"What has my father ever done to you?" she cried.
He has transported my brother to the wilds of Australia, my other brother to the coal mines of Wales, my eldest sister to the gin mills and my youngest sister to the streets of San Francisco (check for time). And he has made a wanted man of me."
"You sound a thoroughly degenerate lot, sir. No doubt you deserved my father's treatment."
"But you will not deserve mine," he swore, sitting beside her on the seat of the carriage.
"What do you intend?" she said faintly.
Okay. Got to get down to the hard stuff. Where's that section in this one book? I can kind of. . . echo it. In my own original way, of course.
Moonlight washed through the casement carriage window like midnight lace, and painted the face of Lady Hester lovely Arianaina soft silver. Moonlight shone from the white silk shirt of the Demon Dagger, emphasizing his broad shoulders and narrow hips, his long limbs and pale long hair, his hairless face, his washboard stomach and rain barrel chest.
Say, rain barrel goes pretty well with washboard. Wonder if this is what the tipsheet meant when it said to avoid "laundry lists" of physical description? Maybe I'd better cut that washday analogy, save it for a rainy day. Heh-heh. Look at me! I can write wringers around these dumb romance hacks. Bet I win.
Chapter 22
Morning, Moon and Molina
"Charlie Moon."
"Charlie Moon?"
"Cheyenne's real name."
"Really?"
"Would I kid you?"
Temple looked up into Molina's ice -blue eyes and knew that would be the day.
The lieutenant didn't seem happy about conveying information to Temple, but in her profession she must have to deal with snitches, and one does not get unless one gives.
"That's a charming name," Temple said after a moment. "Why did he change it?"
"I suspect other kids used to laugh at it when he was a child.
On the reservation and off of it."
"So he did have Native American blood!"
"Some. Enough to bounce between relatives on the reservation and in Phoenix when he was growing up. The usual 'troubled youth' clashes with the law. Petty stuff. We can't find any next of kin to claim the body."
"No one to claim him? That's ridiculous. This guy could have been a celebrity, if he'd won. He would have been on Hard Copy and Hot Heads"
"Even then no one might have claimed him. Family is a forgotten concept for some of these kids growing up today. Charlie Moon never had much, except his looks. Now they're on ice at the medical examiner's, and the show goes on."
Temple followed Molina's glance to the stage, with its ramp, stairs and partial set.
"Somebody even showed up to claim the horse." Temple knew she looked as disgusted as she sounded.
Molina cocked her head like a hungry robin who had heard worm stirrings. "That's right. The horse.
Getting an animal that big into--and out of--a hotel can't be that easy. How did he manage it?"
"Don't ask me, Lieutenant. I never had a horse, unfortunately. I just know that Danny Dove said one of those horse-haulers whisked it away. He was big-time nervous about horse droppings on his stage."
"Where's Danny Dove?"
"Backstage." Temple pointed. She could hardly wait to see Molina and Dove go one-on-one.
"And what are you doing around here anyway?" "Ah, I'm helping with the show."
Molina nodded, slipping her narrow notebook into her sage-green jacket side-pocket. "You're practically on staff here now," she noted.
Temple said nothing. She wanted Molina to think that duty kept Temple around the crime scene.
Temple knew that it was a different kind of duty than her employment at the Crystal Phoenix: guilt over Cheyenne's death.
"Any fingerprints on the arrow?" she only remembered to ask as Molina turned away.
Molina turned back and her dark head shook. "Not a one. The killer was clever enough to think of that. Probably used a cloth, snatched up just before he, or she, grabbed the arrow from Cheyenne's quiver, and struck. The backstage area is cluttered with odd pieces of costuming and such. If you can call it costuming! The victim had nothing on but a flesh-colored jockstrap, a loincloth, and the quiver and bow case. And a medicine pouch with a bone and a feather and a few crystals," she added. "Not much material for evidence."
"If Cheyenne was struck backstage, how could he ride out and continue his act?"
"He didn't." Molina indicated the ceiling above the audience. "The routine called for him to shoot an arrow through the balloon."
Temple searched the dim heights, puzzled until she spotted a huge, heart-shaped red-foil balloon attached to a lighting fixture. "Pretty spectacular trick. I suppose a spotlight would hit the heart for the actual pageant."
Molina nodded grimly. "With the stage crew's concerned with the heart's placement and lighting, nobody backstage paid attention to what riveted the people in the audience: the victim and his horse.
Whoever stabbed him backstage with the arrow, a broad-head steel-tipped one more than sufficient for the job, knew that the shock of the blow, directed at a man who was keyed up for a performance, would virtually immobilize Cheyenne until the horse took him out on stage. There, massive internal bleeding enervated him, and he tumbled to the stage, the arrow in his bow never released. He was dead before anybody reached him."
Temple felt a chill. "So I'm not a suspect."
"Not if you were standing mid-aisle, gawking, in the presence of a witness."
"And Cheyenne was as good as dead the moment he passed the teaser curtains?"
"Exactly. A very clever attack, but risky. I have to hope that someone saw the perpetrator doing something out of character."
Temple nodded, then watched the policewoman plod up the stairs and down the long runway toward the stage proper. Molina always moved like a military tank. Maybe Temple wasn't used to large women. Or maybe Molina lacked grace. Temple favored the latter explanation.
"Don't stand and gawk when you can sit," a voice urged from the empty seats.
She didn't like being reminded of what she was doing when Cheyenne was dying, and turned with irritation to the empty auditorium seats behind her. Not all empty.
A hunk sprawled on a fifth-row seat, long blue-jeaned legs and cowboy boots thrust into the aisle. His western shirt was cut close and buttoned tight where it wasn't open to the chest hairs at their most profuse. No wonder they called this the Incredible Hunk pageant; all the entrants looked as imminently ready to split their seams as the comic books' Incredible Hulk himself.
A long, narrow woman wearing the same western uniform sat beside this particular edition of hunkdom like a feminine twin.
Temple took his suggestion--especially since she was wearing her smashing, red but uncomfortable, resale-shop Charles Jourdans--by perching on the seat-arm across the center aisle from the Deadwood duo.
"Troy Tucker." The man's hand extended for a hearty shake. "This here's my wife Nance."
Nance just nodded. She had a long, frizzy palomino ponytail and a face born to be freckled.
"I work for the hotel," Temple said, adding several yards of hemp to Molina's rope of misconception.
"I'm trying to get a feel for the contest. PR, you know."
Both of them unconsciously tensed, as if suddenly on stage.
"This is our third," Nance said in the same soft country drawl as her husband.
"Great! You can fill me in on everything. What's it like?"
They exchanged glances. He spoke. "Wahl, it's mighty like a rodeo, ma'am. Standin' around behind the scenes, gettin' in line, gettin' the adrenaline up for your few seconds in the spotlight and hopin' that nothin' out there throws ya. At least here you don't get horse hockey in yer bootheels."