Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (34 page)

Her aunt scuttled in.

“Are we alone?”

Temple nodded at the giant tortoise shape on the bed. "As good as. But come into my office.”

Once they were ensconced in the bathroom, Temple turned on the small fluorescents surrounding the mirror. Kit Carlson wore her trademark big-frame eyeglasses, and an elegant vintage nylon peignoir set—red, studded with rhinestones which were somehow very attractive on a small, energetic woman. She also carried a Manhattan-big tote bag. From it, she pulled a bottle.

“I never travel without my dessert sherry."

“Oh, thank God." Temple pulled the toothbrushes out
of the matching water glasses and rinsed them at the
faucet. "I deserve a break today, even if it's tomorrow. What time is it anyway?"

“
Three A.M.," Kit said in a spooky voice. "When
ghosts walk."

“You spot Mrs. Klein in the hall on the way here?"

“
No. But I had the oddest impression that someone saw
me. Maybe it's just a hangover from this twenty-four-
hour oversight we're getting."

“The spy machines are off for now. The homicide lieutenant on this case told me so herself. The show is 'suspended.' We're all stuck here until the police know whodunit."

“Oooh!
Ten Little Indians.
Agatha Christie stories made
great plays." Kit lifted her clumsy glass with the toothpaste
spatters on it and clicked rims with Temple's. "You found
her dead, poor thing. Drink up, then tell me all about it."

“I don't know if I should," Temple said after a slow sweet swallow. "I'm here on police business myself."

“Listen. I am one nervous Nellie, niece. A coach was killed. They've got us judges and coaches cooped up in one wing, easy pickings. Who's next? Apparently, someone doesn't much like being made over."

“Maybe it's someone who doesn't like women reinventing themselves," Temple said.

“Like who? The Taliban?”

And that remark of her aunt's put Temple in mind of
the lone Middle-Eastern man on the premises: Rafi
Nadir. But hadn't he made over Carmen Molina, to hear tell? It didn't compute.

“Any controlling man," Temple said. "The kind who
can't stand women getting out from under their thumbs
and becoming themselves. Maybe it's a cliché, but there's
truth under the truism. I'll never forget this case I covered
when I was a TV journalist in Minnesota. A woman. A wife. A mother. A nurse. Just lost some weight. Just trying to enhance her self-esteem. Soon clear why. The husband—he had to have been abusive—attacked her in the family garage with an electric drill. And she lived. And stood. And he set her on fire. And she burned. And she lived. And she stood. And he ran. And they found her, burned over ninety percent of her body. And she spoke.
Save her kids from him. They took her away. And she
died. And, you know what, nobody would report what
happened to him. Maybe a mental hospital. Maybe he's
out there. I tried to trace where he went, but my station wouldn't support me. Everything about her was public. Nothing about him was. Reminds me of the vanishing Arthur Dickson."

“Arthur who?"

“There are too many men who don't want women to remake themselves. And apparently Arthur Dickson, the man who built this place, was one of them."

“
Ghastly! I had no idea you dealt with such things."
Kit the former actress and current novelist, a creature of empathy, was devastated.

Temple shook off the past and its eternal losses. "Mar
jory Klein was the most unlikely murder victim in the
place. Do you know anything about her?"

“
We had meetings together, ate together, compared
notes on candidates. Yeah, I knew her, Horatio."

“Wait!" Temple waved the hand the glass happened to
be in. "Is that Horatio as in
Hamlet
and the skull of
Yorick, or Horatio as in
CSI: Miami?
Given your theatri
cal background, it's hard to tell."

“
It doesn't matter anyway. I tell you the woman was harmless. Good-natured. A widow. Urn, two, I think, grown children. Utterly committed to her field of work. Been in eating disorder consultation for years. Thought
this stupid show was an opportunity to set an example for
teenagers with bad, even dangerous, eating habits across
the country. She was a much better person than I was, and
now she's dead."

“
That's a very good point. If one of the coaches or
judges was going to be killed, why not Dexter Manship, say?"

“He's insufferable, yes. And it just isn't an act. It's all the time. So tiresome. Egotistic. Elitist. Everything well-balanced people love to hate. But . . . it's also his shtick. He's an entertainer. Killing him for being irritating would
be like . . . offing Jerry Lewis. He's a whipping boy for
the rest of us, which is very healthy. And the French
would be devastated."

“The feelings of the French are not a national priority right now."

“Oh, pooh. They're supposed to be that way, as Dexter Manship is supposed to be the way he is. I just don't un
derstand why poor Marjory was killed. Strangled, I heard.”

Temple considered and decided to keep the suspected
manner of death to herself. Not that Kit would tell but she
might not be able to down another legume in her life, and
that would be a sad betrayal of Marjory's mission. Tem
ple knew she was taking a very dim view of lima beans right now, as if she wasn't already skittish about them. Who knew?

“
What should I do?" Kit asked.

“
Keep an eye open. Does anybody here strike you as suspicious?”

Kit sipped and considered, considered and sipped.
"That dark dangerous-looking guy that Savannah Ash
leigh calls a bodyguard.”

