We’ll Always Have Parrots (12 page)

In the green room, I scanned the occupants covertly while filling a plate with bacon and hash browns. Yes, several suspects were available for questioning, if I could think of anything to ask.

I scored another autograph for Eric and eliminated one suspect immediately. The mild-mannered elderly actor who played Porfiria’s chief counselor had only just come from the airport, and was all agog to hear about the QB’s death. I was a little worried that I’d get stuck answering his questions, but the bearded professor I’d seen lecturing several times Friday interrupted his monologue about the similarities between the modern TV series and Chaucer and barged into our conversation. After also signing Eric’s program, he began telling Porfiria’s counselor all about the murder with endless details. Though not, I quickly noticed, much accuracy.

A convention volunteer standing nearby saw the expression on my face and ambled over.

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” he murmured. “Just wind him up, give him a topic, and he can go on for hours.”

“Amazing, yes,” I said. “You’d think by now he’d have accidentally gotten one fact right, but so far he’s batting zero.”

“Well, what do you expect?” the volunteer said. “Last night we decided, for the good of the convention, to take him out for dinner and keep him away as long as possible. So we all drew straws and I was one of the ones who lost. We collected him at four, after his last panel, and we didn’t manage to dump him off again until two in the morning. He missed the whole thing.”

“So anything he knows about the murder is secondhand.”

“And probably wrong,” the volunteer grumbled. “Even if someone told him what really happened, there’s no way he’d stop talking long enough to hear it. His mouth doesn’t have an off switch, or even a pause button. God, what a night.”

“Your valiant service to fandom shall not pass unnoticed,” I said. “For that matter, the police might be mildly grateful that at least you’ve given one possible suspect a good alibi.”

“We could be persuaded to frame him, if you’d like,” the volunteer said. “We could suddenly recall that he made a very long trip to the bathroom, and came back covered with blood, complaining about a broken paper towel dispenser.”

“Sounds suspicious,” I said. I couldn’t decide whether or not to laugh—I wasn’t entirely sure he was joking.

“Just tell me what time the murder happened,” he said, “That’s all I need. And I’m sure the rest of the pita patrol would be happy to remember it the same way.”

“Pita patrol?” I echoed. “Do I deduce that you took him to a Middle Eastern restaurant?”

“No, actually pita stands for pain in the…ah…”

“Gotcha,” I said. “But if you’re the pita patrol, what should we call the crew who were shepherding Miss Wynncliffe-Jones around?”

“Happily unemployed, now,” he said, “and maybe prime suspects.”

I noticed that Porfiria’s counselor seemed to have gone into character—not surprising, since much of his on-screen time was spent maintaining an expression of rapt attention while Porfiria delivered harangues at least as tedious as the professor’s. “I do chess problems in my head,” he’d explained once, when I asked him how he put up with it.

“Maybe you should rescue the poor man before too long,” I suggested to the volunteer.

“Yeah, I’ll be dragging the professor off to a panel in about five minutes,” the volunteer said.

I left him leaning against a wall watching his unwanted charge with a commendably neutral face, and strolled over to a table where Francis and Walker were sitting, both staring down at a sheaf of papers.

Francis, who startled easily at the best of times, nearly leaped out of his chair when he noticed me, and reflexively held out his hand to shield his document. Walker glanced up, waved his coffee cup to me in greeting, and then took a deep swallow, closed his eyes, and sighed with the ecstasy of the true caffeine addict. A transient ecstasy, though. Almost immediately he opened his eyes again and frowned at Francis.

“Have a seat, Meg,” Walker said. “You probably want to hear about this, too. We’ve been studying my contract.”

“You can’t assume that Michael’s contract is identical,” Francis said, looking anxious.

