CHAPTER FOUR
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Whir, the tall smiling cameraman who reminded Lassiter of someone but he just couldn't think who, carried the box of water bottles out to the Crown Vic and then skedaddled.
Katherine walked with them. "As soon as we figured out this was the only thing all of the sick women had in common, we moved the box to my office and called you guys. The hospital didn't tell us what kind of poison it was, only that there was definitely 'something in the water.'" She handed Juliet a plastic bag. "These are the six empty bottles."
"We'll end up fingerprinting everyone," Lassiter said. "Although it's probably safe to assume the perp is one of your own and that he wore gloves."
"He?" She was surprised.
"I don't like to say 'they' when I'm talking about one person," he assured her.
Amused, Katherine gave him a nod and a comment about appreciating a guy who valued the English language, and Lassiter thought for a fleeting moment that Juliet's frown was… well, surely it couldn't have been possessive. She probably just had a headache from the bright sunshine.
Dr. Rodahill came out of the house, headed for the sleek black convertible parked next to the Crown Vic. "Detectives, if there's anything else I can help you with, let me know."
"Actually, I do have a followup question," Lassiter said, only half-sure he wanted to ask. "These women… these ships. Do any of them have any…" He hesitated, then figured what the hell. "Are they all delusional?"
Rodahill and Katherine both laughed. "Oh," he said, "as individuals, I'd say most of these ladies are doing okay. But sure, they cling to some unlikely beliefs, the way we all do. I still believe that one day I won't have to wait in line at Starbucks."
"Seriously," Juliet said, as if following Lassiter's line of thought (which she may have been; she was pretty good at reading him). "Are any of the ships seaworthy?"
He grinned. "Nice pun, Detective. Let's see." He leaned back against his car and thought it over. "For the Jontons and Joniettes, there's an aspect to their daydreams I'm not sure they've really considered. Take the Jontons. Apart from insisting these two straight guys are really either gay or bi, they present as their basic premise that if Dalton would just admit he only doesn't get along with Jon because he's denying his feelings for him, then the two of them could live happily ever after. The problem is, they're also saying that Dalton should be more accepting of being treated badly by Jon. They're saying it's okay for Jon to be pushy and rude and constantly one-up him; that Dalton should simply relax about having Jon invade his space and his home and undercut him at work. They're saying, in fact, that Dalton should make himself the lesser—not an equal—and submit to the whims of someone who in all likelihood will never treat him any better than he has all along." He scratched his jaw briefly. "In most of the stories, Jon gets to be Jon and Dalton has to do all the adapting. It's a given that Dalton is the only one who'll have to change, because even when Jon promises he will, they both know it won't stick."
"'I'm the baby; gotta love me,'" Juliet mused softly.
Katherine zoomed in on that. "Did you just quote an unbelievably obscure TV sitcom from twenty years ago?"
Juliet smiled. "Yeah. Blame Shawn."
Lassiter certainly would. "What about the Joniettes?"
Putting his hands in his pockets, Rodahill studied the gravel drive for a moment. "It's sort of the same. Jon doesn't treat Mariette with the same type of underlying disrespect, but he does disrespect her nonetheless—her wishes, her work boundaries. His core belief system is that he's never wrong and everyone should just go along with his crazy ideas. That means her will is trumped most of the time, and oddly, though she seems like a strong character in other ways, the show's writers have her just going along with Jon, to the point where it sometimes makes her hard to respect. If they were an actual couple, I can't see it lasting very long unless she, like Dalton in the Jonton scenario, agreed to submit herself to Jon's larger-than-life personality, or, and this is far more unlikely, Jon changed."
"People don't change," Katherine said flatly before Lassiter could.
"They can," Juliet insisted, "if they're motivated."
Rodahill countered, "They can change some things, yes, but not basic character elements. Jon has been consistently portrayed as a guy who's fully aware he's avoiding maturity and responsibility and is pretty much okay with that. He doesn't see how small his world is, only that he's king of it—and he's been operating the way he does for his entire life, so in his view it's working out just fine. While he could learn to put Mariette first, it would be an ongoing struggle the likes of which he's never had to deal with before. Making that kind of effort isn't like quitting smoking or cutting back on fatty foods. Or Starbucks," he added with a grin. "In my professional opinion, which you'll recall is questionable because we're talking about people who don't exist, the Joniette ship would inevitably sink unless Mariette abandoned her own self-respect and learned to be happy in Jon's shadow."
"That leaves the Daliettes," Lassiter prodded, unaccountably curious. He noted Juliet's very intent gaze at Rodahill as well.
