Cat in a Topaz Tango Read online

  “You been a cop?”

  “Yeah. L.A.”

  Larry’s head snapped back, impressed. L.A. cops took no guff, though they had a rep for cutting too many corners.

  “Cool,” he said. “No wonder Mariah’s got gumption, however misplaced. Cop kid, one hundred percent.” He turned cool gray eyes on Molina and squinted like Clint Eastwood.

  Alch and Nadir headed for the bedroom, leaving the two of them alone with the cats.

  “You kept this guy tightly under wraps, Carmen,” Larry said softly.

  “I keep everyone tightly under wraps.”

  “Including yourself.” He grinned. “Don’t worry. You got a good team going here. We’ll find Mariah. And then you get to decide how long you want to ground her.”

  “I’d just be happy to have a kid to keep home, Larry.”

  “I see runaways all the time when I’m undercover. They’re nothing like Mariah. She’s a runaway to, not from. Her goal may sound dopey to adults but it all makes sense to her. I bet it’s sinking in now, what’s she’s done. How silly and scary it is. She may even come running back home, or call home.

  “I don’t think so.” Molina shook her head. “She’s as stubborn as her mother, and that’s a very big, bad overdose.”

  “You won’t be comforted, will you?”

  “Not until we have her back.”

  Dirty Larry produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lifted his eyebrows. She nodded. The others were in Mariah’s bedroom.

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” she commented.

  “Only undercover. It hides any nervousness.”

  “You’re nervous here and now?”

  “Yeah. This isn’t my scene. Usually the pressure is only on me, all on me. Here, I can’t do much but ask questions and wait.”

  “Me too,” Molina snapped impatiently.

  Footsteps, two sets, sped down the hallway, sounding like elephants in her small house.

  Rafi first, looking sick, Alch second, looking sicker.

  Rafi held out something glittery and stiff. It reminded Molina of the reality TV show that sought supermodels, Runway, which Alch had just joked about to ease her tension.

  “I found this under all the clutter, on the floor near the computer table and the window,” Rafi said, hoarse and angry. “Didn’t the ‘unofficial task force’ do a halfway decent search, for Christ’s sake?”

  She beat Larry to a closer inspection of the stiff, fourteen-inch-long item Rafi clutched like a weapon. She noticed he wore a pair of Alch’s latex gloves. Damn, she couldn’t fault him on anything.

  What he held was . . . a Barbie doll, all done up in an evening dress and . . . all undone, the long plastic hair snarled, red nail polish slashed across the plastic mouth and eyes and throat, an arm and leg dislocated.

  “The Barbie Doll Stalker,” Larry said like a curse under his breath. “That girl who auditioned for the reality TV show at the local mall, killed and left in the parking lot. You’ve never solved that case.”

  “We never found the creep,” Molina said in a dead calm voice. “The case is still open. We thought the mutilated dolls looked like a sick, unrelated joke. When did this get here, goddammit! Yes, we searched the room as soon as we knew Mariah was missing, Morrie and I. We wouldn’t have missed this.”

  The silence on Rafi’s part implied they obviously had.

  “No,” Alch said, “it’s worse than the notion we missed something.”

  He eyed her hard, unblinking, so she’d take every word seriously.

  “I went over everything near the window, first thing, Lieutenant. That doll wasn’t there a few hours ago, but it sure is now. Somebody’s shadowing our moves. Unless there’s an accomplice, at least it means that Mariah isn’t being stalked yet.”

  “Naw.” Larry was talking now. “It means that somebody knows the kid’s gone, and is daring us to follow and find her. The creep is probably as much in the dark as we are. I don’t get why he’d want to tip us off with a voodoo doll.”

  Molina took such a deep breath that her hand went to her side as if to hold her stitches shut. To everyone but Alch, it just looked like a frustrated gesture.

  “I know why,” she said. “I’ve had a stalker. There’ve been other tokens left in this house while we were gone, and the last invasion centered on Mariah’s room. I thought it all looked intended to shake me up, but maybe it was directed at Mariah more than I realized.”

  She eyed the three men in the living room.

  “Anybody here want to ’fess up?” She was only one-quarter kidding.

