Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

Just trying to enhance her self-esteem. Soon clear why. The husband—he had to have been abusive—attacked her in the family garage with an electric drill. And she lived. And stood. And he set her on fire. And she burned. And she lived. And she stood. And he ran. And they found her, burned over ninety percent of her body. And she spoke. Save her kids from him. They took her away. And she died. And, you know what, nobody would report what happened to him. Maybe a mental hospital. Maybe he’s out there. I tried to trace where he went, but my station wouldn’t support me. Everything about her was public. Nothing about him was. Reminds me of the vanishing Arthur Dickson.”
    “Arthur who?”
    “There are too many men who don’t want women to remake themselves. And apparently Arthur Dickson, the man who built this place, was one of them.”
    “Ghastly! I had no idea you dealt with such things.” Kit the former actress and current novelist, a creature of empathy, was devastated.
    Temple shook off the past and its eternal losses. “Marjory Hein was the most unlikely murder victim in the place. Do you know anything about her?”
    “We had meetings together, ate together, compared notes on candidates. Yeah, I knew her, Horatio.”
    “Wait!” Temple waved the hand the glass happened to be in. “Is that Horatio as in Hamlet and the skull of Yorick, or Horatio as in CSI: Miami? Given your theatrical background, it’s hard to tell.”
    “It doesn’t matter anyway. I tell you the woman was harmless. Good-natured. A widow. Um, two, I think, grown children. Utterly committed to her field of work. Been in eating disorder consultation for years. Thought this stupid show was an opportunity to set an example for teenagers with bad, even dangerous, eating habits across the country. She was a much better person than I was, and now she’s dead.”
    “That’s a very good point. If one of the coaches or judges was going to be killed, why not Dexter Manship, say?”
    “He’s insufferable, yes. And it just isn’t an act. It’s all the time. So tiresome. Egotistic. Elitist. Everything well-balanced people love to hate. But... it’s also his shtick. He’s an entertainer. Killing him for being irritating would be like... offing Jerry Lewis. He’s a whipping boy for the rest of us, which is very healthy. And the French would be devastated.”
    “The feelings of the French are not a national priority right now.”
    “Oh, pooh. They’re supposed to be that way, as Dexter Manship is supposed to be the way he is. I just don’t understand why poor Marjorie was killed. Strangled, I heard.”
    Temple considered and decided to keep the suspected manner of death to herself. Not that Kit would tell but she might not be able to down another legume in her life, and that would be a sad betrayal of Marjorie’s mission. Temple knew she was taking a very dim view of lima beans right now, as if she wasn’t already skittish about them. Who knew?
    “What should I do?” Kit asked.
    “Keep an eye open. Does anybody here strike you as suspicious?”
    Kit sipped and considered, considered and sipped. “That dark dangerous-looking guy that Savannah Ash-leigh calls a bodyguard.”
    Temple frowned. “I know him. He’s not Mr. Good Citizen but—”
    But. Rafi was taking questionable jobs around Vegas, and she’d met him doing muscle at strip clubs. He’d been a strong suspect for the Stripper Killer. Just because he was Molina’s loathed ex was no reason to become his champion. What if this time he really was up to something... ugly?
    Molina would have her scalp. And neck. And rear end if she underestimated Nadir’s reasons for being here when Mariah was on the premises and involved. Molina would have her skin for not mentioning that Nadir was here, period. Maybe she’d better tell her... and have Molina on-site, in everybody’s face? Not productive.
    “What are you scheming, niece? I see whole Elizabethan tragedies running through your mind.”
    “You have a theatrical imagination, Aunt Kit. It’s fun but off base. Some of the dramatis personae in this thing are a little dicey, is all. It’s the strangers I wonder about. We don’t know enough about anybody to figure out who might want to kill them. Are any of the judges and coaches previously acquainted?”
    “Sorry. Not a one. To hear them tell it. From my point of view, they act like strangers.”
    “Then... what about the people who put us all together?”
    “Who?