Scotched

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “I have to get back to the hotel,” she said when she faced him again. “There’s a banquet tonight.”

  Dan frowned. “Can’t you give it a pass?”

  “I don’t want to. After the meal, there’s a program. A couple of awards, I think. And a bit of entertainment. There will probably be a tribute to Nola, too. Poor woman. She worked so hard to make this event a reality.”

  His frown deepened. He wasn’t buying her cheerfully given explanation.

  “Okay. I confess. I’m not going for the food or entertainment, but I haven’t got any plans anyone—not you, or Gordon, or Sherri—could possibly object to. I just want to observe people’s reactions. I imagine everyone knows by now that she’s not just unable to be there.” Phoebe Lewis’s attempt to keep the news of Nola’s death under wraps had been doomed from the start. “I’ll be like a fly on the wall, and I promise I’ll tell Gordon right away if I notice anything peculiar.”

  “No, you’ll tell me, or Sherri, and one of us will tell the super trooper.”

  Liss knew she ought to resent his bossiness, but she found herself smiling instead. “Fine with me,” she said. “I’d just as soon not talk to Gordon again.” She went up on her tiptoes to kiss Dan on the mouth. “So, are you giving me a lift out to The Spruces or am I driving myself?”

  “I’ll drive,” he said. “And I’m sticking with you for the evening. Come back to the house with me while I change clothes.” He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, hardly banquet attire.

  A few minutes later, Liss was sitting on the bed in Dan’s room while he burrowed in the closet for dress pants and a good shirt. It was not the first time she’d been there, but it always seemed a little strange to her. Dan hadn’t always owned this house. He’d only bought it a few years back. Long ago, when Liss had been growing up in Moosetookalook, this had been her family’s home. Dan’s bedroom had been the one her parents slept in.

  “I wonder if I should give Mom and Dad a call. They both knew Nola when they were young, although Dad was older and Mom was a couple of classes behind her.”

  Dan turned, his selections in hand and a peculiar expression on his face. “Uh, no need. They already know what’s going on.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Come again?”

  After he’d filled her in on his conversation with her parents, Liss couldn’t decide which news bothered her more—that Dolores Mayfield had phoned her parents or that they’d changed their plans and would be arriving in Moosetookalook ahead of schedule.

  “I know it’s awful of me, but I don’t think I can cope with my mother right now.”

  “Cheer up,” Dan said. “It will take them the best part of a week to drive here.”

  “Still too soon.” She loved her parents, but she’d inherited her tendency to meddle from her mother. Long distance, she could tolerate all those helpful suggestions. Dealing with Violet MacCrimmon in person was an entirely different matter.

  “At the moment,” Dan said, “I’m not particularly interested in what your folks have planned. I’m more concerned about what you’re up to. You may say you’re just going to observe, but I know you, Liss.” Dressed for the evening, even to a necktie, he sat down next to her on the bed. “What are you really hoping to accomplish by going to this banquet?”

  Liss sighed and leaned against him. She didn’t want to lie to the man she was going to marry. Reluctantly, knowing full well how he’d react, she gave him the same abridged account she’d shared first with Sherri and then with Margaret—Gordon’s confidences; her own rationale for rejecting the murder/suicide theory; her recent discoveries about Nola; and the conclusions she’d drawn from those.

  Dan put one hand on each of her shoulders and turned her so that they were facing one another. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight. You think that because Nola was a ghostwriter for Yvonne, something you can’t prove, that Yvonne, or maybe her manager, or maybe both of them acting together, killed Jane Nedlinger, then Nola, to keep them from telling anyone? What kind of sense does that make, especially for killing Nola? If you’re right, Yvonne needed her to write more books.”

  “That’s what Sherri said, too, but what if Nola found out they’d killed Jane? What if she threatened to tell the authorities?” When another possibility suddenly occurred to her, Liss felt her eyes go wide. “Or maybe Nola was the one who told Jane about the ghostwriting in the first place.”

