Cat In A Crimson Haze

Chapter 32

Confidence Man

Matt sat staring at his phone. He had to consider the case of Father Hernandez closed, but another matter was not. He knew he was avoiding a last, unpleasant call in a life that was now half-lived on the telephone.

The number looked so innocuous, written in his compulsively legible grade-school hand on a mini legal pad. Blue ball point on pale yellow. Yellow pretty much described his mood of the moment.

He picked up the receiver, punched in the numbers. A soothing computerized female voice instructed him to punch more buttons to route his call. Matt usually used the phone to deal with raw human anguish. To him, voice mail was obscenely remote and cheerful, especially considering that many callers of this particular number would be far more anxious than he was at the moment, to say the least.

When he finally got a human voice, he asked for Lieutenant Molina. He was not relieved to be promptly transferred.

He gave her his name, which earned an infinitesimal pause.

''What can I do for you?" she asked.

''I need an appointment. There's something you should know."

''There is lots I should know, Mr. Devine. What about right now?"

"Fine." Now he felt relief; it would soon be over. "Are you ... is the police department located downtown?"

"Right. But you're calling from the Circle Ritz?"

"Yes."

"I'll come there. Fifteen minutes."

"I'll meet you by the back door."

"Why the back?"

"To avoid the late afternoon crush at the wedding chapel up front."

"That's right, Electra Lark's cottage industry, 'The Lovers' Knot.' I forgot. Back door, fifteen minutes."

She hung up, leaving Matt smiling ruefully at her brusque efficiency. She wasn't going to make this easy, but then, he supposed, that wasn't her job.

Matt went down by the pool to wait. That was one reason he loved the Circle Ritz, this peaceful pool area hedged by greenery. Maybe it reminded him of a monastery.

In a few minutes, he heard Molina's car idle up to the parking area outside the fence and went to open the gate.

She was wearing her usual casually formal outfit, solid-color A-line skirt and blazer, buff today, with a cream camp shirt. Matt wondered if she realized her mode of dress resembled a Catholic girls' high school uniform, except for the pale colors needed in hot climates.

Molina's emphatic eyebrows lifted as she viewed the scenery. "Shangri-La on the Strip."

"Let's sit here." Matt headed for the white plastic chairs planted on the shaded concrete.

Molina didn't budge. "I'd rather talk inside. What's wrong with your place?"

"This is just as private." Her eyebrows lilted again.

"And--" Matt produced the smile he used when he wanted to be disarmingly honest ''--in my former . . . profession, my room was the only private place I had. I guess I still feel that way."

"Too bad." She reluctantly moved to one of the molded chairs. "I prefer to see people's surroundings."

"I spend more time out here than in my rooms. Frankly, I don't have much there to see."

She looked away, to the pool, embarrassed. ''You swim?"

"Thirty laps every day. Terrific form of meditation."

She nodded, relaxing her posture in the chair. Matt blessed his institutional instincts. Molina used her brusque antisocial manner to maintain control. This pool party atmosphere would soften her hard edges and make it easier to tell her something he didn't want to tell anyone in the world, least of all the authorities. And, he saw now, she was madly curious about him.

She eyed the round, black marble bunker that was the Circle Ritz. "This place is quintessential Las Vegas! Neon and instant weddings out front; out back, the round residential building that's run like a zoning department's nightmare, half apartment, half condominium."

"I love the building. They still built quality in the fifties. And I'm lucky that Electra's flexible enough to take renters."

"Not to mention the interesting neighbors," Molina added laconically.

"This has nothing to do with Temple," he said quickly.

"Why so touchy?"

"You and Temple seem to have trouble relating."

"Trouble relating.' That's counselor talk for you. She has trouble telling me everything she knows about Mr. Mystifying Max, and I have trouble relating to that."

"I think she's told you everything that she feels is relevant."

"Police work thrives on what most people consider irrelevant, Mr. Devine. They aren't allowed to be the judge of that."

"They can be the judge of what they consider private."

"Like rooms? You know you've made me curious."

