“No, and you shouldn’t be, either,” Wilson said. “If Tori’s telling the truth, that means she had one less opportunity to poison the victim.”
“If she’s telling the truth?” Jo pointed her fork at Wilson. “How many times do I have to go through the motions to satisfy you?”
“How about until everything’s crystal clear? Did you ask about her job? About her job security?”
We waited for an answer while the chief of police finished her dessert. I contemplated the disappearing chocolate cake and thought about my chocoholic friend Karen Sembler. I really needed to call Karen—
“Tori Fister and Double D?” Wilson said impatiently, and Jo finally looked up.
“Okay, okay. I questioned her about her job. And she told me what I thought you guys already knew—Tori Fister was at the top of her game. Other than that obnoxious Louise Urko person, Fister’s the most sought-after literary agent in this stupid business.”
“Romance is not a stupid business, and Louise is not obnoxious,” I said indignantly.
Wilson gave me one of those looks. I shrugged and sat back, and ever so quietly finished my champagne while he dealt with the chief of police.
“You realize this blows another hole in your case?” he said. “If Tori’s job with Double D wasn’t on the line, why would she resort to murdering a 3P author? What’s her motive?”
Jo told him not to worry.
“Too late. What about Mia Madison?” he persisted. “Did you verify with her?”
“No time.”
“What! Didn’t you promise me you’d question her?”
“Didn’t I tell you I don’t take orders from you? I have limited time and resources.”
And limited talent, I thought to myself, but ever the diplomat, I kept my big mouth shut.
“We think Tori’s job was on the line, Jo.” Wilson was clearly making an effort to remain calm. “I’m telling you this really could be important.”
“You’ve said that about everything.” Jo pushed her plate away and tossed her napkin onto the table. “Fister’s job wasn’t on the line. And as your wife can tell you, publishers are busy people. Ms. Madison had more important things to do today than answer to me.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. “I assure you your murder investigation is far more important than anything else going on at the Happily Ever After.”
“Tell that to Hatsy Glee.”
Wilson practiced some deep breathing while I searched for some Advil in my purse.
“Any news from Atlanta?” he asked as I handed him a pill.
“You mean about the poison?” Jo stretched out a hand, and I gave her an Advil also. “Yes,” she said.
“Yes?” Needless to say, Wilson was a bit shocked by the idea of some actual news. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Jo said. “Instead of a hodgepodge, the state crime lab’s now calling it a mishmash.”
“That’s your news?” Needless to say, Wilson was a bit peeved.
“They’re still working on the exact compound.” Jo stood up. We did the same. “It won’t happen before you people leave,” she said. “But I’m confident things will be crystal clear in due time.”
“I hope you cross your fingers every time you say that,” Wilson told her.
***
Dusk had fallen during dinner, and as we followed the path back to the Goodnight Inn, several ground lights flickered on, illuminating the Spanish moss hanging from the oak trees. It would have been quite pleasant under normal circumstances.
“I’m sorry you haven’t had a chance to shoot—I mean, play—any golf,” I said. I waved out to the course. “But at least you’re avoiding all those scorpions lurking in the sand dunes.”
“Sand traps.” Wilson shook his head. “And even you know there are no scorpions in Georgia.”
I suggested we had enough venom to dodge as it were. “Jo Keegan is so darn snarky. And she’s so wrong.”
“I still hope she’s right,” Wilson said, but he didn’t sound very confident. “She does have one thing right.”
“The ticking clock.” I sighed. “We’re never going to get this sorted out by tomorrow, are we?”
“At least not the means.” He squeezed my hand. “The poison remains a mystery for the time being.”
“But what about motive and opportunity?” I asked. “You should have given Jo a harder time about Mia Madison, Wilson. Someone needs to talk to Mia and get her business partnership with Tori ironed out. What were you thinking?”
He grinned. “I was thinking we’d do it ourselves. You game?”
Must I really tell you my answer to that question?
