Cat In An Aqua Storm

“Was that really why she was afraid of losing her kids?”

“You bet.” Electra’s black-lipsticked mouth took a grim downturn.

“But... she was a stripper.”

“You’ve met Switch Bitch?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Don’t let the wrong half of that name fool you. She’s a work-in-progress. In the name as in the person, and the commercial, it’s what’s up front that counts,”

Temple’s preconceptions did a U-turn. “Switch...? You mean—?”

“This is strictly confidential,” Electra added. “Lifestyle necessities aren’t anybody’s business, and I don’t usually tattletale. But this is a multiple murder case.”

“Why would a transsexual and a lesbian work as strippers?”

“They’re both making a point without having to get down and dirty about it, like a prostitute,” Electra said. “The transsexual gets to show off the body work, and the lesbian gets to make money off men without having to get screwed by them. Makes a lot of sense. What doesn’t is that I have a funny feeling about the murderer, now that I’ve imbibed the ambience. Maybe it’s Marilyn. She was used long before she got any clout, you know, and she knew it. Poor kid. Poor tossed-around kid.”

“Electra, I hardly know ye.”

“Trust me. Marilyn says... my instincts say that this killer is totally loony.”

“You don’t need a doctoral degree—”

“Flush the killer out.”

“How?”

“Play the game. What if—what if one of the victims came back? Didn’t lie down and play dead?”

“That works on TV if the killer thinks he or she missed. But everybody in the competition saw the body bags go out of here.”

“You’re forgetting that the killer may be following a different logic. Even if I were only half loony, I wouldn’t like seeing my victim walking around. I might snap. Do something stupid.”

“Or dangerous. And how could you fool the killer? Oh.”

“An idea, dear?”

“Kitty Cardozo added a cat mask to her costume just before she was killed. It would be easy to resurrect her with someone the right height and weight.” Temple thought a moment longer. “Like me. I’d have to color my hair, though.”

“Can I interrupt this beauty discussion?” Molina’s voice came from over Temple’s shoulder. When the tall lieutenant wanted to eavesdrop, she could do it literally. She eyed Electra’s black leather “Wild Bunch” getup. “Haven’t I seen you before?”'

“It wasn’t in a lineup, honest,” Temple said. “This is my landlady, Electra Lark.”

Molina nodded slowly. “You were the J.P. who officiated, if you can call it that, at the parody of a memorial service for Chester Royal at the Lover’s Knot Wedding Chapel.”

“Sure was,” Electra admitted breezily.

Temple was amazed that Molina recognized her chameleon landlady, then recalled that Electra had colored her hair black on that occasion, too.

The lieutenant turned to her. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“ What did the library say about the Standish women’s birth date?”

“Oh. You don’t want to know.”

“I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

“A Thursday,” Temple said.

Molina digested that for a few seconds. “That makes Wednesday’s murder a day late and a dollar short.”

“Unless Wednesday’s child was killed elsewhere—and the Standish twins were killed after midnight, so both of them were Thursday’s victims.”

“Looks like they were killed around midnight, but I’ll need the medical examiner’s report to confirm that. And there weren’t any similar deaths in town last night. Besides, why would the killer change M.O.s now? Every victim was a contestant.”

“Too many police around? Too much attention?”

Molina shook her head. “The birth days must be a crazy coincidence. The killer is saying more by using elements of the victims’ costumes as weapons. Perhaps he’s expressing a hatred for their manner of work, for women as sex objects in general.”

“Say, Lieutenant,” Electra put in, “speaking of sex objects. We were just discussing an idea—”

“Electra, no!” Temple warned.

“Don’t you think that the killer would go ape if you had one of the victims parading around here in costume like she was alive? That kitty costume Temple was telling me about would work perfectly. In fact, Temple’s the right size—”

Molina’s face stiffened with rage. “Amateur theatrics belong in TV mystery shows. Nobody’d fall for that old chestnut, anyway. And if you think I’d let a civilian go traipsing around in a murder victim’s costume on some long shot that it might unnerve the killer, you’re crazier than the murderer.”

“I’d never do it,” Temple interjected hastily. “Thighs.”

Molina turned on her like a junkyard dog. “Thighs?” she barked.

“I don’t wear anything that makes my thighs look like flesh-colored Jell-O, and stripper costumes don’t leave anything to the imagination. Although I would wear the cat shoes,” she added meditatively. “They were really cool.”

By now Molina was trying to control laughter rather than anger. “It’s too bad vaudeville is dead,” she finally said. “You two would make quite an act.” She turned to Electra. “You knew Max Kinsella, then?”

“Oh, sure. He was such a doll.”

“Odd. Ms. Barr is a lot less enthusiastic about him.”