We’ll Always Have Parrots (7 page)

“Actually, I’d love to stay and rile up the old cow,” Maggie said, linking her arm through mine as we strolled down the hall with her official escorts trailing behind. “But I don’t want to spoil the convention for these nice people. Not the first day, anyway. Maybe Sunday; these things usually get deadly by Sunday afternoon. So you’re the reason tall-dark-and-handsome Mephisto is out of circulation.”

A trio of fans came up to talk to her, and no sooner had she finished autographing their programs and moved on than another group appeared, and I realized that it probably would take Maggie a full thirty minutes to work her way through the crowd to the ballroom. Watching her in action, I had flashes of recognition. I had seen her in movies after all—as a madam with a heart of gold in an otherwise forgettable western, and as a wise and caring therapist in a tear-jerker that had starred Julia Roberts or possibly Sandra Bullock.

After I dropped Maggie off, I checked back in the dealers’ room. Things were slow. As I approached the booth, Steele was shaking hands with the sword-and-sorcery producer. Had they been talking the whole time I was gone? Maybe the guy was serious about hiring Steele.

“Sorry it took me a while,” I said.

“No problem,” he said. “Your sword-crazy friend Chris seems happy to spell me if I need to step out.”

“Have you eaten yet?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“I can mind the booth while you do,” I said.

He shook his head, and I saw his eyes following the producer, who stood nearby talking on his cell phone. I still didn’t trust the producer. And more than ever, I suspected Steele didn’t mind my absences because he was nervous that I’d snag the commission instead of him. I could have told him that from what I’d seen of film work, I didn’t want the commission. But I didn’t think he’d believe it. And for all I knew, I’d change my mind if the big shot dangled a large enough check.

“Or if you like, I can bring you something,” I said. “There’s a fantastic spread in the green room; I can raid that.”

“Yeah, that would be great,” he said.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said.

“No rush,” he said absently. The supposed Hollywood big shot was hanging up.

The QB had departed, fortunately, and the green room was more crowded than before. Probably because they’d just laid out an additional wine and cheese spread.

I stepped aside to avoid being trampled in the mad rush to the new food, and found myself standing by a table where Walker was sitting.

“Hi, Meg,” he said.

“How’s it going, Walker?” I said.

“Don’t ask,” Walker said. “Have a beer. Sorry, I forgot; you don’t like beer. Have some wine. Have any damn thing you like.”

He sounded as if he’d been acting on his own advice already.

“Walker, don’t you have to go on stage later?” I asked. “For the auction?”

“For what it’s worth,” he said. “My swan song.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Duke of Urushiol is dead,” Walker intoned. “Long live the Queen. Long live Queen Porfiria, the biggest, meanest ballbuster in the jungle.”

“What do you mean, dead?” I asked.

“Dead as in deceased,” he said. “That’s usually what they do when they don’t want to renew your contract. Kill off your character. Throw you a big, hokey death scene as a sop, and by episode four of the new season, no one remembers you.”

“It’s not really that bad, is it?”

“Yeah, I suppose the die-hard fans will remember,” Walker said. “I mean, they still love Maggie. Hell, they still remember Ichabod Dilley, and he’s been dead twenty years.”

“Thirty, actually,” I said. “But I meant, is it definite that they’re not renewing your contract?”

“Herself told me an hour ago,” he said. “I should have seen it coming. Nate stopped calling me by name. He’s been calling me ‘Pal’ for weeks.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “Have you told Michael yet?”

“If Michael hasn’t noticed he’s the new royal favorite, he’s an idiot,” Walker said.

“Maybe the fans will organize a write-in campaign,” I said.

“My one big chance and it’s over,” Walker said. “I should have done what Michael did, a long time ago. Kick this rat race, get a real job, and settle down with a nice girl. I want Michael’s life.”

He frowned, as if thinking deeply. I had a feeling I knew where his thoughts were heading, and I looked around for an excuse to leave.

“Of course, now Michael has my life
and
his life,” Walker said thoughtfully. “That’s not fair, is it?”

Luckily, Walker found this idea so absorbing that he forgot I was there. I slipped away.

I felt bad for Walker. But if he was out and Michael was in, I was the last person Walker needed around right now.

Okay, the second to last. I spotted Michael coming in. Which mean he’d delivered QB safely to her lair. I went over to steer him away from Walker.

“Mission accomplished?” I asked.

“Next time, I want the easy job,” he said. “Walker can bring Herself down; I’ll go wrestle the damned tiger. Let’s eat.”

