Chapter Three

Lightning is one hell of a murder weapon. And the best part is it can't be traced.

May 15-16, 2014

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ LibriCon 2013 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

PR 7

Added panels (for full list click HERE)

Research—Accuracy and What's Enough (or Too Much)

Readings From The Slush Pile: There's A Good Reason Some Stuff Doesn't Hit Print

Attack Of The Sub-Genres:
The Owner Of An Antique Store
Who Publishes Cookbooks In Her Spare Time
and Solves Mysteries With The Aid Of Her Psychic Cat
That Is The Reincarnation Of
ENOUGH, ALREADY!

Accuracy in the Autopsy Room (panel discussion lead by Dr. Donald Mallard, MD, ME (NCIS); other participants to be announced)

SPECIAL EVENTS

Murder in the Ballroom

Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with the wench? Er, wrench? Following our banquet Sunday, someone in the room will turn up missing. There will be teams of 12—not necessarily your banquet tablemates, you could be working against the person sitting to your left!—and a prize for the team that solves the crime first. Email Anne Sheldon (click HERE) for details.

Banquet: SOLD OUT (Wait List CLOSED)
Cheese and Whine reception: SOLD OUT (Wait List CLOSED)
Saturday Tea: SOLD OUT (Wait List CLOSED)
Sunday Tea: SOLD OUT (Wait List CLOSED)

Thursday
1800

"Okay, that takes care of that disaster… Kyle, did the freebies finally come in from Universal?" Cilly glanced up and caught Kyle's thumb up. He was busy cramming the last of his sandwich into his mouth, the 'survival rations' set out for concom being cleared off in preparation for the consuite being open to early arrivals Thursday night. "Anything good?" Kyle waggled his hand: comme ci,comme ça. "Oh, well. It's free."

"Price is right," I said. Free t-shirts from conventions have been a staple of my wardrobe for decades.

"Time for the Shepard's Prayer?" asked the Keith Williams, head of security.

"Oh, lord, please don't let us screw up," everyone said fervently (a couple of people using the original 'fuck up' as said by Captain Alan Shepard).

"R'amen," Cilly said, shutting her convention notebook with a thump. "Consuite is now open to pros, hoes and granola." AKA writers, assistants and hangers-on, and the fruits, nuts and flakes who live from con to con, people impatient enough to show up the night before the official convention open.

There were three cereal bits already waiting outside the front door to the consuite. One I recognized from at least twenty years of conventions, a tiny mouse named Alice Martin. She would spend 90% of her time in the consuite, munching carrot sticks and M&Ms, asking any and all to read and review her manuscript. She had been making corrections to this gem for longer than I'd known her—it was a couple of hundred pages of dot matrix print for Pete's sake, faded and curling at the edges. All of the regular attendees (and most of the authors) knew to avoid her. They were always polite—even Marguerite DuPres was civil to her—but they did a neat duck and run. Alice would always find a few newbies who would be flattered to be asked for editorial input… and they'd quickly realize they were in big trouble. I made a mental note to warn Tim.

Jenny Keppler was another lost soul who lived from con to con. Hers was a sad case. Alice inflicted the weekend on herself; Jenny's was a punishment. Her father was a book dealer who was so obnoxious he had been effectively banned from any convention for almost as long as Alice had been trotting out her manuscript. He sent Jenny with boxes of books and instructions not to come back without every one signed—and if an author didn't show, she had to provide a photo of the announcement or a signed note from a concom member stating this. The man is a tin plated dictator. I was amazed he ponied up the bucks for a room at Millennium. (He hadn't; he booked her at the Day's Inn. Beet red with embarrassment, she had found Cilly that morning and asked if she could use a corner of the consuite to hold the boxes so she wouldn't have to roll a luggage cart 6 blocks through DC traffic several times a day. Cilly agreed and even got her son to drive over and pick up the boxes. Jenny almost cried with relief.) We all kept hoping she'd run away from home while at a con, but we weren't holding our collective breaths.

