An Unconventional Murder (15 page)

"Who is she and what sort of accusations is she making?"

"She claims that one of our board members plagiarized the plot line of her novel." He
gestured toward the file folder on the table. "Her work is very amateurish. It is no wonder she
was eliminated during the first round of the contest. Listen to this opening line: 'Angeline's
beautiful, rain-soaked billowing locks of fine golden blond hair went skirting merrily in the
warm, gentle summer night's wind, her tears flowing like a salty ocean breeze cascading
impetuously down the jagged, rocky shore line. In short, it had been a very difficult day.' What
absolute and unmitigated drivel!"

Cameron shrugged. "I wouldn't know good writing from bad."

"Trust me, sir. This is the latter. Her dialog has potential, but her descriptions are
abysmal."

"And she claims someone stole her story?"

"She does. I must say, there are some interesting elements in her outline. I plan to
compare them with the novel she claims is based upon her submission. It was written by one of
our board members."

"Oh, yeah? Which one?"

"Randy Callahan. He writes under the pseudonym of Theia Rand."

"And she says he stole her story?"

"So does," Fontaine said. "At this point, I can give you no opinions as to the merits of
her contention. An hour from now, I shall have a much better basis for answering that
question."

"Please let me know what you find out."

"I will. Do you have any more questions for me?"

Cameron reviewed his notes and realized he had almost overlooked the very thing he
came over to ask Fontaine about in the first place. He decided to approach it indirectly. "We were
talking about this morning. You had breakfast at...at what time again?"

"It was about 7:30."

"And you finished when?"

"Around 8:15."

"What did you do after you ate?"

"I tried to enter the Aspen Room. I wanted to familiarize myself with the room."

"So what happened?"

"The main doors were locked. There is a small stairway that leads up to a short hallway
at the rear. I tried the doors there, as well. They, too, were locked."

Cameron made notes on the legal pad. "And then?"

"I sought out Ms. Oberhaus. She had assured me the room would be available, and I took
her at her word. She was nowhere to be found in the convention area, I placed a call to her room.
There was no answer."

Cameron glanced up sharply. "She wasn't in her room?"

"I don't know that," Fontaine stated. "I only know she didn't answer her phone. She
might have been in the shower."

"Do you know what time that was?"

"Approximately 8:20. The desk clerk had no keys to the conference rooms. He informed
me I would have to await the arrival of the so-called facilities manager. I set out to find him, but
was unsuccessful. Do you want to know what I did next?"

"Sure."

Fontaine folded his arms. "I returned to my room. I refused to continue prowling the
hotel like a beggar, trying to find someone who would take pity upon me and unlock that
accursed door."

Cameron smiled. "So how long did you stay in your room, Mr. Fontaine??"

"Until well after nine o'clock." He lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone " I decided
that if they wanted me, then they could come searching for me. But after a while, with no word
from anyone, it occurred to me that they might have started without me."

"Did you go directly to the Aspen Room?"

Fontaine shook his head. "I encountered Arthur Upton in the hallway, engaged in
conversation with Ms. Oberhaus. I let them know exactly how I felt!"

"What did they do about it?"

"Arthur made some of his usual smarty-pants comments until he realized how angry I
was. Then he relented and came to my aid. We searched out the facilities manager. He claimed
he had unlocked the doors at 7 a.m. I let him know in no uncertain terms how much I believed
that!"

"Mr. Fontaine, how sure are you that those doors were locked when you tried to enter the
room at 8:15?"

"Absolutely. And since the circumstance of those locked doors is evidently significant, I
suggest that you question that man, Jimmy, about what really happened."

"I've already done that," Cameron said. "He adamantly claims he unlocked the doors
shortly after seven o'clock."

Fontaine gave Cameron a faint smile. "Then someone must be lying about what
happened this morning. You'll have to figure out who it is."

Upton poured himself a cup of stale coffee from the urn that was still sitting on the
registration table. He took a small sip, even though he knew how it would taste. Bitter. That
figured. The bottom of the pot. It perfectly matched the way he felt. Disgusted, he slammed the
cup on the table, so hard that the muddy brown liquid splashed onto his hand. The doctor said he
should lay off the caffeine, anyway.