Chapter 32
But where was Adam Sheppard when I needed him?
Evidently he had the day off, and Wilson and I didn’t want to create a stir asking around the Happily Ever After crowd for Mia’s room number. And the ever nonhelpful front desk clerk remained ever nonhelpful. Good old Judy was loathe to tell us anything.
“I wonder how Tori Fister figured out these things,” I said as Wilson and I stepped away empty handed. “She knew my room number, and Penelope’s, and likely Gavin’s.”
Wilson mentioned that Tori had the whole handful of Womac brothers at her beck and call. “The youngest is a computer geek,” he said. “Must come in handy.”
I pursed my lips. “Having a computer geek at one’s beck and call does indeed come in handy, Captain Rye.”
He grinned. “I’ll call Densmore.”
He did so, but he waited until we were safely ensconced in our room to ask the amazing Lieutenant to hack into the hotel’s registration system. He glanced up from the phone. “He can do it, but it will take a minute.”
“Well, tell him to hurry up and hack.” I tapped my watch and mentioned I was expected at the book signing in less than an hour. “Hatsy will kill me if I’m late.”
But I decided to make use of my time while we waited for Russell to do his thing. I told Mr. Cupid to cross his fingers and found my own cell phone.
***
The good news?
Karen answered her phone.
The bad news?
The woman was altogether unreasonable and point-blank refused to see Pierpont Rigby under any circumstances, business or pleasure.
“But he needs you,” I said.
“Yeah, right. I told him I’d make a few calls and line up some other folks to do the work he needs.”
“Other folks?” I rolled my eyes at that ridiculous notion and stated the obvious. Karen Sembler is the best handyman—woman—on Planet Earth. “And poor Pierpont’s mansion is practically falling down. He needs you, you, and only you.”
“You’re laying it on kind of thick, Jess.”
“I am speaking the truth,” I said with a haughty toss of my head.
“And I speak the truth. No more Pierpont Rigby.”
I considered how to continue and decided guilt might work. “You should do it for Candy,” I said. “Have you talked to her?”
“I’m not nuts. I’m avoiding Kiddo.”
“Candy is your good friend, Karen, and she got into serious trouble over you.” I related the Mrs. Marachini crisis. “The rich old lady threatened to get Candy fired if you don’t finish the job for Pierpont.”
“Yeah, right. Like Tate’s would ever fire Candy Poppe, their superwoman saleswoman?”
Good point.
I frowned at Mr. Cupid, listened to Wilson mm-hmming over on his phone call, and also listened to Karen’s ridiculous defense of her actions—her non–blue blood background, her supposedly nonstarlet looks, her supposedly nonexistent sex appeal—
“You’re afraid,” I interrupted. I let my intuition take over. “You’ve never been with a man before.”
“Girlfriend! Shout it from the rooftops, why don’t you?”
Wilson was watching, so I pointed to my phone. “Karen,” I mouthed.
“I sure as hell knew it wasn’t Candy,” he said and went back to listening
to Densmore.
I promised Karen I would always respect her privacy. “And I think Pierpont respects you, too. I think he’s heartbroken over your rejection.”
“I think you think too much,” she said.
“I think you should give the guy another chance,” I said, and Karen sighed so dramatically Russell Densmore likely heard her from his end of the line with Wilson.
“I’m too inexperienced,” she said.
“Oh, for Lord’s sake! Then read a few of Adelé Nightingale books,” I said. “Or better yet, I’ll loan you a copy of Maxine Carlisle’s masterpiece.”
“The Sex Scene Sourcebook woman? God help me.”
“That’s the spirit!” I told Karen she’d find Sensual and Scintillating in my bedroom. “It’s on one of the nightstands,” I said. “Wilson was reading it just the other night.”
“Wilson?” she asked, and I hung up while I had her thusly intrigued.
***
“You told her I read Sensual and Scintillating?” Wilson asked a few minutes later. “Remind me why I married you.”