The last wasn't a fan. It was Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft. Technically a pro-ho, but a bit of granola, too, in my opinion. Cilly and I saw her at the same moment and drew together protectively. "Cecelia!" she said in her haughtiest tone. She actually made Jenny and Alice, getting their badges and packets from Raul in the far corner, startle and turn around. "Marguerite's room is totally unacceptable."

"I'm sorry, what is the issue?" Cilly asked evenly.

"To begin with, her room faces east! Dawn? Daybreak? Unacceptable!"

"And have you spoken to the front desk, asked if they can move you to another room?" Cilly's voice was still calm.

She looked stunned. You mean—ask for help? Not snap my fingers and have the peons jump? Inconceivable!

"And if the front desk is unable to resolve the issue, I gave you Mr. Chamber's number," I added with a pleasant smile. (Several times, I added to myself.) "And he has assured me he will be here all weekend."

Her eyes narrowed. Scott Chambers hadn't fallen all over himself to do her every bidding and had been an unmovable rock regarding the credit card being put in file. With a snort of derision, she spun on her heel and stalked off.

"Man… why hasn't Marguerite offed that bitch?" Anne Sheldon, one of the consuite hosts, muttered.

"It's not too late to make her one of the victims," her murder mystery co-author suggested.

"For real?" Zoe, the masquerade chairman, piped up hopefully.

"At least we don't have to work with her," I said in my best Pollyanna voice.

"Our mantra in customer service is, 'I'm not married to you. Once I hang up, I'll never have to talk to your sorry self again,'" Patrick, Anne's husband, said. "God willing," he added darkly.

"Yeah, but we see her every year," Zoe countered. "More, if you go to a lot of cons. That's like having the same jerk call back fifty times in one day!"

Gary Hayes held up his hands. "I swear, one more year of her and I will lose it."

"And Marguerite sees her every day," Rosalie argued back. "You can only take so much! One of these days she's going to snap and heaven help Pain In the Ass when she does."

Anne giggled. "You just made me think of Lily Tomlin in 9 to 5."

"Right before she poisons the boss," Kyle tossed out. As the film room chairman, he was a film buff; of course he'd catch that.

"No poison. Given Marguerite DuPres—" Zoe paused dramatically. "She's gonna get a stake through the heart." Great minds think alike; I'd had that idea myself.

"She can't be all bad," Norma Edwards, the voice of sweet reason said. "Marguerite has had her on the payroll—"

"Nice payroll," Rosalie butted in. "Catch those Jimmy Choos on her feet?"

"—for, what, twenty, twenty-five years?" Norma continued as though she hadn't been interrupted.

Cilly shrugged. "She must be awfully good in bed."

There was a chorus of splooges and coughs. "Warn a guy, jeez!" Gary choked.

"Sorry. It made me think of what my mother said about my 'itch' of a sister in law—she can't cook, doesn't clean, won't work outside the house, doesn't go to school, anything, has no personality, no great shakes to look at; after listing all that, Mom said, 'she must be good in bed.'" Another round of coughs and splutters. "I'm just saying… for Marguerite to put up with her, she must be good at something."

"Or two sociopaths have found their codependent partner?" Patrick said dryly.

"Margie wasn't that bad before." Most of us turned and gave Marc Lexton, the charity auction director, skeptical looks. He had a good twenty-plus years on me, had been in fandom since forever. "I mean, yes, she's always been a little weird… but it wasn't until Patrice started working for her that she… went nuts."

Cilly nodded. "The first year or two she went to conventions, her requests were tame. No room above the ground floor. Okay, she's acrophobic. She's gotten better, she can make it to the third floor, now. No calls to her room; they just block her number. Also not weird; she's a light sleeper, and she sleeps weird hours. The first convention where she got her reputation—"

"When she almost bankrupted In the Shadows Con?" Gary cut in.

Cilly nodded. "That wasn't technically her first con. It was the first con where she went bananas. The champagne, the roses, the coffin, all that crap, the funeral gown—that all started about twenty-five years ago. She didn't go to many cons before that—but she started really going to cons when Patrice started working for her. Personally, I really think she's the cause of Marguerite DuPres being such a fruit loop."

