The lights, action, and cameras had departed Maylords. So had the invited guests.
Only insiders remained: the store’s management staff—and Jerome, still giddy with the rare feeling of winning—and the Wong party.
Temple had requested that they linger. That they did: the Maylord couple, Kenny and Barb; Mark Ainsworth, clearly present as his own self despite the captured man’s close resemblance to him. Then there was Amelia Wong with her world-class gofers: Baylee and Pritchard, tall blond-and-black twins; Tiffany Yung, Temple’s short twin in black Asian bob and spectacles instead of contact lenses; Carl Osgaard, the tall blond Swede who personally trained Amelia Wong in who-knows-what. These things get nebulous among the rich and famous.
In turn, these separate but allied camps eyed Temple’s impromptu staff, the Magnificent Twelve: Matt, Danny, Rafi, the nine Fontana brothers, with a certain disapproval. Temple made it the Unlucky Thirteen. It did look like the road show of some musical comedy not yet written.
And then Midnight Louie jumped into view from a nearby sofa, did a belly-brushing-floor stretch and swaggered into their midst. They were now the Fortunate Fourteen.
Whew. Temple was glad to see that Thirteen made history.
“How’d that cat get in here?” Kenny Maylord asked.
Temple was surprised by Louie’s presence, but even more by the fact that he’d finally announced it publicly. She was too cool to show it, though. She was always accompanied by her trusty feline companion. Right.
“You’d be better off,” she told Kenny, “asking how drug smugglers and murderers got into this store.”
Barb Maylord frowned. “Someone tried to buy him the other day. That cat. The sales associates were frantically searching for a SKU number and price on a stuffed black cat that the cust—er, clients wanted.”
“He’s priceless, believe me,” Temple said. “But a stray cat is the least of Maylord’s problems. I think we all better get our stories straight before the police come.”
“Our stories!”
“The police?”
“All? We’re not all Maylords employees.”
Temple watched the Maylords and Wong factions eye each other with resentment once their incredulous gazes had left her.
“We’ve got,” she said, “ladies and gentlemen, and cat, the person who killed Beth Blanchard locked up in the fruitwood Mediterranean wardrobe on the bedroom furniture aisle.”
This shut them up and sat them down. Everyone sank onto the nearest seating piece, except Amelia Wong.
“How splendid for you, Ms. Year of the Tiger. I imagine that you and your cat are quite proficient rat catchers. My Lhasas confine themselves to Jimmy Choo shoes. But Wong has nothing to do with these matters. We will leave before the police come.”
“I agree with you.” Temple was firm about this part. “Wong has nothing to do with the strange events at Maylords. And everything.”
Amelia frowned even more. “You are being exceedingly yin and yang at one and the same time.”
Temple smiled but eyed Mark Ainsworth.
“We have captured a twin. An evil fraternal twin. I know it’s clichéd, but there it is. Maybe we should haul him out and see who recognizes, or claims, him.”
The discomfort level of all parties rose. Temple heard shoes shifting on carpet and polished tile, throats cleared. She watched eyes shift and retreat.
Raf and three Fontana brothers turned and left the scene.
Louie lofted up onto a chair and leaned down to pat at the ankle ties on Amelia Wong’s nine-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choos.
Wong’s upper lip lifted in a petite canine snarl, but she didn’t move, or even acknowledge Louie’s familiarities.
Temple’s minions returned four minutes later, the same, wrinkle-suited, pudgy man in their custody.
“It’s Mark!” Barb Maylord announced with a gasp.
Ainsworth himself stepped forward to greet his craven image.
“I can’t believe it!” he said. “We never used to look alike.”
Amelia Wong had involuntarily stepped forward as well. “Can it be? Really?”
The man refused to look up, his hands, bound with drapery cords and trailing tassels, clasped in front of him. His face was as red as Ainsworth’s hypertensive features.
Amelia Wong edged forward, then pronounced a verdict.
“Benny! Benny Maylord. I wondered what had become of you, but Kenny said that you were handling the international furniture buys. You’re supposed to be Ulan Bator.”
“I’m not.” Wong’s words had loosed his tongue. “I never was.”
“The World Wide Web,” said Temple into the elongated silence, “is a wonderful thing. I wondered when you mentioned, Ms. Wong, that your early mentor at Maylords had been Benny, not Kenny, where Benny had got to. But I didn’t pay that comment much attention. I’d researched the company on the Web. I knew all the latest articles and mentions, going back to the mid-’90s. Then, when all this bad stuff started happening here, I looked up earlier incidents in the Indianapolis and Palm Beach newspapers. They went back, I discovered, to the early ’90s. The shocking events we witnessed here, the shooting out of windows, happened long before, as well as recently.”
“But no murders.” Ainsworth was still staring at his living effigy, as if shell-shocked by his own tawdry image.
“No,” Temple admitted. “But Amelia Wong Inc. was not present at the other stores in person then, not after the early ’90s. After that, Kenny ruled, and Benny was . . . banished. Vanished. Why?”
The man in custody finally lifted his head.
