Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

This time Matt stared at himself in the mirror above the dresser. Here was where Madonnah saw herself bare, and, he’d bet, no one else did.

He went to the door. It had one of those center-knob lock buttons, so she could have privacy. He grabbed a couple of tissues from his pocket and turned the lock.

Back at the dresser, he found her working clothes in the second drawer. Black and baby blue corsets with garters and marabou feather edgings. Stockings ranging from nurse white to sheer black to fishnet to sheer with lavish tattoos printed on them and even rhinestones. He counted. There were six fishnet ones; even pairs, none missing. Filmy thises and thats. A box of tangled jewelry, mostly black and glittery or rhinestones or lengths of pearls.

The bottom drawer held spike heels, all four inches tall, exaggerated, in shiny patent leather, white or black or sliver or red. All the heel tips were worn, and they were tumbled together. The soles looked remarkably clean. Never worn outdoors.

Her purse was in that bottom drawer too, under the shoes.

Matt pulled it out and put it on the dresser top.

It was an inexpensive black microfiber shoulder bag. It had an outside zipper, an inside zipper on that flap, an exterior three-quarter zipper that revealed credit card slots and a driver’s license window and pen-holding nooses, all at easy, organized access.

Every slot was empty, except one. The driver’s license was from Indiana. The photo of a youngish woman with brown hair and bangs reminded him of the mousiest wig on the shelf. Obviously what she wore when traveling.

There was another zippered compartment at the back of the lining It was empty except for a penny and a few crumbs of something long since inedible.

He pushed his fingers behind each empty credit card slot. Nothing.

But this was a purse of a thousand compartments. He was sure that had she flown with it, airport security would have missed a couple of places in this bag of tricks.

He found another zipper inside the outer inner face of the bag.

There! His half a gum wrapper! And on the plain back, a phone number jotted down in faded pencil. It looked like something even the owner had forgotten.

So he committed it to memory, not knowing where the area code was from.

He dropped the purse back into place in the bottom drawer and pushed it shut with his borrowed tissues.

As he stood and looked around a last time, he couldn’t help thinking the room was so devoid of personality and effects that it resembled a simple convent bedroom for postulants who had left all worldly goods behind. The late Madonnah, had her wigs been headdresses and her clothes habits, reminded him more of a nun than a courtesan.

Matt pulled a couple fresh tissues from his pocket and unlocked and opened the door. He felt confident he’d left as little trace on the room as she ever had.

Louie’s Imps

As soon as my Miss Temple has finished with that old gang of ours I head to the Midnight Inc. Investigations rendezvous spot, the upstairs hallway.

The presence of a dead body and a live Fontana brother on watch discourages all but the stout of heart from venturing up here.

Luckily, my breed is expected to venture where no man has gone before, or will go again, so I duck into a doorway niche to another bedroom and wait for my troops to reassemble.

Ma Barker is either still in the murder room and needed a distraction to dart out again, or she had departed before the Fontana brother called to the downstairs family powwow had returned to his post.

Her I am not worried about. In either case she will think of something, and act on it.

Nor do I worry about Miss Midnight Louise. I know she has been soaking up every bit of gossip, every inadvertent verbal slipup, every guilty whiff of sweat from the assigned bridesmaids below.

Besides her well-honed street smarts from her life among the homeless, she has a personal aversion to dames who are overde-pendent on the regard and support of the male of the species, any species. So I can count on her to not take any of these Fontana squeezes at face value, and know that if she has run across a hot clue she will follow it on her own.

Therefore, I am not surprised that the dainty Satin is the first of my three operatives to return to base operations.

“Turn up any hot clues?” I ask.

I do not expect an affirmative, seeing Miss Satin is new at the shamus stuff.

“I did not find any, but Mr. Max Devine seems to have.”

“Matt! It is Matt Devine.”

“Max, Matt, what is the difference? No more than Kitty, Kit.”

“Let me tell you, there is a big difference to those names among the humans I associate with, and, come to think of it, between Kitty and Kit too.”

For while Matt is Miss Temple’s current swain, I explain, Max is the previous one, now missing.

Miss Satin shrugs her vibrissae as her muzzle makes a charming moue.