"We could still rewrite the mystery, make her the victim," Rosalie suggested again.

Anne tapped her pursed lips, probably thinking of the amount of rewrite involved. "Tempting. Tempting…"

Thursday
2100

Early registration closed at eight; the consuite was now a private reception for authors and satellites, pros and hoes—spouses or other family members, assistants, personal attendants, secretaries and the like. And it was open munchies, open bar and open blabbing. If I had looser ethics, I probably could have made a fortune in blackmail. I had to wonder if someone in the room wasn't made of such stern stuff and was busy making copious notes.

My first suspect? Moira Devereaux. I was pretty sure everyone in the room knew her, and anyone with a lick of sense would button their lips around her. In vino veritas, loose lips sink ships—whatever. I kept my conversation to, "Hi, Moira" in passing and a mental note to keep relatively sober just in case. She makes a mean living writing expose articles on minor athletes and entertainers—and when I say 'mean' it's not 'mean' as in 'cheap' or mean as in 'wow, dude, doing great.' I mean 'mean' as in 'mean, nasty, vicious and hurtful.'

And she looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Straight out of central casting, she plays the part of a modern Southern belle. Muted floral print dresses, necklaces of big beads and pastel high heels; a voice that conjures up magnolia and mint juleps and hoop skirts; big, wide, innocent hazel eyes and waves of pale blonde hair completed the picture. She looks as innocent as a newborn lamb and is as trustworthy as the big, bad wolf.

She had turned those honey hazel eyes on Barry Burgue and publicly outed him in Behind the Scenes magazine a year or so ago. Was it a secret? Not really. But if someone doesn't mention something, they clearly don't want it discussed. Barry was very circumspect about his sex life and his parents were clueless (or obtuse). Whichever, they are very elderly (close to Mother's age) and didn't appreciate the sudden attention. Things in the family and in Barry's little universe had been strained since then, to say the least. And it was 100% Moira's fault, in my opinion.

I was willing to bet it was because of Barry being in Nightfall that Moira was circling the water around Marguerite this evening. But why? I doubted she could do more damage to Barry. As for Marguerite, all her crazy stuff was right out in the open. Anything Moira wanted to add would just sell a few more books and thrill the murky hearts of her fans.

Right now Moira wasn't hunting anyone, she was making coo-goochy-goochy noises at the in-tow infant of a print-on-demand cookbook author. The baby wasn't buying it, going, "Blaah! Ba! BLAAH!" in response (to the vast amusement of those around who felt it was an apt assessment). Suddenly Baby reached up, grabbed the big fat beads around Moira's neck and yanked. Hard.

Cookbook Mama yelped and all three almost fell over. Instead of the necklace tearing apart, beads flying to the four corners of the room (ask me how I thought this would happen, I dare you), Baby was dragging Moira down to her level.

Moira laughed at the ruckus. "Oh, mah, jus' like mah niece, Chloe Belle!" (Good god, the whole family is from a cheap Tennessee Williams knockoff.) "Ah spent days lookin' for all mah pearls! Ah restrung all mah necklaces with triple strings of dental floss!" She flashed her snow-white teeth in an 'I'm a genius' look.

Okay, like stopped clocks, most politicians and Dr. Laura, she could be right twice a day. That was actually a good Hints From Heloise-esque fixit. Credit where credit was due. But just the same, I decided to avoid her as much as possible—and promptly turned around and ran smack into someone I'd never met before. Literally ran into her. "OhmygodI'msosorry!" I gasped.

"No harm, no foul, no blood, no ambulance—and, most importantly, no chocolate spilled."

"I like your priorities."

I didn't recognize her from prior conventions, but that didn't mean anything. She was dead in the middle of average. A little taller than I (who isn't?), a little plump (like I can cast stones), formerly auburn-Titian-ish fading to gray mousy hair in a big bun, dressed in a long, flowing lace skirt and top in a soft cream—with a jolt, I realized she was a dead ringer for Millie, the mother (and retired goddess) of Dianne Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci books. Hmm. Now to find her a Chrestomanci for the costume competition…

She squinted at my badge. "Mallard?" She flipped open her program book. "Do you know… Dr. Donald Mallard?"

