"We accepted everyone; that was the idea. So that's why he was so fanatical; he was holier than the church."
"Right."
Matt frowned, hesitating. "What were the animals after?"
"Who knows? That Midnight Louie is a rambling wreck; always has had the run of the town.
Maybe he had hung out with Monica Orth's cat."
"But--"
"I do have a theory."
This Matt had to hear. He waited.
Molina looked over his head, chewing. After a long while she said, "Catnip."
"Catnip?"
"It's the crack cocaine of cats. They go nuts over it. Must have been some especially potent variety in the Orth house that got on Damien. They became obsessed with following it."
"And Nose E.?"
"He must have picked it up from the cats after they've been in the Orth house. That's his job, you know. Drug-sniffing. Dog like that will follow a trail to the ends of the Mojave Desert."
Molina still hadn't looked him in the eye.
"Catnip. So animal obsession brought Damien down."
"So to speak. Speaking of obsession, what're you going to do about Temple Barr's ring?"
"What would I do about it? You've got it."
"For one thing, you could tell her we got it, and where it was found."
"Why? You're not going to give it back."
"True. And I'd rather you didn't tell her, if that very fine-line conscience of yours permits it."
"It would only exasperate her, and I don't see why you care what I tell her."
"Because the ring is evidence, and that second strangulation murder isn't solved yet. Father Damien had nothing to do with it."
"You mean . . . Kinsella?"
Molina shrugged. "Maybe him, maybe someone he knows, or who knows him. Anything goes. One thing's sure; we're not going to crack that one soon."
Matt nodded to save the trouble of talking, it didn't stop him from thinking. He didn't like that ring of Temple's turning up on a murder scene that was going to take some time to solve. It implied that somebody was willing to use her in a larger, longer-range context. Had the ring been left there as a message to Max? If so, not telling him could be disastrous. He wasn't sure who he would or wouldn't tell.
"Cheers!" Molina lifted the massive mug, toasting, "Your new career."
Matt lifted his stein, let the thick glass lips butt with a dull clink. It sounded as hollow as his recent "victories" felt.
A mobile storm landed at their table. Mariah, flushed with Dr Pepper and game arcade triumphs.
"I made three-point-two million, a record. For me, anyway.
What are you two doing, whispering?"
"Whispering?" Molina laughed. "We're whispering OUT LOUD so we can hear ourselves talk.
We were planning to eat all your pizza if you didn't come back in time." Just then a tangy waitress hip-slung her way through the crowd to lower two trays loaded with deep-dish crusts crowned by everything the Heart Association would most recommend not eating.
"No so fast!" Molina urged. "You'll bum the roof of your mouth."
Mariah rolled her eyes, but pulled back to nibble just a bit of the crust, rather than sink her upper palate into the steaming landscape of melted mozzarella mountains, an oil-bearing pepperoni landslide, and lots of little hamburger hills.
She had grown taller since Matt had seen her last fall. The long braid down her back was gone, truncated to a glossy short cut. She looked less like a tomboy, and more like a girl.
"Mom, can I get my ears pierced, please!" She glanced at Matt, subtly enlisting a witness for what was probably an ongoing argument.
When Molina hesitated in answering, mainly because she was trying to cut through one of the mammoth pizza squares, Mariah rushed on. "Please, Mom, please! All the girls in school, and half the guys, have pierced ears, and lots of other stuff. You don't want me to look like a dork my whole school life?"
"Sounds like a good plan," Molina muttered to her pizza.
"What, Morn? Did you say yes? You said yes!"
"No!" Molina returned to full bellow. "I said, I'll think about it."
"You think about it forever!"
"I'll let you know this weekend."
"You're always working on the weekends lately."
"Well, the first weekend I'm not working, we'll go to the mall. Look into it."
"Reeelly!" Mariah was so excited she stuffed a chunk of pizza into her mouth, then began pulling it out as the heat got to her.
"If you slow down and eat your pizza like someone who isn't going to need a burn ward."
"Okay." Mariah jumped up. "I'll . . . go play some more and let it cool. Gimme some quarters."
"You got all my quarters."
"Oh." Melting brown eyes glanced ever so quickly at Matt.
"I might have some quarters," he confessed, digging in his pockets until Mariah had a fistful.
"Thanks!" She bobbed her way through the scurrying waiters, and disappeared. Molina eyed him askance. "This is tough love?"
"Peace at any price."
Matt drank some beer, ate some pizza, and listened to the happy havoc all around.
Carmen Molina knew as well as he did that peace didn't come at any price.
**************
Temple sat home alone by the telephone.
Actually, the telephones in her place reposed on the kitchen wall, in the bedroom, and in the office, and she was curled up on the living room loveseat with her male of the moment, Midnight Louie.
He lay like one dead to the world, legs stretched out, eyes closed and refusing to open even when she tickled his tummy.
Why he and his cohorts, including the odd-looking tiger cat, had been dropped off, she had no idea. But Matt's big-time expedition into undercover work must have been successful. He was probably downtown right now, making a statement and being debriefed and undergoing the usual grilling by Molina and her minions. Poor guy. She hoped he got back early enough to call her and tell her what had happened. Because she would call him by--eleven o'clock--if he didn't call her first.
She frowned and tried to read the small print in the big book, same paragraph, one more time. She had picked up some turn-of-the-century tomes on the history of magic at the psychic fair, and were they heavy going, in more ways than one. Not only had she nearly dislocated her arms and tote bag bringing them home today, but they were putting her to sleep just when she should have been on pins and needles about what was happening at the ex-priests' meeting.
She had tried calling Max, for distraction purposes, but he was out, or on the Internet, or just not answering.
Temple sighed. She was sure that the Synth, if it had really existed, would have left a paper trail somewhere. Everything did. If the Leopard Lady murder was separate from the Blue Dahlia murder, and it looked like it was, then the Synth could have been involved. Maybe it had been a warning to Max about releasing Gandolph's book. Knowledge was power. She yawned. So she couldn't be undercover with Matt tonight, and she couldn't be under the covers with Max tonight. She would just open the covers and find the trail and solve the whole thing by herself.
Beside her, Louie stirred, lifted his head and regarded her balefully.
"Well, not totally by myself," she told him. "You're one guy can always count on."
***************
Max was back.
At Secrets.
The name of the place was scrawled on the bare, boxy wall outside in the hot-pink script of pink neon, commercial graffiti in coy curlicues.
The hot-pink curlicues of the strippers inside seemed tame by comparison with the outdoor fireworks.
He had been forced to take naked disguise to the tenth power. The haircut was invisible under a sweaty biker bandana. His height was flattened by the bulk of a leather jacket tattooed in steel studs. His left nostril bore a glue-on stud too. He slouched like an inchworm, and still he couldn't be sure that Nadir wouldn't spot him.
Here, where nothing but literal sleaze was an adequate disguise, it was hard to portray the Complete Sleaze without terminally alienating yourself.