Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

22

Temple on Ice

Temple sat alone in a tiny room equipped only with table and chairs. The sole door had a window in the upper half, smudged as if a lot of noses had been pressed against it. Chicken wire reinforced the glass on a diagonal pattern, looking like fishnet hose.

The dreariness of her surroundings matched her mood. A noisy and speedy arrival at the city pound had found the cupboard bare of Midnight Louie. The surly attendant swore a big black cat had been there, but the indicated cage was empty. Temple believed in her heart of hearts that Louie had been prematurely put to sleep, even though the attendant swore no “terminations” had occurred that night. Whatever the reason, Louie wasn’t there.

Temple and Molina had both looked like prize fools, something Temple felt far too depressed to worry about. Surely Molina wasn’t.

As the detective entered the room, her impressive brows collided in a frown, reminding Temple that publicly embarrassing a police lieutenant was not a good way to preface an interrogation.

Molina had vanished without a word after their arrival at the police station. Now she again wore her khaki poplin slacks and blazer. The warm interrogation room quickly encouraged her to doff the jacket, revealing a short-sleeved red polyester blouse with a V-neck, in the style called a camp shirt.

“Do I need a lawyer or something?” Temple asked nervously.

“You’re not being charged with anything,” Molina said. “There’s no statute against stupidity.”

“Are public servants supposed to resort to name-calling?”

“So sue me.”

Molina sat across the scar-topped Formica table from Temple, who felt reduced to an unhappy twelve-year-old called in for a lecture by the big-girl camp counselor. She swung a nervous foot.

She’d been allowed to dump off Lorna’s book bag and grab a pair of shoes at the Circle Ritz on the way back to the station. At least this was just an interrogation and she hadn’t been fingerprinted and put into jailhouse baggies.

“Why were you coming in so late at the convention center?” Molina asked first.

“I had lots of messages to catch up on.”

“Like this one?” Molina produced the catnapper’s second note, mounted on a larger piece of paper so no one had to touch it.

“How—?”

“The officers went over your desk while we were busy visiting the local pound. When a citizen is stalked through a public building after hours and apparently attacked, we investigate—seriously.”

“What do you mean by ‘apparently’ attacked?”

“Nothing more than careful police phrasing. The guard saw someone running away, although our officers found no one. I presume your story will corroborate this fact. So will an analysis of the human tissue samples on the heel of your shoe.”

“Do you suppose—?”

“What?”

“Did I actually... hurt someone?”

“Not fatally,” Molina said with little amusement. “Why would someone attack you?”

“Like Everest—I was there?” Temple tried.

“You were there because of this note. Mind explaining it?”

“Yes, I do. It’s a sensitive matter.”

“Cats are sensitive?”

“These two are not just cats. They’re corporate mascots.”

“Right now they’re in the middle of a murder investigation, as are you. Tell me about it.”

There was nothing even faintly cajoling about Molina’s tone, just pure unleavened command. So Temple did.

Molina was not a particularly encouraging listener, but seen across the table and judged as a person rather than an official, and in view of her startling off-duty transformation, C. R. Molina struck Temple as human for the first time.

Her heavy almost blue-black hair, worn in an ear-covering blunt cut more serviceable than stylish, grew wispily around her hairline, an effect that might have been softening had Molina not brushed it brutally back from her face.

Her strong brows were unplucked, but after all that was the current practice among fashion models; and yet Temple doubted Molina had noticed. She wore no detectable makeup, except for a wine-colored lipstick that added color yet didn’t even flirt with being seductive.

She wore little jewelry, only a class ring on her right second finger, which indicated she had lost weight since getting it. Even seated, Molina was rangy and competent-looking; not awkward, but without fillips of expression or gesture to distract from her grim business. Until tonight, Temple would have bet that C. R. Molina had neither steady boyfriend nor cat. Her bare left hand said she wasn’t presently married even though she must be pushing forty.

“What?” Temple suddenly realized she’d been inventing a life for a person whose job was to probe her own situation.

