“Thank goodness.”
“Come on, be a pal.” He took her arm, which she jerked away, as they went up the front walk. “You don’t want to make me look bad in front of the fuzz, do you?”
Temple was more concerned about her first visit to the Molina home than Crawford’s state of comfort.
Matt had been here more than once, she knew. She’d wondered if Molina was as utterly uninterested in men—in Matt—as it appeared. A police lieutenant could afford something more suburban, Temple was sure. Maybe the location was all for Mariah’s nearby Catholic school.
Catholics were consistent in their faith and Temple admired that, not that a fallen-away Unitarian would or could convert to a high-maintenance church, whatever the denomination. She mentally slapped herself for relating everything these days to her relationship with Matt.
Better look and think sharp. This was a serious situation, even if she had arrived with the terminally unserious Crawford Buchanan. At least she had stood and delivered him as requested. Molina had to respect that.
Well, no, she didn’t.
Morrie Alch opened the door when she knocked. Ringing the bell might have startled the already stressed-out residents. His thick, steel-gray hair looked grayer and so did his face.
“Come in,” he said. “This Buchanan?”
The rat in question answered for itself. “Crawford Buchanan, bro, main man about town. You may have heard my On-the-Go radio spots. Everything hip that’s happenin’.”
Morrie looked at Temple. “Molina wants to see you down the hall, kid’s room, right away. “You come talk to me, Mr. Hipster.”
“Everybody calls me ‘Crawford.’ ”
Alch made a face, then nodded Temple down the hall.
“Now, Crawford, let’s say we have a little talk,” Alch said as he gestured the Crawf to a furniture barn sofa occupied by the bony, dirty blond-haired guy Temple had seen with Molina at the teen house. He looked sexy-tough in a military or reform-school way, she couldn’t decide which. Is this what Molina was seeing these days? Huh. He was no Matt or Max.
Meanwhile, Alch was whispering sour nothings into her ear. “It’s too early to tell if Mariah just stayed late at the mall, but this is serious stuff we’ve found on her computer.”
“Didn’t Molina monitor—?”
“You bet, but she’s been real sick lately, and, uh, distracted.”
Temple let her face show shock. They didn’t call Molina the Iron Maiden of the LVMPD because she took sick days.
“No kidding.’ Alch stopped in the hall to address the gravity of the situation. “Real sick. This is coming at a rotten time. Bear that in mind and pretend you’re the little drummer girl, ready to march where needed.”
“So that’s why she didn’t show up at the Crystal Phoenix dinner a few weeks ago, other than my crime-solving skills getting public applause.”
“I think you won that one. Now, she needs you.”
“Me. Again? Aw, shoot, Morrie, my life’s a lot more complicated now.”
“You have a significant other missing in action?” He sounded vaguely parentally accusing.
He meant, Mariah, of course. A child.
Still, his words slid a hot knife of regret into her gut. Did she have a former significant other missing in action? Only recently an ex. Funny that the recent past could feel so raw. Max, even missing, could take care of himself, if he wasn’t dead. Not knowing why or where he had vanished would always haunt her but she would never regret having opened herself to Matt’s love.
Temple nodded at Alch. Now was no time to ramp up the rancor between her and Molina. Mariah was a naïve kid, and her mother must be kicking herself for being sick just when it was most damaging.
Or had Mariah taken advantage of her mother being sick? Kids today could be scary in their media-encouraged ambitions.
Police Premises
You do not call a roommate of Midnight Louie out in the dark of night without a bodyguard of the feline persuasion walking right in her high-heeled footsteps.
Dirty Larry may take pride in invisibly fitting in with the lowlifes he spies upon, but I can slip invisibly into the dark backseat floors of almost any automotive model made in America and Europe and Asia these days.
Still, I am glad not to be on the move for now.
I am familiar with the environs of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and School. There is a nearby convent occupied by several elderly nuns and a pair of stray cats named Peter and Paul. They were involved in a very early case of ours, my Miss Temple and me.
I was even present when I saw the striped Molina house cats adopted at the church animal blessing ceremony. That rite must have worked because I have been a blessing to crime-solving ever since.
So I have insinuated myself into the assembly, first outside Miss Mariah Molina’s bedroom window, under which I scent enough smells to confuse a bloodhound. Secondly, I slink through the front door when Detective Alch had returned from getting something from his parked car. Nobody much bothers to look from faces to footwear, especially when all and sundry are under stress, so I am usually able to toe-dance inside unnoticed alongside trouser legs and Mr. Morrie is an aficionado of dark suits despite the climate. It helps that there are already cats in the house.
You would think a big, handsome guy like myself would not be so easy to overlook, but everyone’s emotions are ratcheted tighter than a tourniquet and we poor domestic slaves are too low on the literal household totem pole to be much noticed at such times.
That is how I am able to pin the tiger-stripe females, Tabitha and Catarina, behind the sofa and wring them out like furry sponges of all the info they have.
It is a good thing I can speak to the animal kingdom. Homo sapiens habitually knows not much to speak of in these cases involving their headstrong young.
With a few well-chosen chirps, hisses, and paw signs, the tiger girls fill me in. This, of course, takes sharp questions on my part to prod a picture of recent events out of them, but I will not bore you with every little chit and chat and physical pantomime.
Here is their story, and I find it as fascinating as Mr. Scott finds a misbehaving Enterprise warp drive:
Mama Molina has been laid out with a midnight scrap injury, but this is being kept secret for some reason. Mr. Morrie Alch, one of the visiting toms, has been tending her. The sole surviving kit, Miss Mariah Molina, has been acting strange lately. She has ignored her delightful feline companions to hole up in her hideaway and smear strange-smelling potions on her face. She is also hypnotized by the one-eyed monster screen in her bedroom and spends most of her time in front of the litter-making shiny silver wall on her bedroom closet door . . .
It takes me a while to realize the tiger girls have never heard the word mirror and do not understand that their double reflection in same is not a glimpse of lost littermates living in the walls.
These domestic slaves are kept frightfully ignorant of things the lowliest alley cat has figured out by the age of three months. You learn fast to avoid being startled by your own reflection and save the panic and paranoia for encountering a real threat.
The resident Miss has also been cuddling up to her smooth shiny tiny kitten that she coos to and tickles endlessly on the tummy, instead of doing same to her loyal and loving resident felines.
Okay. The tiger girls have never tumbled to the names of such modern inventions and curses as the iPod and cell phone. I enlighten them.
Further, they say, there have been strange comings and goings in the house for several weeks when the occupants are away. They wonder if the lady of the house has hired a cleaning service and know to stay curled up, noses in tails, when these individuals come in.