Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Only that she had a gorgeous face and won the Rhinestone G-string two years ago. Katharine had a great body. I saw her work out. She was fantastically limber. She used this cat persona and she was grace incarnate.”

“Sounds like somebody didn’t like the competition.” Temple nodded, then glanced at the pacing man with the crudely lettered sign. “Or maybe somebody thought those women were damned anyway, and might as well be dead.”

Ruth shuddered in the hot shade of the copper canopy.

“God, I’d hate to be a religious fanatic. I hold some pretty firm opinions, but I loathe thinking someone could kill a human being for a political or religious position.”

“They’ve been doing it for millennia.” Temple stood. “Good luck on the talk shows. I’ve got to get back. Lieutenant Molina wants to question me.”

Ruth’s eyebrows lifted over the top of her sunglass frames. “Are you under suspicion?”

“Only of being a nuisance,” Temple answered, flogging her weary body back into the hotel’s icy air-conditioning.

20

The Sweet Smell of Success

My dear mama, now departed, although perhaps not dead, always used to say that I took after my father. In truth, I believe that she herself wished to take after my father, but he was nowhere to be found.

Suffice it to say that somewhere there is a handsome, black-coated dude who knows how to live the good life of fish, females and serenade. I often picture the old guy basking upon some yacht, preferably a salmon or a tuna trawler, the sun glinting off his distinguished graying muzzle, seeing the world and wondering once in a while about how his spitting image is faring in landlocked Las Vegas.

He would have a dog to know that his long-ago offspring is slinking about the shadows of the Goliath Hotel trying to catch a whiff of a dead woman disguised as a pussycat.

There is method to my madness, if not much redeeming social value. For the fact is the late, lamented lady by now is a stiff and about to be given the bum’s rush in a giant-size plastic baggie.

My olfactory mission is not based on mere morbidity, although my kind has been known to show a certain attachment to the aromas of dead fish, birds and mice.

No, it is not the scent of death that draws me, but a memory that teases at the edge of my awareness. It began when I examined the first victim of what has become a habit rather than an isolated tragedy.

I smelled something then that was so elusive, yet familiar, that I must satisfy my curiosity. Does this second dead little doll bear the same scent? It is not that I have never inhaled the fragrance of a human before, dead or alive. I will never forget the musty odor of the deceased ABA dude, which I took for bookish mildew.

Likewise, the scent of these done-for little dolls suits their circumstances: it is light, sweet and feminine, and I have encountered it before. Perfume it is not. This is more subtle. How maddening to possess a first-class sniffer and not be able to determine the exact bouquet that tickles my nostrils, if not my memory!