Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Devised to Disguise

The police professional always interviews suspects in a murder case separately, one at a time, Temple knew.

The police professional did not usually have to deal with bulk lots of suspects numbering eight or more. Nor did one have—Temple checked her bangle-style watch—less than twenty hours to do it in if Matt was to make his midnight radio advice program by the next night, Tuesday.

It occurred to Temple how thoughtful the Fontana brothers had been to hold the bachelor party on Matt’s one night off, Monday. She was sure that was a concession to her and her own engaged state.

So now she sat around several long kitchen tables with her aunt Kit and an octet of strange females aged from the mid-twenties to the beautifully preserved late-thirties. Everybody was swigging various flavored and antioxidant-laden bottled water.

There were four brunettes, three blondes, and a magenta-black redhead.

She was encouraged that blondes were in the minority, not that they were stupid, only they were so darn hard to tell apart. A Blond Miasma that went with the hair color blinded all onlookers’ senses. Temple knew that now from personal experience, not just non-blond prejudice. She’d been a bottle blonde for a few weeks, thanks to an undercover assignment for her personal pain-in-the-bleach bottle, Lieutenant C. R. Molina. Now she was rinsed and conditioned to a lively strawberry red, which was a vivid version of Aunt Kit’s faded fiery locks.

Temple was a public relations freelancer now, but her former jobs as a Midwestern TV reporter and PR person for a repertory theater in Minneapolis—and her former experiences in amateur theatrics—made her a perceptive group interviewer. As a reporter, she’d learned to spot or hear any hint of insincerity, and a little acting experience only honed that gift. Kit, being a former acting pro and now a novelist, was equally sharp in this respect.

Their quick conversation outside the kitchen had cast Temple as Good Cop, Kit as Bad Cop. Temple had decided they should have a go at it before Electra relieved Kit.

“I’ll have to go some,” Kit complained, “to reach the heights of your Lieutenant Molina in the role.” This was laughable because Molina was six foot in shoes with flat heels and Temple and Kit were five foot each, period.

“Ooh, don’t call that annoying non-woman ‘mine,’” Temple whispered before they pushed through the swinging barroom doors into the serving area. “Hi, guys,” she addressed the women sitting at two of the four tables in the area. “My name is Temple, and I’ll be interviewing you. My aunt Kit will help.”

“Oh, she must be the old hag who nailed Aldo,” someone said.

“This is going to be fun,” Kit whispered, donning her Leona Helmsley bitch-goddess manner in the next, loud sentence. “Who said that? You, the mouse-brownette with the cheek mole shaped like a turtle? Beauty marks went out with Little Orphan Annie’s freckles, sweet jowls. Get it lasered off. I’m here to extract your names, addresses, and occupations, so just spell it out for me.”

The now-abashed girlfriend produced, “Meredith Bell. I’m a lifestyle coach.”

Temple noted that down, along with the physical characteristics Kit had nailed.

The rest of the wedding party-to-be if no one was arrested were: Wanda, honey-blond and a massage therapist; raven-haired Judith, a runway model; white-blond Jill, a pharmacist; the mahogany redhead, Alexia, a horse trainer; Tracee, a dark brunette Pilates instructor; Evita, an auburn-haired ventriloquist; and Asiah, an exotic black beauty with blond hair, who was, surprise, a showgirl.

Temple didn’t even want to know which woman went with which Fontana brother, but she did ask and note down the pairings. She couldn’t help thinking that Kit and she would be overwhelmed by these long-stemmed beauties in the wedding party, although Alexia and Jill were more petite.

Several of the women needed strength in their professions: the massage therapist, horse trainer, Pilates instructor, and showgirl. Yes, the showgirl. Those huge, glamorous headdresses weighed about forty pounds each. It wasn’t just Third World women who could balance heavy weights on their heads to earn their daily bread. . . .

“Okay,” Temple told them. “I think you know that a woman is dead upstairs. Apparently she’s not one of you.”

“No,” came a chorus of answers. “We’ve been together all night, except Asiah, who was driving the limo. She had to come along with the men, see them in, and guard the front door until we had them under control.”

Temple eyed the woman, who still wore the barely rear-covering blazer of a chauffeur over modest black palazzo pants now.

“You were the only one who came along to the Sapphire Slipper later, with the abducted men,” Temple said. “How’d you get driving duty?”

She answered offhandedly, “I like to drive. Dark and desert don’t bother me. I got to eavesdrop on a lot of hunky guys letting their hair down. And I got to tote the Really Big Gun at the end, making sure none of the arrivals scampered off when they realized the setup was definitely not what they’d ordered.”

“Where did the firearms come from?” Temple asked the tables at large.

“Prop shop fakes,” Tracee, the Pilates expert, said. “Pretty convincing. You can rent anything in Vegas.”

“Why did you do it?” Kit asked. “Just to ruin my wedding, or what?”

“Nothing personal,” Jill said quickly. As a pharmacist, she was used to soothing customers. As a pharmacist, she could have administered a narcotic to the victim that made her easy to strangle.

It occurred to Temple that the bridesmaids had used a formidable amount of planning and cooperation to pull off this faux abduction. Maybe it was more than a declaration of dependence on perennial boyfriends. Maybe it had been devised to disguise a murder.