“My brother,” he said with loathing. “It was a coup. Our father started the business, and I nursed it along, made it, but somehow baby brother Kenny decided he wanted it all. He assembled a management team loyal to only him, because only he knew all their secrets. I was out before I knew what happened.”
“Out,” Temple noted, “but not inactive. You disappeared, like your brother wanted. Only then you started harassing the corporation. Hiring local thugs to shoot out windows.”
“I had to. Kenny was turning the family business into Medici Inc. Maylords had always employed gay and straight people. Talent was the criterion, but Kenny made it an Us-against-Them operation. He had no confidence in his management skills. I’d done all that. He needed enforcers who owed him. Everything changed. I was ashamed.”
“So,” Temple said, “you tried to bring down the Evil Empire. Shootings, I can see. They weren’t meant to target anyone, just cost the company. But drug smuggling?”
“I didn’t do it.” Benny fought his luxurious bonds. “I didn’t kill anybody either.”
Temple was not impressed. “You just resented Kenny, and drowned your sorrows in food and drink and eventually realized you could pass as Ainsworth when this store was opened.”
“Who would recognize the Prodigal Brother?” He stared at Amelia, looking sheepish. “And I wasn’t handling foreign accounts. I was ousted. Kenny turned the old man against me for the good things I was doing with the store. Made it sound like I was the problem. Who would believe your brother would do you in for a furniture store?”
“Benny.” Amelia moved toward him. “I thought this was the business you built. I thought you were still involved. I never would have gone out of my way to do this low-end personal appearance, except I honored the break you gave me when I was starting out.”
Kenny Maylord had been looking more and more uneasy during this interlude.
“You’ve got him in custody,” he told Temple. “My sainted brother must have done something wrong.”
“Well, he ran at our Simon Foster double with an upraised letter opener.”
“See!” Kenny looked at Amelia. “He’s the Bad Seed Brother.”
“But he really wasn’t very effective,” Temple added thoughtfully. “I’d say Benny is capable of hiring the hit men to shoot up the store. He’s capable of ‘going undercover’ and sneaking in and out in the guise of Mark Ainsworth, who everybody on the floor avoided anyway, because he was such a petty, ineffective manager. And he was capable of exploiting the deaths at Maylords to further his revenge and really bring the enterprise down, enough to make a faux attempt on the life of our Simon plant just to stir things up, including bad publicity . . . but he didn’t actually stab anyone. Now, or then.”
“Then who did?” Amelia Wong was sounding imperial again.
“The person who had a bigger stake than mere revenge in Maylords doings. The person who’d enlisted Beth Blanchard in a major international drug-smuggling scheme, using Maylords and its imported furniture as a conduit. The person who was planning the biggest score of the whole scheme by subverting the Amelia Wong appearance to bring in tons of Asian opium and was mightily miffed that Simon Foster was innocently interfering with the whole plan.”
Of course everyone, from Fontana brothers to Temple’s personal allies like Matt and Danny, to the Wong contingent, was watching her with stupefied expressions.
It was a real shame she knew all about the motive and opportunity, but she just hadn’t figured out the actual perpetrator yet.
A yowl indicated that Midnight Louie was rising from his resting spot and stretching his jaws in a Mighty Joe Young yawn.
The King Kong of yawns, in fact.
Louie looked around until he was sure that he had everyone’s attention, then sauntered over and with great deliberation used an onlooker’s pant legs, and the flesh beneath them, as a scratching post.
Talk about being “fingered.” The pants so honored belonged to Mark Ainsworth.
Even as the man pulled back, screeching, Fontana brothers bracketed him fore and aft, port and starboard.
Temple turned to Benny Maylord.
“You were passing as Ainsworth in the store. You made sure to duck out of sight when he was around to keep the masquerade going. You saw him kill Simon, and you attempted to implicate him by attacking the ‘new’ Simon working the vignette tonight.”
Benny shrugged. “Petty crime to embarrass my brother, yes. I did it. I used their corrupt management tactics against them. That biker gang they hired to transport drugs would take my money and shoot out their windows before and after. Same difference. It was all cold cash.” Benny shook his head. “This store, this enterprise, used to mean something else to me. Now I’m a loser. Kenny outflanked me so fast I didn’t know what was happening. Revenge seemed the only thing left that I could build into a center in my life. I wouldn’t have stabbed the guy. I wanted to keep the ‘ghost’ rumor going. Anything to piss in Kenny’s soup. It was stupid, but it was all I had left.”
“Why kill Beth and Simon?” Temple asked.
Benny shrugged. He didn’t know.
Louie yawned. He didn’t care. He’d nailed the principal perp, what more did anyone want from a feline detective?
Temple took a deep breath, and thought as she spoke.
“Because . . . it wasn’t just petty picture swapping. It was a code. A signal. Beth was Ainsworth’s accessory. When the pictures were changed, they signaled a delivery or pickup. And some days there were both pickups and deliveries, so the prints signaled each phase at various times. I bet some security guy was the conduit to the gang outside. But Simon kept messing up the code, despite Beth’s best efforts to reinstate it. So he had to go. And then . . . why kill Beth?”
Temple didn’t know honestly.