  “You suspected me of such a stupid, pathetic M.O.?” Rafi asked.

  She said nothing.

  Larry pulled out another cigarette and rolled it through his fingers. Nervous? But saying nothing.

  “You’re still the prime target,” Alch said decisively. “Mariah being gone and now threatened is just another way to get at you.”

  Temple had lingered in her parked car for a few minutes after leaving Molina’s house, feeling a bit confused and excited and amazed. “Visiting relatives” wasn’t an excuse Matt would swallow, with no relatives in town. She’d have to tell him the truth. Molina was on a mad mama roll to find her errant daughter, and Temple was a critical player.

  It both revved and scared Temple that she might be key in finding Molina’s missing daughter. The idea of Mariah out on the road, being preyed on by smooth dudes, was deeply upsetting.

  She was just a kid! An ambitious kid, but hadn’t Temple been writing movie companies with suggestions of books she could star in since the age of eight? True, she’d gotten over that by thirteen, which Mariah was, but in Temple’s day there weren’t the serious performance opportunities youngsters of today had.

  And, face it, Temple had an instant “in” to this online world of would-be young performers.

  Zoe Chloe Ozone, her off-the-cuff creation, was an Internet hottie! Was Temple a woman behind her time, or what? She pictured a cable TV show, an interview show—take that, Oprah and Ellen! A sudden guest star career. She envisioned herself as . . . Mariah, swinging out there on a scheme and a prayer.

  Grow up, Barr, she told herself.

  First she had to help Molina find and recover her daughter.

  Then she had to calculate her own star power. Apparently Zoe Chloe Ozone was a wholly Temple-owned entertainment entity that would not die. Oh, mama!

  Car Chase

  Sometimes choosing the right ride is the most crucial decision the private operative will make.

  When there is a sudden abandonment of Chez Molina this evening by two parties driving two vehicles, I am confronted by a basic choice: staying at the scene with an unsupervised Rafi Nadir and Dirty Larry, who bear watching, in my humble opinion, or heading out with one of the dear departing; my lovely roomie or the unlovely jerk we both know and loathe.

  I have always been a backseat driver and my personal “four on the floor” have massaged dark, discreet interior carpeting from economy cars to limousines. Miss Temple would seem the logical one to stick with, but she will drive alone and this time I will not be entertained by her spiritedly hostile cell phone banter with the Crawfish.

  I toy with the notion of riding with Awful Crawford himself. That orange Hummer tickles my fancy, reminding me of my Halloween birthday. I would enjoy being a surprise passenger in an automotive pumpkin. Has a nursery rhyme and reason to it, like blackbirds baked in a pie.

  Besides, just who Crawford will whine to on his cell phone after his interrogation might be very informative.

  I do not have long to weigh options as I lurk in the scant exterior shrubbery this clime provides.

  A Miata has no backseat at all. Luckily, my Miss Temple, being short, obligingly keeps both seats set forward; the empty passenger seat holds her essential tote bag at the ready. This leaves a dude a smidge of wiggle room to hide behind either seat without being noticed. She is on the cell phone anyway; probably trying to rouse . . . I mean, roust Mr. Matt.


  So I decide to indulge my craving for a novel experience and honor Mr. Crawford Buchanan with my guardian angelship for a time. Not that I would lift a split shiv to save him from even a case of dandruff. I hunker under his wheels.

  As I suspected, he is on the cell too. Apparently he is alerting his radio station.

  “I have an interview with a homicide lieutenant,” he boasts, turning an interrogation into a journalistic coup in his own beady little eyes. “Might have a whole new angle on the teen pop tart phenom. Lots of human interest. I am on the trail of the story now. Might be a spectacular linkup to my surprise new gig at the Oasis.”

  I notice that he does not mention the possibility of needing bail money.

  That would be a happy ending, I decide.

  Interestingly, the Crawf did put out an All Points Bulletin of his own about the Molina kid to contacts in the teen talent industry at points west, all the way to L.A.

  Meanwhile, my Miss Temple has paused to put the Miata’s top down for a breezy drive home. So I shelter under the low car. Once the top is down and she’s busy starting it up, I loft over the low side into the very mini “rumble seat” behind the front seats. Oofda! Squeezes the interior organs like a Swedish masseuse.