  Dan gave her a hard look. “Nope. She appears to be sane. Must be something contagious about the mystery conference. Is there a prize for coming up with the wildest scenario?”

  “I’m serious, Dan.” He couldn’t doubt that she was in earnest, but he might indeed be questioning her sanity. She didn’t let that stop her from expanding on her newest theory. “Nola knew what Jane’s blog was like, but she sent her information about the First Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con anyway. And a copy of Yvonne’s latest book.”

  “Don’t you mean Nola’s latest book?”

  Liss ignored the sarcasm. “Who’s to say Nola didn’t do more? It makes a terrible kind of sense. Nola must have been sick and tired of always staying behind the scenes while Yvonne was in the spotlight, praised for her writing and raking in both royalties and honors. It’s a really big deal to make the New York Times bestseller list. Maybe that was the final straw. Nola must have—”

  Dan shut her up by the simple expedient of kissing her. Hard.

  “What was that for?” Not that she minded. Not really. Dan was a heck of a good kisser.

  “It was either kiss you or tie you up and gag you. How about we skip the banquet and spend the evening right here?”

  “Nice try, but no.” She squirmed out of his embrace and stood. “And now I have a secondary reason for sticking to my plans—I want to impress on a certain stubborn man that he can’t run my life for me, even if I do love him to distraction. I have the right to make my own decisions. And my own mistakes. You should be happy I chose to confide in you instead of keeping everything to myself!”

  She had to give Dan credit. He did not take the opening to remind her of just where some of her past mistakes had led her. In her heart, she knew he was right to worry about her. She had a history of not leaving things well enough alone. Still, it galled her to do nothing when she genuinely thought she might be able to help. And she would go straight to Gordon with anything she stumbled across. Or, at the very least, she’d ask Sherri to pass the information along.

  “If we’re going to do this,” Dan said, “then let’s do it.” He heaved himself off the bed but took the time to look pointedly at his watch. “Are you sure there’s any point in going to the banquet? It must be half over with by now.”

  “I told Margaret I’d meet her there.”

  Dan drove her to The Spruces, mostly in silence. He was right on her heels when she reached the ballroom. She entered on a wave of laughter. Apparently the toast-chick had just said something uproariously funny.

  Liss located Margaret without difficulty, seated at a table near the middle of the room. She’d saved a chair for Liss, but Dan was out of luck. The round table had places for ten, and the rest of them were occupied by conference attendees.

  “You don’t have a banquet ticket,” she whispered. “You can’t stay.”

  He scanned the immediate area, but there wasn’t an empty chair to be seen. “I’ll be back,” he promised and stalked away.

  Liss wondered if she’d find him waiting in the corridor for her at the end of the banquet.

  Her first quick visual survey of the ballroom located both Yvonne and Bill. She was onstage with the other luminaries. He occupied a table near the front of the room. Relieved that neither of her suspects had flown the coop, Liss allowed herself to relax and enjoy what was left of the event. She’d missed the meal, but not the entertainment.

  Betty Jean Neal, the fan guest of honor, had taken the podium. “I’ve met a lot of mystery writers,” she began, “mostly because I’ve been high bidder at charity auctions at other
conferences. So far, I’ve won the right to name characters in four books, and one of my best friends is up to three. This friend, who wants to remain anonymous, doesn’t always choose her own name. One time she asked the author to name a character after her mother-in-law. Unfortunately, Ms. Mother-in-Law ended up as a hooker and was killed off on page three. You got your money’s worth out of that one, didn’t you, Susie?” Betty Jean winked at a woman wearing a yellow name tag and seated at the table closest to the stage. “How long was it before she spoke to you again?”

  Good-natured about the ribbing, Susie called out, “Over a year!” When the crowd laughed and applauded, she stood and took a bow.

  Aunt Margaret leaned close to Liss to whisper in her ear. “A lot of these people know each other from other fan conferences.”

  “So it seems.”

  “More suspects.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ve been making a list,” Margaret said and pulled a small spiral notebook out of her purse.

