Temple pushed her plate away. “So what secret will that building reveal when it’s done? If the discovered corpse doesn’t queer all your crazy secret plans?”
“A surprise.”
“Mr. Farnum, I cannot work with such an uncooperative client.”
“You’ll see,” he said, sitting back against the leatherette booth and untucking his napkin from the neck of his shirt. “And sooner than you think. I promise I’ll give you the big reveal once the police are through with the site. And that won’t take long. There can’t be much trace evidence.”
“None of that will matter if I quit.”
She got up from the table and stomped away through the crowds of couples with children.
“I’m paying for breakfast,” he called after her.
You bet he was.
Chapter 18
Law and Order: Crimeshoppers
Temple hadn’t managed to eat much for her breakfast with Farnum, and something was eating at her. She decided to risk a good chewing-out.
“I need to talk to you,” Temple told the phone at noon when Molina answered with a bark of her surname and department.
“Aren’t you doing that right now, unfortunately?”
“I mean … I need a … a meet.”
“A … meet. Like mobspeak. Get thee to a Mob Museum downtown or at the Tropicana on the Strip … or back to your Chunnel of Crime.”
“Not mine. I just publicized the opening of the attraction.”
“You supervised the opening of a funky old underground walk-in safe and unveiled its freshly dead body, which is now on my unsolved case roster.”
“Oh, that old dead body. I need to talk to you about the new one. The one on Paradise.”
The line remained silent for three beats. “You have information?”
“I feel obligated to clear the owner of the new construction in the area.”
“No, no, no.”
“Yes, yes, yes. May I come in to your office now?”
“No! I may want you to keep an eye on this guy, but I’m not some Web site you can look up on a search function any darn time you please. I don’t want you here.”
Temple wondered why. Was Molina implying Temple wasn’t presentable enough for your average homicide office?
“Still, I’m feeling generous about you today,” Molina was saying. “God knows why. I can do lunch in … forty-five minutes.”
“That would be fun.”
“Not what I had in mind.”
“Where?”
“Actually, I don’t know.” Molina’s voice faded in and out as if she was looking around for someone to consult.
Temple would love to see inside the freshly built Metro Police facility and homicide unit, but she sensed her prey slipping away for a lack of ideas.
“Hey, the Premium Outlets–North mall is right near you. It has Stuart Weitzman and Cole Haan and Steve Madden shoes—and Adidas. And clothes from Calvin Klein and Ed Hardy and Hugo Boss and even a St. John Outlet to die for.”
“I don’t know any of those men.”
Hopeless, Temple thought. “And a Chico’s,” she added. They had clothes for older and larger women.
“A Mexican restaurant? That’ll do.”
“No,” Temple admitted, “clothes again. But there is China Pantry and Great Steak. It’s mall food court eating, so you wouldn’t be trapped by having a server.”
“Oh, I’d be trapped, all right. I’ll take the steak.”
“Great. There’s a north parking garage. When you enter the mall, take the Mountain Court down to the Tree Court. You hang a left and go past Juicy Couture, where you get to the Earth Court. The food places are between the Earth and Star Courts.”
“Are you even speaking English now? Is this place a maze for tarot readings or some other New Age nonsense?”
“It’s a nature theme. Relax. We had fun shopping for the reality TV Teen Queen show.”
“You and Mariah had fun. I had overtime supervisory duty.”
“Just sayin’. The new Metro Police building is right on top of some major retail at super prices.”
“What I’m saying is you’ll be paying for lunch and bringing me into that froufrou environment.”
That ended their conversation, but Temple was not displeased. They’d actually had cocktails together in the Oasis Hotel Casablanca Bar after the literal “killer” dance competition that almost did in Matt. So Temple felt she was making inroads on C. R. Molina’s no-frills life and work style.
The policewoman needed to access her inner Carmen again. Temple guessed the in-home stalker messing with her performance clothes, and her close encounter with a wardrobe slasher when she was snooping in Max’s house, had soured her on what she already regarded as frivolous: being a girl.
Temple was happy to plead to that charge. It was the little touches—a bright color, a new bangle or bag—that perked up everyday life. It had nothing to do with youth or gender but joie de vivre. She knew she’d feel the same way when she was eighty.
She hummed as she looked up the mall on her smartphone. The Metro Police campus was in a traffic tangle north of Charleston and west of downtown, where Martin Luther King Boulevard ran parallel to Highway 93 before it split off before heading for Death Valley and Utah.
She checked her wristwatch. She was hooked on that second hand. Smartphone time readouts reminded her of looking at an alarm clock at 6 A.M. She checked the condo. Louie was out and about and could return via the small high open window in the second bathroom. She had no idea why he’d gotten macho and broken into the French doors, but the claw marks were inescapable.
Landlady Electra Lark had chained the doors shut until a locksmith could repair the middle latch’s damage. Matt had promised to fill in the scratches and touch up the paint afterwards. Imagine, all that and handy too.
In three minutes Temple’s Miata was tooling up the highway, she wearing a broad-brimmed hat with a built-in scarf tied under her chin to protect her hairdo from the wind and her skin from the sunlight. Convertibles made hats obligatory for a natural redhead, but were still fun. She felt very Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief. Too bad her Cary Grant was off on errands today.
In no time the mall’s low adobe-style shops were in view, painted the earth tones of a desert sunset. A Miata could breeze into a small space near the elevators, so Temple was soon through the Mountain, Tree, and Earth Courts and seated in the bustling food court. The echoing voices would make hearing—and overhearing—hard, but it was always a kick to see Molina out of her well-traveled road of home, office, and crime scene.
Temple started musing about Cary—Matt—wondering what he was up to today. And lately. He seemed distracted and yet amazingly unruffled by the lack of news from Chicago about his dream job as a network talk show host.
“Cat got your attention?”
Molina had sneaked up on her, hard for an almost-six-foot-tall woman in a khaki pantsuit. The ambient noise had muffled her clodhopper footsteps. Ugh. The usual unadorned brown loafers. Temple knew guys who’d buy better-looking shoes.
Molina nodded at the surrounding food stands. “Time to do our hunter-gathering thing?”
Temple, perhaps inspired by Silas T. Farnum’s lunch order, got the Little Philly Sliders, in a “six-pack” with chicken instead of steak. Molina went for the Chicagoland Cheesesteak with white American cheese. Both went for dark drinks. Temple’s was Dr Pepper, and Molina’s was iced tea.
“Chicagoland,” Temple noted of Molina’s sandwich as she paid the tab. “Isn’t that mob-appropriate, although the gourmet American cheese is a classy touch.”
“Class is not on my wish list,” Molina answered.
Temple disagreed. Those vintage ’30s velvet gowns Carmen wore while performing were class personified, but it seemed C. R. Molina had stuffed Carmen permanently back in the literal closet. Naturally, a blues-singing female homicide lieutenant didn’t want the guys at work to know she did occasional gigs at the Blue Dahlia supper club.