Cat in an Alien X_Ray

Chapter 39

Murder Ménage II: Naked Came the Clue

Temple called a meeting of the Murder Ménage that evening.

Max purposely arrived late for the meeting.

He wanted the lovebirds to have a chance to establish their couplehood before he intruded on it. He wanted to be clearly the “outsider.” Creative consultant, say. This was purely professional.

When Temple opened the condo door to his knock—ringing the doorbell was too akin to the unwanted solicitor—Midnight Louie uttered the first word of welcome as he weaved protectively around Temple’s calves.

Correction: The couple was already a triumvirate. He was the fourth corner of a quadrangle. Temporarily.

“This is starting to feel like a three-person poker game,” Temple said when she’d seated Max across from Matt Devine at the round dining table on one side of the main living room.

“What’s up?” Max asked as he sat. Unwanted snapshots of memory from the time he’d lived here with Temple clashed in his mind, and he could hear majestic strains of Vangelis echoing from the unique barreled ceiling.

He kept his head down and his expression blank. Only Max’s amnesia made it tolerable for them to gather in such a cozy, private way at all.

“I thought you two should know what I and Molina know,” Temple began.

The men exchanged glances, Matt looking edgy and a tad guilty, which was the way Max felt. Guilt? What was that about with Devine? Max would have to figure it out later.

“Look, guys,” Temple said, “I’ve got the most shocking information. It’s like being hit by a … death ray from Jupiter. I’ve ID’d the ‘ancient astronaut’ body from the construction site on Paradise for the police,” she announced, sitting back to receive accolades.

Matt leaned forward with a frown. “Temple, I thought you were distancing yourself from that crackpot developer guy with the invisible building.”

“So the dead guy is a crackpot developer?” Max asked.

“No,” Temple said, sighing. “That’s Silas T. Farnum, who wanted to hire me to PR the project. The ancient alien abductee who fell back to Earth in a flash of UFO fire is…”

“Don’t milk it too long,” Max warned.

“… Santiago.”

She waited for applause, but got silence.

“This is big, guys. Santiago is the South American architect-cum-showman who redid the ‘immersive’ Chunnel of Crime attraction connecting Gangsters and the Crystal Phoenix Hotels.”

“So you provided the police with the right name for the most notorious corpse in Vegas?” Max wondered. “Didn’t this Santiago have links to the bizarre murder victim in formal dress found in the underground safe?”

“Yes, and yes, that is a bizarre scenario,” Temple said. “Cosimo Sparks, that dead man in the safe, was also the head magician who was running the Synth,” she added for Matt’s benefit.

Max already knew that. She and Max had paid a midnight visit to the disbanding Synth at the Neon Nightmare only days before. And there Temple had discerned from the forlorn magicians’ conversation that several unsolved murders on her Table of Crime Elements could have been committed by the now-dead Sparks to keep their failed conspiracy secret.

Matt mustn’t know that, at least not right now, when Max’s return to Vegas made him uneasy.

“South American architect,” Max repeated to change the subject. He’d been on the run in Europe when Santiago debuted in Vegas. “That’s Kathleen O’Connor IRA-donor territory. How could this apparent technocrat be mistaken for an ‘ancient alien’?”

“Being found naked. In this case, clothes made the man,” Temple explained, “and his living look was all Fontana brothers gone Latino.”

Max nodded. “That Italian greyhound pack of ‘instant sleek’ wears the ‘cool clothes in a hot climate’ look that sells designer suits.”

“As if,” Matt said, “you didn’t ever work that look.”

Max raised an objecting forefinger. “Not the same. That tropical look requires an off-white or pastel palette. I’m all about midnight black.”

As though called, Midnight Louie gave a yodeling greeting and lofted atop the table, managing to avoid any elbows or glasses. He settled into an alert lying position, his huge black paws elegantly crossed.

“Hi, Louie,” Temple said. “You are the epitome of elegant black.”

Louie blinked as if accepting tribute and slitted his eyes almost shut.

“Enough Gentlemen’s Quarterly chat, boys,” Temple decreed. “Santiago was pumped enough under those high-end suits to look like an ancient Central American civilization warrior and, without the product inflating his black hair, had the classic Mayan profile. At least when dead. That’s what tipped me off, visualizing the face upright on a modern, clothed man.”