  What a convoy of two we make. The smooth, small, sassy red Barr Miata, and, bringing up the rear, the hulking, boxy, orange Buchanan Hummer H3 with its shiny chrome grin of a front grille that so sums up the Crawf’s sleazy personality.

  Miss Temple is in such a grim hurry that I almost lose a tail tip shadowing her into our car. I could just dispense with the secret agent routine, but she seems to have enough on her mind that I do not care to add to it.

  Also, once we are a decent distance from Molina’s place, she exceeds the legal limit as if we were a squad car in pursuit. Maybe we are. Buchanan’s vehicle is soon a gaudy memory in the rearview mirror. We squeal into the Circle Ritz parking lot on a sharp turn, the headlights flashing across the gleaming eyes of a whole startled row of Ma Barker’s gang in the bordering bushes.

  She runs into the building so fast the big outside door slams shut before I can get through, an unheard of occurrence. No problem. I can take the palm tree trunk up to the secondary bathroom window she keeps open for me.

  I know then that something big is up and resolve to be something little but essential in helping her out.

  Road Scholars

  Temple dashed out of the Circle Ritz into the parking lot, hoping not to be spotted by any residents. Leaving in the wee morning hours when it was still dark felt like eloping.

  She also felt like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar, in a scene from a summer teen slasher movie. She couldn’t believe the sinister, big black SUV, a Tahoe, throbbing in idle near the back door security light was waiting for her. Nor could she believe who sat in the driver’s seat.

  Rafi Nadir.

  What a wild scenario. She felt like the rebellious little Goth girl being picked up by disapproving Mommy and Daddy. At least Molina had phoned to warn her they had a third wheel, a very volatile “third wheel”!

  A pregnant Molina had run out on Nadir fourteen years ago, never telling him about Mariah, but he had ended up here finding out anyway. Temple didn’t know why they were so bitter toward each other but she suspected Matt might. If Molina confided in anyone, it was Temple’s ex-priest sweetie.

  Short form, they’d been rookie cops/romantic roommates in L.A. Now Molina was a woman homicide lieutenant in a major city and Nadir was making a comeback as assistant security chief at a midtier Vegas hotel-casino. Rafi had met Temple briefly before, but he’d totally bought into her as Zoe Chloe Ozone at the Teen Queen reality TV show house, where she’d been babysitting contestant Mariah for her worried mom. He’d—ironically—taken them both under his wing, realizing something dangerous was up. So Temple didn’t feel the hate Molina did for her ex. More important, neither did Mariah.

  Big Daddy got out of the driver’s side to inspect the huge suitcase and three duffle bags Matt had helped Temple wrestle downstairs.

  “You need all this stuff?” Rafi asked, easily slinging the luggage into the cavernous storage space. He was wearing black denim jeans and a muscle T-shirt, looking like the laid-back manager of a Goth girl, who would also be counterculture.

  “No, but Zoe Chloe Ozone does. You’re driving?”

  “My vehicle. Yeah, it’s amazing she’d let me take the wheel. Must be because of whatever she’s got.”

  “Flu.”

  “If you all say so.”

  “What else would it be?”

  “I don’t know. You ride in the backseat, kiddo. Don’t I wish I could.”

  He escorted Temple around the SUV and opened the side door. She made a major effort to haul her five-foot frame onto the high step up. Rafi turned it into a giant leap for womankind by boosting her inside with a hand under the elbow.

  “They don’t make these monsters for shrimps,” Temple complained. “Getting in this is like climbing an Alp for me.”

  “At least you don’t have Molina riding shotgun.” His quiet tone was glum.

  Temple placed herself in the center of the middle bench seat, thinking she was going to be in the middle figuratively for this whole road trip. At least here she could see both of her traveling companions. She’d noticed a couple of backpacks and duffle bags in the rear storage area. Molina and Rafi had a lot less to get together and pack. They weren’t the star of this expedition. But they had a lot more “baggage,” nevertheless.

  She smiled to remember Matt’s wee-hour amazement at this rapid turn of events when she knocked on his door at 3:00 A.M., as predicted. Why had not been predicted.