  Liss wasn’t surprised. She’d picked up her list-making habit from spending time with her aunt. Most of the names on Margaret’s list were the same ones Liss had written down. As Liss had, Margaret had labeled one page “Jane” and another “Nola.” Liss ran a finger down the first list, stopping at “Eleanor Ogilvie.”

  That was the woman Jane Nedlinger had accosted after she’d talked to Dan at the opening reception. She’d worn a green name tag, indicating that she was a speaker at the conference. Liss had meant to look her up in the program but somehow she’d never gotten around to doing so. Now she tapped Ms. Ogilvie’s name with her fingernail and lifted her eyebrows at Margaret in an unspoken question.

  The noise level had risen, making conversation in normal voices next to impossible, but Margaret pointed at the next table. Liss recognized the stocky, hard-faced woman sitting there as the same one Dan had pointed out to her, but she was no closer to knowing any more about her.

  “Who?” she mouthed at Margaret.

  Margaret took back her notebook, fished a pen out of the tiny clutch purse she carried, and wrote, “Agent. Used to be an editor.”

  Liss wondered what Jane had known about her. After the banquet, she’d try to find out, although the last thing she really wanted was to discover another likely suspect.

  She returned her attention to the stage in time to see three of the attending authors rush the podium. To the obvious surprise of the toast-chick, they shouldered her aside and relieved her of the microphone.

  “We’re here to present the award for worst review of a great book,” Blair Somerled announced.

  Liss’s first reaction, when he held up a napkin-draped object—a statue of some kind, or perhaps a plaque—was to think that this award was in poor taste, considering that Jane Nedlinger, had she lived, might have been a serious contender for the “honor.” Then Somerled whipped off the covering to reveal a rather ghastly-looking stuffed pigeon wearing a red hat and a little cape.

  A moment of shocked silence was followed by sustained, helpless laughter. The “presentation” was a spoof. Another Maine author, who wrote Elizabethan mysteries—Liss couldn’t remember her name—put on a “literary” accent to read the mock review aloud. The text contained every cliché of a badly written negative critique. It even gave away the ending of a fictitious mystery novel titled Off With Their Bodies! As soon as she finished reading, the “reviewer”—a scarecrow dressed in a tux—was brought onstage to accept the award.

  “A dummy with straw for brains,” someone in the audience remarked. “That’s appropriate!” And everyone laughed again.

  After Blair Somerled made a brief apology to Phoebe, Susie, and the other members of the organizing committee for the high jinks, the third author, someone Liss didn’t recognize, turned to the crowd. “Of course this was all in fun,” she said, in the manner of a disclaimer. “We’re certain any real reviewers among you would never turn out such a feeble attempt at literary criticism.” With that, all three left the stage.

  “Well, that was the highlight of the conference for me,” said a tall redheaded woman sitting at Liss’s table. She wiped tears of laughter from her face. “Too funny.”

  “They’d better hope real reviewers have a sense of humor,” Margaret commented.

  “The only reviewers likely to be at this conference are those who came here as fans. That means they appreciate humor.” The redhead’s face split into a broad, toothy grin. “I should know. I am one.”

  The scheduled program resumed with a brief speech by Yvonne Quinlan as guest of honor. After that, two real awards were presented. One was for service to the local mystery community. It was awarded, posthumously, to Nola Ventress, and accepted on her behalf by a solemn-faced Phoebe. The other was for favorite book by an author attending the conference. Liss vaguely remembered seeing a ballot in her goodie bag but she’d never gotten around to voting. She wasn’t surprised when the award went to Yvonne Quinlan for her current best-seller.

  Yvonne seemed genuinely surprised and absolutely delighted. “Thank you so much,” she gushed. “I’ve won a few acting awards in the past, but never one for my writing. I’m just so grateful for the recognition, and I promise you that I intend to continue the Toni Starling series for many years to come. I might even reveal a bit about Simon’s distant past in the next one.”

  “Hypocrite,” Liss muttered under cover of tumultuous applause.

