"I presume," Burns said, "that you all know that Miss Tyler did indeed keep and remember Our Lady of Guadalupe in her latest will."
Sober nods all around.
"When was this will dated?" Sister Seraphina asked out of the blue, a vertical line etched between her eyes just above the pale, amber-plastic glasses frame.
He consulted the document itself to make sure, although he obviously knew the date by heart. "August twelfth."
"And she wanted to omit the cats?" "Apparently they had palled."
Peggy Wilhelm frowned in her turn. Mr. Burns was obviously no cat person. Cats were like Cleopatra; age could not stale nor custom wither their infinite variety.
"I knew about her nineteen-ninety-two will," she put in. "The cats were definitely left a bequest."
"For how much?" Father Hernandez asked.
"Twenty-five thousand."
"Perhaps I should allow that sum toward their . . . keep or disposition," he said. "She surely wouldn't have wanted them put to sleep."
"No," Peggy agreed with a shudder.
"Before you commit funds to the cats, Father," Burns offered in an apologetic tone, "I should warn you that Miss Tyler's assets were not as ample as everyone, including Miss Tyler, imagined. She kept her funds in CDs; you know what the interest rates on those have been like in the past few years."
Father Hernandez sighed as heavily as anyone in the room at this comment, reminding Temple of Matt's comment that parish priests were often harried administrators more than they were ministers.
Peggy Wilhelm frowned again. "She was getting forgetful, but Aunt Blandina hinted that she had plenty of money to take care of the cats and the parish, too--at least before she got annoyed with the parish."
"Old people lose touch," Burns said flatly. "Lawyers see this all the time. I still may uncover some unexpected resources; she had notes and unexplained keys tucked into drawers all over the house, as many as cats." He granted Father Hernandez a cautioning glance. "But I wouldn't count my chickens, financially speaking, before I counted my cats.
And I wouldn't count on having much bounty to share with those cats."
"What about the harassment?" Matt asked. "Did that cease with Miss Tyler's murder?"
A thrill ran visibly through the people in the room at this reminder of unexplained events.
"Lieutenant Molina suspects murder," the lawyer said precisely, "but the harassment may have been mostly in Miss Tyler's elderly imagination."
"Not Peter," Seraphina said stoutly. "Not Sister Mary Monica's phone pal."
"Does he still call?" Temple asked.
Sister Seraphina shook her head abruptly. "No. And that worries me more than if he did."
But no one bothered to ask why. Seraphina was another old woman, an unreliable or even insignificant reporter of phenomena. Temple found her fingernails digging into the tapestry-upholstered arms of her fat chair. Why would the caller stop now? Seraphina was on to something. A glance at Matt's still--too still--face told her that he thought so, too.
Scary, she was beginning to read his lack of expression better than any expressiveness.
She was also beginning to guess where he had learned such patient stoicism--in the seminary, where young men were expected to listen and learn and not to challenge authority.
'It's so odd," Peggy said. "Her finally ignoring the cats after all this time, I feel cheated for taking care of them so much if she didn't care--"
"But you, did," Seraphina put in quickly, with a smile.
"You cared."
Peggy Wilhelm's face remained leaden, lost. She nodded without conviction. "Aunt Blandina used to mean what she said. It was the one thing I respected about her."
The young lawyer's pale, manicured hands hit the arms of his chair with a thump of emphasis. "It's too soon to do anything. The police have made no determination. I have possibly not tracked down all the estate assets. Be of good cheer," he urged with a hopeful smile that showed the dull silver flash of metal wire on his front teeth. "Perhaps Providence will find some answer for the cats. Certainly the story in the Review-Journal may help."
"Story?" Peggy wailed in concert with Temple.
Burns looked blank and a little hurt. "A reporter heard about the police report on all the cats, and a rumor that they might be legatees. I didn't see any harm in explaining their possible plight--"
"Oh!" Sister Seraphina seldom sounded disgusted, but she did now. "Mr. Burns. Don't you see? You've brought all the forces of animal control and flaky animal advocacy down on us before we're ready to deal with it."
Father Hernandez swiveled his bulky leather chair away from them all, putting his--and its--back to the desk.
The conference was officially over, with little resolved.
Nobody knew for sure that Miss Tyler had been murdered, except maybe Molina, and she wasn't talking.
Nobody knew how much money was coming to the church, not even the operative attorney.
Nobody knew what to do with all the cats, except the deluge of cat-lovers and cat-haters who would be sure to make their opinions known far and wide once the story hit the street.
Temple looked at Matt, to find Matt looking at her.
They needed to nail down something, and the obvious place to start--curses!--was with Molina and the issue of murder.
"I'd rather you called her," Matt said when she drove them back to the Circle Ritz.
"Why? She hates me."
"She doesn't hate you. Police lieutenants aren't allowed to hate. Bad public image. I don't want her to waste her time digging into me."
"Why? Are you a good suspect?"
"I'm a diversion, when the real case needs to be solved."
"Funny, I always thought you were a diversion, too."
He shrugged off her smart comment and opened the car door to a slow seep of Las Vegas heat. "I've got to work tonight. I'll see if any calls have come in from other old ladies. Miss Tyler's death may have forced her harasser to move on."
"Or to stop," Temple said.
"You think it was part o{ the whole . . . scenario?"
"Scenario. Very good, Mr. Devine. Yes, I do. And so was Sister Mary Monica. And Peter."
"But what was the scenario? Or more important, the point?"
"I don't know." Temple glanced up at the Circle Ritz's round, black-marble-encased exterior, her eye pausing on the third floor. "I hope my new kitty hasn't been too lonesome this morning. On the other hand, I hope Louie hasn't come in, discovered her and raised holy hell."
"Louie with a rival?" Matt cocked a blond eyebrow. "I don't think it will fly."
"Caviar's not a rival; she's a little sister."
"I don't think Louie is into little sisters, either."
"He must not be a Catholic cat," Temple said demurely.
Matt bit back a reply and vanished into the building at a trot, ahead of her.
Temple took her time getting her tote bag out of the Storm and walking into the air-conditioned lobby. Her thoughts were as sharp and as aimless as the blows of her heels on the sidewalk, and later, on lobby marble.
She took the elevator upstairs--Matt had probably used the stairs, but her high heels demanded more civilized methods of transport.
She turned the key in her door lock, eager to greet her new baby--and scared semi gloss white that Louie would be there and in no mood to discuss new roommates of the feline kind.
What had she done? Louie was a loner, an individualist, a me-only cat. How could she have thought he would welcome this dainty little pussycat simply because it desperately needed a home and was his favorite color, jet-black? What had Temple done? What would she say to Louie? Oh, Louie, Louie. . . .
Louie was nowhere about the apartment, Temple discovered after she tiptoed into the cool depths of her empty rooms. Caviar was curled atop the Cosmopolitan magazines in their Plexiglas rack, polishing a paw to shining ebony.
Temple sighed in relief and ran to check the two bowls of Free-to-be-Feline in the kitchen. One was mounded high, wide and handsome. One sported a dainty dip in the middle.