Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

Temple closed the door as soon as polite goodbyes had been said. She couldn’t stand to watch the couple shrink down the hall, even the big black form of Midnight Louie shriveling at last.

“Dumb name!” She kicked the wastepaper basket, paused, then bent to stuff papers, paper clips and candy-bar wrappers back in one by one.

Finally all that was left to do was to collect her tote bag and go home. On the way out she hesitated. A stack of newspaper second fronts sat on the secretary’s desk, ready for clipping and saving. Trust Valerie to remember.

“Well.” Temple slipped a copy off the pile and stared at the too-cute pose of the recently reclaimed Midnight Louie. “I guess our sleuthing days are over, Sherlock.”

She wasn’t burdened by a cat carrier and its eighteen-pound resident when she arrived at the Circle Ritz, but Temple felt as if she were. The June heat welded her linen blouse and skirt to her body and turned her pantyhose into steaming spandex long johns. The sky was the deep, dark blue of Lake Mead, and the distant ruffle of burnt-sienna mountain ranges shimmered blue-purple in the heat.

Temple parked her aqua Geo Storm next to the Ford Escort that had taken the last shaded spot, unfurled her cardboard sun-shield over the dashboard and trudged to the building’s rear and through the wooden gate.

She scraped a lounge chair into the palm tree’s shade and collapsed with a vehemence that made the lounge frame squeak for mercy. At her size, she didn’t often make such a big impression on inanimate objects.

“Another bad day?”

A familiar head had popped over the pool’s old-fashioned tiled edge. Temple mused darkly on the likely untrustworthiness of men who could look attractive even with their hair wet.

“Where’s the cat?” Matt Devine asked next.

“In the afternoon edition of the paper.”

Matt cocked an eyebrow and hefted his chest out of the water by bracing his elbows on the edge. “That’s bad?”

“That’s good.” She sighed.

Matt pulled himself all the way out while Temple tried not to watch. She’d once attempted to exit a pool the hard way and had ended up clawing at the concrete like a drowning lemming.

“Mrs. Lark made lemonade—want some?” he offered.

“Thanks.”

The glass—a tall, thin tulip-shaped vintage number with Saturn-like silver rings around the top—was stippled with water drops, and so was Matt. A delicate blend of jasmine, chlorine and sweat perfumed the air. Bees hummed in the oleander bush. Matt pulled his lounge chair into the shade beside Temple.

“How’d the cat make the daily news?” he wondered.

Temple unenthusiastically produced the second section she’d grabbed at the office. Matt carefully dried his hands on the towel draping his lounge chair and took it.

“Cute story—takes the heat off the news of the murder at the convention center. Your idea?”

She nodded disconsolately.

“Why so glum? Looks like your strategy worked.”

“Too well.” Temple sipped the lemonade—tart the way she liked it—and smiled just a little. “This couple turns up from the Crystal Phoenix down the Strip and claims the cat is some ‘house’ stray they’ve had around for years. So... bye, bye, Midnight Louie.”

“Midnight Louie, huh? Yeah, he’s the rambling, rogue feline type, all right. And you’d gotten attached to the cat.”

“Maybe I have a tendency to get inappropriately attached.”

Matt smiled at Midnight Louie’s likeness. “So do most people. Animals seldom make that mistake, and certainly not cats.”

“I was getting used to the clump of his big paws around the place. When you live alone....” She let it trail off, aware she was dumping her bad mood on a mere acquaintance.

“Have you always lived alone here?” The disingenuous tone to Matt’s voice in no way could be mistaken for a flattering personal interest in her answer.

“No,” Temple said.

“I’m not used to living alone, either.”

Curiosity killed the cat, she reminded herself, too downcast to inquire further into that intriguing confession.

“That’s why I like Mrs. Lar—Electra’s place here,” Matt said. “It feels like a community... I don’t know—like a campus dorm or something.”

Temple nodded. “Electra has a way of making her tenants feel at home, just like she makes the soft-sculpture people in her pews seem almost real. She even names them and accessorizes them down to their pinkie rings with estate-sale finds.”

“If only all congregations were so attentive.” Matt smiled wryly. “Just what are Electra’s ministerial credentials?”

“Frankly? The Church of Barely Respectable Mumbo-Jumbo. Some mail-order ministry that believes in assorted paranormal phenomena. Las Vegas boasts twenty-five wedding chapels, and half of the officiators are women, but they’re all nondenominational. Luckily, you don’t need establishment credentials to marry people in Las Vegas, just a state license.”

Matt shook his head and sipped lemonade.

“Churches can be... funny things,” Temple found herself musing out of the blue—out of her prolonged blue mood, rather. “Religion can be dangerous.”

Matt kept a blandly neutral face. “What do you mean?”