The doctor shrugged. "Actually, it really is the most likely of the three ships to sail off into the sunset. The Daliette fanfic—and I read everything the contestants submitted for FakeFic—generally takes the liberty of presuming Dalton has already, privately, begun making changes in outlook and behavior out of a sincere desire to not be alone anymore, regardless of whether or not he ends up with Mariette. But Mariette, having worked with him so long, knows him inside and out, so even without the fanfic 'adjustments,' the possibility of a relationship forming and lasting is much greater than it is for the other two ships based on their shared understanding of each other. She already knows his shortcomings and doesn't hesitate to call him out when necessary, and whereas Jon would just merrily go on being Jon in such a scenario, Dalton does make some effort, which Mariette appreciates."
"I like Dalton a hell of a lot," Katherine said, her smile a bit wicked. "For what it's worth."
"Whumping," Juliet said suddenly. "That's when a character getting hurt is the primary point of a story, right?"
"Yep. There's a lot of that in the Jon-centric stories."
"I thought they liked the characters?" Lassiter asked, puzzled.
"Oh, they do. But there's a whole sub-genre about hurting them—damn near killing them, in fact—just to…" Rodahill shook his head, apparently a bit puzzled himself. "Sometimes it's about having someone comfort them, which then leads to romance, but sometimes it seems to be just about making the character as miserable as possible—everything from the flu to broken bones to cancer to months in a coma after being tortured by a sadistic killer. You know, happy cheery stuff. Death fics are common too; they'll take whoever's most important to Jon and kill him or her off, just to have Jon in misery. Occasionally they kill off Jon himself just to show everyone else in misery. I've never been able to decide whether it's a sign of grave depression in the writer, or an unhealthy need to hurt the ones they love? I haven't studied this area much and of course none of the stories which won for this competition were whump or death fics."
Lassiter couldn't stop frowning. He was afraid his forehead might be stuck in a permanent state of annoyed confusion. "Those kinds of stories come from the Daliettes, I assume?"
"Oh no," Rodahill said with a smile. "They're always the Joniettes and Jontons. The Daliettes don't write about Jon much at all, and what they write about Dalton is seldom about inflicting physical pain but rather recovering from past emotional pain. Whump seems to be a specialty of the ones who love Jon the most. Ironic, huh?"
"Yeah. And I'm thrilled this case is broadening my vocabulary." Lassiter glanced at Juliet when she laughed softly. "What? Who uses whump in casual conversation?"
She only grinned, and Katherine said, "You know, Doc, I never asked you before, but did you watch Fake before you took this job?"
He chuckled. "A little. Most of my babbling is based on the last few months' hard-core immersion in it."
"Did you have an opinion on the ships before then?" she persisted.
Laughing now, he unlocked the door to his car and slid in. "Sure I did, but don't tell my wife. I thought Mariette should run off with me."
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Back at the station, after a pleasant and peaceful stop for lunch at a seaside fish joint they'd never tried before, Lassiter and Juliet were soon summoned to speak to the Chief.
Karen looked tired. "What's going on with FakeFic?"
Lassiter sat in the chair next to Juliet. "We took the water and the empties to the lab for testing. I told them you wanted a rush on it." He waited for her to contradict him, but no censure was forthcoming. "Apart from that, it appears no one stood to gain from this act. Any significant sabotage of the show would result in the project being cancelled entirely, and everyone would lose."
"How very unhelpful. I hope there's more."
"There is, but he's right, Chief." Juliet had a lapful of folders, and started to sort through them.
"However, if this wasn't just the prank of a sociopath," Lassiter said, "then there's only one other option."
Juliet finished for him, still looking through the folders. "Which is that we might need to expand our definition of 'gain.'"
The Chief's interest was piqued. "Go on."
They had discussed it some over lunch, when Lassiter wasn't alternately distracted by the play of sunlight on Juliet's golden hair and valiantly re-focusing on the case. It was just that she seemed so sane, so restful, and so blessedly normal (while still being a mystery in the way all women would always be somewhat of a mystery to him) after the assortment of females he'd met during the morning.
Holding up a copy of the informational packet which had been provided to all the contestants, Juliet said, "The big prize is twenty grand, a script filmed by Fake, and as much on-set time as needed to see it through. The second and third place winners get ten grand, a chance to submit scripts with no guarantee of acceptance, and two days on-set to gawk."
"The remaining contestants," Lassiter continued, "get five grand each for lasting the entire three months."
"So?" Karen was puzzled.
"So," Juliet explained, "we were thinking that maybe the point was simply to reduce the number of contestants."
"I'm not following, O'Hara."
Lassiter took it up. "If, as the weeks went by, one of the contestants realized she wasn't going to take first prize—"
"She?" echoed Juliet with a grin.
He had to grin back. "She," he reiterated, "might still stick it out for the five grand. But O'Hara discovered in the prize information an interesting little addendum."
Juliet flipped open the folder. "If a contestant bails before three months, she goes home empty-handed, lucky to have her airfare paid. It's not exactly worded like that, but you get the idea. However, the early departure of any contestant means her five grand is distributed among the others who do stay."
