We’ll Always Have Parrots

by Donna Andrews

  A little later, I spotted a suit jacket approaching through the fur, feathers, and chain mail.

  “Morning, Ichabod,” I said.

  “Good morning,” he said. He grabbed the edge of our booth table like a swimmer reaching a life raft. He looked awful. Not hung over, like Chris. And not dazed and shell-shocked as he’d been yesterday. More like profoundly despondent.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked.

  “I learned some very strange and disturbing things last night,” he said. “I’m not sure how I can possibly face the fans at my panel today.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Those con parties always get pretty wild. Chances are, most people won’t remember whatever it is you think you did, and even if they do, it’s a very tolerant group.”

  In fact, if he’d gotten a little wild and crazy, it might improve his image.

  “It’s nothing I did,” he said, looking horrified. “It’s something I learned about my uncle.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  He frowned, and stared at me for a few moments, as if unsure whether to trust me. Then the need to unburden himself won out.

  “Remember what I told you yesterday?” he said. “About my parents paying off my uncle’s debts?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” he said. “After he died, some very unsavory people came to see my parents and claimed my uncle had borrowed a lot of money from them. Thousands and thousands of dollars.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Drugs, obviously,” he said. “What else could it be?”

  “A lot of things,” I said. “Maybe he gambled. Maybe he had some kind of medical expenses. Who knows? I have an aunt who practically went bankrupt buying stuff on eBay.”

  “They didn’t have eBay in the seventies,” Dilley said.

  “No, but buying stuff you don’t need and can’t afford has been around for centuries,” I said.

  “Would anyone other than drug dealers send thugs to collect their money?” he asked.

  “You’ve obviously never met any loan sharks,” I said. “Don’t automatically assume the worst about your uncle.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “But even so—what am I going to say to his fans?”

  “The truth,” I said. “Just not the whole truth. And put a positive spin on it.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Your uncle died impoverished and unknown, thanks to a world that failed to appreciate his genius,” I improvised. “And only the love of a few far-seeing and dedicated fans like those attending this convention kept his work alive until the television show could bring it to a wider audience.”

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “I can work with that. Died impoverished and unknown. Yes.”

  He wandered off, muttering to himself. He looked much more cheerful. Perhaps I could count cheering him up as my good deed for the day.

  And perhaps he’d solved the mystery of why his uncle had sold the rights to his work to the QB for such a low price. He’d been desperate for money.

  But did that get me any closer to finding out who killed the QB? Not that I could tell.

  I whiled away a little time trying to close a tough sale. Okay, it was for one of Steele’s swords, but considering how much I’d left him to his own devices, maybe it was only fair.

  Steele gave up as soon as a customer expressed the slightest reservations about a sword. Usually about the price tag. But while he was talking to another customer, a prosperous-looking fan in an Amblyopian ranger costume asked the price of one of Steele’s swords and gulped at the answer. So I went into full sales mode. Described all the steps that went into making the blade and then the hilt. Showed him some of the finer points of construction that you wouldn’t find on cheap, mass-produced swords. Opened up a couple of reference books to prove how historically accurate it was. And as a grand finale, I dragged out a similar sword that I’d gotten from an inexpensive mail order catalogue, let him see the two, side-by-side, and let him pick them both up.

  “You see,” I said, as he hefted the two appreciatively, “the handmade one’s at least a pound heavier, but the balance is so good it actually feels much lighter.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said, nodding.

  Of course, you’d notice the extra pound quick enough, if you actually tried to fight with the thing for a few minutes, but I doubted if this particular ranger would ever take it off his wall.

  I confess: I was showing off for Steele’s benefit. Nice of him not to laugh when my would-be customer said he’d have to think about it, and slipped away, his body language clearly telling me that he wasn’t coming back.

  “Now I know why you had that piece of junk around,” was all Steele said.

  So much for my superior sales skills.

  “Hey, Meg!”

  I turned to see Eric standing in front of the booth.

  “Hey, kiddo,” I said. “Are you all by yourself?”

  “No, Grandpa is over there talking to another parrot,” he said. Dad had acquired a stepladder from somewhere, and was perched atop it, holding the tape recorder out toward a pair of blue and yellow birds.

  “Great,” I said. At least Eric didn’t seem bored or unhappy. He was watching Dad’s latest antics with the same bemused interest all the grandchildren felt before they got old enough to be embarrassed by them.

  “Where’s Grandma?”

  “She went to a fabric store.”

  I winced. Mother didn’t sew; she only went to fabric stores when she got the decorating bug.

  “Oh, Eric,” I said. “I got the rest of the signatures on your program. All except Andrea; she didn’t come at all this weekend.”

  “Wow,” Eric said. “You mean, you even got…her autograph?”

  “Piece of cake,” I said, flipping to the QB’s picture. “Nobody’s tougher than your Aunt Meg; you remember that.”

  “Cool,” Eric said. “I was going to get her to sign the big photo at the beginning, but this is probably better. It all matches.”

  Big photo at the beginning?

  “Can I see that for a second?” I asked.

  Eric obediently handed back the program.

