Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

20

Driven to Murder

Matt watched the luggage spit out from the carousal and snake past on the McCarran Airport conveyer belt.

“That trip to Minnesota was easier than I thought,” he said, “but I’ll never come back for ‘ice fishing’ season.”

Temple smiled. The yellow-and-magenta yarn she’d tied to their checked luggage handles certainly stood out among the lime green and orange pompons decorating the other bags.

“An invitation to ice fishing is the highest compliment from my brothers,” she explained. “It’s the ultimate macho male tribute. That means you rank up there with the Greats, like Wayne Gretsky.”

“Wayne who?”

“Hockey star.”

“I’m ready to swear off all things Minnesota until the next family visit up north. Tell me that will be a while.”

“You sure were great with my nephews on Sunday, all sixteen of them.”

“I was assigned to a parish with an attached grade school, remember? Mass quantities of ’tweens and teens don’t scare me.”

“So that’s why you get along so well with Molina’s daughter, Mariah.”

“Too well. I feel really awkward about taking her to the Dad-Daughter Dance she’s counting on. I understand a single mother’s dilemma with those type of events, but isn’t that Detective Alch closer to the family?”

“He’s Molina’s go-to guy at work,” Temple said, “but he isn’t as cute as you are.”

“Dads aren’t supposed to be ‘cute’. They’re supposed to be comfy and lived-in, like a recliner chair.” He didn’t want to mention he was no rooting for Rafi Nadir.

“Like my dad?”

Matt leaned forward to snag the biggest bag as it glided past. “Right.”

“Oh, look, here’s mine.” Temple grabbed the end handle of the smaller bag and slung it off the conveyer belt before Matt could play Galahad and do it for her.

“I could have gotten that,” he said.

“I may be small, but I don’t want to lose my tote bag-toting muscles.”

Matt shook his head. “You must carry twelve pounds in those things. Not good for your back.”

“But they are my trademark.”

“Along with the high heels.” Matt smiled down at her current pair, a relatively tame zebra-print pump. “I must admit they showcase your sexy ankles.”

“Sexy. We better get home.”

They pulled up their rolling handles and turned in tandem to head for ground transportation.

Three Fontana brothers materialized as a pastel-suited wall in front of them. They were disturbingly developing Mystifying Max habits now that the original was off the Vegas scene and possibly out of Matt and Temple’s private lives forever.

“We’ll take those.” Bracketing brothers snapped down the roller handles on Temple’s and Matt’s luggage and hefted the bags. Fontana brothers would never be seen dragging luggage behind them like dog-walkers.

Bag-grabbing passengers paused to crane their necks to catch a glimpse of Temple, the one small woman at the center of a crowd of six-feet-tall hot guys. Cell phones lifted into action. She felt like a movie star…until she heard Matt’s name being whispered.

He shrugged at the attention. “So much for sneaking back into town.”

“The Ghost Limo awaits,” said the central brother. “It is a sedan repro of the custom convertible car created for the movie Topper, based on a 1936 Buick Series 80 Roadmaster, with Buck Rogers-style body and fins. It could be operated with no visible driver, because the young high-flying couple who died in it come back as ghosts.”

Temple, the vintage film fan, was knocked out. “No! Cary Grant was at the wheel of that amazing car.”

“Alas, he is no longer with us. Julio will drive.”

Temple felt like a pampered movie star anyway.

Gangsters limo service was only one of the Fontana brothers’ businesses, and they created the most dreamy custom limo jobs around. If you visited Vegas and weren’t “taken for a ride” in a Gangsters’ limo, you hadn’t lived. If you stayed at the Fontana family hotels, the Crystal Phoenix or Gangsters, the airport rides were free. Otherwise Gangsters’ rides were costly, but always made a safe round trip, unlike the fabled bumpy rides with real mobsters.

“Thank you…Ernesto,” Temple ventured.

Tall, dark, handsome men may be a cliché, but in Las Vegas and with the Fontana Family, they were also a conundrum in triplicate. Temple was getting better at telling apart the remaining eight bachelors of the Fontana pack now that the eldest, Aldo, had married her aunt Kit. That made him her uncle-in-law, Temple guessed. Oh, my God! That made her feel old, to regard Vegas’s most eligible bachelors as all…in-laws, rather than out-laws.

Travelers were turning to watch what seemed like a celebrity parade of some kind. Heads turned even more when the party reached the ground transportation curb and a long cream-colored car that had all the futuristic curves of a Dairy Queen top-fillip throbbed there in idle.

“This is swell, boys,” Temple said, “but Electra said she’d pick us up in her old Probe. It’s roomier and more suitable for luggage-loading dings than my Miata or Matt’s Jaguar.”

Ernesto fiddled with his rose-gold tie clip. “Miss Electra has encountered an unfortunate impediment to coming here to pick you up.”

Meanwhile their three pieces of luggage were disappearing into a trunk so huge it made them look like Barbie doll accessories.