  “You’re going off to L.A. with Molina and her hated ex-cop boyfriend to audition for a teen talent show? With them posing as your . . . parents?”

  “Hey, I can look positively adolescent at times. But, no, nobody got that carried away.”

  “How can you create a pop tart entity from scratch?”

  Temple grinned. “I’m hoping tomorrow you’ll talk your agent, Tony Fortunato, into playing along and ‘repping’ my appearance at the contest finals with those folks. Molina’s minions will set up the security end of it. Crawford Buchanan will dutifully pimp the Zoe Chloe mystique on his radio spots. It’s not hard to become a fullblown media phenom these Internet days. I’ll be working with pros, remember.”

  “Molina and her ex?” Matt snorted. “I hope you’re a good marriage counselor, caught between those two.”

  “I’ve been listening religiously to a really fine radio counselor all my lonely midnights.”

  “Yeah? I’d kiss you goodbye but you look so teenage and tasty I don’t dare mess with underage fiancées. Take care, Temple. The company you’re in puts you in a volatile situation. Think of Molina and Nadir as furious grizzly bears whose cub is threatened. You don’t want to get caught in the middle of that clawfest.”

  “They seem strangely subdued. And they need me to be ‘point’ girl. A stupid kid with attitude can ask questions they can’t. And get other kids to confide in her.”

  “You can do that with more than kids. From what you tell me, you’re the bait on this fishing expedition. Call me early and often and let me know what’s happening, even if I’m on the air. I can duck away for a minute or two. You have my direct line. If they endanger you—”

  “They’re more likely to tangle with each other.”

  “Keep to the speed limit,” Molina said as soon as Rafi got behind the wheel and restarted the engine.

  “You wanta drive, Lieutenant? We’re not even out of town yet, Carmen. Give me a break.”

  She stirred uneasily in the passenger captain’s seat. “I want to, but it would blow our cover, daddy dearest.”

  Jeez, Temple thought. They already reminded her of Midnight Louie having a spat with his namesake at the Crystal Phoenix, Midnight Louise. Catfights all the way to L.A. would not be fun.

  “Cool it, you two,” she said in Zoe C
hloe’s bored but sassy voice. “I’m the star here, and I gotta plan my audition. Get into character.”

  “You already are a character,” Molina grumbled, grabbing her seat belt.

  She seemed fidgety, and kept adjusting the plastic strap over her long torso as if it irritated her. Molina was almost six feet tall. Temple would have thought any seat belt would fit her like a dream. They always cut across her own throat like a garrote because she was so short. Even Mariah was taller than she now, which only helped Temple’s teen masquerade. Being petite is why her sixty-year-old Aunt Kit looked just right beside her new late-forties’ husband, Aldo Fontana.

  Gee. Temple got momentarily misty-eyed. Kit and Aldo were on a honeymoon to Lake Como and Florence, Italy. She and Matt would be honeymooners someday soon, but maybe not to Italy. Maybe to . . . Cabo or Monaco. Matt liked to swim. Temple liked to look at him in swim trunks.

  Meanwhile, for now, she was off on one of those National Lampoon family vacation nightmare movies with a possible teen slasher movie ending ahead of them all.

  As the SUV accelerated onto the freeway ramp, Molina cleared her throat.

  “As subtle as always,” Rafi said, settling himself in the driver’s seat. “I won’t speed enough to draw any state troopers. Count on it.”

  Molina lifted a tall Styrofoam cup of McDonald’s latte coffee from the central console. “So just what kind of ‘interaction’ did you and Mariah have at the Teen Queen house?”

  “The same kind as me and the little broad in the backseat had. I figured out they were both up to something and kept an eye on them. What with the weird happenings and the place’s history as a death house, I figured looking after the competing girls was my beat.”

  “Some of those ‘girls’ were of age, in their late teens.”

  “Yup. And they weren’t ‘girls,’ Carmen. They were manipulative little sexpots.”

  “Not Mariah.”

  “No. Not yet. She’s gone to Catholic school. That puts off the inevitable some. I know how much you like to put off the inevitable.”