“Yeah, right; like you’d actually bother to fight for any changes,” Walker said. “Never mind, we all know this clause is pretty standard with her contracts. The upshot,” he continued, turning to me, “in case Michael hasn’t managed to pry it out of Francis yet, is that as far as Francis can tell, the clause in our contracts that lets her hang onto us for three more years, whether we like it or not, still applies, because our contracts are with her production company, not her.”

“Only as long as the show is still being filmed,” Francis said. “If the network cancels the show, you’re released.”

“But we don’t yet know if the network will cancel the show. Do you have any idea when we’ll find out?”

“It could be as soon as Monday,” Francis said.

“Or not for a couple of months,” Walker added. “And even if the show goes on, we have no idea whether they’ll keep me or not. Who gets to decide that? The network? Her heirs, whoever they are? Nobody seems to know. So I’m in limbo. Can’t take another job, because there’s no knowing whether they’ll call me back to Porfiria.”

“Wouldn’t her firing you break the contract?” I asked.

“It would, if she’d actually done the paperwork,” he said. “But she didn’t; just told me she was planning to. And I have no proof. No witnesses. They could say I was making it up.”

“They wouldn’t say that,” Francis said, in his most soothing tones. “More likely they would say that you were overreacting to something Miss Wynncliffe-Jones said in the heat of a creative discussion.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Walker said. “I’ll still go crazy waiting to find out.”

“It could be as soon as Monday,” Francis repeated, with more patience than I would have managed at this point in the discussion.

“If I’m not in jail,” Walker said. “This is great: the police want to arrest me because I was fired, and the production company still might claim I wasn’t fired. Great. Even dead she’s wrecking my life.”

“She’d have made a hell of a contract lawyer,” Francis said.

“And an even better contract killer,” Walker added. “You knew her; you used to represent her. Why didn’t you warn me?”

With that parting shot, he stormed off. His exit would have been more dramatic if I hadn’t noticed that everyone with an eleven o’clock panel was leaving anyway, while some of the ten o’clock panelists had begun to filter into the green room.

I noticed Francis slipping something into his mouth. Another antacid tablet. Why would someone who handled stress this badly ever go into a career like agenting? He had steepled his hands in front of his face and appeared to be taking deep breaths while he chewed.

“Ridiculous,” he said, with the overly precise articulation of someone who would really rather be screaming and breaking things. “It would be different if we actually had anything lined up that this would interfere with. Or if people were beating on our doors.”

And then he glanced at me as if suddenly realizing that he had accidentally revealed embarrassing, confidential information about one client to the girlfriend of another. I didn’t believe it was an accident, but I didn’t really blame him.

“You represented the QB?” I asked.

“Years ago,” Francis said, shuddering. “About twenty-five years, to be exact. She’s gone through a lot of agents since then. And it wasn’t precisely me, individually. I had gone to work for a rather large agency—I think they called me a ‘document specialist,’ but it was really just a glorified name for a file clerk. And then one day, one of the agents called me into his office and told me they were giving me a chance. Assigning me a client. It was all rather disconcerting.”

“I can see how it would be, to have the QB as your first client.”

“Well, at first it was having a client at all that disconcerted me,” he said. “Apparently most of the thankless, low-paying jobs in this agency were taken by would-be agents. I was the only one in the lot who simply wanted a paycheck. Perhaps I should have spoken up then.”

“You didn’t want to be an agent?”

“I had no objection to it,” he said. “The idea just never occurred to me. And, of course, I quickly learned that the reason they’d picked me was that they couldn’t really afford to lose clients at that juncture, but no one else at the agency could stand to deal with her.”

“And you could?”

“I didn’t like it, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “But apparently I managed to keep her on board longer than anyone imagined possible. By the time she’d moved on, I’d become sort of an agency specialist in…um…”

“Difficult, high-maintenance clients,” I suggested.

“In a word, yes. And after about ten years, another agency offered me better terms for doing essentially the same thing. And four years ago, I decided to go out on my own. I thought maybe I could finally pick and choose my clients. Unfortunately, about half of the clients I was representing at the time chose to go with me.”

