Mute yet still in tandem, Temple and Danny stood, then parted to reveal the scene behind them.
"What's going on here?" Molina asked Temple after a cursory glance at the body, the horse and the horse-holder.
Temple knew she wanted terse talk. "Rehearsal for the Incredible Hunk contest sponsored by a romance convention meeting in the hotel."
"Incredible Hunk?" Molina's tone was more than incredible.
"Male cover models for romance novels. You know, pirates, Vikings, Indian chiefs. Thirty-some guys competing. One keeled over after riding onstage."
"That's the horse he rode in on?"
What other horse would it be? --Temple nodded
"And the woman with it?"
"A volunteer handler. The horse has no saddle or bridle, and no union hand would object to an outsider taking care of it, I bet.
But I figured you'd want the crime scene as undisturbed as possible, so it made sense to keep the horse nearby."
"You consider the horse a witness? Did it happen to make a plaintive wail?"
"Only a plaintive whinny," Temple answered, stung by Molina's eternal sarcasm, "but it does have some of the victim's blood on its rump. Won't you need photos and samples?"
"Unfortunately, yes. And probably videotape at five, thanks to the Dream Team." Molina mounted the steps, clumping loudly in her low-heeled loafers, her partner behind her.
Temple had never seen him before: a dapper man with a neat salt-and-pepper moustache. He murmured an apology as he cut a swath between Temple and Danny.
Danny sighed loudly when the officers paused mid-runway to survey the damage.
"Just what I need when I've only got a few piddling hours to mount a show." Danny answered Temple's unspoken question in a hoarse stage whisper. "The police camping out on stage for who-knows-how-long. You've had experience with murders; how many hours will it take them to do their little dust 'n' bust routine?"
Temple surveyed the desultory clots of people. "The cast of witnesses and possible suspects would fill a Cecil B. DeMille crowd scene. Interviews could last all day. The physical crime scene is fairly limited, but the whole backstage area will have to be gone over with a blusher brush, of course. Ask Lieutenant Molina what can be arranged. The Las Vegas police understand about working around public places, crowds and deadlines."
"Lieutenant Molina's the hard-boiled dame in the Hush Puppies? The one you were afraid was coming?"
"You got it, Danny."
"I'd rather ask one of the guys on Mount Rushmore for something."
"Hey, better you than me. She really hates my guts."
"She must have as poor taste in people as she does in footwear."
He grinned an impish farewell before bounding down the stairs to round up his cast and crew for the inevitable police questions. Choreographers always bounded, Temple observed wistfully, as if they had inner-springs in their ankles. Where did they get the energy?
She suddenly had a mental image of Mount Rushmore looming behind her and turned back to the stage. Lieutenant Molina had approached on sneaky Hush Puppy feet and was watching her with the usual disconcerting deadpan before speaking "The Amazon with the horse said that you instructed everybody present at the time of the murder to stay put."
"I did."
"Good thinking, but can you be sure someone backstage didn't skulk off unseen?"
"No. I guess that's your job."
"But no one has left, that you know of?"
"Well--"
"Who?"
"Just Electra Lark, my landlady."
"I half-expected you to be here, God help me, knowing that you're working for the Crystal Phoenix, but what brought Mrs. Lark to this convention of weight lifters?" She nodded at assorted, half-attired hunks lounging in the seats. Sober faces went oddly with their luxuriant manes of well-tended hair.
"She had to attend a romance-writing class she signed up for."
"That sort of thing can be taught?"
"Apparently. And--"
"Who else has left?"
"My ... Aunt Ursula. Well, actually, her name is Kit. Nickname, that is. . . when she doesn't go by Sulah Savage."
"Your Aunt Ursula." Molina repeated in numb, computerized tones. "Explain."
"I ran into her at the hotel yesterday. Didn't even know she was in town, and she didn't know I lived here. She's a famous romance writer."
"Sulah Savage," Molina repeated, her voice cold enough to flash-freeze a fish.
"Well, famous to some. Her given name was Ursula, you see, but she couldn't stand it, obviously, so her friends call her Kit."
"Kit what?"
"Er, Kit Carlson."
"Kit Carlson." Molina thought. "She ride horses?"
"Oh, I'm sure not. She knows absolutely nothing about horses and, and arrows. She's from Minnesota, you know, but she's lived in New York City for years."
"That clears her, all right."
"Anyway, Electra and Kit were sitting with me two-thirds of the way up the aisle. They couldn't have done it."
"We don't even know how the man was killed yet, so don't rule them out."
"With the arrow, isn't it obvious?"
"Perhaps, but was the victim shot... or stabbed? Tell me what you saw. You're the closest thing to an expert observer I've got."
Temple didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. She certainly knew enough to comply.
"His animal act was a surprise. Only a few people backstage must have seen the horse brought in; the rest would be dressing or undressing, or helping the guys dress or undress, as the case may have been. He had arranged for a girl to help him with the horse--"
"Yon dainty wench." Molina jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the buxom lass by the Appaloosa. "Her name is Camellia Stubbins and she gave her reason for being here as 'groupie.'
Apparently it was her self-appointed task to stand and wait upon these strapping he-men at large."
"Anyway, the . . . rider emerged slowly from the stage left wings--our right as we look toward the proscenium--bareback and bare a lot else, on the Appaloosa.
"He really milked the moment," Temple went on in appreciative remembrance and review. "It was a pretty stunning presentation: the bare horse and the almost-naked warrior atop it. The horse headed for stage center and the runway. I don't know if he was guiding it at that point, because any signals he'd have given would have been imperceptible, a mere tightening of leg muscles."
"You ride?"
"No, but I was a teenage girl once, and we go horse-crazy for a time. We learn these things, you know."
Molina's professional facade fractured into a wry smile. "I do know. I'm supposed to somehow fit a horse on a city lot, never mind the codes."
Temple guessed the horse fancier was the lieutenant's awkward preteen daughter, Mariah.
"Have you ever considered miniature donkeys?" Temple asked in all seriousness.
"I meet enough of them in my work," the policewoman an-swered pointedly, her cobalt eyes flashing blue steel.
Temple swallowed and accepted the admonition in silence. Back to story time, although she hated reliving those awful moments when Cheyenne's act was revealed as an act of violence. She recalled the so-short moments when she assumed Cheyenne was doing exactly what he wanted to be doing, instead of dying.
"A fabulous entrance, as I said. He looked magnificent, except I thought he was drawing out the strong, silent type image a bit too long." She grimaced. "Then he slipped sideways, and before we all could see it wasn't a dismount but something more ... deadly, I saw paint, red paint on the Appaloosa's snow-white hindquarters, red paint running down its gray side. War paint, I thought at first. What a great dramatic touch, I thought. Then I realized ... what it must really be."
"The folks smoking in the foyer said you were the first to notice that something was wrong, that you ran right for the body. The little red-headed gal,' they said. I knew that was you even before we walked into the theater."
"I didn't run to 'a body.' I ran to help someone who looked ill. I didn't see the arrow until I got there, and by then he was falling back on it." She winced again, picturing Cheyenne's own weight driving death more deeply into his body.