  Her gaze drifted over nearby tables until it came to rest on Eleanor Ogilvie. She looked as if she, too, found Yvonne’s claims hard to swallow.

  The banquet wound down around ten, but almost everyone in attendance lingered and mingled, chatting with friends or sidling up to authors for one more brush with fame. There were additional panels scheduled for the morning, and a group signing, followed by a tea, but no one seemed in a hurry to call it a night.

  “Why do you have Eleanor Ogilvie on your list?” Liss asked Margaret as she set a course to intercept the editor-turned-agent.

  “I saw Jane Nedlinger talking to her at the opening reception. They were huddled together when I got back from checking that everything was set to show those classic movies. At that point, of course, I didn’t know who she was.”

  “And who is she?” Margaret’s tone of voice made Liss think that Eleanor Ogilvie must be someone important.

  “Oh, didn’t you know? She’s Yvonne Quinlan’s literary agent.”

  Margaret’s identification came just as there was a brief diminution in the noise level. Overhearing, Ms. Ogilvie snapped her head around, looking for the person who’d been talking about her. Liss saw no advantage in subtlety.

  “I’m Liss MacCrimmon from the dealers’ room,” she said as she covered the last few feet to Ms. Ogilvie’s side, “and this is my aunt, Margaret Boyd, the hotel’s events coordinator. I wonder if you’d mind telling us what you talked about with Jane Nedlinger on Thursday evening?”

  Her forthrightness earned her a frosty look and an even colder tone of voice. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business.”

  “Jane’s dead.”

  “So is Nola, poor woman.”

  The editor-turned-agent for the actress-turned-writer took another swallow of the drink she carried—a rum and cola by the look of it.

  “Can I buy you another drink?” Liss asked. “I’d really like to talk to you.”

  “I don’t discuss my clients. And if you’re a writer, I’m not interested in taking on any new ones. I only came here because I owed Nola a favor. I participated in a panel discussion. That paid off my debt.”

  Margaret stepped in to soothe where Liss had riled. “That was very generous of you and I’m sure that’s why Nola always spoke so highly of you.”

  Liss gave her aunt a sharp look. She hadn’t realized Margaret could lie so smoothly.

  Eleanor shook her head. “I doubt that. Nola didn’t like me much.”

  “Why not?” Liss asked.

  Eleanor drained her glass. “Because back when
I was an editor, I rejected her first book.”

  “Contract for Murder?”

  “You know it?” Her face was a study in astonishment.

  “I read the e-book.”

  Eleanor’s lips pursed in disapproval. Of Nola making her novel available electronically, Liss wondered, or of e-books in general? Then something clicked. “You called it her first book. That means you know she wrote others. And I’ll bet you know under what name.”

  The flash of panic in Eleanor’s eyes gave her away, although she quickly denied that she had any idea what Liss was talking about.

  “So you’ve had nothing to do with Nola since you left editing to become an agent?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Eleanor’s frown turned into a scowl when she lifted her glass and found it empty.

  “You were ticked off at Yvonne when she gave her acceptance speech,” Liss said. “Did you expect her to acknowledge your contribution?”

  Eleanor shrugged and a sardonic smile twisted her thin lips. “She didn’t mention her manager, either.”

  “And she didn’t mention Nola, even though Nola must have been on her mind.”

  “On her mind? How do you mean?” The panic was back, although once again it was swiftly controlled.

  “Nola had just been given an award,” Liss reminded her. “It would have been natural to acknowledge her contribution to the conference, if nothing else. Without Nola, Yvonne would not have won that award.”

  “Yes, I see.” Eleanor began to relax. “No conference, no award.”

  “No Nola, no Yvonne Quinlan novels.” Liss leaned in closer and lowered her voice. “I know Nola was Yvonne’s ghostwriter. Anyone who reads Contract for Murder can see the similarities.”

  Eleanor drew herself up, looked down a rather large, long nose at Liss, and gave her a withering stare. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said again. Then she turned and strode out of the ballroom.

  “Good luck finding a replacement,” Liss called after her.