Cat In An Aqua Storm

Buchanan was wandering around the floor ogling the female strippers. No doubt his press credentials aided and abetted. She assessed the acts available, and hoped they would suffice to keep the miserable weasel occupied while she headed downstairs to find out why the police would waste their time putting up crime tape two days too late.

Lindy was right. The back stairs were no longer the discreet, deserted route they had been. A yellow tape blocked the bottom, and beyond it stood a uniformed officer.

Temple descended anyway, wishing that her high heels were not so percussive.

“You can’t enter, ma’am,” the officer told her when she paused on the bottom step.

She liked the additional elevation. “Can I at least ask what’s going on?”

“You can ask,” he said.

“Isn’t it odd to cordon off a crime scene after the lab people have been and gone?”

“They haven’t,” he answered.

Temple opened her mouth to ask another unwelcome question when the rising wail of a distraught woman interrupted her. Obviously the woman was deeply anguished.

Temple stared at the officer, puzzled. “Is Lieutenant Molina—?”

Molina herself suddenly stepped into the picture, like a magician, all at once. Temple jumped, even though she knew Molina had merely been out of sight down the hall, and had stepped forward when she heard Temple’s voice.

“You know a Savannah Ashleigh?” Molina asked.

Temple nodded, recognizing the exasperated note in her voice despite the official monotone.

“She’s hysterical. Do you think you could get a sensible word out of her?”

Temple shrugged slowly.

“Let her through,” Molina told the officer.

He pulled the tape free of one wall.

“Well, come on,” Molina said.

Temple hesitated a moment longer. With her high heels and six inches of riser, she was exactly Lieutenant C. R. Molina’s height. She hated to abandon such a rare advantage. Muffled wails were too great a temptation to resist, however, especially when they were movie-star muffled wails.

“What happened?” she asked Molina as she stepped down.

“Your theory got blown to Vancouver.”

“By another murder?”

“Two,” Molina said succinctly, starting down the hall.

Two, Temple thought. How did a killer mimic a one-a-day nursery rhyme with a double murder? He didn’t.

Temple hated the fact that she always had to trot to keep up with Molina. Down here on the concrete floor, her two little tootsies sounded like a convention of high-stepping hackney horses.

Molina led Temple to a dressing room across the hall from the ones she had visited. Temple noticed that the door to the big one was open, but the private one was shut.

This door was ajar. In the mirror Temple glimpsed something old—the Ashleigh mane of platinum blond hair... something new—the glitter of an evening gown draping the actress... something borrowed—a white square of handkerchief linen that could only belong to someone sensible. And something pink.

The woman was not so much sobbing as gasping for breath “Gone,” she wailed. “Just gone.” And then she gave a long, whining moan.

“Did she know the victims?” Temple asked in surprise.

“You tell me. They were found in her dressing room.”

“Who were they?”

“We’re still checking. Sister act.”

“Not... twins?”

Molina nodded. “Know them?”

“Met them. June and Gypsy... gone? How?”

“We don’t know yet.”

Temple was going to ask another question, but Molina forestalled her. “Look, they were found dead, naked except for a thin coat of gold paint. Identification’s been a little slow. Tracing the path of that gold paint down here has been a lot slower.”

“That’s why the area’s barred.”

“Right.”

“And Savannah Ashleigh found the body? Bodies.”

“Dialed nine-one-one. A perfect witness. Too shaken to leave the area. The first squad on the scene found her in the dressing room, like this.”

“Gone,” Savannah wailed again, in utter bereavement.

“I had no idea that they were that close,” Temple whispered.

“Whatever. See if you can settle her down. We can’t interrogate a siren.”

Temple edged into the room, seeing her cheerful outfit in the mirror. She felt like a clown, but there was no way to approach Savannah gently, not with these heels on this floor.

She slipped the shoes off and left them by the door. She could see in the mirror that, behind her, Molina lifted one eyebrow in mute surprise, like Mr. Spock. Come to think of it, they had a lot in common.

Temple approached Savannah. “Miss Ashleigh? Miss Ashleigh?”

At the sound of her own name, the panting picked up tempo. Savannah’s eyes were wide open and dazed, as was her mouth. Her long-nailed hands clutched the pink purse on her lap, twisting its straps, tightening on its sides as if it were dough she was kneading.

“Gone,” she repeated.

If Savannah Ashleigh had been able to put the variety of tone and inflection into her film lines that she put into that one word here, she would have had a remarkable career.

“Yes,” Temple said, “sometimes people are gone. But we are here.”

Savannah Ashleigh stared at her blankly.