I figured Steele wasn’t in a hurry for me to interrupt his tête-à-tête. We filled plates from the buffet and found a table in the corner. I snagged the seat facing out, so I could glare away anyone who tried to interrupt us. Michael looked exhausted.

“All in all, it went better than expected,” he said. He lifted a sandwich and eyed it, as if trying to decide if it was worth the energy of taking a bite.

“And it’s over,” I said.

“Except that I have to do it again in a couple of hours,” he said, putting the sandwich down and leaning back against the chair. “If I’m still alive in a couple of hours.”

He closed his eyes, and I realized that he really did look quite ill.

“Let someone else do it,” I said.

He shook his head.

“I could try,” he said. “But they’d end up calling me in eventually.”

“Then take a nap,” I said.

“I only have an hour before my next panel,” he said. “And I’m too wired to sleep.”

“And too tired to eat,” I said.

He picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

“Try the nap thing again,” I said. “An hour’s better than nothing, and even if you don’t sleep, lying down will help.”

He nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “If you don’t mind, maybe I should. Only—damn.”

“What’s wrong?” I asked, as he patted his pockets. “Lose something?”

“The card key,” he said. “I gave it to someone to fetch my throat spray sometime during the autograph session.”

“Someone?”

“One of the volunteers.”

“Who didn’t give it back?”

“No, he gave it back,” Michael said, rubbing his forehead. “I just remember putting it down someplace because I wasn’t wearing my coat, and apparently I never put it back in my pocket. Damn.”

“Use mine,” I said, fishing it out. “I’ll get the volunteers to look for yours.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Or if they can’t find it—”

“If they can’t put their hands on it pretty quickly, I’ll drop by the desk and have them cut another set,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. He wrapped the sandwich in a napkin and stumbled off. I had half an impulse to follow, and make sure he got to the room safely, but instead, I hunted down Michael’s two handlers. I sent one to guide Michael and made enough of a fuss to get the other highly motivated to find the missing card key. Then I loaded a plate for Steele and went back to the dealers’ room.

Steele had finished talking with the producer. Panels had ended for the day, and the ballroom was occupied by something called the Amblyopian Thespian Competition. The title intrigued me, and I slipped out long enough to see what it was, but the event itself proved tame—a dozen groups of fans reenacting scenes from their favorite episodes in front of an audience consisting almost entirely of other contestants.

“Everyone’s probably off getting dinner somewhere,” I reported.

“I’m told things will get even slower during the charity auction,” Steele said. “How soon will that be?”

“Nearly two hours,” I said. “It starts at seven; I know because Michael’s one of the auctioneers.”

“Unless things pick up between now and then, you might as well go watch him when it starts,” Steele said. “I can close up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I may take you up on that.”

If Steele continued to be this agreeable for the rest of the convention, I’d tackle him on the subject of sharing a booth at future craft shows and Renaissance Faires. I’d been going solo lately, but this weekend reminded me how nice it was to have someone reliable to watch the booth when I was gone.

Maybe it’s different for a sales clerk on salary, but the self-employed craftsperson or vendor dreads a long stretch without customers, abject boredom relieved only by acute financial anxiety. For the next hour, I exorcised my guilt by minding the booth so Steele could get some fresh air, but with no traffic, any houseplant could have done as much. By six-fifteen, the vendors had voted to close at seven, and Steele shooed me out shortly afterward.

“I can close up,” he said. “Go get a good seat.”

The ballroom had filled up again, and the Amazon security guards tried to direct me to the Rivendell Room with the overflow crowd. I managed to hook up with Nate in the corridor outside and make my way backstage.

The last amateur thespians struggled through their skit, visibly suffering from acute stage fright. Silly of them—the deafening noise level in the auditorium proved that no one was paying the slightest attention to their performances. Not even the judges, who kept craning their heads to see if Michael and Walker had arrived.

The last skit finally ended. I fished the camera out of my pocket and got ready to shoot. The Amazon mistress of ceremonies introduced Michael and Walker. When they walked onstage, a roar went up from the crowd, and suddenly I felt terrified.

How could someone be the focus of this much adulation and not be affected by it? I watched Michael smile and wave to the crowd. What if all his talk of TV fame being a bubble was just because he was tired and sick? What if, at some point, he decided this was what he wanted?

I didn’t mind the occasional trip to a convention, or a set where Michael was filming. But if he got used to this—came to like it more, perhaps couldn’t get out of his contract…what would happen to him? And to us?

He didn’t look like the same tired, depressed Michael I’d seen a few hours earlier. The nap had worked wonderfully. The nap and the energy boost he always got from going on stage.