"Only if you count married," I laughed.

"Oh, sweet!"

"Yes, he is."

"Oh, no—I mean—no, I'm sure he is," she stammered. I giggled. "I just mean it would be so helpful to have immediate research without wading through crap online, or trying to understand what the dissection textbook means."

"Yep, dinnertime conversation. Trust me—if you don't get enough at the talk, he will gladly sit by the pool and give you more information than you can use for the next ten books." It was my turn to catch her nametag: D. L. Huntington. "You wrote Chocolate Kiss!"

She beamed. "You read it!"

"Scared the pee wadding out of me," I admitted. "I almost swore off chocolate." She looked so sweet and mild, I couldn't believe she wrote such a bloody, gruesome book.

"Almost is the important part." She had a fistful of M&Ms and was methodically popping them in her mouth.

"Are you going to write a sequel?"

"You want to skip chocolate again?"

"Could your next serial killer obsess about lima beans?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Nah." She popped a few more M&Ms. "But I am working on a sequel. And would love to pick his brain."

"Bring lots of note pads." I cocked my head. "You've got one helluva murder weapon at your fingertips."

She raised her eyes to follow my glance and laughed at the futility of the gesture. "Ah." She patted the sloppy bun at the back of her head, impaled on a beaded hair stick that looked more like a dagger. "Letter opener," she corrected when I asked. She whipped it out and held it up as her waist-length hair tumbled free. "I'm a big believer in multitasking. This is letter opener, hair stick, ice pick, ice machine un-jammer, peanut butter spreader, cake slicer and mugger repellant."

"Your forgot 'attention getter of the TSA.'"

She looked pained. "Please. Grandma didn't raise no dumb kids." She reconsidered. "Make that 'no dumb girls.' Forgot about my brother." She looked admiringly at the faceted blade. "Yeah, this would make a nifty pig sticker. It's so prosaic, who would think of it as a weapon? Hm—wonder how many geishas were assassins?" She mimed pulling chopsticks from her hair and stabbing with both hands—narrowly missing me with the multitasking weapon of doom. "Oh, my god, I'm so sorry!" she gasped.

Okay. Now I could believe she was the author of a serial killer novel. "No chocolate harmed."

"Cassie, my darling!" An arm was draped over my shoulders and a smooch landed in my hair.

"Hello, Janet. No Mimsy?"

"In this crowd? Forget it. Besides—no hot food buffet, and no fans wanting to take her picture."

"Good point."

"She's up in the suite, Lulu is playing mousie fetch with her, eating pizza and watching movies."

Lulu—Janet's assistant, a relative of some variant (I think), a pleasant if mildly dim woman in her late thirties, had the big plus of being a big cat fan and getting along with all of the Mimsys Janet had had over the years. "Janet, this is—oh. What does D.L. stand for?"

"I could say 'not much' but it's Dixie Lee. Which is why I go by D.L. Who would take a serial killer written by 'Dixie Lee' seriously?" she said, giving her name more beaten biscuits and honey accent than even Moira could pull up.

"Andre Norton was actually Alice," I threw out.

"The Brontë sisters. Jane Austen. Originally published under other names." Janet loves the classics.

"J.K. Rowling," Dixie added. "Not that it stayed a secret for long."

"James Tiptree, Paul Ash, C.L. Moore—" I was cheating. We had done a recent display at the store on s-f authors who were (shhhh) women with male or androgynous pen names.

"Ellis Peters, Alex Kava, Quinn Fawcett—"

"Not fair, that's Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bill Fawcett—together," I countered.

"Well, they could just as well have chosen to be Mary Sue Fawcett," Janet said.

Dixie made a face. "I'll concede the point if you choose another name."

"Dixie Lee Fawcett?" Janet got a tongue stuck out at her for that effort.

"Harper Lee."

Janet looked at me. "Seriously? I always knew she was a woman."

"Not when it first went into print. Not until years later."

"Hmmm…"

"Plot bunny?" I teased.

