Bell, Book, and Scandal jj-14

by Jill Churchill

  "What's more, you're a criminal," Sophie continued, putting the cap on her tirade. "I know how you poisoned me with the chocolates you had sent to me. And you could have killed Zac by attacking him for that book. You'll go to jail for this." Sophie's voice had risen to a shriek. "You've made a fool of me. Nobody makes a fool

  of me. I'll watch every step you ever take when you get out of jail someday."

  Vernetta crossed her arms over her heavy breasts and sneered. "You're wrong about all of this. This plagrizing stuff is crap. It was a pair of really old books. I checked on the Internet and both of them were out of print. They didn't belong to anyone anymore. It was okay to use them. And I know Zac didn't write that book. It was some other guy. Somebody named Howard or Harold or some such smarty-pants name."

  She slapped her large red hands on the table and went on, "And I didn't do anything to your candy and you bet I paid a bundle for it. I even paid extra to have it gift wrapped. I never stole a book from you. I didn't even know what happened to Zac until word got around the conference. You ain't got a leg to stand on, you old tart."

  She stood up, her bosom bouncing violently. "C'mon, Gaylord. We're gettin' ourselves a lawyer right now."

  She stormed out, dragging Gaylord in her wake.

  Silence reigned. Jane, Shelley, Zac, Corwin, and

  Sophie looked as if they'd been poleaxed.

  It was Jane who spoke first, in a faint voice. "I

  suspect she was telling her version of the truth." "God help us all if she is," Shelley said.

  Twenty

  "You can't mean that," Sophie said. "It's clearly plagiarism."

  "Oh, that part is absolutely right. She is a plagiarist. She's admitted it even though she doesn't realize it," Jane said. "What I meant is I believe that she didn't steal the copy of Zac's book. She didn't poison your candy. She isn't responsible for the attack on Zac himself. She was much too confident on those points. Didn't you notice the change in her voice and stance? It was obvious. She didn't even grasp the concept of copyright infringement, or that it was important."

  Shelley stepped in where Jane left off. "We just assumed that since she's immoral — more accurately, ignorant about copyright law, and terribly vulgar — that she's prone to violence. We all have the proof of plagiarism. We have no proof whatsoever that she did any physical harm to anyone."

  "So who did?" Corwin asked.

  "Who knows?" Jane asked. "Someone with an

  entirely different motive, I have to guess. I have no idea who that would be."

  "How can we find out?" Sophie asked.

  "I'd guess you could ask more questions of the doctors who treated you, Ms. Smith," Shelley suggested.

  "They were all idiots. They hadn't a clue," Sophie said.

  "But somebody in the hospital probably took all kinds of samples, and since you recovered so quickly they didn't bother analyzing the samples," Shelley insisted. "I think you should contact the CEO or whoever is the head honcho and learn more answers."

  "I've already signed out ages ago. They wouldn't keep the samples for that long."

  Jane had been thinking of Zac's welfare more than Sophie's.

  "We could theoretically ask the police to survey everyone at the hotel and the conference about that parking lot," Jane said. "When and if they used it. If they noticed Zac's van coming or going."

  "The same thing applies," Shelley argued. "Zac recovered. If he'd been murdered — forgive me for suggesting that, Zac — but if it had happened, they'd have taken it much more seriously and would have already been knee-deep in an investigation."

  Sophie, for once, had waited her turn to speak. "I don't have the time or interest in contacting thehospital. I simply won't eat any edible gift a fan or writer gives me again. I still think Vernetta put something in the chocolates."

  "So do I," Corwin said.

  "When did she give them to you?" Jane asked. It was worth considering, she supposed.

  "When I checked in. Not directly in person though. She had them sent to my suite with a note that they were from her."

  "When did you eat one?"

  "Oh, a couple of hours later. Quite a bit later, in fact. I'd gone over to that mall to get this dress. After such an early flight, I was tired and hungry and didn't want to wait for room service. They're always so slow."

  "How many of them did you eat?" Jane asked.