And I’d been worried about Walker, too, since I’d last seen him in the green room tying one on. He seemed, if not sober, certainly not incapacitated. Remarkably cheerful for a man who had just lost the biggest role of his career. If there was any animosity between the two, they certainly didn’t show it on stage.

The two of them, clowning and playing off each other, auctioned off a motley collection of Porfiria paraphernalia for obscene sums. Several hundred dollars for an original script, or a prop actually used on the show.

But wasn’t the auction hour nearly over? And yet Michael and Walker seemed to be stretching each item out. As if killing time. I glanced at my watch. Seven fifty-five. The QB was supposed to judge the look-alike contest at eight, and I didn’t see her backstage.

“Hey, Meg,” Nate stage-whispered at my elbow. “Can you donate something to the auction? Or sell me something, and I’ll donate it? We can’t get the QB out of her room again.”

“Oh, God,” I said. “Yeah, let me run to the booth and find something.”

I had to get an Amazon security guard to escort me into the locked dealers’ room. Steele had secured the cashbox and the valuable stock before leaving. I rummaged through the cheaper items I had on hand, picked out a couple of daggers, and was about to leave when I noticed a note telling me to look in my cashbox.

I opened the cashbox to find my card key, and another note that said:

I wondered if this was the card Michael had lost that morning or the one I had lent him in the afternoon. And whether the other one would ever surface. No matter. I shoved it in my pocket and raced back to the auction. I handed over one dagger, keeping the other wrapped in my haversack in case they got desperate. And watched Michael and Walker coax bids out of the audience until a beaming fan triumphantly claimed the dagger for three times what he would have paid if he’d bought it from me that afternoon.

While Walker auctioned off a lunch with Maggie West, I saw Michael slip backstage and exchange a few words with Nate. Then he came over to me.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“They’re still trying to coax the boss lady out of her room,” he said. “Will you go see if you can lure her out?”

“Me?” I exclaimed, throwing up my hands. “You forget, I’m not her favorite person.”

“Tell her if she won’t come out, you’ll knock her down and drag her out,” he said. “She knows you’d do it, too.”

“I’d sic Mother on her, but I suppose you want her alive,” I said. “Has anyone tried having hotel security open the door with a master key? For that matter, I bet housekeeping could do it.”

“No idea,” Michael said.

“I’ll go and suggest it,” I said. “And then see what I can do.”

“Great,” Michael said.

He returned to the stage, and I hurried to the wing where the QB’s room was. For once, I didn’t make a single wrong turn.

A crowd stood in the hallway, staring at her door and arguing with each other in stage whispers.

“She still playing prima donna?” I asked.

“She still won’t come out, no,” one Amazon said.

“Have you called hotel security?” I asked. “They could probably open the door with a master key card.”

“They did,” a wizard said, shrugging. “But she has the latch on from the inside.”

I could see now that the door was open, but the security latch was on. I pushed the door as far as it would go…just enough to peek through, but all I could see was a small slice of beige wall.

“We’ll just have to be more persuasive,” another Amazon said. She stepped up to the door and knocked.

“Go away! I want to be left alone! I need my rest. Go away!”

The Amazons retreated a little way from the door and looked at each other, shaking their heads.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. Time to execute plan B. I fished out my newly recovered card key and went into our room. Taking out the dagger, I opened the door to the balcony. If any fans were still camped out, I expected they’d leave when I flourished the dagger at them. But the balcony was empty. I put down the dagger and climbed up onto the railing. The fans had been doing it for over a day now. Surely I could make my way from our balcony to the QB’s.

Maybe the fans helped each other, I thought, looking at the gap. What had I meant, only two feet? Two feet was enormous. And how had I failed to notice that while grass and bushes would cushion a fall from the far side of our balcony, the gap between our balcony and the QB’s had a concrete sidewalk below it.

Don’t be a wimp, I told myself. Clinging with both hands to anything within reach, I stretched my leg over and got my foot solidly on the other balcony.

This is too much, I thought, and was about to retreat, when I heard another knock.

“Go away!” the QB screeched. “I want to be left alone! Go away!”

Stupid cow, I thought. Anger brought back my courage, and I heaved myself over the gap and onto her balcony.

“Who cares?” the QB said, inside. “It’s mine.”

Who was she talking to?

The sliding glass door to the room was wide open. I peered in.

I didn’t see anyone. Not even the QB.

“Miss Wynncliffe-Jones?”

“Go away! Go away!” she shrieked.

“Don’t be silly,” I said, marching in. “You were due downstairs ages ago. You’re keeping everyone waiting and—oh, God!”

Lying between the dresser and the bed was a body. The QB’s body. Her dead body, given the wide open yet unseeing eyes. We needed the police—

And I needed to make sure I didn’t join her. She’d been talking to someone, only a few seconds ago.