  The guest biographies were arranged, three to a page, in a section toward the middle of the program book. Arranged alphabetically. The fourth page, where I’d had the QB sign, contained Michael Waterston, Maggie West, and Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones. I flipped forward one page and saw that the middle spread included Walker Morris, Andrea and Harry from Blazing Sabers, the elderly character actor who played Porfiria’s chief counselor, Karen the costumer, and the professor I’d seen holding forth on Jungian archetypes in Amblyopia: The guests whose last names fell between F and T.

  Flipping forward again, I saw a full page portrait of the QB occupying the page opposite the first three guests: Nate Abrams, Chris Blair, and Ichabod Dilley. Eric had already gotten signatures from all three before tackling the QB.

  “This was where you were asking her to sign?” I said. “When she said that funny thing to you?”

  “That she wasn’t going to sign on the same page as that imposter,” Eric said, nodding. “I guess she meant Ichabod Dilley, since he was only the nephew of the real guy.”

  “That must be it,” I said.

  I handed the program back, and Eric trotted away holding it.

  Yes, she probably did mean Ichabod Dilley. But how had she known he was an imposter? I’d probably found out before anyone at the convention, but that was still only a few minutes before one. When we’d gone to her room at two, she hadn’t called him an imposter. She’d sounded worried about what he would say. And I doubted the subject had come up during her panel. When did she find out?

  Maybe there was no particular mystery about it. Maybe someone had told her between the time she left her room and the time Eric went through the autograph line. Or maybe she already knew. Even if she didn’t know him well enough to keep in touch a
fter she bought the comic book rights from him, thirty years was time enough for her to have heard about his death somehow.

  But if the QB already knew Dilley was dead, why hadn’t she said something when she saw his name on the program?

  And if she didn’t know he was dead, how did she know Dilley the younger was an imposter, sight unseen?

  And, in either case, why had she been so worried about what Ichabod Dilley, real or fake, had to say?

  “Something wrong?” Steele asked, interrupting my reverie.

  “Long story,” I said, slightly distracted. I’d spotted Nate cutting through the dealers’ room. He looked upset about something—news about the show perhaps?

  “Mind if I run out for a minute?” I asked. “I need to ask Nate something.”

  “What? And leave me with all these customers?” Steele said. Since the only three customers in the room were browsing in the used book and video booth, I took that for permission.

  I caught up with Nate just as he stepped out into the hall.

  Chapter 27

  “Nate, what’s up?” I asked. “You look like a man with a mission.”

  “Just getting some coffee before another panel,” he said.

  “Damn; I was hoping you’d had some news about the show.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “And frankly, I don’t think we’ll get a decision until the police solve the murder. What if the network announces that the show will go on, and then the police arrest the wrong person?”

  “By wrong person, I assume you mean someone connected with the show.”

  “Well, yes,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know what we’d do if that happened. And if the police don’t find the killer soon, then I think the network will pass, even if the killer ultimately has nothing to do with the show.”

  We’d reached the green room by this time, and found Maggie, Walker, and Michael seated around a table, laughing uproariously. Detective Foley stood nearby holding a cup of coffee and looking puzzled.

  “What now?” Nate muttered.

  I strolled over to perch near Michael. Nate followed more warily.

  “Have a seat, Meg,” Maggie called, waving a spiral-bound booklet toward a chair. “You’ve got to hear this one.”

  “This one what?” Nate asked.

  “She’s a hoot when she does this,” Michael murmured in my ear.

  Maggie sat up very straight, assumed a solemn expression, and began reading out of the booklet.

  “‘Your bath is ready, my lord Duke,’ the buxom servicing wench announced.”

  “Servicing wench?” Walker interrupted. “Shouldn’t that be serving wench?”

  “Shush,” Maggie said. “The Duke of Urushiol dismissed the comely wench who had drawn his bath water and removed his clothes after she was safely out of the room.”

  “Wait a minute,” Michael said. “How could she remove his clothes after she’s out of the room?”

  “She didn’t,” Walker said. “He did.”

  “No, Michael is right,” Maggie said. “Grammatically speaking, she did, from afar. She has strange gifts, this buxom, comely servicing wench.”

  “Go on,” Walker said. “Get to the part where the babe shows up.”

  “Oh, God,” Nate said. “Please tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing.”

  “I’m not doing anything!” Walker said, with mock innocence. “See, my hands are on the table.”

  “I can’t stay and listen to this!” Nate warned.

  “The duke, hearing a noise behind him, startled,” Maggie intoned.

  “Startled who?” Michael asked. “Or should that be whom?”

  “Yes, it should be whom,” Maggie said. “And yes, startled is usually a transitive verb. Has anyone got a red pen?”

  “Here,” Michael said. “It’s not red, but it makes nice little blots all over everything you write on.”

  “Serves you right for bringing a cheap pen to your autograph line,” Walker said, shaking his head.

  “I had a nice pen before someone stole it,” Michael countered.

  “I’m leaving,” Nate said. “You know I can’t listen to this.”

  Maggie made corrections on the page, and then resumed.

  “Expecting to see the beautiful Sebacea—”

  “Ooh, the comely mermaid queen!” Walker crowed.