"Maybe you don't realize how touchy Temple is about Kinsella's disappearance,"

"Do you?" Her tone was challenging.

Matt realized that she was beginning to enjoy herself.

''She hasn't said much about him," he admitted.

''When a woman is mum about the former man in her life, she's interested in the man she's with. Beware, Father Matt."

He closed his eyes at her mocking tone, at her reminder of his special status, his former life.

"Sorry. That was . . . tacky." Her voice was brusque again, as she flicked a red thread from her skirt. "But I see you strolling in where devils fear to tread. I couldn't help noticing that you and Miss Barr were fairly cozy at the Blue Dahlia the other night. From the way she acts when I bring up Max Kinsella, he's a hard act to follow'. I don't know if you're up to it."

"I don't know if I'm in the running."

"Oh, she likes you."

"And I like her, but I don't know if I want to be in the running in the way you mean."

Molina shrugged. Clearly, she didn't believe him.

"You're a wonderful vocalist, by the way," he said.

"I sing a little."

"What you do isn't just singing, it's art."

"Thanks, but I don't have much time to rehearse and less time to perform. Most people don't know I do it,"

"Not even one of your co-workers?"

Molina's laugh was as rich as her contralto singing voice. "Cops could not care less about scat and all that jazz. The Blue Dahlia is the one place they'd never find me. But you've changed the subject, very smoothly. Since you're dictating the place for this interview, I'll direct the subject."

"What subject have I changed?"

"What it's like to be an ex-priest."

"That has nothing to do with this meeting,"

"Maybe not. But I'm the judge, remember? And I like to know milieus,"

"While keeping your own secret."

"Investigator's privilege"

"You grew up Catholic; you can guess what it's like."

"Guesses don't cut it in my game."

"Why are you so curious? It's almost personal."

Molina looked down, twisted the ring on her right hand. Matt noticed that it was the only jewelry she wore, that it was large and a trifle garish, though genuine gold. A class ring, meant to announce a school affiliation to all and sundry. Why was it so important to her?

"I'm divorced," she said abruptly. ''You know what that means. A failure. The Catholic Church doesn't allow for failures."

"And I'm a failed priest? Sorry, but I don't feel that way. God called me to the priesthood and God called me to leave. When I left, it was with laicization, if you know what that means."

"No. I never heard much about leaving religious vocations in grade school, only about entering."

Matt smiled. "Me neither. Laicization means that I was officially freed of my promises. I didn't just walk away one day. I went through the paperwork as well as the angst. Most ex-priests can't qualify to do that. They feel driven out, in a sense. I don't."

"Then you're bound only by what the average Catholic is?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"A joke." Molina noted his humor, but her smile was pale. "Not for me. I've got Mariah to think of. My ex-husband was a jerk. We're well rid of him. But to the church we're an irregular family."

"Are you so sure? Is anyone at OLG bringing it up to you?"

"No. No one except Pilar, the parish housekeeper. But my family is, in spades. You know how it is in ethnic Catholic communities, the parishioners pride themselves on being holier than the Pope. Every large family--and every family is large if they aren't using birth control--is supposed to provide at least one child for a religious vocation, a nun or a priest. In turn, all their married kids will be fruitful and multiply like lemmings. And stayed married."

"Supposed to's can strangle a person. Sure, I know what you're talking about. Irish, Polish, Hispanic, the dynamic is the same, I don't suppose"--Matt smiled at his inadvertent use of the word in question--"we'll ever see families like we grew up in again. I can't claim that I'm the child tithed to the church, because I was an only child."

"Why?" she asked in surprise.

"My father died when I was an infant."

Matt was treading close to the real point of this meeting, but for now he preferred to play counselor, to learn Molina's mental milieu, so to speak.

He wondered if she knew the tables had turned, if she realized that she was casting him in the role of priest, and herself as troubled parishioner. He could see that someone in her position could hardly unburden herself to her pastor, especially when that pastor was the starchy Father Hernandez.

"Your father died," Molina said softly. "I'm sorry. Sometimes my forever family drives me nuts, but at least they're there."

"Why do you call them your forever family?"

