Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

2

An Editor Edited

Irate book people—editors, sales reps, publishing bigwigs—milled in the aisles, but there was no helping it.

Two rows were cordoned off indefinitely. With police permission, maintenance employees were emptying nearby booths, moving the displays into whatever space could be squeezed from the packed-tight exhibition area. On easels bracketing the cordoned zone, signs announced Keep Out, Filming Area—Temple’s idea. Filming was indeed going on, she thought, watching police cameras snap and whir.

Detective Lieutenant C. R. Molina frowned down at Temple. “You were chasing a cat when you found the body?”

“We couldn’t have one loose in the exhibition area; besides, I thought it had escaped from a booth that features cats.”

“Live cats?”

“Well... dead cats would be kind of tacky.”

“What kind of convention did you say this was?” Lieutenant Molina’s skeptical blue eyes squinted at a visual cacophony of illustrations and type styles.

“The ABA—oh, not the American Bar Association. Booksellers. The American Booksellers Association.”

“So you found the deceased by accident?”

“I assure you.”

“And disarranged the body.”

“Hey, he was as stiff as Peg-Board already, the Man in the Iron Suit. Must have been... dispatched late last night, but I guess the coroner will determine exact time of death—”

“Where is the cat now?”

“The cat? In the PR office. In a carrier. The cat didn’t have anything to do with it—”

“And that’s the only reason you were in the area at that time, pursuit of the cat?”

“I’m a PR person. That’s my job: to keep things running smoothly. To round up stray cats, if necessary.”

“Stray? I thought you said the cat was missing from an exhibit.”

“Um, it had ‘strayed,’ hadn’t it?”

“I get the idea, Miss Barr, that you’re concealing something again. That’s part of a PR person’s job, too, isn’t it?” Lieutenant Molina prodded with weary logic. “Speaking of concealment, you ever hear from that missing boyfriend of yours?”

“Not a word. Why do you think he’s called the Mystifying Max?”

“Not just for a good vanishing act, I’ll bet.”

Temple said nothing, waiting for the tall police lieutenant to finish eyeing the scene of the crime. Temple was withholding guilty knowledge—the continuing absence of Baker and Taylor. But that had nothing to do with... possible murder.

“How was he killed?” Temple was unable to resist asking that.

Eyes the color of a midnight margarita iced over. “We don’t know that he was killed; could have been natural causes.”

Temple rolled her eyes. “With that sign acting as a tie tack?”

“Who has access to sign materials?”

“Everyone. The ABA centers on the printed word; everybody here wants to leave messages, sign a book, write orders. We’re just lucky only the thirteen thousand exhibitors were allowed in today; tomorrow the other eleven thousand hit. Even so, must be twenty thousand Magic Markers on this floor, easy.”

Lieutenant Molina’s professionally stoic face puckered. Was the homicide detective annoyed because Temple had identified the object used to write on the dead man’s chest? Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of Magic Marker ink. “You know what this ‘stet’ means?”

“Sure. To any journalist or copy editor it’s an abbreviation used to mark text. It means, ‘Let it stand.’ ”

Lieutenant Molina waited, tall, patient and as implacable as an island god.

Temple explained further. “ ‘Stet’ means that copy that’s been deleted or changed should be restored to its original state.” They turned as one to view the body. “In this case,” Temple observed, “ashes to ashes.”

“Not quite yet,” the lieutenant remarked. “How will you handle the press on this?”

“Discreetly.”

“Good luck.” The lieutenant grinned significantly and moved on.

Lloyd leaned close to Temple. “That broad sure likes to throw her weight around.”

“Any woman who stands five-ten in flats scares the living Shalimar out of me,” Temple admitted. She shivered dramatically. “On the other hand, if Lieutenant Molina hangs around we won’t have to worry about the air-conditioning breaking down—she could cool the Sahara single-handedly.”

“I swear, Temple, you even chitchat like a PR woman, in snappy press-released superlatives,” a familiar voice slipped in. It was not a compliment.

