“How is Mavis a victim?”
“That murdered editor at the convention center was the Rasputin type. He convinced his authors that their writing success depended on him. Mavis was his biggest patsy from what I can tell. He exploited her shamelessly; even now that he’s dead, she’s so sure that she needs him that she may never write again!”
“That’s not religion gone wrong,” Matt said. “That’s ego.”
“But the shame Mavis was made to feel for how her mother died makes her a perfect victim for everyday, secular exploitation. Do you see what I’m saying? Chester Royal manipulated her like Silly Putty. And if Mavis ever really saw how she’s been used—all her life—well, that’s when people get murdered, isn’t it? When someone near them sees for the first time what’s really been going on.”
“Most victims don’t turn victimizer,” Matt argued. “They strike out at themselves, if anybody.”
“Somebody struck out at Chester Royal with a number five knitting needle.”
“And you think it could be this Mavis—?”
“Davis,” Temple put in glumly.
Matt looked confused.
“Mavis Davis. That’s her name.” Matt was right. Temple did think that Mavis was capable of killing Chester Royal, and a knitting needle was the kind of flaky, genteel weapon a genteelly flaky person like Mavis would use. “And this Big-Girl-Lost routine of hers could be an act.”
“Whoa—if you’re going to play detective, you can’t get depressed every time you discover that someone is a good candidate for the role of killer.”
“I was trying to play detective,” Temple admitted, “and I’m too involved for it. One last reprise. You make a good shrink. Are you?”
He laughed hard enough to break Temple’s gloomy mood.
“I mean it,” she prodded. “I’ll bet you majored in psychology in college, right?”
Matt’s laughing face smoothed to neutrality. Temple felt like she’d stepped off the edge of a pool and only then noticed there was no water in it.
“More like sociology,” he said cautiously.
“Close.” Temple knew she’d been prying again. “Sorry. PR people are naturally curious.”
“Like cats.”
“Yeah.” She scraped a high heel across the hot cracked concrete rimming the pool. Louie was another reason for her flagging spirits. Matt’s toffee-brown eyes were watching her, warily. Temple wondered if he’d resurrected the subject of Louie’s loss to distract her from himself—from talk of college majors. Could that be? Maybe he hadn’t gone to college and was sensitive. Time to leash her curiosity and back off before Matt got spooked.
“What exactly do you do at your job?” she heard her irrepressible public self ask, even as her sensible private self urged restraint.
Matt produced a rueful smile that Temple liked very much. “I’m a telephone hot-line counselor.”
“Aha! Shrink!”
“Not really. I’m not... degreed.”
“But you’re a great listener. Sorry I was religion-bashing. You must’ve had some church exposure in your wild-and-woolly formative years, as the sociologists say,” Temple speculated. “You play a mean organ. That was a wonderful wedding march you did for Electra. I peeked in. What was it?”
His smile tiptoed around a mouthful of tart lemonade. “It’s not a march, and it’s not normally played at weddings.”
“But it was perfect! Slow and dignified and tender. I’d love to get it on CD.”
The smile had expanded into a grin. “Ask for Bob Dylan at the audio store.”
“Old Gravel-larynx? You’re kidding!”
“Swear to God. It was ‘Love Minus Zero—No Limit.’ Listen to it. Even the lyrics are hymeneal.”
“Huh?”
“An old Greek word for ‘marital.’ ”
“Oh, as in the Greek god of marriage.” Temple felt a flush coming on as she connected the god Hymen with the adjective made from his name and certain gynecological terminology also derived therefrom.
“Were you a classics major?” Matt was asking innocently, as if his mind had eluded the natural but racier connotations.
At least he was interested. “Communications. I did some TV reporting, then ended up in public relations at a repertory theater company in Minneapolis. You tend to learn Greek gods’ names when the director favors five-hour revivals of Aeschylus. Generally in the form of ancient curses. But that melody is really Bob Dylan’s?”
“Really.” Matt pressed his hand to his heart.
Temple eyed the Devine physique. Talk about Greek gods.... Great-looking, good-counseling Matt. Honestly, this guy was too good to be true. Well, Max had seemed pretty spectacular at first. The trouble was that Max had seemed pretty spectacular at last, too. Damn Max. Damn runaway cats. Damn hope springing eternal....
“Thanks for the lemonade,” Temple said, standing. “I better see what that half-full open can of tuna is doing to my refrigerator.”
“Electra probably wouldn’t have wanted to set a precedent with pets, anyway.”
“Midnight Louie is not a ‘pet,’ ” Temple announced loftily. “He is his own person, free to come and go, as I was informed today. And I guess he’s gone—from my life, anyway.”
“Maybe you could get another cat. Mrs. La—Electra— seems something of a pushover.”
“You noticed that, huh? No, I work such long hours sometimes it really wouldn’t be fair. All’s for the best. I should be glad my brilliant idea for an article not only cooled the ABA murder, but got M.L.—as my associate Crawford Buchanan would say—back home.”
“Too bad about the murder. I don’t blame you for getting down about it.” Matt’s brown eyes narrowed against the surrounding sunlight. “An ugly thing: one human being feeling such hatred toward another that he—or she—would actually end the other person’s life. Have the police any theories?”
“They don’t exactly consult me, although I spent half the day in the custody of Lieutenant Molina of LVMPD Sex and Homicide.”
“Why was he bothering with you?”
Temple smiled. Matt Devine’s laudable care with the gender of the possible murderer had fallen victim to the automatic assumption that a sex and homicide detective must be male—but then, maybe C. R. Molina was, in a way.
“Lieutenant Molina needed a tour guide to the American Booksellers Association convention. I learned more today about publishing than I want to know—and discovered even more reasons why an author might want to ax an editor than the ordinary reader would ever suspect. Remind me never to get the book-writing bug.”
“You’re not getting seriously caught up in the case?”
“No, I’m a definite fringe element, but I can’t help noticing things.”
“Leave it to the police; noticing too much might get dangerous.”
“Yeah, but it’s that communications major of mine. I have this insatiable need to know—and tell. Besides, people naturally seem to confide in me.”
“Not always an easy position to be in.”
“No.” Temple thought of Mavis Davis mauling her cocktail napkin not two hours before. “No.”
She couldn’t sleep that night. First she’d had a hot idea—she was always getting hot ideas after hours—and had consulted with Electra, who’d been only too happy to volunteer her talented fingers for a worthy project.
Then Temple had returned to her apartment and a sultry night alone. Visions of Matt Devine backing up Bob Dylan on an organ, wearing nothing but a pair of bathing trunks, revved her active imagination, along with scenes of Midnight Louie’s presumed triumphal welcome back into the bosom of the Crystal Phoenix.
And then there were the trio of authors she met that day. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Lanyard Hunter, but he was scheduled for an interview tomorrow—today—and she probably could catch him then....