“I can do that, guys,” Matt was saying to no avail.

Ernesto leaned down to murmur in Temple’s ear, broadcasting a faint scent of male cologne she had never been able to detect in any samples in dozens of Vanity Fair magazines. So post-Ralph Lauren.

“Miss Electra is, um, tied up right now,” he whispered.

“Why do I think you mean that literally?”

He shrugged, which adjusted the fall of his designer suit jacket, then shot the sleeves to reveal rose-gold cufflinks. “She is being entertained at Metro Police headquarters.”

“Entertained? You mean detained, don’t you?”

“Some might put it that way.”

“Enough with the evasive charm. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Not to worry. The Fontana family lawyer is right beside her.”

“My God! Where?”

“Possibly still in an interrogation room, I believe. Shoddy places, even in the magnificent new building. I only presume. I have not yet been honored to be a guest there.”

“Interrogated? By whom? For what?”

“By our friendly neighborhood chanteuse and cop, Lieutenant Molina.”

“She’s a homicide cop.”

“This seems to be a case of homicide.”

“And Electra is a suspect?”

“Many are called in these cases, but few are nailed.”

“The victim isn’t—?”

“An ex-husband of our dear landlady? I fear he is an ‘ex’ in the most, er, permanent fashion.”

“Not…Jay Edgar Dyson?”

“Not anymore.”

Temple’s jaw and shoulders slumped with shock. Her tote bag handles started slipping through her nerveless fingers, but Ernesto caught the bag and ushered Temple into the limo’s cavernous white leather interior.

He leaned in after her, a living example of Scent Surround. “You also are on the interrogation list, dear lady.”

“Me?”

“Not to worry. Gangsters is providing complementary limo service for all involved. And a getaway car, if needed.”

Matt had overheard the news and invited Ernesto to join them in the horseshoe of luxuriously padded seats.

“Normally I ride shotgun.” Ernesto patted the subtly padded shoulder of his Emanogildo Zegna suit coat. The firearm in the hidden holster was a Beretta, of course. The Fontanas patronized all things Italian. Ernesto ducked to take a seat opposite them and turned to the glittering façade of the bar.

“Better not,” Matt said. “We’re going straight to police headquarters and I don’t want high-end booze on our breaths. When did this happen?”

“Yesterday. Miss Electra was invited to headquarters for an interrogation today. I happened to be dropping by the Circle Ritz to give her a saltimbocca recipe and was able to offer her the same, calming white-glove Gangsters transportation service you experience now.”

“Couldn’t someone have called us in Minnesota?” Temple asked.

“Miss Electra wouldn’t hear of interrupting your family reunion, Miss Temple. We promised to drive you direct from the airport to the interrogation room.” Ernesto made a sour face. “The lady lieutenant was most unbecomingly fierce about that. Not even Julio could dissuade her to wait until you’d settled back home at the Circle Ritz.”

“What awful news,” Matt said. “It’s crazy that Electra Lark would need to be anywhere near a police headquarters, but what can Temple know about this? Molina has a lot of nerve issuing a command appearance. We’ve been traveling all day. Temple is tired. Are they interviewing all Circle Ritz residents? If so, I can do it today and give Temple a break.”

“You are not on the list,” Ernesto said.

“That’s even crazier. What could Temple know about some crime that happened while we were out of town?” Matt looked at her, with a firm nod. And then frowned.

Temple knew she looked guilty.

“Wait a minute.” Matt eyed Ernesto. “Temple asked if the victim was—then broke the sentence off…and you mentioned this Jay Edgar guy.” He turned to Temple. “You can’t have known him, an ex-husband of Electra?”

“Not known him, no.” Temple made an apologetic shrug. “But I could have met him.”

“Where? Not at the Circle Ritz, surely?”

“No. Not there.”

“Then where?”

“At the Araby Motel.”

“The—” Matt was speechless.

“I think,” Ernesto said, leaning forward to look them each in the eye, “that the gentleman, since he’s not called upon to answer questions, should have a nice stiff Scotch. And the lady should sit back in silence and compose her thoughts for the forthcoming chat with the police. At least she is known to them as a solid citizen.”

“So is Electra,” Temple complained. “All of this is just plain bogus. And since when does Gangsters chauffeur people to police headquarters instead of to the nearest underground nightclub?”

Ernesto could only shrug his impeccably Emanogildo Zegna-tailored shoulders. Some mysteries even Fontana brothers forebear to question. Temple wondered if Julio’s recent attentions to Molina had made things better, or worse.

Matt had insisted on accompanying Temple into the Crimes Against Persons offices, although Ernesto also insisted he alone was needed as escort.

Temple was further unnerved when she learned that Electra had been interrogated and released, and likely she would be too. She was relieved Electra hadn’t been arrested after seeing the police, but wondered if her account, coming after Electra’s, could inadvertently make things worse, not better.

Even with Matt and Ernesto as escorts, Temple would have felt a lot calmer with Midnight Louie by her side.