She eyed the approaching Crawford Buchanan, who eyed her back. “And you talk like a DJ, with capital I’s every fifth syllable. What brings you here from the Ivory Tower of the Daily Snitch?”

Buchanan was entertainment writer for one of Las Vegas’s many newssheets, which were heavy on flacking and light on objectivity. He was also a free-lance hiree like Temple, acting as liaison between the ABA’s regular publicity force and the mysteries of the myriad local publications. Buchanan was a small man, neat as a wolverine, with permed grizzled ringlets, permanent bags barely upholding limpid brown eyes and spider-silk lashes, and the moral fiber of a sidewinder. Like many Napoleonically egotistical slight men, he figured Temple was just his size.

He ignored her sally to eye the commotion. “Not good for business. Just what the LV C and VA wanted to avoid, T.B.” A devotee of Initialese, Buchanan had early on discovered the unfortunate effect of Temple’s. So far he hadn’t found out that her middle name was Ursula, thank God.

“Well, they can’t avoid this,” she riposted, “not even the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. You’ve heard about the eternal unavoidables—death and taxes.”

“Better get that off the premises.” His head jerked toward the body, or rather the figures clustered around it.

“Not until the police are through.”

“Maybe you should lean on someone at headquarters, T.B.” Buchanan smirked. “You’ve got such a powerful personality.”

“Yeah, and you’re Limburger. Why don’t you stand over there and drive them out?”

His fingers flicked like a snake tongue across the back of her neck. “Temper, temper, Temple.”

“Cut it out!”

But Buchanan had oozed on; he was a hit-and-dodge expert, always cozying up to unsuspecting women. Temple retreated to the ABA public relations office at the facility’s rear, anxious to measure damage.

“Well, if it isn’t Jessica Fletcher, Junior,” Bud Dubbs, the guy in charge of free-lance flacks, greeted her.

Temple flinched. “I thought I was bagging a missing cat; I would have been happy to find just a missing cat.” Dubbs squinted into the cat carrier’s small wire door through his half-glasses. Temple had sent an assistant to buy it once the cat was corralled. “That it?”

“Sort of.”

“And the police?”

“Should be out of here in a few hours and we can open up the aisle again.”

“What about the bad publicity?”

“Maybe none of the local rags will notice it.”

“Think they won’t?”

“No... but maybe I can defuse it somehow.”

“How?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Was it murder?”

“The police don’t know—or won’t say.”

“You landed on the body.”

“Death doesn’t advertise causes... except that sign sure looks like somebody enjoyed seeing the guy dead.”

“Who was it?”

This was the bad one. Temple moved the carrier to the side of her desk, off dead center. A deep growl remarked on this dislocation. She sat, always feeling more commanding in that position.

“A publisher. Chester Royal, head of Pennyroyal Press.”

“A publisher?” Dubbs glowered at Temple as if that was her fault. “A bigwig?”

“Not that big. Pennyroyal Press is just an imprint, a mini-operation within a bigger publishing house.”

“What’s the bigger house?”

“Reynolds-Chapter-Deuce.”

“That... sounds familiar.”

“They all used to be separate publishers until they merged in the eighties.”

“What you’re saying is this is one hell of a big outfit and it lost an executive at our convention center.”

“No, you’re saying that. Bud, it’s not our fault that out of twenty-four thousand bodies streaming through the security lines one is a murderer maybe, and one a murderee. It could have happened anywhere—San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington.”

“It happened here and it’s bad press. And tomorrow is opening day when all the booksellers and news-hungry media types come in. You’ve got to stop this from getting out.”

“I can’t suppress the news, Bud, the public’s right to know.”

“Public relations is your job. What’s the good of doing it unless you can launder what the public has a right to know?” Bud glanced at the cat carrier. “Once the corpse is gone, you better dump this cat.”

“I don’t know about that.” Temple bent to peek into the dim interior. A pair of grape-green eyes regarded her accusingly. “I may have professional uses for this pussums.”