"Maybe…"

Dixie Lee, while a polite reader of Janet's books, was an enthusiastic cat person. The three of us had a cozy ol' time trading cat stories, with frequent input from others passing by. Book people are pet people, and heavily cat people.

"I'm guessing Madame Defarge doesn't have cats." With a nudge of her chin, Janet indicated a lone woman in an armchair, industriously knitting like she was Hermione Granger out to clothe all the house elves of the world. "Mimsy would have a field day."

'Madame Defarge' was moving needles like lightning, scarlet yarn flipping pack and forth. "Who is that?" I asked in an undertone.

She was clearly wearing a participant's badge—bright gold—but those were for authors, assistants and other invited guests. She could be anybody.

"Barbara Bedicker," Janet said promptly. Janet knows everything. "Paul's wife. She said he's tired from the drive in—" she snorted faintly. "Thought she mentioned she did the driving. But he's upstairs, sleeping."

Dixie Lee and I made similar 'aaaah' noises. "I'm really surprised he's here," I added. "I was sure his name on Wes's list was a typo."

"He doesn't do conventions?" Dixie Lee asked.

"Not really. But his sales have kind of dropped off, so I'm sure that's why he's here. I'm thinking more about Herman Prendergast." Janet gave a wise nod, but Dixie Lee looked blank. "I don't know the gory details. He worked with Paul, had some sort of breakdown—disappeared for years—they found his body a few weeks ago," I said.

"Suicide?"

I shrugged. "Dunno. But they're dedicating one of the panels to him tomorrow."

"But why are you surprised to see Paul?"

"He's never done conventions before, not that I've heard of—and I heard he really fell apart when Herman disappeared. Herman was his researcher, but also a protégée of sorts."

"He never published, did he?" Janet asked.

"No, not that I know of," I said, shaking my head. "I remember when he disappeared, there was a small interview with Paul in the newspaper—and again when they found his body a month or so ago. Paul said he—Herman—had finished a novel, that it was really good, but it needed some tweaking. He was manic/depressive or something like that, took the publisher's comments really hard that they would want to change his creation—"

Jane nodded. "BTDT. For the first couple, anyway."

"They couldn't legally publish it, so… no. It was never published."

"So he's not on the tombstone."

I shook my head. The tombstone was an annual listing of all the writers who had passed away in the prior year. This convention it started with T.S. Cook, author of The China Syndrome, and ended with Sylvia Browne, the psychic-slash-author. There were nods to literature—Pulitzer winners and poet laureates—and everything in between. Richard Matheson, Andrew Ofutt and Margaret Frazer made me saddest (and Basil Copper and Jesus Franco, a couple of guilty pleasures). Yes, I was sad to see Tom Clancy and Elmore Leonard on the list, and glad that I had met them at Book Expos over the years—but they got front-page coverage when they died. Poor unpublished Herman only rated a 'local news' 2" column, something picked up by several news groups I subscribe to because of P.R. Bedicker's name and the word 'author' as a trigger being mentioned.

"Paul was always kind of odd," I said, bringing myself back to point. "The man published like he was quintuplets, always decent sales, but he never went to Expo or cons or anything that I remember. What?"

Dixie Lee had a faraway look. "Quintuplets…"

"Plot bunny," Janet laughed.

"Not really… Just remembering the Hildebrandts. One brother would start painting at one end of the canvas, the other at the opposite end, they'd meet in the middle… and it would match."

I nodded. "I remember them. I fell in love with their work on the Middle Earth calendars that Ballantine put out."

"And those cool college campus posters that Coke?—I think Coke?—published," Janet added.

"Bilind Date!" the three of us chorused and burst into giggles.

"I just had this vision of Paul starting a novel, brother number two picking up after a few chapters, three following, so forth," Dixie explained.

"Or all five writing different novels under one name," Janet suggested.

