“So, what’d yah think of this Klein babe?”
“Nothing. I mean, she wasn’t good-looking or even interesting.”
“Interesting enough for someone to murder.”
“That’s true.” The Crawf frowned, lost in the implications. “I interviewed her on tape. Had to. She was a coach. All she did was spout stuff about how girls eat bad just to look good but end up looking worse. I mean, I don’t care how they get there, as long as they get there, and you got there, if you know what I mean?”
“I know exactly what you mean.” Temple restrained herself from rolling up her InStyle magazine and stuffing it down his throat.
Then she took her own mental temperature. She felt, right now, just like the murderer must have felt confronting Marjory Klein. Only Crawford was a disgusting toad who deserved to eat his own words.
What could, would Marjory Klein have deserved? Mariah saw her as a diet Nazi, a nag, but Klein had just wanted young women to be healthy, hadn’t she? Since when was that a sin?
Temple owed the Crawf big time for stirring an emotion in her that gave her a few seconds’ insight into the murderer.
Crassford Buchanan ought to be a de rigueur fixture on every crime scene to inspire the detective to think like someone in a murderous rage.
The killing may have been sheer rage at the end but at the beginning, during the setup, it had to have been pure cold calculation. That gave her an interesting insight into the killer.
Temple wandered out to the pool area, still trying to put the pieces together. Whoever did it had to know something about Marjory. Her philosophy and habits. What she was allergic to. That meant the roots of the murder lay far away from this Teen Queen Castle on the Mojave. And therefore the motives were harder to find.
How could Temple contribute anything? She didn’t have the access the police did to the victim’s past. Or maybe she did. Molina.
The pool was deserted right now except for one lounge chair on which lay a bronzed body in a lime green bikini.
A big black cat lay under the lounger, basking in the shade of that B-movie body.
Louie blinked at Temple, his eyes the same lime green shade as Savannah Ashleigh’s latest thong.
Savannah wore a silver foil collar around her neck like a high-tech Elizabethan collar. It focused the sun’s lethal tanning rays at her neck and under her chin. No ugly untanned white streaks allowed just where they might make her look a trifle old and crepe-skinned.
Temple stopped to stare at this flagrant example of self-abuse. Even Hollywood George Hamilton had used self-tanning lotions for years.
“Reminds me of bacon,” a voice behind Temple noted. She turned to find Rafi Nadir standing at attention in the shade of the portico, sunglasses as dark as those on any South American dictator hiding his eyes. Nothing disguised the contempt in his voice as he regarded the object of his protection.
Savannah was courting melanoma while paying to avoid an unlikely personal physical attack.
“Yo,” Xoe Chloe said.
“Yo, yourself, whoever you think you are. I know you,” he added.
“Me?”
“You … now that the KISS wig is history. First, you’re a thong-girl at a strip club, then you’re a PR flack at a furniture store, and now you’re a juvenile delinquent Valley Goth Girl.”
“You made me! How?”
“Once that lame wig was gone.”
“I didn’t have much time to get an act together.”
“So, now you’re gonna tell me what you really are, a PI.” It was as good a secondary cover as anything. “Maybe,” Temple said, “and now the murder to go with me has happened at last.”
“So. You want something.”
“Not much.”
“They always say that.” He nodded at Savannah.
“I really don’t want much.”
“I must admit that you get around.”
“You too.”
“Yeah, well, I gotta take these freelance gigs.”
“I’d think guarding a dedicated babe like Savannah would be a cushy job.”
“She hasn’t even got the integrity of a stripper,” he said. “Look at that old alley cat sitting under her shadow. He knows what she’s good for. Occupying space in this world, and not much else.”
“She may have struggles we don’t know anything about.”
“Most people do. It still doesn’t entitle them. So. What is a PR girl doing here playing a Bad Barbie PI?”
“I’m someone’s bodyguard too. One of the ‘Tween Queen candidates. Her mother hired me.”
He nodded. “Her mother had the right idea, it turns out, now that murder’s been done. Hey! You’re rooming with the poor kid who found the body. What’s her name? Mamie?”
“Mariah.” Temple felt weirder than she could say introducing Rafi Nadir to the name of his unsuspected daughter.
“Mariah. Odd name. Mama musta been a big fan of Mariah Carey. The pop diva, you know.”
“I do know. Actually, the name reminds me of the song.”
“Song?”
“From Paint Your Wagon.”
Rafi’s body language remained as blank as his sunglasses. “Paint your what?”
“A musical comedy about the California Gold Rush. The name of the western wind is Mariah. In the song.”
“Well, this is the West.” Rafi shrugged. “As if Las Vegas was anywhere real.““What keeps you here?”
“I don’t know. L.A. was a bust. I drifted. There are lots of temporary jobs here for a guy like me. If I don’t get competition from know-it-all PR gals. You’re quite a chameleon, you know that?”
“I don’t want to be. I just keep getting drawn into these situations.”
“So how’s the kid?”
“Mariah?”
“Yeah. I’ve worked the death scene and interviewed citizens who found the corpse, but a kid? And this one was rough. You handle it okay?”
“Yeah. Except the victim was so harmless.”
“Those are the worst. She seemed like a nice lady.”
Temple eyed Savannah, who wiggled on the lounge chair, forcing Louie to move to keep his shady spot. Rafi was oddly unaffected by Savannah’s vampish moves. Maybe he wasn’t as knee-jerk a jerk as she—and Molina—thought. Was that possible?
“What a spotlight hog,” Rafi said. “A little talent would help a lot.”
“Maybe not. Look at this competition.”
“Looks like a murder competition.”
“You expect more?”
“There are so many more deserving victims.” His blocked gaze clearly focused on Savannah.
“Don’t worry. Louie is on the case.”
“Louie?”
“The cat. My cat.”
This kept him silent for a few seconds. “You and the cat are a team? I spotted him around Maylords.”
“A girl can always count on a cat.”
“Does this Mariah girl have a cat?”
“Two. Striped. And Louie by proxy.”
Rafi’s continually scanning sunglasses lowered to re-gard Louie, then lifted to Savannah with her foil collar, ear-plugging radio and the bikini a lime dressing on an oiled, silicone-stuffed breast of turkey prime.
“These cops on the scene,” he said. “They haven’t a clue. But I think you do. Keep me in the loop.”
“Mr. Nadir, if it’s loopy you want, it’s loopy you’ll get.”
“Right. I liked the expression on that homicide lieutenant’s face when you had me snag the Maylords killer. That do-able again?”
“Maybe. But I don’t get your issues.” Of course she knew more than he could guess.
“Nobody could.”
Then Savannah called for a misting with distilled water and a green apple martini, and Rafi moved to oblige her. Was that a motive for murder? Oh, yeah.
Chapter 40
American Idle
There is not much to be learned underneath the dripping shower of tanning creams.
Granted, my Miss Temple has made excellent use of the shower option in the bathroom for consultations and speculations. However, Miss Savannah Ashleigh proves to be a disappointment in this area, and I am sorry I am too far away to eavesdrop on my esteemed associate’s parley with Mr. Rafi Nadir.