“You guys heard her.” She appealed to Gavin and me. “Didn’t Penelope say the water tasted funny?”
“She said ‘yuck,’” Gavin agreed.
Roberto raised his hand. “Perhaps we should determine precisely what she consumed this morning.”
“What she ate for breakfast,” Mia said.
“People!” Jo waved her arms. “You’re jumping to way too many conclu—”
Mia gasped. “Maybe it was food poisoning!”
“But then we’d all be sick,” Zelda said. “What did she eat at the buffet?”
“She wasn’t at breakfast,” Gavin said, and several of us agreed we hadn’t seen her.
“So she didn’t eat anything?” Faith asked.
“She ate in her room,” I said. “She told me she had Batsy’s candy.”
“What!?” Batsy started. “I didn’t poison her!”
“Of course you didn’t.” I turned to Hatsy. “But don’t you see? That’s why her water tasted funny. Chocolate for breakfast confused her taste buds.”
“People!” Jo yelled. “You’re jumping to way too many conclusions.”
“Shouldn’t you search her room?” I asked.
Wilson cleared his throat, and I somehow gathered he had already made that suggestion. I shut up and focused on the chief of police. What’s the saying? If looks could kill?
“This is how you make a living, isn’t it?” she asked me. “Making up ridiculous stories.”
“It’s not how I make a living,” Wilson responded before I could. “And I agree you should check the room. Or at least have someone guard the room until you get there.”
“You volunteering?”
“Nope. I stay with Jessie.”
“Who’s Jessie?”
He pointed to me. “My wife.”
“What?” Jo scowled at me. “I thought you were Adelé?”
I explained my pen name, but this did nothing to improve Chief Keegan’s mood.
She glanced around the group. “How many of you people use aliases?” she asked, and all of us authors raised our hands.
“Pen names,” we said in unison.
She blinked twice. “So none of you is who you say you are?”
“Only the authors use pen names,” Mia Madison explained. “Roberto and I are publishers.” She stated their full names, and the names of their respective publishing houses. “No pen names here.”
“Or here.” Patsy indicated the Glee Club, and the chief of police shifted her focus as the volunteers introduced themselves.
It took a second for it to sink in. “Patsy, Hatsy, and Batsy?” Jo squeaked.
“Glee,” Hatsy added. “We’re the Glee Club.”
“Those are your real names?”
“You can’t make this stuff up,” Patsy said.
***
Jo took a few deep breaths. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said eventually. “Who’s who?”
Zelda tapped her Cupid. “Zelda Bell, according to the Romance Writers Hall of Fame. Erma Sue Jones, according to the IRS and my grandchildren.”
Gavin held up his Cupid. “Gavin McClure,” he said. “Floyd Schmidt to the IRS and my parents.”
Faith went next. “Faith Hollingsworth,” she said. “Believe it or not, Faith really is my name.”
“Thank you.” Jo looked relieved, but Faith fixed that right quick.
“But my husband and I changed our last name,” she said. “We used to be the Mattowskis.”
“Say what?”
Faith tapped her chest. “Faith Mattowski-Hollingsworth.”
Charm Willowby raised her hand. “And I’m Doris Wo—” She stopped and did a double take of Faith. “Are you trying to tell me that Roger—the male chauvinist pig—changed his name to fit yours?”
The question was beyond rude, but dare I admit she had a point?
Faith nodded to her publisher. “Mia and I decided on Hollingsworth when I signed my first contract with Daydream Desires. I needed a new last name, and Roger thought he might as well change his at the same time.”
I spoke to Wilson. “Wilson Nightingale?” I said. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m getting a headache,” both cops answered.
***
Jo pointed to the stage. “I know I’ll regret this, but what was her real name?”
“Penelope Shay wrote for Daydream Desires,” Mia said. “She was Sukie Shelburn.” She tapped her chin. “Or was it Sally? Sally Sheldon?” She squinted, and Jo mentioned that headache again.
She looked back and forth between the two publishers. “You two know all the authors at this shindig?” she asked.
“Everyone who’s anyone,” Mia said.
“Perptual Pleasures Press and Daydream Desires Publishers are the most renowned names in romance,” Roberto added.
“Of course they are!” Jo said. “So, since you guys are the experts, you have an assignment. I want a list of every author here, real name and alias.”
Mia lifted a hand to her brow. “Oh, woe is me!”
Jo turned to Roberto. “Huh?”
“Madam,” he said. “We do not have that information at our fingertips and would need to do extensive research. It would present an intolerable intrusion of our time during this important conference. The Happily Ever After is the most renowned romance conference in the world. And Perpetual Pleasures Press and Daydream Desires Publishers are the most renown—”
For some reason, Jo tried Mia again. “Why woe?” she asked.
Mia wiped nonexistent sweat from her brow. “It would be very, very time consuming,” she said. “We’d need to call our copyright departments and our personnel departments.”
“So go call them,” Jo said impatiently. “I want those lists ASAP—I want it crystal clear who’s who.” She gave each publisher a business card and pointed them to the door.
Wilson watched them exit. “You realize both of them were on the stage when the victim died?”
“And?”