“Including Walker?”

“Yes, including Walker,” Francis said.

I burst out laughing, and Francis looked deeply offended.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I just realized that you’ve spent your whole career on pita patrol!”

And to my relief, after I explained the phrase, Francis wasn’t insulted.

“Pita patrol,” he said, as if savoring the word. “Yes, I like that. I usually refer to them as ‘my little flock,’ but pitas is more like it.”

“Always nice to find a new way of looking at the world,” I said. “It’s divided into pitas and non-pitas.”

“More like pitas and other people’s clients,” Francis said. “Except for one or two. Michael, for example, but I know perfectly well that I won’t be keeping him much longer.”

If he was trying to win my sympathy, it was working. I found I not only felt sorry for Francis, but I liked him more than I had before. And felt even more strongly that Michael needed a new agent.

“What was she like back then?” I asked. “The QB, back when you represented her.”

“Younger,” he said. “But then, weren’t we all? I don’t remember much about her, back then. I know that sounds implausible. After all, I worked with her for a year and a half. But all I remember from that whole time is a sort of ghastly feeling, like getting hit over the head repeatedly with a sledgehammer.”

He sat staring into space for a few moments, as if trying to remember.

“Of course, she hasn’t changed much,” he said, finally.

“Then why did you let Walker sign with her?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not as if we had a lot of other options, did we?” he said. “Not like Michael. If he did decide to put his academic career on hold, there’s no end to what he could do.”

Time to hit the trail, I thought, if Francis was going to keep dragging the conversation around to his uneasy relationship with Michael.

I glanced around, searching for an excuse to leave, and noticed that the show’s costumer had come into the green room.

“I’ll catch you later,” I said. “I’m trying to get all the guests’ autographs for my nephew, and I just spotted someone I’m missing.”

Not to mention someone whose motives for murder I wanted to explore.

Karen, the costumer, happily signed Eric’s program, and I didn’t have any trouble dragging the conversation around to the topic of the day.

“Wasn’t it exciting, being questioned by the police!” she exclaimed. “Of course, I’m lucky I had an alibi, aren’t I? I mean, under the circumstances.”

“What circumstances?” I asked. “Was she firing you, too?”

“Well, not that I know of,” she said. “But it was only a matter of time, of course. I’m the show’s thirteenth costume designer, you know. I bet that’s some kind of a record. Anyway, it was such a relief to say that I’d gone straight from my four o’clock panel to dinner. A little early for me, normally; but I understand your mother wanted to get your nephew away from the convention for a while. Poor dear; he did have an awful experience, didn’t he?”

“You had dinner with my mother?” I asked.

“Oh, yes; didn’t she tell you?”

“I haven’t talked to her much today,” I said. “But that’s good news. After her quarrel with the QB, I’m relieved to hear that Mother has an alibi.”

“You don’t really suspect your own mother?” Karen exclaimed.

“Of course not,” I said. “But the police might feel differently. After all, they don’t know her the way I do.”

She nodded approvingly.

“I know perfectly well that Mother wouldn’t kill anyone,” I said. “At least not by bludgeoning. Too strenuous, messy, and generally inelegant. It’d be different if the QB had been poisoned in some clever way.”

Karen’s mouth fell open, and she stared at me for a few seconds. And then she burst into laughter.

“Oh, my! You had me going for a minute!” she said, through her giggles. “Your mother should have told me what a tease you can be.”

If she thought I was kidding, I wouldn’t argue.

“I hope you went someplace nice,” I said.

“Well, actually we went to one of those noisy places where they have a whole room full of video games for the kids,” she said. “But your nephew had fun, and your mother and I had such a nice talk. She told me all about your decorating plans for the new house. It sounds so…unusual!”

“Yes, any decorating scheme Mother comes up with usually is,” I said. I wondered if she was still enthralled with a jungle theme, and whether or not her rendition of it would include live animals. “Don’t noise it about—you know how Michael is about keeping his private life private.”

