Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Temple sighed. They could joke about it, but this jaunt to a bachelor party had turned into a very sticky wicket. How was she going to clear everybody’s favorite guy in less than twenty-four hours when they were dealing with a totally unknown cast of possible victims and predators?

Van nudged her knee. “We are going in there like gang-busters. We control the vertical and horizontal. They will all do as we say while we sort things out. Girls who are bridesmaids or bedmates, boys who are the innocent ours. We either run the investigation or we call in the police, right?”

Temple winced at the idea of calling in the police, which to her always meant surrendering to Lieutenant Molina.

But Electra pounded Van’s headrest with a woman-power fist. “We are Charlie’s Angels on the case!”

“Without a Charlie to dictate to us,” Temple said. “We are the dictators. Way better.”

“Way!” all three women shouted.

Van squealed the Rover around the last driveway curve its bright headlights illuminated, and they pulled up under the huge neon image of a sapphire-blue high-heeled slipper.

Feline Fatales

Girrrrl power is fine, but I prefer Grrrrrowl power.

I hop out on the heels of the Misses Electra and Kit, undetected, of course.

There was a time when I lamented my midnight coat color, which left me liable to be overlooked, and my long, trailing train subject to being tread upon.

I contemplated aligning myself with the early flag of this country, featuring a rattlesnake and a DON’T TREAD ON ME motto.

But over time, despite the many slings and arrows to my overlooked extremities, I have come to appreciate the art of being easily assimilated into the dark of asphalt, the shadows, the epitome of night.

The old man has been exploiting this inborn advantage since he was an aspiring stud farm his own self.

I admit that now he is socially and sexually responsible, but he had a lot of bad years to make up for, including siring such by-blows as myself. By-blows is an old-fashioned phrase to designate unlawful heirs. Those of us of no account. Unwanted offspring.

I admit to an inborn intolerance of the double standard, by which the arranged mating of show cats produces prestigious lines, and by which we alley cat “accidents” are deemed worthy of quick quietus. That is a fancy word from Shakespeare for “put down.” I too can sling around literary hash with the Old Bard.

So I consider this, my first solo case with my female human posse, a testing ground. I am free of male supervision for once. For once, I am Midnight Inc. Investigations, riding to the rescue of my old man, and I intend to prove my prowess.

It is no accident that I have invited Ma Barker, my partner’s supposed mother, to aid me on the case. We girls are up for the challenge. If Ma Barker and her gang are established at the outskirts of the Circle Ritz, I believe Midnight Inc. Investigations will benefit from a large network of legwork operatives.

I do not expect the senior member of the firm to cede a chin hair on any reorganization of our assets. But I expect to win. If I solve this Sapphire Slipper murder on my own, with the semi-able assistance of Ma Barker, I will have a fine bargaining position.

So I tell Ma Barker to follow my lead and keep a low profile, and we trot after the Ladies’ Number Three Lucky Detective Agency at our forefront. The humans can take the lead. We will untwine the tail of the case.

Compromising Positions

Matt had observed the change of power in the Sapphire Slipper’s parlor with a certain regret.

True, he’d held a Fontana brother’s Beretta in his hand and had prevailed, but what use was taking over this scene when every woman in the place, and he especially, was a suspect for a particularly awful killing?

He’d watched a few of the TV forensics shows he could stomach.

Women were usually the victims; men were usually the killers.

He knew enough of the secular world now to know the earmarks of a sex killing: a sex industry woman stalked, controlled, brutally murdered. The setup was perfect. All these young bachelors out on the town for a night. The predictable implication of an orgy here in Nevada, the only place in the nation where illicit sex was legal.

A notorious local “family” up to their silk pocket scarves in murder most premarital.

A girl dead in salacious TV show-style: semiclothed, an elaborately erotic setting, costume and makeup by the Marquis de Sade.

Matt shuddered at the implied inhumanity of it all. Camera-ready.

And him a prime suspect, all because he’d opted not to be a Peeping Tom.

If only he had looked! Seen the crime and the criminal.

But no. He’d dutifully turned off the window on mayhem. Made himself into a suspect. And now Nicky was jubilant that his wife, Van, and her friends Kit and Electra and Temple, were coming here to the Sapphire Slipper brothel, to sort things out.

Oh. My. God.

The fact that Midnight Louie, Temple’s cat, was here for some bizarre reason and rubbing back and forth on his pant leg was minuscule comfort.