Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit (14 page)

“Milk would be better," she observed.

“Not manly," Matt said, still choking a little. "Okay. What's it all about, AlfieT' he looked around, suddenly aware. "Is Mariah off with her friends?"

“
Yes, and no. And, yes, we are alone here. I arranged it
that way."

“Really? Is this entrapment? This is very low-alcoholcontent beer."

“Only entrapment for your professional opinion."

“You didn't have to ply me with dinner for that.”

She sat back on her tailbone in her chair, balancing her beer bottle on her stomach. This was no Molina he'd ever imagined.

“Mariah is away from home for a couple of weeks.”

“What does that mean?"

“It means that my naive, gutsy daughter got herself accepted by some stupid, exploitative reality TV show, and
Mama couldn't say no without being cursed for life.
So. . ."

“Wait a minute! Is that the Teen Queen thing?"

“And 'Tween Queen," she corrected with loathing. "Mariah thinks she wants to be a singing star and win a date with the latest Boy Toy nonsinger around. What's a mother to do? I could take any casino boss in town in for questioning, but I can't put a leash on my only daughter.”

Matt chewed some nachos while he thought about it. "No, you're right. You can't. She got accepted? On her own?"

“Yeah. Every kid has access to a video recorder nowadays."

“Mariah? She's just a baby."

“Are you out of it! This is not what I want your advice on. Here. Watch her homemade video. The one that got her on the show.”

Molina got up, skirts swaying, to pop in the offending video.

Matt began to understand her mixture of panic and
pride. Mariah had shot up. Those chubby baby features and limbs were starting to look coltish and graceful. Her
eyes were as dark as her mother's were light, making
Matt wonder about the father again. Likely Hispanic.

Molina was half and half, although what the other half
was he couldn't guess.

Mariah's voice was a contralto that blared like a boom box on occasion. She was a belter, unlike her crooner mother, and suited the pop music mode of her own day. But she had a voice. Too.

Molina got up to eject the tape and dropped it atop
the TV.

Matt decided it was time to gently probe at the maternal wounds. "So the problem is . . . Mariah is unrealistic about a performing career?"

“Who isn't unrealistic about a performing career?
Everybody dreams. Maybe a tenth of one percent lives
the dream. No, the kid can try it. She might break the
odds. I think this freaking show is foolishness, but that's not the problem. It's possible that a killer is stalking the contestants."

“My God."

“I've got people on the stalker thing. That's not the big problem."

“What on earth could be, then?”

Molina leaned back, drained a bottle of Dos Equis,
eyed the pathetic level in his own bottle, and got up.

“
We're out of beer, and the chili on the stove is about to
desiccate. Come, sit down and eat.”

Chapter 14

Bad Daddy

The chili was red, full of beans and beef, and hot enough
to fry the soles off a pair of Dr. Scholl's sandals.
Matt tucked in.

He and Molina sat at a small round table in a tiny bay window off the kitchen. He sensed this nook was hardly
ever used for dining. Instead, quick bites were taken at
the elbow-height eating bar between the kitchen and the living room.

Molina had poured their beers into thick glass mugs chilled in the refrigerator. Correction: Carmen had done that.

“So the problem—" Matt began when the first edge of his hunger had been soothed.

She had only picked at her chili—the plump bean here,
the chunk of ground beef there. An occasional ring of soft-cooked jalapeno. She leaned back in her chair, suddenly Madame Interrogator again.

“You know what it's like to be a bastard.”

Professional interrogator. Always went for shock
value.

“
Yeah. It means your mother is called names for the
sin of being trusting and honest. Is there a woman in the
world who gets caught in such a situation who antici
pated it, or wanted it?"

“Maybe only the Virgin Mary."

“She got a warning from an angel."

“So. I know you resented, even hated, your stepfather. Have you also resented your real father?"

“
This business of 'real' parents is interesting. There
are genetic parents, and spiritual parents, and stepparents.
Any and all of them can be horrible, or great."

“I don't need generalizations."

“That's mostly what's out there, like it or not."

“I like it not." She took a swallow from the beer mug. "Mariah's father is in town."

“The guy . . . from Los Angeles? Your—?"

“Yeah. My 'question mark.' I tried to divert him by setting Kinsella on his trail but then I ended up with two snakes on mine."

“How does Max come into this?"

“
Max!
Even that's a damn anagram, not a given name.
Michael Aloysius Xavier
Kinsella. The man's a puzzle
from the most elementary fact."

“All good Irish-Catholic given names," Matt said, savoring the effect.

“Like Matthias," she lashed back.

“Not particularly Irish Catholic. Look, I know this is serious, but I also think you're seriously hung up on Max
Kinsella. He's not the father of your child, and that's
who's really got you riled.”