Although, considering how rapidly costumers appeared to come and go on the show, I supposed she’d be lucky to know Michael’s face.

“Right,” she said, looking momentarily quite solemn. And then her face broke into a smile again. “I was so sorry your father couldn’t join us.”

Damn. Too much to hope for that both of them had been out of harm’s way.

“But it was so nice of him to babysit your niece.”

“Niece?” As far as I knew, Mother and Dad had only brought Eric along to the convention. Much as Mother adored her grandchildren, she preferred having them around one at a time, ideally with Dad and other adoring relatives available to take care of any actual work the little dears caused.

“Yes, little…Samantha? Or was it Sabrina?”

“Salome?” I suggested.

“Yes, of course! Such an unusual name; I do think it’s so much better for children to have their own names, instead of a name every other child in their school has.”

I made a mental note to speak to Salome’s keeper. What the devil did he mean by putting someone he hardly knew in charge of Salome? Especially someone like Dad?

As the costumer nattered on about baby names, I found myself warming to this cheerful and apparently uncomplicated woman. She was probably the only person from the Porfiria cast and crew who hadn’t yet said an unkind word about the QB. Despite, I suspected, considerable temptation. And I had the reassuring feeling that anything that came into her ears or surfaced in her memory would come straight out her mouth, unless it was too negative to repeat.

If I could just drag the conversation back to the show.

“Oh, was that Nate?” I said, pretending to spot him behind her.

“Was it?” she said, turning to look. “Well, he must have gone out again.”

“Now he’s been with the show a long time, hasn’t he?” I asked.

“Since the first episode,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing? He’s the only one, apart from Walker and Miss Wynncliffe-Jones herself.”

“Makes you wonder what he’s got on her,” I said.

She blinked, and then decided to assume I was kidding.

“Oh, you,” she said, giving my shoulder a gentle, playful shove. “No, if you ask me, he’s sweet on her.”

“Nate?” I exclaimed.

“Of course,” she said. “He’s been with her for ever so long—since they were much younger. Why else would he stick with her through all the…difficult times.”

Yes, difficult would pretty much describe any times spent in the QB’s company. But Nate and the QB? Why did I suddenly have the picture of an ordinary housecat yearning after Salome?

I pleaded the need to mind my booth, and headed back to the dealers’ room, still pondering what the costumer had said. I took a long way round, though—deliberately—a way that took me past Salome’s lair.

I ducked under the vines that screened the room’s doorway—had they gotten thicker since yesterday? I was pretty sure they had, and I doubted the convention decorating committee had time to make the changes. Someone definitely wanted the room’s doorway to be hard to find. I could think of only one person who would care.

Salome lifted her head and inspected me briefly before closing her eyes and returning to her nap. That was more reaction than I got from her keeper.

“Didn’t I just see you in the lobby?” I asked.

He looked up, puzzled. He was holding a coffee cup that he hadn’t had earlier.

“I went for breakfast,” he said.

“Leaving Salome all alone apparently. Not that your choice of cat sitters is exactly inspired—do you really think my father is the right person to look after Salome while you’re off doing whatever you were doing yesterday afternoon?”

“I have to eat, don’t I?” he said, “and go to the bathroom occasionally? Besides, I’m not really worrying about anyone going near her with him around.”

I glanced over and saw Spike. Someone had tied his leash around a pillar, and he had pulled the leash taut, straining to get closer to Salome’s cage. He seemed oblivious to anyone else in the room.

“Anyone goes near her, he barks his head off,” the keeper said. “Freakin’ weird if you ask me, but not my problem.”

Salome lifted her head again, and when he saw her move, Spike began straining even harder and whining pathetically.

“And what happens if the knot slips, or he breaks the leash?” I asked.

“Beats me,” the keeper shrugged. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you had had him fixed.”

