"Not bad. But Strawberry Lady was working as a librarian. Unless she was guilty of lending self-help books to Church Lot Lady."
"I know controlling personalities facing the loss of their victim can go ballistic, but that does seem pretty far-fetched."
"So do these murders, when you my to link them. If it weren't for the common method of the knotted garrote and the common message, we'd never try to link these cases. Makes me wonder if someone isn't trying to do that for us."
"Common message?"
" 'She left' showed up on the second corpse. In the morgue."
"Make them seem associated, when they're not?"
"Something like that."
"Anyway, I'll ask, discreetly, any nuns and priests l know, if there've been any cases of exreligious being stalked. I've got some time now. I'm on leave from the hotline."
"Really?" Her intrigued tone lent that small fact a lot of weight. He wondered why. "Let me know if you get anything."
Matt hung up, staring at Midnight Louie, who was staring at him.
Someone stalking former nuns, or priests. He did know someone like that, he realized; had talked to her, in fact, just last night.
Chapter 42
Louie on the Scent
As I suspected!
I knew I had smelled a rat on someone near and dear.
Well. near anyway!
As soon as I can spring myself from Casa Couch I run down the service stairs, bulling my way through two swinging doors by dint of my tremendous physique, and claw frantically at my Miss Temple's door.
The uncharacteristic ruckus brings her at my beck and call.
She gazes down on me with unfeigned wonder.
"Louie! Leave some of the mahogany for the Hondurans . . . what were you doing inside the Circle Flitz. Louie? Lou-ie!"
By then all she sees of me is my tail as I streak for the guest bathroom, bounce off the tiled wall to the top of the toilet tank and leap up in the air four feet onto the tiled ledge of the window that is always left open.
I am down to the balcony and spearing my built-in pitons into the rough-barked palm tree that acts as my emergency exit ladder.
I am moving so fast that I have gained a tad more momentum than I wish and have to hit the hard sandy ground in a roll, curling into a defensive bail and turning head over hooks like a-big black coconut.
Or maybe a bowling ball.
Whichever, it is sufficient to knock Miss Midnight Louise off her four prissy pins.
"M. L., you big lug! What are you doing to me besides felinious assault?"
"This is no time for petty recriminations. At least you did what I asked when I called you back to Action Central, and waited here. Now I need you to fetch Nose E., pronto!"
"This is what you had me come all the way from Wilfrid's joint for? Get your own pronto pup! Do you have any idea how long a hike you are talking about'? And that is just one way. I have done enough footwork for you to last me several lives."
I run around to block her departing path. "That is just it. We may save several lives if we act quickly. l have discovered the elusive scent from the crime scene." This stops her cold. "Inside? Where you live?"
I nod.
"WiIfrid's murderer is inside. on your own turf?"
"Not exactly, but his--or her---scent is on one of my compatriots."
"How do you know that one of your compatriots is not the murderer? Just because you know someone does not make her--or him--innocent. In fact, in your case, your knowing someone is a pretty good indication that they are not innocent."
"Present company not excepted, I suppose?" I shoot back. Miss Midnight Louise seats herself before she does something she will probably regret, and that I most certainly will. "I will not move one fingernail until you explain yourself. Who is the party who sniffs of murder?"
Two can play at this game. I sit down too. "Mr. Matt Devine."
Can a black cat turn pale? Perhaps not. but Miss Midnight Louise visibly shrinks with shock and dismay. "Mr. Matt Devine?
I know him. Indeed, he was the first person to take me in. I cannot believe that he is involved in anything . . . lethal."
"Me neither, but he has been in contact with someone who has been so involved."
"One of your other Circle Ritz acquaintances, then? Such as Miss Temple Barr. Or even that Mystifying Max I hear discussed here and there?"
"It is possible, but unlikely. No. Mr. Matt Devine has been moving in new circles recently.
Surely even at the Crystal Phoenix you have heard word of his recent exploits on the airwaves."
"You mean the nocturnal radio show."
"l suppose you cannot force yourself to even pronounce the fact that the show is named after me."
"All right The Midnight Hour. But I would point out that both the time of night and the hour were in existence long before you were a mote in some tomcat's eye."
"Nevertheless, I deserve credit. No doubt Mr. Matt came up with the sobriquet because of his acquaintance with me."
" 'Sobriquet'?' What kind of trashy talk is that, Pops? You have been associating too much of late with that tabloid newspaper trollop Yvette."
"She was unjustly smeared. I will not have a half-pint like you besmirching her betters. Poor Yvette was . . . a victim of assault."
"Hah! So you admit that your gender is a sorry lot."
"I admit that some of my gender are sorry lots, and they should be a lot more sorry than they already are, were I to catch up with them. But that is then and there, and this is here and now. At least we can help nail this predator that preys upon two species."
"Two species?"
"I heard it on the grapevine. Think about it. Wilfrid's, er, 'pet,' was clobbered too. In fact, I suspect that poor Wilfrid tried to defend his mistress and was rewarded with a swift kick into Never-Never land."
I see Miss Midnight Louise shudder for the first time in our acquaintance. "And you think that Mr. Matt Devine has unknowingly come in contact with the fiend?"
"He has been catapulted into a new environment: anonymous callers. midnight confessions, public intimacies."
"These humans are a needy lot. One would think they were homeless." Midnight Louise shudders again.
"So they are, more often than not. But you and I are used to such a condition. We can do what they cannot do."
"How will you translate the importance of scent to a mere human?" she asks, reverting to her usual scornful self.
That is when I know that I have her. "It will be hard, but l can think of no other way. I have to hope that they have the rudimentary intelligence to follow the clues we will lay before them.
It we make it simple enough that even a dog could follow it. We can only hope that the humans will tumble to the truth."
"Right." Louise, mind made up, is a fearsome sight. "l will have that dust-bunny of a dog back here in no time flat. Pops. I hope Mr. Matt Devine is the superior human that you think he is."
She turns on a dime and dashes for the nearest main street.
It occurs to me for a regressive moment to worry about how the kit will race across town in rush hour and bring back the always-challenging Nose E., but that is her job, not mine.
Mine is figuring out a way to get Them to do what We want Without Knowing that They are Playing right into Our Paws.
That has ever been our classic dilemma, and I will have to await the arrival of Nose E. to address it once again.
Chapter 43
Fathers
"Matt has been busy since last we met."
Nick's announcement brought nervous laughter of recognition and unease.
"I don't kow how you could do it," Damien said. "Talk to that demented girl, worse than an abortionist, an unnatural mother."
Matt took the words as if aimed at him. "If she was an unnatural mother, she had an unnatural father first," he said quietly.
"How so?"
"I managed to see her. In . . .custody. Her own father was the . . . father. That's why she was in such denial about her pregnancy."