Cat In An Aqua Storm

“She was costumed as Catwoman. Someone ripped off the tail and strangled her.”

“That’s a lot kinkier than the ABA murder.”

“Maybe book people are better at writing and reading about murder than doing it.”

“Crawford Buchanan handed you a hot potato, after all.”

“Don’t remind me! But I did get a crazy idea, at least Lieutenant Molina thinks it’s crazy.”

“How crazy?”

“That the murderer is following that old rhyme about ‘Monday’s child is fair of face.’ Monday’s victim had a face to die for. The girl yesterday was a magnificent gymnast—‘full of grace.’ ”

“You think that there’ll be more murders?”

“Molina doesn’t. She says that everybody over there is fair of face and full of grace, even the men.”

“Lieutenant Molina doesn’t look like the type to be grading men.”

“I added that part, all right? But no men have been killed. Yet.”

“Just what you don’t need, Temple, all that sensational publicity when you’re recovering from your own troubles.” Matt shook his head. “You could have knocked me over with a feather when Lieutenant Molina came up to us in the emergency room. From what you said, I pictured some beefy veteran who liked throwing his overweight around against defenseless solid citizens like you.”

“Don’t let the navy-blue pants suits fool you. She may dress like a nun, but I bet Molina can be meaner than a K-9 attack dog.”

“Not to you?”

“She doesn’t cut anyone much slack.”

“That’s not her job. You and I can afford to be bleeding hearts. We’re removed from the misery and danger out there. I’ve got my phone line and—when you’re not stumbling over bodies-—your work concentrates on good news, not bad.”

“Not lately,” Temple said glumly.

Matt stood and yawned. “I’d feel better about leaving for work if Electra were here.”

“There are other tenants.”

“But none who know what you’ve been through. Here.” He reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a card.

Must be her lucky day, Temple thought. This card had no name on it, just a number, a 731 exchange, and a word: “ConTact: Crisis Intervention for the Nineties.”

“What kind of callers do you get?”

“Everything imaginable. Rape victims. Physical-and sexual-abuse victims. Alcoholics. The suicidal. Compulsive drug addicts and gamblers. The mentally distressed.”

“How awful to hear so much grief.”

“It can get intense, but the counselors are insulated by the phone, and by the anonymity. We hold the fort until we can put them in touch with the community agency that can help them in the long term.”

“You said every kind of caller imaginable. That include obscene callers?”

“Not yet, but we get some pranksters, kids killing time. They don’t fool us. It’s hard to mimic real misery.”

“Amen,” Temple said, accompanying him to the door. “Maybe I should lighten your load and give you a naughty call now and then.”

She had meant it as a joke. Like a lot of jokes it struck closer to home than was meant.

Matt’s ears reddened suddenly. Temple could see that even from behind. Wow, she thought. For some reason, that comment had pushed his buttons.

By the time they reached the door, the moment had passed. He held it open for her to pass through.

“Oh, by the way,” she said, smiling. He looked perfectly collected. Too bad. “Thanks for fixing the shoe. I felt like Cinderella when I found it in the morning.”

“Shoes are easy to fix. Souls are harder.”

“Matt, I hope she calls. I hope she’s all right.”

“And I hope that your theory about the murder pattern predicting more deaths is wrong, but you have an uncanny sixth sense about these things.”

“Molina says I’m crazy and now you say I’m psychic. I’m not sure which is worse” was Temple’s mock-glum comment as she closed the door.

At least he was laughing when he left. And so was Temple, until she remembered that Lieutenant Molina, her own personal Rumplestiltskin, was stopping by at seven o’clock to collect what Temple had promised.

24

Poster Boy

Molina wasright on time. She arrived about twenty minutes after Louie had lofted down from the bathroom window and stalked with bored, stiff-legged laissez-faire for the one piece of furniture upon which his black hair would leave the most obvious trail, the off-white living-room sofa.

Lord knew where Louie had been since the Goliath, but Molina must have come straight from the hotel or headquarters downtown. She was still wearing her dreaded pants suit, this one khaki. If Temple saw another unbecoming color on Molina, she’d scream.

“An unusual building,” Molina remarked when Temple opened the door to her ring. Molina’s routine glance around ricocheted off the interior angles of the pie-shaped rooms, off the subtly vaulted white plaster ceiling so soft and cool it seemed like the top of a sensuous silk tent.

Molina teetered on the entry-hall parquet, uncertain which way to move. Temple could tell that the unpredictable slice-of-pie layout upset her four-square investigative mind. The chessboard-tiled kitchen floor, a symphony in black and white eerily accented by a pink neon clock and radio, didn’t help.