  Sophie looked disconcerted and admitted, "All of them. It was a very little box. Only six Godiva soft centers."

  "What did you do with the box?" Shelley asked.

  "I threw it away, of course. It's long since gone to the dump."

  "So, Sophie is safe," Zac said. "What about me? Who else but Vernetta would want to destroy all of the copies of my books — and nobody say almost anyone who read one, please. I freely admit they were dreck. I'm much better at reviewing than writing my own books."

  From what Jane had heard, not only from Felicity but also from other writers, Zac wasn't even a

  good reviewer. He was careless with his reading and hated any book by a woman. He only temporarily liked her and Shelley because they'd been of use to him.

  Zac went on, "Vernetta took the trouble to see if the books she was stealing were out of print. She's not as stupid as she seems. I don't believe for a minute that she didn't know all along that I wrote it. All three of my books were under different pseudonyms, but copyrighted under my real name. She couldn't have plagiarized without owning a copy she'd found in some secondhand bookstore."

  "How did you find out about it?" Shelley asked.

  Zac said, "A good friend of mine had seen her book on the Internet and thought the title sounded familiar. He sent me an e-mail of the site. I'd never have known about the plagiarism otherwise. I'd forgotten after I was attacked, until she," he said, pointing at Jane, "showed me a page."

  "How many other people have you told about this?" Jane asked.

  "Nobody but the people in this room, the friend who tipped me off, and the literary attorney. To be frank, the attorney urged me to wait to file a suit until the book was published and Vernetta had lots more money. That's why I've kept my trap shut. So far," he added. It was clearly a threat aimed at Sophie.

  "But you haven't," Corwin said. "If that was what you intended, why did you give Sophie that book of yours?"

  Zac sighed and looked at Sophie. "We go a long way back together, Sophie and me. We've known each other since we started in the business. We've visited over the years at these conferences and exchanged a lot of gossip. I thought, in spite of my lawyer's advice, that she should at least have a chance at knowing what she was in for. If she didn't bother to read the book, I'd be off the moral hook."

  "I guess I should thank you for that, Zac." Jane didn't think Sophie was even trying to sound sincere.

  "When you said the book was missing, I suspected you took it seriously," Zac said. "That's why I went home to retrieve the last copy I'd kept. I'd really like to have it back or at least a Xerox of it."

  "I'll make sure you do," Corwin said before Sophie could speak.

  "I wonder, too, Ms. Smith," Jane said, "if Vernetta took your threats about the copyright infringement seriously. She seemed to think it was trivial and she was in the clear because the books were out of print."

  "She was very cavalier about that, wasn't she?" Sophie admitted. "She'll see that I meant it when our attorneys point out that she has to give back all the money we've already advanced her."

  "I imagine she's already spent it on those ridiculous clothes and the architectural drawings of her mansion," Corwin said.

  "If Vernetta is an actual threat, won't that make her even more dangerous?" Shelley asked, glancing at Zac as she spoke.

  "Not with you two ladies looking after me," Zac said with a slight smile.

  "We can't be your bodyguards forever," Jane warned him.

  She was realizing this discussion wasn't really going anywhere. She and Shelley had done all they could. She'd irritated Mel to a
dangerous extent by snooping and asking favors of him. She hated letting this go. But it wasn't any of their business anymore. It was up to the attorneys now.

  She stood up and Shelley followed her lead and rose as well. "We need to go along now and leave it in your hands," Jane said. "Zac, would you like help getting back to your room?"

  "No, thanks. I'm feeling a lot better now. I'll stay here awhile. Thanks again."

  Twenty-one

  Jane and Shelley went clown the hallway to their suite. Shelley walked. Jane stomped.

  When they were inside, Jane flopped into a chair and said, "If I don't have another RC very soon, I'll go entirely mad and my mother-in-law will finally be allowed to have my children to herself."

  Shelley obligingly fixed her one the way she knew Jane liked it — a full can in a big glass with very little ice to dilute it. As she handed it to Jane she asked, "Did you really mean everything you said in Sophie's suite?"