“Perhaps because I supply you with books like Sensual and Scintillating,” I said. “And I had to tell Karen your deep dark secret. It was an emergency.”
He waited for more details about Karen’s secrets, but I insisted she deserved her privacy, and to his credit, he agreed.
“But Mia Madison’s another story.” He opened our door and waved me forward. “Room 377,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Go do what?” I asked as we weaved our way to the elevator. “I write for 3P, which makes us supposed enemies, remember?”
“Leave it to me,” Wilson said as we rounded the last corner to the elevator.
“But we don’t have much time before the book signing.” I remained pessimistic. “Mia’s a shrewd businesswoman. I’m sure she considers her partnership with Tori—whatever it is, exactly—a private matter.”
Wilson again suggested I leave it to him, and we hopped on the elevator.
I hit the third-floor button. “I suppose you can use your authoritarian cop-voice to try to intimidate her,” I said. “But Mia’s no dummy. She knows you’re out of your jurisdiction.”
“She’ll talk to me.”
We walked off the elevator, but I stopped before we made it too far down the hallway.
“Why?” I squinted. “What do you have up your sleeve, Wilson Rye?”
“Charm.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll be charming.”
Okay, so I was incredulous, but Wilson insisted he knew how. “I’ve read your books,” he said.
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry, Dearheart, but you are no Conrad Montjoy.”
“Yeah, but I’m no Barney Splat, either.”
“Splawn!”
He folded his arms and glared. “You’ve been calling me Mr. Cordiality all weekend.”
“Yes, and my mother says you’re darling. Clearly, we Hewitt woman believe in fairy tales.”
“No you don’t. But my charm is not a fairy tale.” He actually said this with a straight face. “Think about those raffle tickets that keep selling like hotcakes. And who’s in competition to buy the most?”
I recollected my conversation with Maxine Carlisle from the previous day. “Mia Madison,” I whispered.
“Bingo. So I’ll be charming, dammit.” He started walking. “And you can be quiet and watch the expert.”
“This ought to be good,” I mumbled and hastened to follow Mr. Cordiality, the darling charmer.
***
Charm?
Charm Willowby to be exact. She opened Mia’s door, and for a brief moment I worried that Russell had given us the wrong room number. But Wilson knew better. He turned on the baby blues and asked if Mia were available.
Charm stepped forward to better block our entrance. “She has a headache.”
“Who wouldn’t have a headache?” Mia asked from somewhere inside the room. “Who’s there?”
Wilson called out to identify himself, and she was at the door in a flash.
Mia elbowed Charm out of the way. “We’ll talk later,” she said.
“But, but.”
“You’re due at that book signing any minute.”
“But so is Adelé—”
“Later!” Mia veritably shoved the younger woman out the door and pulled Wilson in, and somehow I managed to wedge myself inside just before she closed the door.
“Help yourself!” She offered my husband what one assumes was her most demure smile and waved to the two chairs.
Wilson took the desk chair, Mia took the easy chair, and I made do leaning against the dresser while he inquired about Mia’s migraine. The woman was sitting down, but she still managed a fake swoon. A sixty-year-old woman swooning? Trust me, it wasn’t pretty. But at least she reported that her headache was easing with each passing moment.
“Good thing, since I have to be well by tomorrow!” She pointed to the large pile of pink raffle tickets on her nightstand. “I plan on winning,” she said and winked at Guess Who.
Guess Who winked back and confessed that he was hoping the same thing. I myself was happy I’d eaten a fairly light dinner.
“But about that headache,” I interrupted, and he cleared his throat.
“About your headache, Ms. Madison,” he said.
“Please! Call me Mia!”
Call her nauseating.
However, Wilson called her Mia and wondered if her headache had anything to do with Tori Fister’s situation.
She gasped. “How did you know? Oh, woe is me!” She brushed her brow in a gesture reminiscent of one of Adelé more absurd heroines, and Wilson looked to me as if I might have a clue about how to proceed.