“Lying horizontal on a stainless steel autopsy table will indeed give the profile a new emphasis,” Max noted dryly.

“Agreed,” Matt said. “I had to ID Effinger and wasn’t sure at first. When the living expression falls away … they look different enough to confuse people who knew them, the coroner told me. So, Temple. You figured this out, how?” Matt was looking skeptical, and suspicious.

“Well, I never did regard the guy as anything more than a pricey con man, but I’d seen some photos of the body online. Combining that with the rumored ‘alien surgery scars,’ it suddenly clicked that he might have been one of the Darth Vaders at Neon Nightmare and been cat-mauled. So I called Molina and demanded to see the body. And I did. And it was just as I’d thought.”

Max eyed Matt. “She and Molina are becoming quite a crime-solving duo. Are we being cut out of the action?”

Matt didn’t bother to answer, instead asking Temple, “Someone wanted Santiago to be mistaken for a figure from the UFO-ancient alien cult?”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” she said.

“Ancient astronauts.” Max shook his head. “People are so gullible, but I shouldn’t complain, given my profession. That ‘Chariots of the Gods’ stuff trades on some temple carvings looking amazingly like a space-suited astronaut. One of the most famous figures happens to be a long-lived Mayan king, Pakal, tilted forward as he died and fell into the afterworld. A happy ending and place in that mythology, by the way.”

“You’re awfully current on lunatic fringe lore,” Matt noted.

“Given the elevated nature of my magic act, I’m interested in the ‘falling man’ iconography.”

“And,” Temple said, “we’ve had a lot of ‘falling’ deaths and maybe-murders and attempted murders around town. The Cloaked Conjuror’s assistant, Barry, fell, and so did Shangri-La and.…”

Temple let the list trail off as her glance caught the tense look on Matt’s face.

“And Vassar, the call girl at the Goliath fell to her death,” Matt told Temple. “After I visited her at the Goliath.”

Max turned to Temple. “So what do you think? Was Santiago’s body set up to fall and cause a stir?”

“Not sure,” she answered. “Maybe someone just got him out of his clothes to take away any trace evidence. The cause of death is the usual suspect, a blow to the back of the head by a blunt instrument.”

Matt nodded. “A construction site would be thronging with those.”

Temple agreed. “I am thinking someone wanted to cause a stir at the Area Fifty-four site, though. In the professional and amateur media furor over the body, the building, the UFO adherents showing up for a pretty secret convention, everyone’s forgotten that the body of an elderly man was dumped on the same site days earlier.”

“And that man is still unidentified?” Max said.

“Yes,” Temple said. “The body dump smacks of old mob habits. Have either of you guys come up with any contemporary links on that?”

They eyed each other, obviously equally guilty of ignoring that line of inquiry.

Matt jumped in. “I just got a lead on a retired cop who might have some insight on that.”

The others stared at him.

“Molina,” he admitted, a bit lamely.

“Molina.” Max almost purred. “She has been very cooperative with our bunch lately.”

“Why was Santiago killed?” Matt shook his head. “The man was rich and famous. Was it a kidnapping gone wrong?”

“I think I know everything but why he was killed,” Temple said.

She was about to push a pitcher of cold beer she’d set out like a good hostess toward Max, then retracted the gesture. She’d already almost forgotten he didn’t like beer or ale. Too reminiscent of an Irish pub.

“Let’s see.” Devine put down his mostly untasted beer glass. “You’d already suspected Santiago’s motives for coming to Vegas to work on the Crystal Phoenix hotel and casino. And the next thing we know, he’s plummeting naked off the top of an invisible building.”

She put out a hand to pat Louie’s head. “If this cat could talk, we’d know a lot more, because he was sniffing around up there and may have triggered the landslide effect that brought the concealing plastic and canvas sheets down.”

“And survived,” Max noted. “Midnight Louie and I have more than one thing in common now.” He smiled at the cat and then noticed the silence growing awkwardly long. “We’re both acrobats with black hair,” he added, fooling no one.

Louie yawned, and Max agreed with him. “We can discount the UFO brouhaha,” he told the others. “The gullible are always ready to gather at any hint of a paranormal or conspiratory event. But maybe we’re wrong in assuming the cat being up in the construction started anything. Sorry, Louie. Maybe Santiago was thrown off the top of the building at that time because a crowd had gathered.”