  Jane had taken her first big gulp and hiccupped happily. "Thanks, Shelley. Exactly right. Cold and strong enough to take my breath away. As for your question, I suppose I did mean what I said. Maybe. I was just so angry that Sophie, Corwin, and even Zac were talking solely about money and reputations. Corwin doesn't surprise me. He seems such a wimpy toady. But Sophie and Zac both suffered at someone's hands and don't seem

  to give a fig for their own safety. How stupid can they be?"

  "Remarkably stupid. Either one of them could have died from what happened to them," Shelley agreed. "So why are you so much angrier about it than I am? They aren't friends of ours. Neither happens to have died, though I agree that they could have. Why should you care so much?"

  "Because I was the one," Jane said, "who was obviously brushed off like a mosquito. Even by Zac. I'd done a lot to help him. I even paid for his drink."

  "Forget about them, Jane. It isn't worth working yourself into a fit of nerves over them. Or even over paying for something on behalf of Zac."

  "I know you're right," Jane admitted, sipping gratefully on her own drink. "I've paid more than the drink cost for a good hamburger. If you'd been me, though, you'd be just as angry. It's the principle."

  "I was thinking the same thing. I mean thinking what you told them about their safety, which appears to be the truth."

  "So you believed me?"

  "I always believe you. Except when you criticize my driving," Shelley said.

  "I don't criticize your driving."

  "Not in words, usually. You just sit petrified, shaking, putting your hands over your eyes, and periodically hitting your imaginary brake pedal."

  Shelley's driving was the last thing she wanted to think about.

  "I really think Vernetta hadn't the faintest idea what plagiarism meant," Jane said. "She couldn't even pronounce it correctly. All she knew was that she thought Sophie was being all het up about nothing. But it scared her when Sophie threatened to withdraw the money she was expecting."

  "I agree," Shelley said. "But she couldn't have not realized it was looking bad for her. She's probably already spent whatever she's been paid on the architect who produced the plans for her teaching mansion."

  "And do you also agree that she at least sounded sincere about having nothing to do with what Sophie and Zac suffered?"

  "She did sound sincere," Shelley admitted. "But maybe she has a secret gift for sounding sincere when she isn't. We don't really know her, Jane. We just know enough to dislike her enormously. And after all, who else would have had a motive to put Sophie out of the conference by any means at hand, and injure Zac, to keep them from knowing she was a plagiarist?"

  "But that doesn't work, Shelley. Even you must admit she didn't know what it meant. Who else could want to injure or kill both Sophie and Zac? Who else had a reason to hate them enough to possibly murder them?"

  "Who knows?" Shelley said, still calm. "Jane,

  we've both learned a lot this week about the business of publishing. And this must have to do with publishing, right?"

  "It must."

  "But we don't know about the other hundred and fifty people at this conference. Just the surface descriptions of the main speakers in the brochure. There could be any number of creeps in this group."

  "We know Felicity pretty well," Jane said.

  "You're right. I believe she's absolutely innocent of everything. She speaks her mind bluntly. Sometimes too bluntly for her own good."

  Jane speculated. "Maybe Chester Griffith or this mysterious Miss Mystery have a long and horrible history with both Sophie and Zac. We had no idea that Zac and Sophie had a friendship. And I still don't believe it. Come to think of it, Zac may have stayed behind to negotiate his own financial settlement with Sophie. Or blackmail her into reprinting his old books."

  "What a horrible thought," Shelley said. "But Mr. Griffith and Miss Mystery are both involved heavily in the book business and have probably been around both of them many times. Even your LaLane Jones might have had some serious tiff with them."

  "I doubt LaLane had anything to do with it. She only came here, I think, to win the contest," Jane said.

  "But she's rather strange, still. Keeping allthose notebooks you told me about and even having a special case to carry them around with her."

  "That is a bit strange, I'll admit. We both have obsessions nearly as strange as hers, come to think of it. You're obsessed with the IRS and I'm currently obsessed about my new car. But how was LaLane a threat to Sophie or Zac?"

