Cat In An Ultramarine Scheme

Molina was eyeing Temple’s bare pink toes with their scarlet nail polish looking like blood drops on the black-and-white checkerboard of cool marble.

“So that’s your secret to stomping around on spikes all over the Strip. At home you’re a closet toe nudist. Even Mariah had more ‘toe’ at age nine.”

“My toes are off-limits. How is Mariah?”

“She’s fine. I understand from Van von Rhine that you’ve recently met an old school friend of hers, Revienne Schneider.”

“Just in passing in Van’s office. Why on Earth would you be interested in Van’s European school friends?”

“So you’d never heard of or met this woman before?” Molina asked.

“Nope. Why’d you ask about her?”

“After the body in the vault—oh, Lord, that sounds so Agatha Christie!—everyone new at the Crystal Phoenix is a person of interest to the police. Detective Ferraro has his hands full with the cast of dozens on the scene. I decided to consult your friends and business associates in the Fontana crime family. They were quite forthcoming about such exotic recent imports as Mr. Tomás Santiago and Miss Revienne Schneider.”

“Santiago was Nicky’s find,” Temple said, taking the chance to defend herself while she had it. “The body in the vault was a freak accident, I swear. I didn’t do it to drum up publicity for the hotel, and I don’t think Crawford Buchanan did it, even though he deserves a murder rap, and I am totally cooperating with Detective Ferraro and any minions he may have, because the Crystal Phoenix really needs to shut this incident down.”

“Not a stupendous opening stunt for a mob museum,” Molina agreed, eyeing the pale living-room sofa for big black blots with claws in residence.

“Santiago is, unfortunately, all for real,” she went on. “His avant-garde architectural work is well known and respected internationally. Revienne Schneider shows up as a world-renowned expert in her field. Her only flaw—Well, I looked as hard for some as you probably did, but I found only two things awry.”

“Two things! What a relief.” Temple sighed.

“One would think an international expert doing a workshop at a local university would be a much ballyhooed event on the Web site, at least, if not in a course catalog. Not so with Dr. Schneider.”

“Van seemed to be hosting her at the eleventh hour too,” Temple noted.

“She’d come here directly from Zurich, which is not her home or office base.”

“But she and Van attended a Swiss prep school. They would have Swiss friends in common.”

“Being a proud graduate of Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy in East L.A.,” Molina said, “I wouldn’t know about Swiss prep-school friends. Interpol tells me there was some sort of recent upset at an Alpine Swiss clinic. Dr. Schneider left abruptly and notified the clinic later from Zurich that she wouldn’t be returning.”

“Maybe the visiting professor here needed her to bail him out.”

“So you don’t find her presence just before the murder was discovered to be suspicious?”

Now was the time for Temple to blab or babble about the Synth and the forgotten thirteenth sign of the zodiac and the suspicious shape of the victim’s red cloak lining.

Yeah, Molina would really crack the whip and have Ferraro follow those lines of inquiry.

“This is clearly a local affair,” Temple said. “Weird but all too local. That’s Vegas.”

Molina eyed Temple hard, then nodded her satisfaction.

“Good,” she said, plopping down on the cushions like she owned the place. “I’ll take something cool and slightly alcoholic. Don’t fuss. Whatever’s handy.”

She smiled and lifted the strong, dark eyebrows Temple had always thought were in desperate need of plucking. On the other hand, the Brooke Shields look had worked for her for years. So … Molina was working her, Temple?

Think again. She banged around the tiny kitchen that suited her just fine and returned with two tall, festive glasses filled with something the color of watermelon juice.

“Pretty pale sangria,” Molina commented, taking a sip.

Temple sat on a chair at the end of the glass-topped coffee table, checking to see that her no-sweat, absorbent stone coasters were out. As usual, what was left of daily newspapers these days littered the coffee-table top. No PHOENIX REVIVAL ACT FOR BIZARRE BODY IN HIDDEN HOTEL VAULT was the gripping three-line head over the one-column front-page teaser story for a more-detailed inside report.

“Front page,” Molina commented. “A publicist’s dream. Unless the topic is antiproductive. What is this stuff?”

“Newsprint? How soon they forget. Oh, you mean the drink. It’s not like I keep a fully stocked bar.”

“What is it?” Like all homicide detectives, even off-duty Molina wanted answers, pronto.

“Crystal Light cherry pomegranate with vodka.”

“Not bad.” Molina nudged the paper away to uncover a coaster, as if delicately unveiling a dead body … or a cockroach. She put the glass down.

Temple took a big farewell gulp of hers and did likewise.

“Relax,” Molina said. “I’m not here about your current problem. I’m not even surreptitiously examining the premises for symptoms of Max Kinsella.”