"Would explain how he had two or three out a year in some years. Oh, hey—" I held up a hand. "You heard about the E-Z-Read blow up?" They both shook their heads. "Oh, my gawd. What's her name… Cammie Kelly? Callie Kraft? Kelly Karter? Cs or Ks or a mix. Whatever. She had this HUGE list of e-books, nobody noticed she was publishing two or three a week, or probably figured she was like 'Carolyn Keene,' just a stable name. That was until a writer downloaded a copy of a book that had the same title as hers—"

"You can't copyright titles," Janet interjected.

"Right. But the contents? Totally identical. It was a candy cookbook, but because a few words were different here and there, the legal eagle she talked to said it would be hard to prove plagiarism, even with recipe names like 'Aunt Bitsy's Favorite Maple Cream Cheese Bon Bons' being identical, which I think is total bushwah, she needs to talk to another lawyer. But it made them look harder at what she wrote. She wrote everything. Cookbooks, romance, mystery, how to tan leather for heaven's sake. In less than one year, she had published over a hundred and fifty books."

"Oh, bullshit," Janet snorted. "Nobody can hack out that much, that fast—how many topics?"

"All over the map. So they look a little closer, everything was plagiarized."

A couple of writers on the small couch near us turned around. "Plagiarized?" Kim Pruitt, a struggling poet, looked interested while her couch mate, Penny Rae, looked horrified.

"Puh-lay-ger-ahzed?" I didn't have to turn around to know that Moira had come up behind us. Kim and Penny got the flat, plastic smiles so many of us got around her and quickly turned back, heads together for a private chat. "Did ah heah you correctly? Someone… puh-lay-ger-ahzed—"

"Yep!" I said cheerily. "E-Z-Read, biiiiiig scandal, it hit all the news last night, everyone was reporting on it." Meaning it's already been done to death, so you won't have anything to add. Go bug someone else.

"Oh." Her face fell. "Ah thought…" She gave a die-away sigh. "Nevah mind."

I smiled. No problem 'nevah minding' her; no problem at all.

Friday

Technology is not always my friend.

With the practice of a hundred or more conventions and events (plus having three assistants and RHIP letting me in at 0600 to set up), we had everything up and ready to sell by open at 1000.

Too bad the cable for the credit card reader didn't work.

It took a half hour of cussing and fighting to realize it was a hardware issue. We had to do sales the old fashioned way—carbon copy two part snap apart forms on a chunk-CHUNK processor I'd had for forever while I begged my contact at the bank to hunt down a new cable.

Cue Fiddler on the Roof. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, they had a card reader that had been returned as undeliverable. We muddled through the morning, Cheri and Chanda running the tables, Val running to the bank for the cable, and yours truly running around the convention coordinating autograph sessions large and small and soothing egos left and right.

Val got back just as the dealers room closed at 3:00—and we discovered the cable didn't work with the machine. Fortunately, Val had looked at the new unit and said, "That doesn't look like ours…" and firmly stood her ground that she be allowed to take the whole unit—just in case. While I futzed around with the banquet staff rearranging the large autograph room for the Cheese and Whine Party, Valerie sat on the phone with the bank's tech support re-programming the card reader—

—until her battery died.

Poor Val was about to cry from frustration. I told her to go play, we wouldn't be reopening until eight, and I would park my butt on the floor, plug in MY phone and get the card reader up and running.

Well, that was the theory.

Either Val is better at tech troubleshooting or she had a better agent, but I spent an hour resetting the machine. Finally we had the programming for the original company stripped off and I could start reprogramming it with my data.

And I was, literally, on the floor. The table was covered with gift items we had for sale—buttons, bumper stickers, tarot decks, t-shirts and such—and there was barely enough room for the machine, forget the programming manual. So I camped behind the burgundy skirting, trying to get the laptop and the swiper to talk to each other.

Banquet services knew I was playing in my fort and occasionally ducked through the break through wall to check with me on the Cheese and Whine setup. Since the food wouldn't be brought out until the last half hour before open, they didn't mind that people were milling in and out. And just the thing for my indigestion—Patrice Ingram-Ashcraft was parked right by the break through door.

Why wasn't she off demanding someone unroll a red carpet in front of Marguerite DuPres? I didn't know or care. It sounded like she was camped out at the table they had used for Marguerite's autograph session, which made sense, and was spinning tales for an audience—hm, of one. Sounded like—oh, poor Lulu… I shook my head as Patrice wove tales of high grade b.s. laced with malice.

