Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

She was thinking of Midnight Louie, of course, her knight in shining fur.

“Chim-pan-zee." Bucek had the nondescript, chiseled features of an astronaut or a military man or a monk. Hearing him intone the name of the beast that had saved her was too funny for words, but Temple didn't have the energy to laugh. "Named 'Chatter.' Ring a bell?"

“Elvis had a pet chimp named Scatter. He trained it to play all sorts of vulgar tricks. And it came to a bad end, didn't it? It got hooked on straight scotch and bourbon and turned violent. Everybody lost interest and it was caged at_. Graceland until it died of cirrhosis of the liver. What's gonna happen to this one?"

“Hey, he fingered a hitman for the Mob. We'll have to put him in protective custody. Probably here at the hotel Animal Elvis exhibition. In a big chimp suite. Lots of interaction with the clientele. He should be fine."

“You have a sense of humor," she accused.

“Don't tell Matt. It would destroy him."

“And you too, probably. So ... somehow the chimp, who belonged to the hit man, got out. So he happened to find his master right when the guy was homing in for the kill. Then the killer was an Elvis addict, right?"

“Right." Bucek still looked amused, like Temple was a trained chimp he was watching. "You're so smart, how come you didn't finger the killer before he laid a finger on you?"

“With so darn many Elvis impersonators here? I'm not totally stupid. I had a leading candidate, but he nevercame near me all night and I didn't figure he could kill me long distance."

“Then you got a little distracted."

“Oh. Yeah."

“That next-to-last Elvis really got to you, didn't he?" "He was good."

“He was great. Distracted you from the fact that you were a potential victim. Maybe even made the killer so jealous he decided to interrupt the act with murder. Almost was the death of you, that Elvis. You remember him?”

Temple tried to look vague and helpless. It was hard. "Yeah, but . . . it all mashes together."

“He got you out of harm's way, though, in the end. Amazing how he swept you into that photo opportunity at the last moment. The Sun photographer says he's got a shot that looks just like Elvis and Priscilla at their wedding. Yep. That ninety-ninth Elvis made a big impression on the judges. They were going to give him the top award."

“Going to?"

“Couldn't find him after all the excitement." "Really?"

“Couldn't find him entered in the competition." "Really."

“The rumor is, Elvis saved you."

“Elvis? That guy was much too young—"

“Not Elvis Now. Elvis Then."

“Oh, Mr. Bucek. The FBI doesn't believe in ghosts, does it?"

“Only on TV, Miss Barr. Only on TV."

“So who won?”

Bucek looked down at the coiled satin snake in the bag.

“Maybe I should ask, 'Who lost?' " Temple said. "Sometimes you can have it both ways.”

She caught her breath. A fitting end for an assassin: triumph and capture at one and the same moment.

“The judges didn't know, of course," he said. She nodded.

“And you weren't available to award the belt, so they just had Crawford Buchanan hand it to the winner."

“I see." Temple couldn't keep her lip from curling in an Elvis sneer. Crawford's moment in the limelight must have been bitter, having to crown a King who'd slain the man he believed was the real King.

“Hard to hold a belt like that with handcuffs on, but some you win and some you lose."

“You have a true gift for cliché."

“Thank you. Care to guess the identity of the winner and loser?”

Temple took a deep breath. "Is it ... Kenny?”

Bucek nodded, impressed. "What did you figure out first: who won the competition, or who worked for the Mob?"

“Kenny was good tonight, though not as good as . whoever. But I'd already suspected him. Because of the jumpsuit."

“What jumpsuit? The place was crawling with jumpsuits."

“The first jumpsuit. The first victim in all this. The one that was trashed in Quincey's dressing room and turned up buried later in the Medication Garden."

“More legerdemain. Tricks to fool the eye."

“Not really. Because I finally realized that if Lyle the protected witness could be an Elvis fanatic, maybe his executioner could be one too. To catch a thief, et cetera. Like you said about the leaf and the forest and Father Brown. It had to be all about Elvis. So I decided that the killer must have loved Elvis as much as the victim. And I still remember how genuinely sad Kenny was about the violated jumpsuit. Then, when it disappeared and turned up buried—in the Medication Garden, next to all those enshrined Elvis jumpsuits—I realized why." “Why?"?”

Temple sipped the coffee, though she'd probably regret it in a couple of hours. "It was buried in reverence, not in guilt and concealment. The killer was sorry he'd offed the jumpsuit. Do you see? The hitman could destroy a living, breathing target, but it almost killed him to ruin any Elvis artifact, no matter how effective the ruse was."

“Interesting theory. You want to test it on the source?"