“I said,” Molina repeated evenly, “what made you and this Adcock woman think you could possibly handle this cat kidnapping by yourselves?”

“The Baker & Taylor people weren’t sure at first that it was a kidnapping. They hoped that the cats had escaped during the hubbub of setting-up and—scared by all the noise—were hiding out somewhere. There’s a lot of building to hide out in.”

“I know,” Molina said, “and so should you after tonight. So you got the first note—and I want that one, too—then hired this O’Rourke to see who picked up the money. How’d he do?”

Temple thought it was mean of Molina to harp on what she’d been through as an interrogation tactic. “You know Eightball?”

Molina nodded and shrugged simultaneously and slightly. “Harmless.”

Not exactly what Temple wanted to hear about her chosen private operative. “Eightball called me earlier tonight. Said he’d trailed the pickup person to the Las Vegas Hilton, then lost her.”

“Her?”

“I was surprised, too. Maybe she was a shill?”

“She was an aiding and abetting shill, if so. You gave up the money with no guarantee of the cats’ return?”

“The nappers didn’t leave a calling card. When I got the second note, I figured they were playing fair, so I went down to the exhibit to wait for the return of Baker and Taylor.”

“Instead the murderer came back for a second engagement. Is that what you figure?”

“If you say so, Lieutenant. And he did jab at me with a knitting needle.”

Molina’s luxurious eyebrows rose a millimeter. “Explain ‘he’ and ‘knitting needle.’ How could you know in the dark?”

Temple sipped the diet cola she’d been given. Her throat felt bruised. Maybe she’d been wrong to refuse medical attention.

“That’s a good question. I thought it was a ‘he’ on instinct—pure, blind instinct. The person was bigger than I am, but most women are, too. I just had a sense of being up against muscle mass.”

Molina actually cracked a smile. “Men move differently, even in the dark.”

“And the needle—well, when my bag got skewered, that was the first thing I thought of.”

“Bag? Show me.”

Temple dragged the tote bag up from the floor. “What else could have caused that hole?”

In the light, the puncture’s ragged edge defined a perfect circle the size of a number five knitting needle. Temple shivered.

“I’ll need the bag for evidence, too.”

“Oh, no! I can’t live without this bag. I’ve practically got my next of kin in here.”

Molina shook her head. “Empty it. We’ll get you some manila envelopes to take your things home in.”

Much as Temple loathed exposing the contents of her tote—her life, virtually—to the lieutenant, the word “home” had a nice, hopeful ring to it.

She dredged out her makeup bag and schedule organizer, both the size of bantam chickens; some crumpled Dairy Queen napkins, her car keys and wallet; three breath mints, about fifteen outdated dry cleaning coupons, a small screwdriver, a wad of tissues; three packets of diet salad dressing, a sewing kit shaped like a strawberry, and assorted miscellanea.

“You planning a trip to the bush?” Molina wondered.

“Listen, this stuff saved my life when the killer took a stab at me.”

“Okay. You said it. The killer. What does the killing of Chester Royal have to do with the kidnapping of two cats?”

“Maybe the killer lurks around the convention center every night getting whoever shows up—like the Phantom of the Opera—and I happened to have a rendezvous with the kidnapper and the cats.”

“The convention center will love that publicity angle, Miss Barr. The cats never showed. You realize what this means?”

“They’ve been gotten by the killer?”

“There never was any intention of returning the cats. It was a ruse to get you onto the convention floor, alone, in the dark.”

“That’s silly, who would...” Temple tried again. “That means the killer... Me? Why?”

Molina sighed. “I hate to contradict my own instincts, but it’s likely that the killer thinks you know too much.”

“Me? Just because I stumbled over the body?”

“I think your size fives have been stumbling over a lot more than that these last few days. Bud Dubbs tells me you’ve been running around on errands of an unusually vague nature, even for you.”

“It’s my job to keep informed.”

