Cat On A Hyacinth Hunt

Chapter 29

Confession Time No. 9

"Here's my dirty little secret."

Matt Devine, not waiting to be invited in, or asked to sit down or offered coffee, tea or vodka, set the rolled sketch on Temple's kitchen counter.

"The original sketch of Effinger?" Temple unrolled it delicately. Matt's call advising of his imminent arrival had been businesslike, terse and so very unlike him.

"No. It's a new one."

But Temple wasn't listening. She was literally struck dumb by the compelling portrait of a beautiful woman.

"Who on earth is this?"

"Good question. Two weeks ago I would have said my guardian angel. She was the woman who gave the lead on Effinger."

"And now you wish she had never pointed you in that direction?"

"Right. But you're concluding that for the wrong reason. She nails down my alibi for Effinger's death, quite literally."

"But you no longer think she's your guardian angel?"

"Now I think she's the devil." He sighed. "Temple, I gave you hell for hiding what Effinger did to you. But ever since the very next day, I've been hiding what this Kitty O'Connor did to me."

"What?"

Temple couldn't take her eyes off the sketch. The face was schizophrenically hypnotic.

Perfectly symmetrical at first glance, then oddly off-kilter the more you looked at it. Despite her best efforts to be impartial, Temple probably felt she was seeing an ideal female face someone had dreamed up from anything but life. If this woman really looked this good . . . the competitive clutch in Temple's stomach was nothing that Max Kinsella's girl-friend should be feeling.

"This," Matt said, referring to his hidden truth.

She turned to see that he had pulled up his beige sweater on the right, and that a piece of paper adhered at an angle to his ribs. Not paper, a huge gauze pad.

"Matt--?"

He was pulling off tabs of white tape with no regard to tape burns, revealing a long, puffy dark scab imbedded in red, infected flesh.

"Oh, my God." Temple, like all gawkers at other people's accidents, was repulsed, awed and felt obligated to interfere. Her fingertips touched the hot pink skin, but Matt jerked away.

"It's pretty much closed now," he said. "The infection isn't spreading. I avoided going to an emergency room so I wouldn't have to explain myself. No stitches."

"My God! She stabbed you? Why?"

"We think a razor slash. I didn't feel it at first. And why? Apparently I wasn't as dangerous as she thought. Apparently she gave me Effinger's location because she took me for a hit man."

"We?"

"Bennie. One of the hot-line volunteers. He's a sixties grad and knew an . . . alternative doctor. Stereotypical Hispanic. Lots of knife cuts in that culture, right? Bennie saved my life, or at least my sanity."

CAT ON A HYACINTH HUNT * 199

"New Year's Day night."

"Right."

"The night Effinger was killed. Oh! Listen, Matt, maybe you better sit down."

"I've been sitting down--and getting up--very carefully, ever since it happened."

"Do you want. . . something to drink, eat?"

"I don't need nursing. I need . . . absolution."

"From whom?"

"You."

"Me?"

"I bit your head off for concealing Effinger's attack, ruined our evening out, even went home to pout. Then I got attacked, by a woman yet, and I did the same thing. Let's say I understand now. I got angry at you because I've been there, done that, and didn't know I was about to do it again. It's hard to admit you were taken advantage of like that, abused like that. It's . . .

embarrassing."

Temple nodded. "You said it when I was cornered in that parking garage last fall. If you've been victimized, you'll react like a victim. You'll run, you'll hide, you'll try to pretend it was nothing. Can I at least persuade you to sit down? You probably need the practice."

He slapped the tape ends back into place, pulled down the sweater, and followed her into the living room.

Temple carried Miss Kitty in her extended arms, as if they were waltzing together in a weird way. "I want to examine this baby under a good light." She turned up the floor lamp before sitting next to the sofa arm. "This the same artist who sketched Effinger?"

Matt nodded.

"She's good. Caught that unpredictable edge behind the drop-dead looks. Did this Kitty O'Connor, if that's her real name, really look this gorgeous?"

"I suppose, but I don't see looks; honestly, I see past them, because I wish other people would see past mine. . . . she made me uneasy from the first. I suppose a really fine pistol is beautiful when it's pointing right at you, but you'd have to have a very detached point of view."

"What was her connection to Effinger?"

"I don't know. I know now that she's driven by intense hate. She told me I'd killed my first man just before she cut me. Obviously, she was referring to Effinger. She wants me to feel guilty for his death, because I didn't kill him. Perverse philosophy, isn't it?"

"If she was there to attack you, then she couldn't have killed him herself."

"Why not? She caught me at three a.m. just as I was leaving work. According to Molina, Effinger was dead by then."

"She could have come from killing him. I wish we knew how he died!"

"You're thinking he was slashed to death? When I saw the body I didn't notice any "marks on what I could see of it."

"You didn't see his ribs, I bet."

"No." Matt's hand reached for his side, an unconscious gesture of the past few days.

Breathing still hurt, but he was getting used to that. At least he was still breathing. Effinger sure wasn't. "I don't know what we can do to find out Effinger's manner of death, other than asking Molina. She talk to you yet?"

"Not yet. Probably wants me to squirm. Maybe I can pump her, but there is another way to find out how Effinger died."

"How?"

"Max."

"Keep him out of it. And don't tell him what happened to me."

"It might be important. Max knows a lot of... strange things. And Effinger is his business, too.

The first casino-ceiling death is what forced him to run and hide."

"Because he did it, or because he didn't?"

"Naturally, I assumed--"

"But has he said?"

"No. But I don't believe his involvement in these deaths is any deeper than knowing more than he should about them."

"While we don't know enough." Matt reached for the drawing. "But keep Miss Kitty out of this. She's my problem."

"Don't want to lose face with Max, huh?"

"This has nothing to do with him. But it's obvious that you still do."

A perfect opening, Temple thought, at the absolutely worst time. While she dithered over his comment, he left, and nothing had changed.