Temple frowned. "I know him. He's not Mr. Good Citizen but—”

But. Rafi was taking questionable jobs around Vegas, and she'd met him doing muscle at strip clubs. He'd been a strong suspect for the Stripper Killer. Just because he was Molina's loathed ex was no reason to become his
champion. What if this time he really was up to some
thing . . . ugly?

Molina would have her scalp. And neck. And rear end
if she underestimated Nadir's reasons for being here
when Mariah was on the premises and involved. Molina would have her skin for not mentioning that Nadir was here, period. Maybe she'd better tell her . . . and have Molina on-site, in everybody's face? Not productive.

“What are you scheming, niece? I see whole Elizabethan tragedies running through your mind."

“You have a theatrical imagination, Aunt Kit. It's fun but off base. Some of the dramatis personae in this thing are a little dicey, is all. It's the strangers I wonder about. We don't know enough about anybody to figure out who
might want to kill them. Are any of the judges and
coaches previously acquainted?"

“Sorry. Not a one. To hear them tell it. From my point of view, they act like strangers."

“Then . . . what about the people who put us all together?"

“
Who? Oh. You mean the producers."

“Yeah, why are they so shadowy?”

Kit shrugged. "They always are, whether it's a Broadway play or a TV show. Only a very few producers de
velop a high public profile. I'm thinking of Don Hewitt
of
Sixty Minutes,
and, my God, that show's been on since God made Eden. So sheer longevity gets his name out. Stephen Cannell, a lot of people know him, fans of
The Rockford Files
and a few dozen other TV hits."

“I've been calling our absent producers Goodson Toddman."

“Oh, yeah! A play on the names of the old game-show kings, Goodman-Todson. But you're in publicity. You know the people behind the people. The public doesn't."

“Wouldn't that be a great way to set up a sting, a revenge plot, a murder, then? Produce a show as an excuse and pop off your enemy. Or enemies."

“
Oh, great. Now I have to worry what producers I
might have ticked off during my distant acting career.
I'm just a paperback writer now. Please, sir, no more.
Don't kill me.”

But Kit's touching theatrics didn't touch Temple. She was standing up, then pacing in the bathroom's limited space. She liked that idea very much. Don't look at the Teen Queen show as what it purported to be but as someone's elaborate revenge plot. And it had to be revenge.
You don't kill someone the way Marjory Klein was killed
for any other reason.

So. Reality TV as a setup for murder. Maybe . . . for multiple murders.

“
Kit! You're a genius. I've got a whole new take on this
thing. Pick up thy bottle and toddle on home."

“But, Temple, if it is indeed a setup and some of us,
maybe all of us, aren't here by accident, I was invited.
Out of the blue. For no discernible reason."

“
Some people were invited as cover, like maybe all the
contestants."

“Cover. I'm cover. That's good. I can live with that. I
wouldn't know anybody in common with a dietitian,
would I?"

“Of course not. Where was Marjory from?"

“Ah, Los Angeles, I think she said."

“
See. Wrong coast, Manhattan baby. You're safe. They
say not, but I think the police must have someone undercover here.""Besides you?"

“
I'm told I'm only good for babysitting."

“
Not your forte. I know. I'm your aunt."

“Keep that under your hat, if you have one with you.
And we both better keep an eye out to see that none of the
little girls get hurt."

“Sure. But, Temple, all of the girls had appointments with Marjory. Maybe she really ticked one off with her healthy eating crusade. Maybe she found one who was
seriously anorexic and was determined to have her put
into treatment."

“And therefore removed from the competition. I didn't
want to reveal the total grossness of the death scene, but I
suppose a girl who purged herself would consider stuff
ing food down someone's throat a suitable punishment."

“Stuffed down her throat?" Kit put a hand to her own neck. "God, what a way to go. I hope nobody ever hates me that much.”

She pushed the cork back into her illegal bottle, as if
she couldn't swallow anything more. The gesture re
minded them both that no liquor was served in the Teen Queen Castle.

Imagine, Temple could turn in her own aunt for violating the dorm rules! Teenage angst, revisited, made for many motives for murder.

Kit saluted at the door, then scurried back down the
hall to her own wing.

Temple turned back to the room. Mariah was still doing the turtle under the bedcovers. Temple wished she could be as dead to the world and the schemes that must be swirling around here as Mariah was at this moment.

Chapter 37

American Tragedy

"You want what'?”

Molina looked up from the phone receiver pinched between her cheek and shoulder. She held up a hand to signal Alch and Su to hold on a minute.

“
I have more to do right now than act as a glorified file
clerk," she went on.

Under the desk her toe tapped an impatient drumbeat
on the vinyl tile floor.

Alch and Su exchanged glances.

“
All right. I'll find someone to do it, although God
knows we're understaffed. Yes. ASAP. My messenger boy
may have to be a bit unconventional. Fine. Good.”

She hung up with an undisguised sigh.

“More paperwork, Lieutenant?" Alch asked sympathetically. Paperwork was the bane of accountants, schoolteachers, and law enforcement types.

“Nothing germane." Molina sat. "What's happening at that damn house?"