Temple only had time after her intriguing interview with Glory Diaz to rush home and leave a fresh heap of Free-to-be-Feline in the bowl for Louie to reject . . . when he came back from wherever he was to reject it, and he would.
And to rifle her closet for something funeral-worthy.
She began to panic when she realized that the newer fashions nowadays were as gauzy and floral as something Loretta Young might have worn in a ’30s film, and she had scarfed up a bunch of them.
It was true that black was welcomed at weddings now, while color was appropriate at funerals. Yet she felt she needed to symbolize the desolation she felt on Danny’s behalf. He was theater people: symbols soothed him.
She was startled when a huge furry tarantula leg brushed her bare calf. And jumped a little.
Louie had eeled in from somewhere and stood gazing up at her with soulful green eyes. No doubt he had just surveyed the fresh Free-to-be-Feline in his bowl and was begging for a reprieve.
“If only,” she told him, “I had been born in the basic black you favor, I’d be set for every occasion. I don’t suppose cats go to wakes or funerals.”
He blinked solemnly. Temple checked the oversize watch dial on her wrist. No time to dither. In her closet she paged past overblown roses sprinkled with sequins and colorful sweater sets, everything too bright and breezy for such a sorrowful occasion.
Finally she fingered the clothing in the farthest corner of her closet, looking for something she’d forgotten about.
She found it. Boy, did she find it. Her fingers rubbed solid knit. Better.
She pulled out the possibility.
Black knit.
Even better. Not too heavy for the time of year, but appropriately opaque. No panty line issues here. Long, full skirt, long sleeves, high neck.
Oh.
This was indeed her “wake” dress. She’d last worn it at Cliff Effinger’s wildly unattended and deeply unmourned showing.
Her fingertips traced the long row of shiny black round buttons from neck to skirt hem. The dress was several seasons old, but simple enough to be a classic. The buttons reminded her of Catholic rosary beads.
Maybe that’s why the last time she had worn it she and Matt Devine had almost had a nuclear meltdown on her living room sofa. The memory warmed her cheeks. She was never going to wear this dress again.
But . . . it was the only appropriate thing and Matt would definitely not be attending this wake, so—
Temple began frantically working pea-shaped buttons out of too-tight buttonholes.
Temple kept the Miata’s top up and the air conditioner on all the way to the Bide-a-Wee Mortuary.
Like wedding chapels, funeral parlors were established Las Vegas landmarks. The Bide-a-Wee was as high-end as a theme mortuary could get in this town, and catered to star performers.
Its notion of tasteful restraint ran to slabs of polished black marble and pewter and gilt accents, very Egyptian temple.
Temple herself was wearing her Stuart Weitzman black suede pumps with the steel heels. They were several seasons old, but age did not wither nor custom stale Weitzman chic.
The Miata was too much a clown car on this sad occasion, all gleaming red grin, but at least the black cloth top sat atop it like a sober homburg.
Temple had abandoned her signature tote bag for a simple black file clutch bag. She felt nervous, and wiped her palms on the flowing skirt.
She hadn’t seen Danny since she’d brought him the news of Simon’s death. How he was holding up, she had no idea. She could guess, and didn’t want to imagine any more.
The entry door was coffered and painted black, centered with a huge brass Ebenezer Scrooge knocker. One might easily glimpse the face of a ghost of one’s choosing in that reflective surface.
Not Simon, though. Simon’s face had faded. Temple had only met him once, and forever after would confuse him with Matt. That fact made her even more uneasy. She was confused enough about Matt already. Luckily his face did not show up in the knocker.
The door opened easily for its size and her steel heels were sinking into ultraplush carpet the moment she stepped inside. Aubergine plush carpet; in other words, royal purple.
Temple mushed her way across the entry area, hearing the faint tones of Enya, supposedly the top musical choice of chichi spas and New Age harbors of all things massage, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and outrageously expensive.
Apparently top-drawer funeral parlors were on the same play list.
The faintest odor of ylang-ylang was in exquisite harmony with the delicately echoing music. She didn’t know why such elegant touches played on her nerves, but they did. She’d identified a body a few months before in a New York City medical examiner’s facility, which was worlds away from this overrefined environment. Still, they felt like cousins under the skin. And she was here to see another dead body, no matter how formally displayed.
Imagine her shock when a Fontana brother in a dead black suit appeared before her like a well-tailored angel from a 1940s Frank Capra movie, only this was the angel of death.
“Rico?” she guessed.
“Emilio,” he corrected. Gently. “You are here for the Foster viewing, I assume.”
“I am. What are you here for?”
“Likewise.” He pulled his somber sleeves down over his white cuffs and the diamond-studded onyx Harley Davidson cuff links that peeked out despite his best efforts. “It was short notice,” he apologized. “May I show you to the viewing chamber?”
“I don’t understand why you’re . . . uh, officiating.”
