Cat in a Red Hot Rage Read online

  And then they’d decide in which church in which city, and when, they’d do it all over again, to placate the parental demons. And because she really, really wanted to wear her Austrian crystal Stuart Weitzman Midnight Louie spikes with a wedding gown. On the red carpet to the altar. Catholic, Universalist Unitarian, or whatever their relatives would compromise on.

  She wanted to meet Matt’s mother. See her parents endorse their youngest child’s adult choice.

  Max had been way too big bad wolf, too alpha, for their cautious Midwestern conservatism. Matt still broadcast good boy gone diffidently successful. He would go down much better, if anybody would.

  As her family’s youngest child and sole daughter, she could only hope.

  Chapter 23

  Diamond Razzle Dazzle

  The buses, vans, and taxis from McCarran airport rolled up to the red carpet the Crystal Phoenix had laid from lobby to porte cochere. Today, Wednesday, officially began the Red Hat Sisterhood convention, even though a couple thousand early arrivals had been in occupancy for a day.

  Temple, irreverent PR flack that she was, wondered two things: if she and Matt should get married here instead, or if the Red HAT Sisterhood had ever considered the acronym, RHATS.

  If six hundred Red Hat ladies had seemed overwhelming, five thousand seemed like a revolution, a mass of well-dressed, cheerful lemmings leaping off a cliff into all things Las Vegas.

  Temple watched the onslaught with mixed feelings.

  Several months before, the performance artist Domingo had arrived in Las Vegas to swath the Strip’s iconic buildings with a million pink plastic lawn flamingos. The hot pink plumage had indeed been spectacular . . . until the searing Las Vegas sun faded them all to pallid pink.

  At first the project had seemed over-the-top for an over-the-top entertainment destination. Then the massed flamingos had attained an odd sort of dignity in numbers. Humble but universal. Colorful, eccentric, unashamed . . . everything Las Vegas. That was Domingo’s point. Life is art. Art is life.

  Today the Red Hat Sisterhood swarmed over the larger-than-life artfulness of Las Vegas, and conquered.

  Red and purple outshone the Strip’s neon. They were colors of vigor and assertion, yet available to one and all, if they only had the nerve.

  Watching the rivers of crimson and purple flow into the Crystal Phoenix on that royal red welcoming carpet, Temple decided that she had lost her own nerve lately, but she was getting it back.

  Matt’s gorgeous diamond-and-ruby vintage ring blared from her left hand. She was engaged! With love, with life, with making sure everything in her purview went well. And that included freeing Electra from suspicion by nailing the person who’d strangled Oleta Lark.

  Temple, now proud in pink, joined the Red Hat Sisterhood river flowing into the Phoenix. In the lobby, the Fontana brothers, suited in tones of cappuccino, cream, ivory, bisque, and generally well-tailored, naturally tan Hunk, were out in full force, all nine of ’em.

  They directed the red-and-purple tide to the check-in lines exclusive to their group. They bowed to kiss plump, beringed hands. Their guiding fingers paused ever so briefly but memorably on curvaceous midlife torsos, merely to direct, of course.

  “Whew,” someone whispered in Temple’s ear, under her wide hat brim. “If anybody had told me aging gracefully was this much fun I’d have skipped right over menopause to the good stuff.”

  Only one person was capable of whispering under Temple’s hat brim. Well, two. But she didn’t think petite Detective Merry Su was up to such an incisive summary of this scene, even had she been here.

  “Kit. My elusive ex-roommate! Come to think of it, I don’t see Aldo among the Brothers Nine.”

  “Brothers Eight. Counting was never your strong suit in kindergarten. And you won’t see Aldo. He’s been forbidden to minister to any midlife needs but mine.”

  Temple laughed.

  Kit went on. “You’re looking in the pink, girl, even aside from the hat. Any unauthorized hanky-panky happen while I’ve been AWOL that I should know about?”

  Temple flashed her left hand, feeling as shallow as a sorority candidate.

  “NO!” Kit shrieked like a Teen Queen. “Major commitment. Fabulous taste. I want him. Whoever he is.”

  “Et tu, Auntie?”

  Kit’s eyes drilled into Temple’s. “He’s not my darling Max?”

