Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

I cannot blame her for wanting to find and interrogate her latest significant other, Mr. Matt Devine, since he is up to his late-night golden tonsils in suspicion. I believe the least serious charge would be “interfering with a corpse,” which has very gruesome and twisted connotations.

But Miss Temple has not even registered my presence, so I sulk downstairs after hearing all the good stuff. I spot Miss Satin sitting in the foyer and am heading for some ego-rebuilding strokes from a female of my kind, when I stop halfway down the stairs with a swallowed hiss of surprise.

The waiting Miss Satin has turned her head to reveal the old-gold eyes of my feline partner in crime solving, Miss Midnight Louise.

I cannot count on having my wounded pride massaged by her, so I stop three steps farther on at the ghastly sight of another pair of black shoulder blades, these as sharp as a Swiss Army knife, cruising into sight and stopping beside Miss M. Louise.

Eek! That rangy, lived-in, scrawny form can only be that of my newfound materfamilias, the Mother McCree of the street cat world, my own dam, as they say in the horse world, Ma Barker. Damn!

I cringe against the wrought-iron banister and take deep calming breaths, intoning my mantra, Kaaaaar-maaa. Kaaaaar-maaaa. What can the so-called fruit of my loins be doing associating with the fruited loins of my maternal creator? And I do not mean Bast Herself!

Midnight Louise and Ma Barker in cahoots? This is not good! It is as bad as a Fontana brother bridesmaid and a brothel inhabitant canoodling.

While I sit transfixed between one story and another (and my own story for explaining my presence and keeping these opposing female forces from sinking tooth and claw into my unblemished hide), I witness something even more horrifying.

Along comes the latest lady of my acquaintance, totally unrelated to me by blood, at least . . . the cathouse cat, Satin.

Oh, great. I am not dead, but I am like a dead body about to be revealed to one and all: a helpless object of morbid speculation, soon to be dissected in every sordid detail of my life by a trio of vaguely related snoops.

I stare down on the three generations of females in my life, my once and future queens, watching as they begin the edgy get-acquainted dance of their kind and gender.

There is only one thing to be done, and I do it.

Turn tail and run.

Emilio definitely could use some expert assistance watching that dead body.

Posthomicidal Nerves

Temple had never been inside a brothel before. She hadn’t even been to a Chippendale’s male strip show. She had no idea what to expect.

They walked into what seemed like the set for a play, a stuffy, period play like Life with Father, some fussy turn-of-the-twentieth-century Victorian parlor tricked out all in shades of blue.

One really crowded Victorian parlor!

Temple felt like singing part of the famous Christmas carol: twelve shady ladies, ten studly brothers, eight ditsy bridesmaids, four addled sleuths, three senior citizens, two roaming lads, and a cat in a sable-fur ruff. . . .

A cat? Black yet? Louie, wherefore art thou, Louie?

Not here at the moment, thank God and Bast. This was a fluffy bordello cat with green-gold eyes.

Temple recognized Uncle Mario, perching his bulk uneasily on a velvet-tufted chair next to a heavyset woman dressed up like Mae West in corseted glitter. And a second late-middle-aged person wearing a starched collared man’s shirt with a garter on one upper arm and black trousers. Part woman, part man? Part bartender, piano player, dealer, or what?

For the overall atmosphere was Old West saloon. And the “girls” arrayed along one wall were a curled and feathered bevy all in blue, every shade of blue imaginable, from the faint saccharine hues to midnight velvet. And each woman along the spectrum ran the gamut from young and fresh to older and wiser and ready for every implication of midnight blue the law allowed.

It was all legal, and Temple thought it should be outlawed.

Back when she was a TV reporter, she’d run into the tawdry statistics about the sex trade. The “goods” were all spoiled. Strippers. Hookers. Many models. Childhood physical, verbal, and sexual abuse were the guaranteed ingredients that led girls and boys to the sleazy and often self-destructive side of the street. They may proclaim they worked this profession from free will, but their wills and self-esteem had been shaped by trauma most people never had to confront.

Selling oneself still was tragic, and Temple would bet that the reason for the dead woman upstairs would prove to be the result of some perverse, pathetic past, for both victim and murderer.

That concluded, she dismissed her gut reaction.

She had to keep an open mind to dig deep into this culture to find the twisted reason behind the crime.

So. Where were the prime suspects?

Nicky and Matt.

Highly Suggestive