“It’s the killer’s job to see that no one gets too well informed about the murder. After hearing that the murderer used the cats to lure you onto the convention floor tonight, I think that’s why the cats were taken in the first place.”

“By the murderer? As a... diversion?”

“Yes.”

“That’s dumb. No one knew about them being missing except the B & T people and me. What kind of a diversion is a state secret?”

“No one knew only because you and Emily Adcock were so darn good at covering it up. That’s why the ransom was small; nobody wanted the money. What was wanted was a distraction, which you prevented, meanwhile running around and buttonholing everybody and his first cousin about the murder.”

“You think I know something?”

“I hate to admit it, but yes. And you probably don’t know what yourself, which would be truer to form. You really have a knack for screwing up an investigation.”

“Why blame me? It was my job to talk to the people involved and I’m in a better position to learn the inside story than any police representative.”

“It’s your funeral,” Molina said.

“I see what you mean. Have you evidence pointing to a certain suspect?”

“No.” Molina was even more sober than usual. “The key to the crime is motive, and that leaves little evidence—or little obvious evidence.”

“Chester Royal was a fiend. Everyone had a motive—his three top writers, his editor ex-wife, his ex-assistant and the current Reynolds-Chapter-Deuce PR director; even, I suppose, his old buddy lawyer,” Temple enumerated.

“I know about them,” said Molina. “Except for the lawyer.”

“Will you tell me what you found out about the Royal malpractice case?”

“You first.”

“Earnest Jaspar. Funny old guy from Minnesota. He’s staying at the Hilton. Chester had him on hand in case an uncertain author like Mavis Davis needed shoring up. Anyway, Jaspar defended Royal in the malpractice case in Illinois in the fifties. A woman had died on his operating table during the course of an illegal abortion her family swore she would have never agreed to. But if you’ve looked up the case, you know all that.”

“Not the details. The press in those days was discreet about abortion scandals. I’m having copies of the court documents sent, but it’ll take a while. We have been working this case over a weekend, you know, on top of everything else.”

Temple figured “everything else” meant her—and missing cats. “Weekend—has it only been a weekend?!’ She suddenly felt down-to-her-toes beat, as if it would be too much of an effort to say her name.

“I suppose your fevered brain has concluded that a survivor of the long-dead woman is seeking vengeance.”

“I don’t know if I even thought that far ahead. I just think that a malpractice case in the victim’s past is pretty interesting, don’t you?”

“Victims usually have a lot of interesting incidents in their pasts. But that malpractice case was decades ago. Pretty farfetched.”

“Where is it written that murderers have to strike while their fire is hot? It could be some disgruntled victim of medical foul play. Why not?”

Molina shook her head. “Why now, rather?”

“You mean, why wait all this time?”

“Right. We’re talking forty years. We’re also talking a senior citizen slayer by now.”

Temple thought a long, stymied moment, then looked up. “It would explain the knitting needle.”

Molina shook her head again. “Sure, a Grandma Moses killer. You’re getting punchy. I’ll have an officer drive you home.” Molina went to the door, opened it, and issued some instructions before coming back to stand over Temple. “I had your car driven back to your apartment, so you’ll be ready to go on your dubious errands tomorrow.”

“Hey, thanks. That was nice.”

A policeman entered with a sheaf of manila envelopes. Temple began shoveling the evicted contents of her tote bag into them. She stood up, her legs feeling rubbery. If only her high heels held up, Temple was sure she’d be fine.

Molina saw her to the interrogation room door. “You think of anything, you tell me—-immediately.”

“Sure.” Even if it meant she was cooperating with a... Temple looked down at Molina’s loafers and giggled—a flatfoot.

But just outside the door she turned, the manila envelopes clutched to her chest.

“Of course—the sign!” It hit her meandering brain like a flash of Flamingo Hilton pink neon. “What if Chester Royal was killed for medical, not editorial, reasons? What if the sign on the body didn’t mean STET, as in a copy editing direction, but STET as in... short for stethoscope?”