"They're always in your face, your life. They always know better, and there are so damn many of them. No Molina ever heard of the Pill except from the pulpit. Luckily, they're all in L.A."

"That's why you're in L.V."

''Maybe. And maybe, being divorced, and being a maybe-Catholic, I want to warn you. You say you're free. I presume that means free to marry?"

"If I would want to."

"Were you a bad priest?"

"No."

"That's too . . . bad."

"I don't think so."

"In other words, you didn't leave because you broke any vow, or were about to."

"No." He left it at that, and saw that she knew that's where it would stay.

"TelI me something." she asked with sudden animation."How can they do it? The bad priests? I was reared to respect priests and nuns, and I saw a lot of good ones. Some priests liked their liquor too much, or their food, but that was an understandable failing. I . . . we, people then, never suspected that we were sheltering priests who violated their celibacy with women, and men. And children."

"I could tell you that their unconscious needs are so great, and so garbled, that they deny the wrong in what they're doing, but you'd call that psychobabble. I think that some people who set themselves up as religious leaders suffer from a deep sense of unworthiness, of hypocrisy.

Some of them may feel compelled to commit sin so they'll be found out for what they think they are. Look at television evangelists. The abusers probably came from abusive families. How they can stand in church on Sunday and preach, or say mass, is a form of denial I can understand intellectually, but not from the gut. I never had to make that choice.''

"In the seminary, didn't you ever suspect? I mean, with your looks--"

"I got a lot of curiosity, and more crushes." Matt found himself recalling those days almost with nostalgia for his fiercely ingenuous self, who had so readily dismissed the easy admiration of others. "I noticed the crushes from women and girls, of course. I was scrupulous not to encourage them. If another seminarian had tendencies ... I was too naive to notice. We hardly knew what we were and we were there to control biological urges. No, it didn't crop out much in seminary. Once out in the real world, I had developed an invincible shield against

'temptation.' It wasn't hard; I wasn't really tempted, so it was no credit to me."

"You'd be surprised, but I know what you mean. As a woman working in a man's field, I have to create this invisible shield around me. My actions, my clothes are neutral. I don't send any signals, and I rarely receive any. It works."

"Too well, maybe. Your stage persona releases all that subdued femininity, but you're safe up there in the spotlight, still distant, tempting but still untempted"

"As the priesthood was safe for you?"

"I was safe in the priesthood. The world out here ... I don't know."

Matt was amused to see Molina's expression grow gruffly maternal.

"If you're the innocent I think you are, you're not free at all. Just like me. I'm divorced. That means I can't marry again, not in the church. And that means I have to answer to Mariah, whom I've sent to Catholic schools because I want her to have a good, safe education. I would have to justify myself to my family, to the whole damn neighborhood, "if I would want to marry, as you put it so well. Again. As for an affair--" She laughed bitterly. "There goes the neighborhood, and here comes the Bad Mother."

''There are annulments."

''Not everybody qualifies, as you said, or has the patience for the endless paperwork and waiting."

"Do you want to marry?"

Molina laughed again. "Hell, no. With this all-hours job and a child to rear? Not to mention the kind of men I come in contact with. The quandary is theoretical, Mr. Devine."

"Call me Matt. This conversation is too personal for honorifics. Lieutenant."

She blew out a frustrated breath. "I usually know where I'm going and how I got there, but not at the moment. Don't expect me to reciprocate by telling you to call me 'Carmen.' I hate the name."'

"Because of the associations?"

"Because I was a fat little kid in a Hispanic neighborhood who sang a lot and you should hear what other kids can do with a name like Carmen. I tried to go by my middle name in high school, but that was a disaster too."

"I hate my first name too."

"What's wrong with Matt? It's simple and the only mass association is the marshal on

'Gunsmoke,' not some slut or a fruitcake-head with an atrocious accent."

''My name's 'Matt' now. It was Matthias all through school."

"Oh, an old-fashioned saint's name. Still, that fits a priest and isn't so bad for a layman."

Molina smiled encouragingly, as she would with a child, maybe her child.

