"I'm only a few yean older than you, Kendall don't look at me. I don't know." This time Temple narrowed her eyes. Narrowing one's eyes felt so Humphrey Bogart. "I do know that the victim was also a Vietnam vet."
"There! You see?"
"What do I see?"
"That it can't be just a coincidence. Maybe . . . maybe the dead Santa was hired to do in Daddy and somehow got caught in his own trap."
Now Temple understood how Lieutenant C. R. Molina felt about amateurs.
"That doesn't make sense. Your father was not going to be anywhere near that chimney Saturday night, and no one knew that better than the guy who played Santa Claus in his stead."
"The actor could have feigned being sick, then asked Father to do the chimney routine for him."
"Great idea. But he didn't. He went up the chimney and hung himself."
"Maybe he had a change of conscience. Maybe he had war flashbacks or something and decided to commit suicide."
"Thirty years later in somebody else's chimney?"
Kendall shrugged. Her haggard desperation both tugged at Temple's sympathies and exasperated her. Kendall had seen her father "die" before her eyes. The fact that the victim wasn't really him didn't lessen the emotional damage. A man had died by another's hand. Now Kendall sat shuffling files and papers, hunting for a motive and a killer and suspecting everyone around her.
"Could it be someone from the younger generation?" Temple asked.
Kendall looked up from pawing through the papers, and froze. "You mean . . . someone like Carl, my ex-husband?"
Temple nodded.
"No. Oh, we've all lived our lives under the umbrella of the firm, and I'll work here as long as Daddy's at the helm, but none of my peers really are that interested in taking on the agency once their fathers retire. I guess advertising was exciting back in the sixties. Television was still pretty new and there were a lot more daily newspapers. But everybody's into the Internet now. I can't think who else would want something, something about the firm, badly enough to kill my father. Except one of his partners. They were in a war, weren't they? They killed people then. Why not now?"
"What's on for me and Louie today?"
The abrupt change of subject startled Kendall into answering. "More mock interviews, lunch here with The Client. Nobody's heart is much in it, but Daddy won't let this account slide away because someone went nuts."
"I suppose I could get better acquainted with Victor and Tony. Anything you can think of to get me some private moments with them?"
"Oh, thank you!" Kendall grinned. "I can think up something." She pulled another file from a drawer. Temple glimpsed her own name on it.
"Improvisation is the name of the game in advertising." Kendall flipped through Temple's vitae as blithely as if it were wrapping paper. "Aha. Says here you're consulting with a major Las Vegas hotel on a new multimedia attraction."
"The Crystal Phoenix."
"Huh?"
"That's the hotel's name."
"Oh. Too bad it isn't something big like Caesars Palace or the MGM Grand. Anyway, new attraction equals promotional campaign. Who better than Colby, Janos and Renaldi for the job? We'll both look good if I bring you in as a potential client."
Temple shook her head, meaning agreement, but also conveying a certain skepticism. "Okay. I'm undercover for now. Bring on the murdering partners."
Temple learned a lot just from the way Kendall approached each man.
She began with Tony Renaldi, which indicated she suspected him less and liked him better. At his office door, she poked her head through, smiled and asked, "Got some espresso for a couple of weary survivors?"
"Kendall! Of course. And Miss Barr is the other customer?"
As smooth as extra virgin olive oil. Women in, coffee prepared, cushy guest chairs drawn up to the massive desk and Tony himself installed in the white leather chair that Brent Colby had commandeered Friday night.
The only snag in the Scenario was Midnight Louie, who marched in on quiet cat feet and leaped atop Renaldi's black Lucite desktop.
"Why would he want to be here?" Renaldi asked in jest. "Black on black is no advantage to either." He stroked Louie from head to tail-tip, earning a thrum of purr and a further exploration of his desk.
There was nothing like a toddler or animal for bringing out the true temper of a man or woman. Temple settled into her chair to watch Louie put Tony Renaldi through his paces. But first she studied their common prey.
Tony Renaldi, with his commanding stature and silver-edged dark hair, fit the slightly effete chair much better than Brent Colby, the graying blond Yale graduate, who would show to better advantage against clubby hunter-green or burgundy leather. The tufted pale chair provided a theatrical frame for Renaldi's feline masculinity. Temple tried to picture him as a young man, a private in Vietnam. She could do it best by casting him in some theatrical part she knew, say a gang member of the Jets in West Side Story. A twenty-year-old Tony Renaldi would have the lean and hungry look of "yon Cassius," who lusted after Caesar's power. His edges would be sharper, rawer, the immigrant heritage more obvious and more truculent. He might get into barroom brawls with fellow soldiers, debate whose hometown was better, or who got the bar girl. . .
The Tony Renaldi of today steepled his manicured hands and smiled at Temple. "I assume you wanted more than coffee, Miss Barr, or Kendall wouldn't have brought you here. Some questions about the cat-food promotion?"
Temple could be a velvet glove too. "Not at all. As a matter of fact, Kendall suggested I see you about an upcoming project I'm involved with. I'm consulting for a Las Vegas hotel that's planning an update. We'll introduce a theme park and interactive ride. Does your firm ever handle that kind of showbiz thing?"
Midnight Louie leaped from the desk to the long narrow table crowded with memorabilia along the window. He threaded through the costly office art objects and framed photographs like a wire-walker, disturbing nothing but the dust, and there was probably damn little of that.
"Handle Las Vegas hoopla? Not yet," Renaldi answered Temple, "but we'd like to. Rather, I would. Kendall brought you to precisely the right office. Las Vegas has become very sophisticated about marketing its unique attractions in the past decade. A major New York agency like CJR could position your hotel project to shine in the international focus needed today. We have a strong Internet section as well as top staff in such traditional arenas as television and print media. I thought your field was public relations as well.
"Yes, but I'm a solo act. A mere freelancer. I'm functioning as idea person for the project, but new approaches are always welcome."
"Good. CJR likes to get in on a project from the bottom up. Who are your principals?"
"The owners of the hotel, the Crystal Phoenix."
"Ah. The classiest hotel in Vegas.' Clever positioning for a smaller hotel. Snob appeal amidst a blizzard of hype. Am I guessing wrong to say that the Crystal Phoenix will be upping the hype ante, all in the best of taste, of course?"
"Exactly. We want to keep our reputation, but expand to a new clientele."
Renaldi nodded. "First, we'll settle this cat-account question. Then we can investigate other matters. You wouldn't count us out if the client chooses a representative other than yourself... or your impressive cat?"