Cat in an Alphabet Endgame: A Midnight Louie Mystery (The Midnight Louie Mysteries Book 28) Read online

  THE COLORFUL MIDNIGHT LOUIE ALPHABET SAGA CONCLUDES…

  Follow the clues from the Cat in an Alphabet Soup foundation novel through a colorful kaleidoscope of crimes as the bestselling cat mystery series goes from A to Z to the final book of the alphabet series Cat in a Alphabet Endgame

  LONG AWAITED! In the twenty-eighth and last Midnight Louie alphabet mystery, New York Times Notable Book of the Year author Carole Nelson Douglas’s cast of four human crime solvers, plus feline PI Midnight Louie, must not only stop a massive Las Vegas conspiracy involving international terrorism, but Midnight Louie’s roommate, PR powerhouse Temple Barr, is on the brink of marriage. Will syndicated radio counselor and ex-priest Matt Devine’s inside track lose out to the return of that wily dark horse, magician Max Kinsella? The suspense is killing somebody.

  Meanwhile, a Strip-wide resurgence of the long-vanquished Las Vegas mob could have Temple in search of an undertaker rather than a Justice of the Peace. Luckily, Midnight Louie and the Las Vegas Cat Pack are planning their finest moments to bring down the baddies. But no one can help Temple find which direction her wayward heart must go. Fans of foul play, feisty female detectives, and feline forensics will find Cat in an Alphabet Endgame the perfect cat treat.

  DEAR READERS: Since Midnight Louie’s mystery adventures began in 1992, the series is a retro-modern saga that portrays twenty-five years of amazing Las Vegas Strip reinvention from then to today. Yet the story only covers a couple of years in the lives of the four human characters: two women, two men; two pro and two amateur detectives. It’s like the old movies that filmed a foreground couple walking on a treadmill against a constantly changing background. You will watch the Las Vegas Strip, technology and detection methods evolve as the characters veer from allies to antagonists to…romantic quadrangle anyone? And even the irreverent rascal, Midnight Louie, will become politically correct in one key department.

  As Louie says, “Any surprising developments do not surprise me. Everything is always up for grabs in Las Vegas 24/7…guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others. Like Las Vegas, The City That Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: The Kitty That Never Sleeps. With this crew, who could?”

  For more on the series, subscribe to Midnight Louie’s Scratching Post-Intelligencer newsletter. Louie would love reviews and good ratings on online book sites if you want to lend him a hand.

  Praise for the Midnight Louie series

  “Move over, Koko and Yum Yum (and Sneaky Pie too): Midnight Louie’s back, prowling the sin-soaked streets of Las Vegas once again.”

  —The Purloined Letter

  “Everything you might want in a mystery; glitzy Las Vegas, real characters, suspense, a tough puzzle…a fine sense of humor and some illuminating social commentary.”

  —The Prime Suspect

  “a finale that’ll run you within a whisker of your ninth life.” —Kirkus Reviews

  And Praise from a Famous Feline:

  “MIDNIGHT LOUIE IS ONE HEAVY DUDE. Gourmand, ladies’ man and world-class dog-baiter, this feline detective attacks crime tooth and nail. But if he lays a paw on my lasagna, he’ll tangle with a real heavyweight.”

  —Garfield the cat, as told to Jim Davis

  CAT IN AN

  ALPHABET ENDGAME

  THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

  MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERY

  by

  CAROLE NELSON DOUGLAS

  A Wishlist Book

  www.wishlistpublishing.com

  This book and series are dedicated to all our wonderful and loyal readers and their feline friends who’ve joined Midnight Louie and me on this incredible journey

  Acknowledgements

  We’ve loved and kept your cards and letters and now emails, and appreciate the thousands of stamps you’ve sent to help snail-mail the annual newsletter, and those of you who’ve bought the books and T-shirts. We’re amazed you always say you know how busy we are. How do you know? We try not to whine, because we are so privileged to be doing what we’re doing. Yes, a writing career is 12/7. I’m often surprised it’s a national holiday. I’m always wishing I could answer you more, but deadlines never die! Those of you I’ve been in contact with have been delightful and so inspiring and understanding.

  Writing a series as long as this, over 25 years, means we’ve written more than three million words in this series alone. We started out sure we’d remember everything that had been done, and somewhere along the way realized we were not human computers. Books are proofread and edited many times, but errors still slip through because most of us read what we expect to see. Some imperfections can’t be fixed right now, because control of the books are in other hands. There are dozens of people (and cats) to thank, but two brave readers have volunteered to read the entire series over for errors and typos, and they deserve our heartfelt thanks for helping make us as perfect as we can be for ourselves and our readers.

  They are the indefatigable Ken Green and Denise Thompson.

  Indefatigable is a funny-sounding word for tireless, determined, and dedicated.

  Another long-distance runner for 21 years in supporting Midnight Louie’s saga is my former student assistant, now an author on her own as Diane Castle, Jennifer Null.

  These folks are beyond generous and have our whole-hearted gratitude, as do all of you.

