Cat In An Alien X-Ray

“During one of those moments, when we were talking about you … you can imagine how much we talk about you lately. Max said, regarding those crazy teenage times in the Auld Sod when he and his cousin Sean went waltzing up to Londonderry into the teeth of the Troubles. He said, and we can’t put much stock into what a man in his condition, not to mention recovering from the violent loss of his mentor, thanks to some unknown assailants, says. But he said, with amazing and sudden certainty, that he’d been in love with you.

“It’s ironic that you’d hate forever the only man who ever really loved you.”

He pushed her away and left, knowing he was done with this charade and that, if she did go over the railing, she would never scream on the way down.

*   *   *

At least he’d learned something major, if he was inclined to believe anything Kathleen O’Connor would say, but he did believe she was lurking there that night. Vassar hadn’t killed herself. She’d fallen, grabbing for her cell phone while gazing out at the pseudo-tropical foliage, inhabited by birds no less, twenty stories up.

Had she been calling the advice hotline he’d suggested? Had he turned her despair around, just a little? Or was Kitty the Cutter just toying with him again? Hope was an antidote to guilt, and she knew how to work that combination lock to the emotions very, very well.

Chapter 48

After the Fall

So there I am at the Goliath, on tailing duty, having shadowed Mr. Matt Devine into the hotel and up in the elevator when I overhear that interesting interlude.

Las Vegas hotel elevators are the easiest to slip into and out of, like loafers. Folks are always counting their chips or their money, and chatting or planning their forays around the Strip. Many are rotund enough that they cannot even see where their toes are, much less me and mine.

And the management prefers dark-floored elevators to resist stains.

I was even able to follow him to the door of room 2032. I cozied up to it in hopes of hearing something useful, but the door was too well built to hear through, especially with the air-conditioning running.

The recent balcony scene outside the door was no Romeo and Juliet rerun and I heard every word. At last Mr. Matt knows from someone on two legs who was there that Vassar’s death was accidental and his counseling had encouraged her to call for more help while Miss K the C spied on her from down the hall.

I knew that all along after coming here and interviewing the wildlife on the scene. I learned that Miss Vassar had come out to gaze on the flora and fauna and make a call on her cell phone after Mr. Matt left. She reached down as the phone slipped from her hand and, sadly, fell.

There was no way for me to bring the eyewitness evidence I obtained from a macaw and cockatoos to human attention, so Mr. Matt has labored under a bit of suspicion and his own sense of guilt ever since. Now he has stepped up and found the truth.