“Beth got greedy,” said a new voice. Jerome’s. He stepped forward to testify. “She was always asking for ‘a bigger piece’ of something. Now I know what.
“I saw them always hobnobbing. Her and Ainsworth. I knew he was her secret supporter, the reason she dared to walk all over everyone else. And it certainly wasn’t because she was sleeping with him. So I kept my eyes and ears open for why. She treated me like a dog. Carry this. Take that. Eventually she didn’t think I could even hear. I didn’t understand her tête-à-têtes with Ainsworth, but I made sure to overhear them. Now I get it. The security guys were in on it, half of them were the bikers. The Ertes reversed meant a pickup that night, the other way, a delivery.”
Temple turned to Rafi. “You notice any of this?”
“Some. But it didn’t add up. Until now.” He pulled free the tassels confining Benny Maylord. “Welcome to Schnooks Anonymous.” Raf corralled Mark Ainsworth next. “So this is the real Molina bait.”
“Hook, line, and sinker,” Temple said.
“Hey!” Ainsworth squirmed in Rafi’s seriously intense custody. “I’m just the manager. I had nothing to do with all this. What we’ve got here is a lot of disgruntled employees and ex-employees. Like you. Get your filthy hands off me!”
“They weren’t filthy until I laid them on you, buster,” Rafi said, sounding very Law and Order.
Molina would have been proud . . . not!
Temple savored the ironies for a moment, then decided. “Let the police ferret out the rest of the gang.”
“Probably to be found in the Biker Babe Revue,” Danny put in with a bawdy laugh. “Are you sure, Temple darling, that you have the ultimate villain that I can truly tap-dance to death?” He eyed Ainsworth with murderous intent. “I wouldn’t go for anything less than a life sentence of dismemberment, you pathetic toad.”
Kenny Maylord was gazing at his brother as if contemplating recommending him for an Extreme Makeover.
“Benny. I thought you were handling our Bali office.”
“Bali outpost, you mean.” The fatter, poorer brother wasn’t about to go quietly. “Head basketweaver for Accessories. Looks like your management-team-cum-secret-society used that to rip you off. Wish I’d thought of it.”
“Family reunions should wait until the police get here,” Temple said. “I’m still wondering where the drugs came from. You don’t set up a ring without a ringleader.”
Shoes shuffled restlessly on the travertine. No one was volunteering to walk down that beige brick road.
Temple turned toward Team Wong.
“Palm Beach. If drug smuggling was involved, then the Maylords store had a beachhead in Florida, a favorite entry gate. But that’s for Colombian drug lords. Las Vegas, on the other hand, and the coast, has Asian connections via the Pacific Ocean.”
“Wong was not involved,” Amelia objected.
“You travel internationally, you ship your lines of furniture and accessories. You appear at furniture markets and expos. You have a personal entourage so large that its members barely register as anything other than functionaries. It would take only one rotten orange in the crate to turn a blessing into an opportunity for crime.”
“Who would you accuse?” Amelia demanded.
“It would just be a guess, but maybe the police can dig up some evidence.”
As the uneasy faces massed behind Wong frowned in unison, they heard the sound of ripping fabric.
Louie had bestirred himself again and was taking it out on a suede sofa side.
Kenny and Benny whined in tandem. Louie strutted forth again, pausing to insinuate himself repeatedly around Amelia Wong’s slim, fishnet-hosed calves.
Fishnet hose! Probably Christian Dior. Temple held her breath that Louie would not snag them.
But he had meatier prey in mind, and in an instant was leaping up at a burlap-fabric sport coat behind Amelia Wong, claws fanned full out.
“Ah, jeez,” came a nasal complaint. Louie lunged and fell while his victim backed up, never able to step back far enough to avoid the next onslaught of felix domesticus.
In less than a minute, while everyone watched, paralyzed, Louie had torn the unconstructed pocket loose and punctured the small sack of white powder therein.
“Carl!” Amelia Wong’s shock said everything.
Fontana brothers swarmed on cue, surrounding Nordic guilt with Latin vengeance.
“It’s not my fault, Amelia,” Carl said. “My life is the integration of mind, body, and soul, like yours. They hooked me in Hong Kong on a buying trip, deliberately, to use me and your organization.”
Amelia Wong was not impressed. “If you had truly integrated mind, body, and soul, you wouldn’t have been vulnerable to these toxic foreign substances. But I will hire defense attorneys for you, Carl. Addiction is so destructive. Seeing the MADD efforts has made me much more aware of that, fortunately for you.”
Amelia Wong’s support made Carl slump in his captors’ custody. “I’m sorry, Amelia. I knew better. I was just . . . weak. I was so strong physically, and then, they gave me this powder, and I felt so much stronger. The weak came later, too late.”
“Now,” someone asked with gritted teeth, “can you call Molina?”
Temple turned to Rafi Nadir with a smile. Mark Ainsworth was in his firm custody. Raf wanted only one more thing: to hand the May-lords murderer over to his ex-squeeze. In person.
Temple upholstered her cell phone from its red pseudocroc leather case and pushed a button to let the good times roll.