All Temple had to do now was ensure the perp was ensconced in the proper consulting room, then guide Alch there.
He thought he was here as a mere delivery boy. She hoped he still carried. Maybe she should have speed-dialed the Fontana Brothers as backup. Her Aunt Kit would adore meeting them.
She got down to the main floor, checked her watch, and hovered at the front entry hall. No Alch yet but it was only 8:25. Maybe she should pick up some muscle on the way.
Time to skitter down the endless halls—where were Xoe’s Rollerblades when she needed them?
Temple’s heart was pounding when she reached theright door, and not from the run. What if she was wrong? She knocked. After ten seconds’ silence, she pushed the door open.
The office seemed empty. Strange. The 8:30 slot was booked. Someone should be here.
Aware that her every move might be recorded, Temple played the curious arrivée, peering in, peeking around, moving around on silent little cat feet.
No bogeymen jumped out from behind furniture, so before she knew it, she had advanced to the empty desk.
Upon its admirably clear surface lay a note, scrawled in a hasty hand.
Temple cocked her head to read it sideways: “See me first thing tomorrow.”
Hmmm. Sounded like the tail wagged the dog, although this dog had always been in charge of the manger.
Either way, she needed to hit another office fast. Her watch said Alch would be pushing open the Teen Queen Castle entry portcullis right about now… .
She dashed down another hall, around a corner, and into familiar territory.
Another door, another knock, another long silence. Brash, bleached-blonde Xoe Chloe walked right in. Peered.
The high-backed leather chair behind the desk was spun away from the door to face the windows overlooking the pool area.
Temple had a very bad feeling. She should cut and run, whatever that meant.
She’d been here before. Empty office, sinister chair back. Cameras, anyone?
Why had Dexter Manship left that imperious note just sitting on his desk? Had he figured out what she had? She’d trespassed on his empty office before, but then there had been nothing sinister to find after all.
That was there and then. This was here and now.
Had he too tumbled to the bizarre truth? Where was he now?
Was she too late? Would Alch find yet another victim instead of a perp?
She didn’t like Manship. Who did? Manship probably didn’t even like Manship. But … he was a human being, sharp and observant. Maybe too much of both.
She approached the desk. Walked around it. Outside the Nevada sunshine was bouncing off the blazing white stone and blue water and basting bronzed blondes to French toast.
Inside, the office was dim. Silent. Still as death.
She grabbed the chair’s high back and spun it around with all her might.
She needed all her might. The chair was heavy and only rotated forty-five degrees.
Enough to reveal a passenger.
An inert passenger.
The wrong one.
Xoe Chloe could have skated back down a quarter mile of hallway to the front door in about two minutes. Temple was less athletic and way more practical. She screamed. It was a wimpy thing to do but it would bring ‘em all in about sixty seconds flat.
Chapter 51
Heartfelt
and Red-Handed
“They have you on tape,” kindly Detective Alch said. Threatened. “We have you on tape, since their tapes are now our tapes. Slinking around Manship’s empty office a few days ago.”
“That wasn’t me,” Temple said. “That was Xoe Chloe. She’s much nervier.”
Temple wasn’t nervy at all now, except in the wimpy meaning of the word. Her back was to the desk and Beth Marble’s very dead body, but the grotesque image was branded on the movie screen behind her eyes: Beth’s head tilted back, eyes open, the curled black hair slid back several inches … a wig like Xoe Chloe’s ex-accessory, but the head beneath it … bald. It was bad enough the woman was dead; worse that the killer had scalped her in a sense. Temple wondered if gravity, or the murderer, had unmasked Beth after death.
“You say you were going to spring the murderer’s name on me when I got here. Then why the detour to Manship’s office?”
“He’d left a note from my suspect on his desk, asking him to see her.”
“‘Your suspect?’ Miss Barr, I personally think you’re an okay person, and I get that my boss wanted you on this scene for reasons relating to her daughter. But you’ve been caught red-handed over a dead body. You see my position.”
“Yup. You’re probably sitting on the exact place the body was laid before it was propped up in the chair.”
Alch eyed the large ottoman, then sprang up. “You think she was killed elsewhere and brought here? But how? This place is crawling with cameras and antsy contestants. You couldn’t import a bedbug here without getting major notice.”
“I don’t know.”
“So. Are we to suspect you, or Manship?”
“Good question. Since I’m a wild card here—” Alch snorted.
“Probably Manship. He’s the Big Meanie on board. The note signed by her was left in his office, so he probably was there.”
“So how did he waltz a dead body three hundred feet through corridors that might be highly populated any second?”
“I don’t know. He’s Australian. They’re used to wrestling crocodiles.”
“Okay. Tell me about the vic.”
“Well, I think the vic was actually the perp.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Amazing, Temple thought, how talking the talk cut through the fog. Vic. Perp. That made the so-intenselypersonal act of murder strangely impersonal.
“Or one of them.”
“Say you’re kidding me.”
“I can’t. I do have a rationale for why I thought the perp who is now a vic became a perp.”
“Rationale. Look, Miss Barr, the lieutenant told us about your pseudo-participation in this circus. We are inclined to overlook a great deal. But being found first on a murder scene is not one of the overlookable offenses.”
“How many ‘offenses’ did Molina consider expected?” His expression tightened. “A few. Like breaking and entering on the first death scene. And bringing her daughter along.”
“You guys have taken over the show’s secret recording duties.”
“Darn right. Now. I’ll take you downtown so the lieutenant can debrief you.”
“Mariah—”
“Not to worry. Su’s with her.”
For some reason, Temple felt usurped.
“Why didn’t Molina use Su in the first place? Why drag me into it and then punish me for getting ahead of the curve?”
“You’re a head of something, all right,” he said, gazing at her blindingly blond hair. Then he chuckled. “Don’t sweat it. Somehow I don’t see you as a candidate for stabbing someone through the heart.”
“Was that the murder method?”
Alch put a finger to his lips and mustache. “Not for publication.”
So she was escorted out of the death scene, a defiant Xoe Chloe to the last. Everyone gathered around: herd of tittering blondes, glad to have Xoe off the show; Crawford Buchanan, hissing a blow-by-blow commentary into his live mike; her own aunt, looking aghast but keeping her lips zipped like a good actress; a subdued Dexter Manship; and Rafi Nadir, bringing up the rear to give her a thumbs up, her only supporter.
Unless you counted Midnight Louie at the crowd’s very edge, backed up by a trio of hip kits, one silver, one golden, and one as black as Xoe Chloe’s hair used to be.
Louie did not give her a thumbs up.
But he did wink. Or blink. Whichever. He had a whisker’s chance in hell of helping her.
“What did you think you were doing?”
Molina didn’t waste words. Temple was in her office, which was a good sign. She doubted it was bugged but couldn’t be sure. After living in the Teen Queen Castle, she was fairly paranoid. Police had a license to be tricky.