I heard a slight noise in the bathroom. I wished I’d brought the dagger with me. I settled for grabbing an empty wine bottle that was sitting on a nearby table. Holding it above my head, I tiptoed over to the bathroom.

Which was stupid, I realized. I should go to the door, unlock it, and send those persistent idiots outside for the police.

I was about to do so when they knocked again.

“Go away!” shrieked the QB’s voice from the bathroom.

I lowered the wine bottle and used the base of it to shove the door open.

A gray parrot. I should have known.

“Miss Wynncliffe-Jones?” someone outside the door shouted.

“Go away!” the parrot screeched, fluttering into the shower stall. “Go away! I want to be left alone!”

“Stupid bird,” I muttered.

“Same to you and twice on Sunday!” the bird cackled.

Maybe the bird was right, I thought. I saw a small red stain on the door, where I’d touched it with the bottle. I looked at the bottle. Around the base, I could see a few hairs stuck in something damp. Jet black hairs, with gray roots just barely showing.

Great. I’d not only found the body; I’d managed to pick up the murder weapon. I set it down on the dresser again, resisting the temptation to compound my idiocy by wiping it clean of fingerprints.

Instead, I walked over, unhooked the security latch, and opened the door.

“Miss Wynncliffe-Jones, it’s nearly—what are you doing in there?” The pink-clad priestess stood at the door, her hand raised to knock again.

A small bevy of costumed convention staff stood around her, their faces set in worried frowns.

“She’s dead,” I said. “Call the police.”

“Dead?”

“Dead, as in murdered,” I said. “Don’t come in here, unless you want to become suspects like me. Call the police. Oh, and another thing,” I added, glancing at my watch. “Send someone down to tell them to start the look-alike contest without her.”

I closed the door to shut out their questions. I figured since I was already in the room, I should wait here for the police. I didn’t fancy standing there, staring at the QB’s body, so I returned to the bathroom.

“Go away! I want to be left alone! Go away!” the parrot shrieked.

How odd, I thought. The parrot’s voice sounded eerily like the QB’s. Her words, her voice, even her angry, imperious tone.

But the parrot’s body language belied the confident tone of the words. It seemed terrified, fluttering wildly around the shower stall.

Was it terrified of me? Or still terrified by something that happened before I arrived? Would the bird be terrified if it had witnessed the murder? Possibly, I supposed. But I thought it more likely the bird wouldn’t react this way unless the killer had tried to attack it, too.

I moved a little closer, to see if the bird was injured. I wouldn’t have thought the bird could get more frantic but it did, and called out something else in the QB’s voice.

“I can do anything. I
own
them; I can—”

And then the voice broke off into a sound that chilled me. A death rattle. Not that I’d ever heard a real, live person make that sound. Other than Dad, of course, who’d heard it plenty of times during his medical career, and had been known to demonstrate it at the dinner table for the edification of his children and grandchildren. So I knew this sounded like the real thing, and I wondered if the parrot had just repeated the QB’s last words.

Figuring I shouldn’t scare the only eyewitness, I left the bathroom and found a spot reasonably close to the door where I didn’t have to look at the QB.

And then, the minute it crossed my mind that I didn’t have to look at her, the temptation to look became irresistible. I craned my neck in a couple of different ways before giving up and stepping closer.

Not a pretty sight, I thought, feeling queasy. I couldn’t decide if her face was angry or terrified.

No sign of a wound on the front of her head. Or the sides. Odd. If she’d been hit on the back of the head, why had she landed face up? Maybe I was wrong—I’d have to ask Dad—but I had the distinct impression that if you coshed someone on the back of the head, they keeled over face first. Had someone moved her?

I inched forward, trying to see if there was anything that could explain this apparent discrepancy. From my new angle, I could see her right hand—before, the bed had blocked my view.

She was holding something. A small scrap of paper.

To get a good look at it, I had to lean over so far that I was in serious danger of falling on top of the corpse. But I did get a look.

It was the torn corner of a drawing. From a Porfiria comic book, by the look of it. A roughly triangular piece, apparently torn from the lower right corner of a page, and containing most of a single frame.

Just then, I heard a commotion out in the hall. Probably the police, I realized. Which meant that I didn’t really have time to study the scrap of comic before they barged in. Taking it out of her hand would be a stupid idea.

I reached into my pocket and found that I still had the tiny digital camera. I took half a dozen shots of the paper. And a few of the position of the body, and a few more of the surrounding clutter.

I had just barely stuffed the camera back in my pocket when the police walked in.