  “Doesn’t do a thing for me; I’m a leg man,” Michael said.

  “The embarrassed duke looked around for something to salvage his modesty.”

  “Finding nothing large enough—” Walker said, with a swagger.

  “Imagine his surprise,” Maggie continued, “when he saw the sinister magician Mephisto standing in the doorway, eyeing him with a strange look of intenseness in his aquiline eyes.”

  “Ick!” Walker exclaimed. “Not of general interest.”

  “Aquiline eyes?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Michael said. “I’m dying to find out what the sinister magician’s up to, aren’t you, Meg?”

  “I do not do slash,” Walker said. “Maybe it’s a character flaw, but I just can’t deal with it.”

  “Would someone mind explaining all this?” Foley said.

  Maggie and Michael collapsed in giggles. Even Walker looked mildly amused. Foley looked at me. Was I doomed to spend the entire weekend explaining TV fandom to the police?

  “I’d be happy to explain if I knew what was going on,” I said. “Why are you all sitting around reading fan fic?”

  “I asked Ms. West to explain something one of my officers overheard in the hallway,” Foley said, “and the next thing I know, I’m standing here listening to them read me bits of badly written erotica.”

  “He wanted to know what slash was,” Maggie said, fighting laughter. “So we were showing him.”

  “I came in late,” Walker said. “I thought you were doing ordinary fan fic.”

  Foley sighed, and looked at me.

  “After the fans have watched every single episode of Porfiria about seventeen times, some of them write their own stories,” I said, “set in the same universe, using the same characters.”

  “As they understand them,” Michael said.

  “That’s what you call fan fiction,” I said. “Or fan fic for short.”

  “Are they allowed to do that?” Foley said, frowning.

  “Bingo!” Walker exclaimed.

  “Technically, no,” I said. “Technically, Miss WynncliffeJones owns—well, owned, anyway—not just the show but the characters, setting—everything.”

  “I own them,” Michael muttered, but so softly that I wasn’t sure anyone else heard him.

  “And if you want to use them in any way, shape, or form you need her permission or you’re in violation of copyright or trademark, I forget which,” I continued. “Say a toy manufacturer wants to do an action figure like this one of Walker,” I said, picking up a six-inch plastic toy that Walker had apparently been playing with. “Before they can do it, they have to get Miss Wynncliffe-Jones’s permission. Or her heirs’ permission from now on. Nice likeness, by the way,” I said, holding it out to Walker.

  “Keep it,” he said, folding my fingers around the doll. “I put myself entirely in your hands. Be gentle with me.”

  “Watch it,” Michael said. “My aquiline eye is on you.”

  “And how rigorously is this enforced?” Foley asked,

  “Speaking completely unofficially,” I said, “since unlike anyone else at this table, I have no actual connection to the show—”

  Maggie laughed at that, and Michael and Walker looked sheepish.

  “As long as they aren’t blatant about it, no one really cares, as far as I can see,” I said. “If you come home from the movies and fantasize that you’re hunting for the lost ark with Indiana Jones, or maybe playing one of the lead roles in Body Heat, who cares? It’s harmless.”

  “And it sells tickets,” Maggie said.

  “And if you’re a would-be writer, and you want to put your
wish fulfillment down on paper, again—who cares? But at some point, if you start passing it out to other people and putting it up on web sites, and even selling it, the production company has to do something or risk losing their rights.”

  “It’s a little hard to see how anything like that could steal the show’s thunder,” Foley said.

  “No, but what if some other production company wants to do a Porfiria movie?” I said. “They’d have to pay through the nose for the rights—unless they can prove that the QB hadn’t done anything to defend her ownership. So, petty as it sounds, by law, unless she wants to let some big crook take advantage of her, she has to slap around all the harmless little fans who are only having fun playing with characters they adore.”

  “But she doesn’t want to slap them around,” Maggie said. “For one thing, it creates ill will, and for another, who wants to pay a bunch of lawyers to do it?”

  “So nobody’s going to search every booth in the dealers’ room to see if some of them might be selling fan fic,” I said. “As long as they’re discreet, they can do whatever they want.”

  “Except hand it to us,” Michael said. “Technically, we’re employees of the production company. We’re not supposed to look at the stuff. Because as long as the company doesn’t officially know it exists, it doesn’t have to do anything.”

  “Besides, it creeps us out,” Walker grumbled.

  “Speak for yourself,” Maggie said, with a grin. “When I find out some guy gets his jollies writing steamy fantasies about me—hell, at my age, I’m flattered.”

  “Well, you don’t get the slash,” Walker said.

  “That’s where I came in,” Foley said. “Maggie, someone said you broke up a group peddling slash in the lobby. That was what I wanted to hear about.”

  “Slash is fan fic that takes two characters from the show who would absolutely not be involved,” Walker said, “and puts them in a…romantic relationship.”

  “Usually two male characters,” Maggie said, “and for ‘romantic,’ substitute ‘erotic.’ But apart from that, yeah.”

  “So this isn’t anything horrific,” Foley said. “For some reason, I got the idea it might be something like a snuff film. Or something drug related.”