“He’s been fixed,” I said. “This is as good as it gets.”

“She probably wouldn’t eat him, anyway,” he said. “Too much fur. She hates getting fur stuck in her teeth, especially for so little meat. So, I hear you found the old dragon’s body. Why didn’t you tell me when you were here earlier?”

“Is it just me?” I said. “Am I too hung up on appearances? Or doesn’t anyone else think maybe it might be a good idea not to seem all that cheerful about Miss Wynncliffe-Jones’s death? Just while the police are hanging around looking for a murderer and all.”

The keeper shrugged.

“Way I see it, they’re probably more apt to find it suspicious if you walk around moping as if you’d just lost your best friend,” he said. “Nobody liked her; some of us are just as happy she’s dead; and the rest aren’t all that upset.”

He might have a point, I thought. But I felt like playing devil’s advocate.

“Oh, come on,” I said. “Do you mean to say you don’t think anyone will be upset by her death?”

“Well, Caroline Willner, my boss. She won’t be pleased, but it’s not as if you could call it upset. And I’m definitely not upset. At least now Salome is safe.”

“Safe? How?” I asked.

“Well, it’s not likely a dead person’s going to buy her, is it?”

“The QB was the private owner buying Salome?”

“Yes,” he said. “Can you imagine?”

I made a noncommittal noise and wondered if he realized he had just added himself to the suspect list. My suspect list, anyway.

“The woman had no understanding of what’s involved in keeping a big cat,” he went on. “No real interest in Salome. She just wanted to keep her in a cage in her garden to impress her guests. You can’t do that with an animal that’s been socialized by humans. If you suddenly deprive them of any real contact with people, it traumatizes them. The mental anguish can make them psychotic and violent.”

Way to the top of my suspect list. But I had to admit, as Salome turned her inscrutable golden gaze in my direction, that if he turned out to be the murderer, I’d feel a lot more sympathy for him than I would for some of the others.

I had a hard time believing that anyone would have killed the QB because of creative differences over Porfiria scripts, comic books, or even the whole TV show. Not that I doubted that it might have happened, but if it did, I’d never really understand the murderer. Financial motives I could understand a little more easily—misguided people often killed for gain, or in a desperate attempt to prevent a loss. But if Salome’s keeper genuinely believed that she would be mistreated in the QB’s hands, and could find no other way to stop the sale—that I could understand. Maybe not condone, but understand.

I heard a voice from the doorway. Maggie West.

“I just want to look in here for a minute,” she was saying, popping out from the tangle of vines.

“Miss West!” the keeper exclaimed.

“Hello, Brad,” she said. “How’s she doing today?”

“Just fine,” he said.

“So you like tigers, too?” she said to me, smiling.

“From a respectful distance, yes,” I said.

She laughed, and walked up to Salome’s cage. Salome padded eagerly over to meet her and began rubbing her head against the bars. Spike barked a couple of times, and then returned to whining. Some watchdog.

“Oh, that’s a pretty little girl,” Maggie cooed.

“Little?” I echoed.

Maggie laughed.

“She’s on the small side for an Amur, even for a female,” she said. “What does she weigh, Brad? Maybe two hundred and fifteen pounds?”

“Only a little over two hundred,” he said.

“There, you see?” Maggie said. “I’ve got two big boys at home who are easily three times that.”

“You have two tigers?” I said, looking at Brad to see how he felt about this revelation.

“Eleven, actually,” she said. She reached in and began scratching Salome’s head.

“Miss West runs an animal sanctuary,” Brad explained, “Jungle West.”

“Miss West!”

An Amazon guard was peering into the room, apparently unwilling to enter.

“Yes, I’m coming,” Maggie said.

Brad, the keeper, watched with adoring eyes as Maggie ducked under the trailing vines and left the room.

He didn’t seem to notice when I followed her example—after first checking the knots holding Spike’s leash and reassuring myself that he was in no danger of getting loose.