Cat In An Alien X-Ray

Chapter 16

Dead on Paradise

“Guess what?” the cheery voice cackled in Temple’s ear way too early in the morning. She’d been inhaling coffee mug steam to clear her sinuses.

“Who is this?” Brain cell number 100,030 kicked in. “Silas T., is that you?”

“What’d you call me, chickadee? ‘Silas T.’? I like it.”

“I don’t like ‘chickadee.’ Don’t call me that again.”

“If you say so, Miss Barr, but whatever I call you, you are a tip-top publicity genius. You’ve done it again.”

“Done what?”

“Once again, a body has been found on the scene of your client’s new attraction. Hip, hip, hooray!”

“I have found myself in a crazy phone conversation. What are you saying?”

“Better click, click, click those fancy high heels over here to Paradise. I came by to check the site, and the authorities and their yellow ticker tape were all over the place. TV vans are lining the curb.”

“Oh my lost ruby red slippers! I’m still in Oz. Your construction project has unearthed a corpse?”

“Even better, the scene looks rather mobbish. Ties right in with the latest trends in Vegas hot spots. I couldn’t be happier if you had killed him yourself to make the buzz happen.”

“Silas T. This is bad publicity. You are a bad, bad, bad client. Keep your mouth shut from now on or I’ll … I’ll do something drastic. I’ll be there ASAP.”

Temple wished she could “click, click, click” her red-shimmer slipper heels—ballet flats for around the condo—and get back home to a day earlier, in a past where she had declined to take a ride on Farnum’s “stunt publicity” hurricane.

Before she left the condo, she looked around for Louie, but she hadn’t seen him since he plopped on the bed a few hours earlier for an out-of-character purr-fest. He’d slipped away to some favorite condo haunt after that. Not to worry. He often knew what she was doing better than she did.

* * *

In record time, she and the Miata slipped into a just-right-size sloppy space left by two askew parked media vans. This was a “hot” scene, all right.

She’d worn her sturdiest shoes, black patent leather closed-toe pumps, and crunched across the rough bare ground toward a clot of what looked like the monsters from the Alien films, but were only media men and women bearing videotape cameras high on their shoulders to focus on the victim in their midst.

A mental mantra drummed in time to her steps. I hope it isn’t, I pray it isn’t, I can’t believe it is …

“Here she is!” a voice from the ravening crowd of media monsters announced.

They turned, the cameras’ mechanical eyes recording her.

“Mr. Farnum says you told him to ‘keep mum.’ What do you know about the body that was discovered on your client’s property this morning?”

“I’ve just arrived, and I merely advised him not to speak about a crime scene that the Metro Police are just now handling,” Temple said, not recognizing faces with a sinking feeling. She had contacts among the media, but not so much on the hard news side.

“We hear a dead body was recently discovered at another site where you were representing the attraction. Are you a jinx?” a tall guy with a soul patch asked.

Someone pushed to her side. “Now, don’t you pick on the little lady.” Farnum squeezed her elbow so vigorously, she almost lost her balance on the ridged ground.

They made quite a pair. A flashing image of him in a coral-striped seersucker suit with a yellow bow tie was emblazoned on her putt-putting brain. She’d never take on a client who wore straw boater hats again. He’d look like a carnival huckster on camera.

“Neither myself nor my client will be giving any statements,” she said, “until we know what’s going on and have been released to comment by the police.” At the same time, she mulled how the police might just love the site’s owner and operator mouthing off to the media unsupervised.

“And here the police are,” said a voice from on high she recognized down to her balancing toes.

The noose of media people loosened and melted away. Temple was glad to know Molina had that effect on her newshound peers too. The woman who was tall, dark and commanding. Not fair, thought petite Temple.

She turned and looked up. “I’m sorry. We’re sorry. They intercepted us.” Temple frowned. She knew Molina was more hands-on than most homicide lieutenants, but what about this abandoned lot was so interesting?

Eerily, Molina was delivering an answer to that very internal question. “Mr. Farnum arrived here practically with the uniforms. A partying couple from the Cabana Club was wandering around the premises, trying ‘to see the moon.’”

Oh. Drunk, Temple thought. It was hard to see the moon with all the high-rises and competing lights in the dark of night. At dawn it would be a drunk’s errand. The Cabana Club was an off-Strip joint where everyone partied hearty.

Silas T. narrowed his beady little eyes up at Molina and stuck out his close-shaven chinny chin-chin. “I always rise at the first, first crack of light and I always check the site first, first, first thing. Even before breakfast. Speaking of breakfast.” He turned gallantly to Temple. “I’d be honored to buy you the tallest short stack of pancakes in Vegas, missy, for coming out so early at my call. Thanks for shooing the media people out so fast. We should make the noon news.”

Temple rolled her eyes. She wondered if yellow bow ties were long enough strangling, but offing someone in front of the fuzz was a trifle impetuous.

“I’ll pass on the pancakes,” she said. “So you can run along now.”

“Yes, she will pass on the pancakes,” Molina said. “She’ll be here answering questions, but you can go.”

“I don’t desert a lady, ma’am.”

Molina repeated, with emphasis, “You. Can. Go.” That sent Farnum scuttling away like a Crayola-colored beetle.

Temple glanced to where it looked like CSI: Las Vegas was filming. Detective Morrie Alch would have to substitute for silver-haired Ted Danson. Temple couldn’t spot his petite Asian partner, Merry Su. Su was such a fierce spitfire that her name always made Temple smile.

“Nothing to smile about this morning, Miss Barr,” Molina said. “Your client is a very possible perp on this death. He’d look fishy in a desert. Fill me in fast.”

“He is a bit eccentric, but he’s putting up a new attraction.” She nodded at the ten stories of raw construction a hundred feet away. “I had lunch with him yesterday and visited the site. Not many projects are going through these days, so I found it intriguing.”

“What is it?”

“Um, that’s a secret.”

“What?”

“He’s been really cagey about the exact nature of the building, and this has been preliminary exploration. We haven’t signed a contract. He is staying at the Wynn,” she added, trying to peer around Molina to glimpse where the body might be.

Molina adjusted her stance to better block the view. “Is that all the vetting you’ve done? Do you usually operate in this slipshod way?”

“No! I mean, this isn’t slipshod. Everything that exists in Vegas, from Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo Hotel to ex–Mayor Goodman’s Mob Museum downtown was once a crazy idea nobody thought would fly.”

“All I see, Miss Barr, is an empty lot, the skeleton of a building under very preliminary construction, and one very dead body that’s been brought into the light of day on land your client owns. Why did he hire a PR rep at this early stage, anyway?”

“That’s not unheard of. I’ve had only a couple meetings with him, so I’m not going to babysit him through a murder investigation. I’m not a criminal attorney, which I’ll recommend he hire.”

“And you have no insight on what he’s really doing here, except it’s a mystery?”

“Right. I’m worthless. To you.”

“No, you’re not.”

That was an amazing statement. Temple was starting to think their few brief simpatico moments lately were beginning to pay off.

“Keep the client,” Molina ordered. “And keep me informed on what he’s really up to.”

“Even if I have to eat buffet pancakes?” Temple asked, dismayed.

“Even if you have to eat dirt.”

“I am not one of your detectives,” Temple muttered to Molina’s departing khaki-covered back.

Then her eyebrows lilted with an insty-epiphany. Maybe she was. But could she betray the interests of a client? No, she should look at this as protecting the interests of a client. She just didn’t see Silas T. Farnum shutting his mouth long enough to murder someone.