“Danny Dove is highly regarded by all the major hotels and casinos in Vegas, especially the Crystal Phoenix. We are acting as chauffeurs and general factotums for the sad formalities.”
“You’re driving the hearses?”
“There are no hearses. Only the Lauren, Versace, St. Laurent, and Elton for those closest to the bereaved.”
“The Fontana brothers are acting as chauffeurs for Gangsters Legendary Limos?”
“And security.”
Temple knew each carried an appropriately black steel Beretta. “I don’t get it.”
“We have a small financial stake in Gangsters,” Emilio noted modestly. “It was the least we could do, making our fleet available to the bereaved. The Malachite Room is to your right, first door.”
Temple followed directions, digesting the oddity of a Fontana brothers funeral.
Another coffered door awaited, this one covered in gold leaf.
Inside the carpet was the emerald green of Irish grass, and the walls were covered in malachite mirror tiles.
Temple signed herself in at the gilt-edged book, and wrote a sentiment on the small card and envelope provided. She turned to face the room. Er, chamber.
Brocaded Louis XVI furniture groups dotted the dark green rug like oases of tapestry. The room was sparsely populated so far, but some people gathered at the fringes. The open casket of solid copper at the room’s far end blared like the final trumpet on Judgment Day.
Temple looked for the living first. Danny was . . . over there, next to Amelia Wong, of all people.
The Wong entourage clustered in one furniture oasis, mostly standing and looking uncomfortable. Especially the muscle in polyester suits and, even here, sunglasses.
Temple headed for Danny.
As she neared, she saw he looked utterly pale and dessicated, as if all the life had been kiln-dried out of him. Even his curly hair looked brittle, like wood shavings on the head of a puppet who longed to be a real boy.
“Munchkin,” he said in a tragic voice when he saw her.
His fingers curled around and crushed hers. “Thank you for coming.”
She couldn’t muster anything to say, and he added, “Not only here, but before, with the awful news.”
Now she couldn’t say anything inadequate she had drummed up—“So tragic, so senseless, so sorry.”
He bowed his forehead toward hers, and they said nothing.
Someone else was edging near Danny; Temple found herself off to the side, facing Amelia Wong.
“What a waste,” Ms. Wong said. “He was young, but yet a very old soul. I sensed it.”
“It’s . . . kind that you came.”
“I was called. I offered my services for the ceremonials, that all should be harmonious. Mr. Dove is a great artist of his day, and Simon would have been recognized in his own right in time. I had agreed to tutor him in my methods.”
“Tutor Simon?”
“I am setting up a network of . . . emissaries.”
“A franchise.”
Wong’s black eyes glittered with annoyance. “If one would be so crass.”
Pardon her! Temple didn’t usually let crass commercial words pass her lips at a funeral parlor. She was, however, intrigued to know that Wong had been mentoring Simon. Another reason for some competitive Maylords drudge to hate him.
Temple braced herself to approach the coffin. Who liked funerals? Never having lost anyone close to her, other than elderly relatives presumably relieved to escape their last illnesses, she never knew whether she preferred to see the dead person glorified by the undertaker’s art into a Glamour Photo effigy or just represented by a discreet photograph.
Each method was cold, intolerably cold, in its own way.
Two kneelers, empty, were paired before a handsome casket surrounded by its sophisticated floral arrangements. The hard part was edging close enough to look into the coffin.
Oh, my. Simon, beautiful in life, gorgeous in death.
She felt a presence beside her. Danny.
“ ‘Mine eyes dazzle; he died young,’ ” she murmured through the tears. She evoked one of the most striking lines in three thousand years of dramatic literature. Danny, showman that he always was, recognized the paraphrase immediately.
The line was from The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster’s dark seventeenth-century drama. Those six words had lived as a paean of utter grief into the twenty-first century, a tribute to premature death, to murderous death, to the death of the beloved.
Danny’s hand stole into hers. “He would have adored your eulogy. I’m sorry you had just met him.”
“No, I hadn’t.”
Danny’s red-rimmed eyes met hers with surprise.
“I knew you, so I had always known Simon.”
He squeezed her hand, ebbed away in a haze of her own eyes’ making.
And through that haze, she made the same mistake that so many people at Maylords had: she saw Matt lying there like the noble young knight slain by monsters.
She turned away, as if she saw a ghost.
The ghost of her own emotions, and the ghost of her own ever-analyzing brain.
The pattern blurred and came into too-brief focus again. The reason for murder just eluded her, but it was there, thumping like a heartbeat under her skin.
If only she could cut loose from her own fears and expectations, she might make some headway.
The only way to guarantee that was to push her nosy way forward, searching for answers.
Finding the murderer wouldn’t help Simon, but it might console Danny and it sure as heck would overcome her own unreasonable, itchy fears for Matt’s safety, now and forever and ever. Amen.