Part 20 (1/2)
”Who's Gandolph?” Matt asked.
Neither Temple nor Max answered him. They were staring at each other, lost in the implications.
”The question is,” Max told Temple, ”was the ring left there to implicate you, or me?”
”Temple, obviously.” Matt ran a hand through his blond hair as if unconsciously pus.h.i.+ng away an encroaching headache. ”Even Molina's not so obsessed with arresting the great Max Kinsella that she'd blame you for the death of anyone simply connected with magic.”
A silence. They were three, but there were islands of knowledge between them shared by only two, and perhaps in some case by only one. Time to build bridges over troubled water.
Temple focused on Matt. ”Gloria Fuentes has a more direct connection to Max than mere magic. She was the longtime a.s.sistant to Max's mentor, Gandolph the Great.”
The news jolted Matt. ”Wasn't that the fellow killed at last Halloween's Houdini seance? And now you tell me this guy's retired ex-a.s.sistant was killed only a few months later?”
”Yes.” Max was terse. ”You see what Molina could do with those facts, given her hard-on for charging me with some crime or other.”
”So-” Matt was perking up from the funk he'd been in since hearing the shocking news of Va.s.sar's death. ”That ring being at Gloria Fuentes's death scene was a double whammy for Max, only Molina didn't know it. Doesn't know it?”
”No, thank G.o.d.” Temple grimaced. ”And don't you tell her. That's why I didn't invite her to our heart-to-heart. Even though she's up to her s.h.i.+eld in your recent foray into the local s.e.x industry, she has no idea of how badly someone is out to get Max. It has to be Kathleen 0' Connor.”
”Why?” Matt demanded.
”She doesn't let go,” Max put in. ”I also reacted to Sean's death differently than she expected. Guilt, she got that, an endless peat bog's worth to wallow in. But I went undercover in the IRA, found out who bombed that pub, and turned them in, remember.”
”That's right. You were reared Catholic yet you betrayed the IRA.”
”I would have betrayed the pope to get the ones who killed Sean.” His eyes narrowed at Matt. ”You can probably dig that. You were pretty hot to find your evil stepfather. Didn't you ever want to wring his neck?”
Matt nodded. ”And now I'd like to wring the neck of whoever hurt Va.s.sar.”
”You, ah,” Max said cautiously, ”can't offer any insight on her last hours on earth?”
”Nothing except that she was alive and well when I left her.”
Max refrained from asking how well, for which Temple gave him full credit. The conversation was getting unbearable for all-parties involved.
”I realize,” Matt said, looking steadfastly at the top of the coffee table, which was littered with sections from two days' worth of newspapers, ”that inquiring minds want to know what happened between Va.s.sar and me. Sorry. No comment.”
”What did Molina say to that?” Max asked with his best Mr. Spock raised eyebrow.
”Nothing. She never asked.”
Max suddenly laughed. ”I love it! You shut down Molina on a case where her own hide is at stake. I've heard of Teflon politicians, but you, Devine, have a Teflon s.e.x life. Nothing sticks but mystery.”
”Yet,” Matt said. ”She hasn't asked me yet.”
”And if she does?”
”I tell her the same thing I tell you: no prurient details. Va.s.sar deserves better than that. She deserves a heck of a lot better than what happened to her, however it happened. I didn't know her like a cousin, but I did get to know her enough to realize that.”
Another awkward silence.
Temple broke in with her best nonintimidating small wee voice. ”Can you tell us, Matt, if you had any reason to think she might commit suicide?”
He stared at the pages of newsprint again, one bearing a small front-page story about a plunge to death at the Goliath. Then his eyes met Temple's.
”I don't know. She had . . . issues. Doesn't everybody?”
”Amen, brother,” Max agreed. ”Okay. If I'm reading this right, you don't know yourself whether she jumped or was pushed, and you're the last known person to have seen her.”
”Yes.”
”When exactly was the 'last time'?” Temple asked, eyeing the newspapers.
”Four A.M.”
”So you spent, what, six hours with her?”
”More like eight. Call it a s.h.i.+ft, if you like.”
”I'm not calling it anything,” Temple said carefully. ”You must have gotten to know her ... talked ... in all that time.”
He nodded.
”Tell us about her,” Max said in a surprisingly calm voice. ”She's just a role to most people in a town filled with hookers and call girls and boys and private dancers. Tell us about her, not about what she did for a living.”
Matt nodded, seeming to welcome the chance. He leaned back, clasped his tanned hands around one khaki-clad knee. The casual pose couldn't disguise the darkness in his voice.
”Molina . . . misrepresented her to me. Not her fault. She gave me the best advice she could.”
”Humph!” Temple couldn't resist inserting. ”You didn't hear anything of the kind from me!”
”I heard it from you, though,” he said with a glance at Max. ”And Leticia at work. Everybody said this was the best thing to do.”
”Not me,” Temple said.
Matt finally met her glance. ”I wish to G.o.d now I'd listened to what you didn't tell me to do. Anyway, Molina swore that this level of call girl would be smart, comfortable with herself and her ... job, impersonally personal, the solution I so desperately needed. And I don't think even you”-he eyed Max-”know what it's really like to have Kitty O'Connor on your case, day in and night out. She was beginning to seem omniscient.”
”Like G.o.d,” Max suggested, ”or your own conscience. The Hound of h.e.l.l. Impossible to flee.”
”And she'd made enough threatening gestures at females I knew . . . Mariah, even Electra, that I was pretty paranoid and ripe for her manipulation. And for drastic solutions.” Matt shook his head. ”The idea was that she couldn't track me to a call girl the bellman sent up, and I ran all over Las Vegas to lose her.”
”Not enough,” Max said. ”I saw you go into the Goliath that night.”
”You!”
Max managed to shrug indifferently and look sheepish at the same time. ”I knew Kathleen was stalking you. I wanted to catch a glimpse of how she looks today. You did a d.a.m.n fine job of trying to lose a tail. If I hadn't known you, I might have lost you.”