  “He’s my darling Matt.”

  “Oh. Well, he’s the bee’s knees and wings and striped jailhouse suit and stinger too.”

  Temple felt a laugh gurgle up from between her extravagantly shod toes to her hot pink hat. It was such a relief to know that there was Life Galore After Fifty. Or Sixty. Or Seventy.

  Or even Thirty.

  “Are these ladies cool, or what?” she asked her aunt.

  “The cat’s pajamas,” Kit said. “Speaking of which, I’m seeing black cats . . . double.”

  “Louie’s here, and he has a little friend.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s gone and gotten monogamous. Some things don’t need to change.”

  “All I know is that he’s incapable of putting a female in a fix now. I had to go head-to-head with Savannah Ashleigh to clear him of an ‘unwanted littering’ charge.”

  “That woman. Somehow I’m going to out her as a Red Hatter at this convention.”

  “You’re also pretty in pink, but an illegal,” Temple pointed out ungenerously.

  “Aldo likes me in pink,” Kit said, “and what Aldo likes, Aldo gets. A lot of. Lately.”

  Temple eyed her ring finger. Under these hothouse hotel lobby lights the diamonds shot out serious wattage.

  “I’d watch that,” said a male voice that had sidled up.

  She turned to find Morrie Alch looking at her with a decidedly paternal twinkle. It was the second-nicest thing that had happened to her in twenty-four hours.

  The old folks at home in Minnesota were more likely to narrow their eyes in suspicion at any such major alteration on their overprotected only daughter’s anatomy. And its worth would only be another dire danger sign to them.

  Alch was chuckling. “Did Molina’s favorite magician finally spring the big question?”

  It was a natural question and Temple knew she’d be getting it a lot. She’d better have a pat answer ready.

  “Magicians never do the predictable,” she said. Airily. “No. You’ve met him, though.”

  Alch was looking abashed for his faux pas.

  “Matt,” she said, and watched his paternal beam return to high intensity.

  “Good for you! Him, rather. Swell guy. If my own daughter had brought home someone that superfine I’d have done the first Highland fling of my sadly ground-bound life.”

  “Thanks.” Temple eyed him slyly. “Is this gonna frost Molina’s cornflakes?”

  “Just a teensy bit,” Alch responded.

  “Don’t you tell her.”

  “Staple-gun torture couldn’t squeeze it outta me.” Alch sobered. “But I do need to talk business to you for a moment.”

  “Come into my ‘alternate interrogation room,’ aka ‘parlor.’ ”

  Temple waved good-bye to her aunt as she and Alch headed toward the conference room.

  “Sorry about Su. She gets a little gung ho.” He opened the door to let Temple enter first.

  Some woman was missing a good bet in Morrie Alch. Temple had a hunch it might be Molina.

  Inside the room, Alch sat on the table end while Temple took one of the chairs and twirled around in it just because she could. The diamonds and rubies sparkled like state fair glitz while she did it.

  Alch chuckled again. “I hate to rain on your parade, but the police have a problem here.”

  Temple stilled herself and listened.

  “Elmore Lark is a tin-plated asshole, but he has an iron-clad alibi for the late morning, the time Oleta was killed. Was meeting some buddies who all swear to it. Background checks don’t find anyone else with a motive, except your landlady. The
only thing keeping Electra Lark from being taken into custody is Molina.”

  “Molina?”

  “She’s with you. Thinks the setup is too pat. My hands are tied. I no more think Electra killed Oleta than she ran the half mile in sixty seconds flat. Su is eager to wrap this up. Overeager. She doesn’t want to give you an inch.”

  “Because she thinks she should have gone undercover for Molina last time out.”

  “Maybe. She’s a sharp young lady, but she gets all that impressive forward motion from wearing blinders. No side vision. In my experience, crime, and particularly murder, is an oblique sort of thing. It slips in at an angle, does its damage, and slithers away at an angle. Like a sidewinder snake.”

  Temple thought about it. Alch was right. Murder was not a straightforward act. It probably sneaked up on the murderer too. A bit of natural fury mixed with what seemed a reasonable sense of loss or betrayal. Human nature operating as usual. And then the same old ingredients that had resulted in a little flurry of aggravation suddenly escalated to an unthinkable act.

