Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit Read online

  THE COLORFUL MIDNIGHT LOUIE ALPHABET SAGA CONTINUES…

  Follow the clues from the Cat in an Alphabet Soup foundation novel through a colorful kaleidoscope of crimes as the bestselling cat mystery series goes from A to Z

  SWING DANCE INTO DEATH! In the twenty-seventh Midnight Louie mystery the feline PI channels the jazz and swing-dance age. Circle Ritz residents petite PR powerhouse Temple Barr and her faithful roommate, Midnight Louie, must solve a bizarre murder that echoes a long-past atrocity.

  From Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit, move on to the final book of the alphabet series Cat in a Alphabet Endgame

  DEAR READERS: Since Midnight Louie’s mystery adventures began in 1992 and will be 28 books in all, the series is a retro-modern saga that portrays twenty-five years of amazing Las Vegas Strip reinvention from the early 1990s to today. Yet the story only covers a couple of years in the lives of the four human characters: two women, two men; two pro and two amateur detectives. It’s like the old movies that filmed a foreground couple walking on a treadmill against a constantly changing background. You will watch the Las Vegas Strip, technology and detection methods evolve as the characters veer from allies to antagonists to…romantic quadrangle anyone? And even the irreverent rascal tomcat, Midnight Louie, will become politically correct in one key department.

  As Louie says, “Any surprising developments do not surprise me. Everything is always up for grabs in Las Vegas 24/7…guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others. Like Las Vegas, The City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: The Kitty That Never Sleeps. With this crew, who could?”

  For more on the series, subscribe to Midnight Louie’s Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter. Louie would love reviews on online book sites if you want to lend him a hand.

  CAT IN A

  ZEBRA ZOOT SUIT

  THE TWENTY-SEVENTH

  MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERY

  by

  CAROLE NELSON DOUGLAS

  Digital ISBN-13: 978-1-943175-03-1

  Copyright © 2015 Carole Nelson Douglas

  A Wishlist Book

  www.wishlistpublishing.com

  Praise for Carole Nelson Douglas

  and the Midnight Louie feline PI series

  “Midnight Louie’s contributions to the book are insightful, humorous, and imaginative… Along with all these wonderful offbeat characters, Douglas has an interesting plot, good story, and an intriguing mystery. If you are looking for something fun to read, this is the book for you.”

  —Affaire de Coeur on Cat in an Alphabet Soup

  “…just about everything you might want in a mystery: glitzy Las Vegas, real characters, suspense, a tough puzzle. On top of it all, it has a fine sense of humor and some illuminating social commentary.”

  —The Prime Suspect on Cat in an Aqua Storm

  “Midnight Louie sniffs through plenty of plausible red herrings…before pointing a claw at the killer in this brisk tail that even mystery readers who don’t love cats will relish.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Cat on a Blue Monday

  “…the best Louie adventure yet, full of intricate plotting and sharp characterization. And Louie? Nine lives wouldn’t be nearly enough for this dude.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Cat in a Crimson Haze

  “Feline PI Midnight Louie prowls the alleys of Las Vegas, solving crimes and romancing runaways like a furry Sam Spade. This time out, the always engaging Louie stalks a serial killer.”

  —People magazine on Cat in an Indigo Mood

  Cat in a Yellow Spotlight

  “fun, frothy, and charming.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit

  “Never fear, amateur detective Temple Barr is on the job, along with her feline roommate Midnight Louie, with an assist from his Vegas Cat Pack… Louie is as charming and debonair as always, and this reader, for one, wishes the alphabet had more letters! The savviest feline detective around, Midnight Louie shines, unequaled!”

  —T. C. LoTempio, national bestselling author of the Nick and Nora mysteries

  For Betty Willis, neon designer, 1923-2015

  She will shine forever for her iconic Vegas signs.

  1955 Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino

  1956 Blue Angel Motel (just saved)

  1959 “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas”

  Previously in

  Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times…

  What is a humble hotshot PI to do?

  Here I sit in Las Vegas, a city that has been a Capital of Crime for seventy-five years. I have an inkling that my nearest and dearest clients have scattered or are ready to scatter to the wind’s four corners.

  (Why the wind has corners, I do not know. I have four corners myself…right front and rear shiv holders and left front and rear shiv holders.)

  Anyway, shivs aside, how am I supposed to keep an eye on those who need it if they are planning on leaving me at home alone?

  Although we just successfully concluded the case of Murder Most Rock ‘n’ Roll and the music show is a hit performing nightly at the Crystal Phoenix, I have not forgotten the messy, ragged ends of the previous adventure.

  Not long ago, my posse—both human and feline members—had their lives on the line, but the Las Vegas Cat Pack came through the confrontation with snaggle-tooth and ragged nail mostly intact. The outcome is that all of my human associates are concealing the facts of what went down from the police, and, like the Cat Pack, the offending psycho is nowhere to be found.

  I was not the only one among the wounded—if you count broken nails as a wound, and I do. Mr. Matt Devine was shot in the side, not seriously only because I launched my twenty fully-packed pounds at the perp’s weapon as the gun fired. He is recovering nicely under the ministrations of my doughty roommate, Miss Temple Barr.

