“No. It wasn’t a battering.”
“Sometimes it’s not easy to tell the difference. Sometimes it’s hard to say. Please, just check out the Women’s Shelter. You can call this number anytime, you don’t have to leave your name. Talk to them.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need to. I’m not a victim of abuse.”
“Nobody likes to think of themselves that way, but sometimes, when we love someone, it’s hard to be objective. We know they don’t mean it. We know they say they’re sorry—and they are—but they can’t guarantee they won’t be that way again. And again. It’s a cycle. You have to take some action to stop it.”
“I tell you, there’s no need! All right, I’ll take your brochure. But I think it’s a free country and I can go now.”
“Maybe I can help,” came a voice from the hall.
A voice Temple knew well. She could have died.
Lieutenant Molina walked in, her professional face on. The moment she saw Temple, the self-possessed expression melted as Temple had never had the satisfaction of seeing before. All that taut confidence grew slack and confused for an instant.
The two women stared at each other in individual stupefaction. Molina recovered first, but she was on her feet and she wasn’t half-dressed.
“I’ll handle this,” Molina told the nurse, in control again.
“Thanks, Lieutenant.” The nurse vamoosed, brochure and all, but Molina held out her hand wordlessly for the clipboard. And got it. Now Molina was in full possession of all the facts of Temple’s life. She loved it, Temple thought savagely.
“I can see,” Temple said, fuming, “why poor people hate coming to emergency rooms, if they’re going to be harassed as well as treated.”
“Spotting battering cases is important.” Molina scanned the bottom of the clipboard, her heavy eyebrows lifting once or twice. She looked up at Temple. “You took quite a beating.”
“Yes, I did, and I don’t need a verbal one now.”
“The doctor and nurse did what they’re supposed to. Any trained medical or police personnel would recognize that you were the recipient of a deliberate beating.”
“Recipient. What a nice, bureaucratic way of putting it.”
“Calm down. I know you’re tough. I know you’re stubborn. You don’t have to pretend to be stronger than you are.”
“Yes, I do, because I’m not six-blooming-feet tall and I don’t get to carry a badge and a gun!”
Molina froze. She shrugged and backed up. Then she did something amazing. She stepped out of her low-heeled shoes and dropped an inch or so. “That better?”
Temple’s righteous rage huffed and puffed and had nowhere to go. “Some. Listen. If I had been a victim of abuse, I’d be the first to cry ‘Wolf!’ Honest. These were strangers.”
“Muggers hit and hurt on the run. They don’t hang around for the fun of it.”
“Maybe these were sadistic muggers.”
“I don’t buy that. Who is this Devine guy?”
“I told you. A neighbor. What a world if he takes me to the emergency room—and if he hadn’t insisted, I wouldn’t have come—and ends up getting accused of being an abuser! So much for the survival chances of good Samaritans.”
“We have to ask these questions,” Molina said patiently. “Doctors, nurses and police personnel haven’t done it enough in the past, so women and children have paid for it. Did you know that one-third of the women who come into an emergency room are victims of abuse?”
Statistics hit home when argument would not. “No, I didn’t know. That many?”
“And those are just the ones who come in. That doesn’t count the tough customers like you who refuse to go.”
“Ouch. Okay, I can see why you have to ask. But you have to listen, too. And intimate abuse is not my problem, believe me.”
“So many deny,” Molina said, then raised her hand as Temple bridled again. “Still, your story doesn’t wash.”
“Maybe because it’s not the whole story.”
Molina leaned against the wall. “Tell me.”
So Temple did, hating it, but hating being thought an abusee worse. Molina listened, but her face never reflected her thoughts.
“You could identify the men?” she asked at last.
“I like to think so, but when you’re in the middle of a thing like that, it’s hard to look for identifying moles.”
“We need you to look at some mug shots. Maybe tomorrow after you get some sleep.”
“Okay.”
“And they wanted to know Max Kinsella’s whereabouts?”
Temple nodded.
“Did you tell them?”
“How could I? I don’t know.”
“So you say.” Molina pushed herself away from the wall and resumed her shoes. She slid Temple a glance from under her dark wings of eyebrow. Lord, that woman could benefit from a little female artifice, Temple thought.
“Why now?” Molina asked when she stood, tall as ever, in front of Temple again. “Four months since Kinsella’s disappearance.”
Temple just shook her head.
“You need to take this seriously, so I’ll have to tell you something I don’t want to.”
Temple perked up. It was about time the shoe slipped onto the other foot, even if it was a clodhopper.
Molina’s lips worked reluctantly. Then she came out with a hail of words as blunt as bullets. “After Kinsella disappeared, the night he disappeared, a body was found in the surveillance area over the Goliath’s gaming area. Stabbed, once and well. The hotel’s assistant security director. You know all the casinos have skymen on watch through one-way mirrors and video equipment over the gaming areas? Well, the man’s body was found in an unauthorized peephole carved out of the air-conditioning vent. Only a clever and agile person could have managed that spy-hole, and getting someone else in it.”
“You think Max—”
“A magician could have done it, but whether he ran because he knew his accomplice was dead and figured he’d be next, or just because the man was dead and he’d done it, I don’t know. Nor do I know what was involved—abetting confederates at the tables below, or blackmailing cheaters, whatever.”
“Whatever, in your book, Max’s a murderer or the prey of one.”
“And if someone’s after him because he knows too much, they may not have bothered with you because they didn’t know who you are, or where you were: until you came back to the Goliath this week. You did frequent the place when Kinsella was appearing there?”
“ ‘Frequent.’ Come on, Lieutenant, that makes me sound like a gun moll. Yes, I met Max there for a drink or dinner now and again. I went to a few shows.”
“Didn’t you know the act by heart by then?”
“His illusions may have been familiar, but Max and the audience were different every night. That’s what Max did. He never made anything seem the same twice.”
Molina contemplated the interesting ramifications of that assessment without losing her cool, then nodded soberly. “They saw you again and decided to get some answers. That means they’re familiar with the Goliath and that you’re in danger working there. No chance you’d quit?”
“The show must go on.”
Molina shook her head. “Then it’ll go on with police all over the place. You’re tiptoeing around something a lot uglier than you’ve ever imagined. You’re lucky those two drivers had a set-to in the ramp, because even if you really don’t know where Max Kinsella might be, those thugs wouldn’t have stopped. They sound as if they enjoy their work.”
Temple nodded. Lucky.
“All right.” Molina stepped aside. “Come downtown tomorrow first thing for a mug-shot tour. I’ll alert the staff. If those men want Kinsella, I want those men.”
“Better them than him,” Temple muttered as she hopped—ouch! —off the table.
“What?”
“I’ll do what I can, Lieutenant,” Temple said from the doorway. And then she skedaddled.
Matt’s blond head hit her bleary eyes like a puddle of sunshine in the dreary waiting room. She headed straight for him and collapsed on the adjoining chair. It had been a long and traumatic evening.