Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Did... anyone take off the mask?”

“For the final photographs, after the coroner arrived.”

“Then you saw—?”

“The bruises and contusions were present when you saw her, then—when was that?”

“Four-fifty. I was on my way out.”

“You stopped in the dressing room. Why?”

“Soaking up local color.”

“You seem to prefer your local color bloodred.”

“That’s below the belt, Lieutenant. Yeah, I was curious about the murder. I had a feeling—”

“Yes?”

“Something seems funny about it... them. Like they’re messages.”

“They’re messages that some sick men out there get off on killing women, especially those in sexually titillating lines of work.”

“You’re sure it’s a man?”

“Aren’t you?”

“Both victims were serious contenders for winning the contest. Dorothy had won before and her face would launch a thousand flashbulbs. Katharine—Kitty—had a body that would freeze film into Playboy-ready shots, and the skill and grace to show it off.”

“So you think a competitor killed them. I suppose a physically fit woman could have killed either one. But I’m not interested in your theories, Ms. Barr.”

“Just the facts, ma’am.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay. I found Katharine—Kitty, in the dressing room. Actually, I heard her sob first. She was hiding among the costumes, pressed up against the wall like a hurt child. You know how an animal hides when it’s scared, with its tail or ears sticking right out in plain sight, as if you can’t possibly see them. That’s the way she was hiding. I saw her shoes first.”

“You would,” Molina interrupted.

“What’ll happen to those shoes, and her costume? They were so clever. Kitty made them herself.”

“Police property room, until after the trial, if there is one. Go on.”

“Anyway, I coaxed her out, and that’s when I saw her face. Little did I know my own would look a lot like it in a few minutes. Kitty was afraid of a man. She kept asking if ‘he’ was out in the hall.”

“There goes your jealous vixen theory.”

“Maybe. Kitty could have had two enemies. She said that she would he all right, that she was ready to make the break from this guy. That’s why he hurt her. He wanted to ruin her chances of winning the contest, because the money would help her get on her own. But she was going anyway. I know it.”

“How?”

“By the way she spoke about her plans, her business.

She called herself an ‘entrepreneur.’ She sounded like a kid selling lemonade.”

Molina’s gaze dropped to her notes again. “ ‘Grin ’n’ Bare It.’ ”

Temple nodded soberly. “A gag stripping business. ‘Good clean fun,’ according to Kitty. She was heartbroken to have her face ruined for the competition. Even makeup wouldn’t cover everything, she said. I can see now she’s right.”

“Yeah. Your dark glasses indoors are a nice punk touch,” Molina said, not unsympathetically. “Anybody else been bothering you today?”

“Only the police and the ballroom security guards,” Temple answered, deadpan.

“Go on.”

“That’s it. I suggested a cat mask to match the rest of the costume, and she lit up like a kid who’s getting a Nintendo for Christmas. I left her happy and high on her act, only—”

“Yes?”

“Only she wanted me to know that she hadn’t been crying because she’d been hit, but because it hurt her chances to be in the contest. I wondered then why it was so important not to cry when you’re hit.”

“And now—?”

“Now I know.”

“So. You left her with so much hope that she went out and made the mask, then she returned after regular hours to work with it—why?”

“Privacy. She probably needed to find out if it would handicap her vision, make her clumsy. She was poetry in motion. And she didn’t want anyone to know what had happened. If she performed smoothly in the mask on a trial run, she could show up in it for the rest of the rehearsals and no one would ever suspect it hid something.”

Molina flipped her notebook shut. “Stay out of my investigation. If you think of anything more, tell me. See the self-help group. Go home now.” Molina paused. Her next sentence came out of the blue of suddenly angry eyes. “I’m going to get this bastard.”

Molina marched back to the knot of police.

Temple, aching all over, was tempted to take Molina’s advice. That was the problem, she was taking Molina’s advice on too many things lately. Time for a little authority-flaunting.

She went back to the cocktail lounge, where idle dancers were starting to order lunches and drinks. The gathering had the halfheartedly festive air of a picnic forced indoors on a rainy day. they had to be here, they might as well make the best of it.

So should Temple.

She avoided Lindy’s table. It was too easy to gravitate to someone she knew. A guide to a new milieu was useful, but not if the escort kept Temple from taking chances and learning something not in the guidebook.

Temple paused beside the table of the only silver-haired woman in the area who didn’t owe it to bleach. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Go right ahead.”