  "She was certainly a threat to Sophie with the records she'd kept and her phenomenal memory. In fact, if she hadn't been here, you'd never have guessed that page you had copied was Zac's work."

  "But Shelley, she didn't really know," Jane reminded her. "And I was the one who initiated the question to her about whether it might be Zac's work. If she were the perp, she would have told me it was probably someone other than Zac to cover her tracks."

  "I'll buy that," Shelley said after thinking over this convoluted reasoning. "But I still think we don't know nearly enough about at least ninety-eight percent of the people who are here. And I can't quite believe Vernetta and Gaylord are as stupid as they behave."

  "Zac said that, too," Jane said. "That Vernetta had the common sense to look up his book to see if it was out of print. Not that it matters. But she thought it did. Maybe I was wrong to say anything about plagiarism and then get my knickers in a twist for speaking up."

  They were both quiet and thoughtful for a few

  minutes. Then Jane said, "But don't you wish we did know for sure?"

  "We may never know."

  "Don't say so. I want to know. If not now, someday. I invested a lot of mental energy in this and even made Mel seriously annoyed with me about my effort to sort it out."

  "It's not your responsibility to sort it out, Jane. Nor are we obligated to keep what we know a secret."

  "That's true. Why should we? It might be that the other author who was plagiarized is also here. If word leaked out, she might check out Vernetta's web page and find her own work there. Wouldn't that stir the stew?"

  "Wouldn't it make us look gossipy and nasty, though?"

  "You have a point. But I did promise LaLane to report on what I found out. I have to keep that promise. Let's go look for her."

  They finally found her in the food court in the underground shopping area, eating a turkey sandwich. "May we sit down with you, Ms. Jones?" Jane asked. "This my friend and roommate. We have something to tell you."

  LaLane's face lit up. "Please do."

  "It was Zac who wrote that page," Jane said. Shelley said, "And I'm the one who discovered that Vernetta plagiarized his work."

  "Vernetta? Who's that?"

  "The big noisy woman who's always wearing acostume. She e-pubbed a book that Sophie Smith contracted her to publish for real."

  "That's horrible. Stealing someone else's work is the most unethical thing a writer can do. And it's illegal."

  "We know that."

  "But does Sophie Smith
know it yet?"

  "We made sure she did," Jane said. "And so did Zac after he recognized that the page I showed you was from a book of his."

  "I've never liked Zac's writing or his reviews, nor his attitude about women mystery writers, but I feel a little bit sorry for him," LaLane said.

  "I don't think you need to be," Shelley said. "Zac knows how to take care of himself." She indicated Jane and said, "She had promised to tell you what we learned, and neither of us wanted to break that promise. That's why we told you this."

  "I'm glad you did. I'd have hated never knowing."

  "Me, too," Jane said. "And now we'll leave you to finish your lunch. But I wanted to thank you for helping us figure this out."

  "Please let me know if you learn any more about this," LaLane said. "And I promise I won't tell anyone."

  "We will keep in touch if we learn anything else, but we, too, aren't blabbing it elsewhere," Jane assured her.

  As they walked back down the hallway toward

  the hotel, Jane said, "I'm glad this worked out this way. Our consciences can be clear."

  The thing that none of the three women noticed was the woman at the next table to them, sitting with her back to the threesome, and taking copious notes on every word they'd said.

  Twenty-two

  "Watching LaLane eat her lunch has made me hungry," Jane said. "Let's follow her example and have an early lunch."

  "Good idea. Where?"

  "Not in the hotel. That mall across the highway is supposed to have a nice restaurant with a spectacular salad bar. Have you been there yet?" Jane asked.

  "No, but I've been told the same thing. It would be good to leave here. But I don't want to walk on that overpass between here and there. Would you mind driving us over there?" Shelley asked.

  "Okay, but I think we should both check on what our kids are up to before we leave. I don't like using the cell phone in a restaurant. For some weird reason I feel as if it's like using it in church."