  Mr. Max Kinsella received another blow to his already banged-up head. Who knows what setbacks his recovering AWOL memory may encounter?

  The Cat Pack acted only as intimidating muscle, under my direction. However, their usual leader and my esteemed streetwise mother, Ma Barker, performed a banshee howl as I jumped the gun and I then administered a four-shiv slash to the assailant’s face as a coup de claw.

  This “coup de claw” is a classic finishing move in the art of cat fighting, a swipe across the kisser. Since our opponent is a female of her species, she will see my handsome white-whiskered black face and razor-sharp stilettos every time she looks in a mirror.

  Perhaps I should formally introduce myself as founder and CEO of Midnight Investigations, Inc. I plied the mean streets of Las Vegas for many years as a bachelor about town, and then moved into PI work. I now have my own condo with my Titian-haired, live-in PR woman and amateur detective (thanks to me), Miss Temple Barr.

  She may not be a Miss much longer if she weds Mr. Matt Devine as planned, alas. Our cozy condo does not need interlopers, especially on the California king-size bed, which is perfect for the two of us right now, with my curl-upable twenty pounds and her one hundred.

  Yes, she is a tiny thing as humans go, but she has the heart of a mountain lion and the relentless investigative instincts of a bloodhound. Actually, she is much more attractive in human terms than this characterization sounds.

  So back to me again. Yes, the neon-lit Strip is my beat.

  For a Vegas institution, I have always kept a low profile. I like my nightlife shaken, not stirred. Being short, dark, and handsome…really short…gets me overlooked and underestimated, which is what the savvy operative wants anyway. I am your perfect undercover guy. Miss Temple Barr and I make ideal roomies. I like to hunker down under the covers with my little doll, but she also
tolerates my wandering ways.

  Call me Muscle in Midnight Black. I play bodyguard without getting in her way. We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails and have cracked some cases too tough for the local fuzz. She is, after all, a freelance public relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public and private relations of all stripes and legalities.

  So, there is much private investigative work left for me to do, as usual.

  Then you get into the area of private lives. I say you get into that area. I do not. I remain aloof from these alien matters among humans. I will not give away the more intimate details of my roomie’s lifestyle. Let me just say that everything it seemed you could bet on is now up for grabs and my Miss Temple may be in the lose-lose situation of her life and times.

  Since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I here provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:

  To wit, the current status of who we are and where we are all at:

  MIDNIGHT LOUIE, PI

  None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is big time, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for twenty-seven books now. I am an “alpha cat”. Since my foundation volume, Cat in an Alphabet Soup (formerly Catnap) debuted, the title sequence features an alphabetical “color” word from A to Z. So, Cat in an Aqua Storm (formerly Pussyfoot) comes next, followed by Cat on a Blue Monday and Cat in a Crimson Haze, etc. until we reach the, ahem, current volume, Cat in a Zebra Zoot Suit. I assure you that no cats were actually forced to wear a zebra-striped zoot suit during the events of this book. Not to my knowledge.

  MISS TEMPLE BARR, PR

  A freelance public relations ace, my lovely roommate is Miss Nancy Drew all grown up and wearing killer spikes. She had come to Las Vegas with her soon-to-be elusive ex-significant other…

  MR. MAX KINSELLA, aka The Mystifying Max

  The were a marriage-minded couple until he disappeared without a word to Miss Temple shortly after the Vegas move. This sometimes missing-in-action magician has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in an Irish Republican Army bomb attack during a post high school jaunt to Ireland, Mr. Max joined the man who became his mentor, Garry Randolph, aka magician Gandolph the Great, in undercover counterterrorism work all over Europe.

  Miss Temple’s elusive ex-significant other has also been sought—on suspicion of murder, no less—by a hard-nosed dame…

  LIEUTENANT C. R. MOLINA

  This Las Vegas homicide detective and single mother of teenage Mariah is also the good friend of Miss Temple’s freshly minted new fiancé…

  MR. MATT DEVINE

  Mr. Matt, aka Mr. Midnight, is a radio talk show shrink on The Midnight Hour. The former Roman Catholic priest came to Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather and ended up a syndicated celebrity now in line for hosting a national talk show.

  MR. RAFI NADIR

  After blowing his career at the LAPD when Miss Lt. C. R. Molina mysteriously left him, and for years the unsuspecting father of Mariah, he is moving up in Vegas hotel security jobs. Miss Lieutenant Carmen Regina Molina is not thrilled that her former flame now knows what is what and who is whose…since she told Mariah that her dad was a dead hero-cop.

  MISS KATHLEEN O’CONNOR

  Deservedly nicknamed “Kitty the Cutter” by my Miss Temple, she is the local lass that Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in long-ago Northern Ireland but now has turned embittered stalker. Finding Mr. Max as impossible to trace as Lieutenant Molina has, Kitty the C settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, primarily Mr. Matt Devine.

