Then he called Chet Humphries, director of the ConTact hotline, to discuss a change in hours to accommodate his audition tomorrow.
"Is this because of that radio station inquiry ?" Chet's scholarly voice asked over the phone.
Chet was a retired college psychology professor who Found running the hotline fended off the retirement blues.
"Yes. They sound pretty serious at the radio station. Want to use my ConTact 'handle.' l don't know how you feel about my . . ."
"Great idea! We need to reach out, not just 'be there' for those who know where to find us, or have the will to call."
"But . . . the underlying motive is completely commercial."
"People learn a lot about interpersonal dynamics even from those freak-show TV talk shows.
Eighty percent of it's mummery, but that twenty percent of classic dysfunctionalism comes through loud and clear."
"Very loud," Matt said dryly. "So it wouldn't bother you if I did this . . . show?"
"Not at all. It is media, my dear boy. Any sophisticated listener knows that's always to be taken with a grain of salt."
"I didn't think their target audience is the sophisticated listener. If I do commit to this midnight show, I'd have to work ConTact from--"
"Three to eleven PM. instead of seven to three A.M.," Chet said promptly. He managed shifts for a variety of full and part time workers. "You'd have to finish up a full workday with another hour of the talking cure. That okay with you?"
"Yeah, if I can get used to the idea of helping people as entertainment. Doesn't exactly fit my previous calling. But I'm used to working nights now. Kind of like it."
"You're a good counselor; you should do fine with a radio clientele. They need someone with real ethics, like you."
"But am l a good showman? That's part of the job."
"Do your best, youngster; that's all any of us can do."
Having taught for so many years. Chet had an arsenal of fondly avuncular titles suitable for students. Some people would have found the habit condescending, but Matt enjoyed the sense of being back in school again, in a very real sense, he was. Civilian school. Secular school.
He hung up, multiplying figures on a blank page of the note-pad. Another essential item of civilian life he didn't have: a pocket calculator. Luckily, he still knew his multiplication tables, and his scratching pencil had come up with a mind-boggling formula: At two hundred dollars an hour, five nights a week, Matt would be making four thousand extra a month!
Hey! He'd have his Christmas present buying spree paid off in . . . three weeks, not including the belated present of Temple's necklace.
He grimaced as he looked at the figures. She hadn't given it back yet. He hoped she wouldn't, but could understand her reluctance to keep it. She was engaged to another man now; he'd have to get used to the idea.
His gaze lingered on her phone number, one of three on the all-important first sheet of the notepad: his boss, his landlady, his. . .no words could summarize what Temple was to him.
He turned to a fresh page and carefully printed in Leticia Brown's name and phone number.
Door number four: the radio station. What would lie behind it? A brave new world? Or a booby prize?
While he was sitting there, being wistful, the phone startled him by ringing.
My, he was getting popular.
"Hello?"
"Frank here. Bucek."
"Oh, Frank. I'd almost forgotten I'd called you."
"I get around, out of the office. Anyway, I was able to look into that party you wanted checked out. I got intrigued when you suggested she might have something to do with that scam to rip off the casino. You know, when I first came to Vegas and ran into you again."
Matt knew. The shock washed over him again: his spiritual director from St. Vincent Seminary, the formidable Father Frank Bucek, aka Father Frankenfurter, a civilian himself, with a wife and job in the FBI.
"I probably shouldn't have asked--" Matt began, falling into the guilty mode of a confessee.
"No problem. We're always interested in that kind of terrorist activity, especially after Oklahoma City. But we came up pretty empty on this Kitty O'Connor, at least under that name.
Some activity in Ireland years ago. Some hints she showed up in South America. All pretty innocuous. She's not a major player. Sorry."
"I'm sorry--sorry I bothered you."
"Don't be. You're in good company."
"Company?"
"Your Lieutenant Molina contacted me for a rundown too."
"She's not my lieutenant."
"Your local city cop, then. She's pretty tenacious."
"I thought all law enforcement people were."
"Nope."
"Thanks. I appreciate the information."
"He?! I'm not done. I also ferreted out a subversive group in your neighborhood."
"IRA?"
"Naw. Ex-pat priests. The Corpus organization for former priests doesn't have a chapter in your area; not too many ex-priests hang out in Las Vegas, but there's an informal group that meets in Henderson. Got a pencil?"
"In my hand."
"Write this down: Nicholas Benedict, 555-9543. Got it?"
"Got it. So. They, like, meet?"
" 'Fraid it's tonight. Just heard there's something going Look into it. It can't hurt."
Yes, it can, Matt thought. It can always hurt.
Chapter 12
Clothes Call
Molina met Alch in the morgue's smallish lobby, looking sheepish.
"I was checking out the victim's clothing."
"I'll get the report in a couple of days." She turned to leave.
The smell of the autopsy room. however well masked, lingered like a hidden corpse.
"I think you should look at them." Alch still sounded apologetic, but that would be for dissection her at the dissection table.
Molina raised her eyebrows.
He shrugged before he spoke again. "Maybe l should say . . .smell them."
*******************
"I'm not really in the best condition for smelling the evidence, Morey," Molina told him in the elevator on the way up.
He was standing in the elevator's opposite comer, leaning against the wall, as if getting a load off his feet rather than a reek out of his nostrils was the real reason for the distance.
His mustache twitched. "I know. But this smell you can't miss. Only . . . I can't explain it."
The lab was only a few doors away from the elevator, and a technician, who had put away the brown paper bags while Alch was gone, cheerfully produced them again.
Molina, hands enclosed in latex gloves, unfolded them gingerly. With the damage to the body occurring on the neck and throat, the clothing was likely to bear little damage from the crime.
She was glad that Alch had dragged her up here, after all. There was something odd about the clothes--a Clark skirt, a blouse, a matching jacket. Navy blue, except for the blouse, which was a strange, not-silk slippery fabric. Polyester. This lady was definitely not upscale.
"She had no purse. No ID" Molina was repeating what they already knew. "Nothing in that line's turned up?"
Alch shook his head. "We checked the trash containers in a mile radius; got the trash pickup schedule. Nothing."
"Someone didn't want us to find out who she was, but he sure didn't mind us finding her."
"Do you see what l mean about the smell?"
"Yeah. Oh, yeah." Molina's head reared back as the unfolded skirt gave off an odor as strong as a slap in the face. "God, I hate that stuff."
Alch nodded glumly. "Get it often enough in the squad cars. That's why l was so happy I'd made detective. Never have to smell that strawberry shit again."
"Are you sure it's just strawberry? This is too noxious to be just a little strawberry."
"You got it, Lieutenant. It's super-amplified strawberry, that's what it is. Strawberry to die from. They always use it in those car refresher thingies that hang from the dashboard. It's enough to make a guy puke."
She nodded. "Strong stuff, I always thought it was worse than whatever it was supposed to cover up."