He crossed the room and rode the escalator down to the first floor. Without thinking
where he was going, he meandered down a random hallway, relieved to find it deserted.

Damn that Cameron! How could he possibly think the President of CFWA would set a
fire in a men's room? Or would commit a cold-blooded murder at the group's annual convention?
Upton realized that he wasn't just offended. He felt foolish. What the hell was he doing trying to
play cop? He wasn't a cop any more. He'd given that up years ago, and with good reason. He
glanced at his wrist watch. It was nearly time for the Published Writer's Guild meeting. He
smiled, deciding he had felt sorry for himself long enough.

As he passed the men's room--not the one where the fire had occurred--he heard a loud
bang. Cocking his head with curiosity, he paused in front of the door. The banging repeated
itself, even louder.

Upton shoved the door open and barged inside. A man with his back to the door was
poised to slam his open palm against one of the metal stall dividers. In the mirror, Upton could
see that his face was twisted with a wild rage and tears were gleaming in the corners of his
eyes.

He was wearing a Metallica sweatshirt and black sneakers.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The young man glared aggressively, but said nothing.

"I asked you what the hell you're doing," Upton said, this time louder.

"Leave me alone, man. I'm not hurting anything. I'm just blowing off steam. It's either
this or kill the son of a bitch!"

In a quiet tone, Upton said, "You're Brady Cameron."

The younger man looked surprised. "You know who I am?"

"We met a couple of hours ago. I'm Arthur Upton, President of the CWFA."

"Oh, yeah, I remember now. You were asking me about the dead guy in the Aspen
Room."

"That's right." Upton gestured toward the metal stall divider. "So what gives with that?
You have something against men's rooms?"

The young man almost smiled. "No. I have something against assholes."

Upton felt angry color rise in his face.

"Not you. That son of a bitch agent. Tuck."

"All of this is about Zachary Tuck?"

Brady Cameron averted his eyes. "Yeah, I guess it is."

For no particular reason, Upton felt sympathy for him. "Let me tell you something,
Brady. Everyone knows that Tuck is, as you so delicately put it, an asshole. But that doesn't
mean--"

"I know," Brady muttered, looking sheepish. "That doesn't mean I should act like a dumb
shit myself."

"I wouldn't have phrased it quite that way," Upton admitted, "but the point is well taken.
Look, if you polled everyone at the convention, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, the
only thing they'd all agree on is the fact that Zachary Tuck is an asshole." Remembering Ashley
Wade, he added, "With one or two minor exceptions."

Brady said nothing.

Upton decided to forego the Published Writer's Guild. He smiled disarmingly and
pointed toward the door. "You want a cup of coffee?"

Brady took a moment to answer. "Sure."

"All that's open this time of day is the bar," Upton said as he escorted Brady down the
hall.

He glanced around as they entered the nearly deserted bar. Ashley and Randy were
nowhere to be seen. Zachary Tuck sat off in the far corner. Upton steered Brady to a different
part of the room, deliberately occupying the near side of the table so that Brady would have to sit
with his back to Tuck.

He ordered a cup of decaf. Brady asked for iced tea.

After the waitress brought their drinks, Upton said, "So what did Tuck do that got you so
upset?"

"It was more the way he did it. He was a total prick from the moment I stepped in the
room. He was looking down his nose at me like I was a piece of shit that fell off someone's shoe.
I could have killed him!"

Upton found himself smiling. He understood exactly what look the young man was
talking about. "I've seen Tuck pull that same expression a dozen times. The last time was during
a confrontation he and I had in the middle of Fifth Avenue in mid-town Manhattan. I must admit,
my own reaction was pretty inappropriate. Go on."

