Part 38 (1/2)

”It will be a challenge. And it will be a good Catholic interment, priest and all.” He savored the idea like aged whiskey. ”Perhaps I can find her something white and bridal to wear, like a Communion dress. She would have loathed it. Thank you, Temple, for suggesting a ritual of closure for her, and for me.”

”Are you going to invite Matt?”

”The less he dwells on her, alive or dead, the better. Ihate to say this, but be gentle with him, Temple.” She eyed him incredulously.

Max shrugged. ”He was naive and he got nothing but well-intentioned bad advice. I didn't help him as much as I could have and I can pity anyone who's been the object of Kathleen's distilled ill will. It's an inbred poison, like any venomous serpent's. He wouldn't let me say I'm glad she's dead, but I am relieved she is. A lot of lives will go easier now, and who knows who would have attracted her lethal attention in the future.”

”I'll let you say you're glad she's dead. Some people are destroyers. They're just evil, like serial killers. And a lot of them are running around loose in society like ordinary people, poisoning reputations and spreading gossip and lies. I guess we can't kill all the liars and sociopaths, but we don't have to pretend they add anything to the world but unnecessary pain.”

”Granted. Kathleen was a disease, and she's been cured. She must have been scaldingly unhappy to have caused so much hurt. That's why I can be glad she's dead. She's better off that way, I'm sure.”

”Someone too ill to live, I'm not sure Matt would ever accept that.”

”He has to, because she is dead now. She's gone, Temple. I can feel it, as I've never sensed it before. That era is over.”

”And so, where does that leave you?”

”Personally, I'm not sure yet. Professionally, as a provisionary member of the Synth.”

”You mean you can concentrate on finding out what role they've played in the column of murders on my table? Max, they could be as dangerous as Kitty.”

”Of course, but they'll never have the ancient hold on me that she did. Sean is finally at rest. His murderer lies in the same dark, cold ground, the universal ground of planet earth. We are left to walk upon it until our turns come. I plan to make the most of mine.”

* * * Louie only ventured out from the office when Max had left, leaving the whiskey bottle for long-term interment in Temple's liquor cupboard, which boasted one half-empty bottle of Old Crow, a vastly inferior brand.

It was like the old English ballad of the briar and the rose, Temple thought, setting the new bottle next to the resident one. Two opposites united. Like Max's macabre and touching image of his young cousin Sean sharing Mother Earth with his conniving murderer by proxy, the youthful Kathleen O'Connor.

Speaking of th.o.r.n.y relations.h.i.+ps, they were all surrounded with briar and rose combinations: Matt and Molina; Temple and Molina; Matt and Max; Temple and Matt ... more than one modern woman could contemplate at a single sitting.

”So,” Temple told Louie, standing up.

The Leonard Cohen CD had long since played through and she had switched to the local golden oldies radio station, avoiding any temptation to dial in WCOO. It was only 11 P.M. anyway.

”You ruined Max's interior upholstery,” she told Louie. ”I thought you knew better than to sharpen your claws on furniture. You've left mine alone with not even an admonition.”

Louie shook his head and then licked busily at the hair just beneath his chin, a sure sign he was annoyed with her. Usually this gesture was only evoked by a fresh influx of Free-to-be-Feline in his bowl.

”I suppose your actions drew Max's attention to his pursuer, but how and why on earth did you get into his car in the first place, and why were you at Neon Nightmare in the first first place?”

One of Louie's ears flattened, and he sparred at it with a well-licked paw, as if to say, Can I really be hearing these inane questions?

Temple examined him a little more closely. His fur hadbeen licked up into cowlicks all over and the hairs stuck together in a punk rocker's spiky look.

Louie had been off doing a major cleanup, which made her wonder what kind of mess he had gotten into. Could it be any worse than what Matt or Max had managed in the past few days?

Naw.. . .

Chapter 48.

Night Music ”Sure. I'll come early and catch your act. I do think you have something to croon about tonight, Carmen.”

”I hope so, Devine. You owe me that at least for my sterling dating advice.” Said sardonically.

Matt smiled after she hung up. For once he would be the bearer of good tidings.

”I've got,” Matt said into the phone, ”a witness to Va.s.sar's death. Where do you want to hear about it?”

The line went dead for about half a minute. Then came a deep sigh. ”I haven't the slightest idea.”

”I can go anywhere now, see anyone. She's gone. She left the planet.”

”Do not use that stinking 'she left' phrase. It's connected to too many murders for my peace of mind.”

”This one wasn't a murder.”

”Say you and your murky witness.”

”My murky witness will be your solid witness. Trust me. I'm no more in the mood for fairy tales at this point than you are.”

”A solid witness, you say.”

”We're both off the hook.”

”Then 'It's a Grand Night for Singing.' That's a song t.i.tle, by the way. Oldie but goofy. Come to the Blue Dahlia at ten-thirty. Think a half hour should get you to the radio station on time?”

Matt always found it amazing what people did to distract themselves from tension. He prayed. Temple bought wildly impractical shoes. Max Kinsella performed magic tricks. Lieutenant C. R. Molina sang.

And she did it very well.

Tonight she wore blue velvet, forties style. Her voice was blue velvet whatever she wore, dark, midnight deep, and plush.

The voice was a gift. Matt's vocation as a priest had forced him to sing the ma.s.s, to intone responses. He had managed to execute that narrow-range singsong respectably, but that was all.

Secretly, he had visited Baptist congregations, wowed by the vigor, faith, and musical pyrotechnics of their choirs. Plain song would always hold a pure, medieval attraction, but the pa.s.sionate musical joy of the black congregations struck a chord in him that maybe only Elvis would understand, now that Matt had been forced to understand Elvis.

Most torch singers caught the reflected sensual glow of the flames their lyrics celebrated. Molina was a cerebral singer. Her voice was something apart from Carmen the Performer. You couldn't get a crush on her even while she crooned Gershwin's ”I've Got a Crush on You.” That made her an even more fascinating performer. The audience sensed something held back from them. Matt had heard that the secret of great acting was to always hold something back, leave the audience craving more. Something more to come, if only you can wait long enough, hold the applause, and ... wait for the fireworks.

But even Molina's vintage performing wardrobe was somehow didactic. This forties gown, that silk blue Dahlia above one ear perched on an out-of-period Dutch cut that was vaguely twenties decadent at the same time it was schoolgirl fifties. Her only makeup was dark lipstick, Bette Davis style. And Davis had been many things on the screen, all of them magnificent; sometimes the neurotic, but never the Vamp.

Matt ordered a deep-fried appetizer and a drink and gave himself the luxury that Molina never had given herself: thinking about her as a person, rather than a profession.

The trio behind her had suddenly become instrumental only.

Matt realized his dining-out Scotch was a drizzle of memory over ice cubes and Carmen was offstage. Time for him to ”strike up the music and dance.” To her tune, of course.

Even at the Blue Dahlia, Molina was somehow in uniform.