“I saw him upstairs,” Matt put in. “In fact, he led me upstairs.”
Several of the boys laughed lustily. “Hey, there, Matt, maybe he wanted to rush up to where the action was,” Ralph jibed.
“The action was dead,” Matt said.
A pall fell like a winding sheet over the naturally boisterous Fontana spirits.
“Sorry, man,” Ralph said. “We only heard about the body on the bed. We didn’t have to find it.”
The other brothers nodded somberly, but Temple was sure they’d expected to find lots of bodies upstairs at a brothel, live ones. And, frankly, she doubted that dead ones would much upset seasoned wise guys. But she’d never tell Matt that. He’d be shocked.
You could play along with the Fontana boys’ pussycat facades, but you should never forget their Berettas weren’t just a high-tech fashion accessory.
Temple pulled out Nicky’s cell phone and asked him to take the images of the dead woman around to all the tables. There was much tsking and glum murmuring among them, but no Fontana claimed to recognize the girl.
Wonderful! Total strikeout. The victim was utterly unknown by anyone now in the Sapphire Slipper. Not likely. How was Temple going to find a murderer among this cast of dozens? And by tomorrow afternoon, yet?
Start at the point you know, she told herself.
“Okay. This question is for all you younger generation Fontanas. How’s your relationship with your current girlfriend and how long have you been associated?”
There was a stunning silence. Most guys don’t talk relationships even when plied with vodka and needle nose pliers to their private parts. Why were they going to breathe a word in this communal setting?”
“Please, guys. You were the ones deemed worthy of nicking, which set this whole insanity in motion. I don’t have time to take you aside one by one for a private tête-à-tête. The police may be more private about interviewing you, but they’ll be a lot less understanding.”
Macho Mario snorted. “The police aren’t understanding at all. Okay, girlie, you didn’t ask, but I’ll come clean. I’ve been a widower for twelve years. I ain’t never been to the Sapphire Slipper. I can still get my own girlfriends at any bar in Vegas.”
“Have you ever dumped a girlfriend since you were an eligible bachelor again?”
“For one thing, I have never been eligible. I have lawyers who see to that. For another, I know that a guy my age and weight can’t be choosy. I also know my rep attracts the little dolls. I have never been known to say no to a little doll, hence they do not leave me unless a wedding ring comes along from some new beau. Then it’s no hard feelings, aloha.”
Macho Mario’s unabashed confession got the brothers rushing to spill their guts.
“It was Aldo,” Armando said. “Flipping over your aunt. That got our girlfriends all stirred up. Then they try on the bridesmaid gowns and say they hate them, and only a bridal gown will do. Vera Wang, yet.”
Rico shook his head at their oldest brother. “When Nicky tied the knot, we all thought he was just young and didn’t know better. No offense, Van. And, although he was the youngest, he’d always wanted to settle down early, go straight, have a hotel of his own, and kids. Or kid, in your case. How is little Cinnamon, anyway?”
“Safe at home now, and in preschool otherwise,” Van said, “which is more than can be said about any of you, then or now.”
The brothers managed to look both sheepish and suave, en masse.
Van nudged Temple in the side. “Fontanas do ‘guilty but innocent’ so well. I’d like to see your stone-cold police lieutenant, Molina, handling this gang in an interrogation room.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Temple answered. She addressed the Fontanas again. “All your girlfriends hate their bridesmaid gowns?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Mamma mia, does she!”
“Already offered it as a car rag for the Viper.”
“But Kit and Van put a lot of thought into them,” Temple objected. “The colors are sophisticated, the lines elegant, and there’s no bow on the butt. What more could they want?”
There was a long, sullen silence.
“Bridal gowns,” Temple answered herself.
“This wedding stuff has made them snap,” Eduardo said. “Simple as that.”
“How long have you been going together?” Temple asked absently, still mourning the fact that Van’s and Kit’s brilliant choice of bridesmaid gowns was not only a washout, it had incited a rebellion.
Their answers echoed the women’s. “Six years.” “Three.” “Four.” “Three.” “Five.”
“Uh, guys. That’s a pretty stable amount of time. Didn’t it ever occur to you that they might be expecting some more permanent commitment?”
“They have jobs,” they chorused again.
“Jobs, hell. Careers.”
“Nobody was clamoring for bambinos, and that is sure not gonna happen for Aldo and Kit.”
“They liked a good time, and we had ‘em. Why ruin it?”
As the Fontana boys listed their grievances against their suddenly martially minded significant others, Temple mulled recent polls she’d seen that women were slow to tie the knot nowadays. That they no longer needed men to support them financially, or even to give them babies. They were totally independent. Then why did these eight go over the edge?
This whole scheme was beginning to look like a prank that had gone very wrong when someone used it as cover to kill a young woman nobody here knew. They all said they didn’t, anyway.
Temple turned brisk. She wanted some one-on-one time with Matt. He was the most at risk.
“Okay, guys. Were any of you not in full view of the others at any time after you left the limo out front?”
Another long silence. Fontana boys did not squeal.
Van stepped in. “Only Nicky and Matt. They were able to split off from the main group because they weren’t the objects of the kidnappers’ affections and objections. And the staff here didn’t know a Fontana from a Fontana from a tall, blond stranger. Nobody missed them.”
That meant that she and Temple were the only ones whose significant other was in the murder suspect runoff.
Oh, goodie.
Command Post
Temple decided that she needed a command post.
Imagine: her acting like Lieutenant Molina. Actually, she was beginning to sympathize with the problems of the police force.
“I need to interview suspects separately someplace private,” Temple told Miss Kitty when she returned to the parlor.
The Sapphire Slipper girls were playing computer games, including solitaire. Weird.
“We got plenty of private rooms upstairs. Take your pick. They’re not going to see any action tonight.”
“The murder room did.”
“Don’t use that one then.”
As if she would!
Temple returned to the bar, went up to Matt, and tapped him on the shoulder, jerking her head to the exit.
Hoots and laughter followed them out into the parlor, then whistles and kiss-kiss sounds hounded them into the foyer.
“I’m glad they’re all having so much fun with that dead girl lying alone upstairs,” Matt said.
“She’s not alone. Emilio’s gone back up there already to guard her door.”
“I guess that’s a girl’s dream death in this town: Fontana brothers at your door.”
“Matt. Chill! I know it’s rough to find someone dead. You tried to revive her. It was too late.”
“I said the prayers anyway. That’s never too late. Good God, Temple, can you imagine what it’s like to be feet away from a murder, and not know it?”
“Like a baptism of fire on the battlefield,” she said seriously. “No, I can’t imagine that. No one here admits to recognizing the girl. That is so . . . unbelievable. Was she brought in just to be killed in this mob scene, so the motive is forever obscured?”
“You’re right. I can only help her now by making sure whoever did this doesn’t walk out of here tomorrow free. We need to get the police out here. There may be evidence in that room, on that body, that would reveal the murderer.”