Matt didn't want to further explain why he had come to loath his given name. That was another room he wanted to keep private. It was bad enough that Temple knew.

"What's your middle name?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Regina."

"Latin for 'queen.' Not bad either."

"Regina Molina? You see. Nothing goes well with Molina. I hated to hang Mariah on the poor kid, but it's pretty--"

"And it isn't a saint's name, but it's close to Mary as in 'Ave Maria'; you were walking the line between Catholic and not' Catholic even then, when your daughter was born. So Molina was your family name. Why aren't you using your married name?"

"What are you, a detective? Or a frustrated shrink? Role reversal stinks."

"Knowing about people used to be my job, too."

"Why'd you leave it?"

"Because I needed to know about myself,"

"Why'd you call me?"

"Because I have a confession to make."

"Funny."

"Not to me. Listen, Carmen." He used the name firmly, as he would have with a rebellious grade-schooler. She made a face but said nothing. "There is something you need to know about me, because it has to do with your job." Matt gathered himself. "I heard about that man who died at the Crystal Phoenix, or who was found dead there. I think that I . . . knew him."

"Temple told you," she noted sourly, but she sat up to take literal notice of his revelation.

"So you knew Cliff Effinger?"

"You could say that. He was my stepfather."

Carmen Molina's blue eyes scintillated with shock, pleased speculation and curiosity as deep as the navy-dark waters of Lake Mead.

''Gee whiz, Matt, I'm so glad we had this little talk. I desperately need someone reliable to identify the body."

*****************

Temple backed away from her bed.

It didn't look much like a bed at the moment, being draped with every cocktail dress in her possession and bordered by endless pairs of glitzy high heels.

Why couldn't she ever decide what to wear to a special event until it was time to get ready?

Maybe her theatrical background was the cause. Even in civilian life she always felt like an actress who had to make her grand entrance without any idea of what part she was playing or how to dress for it.

Then again, maybe she was just nervous because this was her first official special event with Matt Devine for her escort.

Whatever the reason, she felt flustered and dithering and hot under whatever collar--if any--she decided to wear.

In exasperation she had turned to the window for a calming view of the pool--so still, so placid, so well dressed in its eternal costume of chlorine-treated azure. ...

This afternoon the view was not calming at all.

Not with Matt Devine sitting in the shade of the lone palm tree. Not with one Lieutenant C.R. Molina sitting right there beside him.

They looked like a bloody ice-tea ad! Prim, proper and on, oh, such jolly, pleasant terms!

Temple pushed as close to the glass as she dared without being seen, wardrobe dilemmas forgotten.

What was this tete-a-tete about? Devine and Molina? Matt and, and . . . Carmen?

Acquaintances? Friends? Buddies? Or worse;

Now don't get paranoid, Temple warned herself, to no avail.

Perhaps Molina was just interrogating Matt, using him to dig into Temple's background to get to Max. Temple nodded soberly, glad she had kept pretty much mum on Max when she was with Mr. Devine.

Matt might not mean to give away anything about her that Molina could use--and abuse.

Still, he was pretty naive about women, even when they were cops, relationships and life in general. He might blurt out something that she would regret. A good thing that she knew how to keep the past in an airtight compartment if she had to.

Temple watched Molina rise, smooth her stupid, bland skirt and walk to the gate. Matt accompanied her, hands in pants pockets, the afternoon sun glinting off his hair-gilded forearms.

Obviously, nothing momentous had happened during the conversation. Yet the scene had reminded Temple never to underestimate Molina's bulldog nature, or the possibility that she might use Matt, and Temple's interest in him, to pursue her obsession with Max.

No way. Lieutenant, Temple swore as she watched the woman vanish behind the closing wooden gate. Matt checked his watch, glanced up at the Circle Ritz--Temple flattened herself against the wall for a few seconds before she peeked again--and hurried into the building.

Temple released an anxious breath. Really time to get ready now! Eyeing the bed again, with its crazy-quilt of choices, the decision seemed simple. Temple swooped up one perfect dress and one perfect pair of shoes. Humming happily, she installed both by the closet door where the poster of Max Kinsella had once hung.