"Sandy?"

I squeaked in surprise and popped up behind the table. "Tim! You're early!"

He shrugged. "Things are slow, I put in for the afternoon off. Wanted to check out the con before things got rolling."

"Got your favorite pen? You're on your lonesome from five to six for autographs, gives you an hour for dinner before the Cheese and Whine party. Ducky should be here soon. You want to join us for dinner?"

He shook his head. "They never end on time even when they lock the door."

"Tell me about it," I muttered.

"And I've got a, uh, date for the Cheese and Whine."

"Oh reeeeeally?" He blushed, so I dropped my buttinsky look. "It starts at seven, don't let the hounds keep you too late."

"No, ma'am." (He knows I hate being called ma'am. But I let him get away with it.)

He slipped back through the break through and I went back to my programming nightmare. (D'oh! Idiot! I should have conned Tim into this!) Occasionally Banquet Services would poke in, mostly to make sure I was still there. Two of them tried to come in through the back gangway door; I politely told them the dealer's room was closed and would re-open from eight to eleven. That door was supposed to be locked, were they looking for the Cheese and Whine party setup… next door? They apologized profusely and retreated and I went back to working.

I heard the breakout wall quietly sssss on the rollers and was ready to say that the dealers room was closed, please don't open the—"Oh! Ducky!"

"Hullo, dearest. Valerie was worried you would still be here—"

"Almost done. I should be ready to go to dinner at 5:30…?"

"All right. We can take a turn around the convention, meet you back here?"

We? I leaned out. "Oh! Sorry, didn't see you!"

"Not a problem."

"Dear, this is Dr. Jordan Hampton. She's joining me on the panel tomorrow."

I reached up a hand. "Sorry, kind of trapped down here."

"We heard about the temperamental terminal. No apologies needed."

Dr. Hampton was about my age, maybe a bit younger, with dark hair and sparkling eyes. Sparkling almost as much as the blue-white solitaire on her left hand. It was a clear message: no worries that Ducky might be rekindling this long-ago romance (not that I had any worries). "The three of you are going to handle the panel by yourselves?" Once I had "volunteered" Ducky, Gary Hayes had taken over the arrangements. I only knew Jimmy Palmer was joining them because Ducky had mentioned it at some point.

"Actually, Jimmy suggested Breena join us—for any post-autopsy questions."

"Good idea," I nodded.

"So we have Dr. and Mrs. Palmer joining us. Four should be able to handle it." (When Jimmy got his MD, Ducky was torn. He didn't want to lose his favorite assistant, but he didn't want him to waste his education. Never fear. Jimmy loved working at NCIS and said working with Ducky was like getting a second degree all over again.)

"Family reunion," I quipped. "I see you have your badges—go check the programming, I'm sure I'll be done in a half—that gives us an hour and a half for dinner?"

"Meet you back here." Ducky leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. He's no a big PDA type, so I had to wonder if he wasn't sending a message to Jordan as well.

They left and not-quite-silence sort of descended. There was a low murmur of voices next door—I heard Cilly pop in a few times, the pralines and fried chicken of Moira Devereaux (and was so grateful to be behind the door), the schoolmarm voice of Barbara Bedicker telling her husband what to do (but managing to make it not sound like a direct order) and, through it all…

…PIA and her audience of one.

I was… distracted. Patrice was like Dorothy Parker with more malice and less wit. It didn't matter who wandered by, she had a nasty comment. And there was sweet Lulu, innocently saying, "Gee, I always thought he was nice," and the like. No, Janet's assistant isn't he brightest bulb in the tree, but at least she's pleasant. Why was she sitting with the soul-sucker?

"Oh, please, her only talent is on her knees."

I rolled my eyes and remembered Rosalie Nathan's comments from Thursday night. Yep, I voted Patrice for murder mystery victim. Or the real deal.

Shame on you, Cassandra! I scolded myself. What would you do if she got bumped off tonight?