She huffed out a sigh, part anger, and part exaspera
tion. "You're right about that. Screw Max Kinsella. He's off my most-wanted list. It's this other guy."

“You mentioned him to me a long while back. The one
you were living with in L.A. who got you into that ethical
corner of unwanted pregnancy. To abort or not to abort. Didn't you think he'd pushed a pin through your diaphragm?"

“
I can't believe I'm sitting here discussing this in
depth with a priest."

“
What do you think I did all those years of being a
priest? Discussed the unthinkable with the unwilling.
I've heard it all."

“But you haven't lived it all."

“No. That's my weakness."

“What's mine?"

“
You think you've lived it all. So this guy is here in
town now."

“Worse. He's finally put two and two together. He re
alizes I live and work here. Next thing, he'll find out
about Mariah. Your little friend is pretty helpful in that quarter."

“Temple? How so?"

“
She's hooked up with him somehow. She fairly rev
eled in having him pretend to nab a perp in my last case.
I admit I was on her about Kinsella but that's no reason to
sell a thirteen-year-old down the river."

“Wait a minute. Temple wouldn't do that. She doesn't know this guy is Mariah's father."

“You didn't tell her?"

“No. The time you mentioned it to me, he didn't have a name, much less a local mailing address. I'd have never
told Temple anything about it. That was . . . confidential."

“
Confessionally secret?"

“Not technically, but as far as I was concerned. I'd virtually forgotten about it. Believe me, Carmen. No one
knows but you and me, and I'm not talking. Ever. Not
even to you if you want it that way.”

She took a deep breath, leaned back in her chair, rubbed a hand over her forehead, disarranging her Dutch-cut bangs.

“Never ever?"

“Never ever."

“Then do you think I have to tell Mariah about her so-called father, or vice versa? Can't he just go away?”

“What do you think?”

She paused to do just that. "There's unfinished busi
ness. He won't go away, now that he's found me, because I went away from him all those years ago."

“
I can't believe Temple would champion him."

“
I rode her about Kinsella for over a year. I imagine it's
sweet revenge."

“Temple isn't vengeful."

“
What you know about women I could put in a thimble.”

“
Do you sew? Not very useful then. So what are you asking me?"

“Do I need to let Mariah know about him before he finds out about her and tells her himself?”

Matt didn't hesitate a moment. "If there's the danger
of the latter, yes."

“That is not what I wanted to hear."

“Yes, it is. You wanted to hear the truth from an uninvolved person. And you did."

“You're uninvolved?"

“Pretty much."

“What does that make you, then?"

“In worse shape than you are. Oughta be some comfort.”

She smiled and scratched her neck. "Actually, it is.”

Matt insisted on helping with the cleanup, which mostly involved soaking the dishes in one side of the sink while Tabitha patted the bubbles.

“
You remember seeing me wear a blue velvet dress at the Blue Dahlia," Carmen asked out of the . . . well, blue.

“
No. I remember a ruby-purple one. And black. But
not blue."

“I've got one in my closet and can't ever remember wearing it, much less buying it."

“You don't wear them that often, do you? Especially lately."

“
That a hint that I oughta climb back onto that stool
and sing?"

“It must be hard to keep your voice up if you don't exercise it regularly."

“True.”

The doorbell rang, catching them both with hands in soapy water.

Carmen tossed Matt a towel after she'd blotted her palms, and headed for the front door with raised eye
brows, obviously not expecting company.

Matt heard voices from the living room. The other one was male so he ambled out there, just in case, although Molina was a match for most men on the planet.

A guy about his size in a black jeans jacket was just inside the door, talking faster than a Fuller Brush man.

Seeing Matt stopped him dead. "You've got company,
sorry. I thought you wanted these documents right away."

“
Tomorrow at work would have done," Carmen was saying coolly, but her manner was edgy.

The guy was one of those dirty blonds whose face was all angles sharp enough to cut you. You could see him as the scrappy kind of kid who always got into playground fights. Tough in an oddly admirable way. He seemed too
lean and hungry to be a beat cop: those guys tended to
have sloppy beer bellies and neat mustaches, and the de
ceptively laid-back attitudes of those who know they're
in authority.

In the ensuing silence, Carmen did introduction duties, clearly loathing every word.

“
Larry Paddock, Matt Devine." She emphatically
avoided saying what either of them was.

Paddock nodded, Matt nodded back.

Matt was the guy with chili powder on his breath, so Paddock had to leave.

He ducked his head and backed out, looking none too pleased.

Carmen put the small manila envelope, unopened, on the TV cabinet. "This job never leaves you alone." Larry Paddock's drive-by visit had broken the off-hours mood.