“They would be the Fontana boys.”
“Fontana! What were those city slickers doing out in the boonies?”
“Uh, bachelor party. Hijacked bachelor party, they claim.”
“One of the litter was murdered, hopefully?”
“Now, Carmen, don’t wish for something you wouldn’t like to live with. You know they add a lot of ambience to the town.”
“Ambience that Vegas tried to dump in the nineties. Who was getting married, anyway?”
“The state police didn’t fax wedding party assignments.” Morrie kept his eyes on the sheet. “Matt Devine is there, though, and Macho Mario Fontana.”
“Matt? In with that crowd?”
“It was a bachelor party.”
“He’s getting married?”
“I don’t know about that. He may be, given his new closeness to Temple Barr, but I’d guess this bachelor is known to us.”
“Known to us? Do not play games with me, Morrie. I’m a little on edge right now, as you well know.”
“I thought you’d remember.”
“Remember? Why shouldn’t I remember? I was stabbed, not robbed of brain cells. Fontanas. Bachelor party. I missed attending because of eighty-six fresh stitches, not that I would have gone anyway. Oh, that’s right!” She slapped her forehead. “My own unauthorized adventures made me temporarily forget that saccharine public announcement you reported on at the Crystal Phoenix six weeks ago. Aldo Fontana is engaged to Temple Barr’s aunt. Kathy . . . Harrleson, isn’t it?”
“Kit Carlson,” Morrie corrected in a discreet murmur.
“That’s it. The Pony Express rider once removed.” Molina frowned. “Aldo must be several years her junior. Must be the chlorine in the water those Minnesotans drink. My question remains. What does this have to do with Matt Devine?”
“Apparently he’s the number one suspect. Found the body.”
“And the body is—?”
“Someone called Madonnah. One of the girls at the Sapphire Slipper. Tried CPR on her, so Devine’s DNA—”
“That’s what happens when idiot ex-priests visit brothels with the Fontana brothers. This sounds more like a Marx Brothers movie, if it weren’t for the dead body. I suppose your favorite redhead is accounted for and present too?”
“Now she is. Seems a female rescue party motored up after the murder. So we’ve also got, on the premises, Nicky Fontana and Van von Rhine, the eight Fontana girlfriends who hijacked the bachelor party, Macho Mario himself, Electra Lark, the bride-to-be aunt, a dozen or so bordello girls, and assorted staff. And, uh, three extra black cats.”
“You can have ‘extra’ black cats on a crime scene?”
“One of the black cats is a resident. The other three are visiting from Vegas.”
“And we know this how?”
“They’ve been identified as Temple Barr’s cat, Midnight Louie, and the Crystal Phoenix mascot, Midnight Louise, plus an unnamed old alley cat, also black. The resident cat is called Baby Blue.”
“I suppose their paws are all over the crime scene too.”
“It’s possible. That’s why our crime scene technicians need to go over the place before the body and any suspects are removed.”
Molina just shook her head. “You know I don’t need another Temple Barr Flying Circus of Crime and Cats just now, Morrie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Stop addressing me like a military woman. You’ve seen my midriff bare. You can call me Carmen.”
He straightened uneasily. No one on the force was allowed to use her first name. “You want me out there wrangling this, don’t you? Is that the reward I get—?”
She leaned close, over her desktop, eyes like indigo ice.
“That’s the reward you get for being the bearer of this bloody awful news. Don’t worry. I’ll have to go too. God, jolting over those desert roads! How does Barr know just when to turn up bodies to inconvenience me the most?”
“Talent?” he asked.
“That was a rhetorical question, Alch. Saddle up the Crown Vic. I’ll call Grizzly Bahr. I’m sure he’ll want to eyeball this one himself.”
“Because of the complication of postmortem CPR administered by one of the suspects?”
“Because of all the seminaked ladies on the premises.” Molina managed a grin. “He does like to get out of the autopsy room sometimes to view some live bodies instead of dead ones. Especially if they’re comely.
“Come to think of it, this crazy quilt of a case might get my mind off grimmer matters.”
“What’s scratching your ass today is more than your stitches,” Alch said.
She nodded, the phone already auto-dialing the coroner’s office. “I just saw the father of my child. Tried to set up a civil ‘arrangement.’”
“Good for you—”
She waved him silent. “Dr. Bahr. Got a case that might need your personal touch.” She listened as he spoke. “One corpse, female.” Another pause. “I know that’s nothing new in Vegas, but this one isn’t in Vegas. It’s out at the Sapphire Slipper. Yes, that place is still out there, and going great guns, apparently. Our involvement? The joint is crammed with Vegas persons of interest, including all of the male members of the Fontana family. Yes, mentioning ‘male members’ is ironic under the circumstances. Oh, you’ve been pining for some fieldwork, have you? Alch and I will drive over and your van can follow us out there.”
Alch was astounded. “Grizzly Bahr is leaving his den of death and disintegration?”
“A dozen or so live shady ladies will motivate and move even the most morgue-entrenched coroner.”
“Does he know you nicknamed him ‘Grizzly’?”
“I doubt it, Alch, and you aren’t going to tell him. I’ll inform the captain. He will just love this! And me deserting my newly neat desk I’ve maintained for more than a month after you cleaned it up during my week off. You get the CV from the garage. Matt Devine!” She snorted. “In a hooker hotel. This I gotta see with my own eyes.”
“And supervise?”
“That’ll be the best part.”
She was feeling a lot better.
Louie Puts Up
a Red Flag
Can you believe that I, Midnight Louie, must come up with a scheme to draw attention to myself?
Me, who is usually bigger than life and as hard to disguise as the MGM lion?
Having assistants at hand during this case has permitted me to hang back above the battle and remain out of sight while I deploy my operatives. It has permitted my three female operatives to assume at various times the identity of Satin, the house cat, and be taken for granted and totally ignored while collecting information like a trio of furry, black, mobile, eavesdropping “bugs.”
Now I need to step up to the plate my own self and lead the many befuddled humans in the house to the lurking perp at the perimeter. I return to the back screen door of the kitchen and proceed to sharpen my shivs on the mesh, making a nerve-wracking rending sound.
But the kitchen radio is playing and the assembled bridesmaids are doing their nails in the courtesans’ bizarre and glittery colors.
I yowl.
Finally, one yawns and shivers. “Listen to the coyotes.”
“It sounds like it is right on top of us,” another comments.
They never even glance toward the back door, not even Ms. Shoofly who is not only a guilty party, but presiding over a huge, noisy fry pan of sizzling bacon and scrambled eggs at the stovetop.
Not one of my ninja trio is in the kitchen at the moment.
I want to scream like a catamount. This case is next to closed, and I am shut out and ignored.
In desperation, I amble outside to prowl the bordello’s perimeter, finding a way up to the first-story roof via the courtesans’ bedroom annex. I am forced to blunt my shivs on stucco before I manage to scramble onto the roof’s asphalt shingles.
Panting, I approach the dormers for the guest bedrooms. All are draped, or shaded, or blacked out. I finally am able to claw a ripped screen open. The broken edges currycomb my sides as I eel through, cutting a pad on a loose nail.