"Ah," Karen said, getting it. "So the more people who drop out, the larger the pot share for each of the survivors. If 'survivors' is the best word."
"With this bunch, it is," Lassiter assured her grimly.
"So our game plan is to look at the contestants more closely, using the production staff's background research for starters, and concentrating on which of them had visitors a few days ago." Juliet sat back, pleased.
"We don't really think anyone planned this as far as two months back, so we're going to start with anyone who had any kind of connection to hypodermics and poisons." Lassiter gestured to the other folder in Juliet's lap. "We have a list of people who were admitted on the last two visiting days, and we're ready to start background checks."
Karen smiled, more relaxed now. "Don't let me slow you down, detectives. What did Shawn bring to the table while he was there?"
Lassiter glanced at Juliet, who said neutrally, "He reached the same conclusion we did about no one having any real motive. He also raided the kitchen, alienated nearly all of the contestants and got the producer to threaten him with a nailgun."
"Well, to be fair," Lassiter amended, "that was after he left."
"Oh, and he played with a bra and later got beaten up by a girl," she added cheerfully.
Rubbing her temples, Karen asked cautiously, "And Guster? Please tell me he did better."
Juliet smiled. "But Chief, you've asked us to be honest with you at all times."
Karen's eye roll was considerable. "I'm incredibly glad I asked. Thank you. You may go back to work."
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Juliet, before they left the FakeFic house, had asked Katherine for copies of the stories submitted by the contestants which, along with successful background checks, had won them their places on the show.
Curled up on her sofa at home that night, she read through the stories, one from each ship in turn until she'd finished them all and it was well past one a.m. Cold cinnamon tea on the coffee table, she lay back on the pillows staring at the ceiling, pondering what could be learned about the women who wrote them.
She'd offered Carlton his own copies but he'd given her a look and said dryly that he'd prefer to maintain his ignorance (no doubt because she told him over their very pleasant lunch what 'Mpreg' meant).
The writing, as she expected from the seriousness of the stakes here, was good, far better than the average bit of fan fiction she'd read over the years in her ever-decreasing spare time. But there were clear differences between the ships in how they treated the three main characters.
It was as Dr. Rodahill suggested: the Joniettes thought so highly of Jon that it followed Mariette could find no flaw in him either.
The Joniette Jon was a man of many facets who could simply choose to be the perfect man for Mariette, making her blissfully happy in every regard as he smoothly transitioned from his solo life into husband, doting father, responsible bill-payer and every dream come true.
The Jonton Jon was more like he was on the show itself, and the writers obviously felt Dalton merely needed to see the light—how Jon's invasive, thoughtless, selfish and occasionally hurtful actions were signs of his love for him—to make him embrace the idea of a male lover with relatively little hesitation.
The Joniette Dalton was cold and impatient, a constantly cranky authority figure Jon was always rebelling against.
The Jonton Dalton was a deeply insecure, damaged man whom only Jon (presumably by way of the aforementioned invasive, thoughtless, selfish and occasionally hurtful actions) could 'heal.'
The Daliette Dalton was both more vulnerable than he was on the show and more ready to work hard to become something better so that he could escape his loneliness, but she had to admit, the basis for both aspects was there on screen. It was true the Daliette writers made him more of a romantic figure than he was on the show, but at heart, what made the stories work was the partnership between the two, and that was clear both on paper and on film.
Mariette was shining-eyed and lovestruck in the Joniettes, quick to forgive Jon his transgressions and relatively unbothered by his treatment of Dalton; she was like a kid sister or bubbly friend in the Jontons, and a more thoughtful and realistic adult in the Daliettes. In the Daliettes she got equal time with Dalton, but in the others she was very much subordinate to the men.
But did all of these various treatments tell her anything about the women sequestered in the FakeFic house? She wasn't sure. It could be said that the greater the divide between the show and the stories, the more likely it was that the author had less of a grip on reality, but that was a bit harsh, especially since it was hardly fair to call any TV show (including so-called reality shows) 'reality.' Five grand was five grand, after all, and people of all sorts had done far worse for far less.
Maybe the answer lay in comparing the writing skill of the contestants. As Carlton had theorized, one reason to start taking out competitors now might be a realization that winning was impossible. But all of the writing was pretty good. The styles differed—some favored angst and inner dialogue; some were all about comic exchanges; some were sparse and some flowery. She'd have to find out how the judges made their decisions and how much knowledge each contestant had of her competitors' abilities. There'd be no reason to fear losing the contest if you had no idea what you were up against.
Ultimately, Juliet thought as she yawned, it was all fiction. It was a bunch of writers churning out fiction about fictional characters on a TV show which was in turn created by a bunch of writers churning out fiction designed to sell a concept, draw advertisers, and make everyone rich.
There, that took the romance out of everything. Now you can get back to work.
Still, she fell asleep with a particularly good Daliette story under her cheek.
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