  Carole Nelson Douglas & Midnight Louie, Esq.

  Table of Contents

  Dear Readers

  CAT IN AN ALPHABET ENDGAME

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Previously in Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times…

  Chapter 1 ~ Five-Alarm Fire Power

  Chapter 2 ~ Three-Cat Night

  Chapter 3 ~ Midnight Stalkers

  Chapter 4 ~ Home Evasions

  Chapter 5 ~ The Wrong Arm of the Law

  Chapter 6 ~ Midnight Prowler

  Chapter 7 ~ Being Frank

  Chapter 8 ~ Ring Around the Ritz

  Chapter 9 ~ Serpentine Schemes

  Chapter 10 ~ The Tony Awards

  Chapter 11 ~ The Mysteries of Molina

  Chapter 12 ~ Strapless in Sin City

  Chapter 13 ~ Mother Confessor

  Chapter 14 ~ The Skype Hype

  Chapter 15 ~ Dumped by a Diva

  Chapter 16 ~ Bless Us, Father

  Chapter 17 ~ Holy Cats

  Chapter 18 ~ Bloody Mary Morning

  Chapter 19 ~ Don of the Dead

  Chapter 20 ~ Intervention Convention

  Chapter 21 ~ Midnight Louie’s Dream Wedding

  Chapter 22 ~ There Goes the Groom

  Chapter 23 ~ Who’s Who of Crooks

  Chapter 24 ~ Altared Circumstances

  Chapter 25 ~ Here Comes the Bride

  Chapter 26 ~ The Wedding Party Party

  Chapter 27 ~ Lofty Endings

  Chapter 28 ~ Purple Heart

  Chapter 29 ~ Reception Deception

  Chapter 30 ~ In Sunshine or in Shadow

  Chapter 31 ~ Under Reconstruction

  Chapter 32 ~ Gilt Trip

  Chapter 33 ~ A Peak Experience

  Chapter 34 ~ Midnight Magic

  Chapter 35 ~ An Attraction Gone Dark

  Chapter 36 ~ Command Performance

  Chapter 37 ~ Mad Max on the Run

  Chapter 38 ~ We’ll Always Have Paris

  Chapter 39 ~ Past Acts

  Chapter 40 ~ Midnight Louie Rings Out the Old…

  Afterword ~ Of Collars and K
atzenklaviers

  Tailpiece ~ Midnight Louie Sums Up

  Tailpiece ~ Carole Nelson Douglas on Getting There and Back Again

  Also by Carole Nelson Douglas

  Copyright

  Previously in

  Midnight Louie’s Lives and Times…

  A cat is said to have nine lives.

  Where I live, on and off the Strip, the odds are your average hip but homeless street cat will be Las Vegas lucky to live three lives.

  (I prefer “homeless” to mean “free to be me”, and I did quite well as a self-employed individual, finally becoming unofficial house detective at the Crystal Phoenix hotel-casino.).

  One thing led to another, and now I reside at a cool condominium off the Strip, and volunteer as full-time bodyguard to Miss Temple Barr.

  She is quite the fearless and feisty little doll, who has the advantage of looking as cute as a Yorkshire terrier that has just chewed your Christmas slippers to Kingdom Come while possessing the incisive insight of Miss Marple on speed.

  We are quite the crime-fighting team, both of us being underestimated, which is annoying in my case because I am large and muscular for my breed, have all my hair follicles operating on full power, move with leopard-like grace, carry more razor-sharp blades than an infomercial Ginsu knife pitchman and, on top of that, am quite the dude with the ladies.

  So you would think I am a pretty keen keeper of my own nine lives.

  Hah!

  Since I became an undercover private investigator dedicated to assisting a few of my closest human associates, I have been running through lives willy-nilly. Right now, not only are the next three in doubt, but if life were a craps table—where it is for many who only visit here—I would need to be rolling “boxcars”, with sixes face up on both dice. That roll is otherwise called (after me, doubtless) rolling “midnight”. To the individual not knowledgeable about gambling, that would add up to the number twelve.

  To put all my cards on the table here, my circle of protectees has outperformed their growth potential, and I do not have lives enough to sacrifice for the looming trouble I see brewing for each and every one of them.

  Miss Temple Barr has no idea the man she has put all her money on in the romance stakes is now risking his paltry single life investigating some more than just shady Las Vegas mob history.

  Or that the man to whom she first lost her heart has made a dangerous deal with vengeful terrorists to betray the cause she and both of her main men have been pursuing for so long.

  Or that sundry other people she trusted and considered honest are secretly at odds with those who should be their allies, keeping each other in the dark, and my Miss Temple most of all.

  It is to shudder. And perhaps too much for even my capable shivs to sort out.

  Here I should formally introduce myself as founder and CEO of Midnight Investigations, Inc. I plied the mean streets of Las Vegas for many years as a bachelor about town, and then moved into PI work. I now room with Titian-haired, live-in gal pal and amateur detective, Miss Temple Barr.

