"He wasn't always in the bathroom," Temple put in.
All eyes switched from Kendall to her.
Lieutenant Hansen swaggered Temple's way. "You saw him someplace else?"
"Lurking in the media conference room. Hey, he did lurk. The room was dark and I was passing when Louie ran in, so I had to go in and retrieve him."
"Louie?"
Temple patted the black cat head protruding from the carrier hitched to her torso. "Midnight Louie."
This time Hansen took in the entire setup. "What's a cat doing on the premises?"
"He's auditioning for a cat-food commercial contract."
"I see." Lieutenant Hansen clearly did not see, but she wasn't going to admit it. "So you saw a Santa Claus in the conference room. When was this?"
"I was the last one to enter the party room, so I'd say about seven forty-five."
"What was he doing there?"
"Not much. Never said a word. Just put a finger to his lips like a jolly old elf. I see in retrospect that he was hiding out until it was time to make his entrance."
"And how did he do that?" Hansen turned back to Colby.
"A small kitchen adjoins the conference-room wall where the Santa chimney is installed. There's a heating vent we modified to lead into the 'chimney' years ago, when this tradition began."
"How many years ago?"
"I don't know, Lieutenant. It's something I've done so long I've forgotten when it began."
"When I was six," Kendall piped up with an odd, childish eagerness.
Colby nodded. "She's twenty-six now. So it was twenty years ago."
"All right." The lieutenant eyed the crowd scene until she spotted Victor Janos. "You have an office? Where?"
"Next door."
"Fine. We'll interview you there, separately, starting with those least related to the incident."
The process took two hours, occurring simultaneously in the big conference room down the hall and in Tony Renaldi's office. The Client was the first group to be dismissed, en masse, as befitted their unified front. Wives and children, except for Kendall, left next. Employees trickled out one by one.
By the end of an hour, Temple's turn came.
Victor Janos's office was a model of masculine simplicity: brown, leather-accoutered and uncluttered.
Lieutenant Hansen, seated behind the massive mahogany desk, gestured Temple to a chair, but Temple declined.
"With the cat attached, standing is easier."
"It must be rather like being pregnant," Hansen agreed, already jotting disconcerting notes in her book.
First came the deadly predictable routine questions. Temple recited name, address, phone number both in Las Vegas and here in New York City, when she had arrived for the party, where she was between then and the Santa Claus appearance. She also explained her relationship to the partners of the firm.
Then Hansen got down to the nitty-gritty.
"Apparently you're the one who split the onlookers into the group sent to Renaldi's office and the crowd kept on the crime scene. Why?"
"To get the children out, number one, before Santa's death traumatized them, or before they milled around enough to mess up the death scene."
"Good thinking." The New York lieutenant said it the way Molina would, as if she meant the exact opposite. "Nothing like saving the police time and trouble on a major crime scene. Why were you playing traffic cop?"
"I have . . . experience."
"As a school crossing guard, or what?"
"I've been present at other crime scenes," Temple said. "By accident."
"Most people present at crime scenes are usually there by accident. Unless they're accessories to the murder. Are you?"
"No. I'm just an experienced witness. You can ask the Las Vegas police."
"We will. Who?" Pen was poised.
"Lieutenant C. R. Molina, crimes against persons unit."
"Molina. One l, one n?"
"And one o, one i, one a."
Hansen glowered up at her. Up at her. Yes! And Temple bowed over by a twenty-pound cat.
"I should get the cat's name, I suppose."
"Midnight Louie. That's 'midnight' with a capital m, and Louie--"
"As in'Louie, Louie'?"
Temple nodded, and then she was free to go. For now, Hansen added with a dire flourish.
Temple paused at the office door to read an elegant blue-enameled clock on the bookshelf: 11 p.m. Only 7 P.M. in Las Vegas. Lieutenant Hansen might actually reach Molina if she called soon. That would be a conversation worth eavesdropping on.
Temple wondered if she should call Molina to warn her. No. The minute she hit Aunt Kit's, she was going to be in a warm bath and Louie would be whisker-deep in a big dish of milk with a little shot of creme de cocoa.
Gosh . . . Kit! She had expected Temple home at least an hour earlier. Was a cab catchable at this late hour? Probably, but maybe she should train Louie to run them down like mice, to leap on their hoods and hang on. That would get their attention, even if she couldn't.
Temple collected her clothes in Kendall's empty office, dumped them in the tote bag and trudged to the hall elevators in her high heels, too weary to change.
Going down the hall, Temple remembered the sinister, cadaverous figure she and Louie had followed only yesterday morning, on their first visit to Colby, Janos and Renaldi. He had vanished down the hall like the ghost of Jersey Joe Jackson at the Crystal Phoenix Hotel in Las Vegas. Maybe he had been an omen of bad things to come. Truly the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Watching the elevator floor-indicator inch toward her position, Temple yawned and shivered at the same time. The head he-Client had hinted that she and Louie had his vote for the job, if the three clones didn't vote otherwise, she assumed. Maybe that was good news, but now it seemed trivial compared to what had happened.
Even Old Saint Nick wasn't safe when Temple, the bad-luck bearer, was on the scene. Wait until Kit heard that Santa Claus had been the death of the party!
Chapter 21
Thanks for the Memories
Matt had barely got home to the Circle Ritz when Molina called.
"Something happen?" Matt knew he sounded anxious.
"Not yet. But I'm inviting you to the interrogation, after all, as an unseen observer. From what little conversation we've had with Mr. Effinger so far, he's got a whole smorgasbord of answers I thought you might be able to detect some of the smoked sham-on-rye he's handing out."
"I'm . . . honored."
"Don't be. It's my way of saying thanks for keeping me on overtime during my kid's Christmas break. Seriously, this is my one free crack at him--yours, too, unless you want to push a deep personal interest over the legal line into Stalking, and I don't think you do. I want this round to count."
"Ditto."
"Get here as fast as Max Kinsella's motorcycle will take you. Don't speed, though, not noticeably, and don't expect too much."
Matt hung up, understanding that one low-level interrogation was small stuff. Still, he and Molina had a big stake in what Effinger would say, would give away. What was Effinger to her, and she to Effinger, that it mattered so much? Maybe a promotion. Maybe a bigger crime to be uncovered. Maybe Max Kinsella to hound and hunt down for something concrete, instead of just nagging suspicions.
Help Molina, help himself and help Max Kinsella right out of Temple's life. Molina would tell him that was in Temple's best interests, but Matt had always found doing things for people's own good a form of dictatorship. He could only think of Temple's searing disappointment if Max proved to be criminally involved.