Cat With an Emerald Eye: A Midnight Louie Mystery #6 (Midnight Louie Mysteries) by Carole Nelson Douglas

Author:Carole Nelson Douglas [Douglas, Carole Nelson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Cozy Mystery, Halloween Fiction, 1997

As murderous riggers, Crash, Dweeb and Dreck were as likely suspects as Grumpy, Doc and Dopey, but they were also just the types to let “art” sweep them away into malicious mischief.

Heigh ho, heigh ho, it was off to work in other suspect-mines she would go. Maybe Electra’s mysterious homemade seance would prove more productive than any performance at this madhouse from Helloween.

Chapter 23

End of the Line

Matt almost hung up the phone three times, at each unanswered ring on the line’s other end.

The irony of a phone counselor freezing when making his own critical calls struck home.

Behind his cubicle, the buzz of other voices lulled him. Of course the party he sought wouldn’t be there at this time of night, but he had to try now, while the impulse was too intense to ignore.

At last he heard a voice, a woman’s voice. Though he was calling for a woman, this wouldn’t be her.

“I’m trying to reach Lieutenant Molina.”

“Is this an emergency?”

“No. I have some information.”

“Can you call back during working hours tomorrow?

“Not until after noon.”

“Just a minute.” , She was gone, and Matt wondered if they were tracing the call.

He knew it was being recorded.

“Your name.”

He gave it. Gave the address, the work phone number, home phone number. When it came to what the call was about, he simply said, “Cliff Effinger.”

After he hung up, he felt wrung out. He shared sudden empathy with the people who called ConTact. People pitched to the breaking point. People uncertain. People hoping for help. People lost.

His hands were clammy as he rubbed them on each other. How critical a phone call could be only a veteran of ConTact—or of calling the police department—could testify to.

“It’s cold out,” a voice noted over his shoulder. “Like some coffee?”

He turned. Sheila was hanging over him, looking helpful, looking hopeful. Steam rose from the mug in her hand in separate puffs like messages from an Indian blanket.

“Something’s bothering you,” she said, quite accurately. She was a hot-line counselor too, after all.

He recalled all the brusque denial that kind of accuracy merited over the ConTact lines . No.

I don’t need anything! I just happened to call. You can’t help me … so help me!

“Yeah.” Matt wrapped icy fingers around the hot ceramic mug. “Unseasonably cold.”

“That’s the trouble. It is seasonal. Even Las Vegas has to go through a touch of fall and winter.” Her smile didn’t do much for that face, that voice, and he never used to notice such disparities. Why did feminine wiles in such an unfeminine face irritate so? “It’s Halloween. This time of year the temperature can drop nights.”

He nodded, then jumped as the phone rang.

“You’re still on break, want me to get it?”

“No. I will.” Though why he thought that Lieutenant C. R. Molina was anywhere out there on her time off, just waiting to take a call from him … “Hello.”

“Molina.”

She sounded as official as if she’d just alighted from a squad car. Matt wondered where she was, what she was wearing, if her daughter was anywhere nearby.

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