  She may not be a Miss much longer, alas, if she weds Mr. Matt Devine as planned. Our cozy condo does not need interlopers, especially on the California king-size bed, which is perfect for the two of us right now, with my curl-upable twenty pounds and Miss Temple’s one hundred.

  Yes, she is a tiny thing as humans go, but as I said, she has the heart of a mountain lion and the relentless investigative instincts of a bloodhound. Actually, she is much more attractive in human terms than this characterization sounds.

  For a Vegas institution, I have always kept a low profile. I like my nightlife shaken, not stirred. Being short, dark, and handsome…really short…makes me your perfect undercover guy. Miss Temple Barr and I are ideal roomies.

  We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails and have cracked some cases too tough for the local fuzz. She is, after all, a freelance public relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public and private relations of all stripes and legalities.

  So, there is much private investigative work left for me to do, as usual.

  Then you get into the area of private lives. I say you get into that area. I do not.

  Since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I here provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak.

  To wit, the current status of who we are and where we are all at:

  MIDNIGHT LOUIE, PI

  None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is big time, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for twenty-eight books now. I am an “alpha cat”. Since my foundation volume, Cat in an Alphabet Soup (formerly Catnap) debuted, the title sequence features an alphabetical “color” word from A to Z. So, Cat in an Aqua Storm (formerly Pussyfoot) comes next, followed by Cat on a Blue Monday and Cat in a Crimson Haze, etc. until we reach the, ahem, current volume, Cat in an Alphabet Endgame. I assure you that this is indeed the end of the Alphabet series, books A to Z sandwiched between two novels with “Alphabet” in the title. That is it. Finis, as the French say. Or is that fin? Or finito? Whatever, I can advise that it would not be wise to overlook anybody’s multiple-lives factor for the near future.

  MISS TEMPLE BARR, PR

  A freelance public relations ace, my lovely roommate is Miss Nancy Drew all grown up and wearing killer spikes. She had come to Las Vegas with her soon-to-be elusive ex-significant other…

  MR. MAX KINSELLA, a.k.a. The Mystifying Max

  They were a marriage-minded couple until he disappeared without a word to Miss Temple shortly after the Vegas move. This sometimes missing-in-action magician has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in an Irish Republican Army bomb attack during a post-high school jaunt to Ireland, Mr. Max joined the man who became his mentor, Garry Randolph, a.k.a. magician Gandolph the Great, in undercover counterterrorism work all over Europe.

  Now however, those events have been turned inside out. Mr. Max, during his latest Ireland visit, has made a dark bargain—with what is left of the Irish Republican Army after the Northern Ireland peace agreement—to save a life. And he still remains under suspicion of murder, no less—by a hard-nosed dame…

  LIEUTENANT C. R. MOLINA

  This tough Las Vegas homicide detective and single mother of teenage Mariah is also the good friend of Miss Temple’s freshly minted new fiancé…

  MR. MATT DEVINE

  Mr. Matt, a.k.a., Mr. Midnight, is a radio talk show shrink on The Midnight Hour. The former Roman Catholic priest came to Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather and ended up a syndicated celebrity in line for hosting a national TV talk show. Now Miss Temple’s wellbeing may be protected only by Mr. Matt sacrificing his own.

  MR. RAFI NADIR

  After blowing his career at the LAPD when his live-in lady, not yet Miss Lt. C. R. Molina, mysteriously left him, has been for years the unsuspecting father of Mariah. Miss Lieutenant Carmen Regina Molina is not thrilled that her former flame now knows what is what and who is whose…since she told Mariah years ago that her dad was a dead hero-cop. There are soon going to be no hero-cops in this secret and shattered family.

  MISS KATHLEEN O’CONNOR

  Deservedly nicknamed “Kitty the Cutter” by my Miss Temple, she is the local lass that Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in long-ago Northern Ireland, who turned embittered stalker. Finding Mr. Max as impossible to trace as Lieutenant Molina has, Kitty the C settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, primarily Mr. Matt Devine.

  Miss Kathleen O’Connor’s popping up again like Jill the Ripper has been raising hell for we who reside at a vintage round apartment building called the Circle Ritz, owned by seventy-something free spirit, Miss Electra Lark.

  Now reunited with her long-ago IRA associates, Miss Kathleen knows a life is at stake unless the man she has tormented for the past two years betrays an associate of his she stalked.

  Some
one (Miss Kathleen?) arranged for Mr. Max Kinsella to hit the wall of the Neon Nightmare club with lethal impact while undercover. His enduring traumatic memory loss means he knows he and my roommate were once a committed couple, but he recalls none of the emotional and, ahem, spicy details. So far. And now he returns as a secret agent again.

  All this human conniving and canoodling and sex and violence makes me glad that I have a simpler social life, such as just trying to get along with my unacknowledged daughter…

  MISS MIDNIGHT LOUISE

  This streetwise minx insinuated herself into my cases until I was forced to set up shop with her as Midnight Investigations, Inc. She alleges that I am her deadbeat dad, but I will never cop to that charge.