“And I thought you wanted to talk to everyone who was up there.” He indicated our diminished group. “Isn’t that why all these people are here?”
“Why are you here?” Charm asked him. “You aren’t in the Glee Club, and you weren’t on stage.” She spoke to Chief Keegan. “He should not be here.”
“I’m not leaving Jess—I mean, Adelé,” Wilson said.
“Why not?” Charm asked. “Why don’t you go watch Penelope’s room? Adelé doesn’t need you.”
I swallowed hard and told Wilson he was free to go guard the room until Jo got there.
“Not happening,” he said and reached for my hand.
“One of us could watch the room.” Patsy pointed to herself and the other volunteers.
“Not I.” Hatsy tapped her watch. “We have three seminars this afternoon. I have no time—I have rooms to decorate.” She turned to Jo and pointed to the stage. “One assumes this room won’t be available?”
Apparently Patsy had reconsidered also. “It wouldn’t work,” she said. “I forgot about the last minute changes. If we aren’t using this room, I’ll need to put up new signage.”
“And I’ll need to be available to redirect people to the correct rooms,” Batsy said.
“Woe is you,” Mia told Jo, and the chief of police muttered something I didn’t quite catch.
“How about Adam?” Patsy suggested.
“That really is a good idea,” I told Wilson. “He’s reliable, and I’m sure he’d like to help.”
Jo clapped her hands together. “Adam it is,” she said. “Who’s Adam?”
“The bellhop!” Wilson snapped. “You’re gonna use a bellhop in place of a real cop?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Yes! Call in more staff.”
“No can do,” Jo said and enlightened us about her exceedingly understaffed police department. In fact, she seemed to take great pride in being short staffed.
Wilson mentioned something about highly irregular
proceedings, and Batsy went off in search of Adam.
Much to my husband’s chagrin, Jo also dismissed the other Glees. Patsy and Hatsy wished us luck and wandered away with Hatsy not-so-quietly fretting about getting a new meeting room presentable on such short notice.
Patsy mentioned seeing a whole roll of pink streamers that had not yet been touched. “And there’s that unopened bag of pink balloons,” she added.
“Thank goodness we rented the helium machine for the entire weekend,” Hatsy said as they finally made it to the exit.
Jo waited until the door closed and looked at me. “You might not be the craziest person here.”
“No,” I agreed. “That role belongs to the killer.”
***
“Can we get this show on the road?” Charm Willowby asked in her usual charming tone.
Jo nodded and said she’d talk to each of us separately. “Let’s start with you,” she said and directed Charm to the far corner of the room.
Faith watched them walk away. “I wish I could go first. Roger must be worried.”
“Why did he run off the second you got your award?” Zelda asked.
“That’s right,” Gavin said. “Roger was in quite a hurry to escape.”
Faith squinted. “What are you implying?”
Wilson held up a hand and suggested we keep all theories to ourselves until we spoke to Jo.
“People have theories about Roger?” Faith glanced around, but somehow the rest of us decided to take Wilson’s advice. We remained silent and focused on the stage. The body had been removed, but the uniformed cop was still up there, sorting through the mess.
“Next!” Charm said when she walked by a few minutes later.
“Business as usual,” Jo told her. Charm escaped, and Jo assessed the rest of us. “How about you?” she asked Zelda. “You look tired.”
“That I am.” Zelda stood up and followed Chief Keegan, and our dwindling group continued watching the cop on stage.
“What about this junk?” he called over to Jo. He pointed to the awards table where the two Cupids remained beneath the flowers.
“Who do those dolls belong to?” Jo asked.
“Me.” I took a deep breath. “And Penelope.”
Jo told her associate to bag Penelope’s “doll” and gave me permission to take mine with me when I left.
Faith gasped. “Oh no, Adelé! You never officially received your Cupid!” She stared aghast. “You mustn’t touch it,” she warned. “The Cupid curse might still apply.”
I sighed dramatically and gazed at my Cupid. So close, and yet so far.
Chapter 12
“Business as usual,” Jo told Gavin. He blew me a kiss and made his escape, and the chief of police pulled up a chair next to Wilson and me.
“Last but not least.” She made sure to frown. “I saved Ms. Intended Victim for last.”
I cringed at Wilson. “You told her I was the intended victim?”
“Yep.”
“But we’re not sure of that. It could have been the candy.”
“I doubt it.”
“But why—”
“Yoo-hoo.” Jo waved her notepad. “Over here, please.”
I shut up and waited, and she began her interrogation, or questioning, or whatever you want to call it. Whatever you call it, her hostility was palpable.
“Let’s start with the poison idea,” she said. “Why did you immediately think poison?”
“Intuition,” I said, and before she could argue, I told her I’d seen it before. I tilted my head toward Wilson. “It’s how we met.”
“Excuse me?”
“Someone died on Jessie’s couch,” Wilson said. “It was poison.”
“You guys met over a dead body? That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not, but Jessie had it right that time. If I were you, I’d listen to her intuition.” His eyes darted in my direction. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“And don’t forget my mother,” I said. “She thinks it was poison, and my intuition pales in comparison to hers.”