  “What are you saying?” she asked Alch, right out.

  He told her, right out.

  “I’m saying our real Las Vegas CSIs didn’t find any DNA evidence on the body but Electra’s.”

  “She found Oleta. She tried to undo the scarf.”

  “Perfectly natural. Perfectly suitable for framing. No one needs to look further. They had the same husband, for God’s sake. No one else remotely comes to mind for the crime, much less has any evidential link to it.”

  “You’re saying that’s all that Las Vegas’s finest can come up with.”

  “Yeah. Unless you can provide some evidence that changes our minds.”

  “Me? That’s your job.”

  “Our job is done, says procedure and history and everything we go by, which is hard evidence.”

  “Electra would never—”

  “You believe that. I believe that. You prove it.”

  Temple took a deep breath. “I’ve just . . . gotten lucky around some previous crime scenes. I’m not a professional.”

  “That’s what Electra Lark needs now. A professional. It ain’t the police.” He took her left hand in his. “Sorry to rain on your parade, Princess.”

  “No. Thanks for telling me. Su sure wouldn’t.”

  Alch narrowed his eyes. “I like Su and I respect her, but she’s still young and needs a lesson. You give it to her, Red.”

  “I’m a blonde nowadays, haven’t you noticed?”

  Alch shook his head. “A woman can change her hair color like she can her nail polish these days. But not her heart. You’ve always had that redhead rage for truth, justice, and the American way. My money’s on you, kid. Don’t let me down.”

  His words made her smile long after he walked away.

  Not much was expected of her in her family except staying way too safe.

  Maybe that’s why she stuck her nose into crimes on her turf: she had something to prove. Just because her frame was slight, she wasn’t short-sheeted in the brain or heart department.

  Even Molina had tacitly admitted she had a gift for detection. That’s why Su was annoyed with her. And why Alch was rooting for her to clear Electra for good and all by finding a better candidate.

  And that’s why her parents and older brothers had been a teensy bit right to worry about her.

  You want to look for the truth in a case of murder, you’re bound to annoy somebody much more threatening than Detective Su.

  Chapter 24

  Bad Boy, Bad Boy, Whatcha Gonna Do?

  Temple returned to the field of battle, i.e., her most stable job assignment, to find TV vans and crews crowding the Crystal Phoenix Hotel’s porte cochere, filming away like paparazzi at a Paris Hilton or a Tom “Crazy” Cruise sighting.

  Neither of those publicity-worthy figures honored Las Vegas at the moment. Temple guessed with a sinking feeling in her gut that the Red Hat Sisterhood was somehow in the news again. Another murder? If so, the death of someone unrelated to Electra would be nice. . . .

  Then she saw something poking above the lofted mikes and cameras. A cluster of black hats, not red or purple ones.

  Hmmm. Natalie Newman! Miss Snaky Shoes was cruising among the local media in the general film-at-six and -ten feeding frenzy.

  Sometimes even three-inch-high heels could not make a five-foot-zero woman tall enough to see what she desperately needed to view in the performance of her job.

  “Here,” a baritone voice said behind her.

  Waist-encompassing hands lofted Temple two feet off the ground for the bird’s-eye view available from a ballerina lift. For a moment, to Temple’s gut and heart it felt like Max was back, taking charge.

  Then she glanced over her shoulder and down on a dark-haired male head, and it was all too plain to her.

  She patted her dancing partner’s shoulder—nice padding! Was it muscle or tailoring? Only her auntie knew for sure. Aldo Fontana lowered her back to ground zero again.

  But she’d seen enough.

  The hats that had become the center of attention in a sea of Red Hat Sisterhood ladies were black, masculine, and surmounted by protest signs.

  WHAT FILM STARRED PRINCE? PURPLE HAGS! read one.

  RHS: RAGING HORMONE SISSYHOOD read another.

  MEN JUST WANTA HAVE FUN. GET THE GUN!

  That one was outright threatening.

  Temple had been thinking that her pert pink hat was giving her a headache. Her forehead wasn’t used to being bounded by a hatband. Now she knew that those black hats would give her an even bigger headache. As would the lunkheads under them.