“Charm,” I mouthed, and he soldiered on.
“I’m curious about Tori’s predicament,” he told Mia. “I’m a cop—a homicide investigator.”
“I know. I read your bio.” She pointed at the desk, and I found the Paramour for a Day flyer with a full-color photo of my husband on one side, and a few “Fun and Frolicsome Facts!” on the other.
I’m not sure how frolicsome Wilson’s choice of profession is, but his job was mentioned, as were Geez Louise’s guesstimates of his height and weight. “Six-two and two hundred pounds of fantastical man-flesh!” I read, and when I tuned back in, the fantastical man-flesh had Mia Madison divulging all.
She sobbed into her hanky. “I drove her to it!” she wailed. “I told Tori to recruit some new blood or kiss Double D good-bye!”
“New blood?” Wilson asked.
“No! I wanted old blood, actually.” Mia sniffled and wrung her hanky. “I wanted 3P’s best—Penelope, or Gavin, or your wife. And she’s not new at all!” Mia glanced at me, perhaps seeing me for the first time since I’d entered her room. “Adelé’s old,” she said.
Adelé thanked her for noticing. “And here’s a shocker,” I added. “I’m happy at 3P.”
“Oh, woe is me!”
***
“Why woe?” Wilson asked, and Mia gave up on the fake tears to try a few melodramatic sighs.
Poor Wilson sighed also. “I’m trying to understand,” he said. “You ordered Tori Fister to steal—I mean, recruit—some 3P authors?”
She frowned. “I especially wanted your wife.”
“It seems to me she concentrated on Penelope,” he said.
“Because she thought Penelope was the easiest prey. She knew Gavin and Adelé both had roommates this weekend. Tori does her best work when she catches her prey alone.”
Wilson leaned forward and took one of her hands in both of his. “Prey?” he asked, but apparently Mia didn’t realize the significance of her choice of words.
She looked up from her hanky. “Penelope was here alone,” she said. “Therefore, Penelope was Tori’s easiest prey.” Mia suddenly got it and held a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean prey!”
Wilson nodded and asked her to keep going.
“I told Tori she could kiss her
partnership with Daydream Desires good-bye if she didn’t—” Mia stopped and hiccupped. “If she didn’t even out the score of the Hall of Famers by the end of the weekend.”
“The score between 3P and Double D?” My husband the mathematician pointed out that five new Hall of Fame authors wouldn’t divide in half very easily.
“I didn’t think of that!” Mia cried. “And poor Tori didn’t, either. She was so desperate to please me. A desperate Roaring Tori.” Mia looked at me. “Can you think of anything more extreme?”
I pursed my lips and chose to dodge that question. “What was Charm doing here?” I asked instead.
“Mia’s her publisher,” Wilson answered, but I kept my eyes on Mia and repeated my question.
She took a deep breath and spit it out. “Tori Fister isn’t the only one who’s in trouble with Daydream Desires. Oh, woe is me!”
***
“Woe is her? How about woe is me?” Wilson said once we were safely on the elevator. “What a drama queen.”
I agreed that Mia had read a few too many romance novels.
“But is she credible?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” I said. “In between all her woe-is-me-ing, Mia did divulge her basic plan. She’s firing Charm, and she’s firing Tori.” I shuddered. “I’m so glad I’m with 3P and Louise.”
We stepped off the elevator but found a secluded corner of the lobby before rushing off to the book signing. A group of fans scurried past, their pink Happily Ever After satchels emptied and ready for a new batch of romance novels.
“You do realize the significance of what we just learned?” Wilson asked me.
I nodded. “Tori’s job really was on the line. Therefore she was desperate to steal clients from Louise, and their rivalry was not all in fun.” I looked into the baby blues. “The significance? Tori lied to Louise.”
“No, Jessie,” he said. “The significance is, Tori lied to Jo Keegan.”
Chapter 33
Wilson stopped and visibly braced himself at the doorway.
Five Spot Page 18