"I started to tell him about my book and my experience as a writer, but he wasn't the
least bit interested. He just stuck out his hand, waiting for me to hand over the sample I'd brought
with me. He read the first page, made a face, and tossed it back at me. He said it wasn't anything
he'd be interested in, and thanked me for coming. I guess I sort of lost my temper. He did tell me
my stuff didn't suck nearly as bad as some of the stuff he'd seen today. Apparently, that was
supposed to be a compliment."

"From Tuck, that was effusion," Upton noted, keeping his eye surreptitiously on Tuck, to
make sure he was still seated safely across the room. "So what happened after that?"

"He told me my time was up and would I please go. I asked him if he wouldn't let me
send the rest of the book when I finished it. He said to call him in ten years if I was still
writing."

"So that's why you were beating up the men's room?"

Brady grinned boyishly. "It was better than beating up Zachary Tuck."

"Probably so," Upton agreed. "It certainly has fewer consequences. Tell me, what writing
credentials do you have?"

"I've only been writing for a while. First it was diaries. That kept me from going
completely insane. In high school, I was one of the staff writers for the newspaper. Sports stuff,
mostly. Someday I'm gonna go back to school and get a college degree, maybe learn how to run a
business. I figure I'd rather own a company than work for one."

"Makes sense," Upton agreed. On a whim, he said, "Do you have any of your book with
you?"

"Yeah. I was just getting ready to tear it up and flush it down the toilet when you walked
into the john." He reached into his convention packet and pulled out a stack of papers, neatly
stapled together. "This is it," he said with a self-conscious shrug.

"First off," Upton advised in a kindly tone, "never staple the pages together. Editors--and
agents--won't read a stapled submission. It's too hard to turn the pages. They read these things in
God knows what kind of places. Also, each page needs to have the name of your work and your
name. It should be in the header."

"Really? I didn't know that."

Upton reached for the check the waitress had left on the table. "There's a seminar
tomorrow morning. Nine o'clock.
Manuscript Manners.
I highly recommend it."

"I'll be there."

* * * *

Zachary Tuck sat alone in a corner of the lounge. He had deliberately selected a table
facing away from the door. That way, none of the rubes would be tempted to come up and talk to
him. He sipped his glass of Perrier, mentally washing away the uncleanliness he felt all around
him. After all, he had spent the better part of the afternoon listening (or, at least,
pretending
to listen, he thought with a wicked chuckle) to the half-baked pitches from
the Colorado hicks.

Were they completely clueless?

Didn't they have any idea what was going on in the literary marketplace? Some of their
ideas were absolutely ludicrous!

And some of the bozos had gotten pretty aggressive about it, too. Especially that kid in
the grungy sweatshirt.
Metallica
? Was it unreasonable to expect that anyone in Colorado
had ever heard of Mozart or Hayden? Tuck shuddered. That kid was scary. Especially the wild
look in his eyes. It had taken Tuck's most compelling glare to dissuade the lunatic kid from going
postal.

Tuck sipped more Perrier, glancing irritably at his wristwatch. He still had another hour
of appointments with the yokels. Sixty more minutes of listening to gibberish. He hunched
forward in the booth, his mind replaying the images of the incident in the men's room. Since he
wasn't injured--although his lungs were still irritated from the smoke--the fire meant nothing to
him. If anything was damaged, there was insurance. Probably, the hotel management would make
a profit out of the deal by padding the claim.

Although, Tuck thought as he downed the last drop of Perrier, there was something
uncomfortably familiar about the whole scenario, something that brought forth some vague, dim
memory. He shrugged. He wasn't going to waste time trying to figure out what it was.

After all, it wasn't his problem.

Cameron found Suzanne Gibbons-Powers holding court in the hallway near the
registration table. Three men stood in a semi-circle around her. Keeping a discreet distance, he
watched as she flirted unabashedly with all of them.

"You're too kind," she laughingly told the man in the middle. "You're making me blush.
But, please, don't stop."

The man leaned forward and whispered something Cameron couldn't hear.

"I'll bet you say that to all the girls," she purred, pressing gently against his chest with
her fingertips. "I--oh," she said, as her eyes came to rest on Cameron. "Detective Cameron. Are
you making any progress with the, well, you know...?"