Celebrate, my evil half answered.

"You know they found Herman Prendergast last month."

"Yeah, that's so sad. He was nice."

"He was good."

"I thought he was."

"No I mean good, not goody-goody. I did him at Northern Lights."

I made a face. The old filksong, If You Can't Get Laid at Estrella War, You Might as Well Go Home flashed through my head.

"You did everybody at Northern Lights," Lulu said mildly.

I almost choked. I literally clamped my hands over my mouth and stifled laughter until my eyes watered. The night before, Janet had made a noise of disgust when Patrice slithered past us and dropped a tale from several years back: Patrice had had a fling with the husband of a kid-fic author and had left him with, shall we say, the gift that keeps on giving. He had passed it on to his then-pregnant wife who almost lost the pregnancy and delivered way early. It eventually ended well—including a divorce—but it was a hairy time until that point. Here's hoping Pat travels with her own supply of broad-spectrum antibiotics.

But Patrice didn't twitch at Lulu's comment. "Yeah, that was a good con."

If you're in Public Health, tracking social diseases, it was.

"Of course, fiction is even better than fact," Patrice said with a brittle laugh.

"I guess that's why porn is so popular." (I was starting to revise my opinion of Lulu. The dim bulb was getting brighter.)

"Yeah, 50 Shades gave me some great ideas—"

Really? I would have thought you'd find it dull and wanted to give the author some pointers.

"—but what I meant was some of the fictional characters are hot. Heathcliffe? Roarke? Peter Decker? Hot."

"P.R. Bedicker?" Lulu sounded baffled. I could hear the difference in the pronunciation—just a hair—even if Patrice hadn't.

"Yeah. Peter Decker. You know, Faye Kellerman?"

"Fake Hilllerman?" Lulu cried.

I couldn't fight the grin.

"Yeah," Patrice answered in a 'duh' tone. "What, twenty books?"

"That's awful!"

"Yeah, wish I got a piece of that—" There was a trill of a cell phone. "Uh. My master beckons. See you at Thom's signing." She made a cooing noise. "Wonder if he likes hot tubs… I'm going to soak later, bet I can get him to join me. You can have a lot of fun in a hot tub. He's another one I definitely want to do."

And that's another warning I need to give Tim, I thought as I cleaned up my mess. I remembered that I had finished the book I had up in the room, and grabbed an old P.R. Bedicker, Terminal Issue—and as an afterthought, a copy of his latest publication, Gold Country. It would be interesting to see how his style had changed over the years. I re-set the one bookshelf to better block the pass through and left the dealers' room, firmly shutting the door behind. A couple of steps took me next door to the autograph room that was now being set up for the Cheese and Whine party.

There was a small crowd milling around until the banquet staff would politely kick them out at six to ramp up for the actually food set up. Lulu was looking around frantically and her eyes lit on someone she knew from years of book signings: me. "Sandy! Oh, Sandy, help!"

"What's wrong, Lu?" Other than a questionable choice of companions.

"It's—it's plagiarism! Or something-ism!" She glanced around and lowered her voice. "P. R. Bedicker, he's doing fake Tony Hillerman novels—!"

"I think that would be fraud or forgery," I said, trying not to smile. I slipped into one of the chairs at her table. "I think there was a misunderstanding. I could hear you talking through the wall. When Patrice said Peter Decker you heard P. R. Bedicker. Same with fake Hillerman. She was saying Faye Kellerman—the author of the Peter Decker books." She still looked confused. "You ever hear 'Who's on First?'" Confused look became a blank one. "Abbott and Costello—'Who's on first, What's on second, I Dunno—third base!'"

"Oh." She still looked blank.

"It was just a mistake. You misheard what she said. No crime involved, I promise."

Lulu almost pouted. She grabbed her copy of Thom E. Gemcity's latest novel and pushed her chair back. "That's stupid." Brows still furrowed, she left the room, heel taps clicking on the floor.

I shall refrain form comment. I looked at the white-jacketed waitsaff scurrying smoothly in and out of the back door to the kitchen gangway. Cheese and Whine. How accurate.