  “Everything okay?” Aldo asked.

  “Nothing’s okay. Can you plow a path through that mob?”

  “My dear lady, I am the mob.”

  He put his hand into his left front suit coat, like a squat little-Caesar type Corsican named Napoleon, only Aldo was a tall Las Vegan. He then shouldered forward, earning a lot of turned heads, nasty looks, and suddenly pale faces as they spotted his hand on heart (or holster) posture.

  Temple trotted in his wake, ducking all the mikes and cameras, until she and Aldo had a front row seat.

  If there was an opposite number to a Red Hat Sisterhood woman, several of them were picketing the Crystal Phoenix.

  The men all wore black and blue: blue jeans and blue work shirts and black cowboy hats, belts, and boots. And huge tin belt buckles bearing the initials BHB.

  Their signs announced them as the Black Hat Brotherhood and said they were for men’s rights. Temple the PR maven didn’t think that a black-and-blue color scheme was a really wise choice for men asserting rights over women.

  No matter. They were all middle-aged and mostly shy on hair, except the facial sort, and big on beer guts. Or beer-nut guts.

  They didn’t offer the glamour of the Red Hat Sisterhood. No dye jobs, tummy tucks, or false eyelashes here. But their cowboy boots had high heels and they broadcast a certain down-to-earth malcontent swagger as they marched back and forth. And they made dynamite copy and great sound bites. Those black cowboy hats made for instant visuals.

  Natalie Newman had cornered their apparent leader and was eagerly asking questions. Several TV station videographers were capturing his answers over her shoulder.

  From the quality of her questions, she was clearly way more tuned into the Black Hat Brotherhood than the average local reporter.

  “Is this your first public protest?” she asked.

  “Right. We’re the Men Left Behind. We been run-around-on, run-out-on, and just plain run-down. What’s so special about a bunch of women dressing up like freaks and having a high old time while their husbands and kids are untended at home?”

  “You’re not at home,” Temple pointed out, raising her voice to a far higher profile than her frame could ever attain.

  The cameras zoomed in on her for an instant, then fixed back on the spokesman.

  “Well, now, that’s a good point, little pi
nk lady. We’re just here in Las Vegas to have fun, like those Ragin’ Hormone Sisters. Sounds like some New Age vocal group to me. Anyway, we men are here in Las Vegas to gamble, smoke cigars, and watch naked young women who’re worth the view.”

  Boos and hisses from gathering Red Hat Sisterhood women answered that statement.

  Natalie Newman raised her voice so the looming multistation mikes could capture it.

  “When and why did the Black Hat Brotherhood form?”

  “ ‘When’ was at the previous Ragin’ Hormones hooha last year in St. Louis. ‘Why’ was because we men are tired of being used, abused, and put out to pasture when the women get their change of life.”

  “Don’t men undergo a change of life?” Temple asked.

  “Only because the women go crazy then, Hot Pink. You better come on over to our side. We can use a pretty little blond filly like you, instead of these old gray mares most of us are stuck with.”

  Like all protesters, they meant to inflame.

  The Red Hat Sisterhood started up their own chant: “Two, four, six, eight, you old guys discriminate.”

  The Black Hat Brotherhood retaliated in kind: “Two, four, six, eight, you old dames are full of hate.”

  It was a PR person’s nightmare. The Crystal Phoenix marquee would star in the local news on every station tonight. Temple had to do something.

  She used her high heels to stomp her way through the crowding media reporters and videographers. With a trail of ows in her wake, she seized the media attention from Natalie Newman by projecting her voice.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Temple declaimed. “In this corner we have the Black Hat Brotherhood.” She pointed like a carnival barker. “In this corner we have the Red Hat Sisterhood.” She pointed again. “I propose a no-holds-barred debate on these issues tomorrow at 2:00 P.M. right here.”

  Her bold proposal had hushed the contending factions. Temple racked her brains. Who would make a media-friendly moderator?

  “The debate will be moderated by . . . Mr. Midnight himself, Matt Devine, syndicated host of Las Vegas’s own WCOO-AM radio’s ‘Midnight Hour.’ ”

  A series of ooohs among the assembled media and onlookers told Temple she’d hit publicity gold.