirls here at the Phoenix. I asked them if the boot belonged to anyone in the revue, but they said no."

  "Bad taste is not necessarily cheap. Look, the heel has even been put on crooked."

  Temple looked, and then she looked down at Louie, who was raptly licking his own foot leather. "Let me see that boot!"

  Molina wasn't used to taking orders from civilians, but she dubiously handed over the boot.

  "This heel was perfectly placed when I last saw the boot." Temple turned the boot in her hand. The heel definitely did not sit squarely to the sole anymore. She had the glimmer of an idea. "Those crystals in Cheyenne's medicine pouch, what were they like?"

  "White crystals, like all the New Agers wear." Molina frowned. "Only they were much smaller and not oblong."

  "Pointed on the bottom, like unset rhinestones?"

  Molina's face reflected a dawning suspicion that still lay well below the horizon line of logic.

  Temple grabbed the boot-heel--the rhinestone studding felt porcupine-prickly--and twisted. Ick.

  Cool drool from Louie's boot-licking wet her palm.

  But something clicked, both in Molina's mind and in the boot. The lieutenant was reaching for the boot when Temple's efforts paid off. The heel twisted 180 degrees askew, releasing a shower of small white stones that flashed out and rained to the floor.

  "Holy shit! Shut that thing!" Molina knelt and cupped her hands under the dazzling drizzle, until her palms filled with tiny glittering drops.

  Temple snapped the heel back into place, then dove for the dressing table.

  "Here's a makeup tin cover."

  Temple held it under Molina's hands, which separated. Glitzy hail drummed the metal until Molina's hands had emptied, except for a few sparkling stones that stuck to her moist skin.

  She picked them off, one by one, like priceless burrs.

  Temple was on hands and knees by then, crawling over the floor to corral the first few stones that had bounced away.

  "I'll send technicians over for an official search," Molina said, rising with the literal booty. "Get off the floor and tell me what and why and how you knew."

  "I'm not sure," Temple said, dusting off her hands. "It just came to me."

  "Something must have triggered your instincts, so think."

  Temple leaned against the dressing table, gazing down at the shallow lid afloat with Austrian-crystal brilliance. Cut and uncut diamonds by the carat.

  "Jake Gotshall told me Cheyenne had run out just before his first, fatal rehearsal. He'd come back in a hurry and seemed upset about something."

  "The boot." Molina set the object beside its precious contents. "I should have thought of the hollow heel. It's an old smugglers' trick. So the men of steel and boys in bronze body makeup are moonlighting in smuggling.

  Temple nodded and stared at the boot. Maybe she should not have been thinking of England during her trying moments lately, but of another foreign country. One famed for footwear and leather goods.

  One that recently had hosted both Cheyenne and Fabrizio. One shaped like a boot.

  "Italy!" she said aloud.

  Molina waited.

  "Cheyenne had just completed a modeling job there, and Fabrizio was a native."

  Molina touched the heel with the missing rhinestones. Then she lifted the boot from the table top.

  "Got a nail file handy?" She glanced pointedly at Temple's long, red-enameled fingernails.

  Temple bent down to ravage her duffel bag until she came up with a metal file imbued with, ironically, diamond dust. She slapped it in Molina's extended hand like a nurse giving a surgeon a requested scalpel.

  Molina used the file like a surgeon. She dug the tip into the soft leather and pried until a large rhinestone finally popped out.

  Molina held it up to the makeup lights. "The larger stones were embedded in the leather. Clever, mixing real with fake stones. Looks like the amateur smugglers, Cheyenne and Fabrizio, had a falling out."

  "But if Fabrizio killed Cheyenne--"

  "Obviously to get Cheyenne's share of the diamonds. I bet when we check the boot of Cheyenne's we already have, it'll be clean. Only one in each pair was a mule; that way the bearer could try to pull a switch if a customs official got too curious. Cheyenne, sensing that Fabrizio planned to keep the goods in both pairs, hastily hid the boot of his that was loaded before Fabrizio got it. Only he was killed too soon, and when Fabrizio sneaked into Cheyenne's dressing room after he was dead to nick the diamond-bearing boot, he found only the real one, and left it in disgust."

  "Then who killed Fabrizio?"

  "Another confederate, maybe even the mob who arranged the smuggling. Believe me, these guys weren't meant to keep what they carried through customs. While Cheyenne and Fabrizio were tussling for possession of the gems, the people who had stolen them probably got impatient and used the pattern of Cheyenne's murder to off Fabrizio."

  "Foreign assassins? Diamond lords loose at the Crystal Phoenix? But Fabrizio wanted to kill me --"

  "Because you'd figured out he'd worn a glove, and could have killed Cheyenne. I got a call while we were en route. The backstage crew found a black leather gauntlet concealed under the waste tray in the hawk's cage. We'll test it, but the location alone pretty much nails Fabrizio for Cheyenne's death."

  A yowl from the floor directed their attention to Midnight Louie, who was weaving against Molina's navy slacks and rubbing his chin on something bulky around her ankle.
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  She quickly moved away.

  "I wish we'd realized that the stones in Cheyenne's medicine pouch were more than rock crystal," she went on. "But everything about the scene of the crime was so theatrical and fake--"

  Molina's self-defense trickled down to a smile she quirked at Temple. "Anyway, thanks for the boot.

  I've got all I need here. You can pick up your cat and leave."

  "Doesn't he get a medal?"

  "For ensliming the evidence and nipping at an officer of the law? I think not."

  But Molina patted Midnight Louie's head after Temple had nearly dismantled herself bending down and picking up the hefty tomcat.

  Temple knew that Midnight Louie hated condescension as much as she did, but he let it go this time.

  After all, he had solved the case.

  Chapter 34

  Last Act

  Once out of the dressing area, Midnight Louie wanted down, so Temple complied before he reminded her of his hind claws.

  She watched him trot off, probably on a romantic mission. She had a mission or two herself.

  First she saw Danny, who was working madly in the Peacock Theater, reblocking the contestants to reflect Fabrizio's absence.

  The chaos suspended while Danny consulted with Temple, pointed to the stage once or twice, and finally patted her on the back. She left, smiling, a swing in her step.

  She checked her watch without putting on her glasses as she walked up the theater's gorgeously carpeted aisle. That required squinting a lot.

  When she looked up, someone tall was waiting for her by the royal blue velvet curtains at the entrance. She assumed it was Molina, but when she drew closer, she realized that it wasn't Molina after all.

  "Max!"

  The Hawaiian shirt was gone, replaced by his trademark black, and so were the sunglasses. He didn't smile in greeting, just looked at her.

  "I was crazy to think that I could protect you by going away," he finally said. "You've managed to find more danger than I could ever lead your way."

  "I'm all right," Temple said, betrayed by the fog in her voice.

  Max cocked his head to hear the damage, then finally smiled. "You will be after your throat recovers.