Cat In A Topaz Tango

Squinting at curbside numbers in the dark, she finally slid the Miata to a stop in front of a house with three cars already parked there, two in the driveway and one in the street, none of them marked police cruisers.

A boxy orange Hummer H3 pulled up behind her. Temple expected the Beach Boys or Leo DiCaprio and posse to pour out of it, but Crawford Buchanan did instead.

“Our cars really clash,” he noted, smoothing back his gelled black-and-silver hair as he eyed her red Miata.

“Thank goodness.”

“Come on, be a pal.” He took her arm, which she jerked away, as they went up the front walk. “You don’t want to make me look bad in front of the fuzz, do you?”

Temple was more concerned about her first visit to the Molina home than Crawford’s state of comfort.

Matt had been here more than once, she knew. She’d wondered if Molina was as utterly uninterested in men—in Matt—as it appeared. A police lieutenant could afford something more suburban, Temple was sure. Maybe the location was all for Mariah’s nearby Catholic school.

Catholics were consistent in their faith and Temple admired that, not that a fallen-away Unitarian would or could convert to a high-maintenance church, whatever the denomination. She mentally slapped herself for relating everything these days to her relationship with Matt.

Better look and think sharp. This was a serious situation, even if she had arrived with the terminally unserious Crawford Buchanan. At least she had stood and delivered him as requested. Molina had to respect that.

Well, no, she didn’t.

Morrie Alch opened the door when she knocked. Ringing the bell might have startled the already stressed-out residents. His thick, steel-gray hair looked grayer and so did his face.

“Come in,” he said. “This Buchanan?”

The rat in question answered for itself. “Crawford Buchanan, bro, main man about town. You may have heard my On-the-Go radio spots. Everything hip that’s happenin’.”

Morrie looked at Temple. “Molina wants to see you down the hall, kid’s room, right away. “You come talk to me, Mr. Hipster.”

“Everybody calls me ‘Crawford.’ ”

Alch made a face, then nodded Temple down the hall.

“Now, Crawford, let’s say we have a little talk,” Alch said as he gestured the Crawf to a furniture barn sofa occupied by the bony, dirty blond-haired guy Temple had seen with Molina at the teen house. He looked sexy-tough in a military or reform-school way, she couldn’t decide which. Is this what Molina was seeing these days? Huh. He was no Matt or Max.

Meanwhile, Alch was whispering sour nothings into her ear. “It’s too early to tell if Mariah just stayed late at the mall, but this is serious stuff we’ve found on her computer.”

“Didn’t Molina monitor—?”

“You bet, but she’s been real sick lately, and, uh, distracted.”

Temple let her face show shock. They didn’t call Molina the Iron Maiden of the LVMPD because she took sick days.

“No kidding.’ Alch stopped in the hall to address the gravity of the situation. “Real sick. This is coming at a rotten time. Bear that in mind and pretend you’re the little drummer girl, ready to march where needed.”

“So that’s why she didn’t show up at the Crystal Phoenix dinner a few weeks ago, other than my crime-solving skills getting public applause.”

“I think you won that one. Now, she needs you.”

“Me. Again? Aw, shoot, Morrie, my life’s a lot more complicated now.”

“You have a significant other missing in action?” He sounded vaguely parentally accusing.

He meant, Mariah, of course. A child.

Still, his words slid a hot knife of regret into her gut. Did she have a former significant other missing in action? Only recently an ex. Funny that the recent past could feel so raw. Max, even missing, could take care of himself, if he wasn’t dead. Not knowing why or where he had vanished would always haunt her but she would never regret having opened herself to Matt’s love.

Temple nodded at Alch. Now was no time to ramp up the rancor between her and Molina. Mariah was a naïve kid, and her mother must be kicking herself for being sick just when it was most damaging.

Or had Mariah taken advantage of her mother being sick? Kids today could be scary in their media-encouraged ambitions.

Police Premises

You do not call a roommate of Midnight Louie out in the dark of night without a bodyguard of the feline persuasion walking right in her high-heeled footsteps.

Dirty Larry may take pride in invisibly fitting in with the lowlifes he spies upon, but I can slip invisibly into the dark backseat floors of almost any automotive model made in America and Europe and Asia these days.

Still, I am glad not to be on the move for now.

I am familiar with the environs of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and School. There is a nearby convent occupied by several elderly nuns and a pair of stray cats named Peter and Paul. They were involved in a very early case of ours, my Miss Temple and me.