Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

She flashes her shivs and then retracts them nail-by-nail, smooth as a magician doing a baton roll through his fingers. “They call me the Hooded Claw in the ‘hood.”

Oh, great! That makes me Son of the Hooded Claw. Sounds like some cheesy old serial movie.

Fortunately, I have established a reputation for fine sleuthing as well as slicing fisticuffs in this town.

If the other fishnet stocking was in the murder room, they must have been worn by the dead woman, not an imported garrote, but a tool of opportunity. That looks like someone who came to the Sapphire Slipper tonight, unexpectedly ran into the victim, then did her in with her own intimate accessory.

Unfortunately, that theory makes the Fontana party and their scheming girlfriends and innocent ride-alongs all still the prime suspects.

Just Kidnapping

When Temple told Aldo she’d like to interview him alone in the Victorian boudoir, Kit raised an eyebrow.

Heck, the eyebrow almost jousted with her hairline.

“I’m looking for some context here,” Temple told the room, including a scowling Macho Mario and a thoughtful Matt. “Only the eldest will do. Of the brothers, that is,” she said quickly to shut Uncle Mario’s already open and about to object mouth.

Aldo rose, shot his jacket sleeves over his pristine white cuffs, paused to whisper in Kit’s ear at the parlor archway, then glanced into the kitchen.

“I may need a bodyguard to pass through that gauntlet of pissed-off girlfriends.”

The joke lessened the tension behind . . . and the dawning tension ahead as the girlfriends’ chatter became dead silence. They all broadcast an air of heightened interest as a Fontana brother crossed their sight line.

In the foyer, Aldo took a deep breath. “Everybody is twitchier than a Valentine’s Day Massacre trigger finger. Uncle Mario does all the talking for the family when things get tight.”

“It’s just me,” Temple said.

“Right now, ‘just you’ is our designated savior. Don’t fool yourself. The cops will be furious we kept quiet about the crime scene so you could play detective. We’re all in deep scaloppini.”

“But what a way to go,” Temple said as he followed her upstairs, kissing her fingers to the air like a chef. “Pasta, olive oil, and lots of sauce.”

“We may find all those ingredients in the Victorian Room upstairs.” While Temple tried not to blush—racking her brains for any uses of pasta in kinky sex—although the olive oil and sauce she got, Aldo went on. “Why the Victorian Room?”

“I figured it wouldn’t be wired. None of them are supposed to be, but you never know. Recording would ruin the illusion. But I’m counting on you to check it out first.”

“Right. Wait here.”

Aldo slipping into the room’s saccharine pale blue décor resembled a white-clad black panther invading a froufrou shop. It took more than ten minutes, but he examined everything from four-poster canopy to carpet to furniture to walls and ceiling.

He stepped out into the hall to report.

“All is as ersatz, authentic Victorian as could be desired. No wires, no peepholes. So.” He folded his arms and eyed her with an arched eyebrow. “What did you really have in mind here?”

Temple grabbed his arm, ducked inside, and shut the door on them.

Aldo did not look worried. Nor did he look hopeful.

He didn’t have to. She would never even flirt with her aunt Kit’s guy.

“You’re right,” she said. “The police will tear this charade to pieces, making all of us look guilty and no doubt dragging every one of our names through the media. After my first round of interviews it’s becoming evident that, while there are a ton of suspects on the premises, there’s also plenty of room for outside skullduggery.”

“Outside as how? Sapphire Slipper employees?”

“First and foremost, yes. The place had to be reserved; that was a forewarning. The girlfriends think they were clever and that their designated caller sounded like an executive secretary making arrangements for a bunch of businessmen on a company-paid rampage, but it might well have sounded suspicious to the staff here. Then there’s the question of how these babes in the woods managed to subvert your regular Gangsters’ driver and take over.”

“That is odd.” Aldo pulled out his cell phone. Although it was as loath to connect up here as anybody’s, he could still examine his call lists and other information. “Ah. A new hiree was on last night. Marlon Gherken.”

“Could he have been planted?”

“Sure. The Gangsters’ manager runs the daily operation, not us. She’ll be the first person I talk to when we get back to Vegas.”

“She’ll?”

“Gangsters is an equal-opportunity employer,” Aldo said piously.

“Could she be a pal of one of these girlfriends?”

“All my brothers’ girls live and work in Vegas, some in the entertainment industry. That means they know a lot of the workforce here, casually or closely. Yeah. She could be related somehow. But why such an elaborate setup for one murder? I’d have to say that it was something on this end, the bordello, that made this murder happen here and now.”