Matt spoke suddenly. “Maybe it was suicide.”

“Who gets naked to commit suicide?” Temple objected. “This guy ate ego for breakfast. And the coroner did find the usual suspicious blow to the back of the head.”

“Which could have happened in the fall,” Devine said.

“Removing his clothes removed a lot of evidence too.” Max frowned. “It does look like someone was trying to stage something for maximum publicity. Why?”

They looked at Temple. This was her area of expertise.

“It could have been someone out to get Silas T. Farnum, my semi-client, who conceived and, as far as I know, bankrolled this project. He mentioned silent partners. He mentioned that both Domingo and Santiago were working on the project design. So … he could have done it. He has a warped idea about publicity. Thinks stunts are the way to go.”

Matt shook his head again. “And you’re still mixed up with this character?”

“Lieutenant Molina wanted me to keep an eye on him.”

“Junior G-girl,” Max teased, getting an I am not amused glint from Temple’s blue-gray eyes and a suspicious narrowing from Devine’s.

He put “humor” on his list of what not to do when with Temple from now on, with or without her fiancé present.

“Look, guys,” Temple said. “I’m the one who figured out who the UFO corpse was. By a process of deduction, I might add. When everyone is used to seeing a fairly public figure spectacularly clothed, like a Fontana brother, and he turns up naked and dead and horizontal on a dusty construction site, his features no longer animated … maybe his own brother wouldn’t recognize him.”

“Be sure you don’t tell the Fontana brothers you used them to make this kind of point,” Max couldn’t help saying.

Devine laughed, one short guffaw. Temple put her hand over her mouth. “The Flying Fontana Brothers. It’s not funny, but…” The more she tried to stop laughing, the less she could, until they were all caught up in helpless mirth.

The only one not laughing was Midnight Louie.

“Please don’t tell the Fontana brothers I envisioned them as candidates for ancient aliens,” Temple implored them when she regained her sobriety. “We’ve had a fit of the black humor that crime pros depend on to keep them sane.” She sat up straighter, like a schoolmarm.

“Okay. Santiago’s South American features spawned the ancient-alien mania. No one could have known that. The crowd jumped to the conclusion. Was revealing his death deliberate, or just an accident? He was bound to be found soon, now that the secret of the ‘stealth’ building was out and workmen would be doing their jobs by daylight, instead of as Farnum’s night crew.”

“You still haven’t said how you made the identification?” Matt pointed out.

“It was the scarring left by so-called alien surgery. I was just sitting here alone at this very cocktail table—”

Midnight Louie roused himself from his “seated sage” with forepaws tucked in posture and sat up commandingly, to match Temple.

“I was studying the newspaper’s photo of Santiago right after his fall to earth, sent by some reader from his cell phone, and the temple carving of a Mayan ‘astronaut.’ And I not only began to see the resemblance to an upright Santiago, but for some reason I also thought about the scars and remembered the pair dressed in Darth Vader–like masks and cloaks who tried to intimidate the magicians’ cabal at Neon Nightmare … were attacked by a bunch of black cats who jumped on their backs and clawed them into submission—into dropping their firearms and running away, at least.”

Midnight Louie had started growling softly during her recital. When she finished, he leaped onto the cocktail table, skidding across the folded newspaper section and making a sharp cut across the pages as he hightailed it out of there for the office. They all gasped.

Max lunged to keep the beer pitcher from overturning.

“I wanted to keep that section with the photo and sketch,” Temple wailed, leaping up.

Devine had already gotten there to grab it and smooth the cut, not torn, section in question. “Look,” he told Temple, “the cut’s below the graphics. You still have Exhibit A.”

Max couldn’t help smiling at this tableau: Temple wanted to preserve the evidence, Devine wanted to heal the wounded and solace the lost, and he wanted to save the beer that he loathed, the tabletop, the rug … and the day.

“It’s my fault,” Temple said, sitting back with a sigh. “Louie just reminded me. He did that paper-cutting trick the other day, which is what made me think of cat scratches at the same time I made the connection between the dead man and Santiago.”

“Uh,” Devine said, “you’re attributing a lot of motive to a cat. Not only in the first place, but in the miffed second place.”

“Get used to it,” Max put in.

Temple glared at them both.

So did Midnight Louie.