I smelled something then that was so elusive, yet familiar, that I must satisfy my curiosity. Does this second dead little doll bear the same scent? It is not that I have never inhaled the fragrance of a human before, dead or alive. I will never forget the musty odor of the deceased ABA dude, which I took for bookish mildew.
Likewise, the scent of these done-for little dolls suits their circumstances: it is light, sweet and feminine, and I have encountered it before. Perfume it is not. This is more subtle. How maddening to possess a first-class sniffer and not be able to determine the exact bouquet that tickles my nostrils, if not my memory!
This is why, despite a half-dozen flunkies of officialdom bustling around the body, I lurk literally under their busy, oblivious feet, awaiting my opportunity. Some accuse my kind of sneakiness, but it is survival instincts that direct me to be discreet The moment will arrive when a morgue attendant will turn aside, or a comment will distract their joint attention. Then I will dash in for the kill—or the diagnosis in this case.
Yet they are many, and no one leaves the body for a moment.
The fatal bag is produced, and I quiver in my boots. My sniffer is a world-class apparatus, but polyvinylchloride is one substance it cannot penetrate with any degree of accuracy.
At that moment, I hear the tread of large flat feet. A voice directs the assembled crew's attention to the body's former position, and the unearthly glow upon the noxious carpet that outlines the area.
For a few precious moments, little Miss Kitty is as unattended as a wallflower at the high school prom.
I seize the opportunity and run with it—run, in fact, toward her immobile body. My whiskers twitch with recognition. An insinuating scent wends its way to my flared nostrils. Miss Kitty has been branded with the same odor as her predecessor in death.
I pussyfoot out of sight, and hunker down under a banquet table swathed in white, floor-length linen. Beyond me, a crew of men bags the lady, and lifts her onto a cold metal gurney. She feels nothing, but my whiskers twitch in indignation.
I will not rest until I have traced this fatal scent to its origin. The killer.
Somewhere, on some forgotten swell of sea and salmon, the old dude would lift his venerable snout to the wind, and be proud of me.
21
A Walk on the Wild Side
The palace guard was loath to let Temple enter the ballroom again until she used the password of Molina’s name and rank. She doubted these private cops much feared the regular force, but they wanted them out of their territory as fast as possible.
Despite Molina’s grumblings, the crime scene was clearing. Nothing remained of the body but a faint powdery luminescence on the carpeting—fairy dust from a Tinker Bell whom no one had cared about enough to clap for.
Molina joined her, looking harried. “Tell me about your encounter with the victim.”
“Her name,” Temple said pointedly, “was Katharine. With an ’a-r’ in the middle. I picked that up from her pronunciation, so... precise. Like a child’s who is lost and wants to make sure you understand perfectly so you can get her home again.”
“Katharine? You’re sure?”
Temple turned at Molina’s sharp tone. “Of course. I hadn’t been knocked half silly yet.”
“I don’t mean to contradict you—” Molina frowned, whether at her own train of thought or at what she was about to tell Temple wasn’t clear. Molina consulted her notebook in the spotlight glare that was both too intense and too diffuse to read by.
“That’s odd.” She pursed her lips. “Everyone I talked to said her name was Kitty. Kitty Cardozo. She’s well known around town, worked here for years. Has a kid attending UNLV.”
“A kid in college?” Now Temple was puzzled. “She didn’t look a day over twenty-four.”
Molina’s eyes stayed on her notebook. “Thirty-five. Started young.”
“Stripping or having kids?”
Molina sighed. “They usually start both too soon. Now tell me about her.”
“Did... anyone take off the mask?”
“For the final photographs, after the coroner arrived.”
“Then you saw—?”
“The bruises and contusions were present when you saw her, then—when was that?”
“Four-fifty. I was on my way out.”
“You stopped in the dressing room. Why?”
“Soaking up local color.”
“You seem to prefer your local color bloodred.”
“That’s below the belt, Lieutenant. Yeah, I was curious about the murder. I had a feeling—”
“Yes?”
“Something seems funny about it... them. Like they’re messages.”
“They’re messages that some sick men out there get off on killing women, especially those in sexually titillating lines of work.”
“You’re sure it’s a man?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Both victims were serious contenders for winning the contest. Dorothy had won before and her face would launch a thousand flashbulbs. Katharine—Kitty—had a body that would freeze film into Playboy-ready shots, and the skill and grace to show it off.”
“So you think a competitor killed them. I suppose a physically fit woman could have killed either one. But I’m not interested in your theories, Ms. Barr.”
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. I found Katharine—Kitty, in the dressing room. Actually, I heard her sob first. She was hiding among the costumes, pressed up against the wall like a hurt child. You know how an animal hides when it’s scared, with its tail or ears sticking right out in plain sight, as if you can’t possibly see them. That’s the way she was hiding. I saw her shoes first.”
“You would,” Molina interrupted.
“What’ll happen to those shoes, and her costume? They were so clever. Kitty made them herself.”
“Police property room, until after the trial, if there is one. Go on.”
“Anyway, I coaxed her out, and that’s when I saw her face. Little did I know my own would look a lot like it in a few minutes. Kitty was afraid of a man. She kept asking if ‘he’ was out in the hall.”
“There goes your jealous vixen theory.”
“Maybe. Kitty could have had two enemies. She said that she would he all right, that she was ready to make the break from this guy. That’s why he hurt her. He wanted to ruin her chances of winning the contest, because the money would help her get on her own. But she was going anyway. I know it.”
“How?”
“By the way she spoke about her plans, her business.
She called herself an ‘entrepreneur.’ She sounded like a kid selling lemonade.”
Molina’s gaze dropped to her notes again. “ ‘Grin ’n’ Bare It.’ ”
Temple nodded soberly. “A gag stripping business. ‘Good clean fun,’ according to Kitty. She was heartbroken to have her face ruined for the competition. Even makeup wouldn’t cover everything, she said. I can see now she’s right.”
“Yeah. Your dark glasses indoors are a nice punk touch,” Molina said, not unsympathetically. “Anybody else been bothering you today?”
“Only the police and the ballroom security guards,” Temple answered, deadpan.
“Go on.”
“That’s it. I suggested a cat mask to match the rest of the costume, and she lit up like a kid who’s getting a Nintendo for Christmas. I left her happy and high on her act, only—”
“Yes?”
“Only she wanted me to know that she hadn’t been crying because she’d been hit, but because it hurt her chances to be in the contest. I wondered then why it was so important not to cry when you’re hit.”