Cat In A Sapphire Slipper

Panting, I approach the dormers for the guest bedrooms. All are draped, or shaded, or blacked out. I finally am able to claw a ripped screen open. The broken edges currycomb my sides as I eel through, cutting a pad on a loose nail.

By now I am panting, bleeding, and furious.

I must head-butt a heavy Roman shade aside until it slips its bottom moorings. I plummet to the wooden floor inside, not landing on my abused feet. I do not know which is worse: more foot trauma or knocking my teeth on some thick circle of leather embedded with spikes.

Eek! My own black facial leather has touched a recreational dog collar! Spitting out the awful taste, I box my way out of the room in the darkness into the hall.

Luckily, it is lined with night-lights even during the daytime, a touch I am sure the Sapphire Slipper clientele much appreciate both coming and going.

I find my way into another room, this one decorated more like a bedchamber than a doggy discipline school. I jump back when I glimpse a black cat in the mirror.

Oops. That is me, but my hair is a mess. I look almost as ragged as Ma Barker.

Now. I gaze around as my eyes adapt to the dim light.

I need a signal. Something like a white flag of surrender. Something that will draw every human eye to my form and will sufficiently intrigue someone in this mob of guys and gals and my usual associates to follow me to where the criminal is hiding out.

It certainly will not be a canine collar!

Something bright catches my eye. It is light, small, but memorable.

Just the thing!

Leading Questions

It was now high noon and Temple was getting butterflies in her stomach.

Van von Rhine called the LVMPD to report the situation, which meant Molina would soon know about her latest and most bizarre crime scene involvement yet. Aldo and Nicky comforted her by saying that Nye County would have had to call in the Vegas CSI unit anyway. Temple’s investigative calls on Madonnah’s hidden number must have stirred some powerful forces into action. The idea of helicopters, plural, had really upset her.

Van worked under her maiden name, so at least the volatile surnames of Fontana and Barr need not come up right off the bat. And it would look better for all concerned if they called the authorities before the distant Big Guys showed up.

Matt was standing close behind Van to back up her story, and intervene if Lieutenant Molina got involved and went ballistic. The homicide detective had always liked him.

All of it made perfect sense, but Temple couldn’t bear staying with the barroom crowd and listening to Van’s end of the conversation. They now knew the “why” but not the “who,” which made this a pretty half-baked effort on her part.

She’d been imported to the Sapphire Slipper to solve the murder, and without a murderer identified, everyone, including her nearest and dearest, was still a prime suspect. Plus, the first scheduled clients were driving out of Vegas even now to add to the Sapphire Slipper’s already overcrowded population.

Temple was a proven failure.

She ambled through the parlor and the dozing courtesans into the deserted foyer to brood. No one noticed or missed her. Even with the hectic events of the past few hours and all the new faces she’d met, nagging worries about Max danced in and out of her mind.

You can’t worry about the whole world, she told herself.

She was so exhausted she’d start hallucinating soon.

And then something came floating down the stairs from the deserted second floor. The supposedly deserted second floor.

Her mind refused to believe her eyes.

A disembodied crimson thong trimmed in marabou feathers floated down toward her. Madonnah’s ghost was up and walking? Or crawling, rather. Even creepier!

The apparition was already breezing past her to the front door when she finally made out the black feline form whose neck it adorned. Finally! After all these hours out here, she had been granted a glimpse of her own elusive cat!

It had to be Louie. His broad-cheeked tomcat face squeezed out a snarl as his paw scratched a gash into the door’s dark wood.

Temple started laughing, hysterically. Louie in boudoir wear? A flaming red thong? Louie a panty sniffer? A pantywaist? A red-hot thong-head?

She almost doubled over from laughing, but figured that the small resident cat probably had a petite box that no one had remembered to change lately, and Louie might desperately need a potty break.

She went to the door, and opened it.

Into the shockingly bright daylight Louie bounded. The bordello was like a casino in that all sense of “outside” disappeared when one was inside. Time stopped. Night was eternal.

Louie had just reminded her that a bright, sunlit world surrounded them. The light also showed how alarmingly tight the wisp of nylon was around his neck.

“Wait! Louie! That thing could choke you if it caught on something.”

He stopped, as if understanding her. Temple ran to catch him. He darted off, around the building’s corner.