Temple had crossed paths and swords with the ditsy, glitzy C-movie queen several times. The worst was the occasion when Temple’s co-habiting cat, Midnight Louie, had been cast in cat food commercials with Ashleigh’s Persian beauty, Yvette. When Yvette proved to be with kittens, Savannah had accused Louie of littering and actually tried to do him bodily harm.
Fortunately, twenty pounds of ex-alley cat Louie can handle any scheming human from murderer to media minx. He came out of the incident proved innocent, in tact and on top, as usual.
Temple, however, was terminally disgusted with Savannah Ashleigh and all her works.
“What can I do for you, Miss Ashleigh?” Temple asked in a businesslike monotone, polite and oh-so-wishing the connection would break. Cell phone reception was extremely iffy in Las Vegas, especially near the Strip. Connections could be hard to hold. This one wasn’t. Alas.
Temple sat and listened and nodded, not inclined to take the woman seriously. Finally, she got a sentence in.
“Murders happen every day in Las Vegas and surrounding suburbs, Miss Ashleigh…No, not in your neighborhood, I’m sure…Oh. Never, you say?”
Temple couldn’t quite believe that any Vegas neighborhood hadn’t hosted murder old or new.
“Um, you want to hire me to investigate a murder? And where do I see clients?” she echoed her caller.
Temple thought hard. She was now too curious to indulge her dislike. Although she had a knack for solving murders, no one had ever wanted to hire her to do it. And the “case,” would take her mind off…impending men.
She did not want the memory of Savannah Ashleigh polluting her living quarters, not that the woman was bad, besides at acting. She was just a Ditz Queen who usually traveled with a purse pet of some kind. Louie would never get over his turf being so invaded after what Savannah had done.
She glanced again at Midnight Louie, getting an idea. He’d once favored hanging out near a canna lily stand and koi pond like Sam Spade keeping office hours behind the….
“Of course,” she told Savannah Ashleigh. “We could meet at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel.”
“Yes,” she repeated her caller’s reaction, “it is ‘always gracious to do business over a good belt.’ I’ll meet you at the Crystal Court Bar. Three P.M.”
Temple shut off the connection.
Louie was regarding her, enormous green eyes reducing his pupils to their most condemnatory slit. Temple made excuses, fast.
“It is Savannah Ashleigh, as you heard. Maybe she meant ‘belt’ in the sense of…a solid Austrian crystal Judith Lieber designer belt—yum—or Conchos or shells, or even a black belt.”
Louie gave his opinion of this meeting by swiping the last printed-out pages off her desk. Now that was a “good belt.”
“You can come along and visit Midnight Louise,” she coaxed him. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Midnight Louise was a black stray who’d taken his position of house cat at the Phoenix after Louie had moved in with her at the Circle Ritz condominium and apartment building.
Nice? Louie had no comment but chewing the hairs between his toes.
“Besides,” Temple mused. “I’m wondering why Savannah Ashleigh wants to see me about a murder. Aren’t you even curious?”
That comment propelled him off the desk to the floor.
Temple checked her watch. Eleven A. M. It must be five o’clock somewhere and she could use a belt or two as well. Matt wasn’t coming home from a career-changing personal appearance on The Amanda Show in Chicago for three days and what was left of Max was flying in from Northern Ireland late this afternoon.
Temple guessed she could use a time-wasting rendezvous with a has-been B-minus movie actress to keep her mind off the forthcoming personal apocalypse.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
CAT IN A LEOPARD SPOT
Copyright © 2001 by Carole Nelson Douglas
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Douglas, Carole Nelson.
Cat in a leopard spot: a Midnight Louie mystery / Carole Nelson Douglas.—1st ed.
p.cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN: 978-0-312-85370-9
1. Midnight Louie (Fictitious character)—fiction. 2. Barr, Temple (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Public relations consultants—Fiction. 4. Women cat owners—Fiction. 5. Las Vegas (Nev.)—Fiction. 6. Cats—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3554.O8237 C2765 2001
813'.54—dc21
00-047711
*also mystery
*also mystery
*also mystery
*also mystery