  Miss Kathleen O’Connor’s popping up again like Jill the Ripper has been raising hell for we who reside at a vintage round apartment building called the Circle Ritz, owned by seventy-something free spirit, Miss Electra Lark.

  Someone arranged for Mr. Max Kinsella to hit the wall of the Neon Nightmare club with lethal impact while undercover. His traumatic memory loss means he knows he and my roommate were once a committed couple, but he recalls none of the emotional and, ahem, spicy details. So far. And now Mr. Max has vanished again, no doubt making himself a target who will take Kathleen home again to Ireland, where they can lay to rest her ghosts, and his. And maybe make ghosts of each other for eternity.

  All this human sex and violence makes me glad that I have a simpler social life, such as just trying to get along with my unacknowledged daughter…

  MISS MIDNIGHT LOUISE

  This streetwise minx insinuated herself into my cases until I was forced to set up shop with her as Midnight Investigations, Inc. She alleges that I am her deadbeat dad, but I will never cop to that charge.

  That is how things stand today, full of danger, angst, and confusion. However, things are seldom what they seem, and almost never that way in Las Vegas. So any surprising developments do not surprise me. Everything in Sin City is always up for grabs 24/7—guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others.

  Like Las Vegas, the City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: the Kitty That Never Sleeps.

  With this crew, who could?

  1

  Off-Black

  In every relationship, there are times when polite illusions must not only be tolerated, but embraced.

  At least, that is what I tell myself as I sneak out of my Miss Temple’s rooms long after my namesake midnight hour, dragging a white plastic Albertson’s grocery bag over the walnut parquet condo floor to the ajar patio door, and outside.

  With a powerful swing of my neck and shoulder muscles, I cast the bag and its ghastly contents over the balcony’s low railing. The bag plummets through the night like a suicide victim in a nightshirt. It lands one story below with a sickening crunch on the asphalt, barely missing the rooftop of Mr. Matt Devine’s freebie silver Jaguar. Car, that is, not the Big Cat.

  I breathe deeply at my narrow escape from inadvertent automotive vandalism. Then I scan the parking lot below for witnesses. None but the moon. I swing over the railing and climb down, landing lightly on my feet.

  Okay. I do not land so lightly, being a muscular dude with a lot of bone mass.

  Twigs and leaves rustle in the tall oleander bushes ringing the lot, warning me of possible unseen e yes. Las Vegas never sleeps, nor does Midnight Louie when he is on a mission.

  My teeth snag the white bag and I continue to drag its broken contents away from the Circle Ritz condominium and apartment building. The black marble circular façade gleams in the moonlight like a giant chocolate icing-frosted doughnut. Wait. My home, sweet home is classier than that. It shines like the Coliseum in Rome magically made whole again and enameled Punk Black.

  A guilty twinge assails me. These plastic bags are intended to be recycled at the grocery store. I am contributing to unauthorized littering. Yet I must remove the evidence of my crime from the premises and into other custody. I can only hope my contacts are the ones shaking the oleander branches. Every bit of that plant is poisonous, but not as vile to me as the contents of my bag.

  A piece of shadow separates itself from the trembling leaves.

  “Have you got the goods?” a rough voice asks. Similar shadow figures bunch behind it. I am now confronting a gang.

  “Right,” I answer. “Primo stuff, freshly imported.” I flick the bag lying between us open with a razor-sharp nail. “You can do a sniff and taste test, if you like.”

  “I like,” Gravel Voice responds, edging near to do just that.

  “Hey,” I cannot help noting, “this is Family business. One would think you would trust your own son.”

  “Hah!” answers Ma Barker, Cat Pack clowder leader and my long-lost mama. I sometimes wish had remained long lost. A clowder is the feline equivalent of a street gang-cum-extended family, and you do not want to mess with the leader of the pack. So I remain mute as Ma Barker admonishes me as if I were an ignorant kit. “You are
sneaking around on your Miss Temple Barr like some craven domestic slave. Why would you be straight with me?”

  “I am not owned,” I say. “I am a free and independent roommate.”

  “Who freely rips off this expensive domestic-slave gourmet food.”

  “For the Cat Pack, Ma. I do not see you turning up your whiskers at my, er, donations.”

  “Whadda my whiskers have to do with it?” Ma advances with a growl.

  I shrink back slightly. Whiskers are a sore point with Ma. Hers are not only grizzled, but more prominent on her chin than her muzzle now that she has reached a certain age. She is still the only female clowder chief in Vegas, maybe the world, for that matter.

  “Punk,” she sniffs. Then the yellows of her eyes narrow as she gazes over my shoulder. “It looks like your roommate is entertaining a gentleman caller. No wonder you snuck out.”

  Behind the glass French doors, a pinpoint of bobbling light tailed by a tall, black shadow passes by.

  My eyes widen as the Front Four shivs on my limbs curve into asphalt for traction. My brain processes several facts. Mr. Max Kinsella, my Miss Temple’s ex, has headed to Ireland on secret agent business. Mr. Matt Devine, her current and closest, not only works nights, he never sleeps overnight in her condo on religious grounds, although Miss Temple’s religion allows her to visit his quarters on overnights.