“Of course it does!” Jo made as if to toss her notepad away. “I’ll just ask your eighty-year-old mother what happened, and everything will be crystal clear.”
“Mother is eighty-four. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
“Just tell me what happened,” Jo snapped. “From the moment you guys left your room this morning until now.”
“First of all, we didn’t leave the room together.” I made sure to speak slowly and calmly, and explained how Wilson and my mother had surprised me.
“Enough about the mother.”
“It was nice to see Mother,” I continued. “But in hindsight I wish Wilson had gotten here earlier.”
“Why?”
“I wish he’d seen all the interactions.” I squeezed his hand. “He notices things.”
“I’m touched,” Jo said. “But we’ll have to live without his input.”
“Why are you so hostile?”
“Let’s move on to breakfast. You notice anything at the buffet?”
“The coffee was horrible.”
Wilson cleared his throat, and I moved on. “Penelope wasn’t there,” I said. “As I’m sure you’ve already heard.”
Jo flipped through her notes. “A lot of people missed breakfast. Who else?”
“I didn’t see Tori. More to the point, I didn’t hear her.” I thought about it and mentioned I hadn’t seen Charm Willowby or Mia Madison, either. “But not everyone’s a morning pers—”
“Moving on,” Jo said. “Tell me about the preinduction hoopla.”
“It was mayhem,” I said. “But that’s normal.”
The chief of police enlightened me that nothing about Happily Ever After was normal, and with a gesture toward the stage asked what was more abnormal than usual. “Anyone hanging around longer than they needed?” she asked.
“Tori Fister and Louise Urko,” I said without thinking. “But that’s normal, too.”
“The obnoxious agents, right? The others mentioned them.”
I stared at the stage. “Roger Hollingsworth was up there for the entire preinduction rigmarole. I thought that was odd.”
Jo tapped her notepad. “But he left after his wife got her doll.”
“Cupid,” I said. “I don’t think Roger was here when Penelope collapsed, or whatever you want to call it.”
“We’re calling it a heart attack,” Jo said.
“But it wasn’t a heart attack.”
“Save it,” she said without taking her eyes from her notepad. “Who else was out of place?”
“Well, I suppose I should mention Adam Sheppard.”
Wilson blinked twice. “The bellhop?”
“He ducked out of work for a few minutes to congratulate me.” I smiled. “Adam’s a loyal fan.”
“Of what?” Jo asked.
“Of whom,” I said a bit testily. “Of me. Believe it or not, some people actually enjoy my work.”
Jo rolled her eyes to indicate she was certainly not one of them, and then asked me who was missing from the preinduction hoopla.
I reported that Wilson and my mother had arrived late. “And Penelope was late. But she’s always late.” I stopped and tried again. “She was always late.”
“Who else?” Jo asked.
“Charm Willowby.” I sat up straight. “Charm was our emcee. Did she give a reason for arriving at the last minute?”
“She blamed you.”
“Me? I’m not her alarm clock.”
“No, but you are her rival.”
“Oh, please.”
“She said something about a feud?”
I shook my head and insisted I had better things to worry about than that supposed feud.
Wilson mumbled something about believing in fairy tales, and Chief Keegan informed me Charm Willowby had been avoiding me.
“She says you intimidate her. She didn’t want to be on stage with you for a ful
l hour ahead of time.”
“That’s her excuse for being late?” Needless to say, I was not convinced.
“I get the impression this Hall of Fame thing is pretty competitive.”
“It’s all in fun.”
“Someone’s dead,” Wilson said sternly, and I decided to reconsider.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, so the romance business is no fairy tale.”
“Someone thinks it is.” The chief of police wrinkled her nose at the disarray of junk still on the stage. “Who’s responsible for all that pink?”
I studied the pink podium, pink streamers, pink balloons, and pink flowers keeping my Cupid company. “Hatsy Glee,” I said. “Pink is the Happily Ever After theme color.”
“It’s not normal,” Jo said, and Wilson told her she should see my mementos bag.
***
“Speaking of not normal.” I leaned into a corner of the elevator and pointed to the Cupid Wilson was cradling. “I didn’t know you’re superstitious.”
“I’m not taking any chances.” He hugged the thing more tightly. “You’re in enough danger.”
I whimpered slightly. “So you really think I was the intended victim?”
“I really do.”
“Jo thinks we’re crazy. Why was she so hostile?”
“It’s not her job to be friendly, Jessie. Remember our first encounter?”
How could I forget? Once upon a time Wilson Rye had accused me of murder. “Don’t let this go to your head,” I told him. “But you’re a much better cop than Jo Keegan.”
He shrugged. “All things considered, she played it well.”
“Excuse me?” I was incredulous, but Wilson claimed the hostile act was just that—an act.
“She pretends there was no murder, and the killer gets complacent,” he said. “It might work.”
I thought about it and agreed that for someone who wasn’t taking me seriously, she asked some good questions.
The elevator dinged at the fourth floor, and we went in search of my mother’s room.
“Maybe Chief Keegan is right this very minute discovering all kinds of evidence in Penelope’s room,” I said as we skirted past many hotel room doors. “I still think the poison was in the candy.”
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