“What was she like back then?” I asked. “The QB, back when you represented her.”
“Younger,” he said. “But then, weren’t we all? I don’t remember much about her, back then. I know that sounds implausible. After all, I worked with her for a year and a half. But all I remember from that whole time is a sort of ghastly feeling, like getting hit over the head repeatedly with a sledgehammer.”
He sat staring into space for a few moments, as if trying to remember.
“Of course, she hasn’t changed much,” he said, finally.
“Then why did you let Walker sign with her?” I asked.
“Well, it’s not as if we had a lot of other options, did we?” he said. “Not like Michael. If he did decide to put his academic career on hold, there’s no end to what he could do.”
Time to hit the trail, I thought, if Francis was going to keep dragging the conversation around to his uneasy relationship with Michael.
Chapter 24
I glanced around, searching for an excuse to leave, and noticed that the show’s costumer had come into the green room.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said. “I’m trying to get all the guests’ autographs for my nephew, and I just spotted someone I’m missing.”
Not to mention someone whose motives for murder I wanted to explore.
Karen, the costumer, happily signed Eric’s program, and I didn’t have any trouble dragging the conversation around to the topic of the day.
“Wasn’t it exciting, being questioned by the police!” she exclaimed. “Of course, I’m lucky I had an alibi, aren’t I? I mean, under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” I asked. “Was she firing you, too?”
“Well, not that I know of,” she said. “But it was only a matter of time, of course. I’m the show’s thirteenth costume designer, you know. I bet that’s some kind of a record. Anyway, it was such a relief to say that I’d gone straight from my four o’clock panel to dinner. A little early for me, normally; but I understand your mother wanted to get your nephew away from the convention for a while. Poor dear; he did have an awful experience, didn’t he?”
“You had dinner with my mother?” I asked.
“Oh, yes; didn’t she tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to her much today,” I said. “But that’s good news. After her quarrel with the QB, I’m relieved to hear that Mother has an alibi.”
“You don’t really suspect your own mother?” Karen exclaimed.
“Of course not,” I said. “But the police might feel differently. After all, they don’t know her the way I do.”
She nodded approvingly.
“I know perfectly well that Mother wouldn’t kill anyone,” I said. “At least not by bludgeoning. Too strenuous, messy, and generally inelegant. It’d be different if the QB had been poisoned in some clever way.”
Karen’s mouth fell open, and she stared at me for a few seconds. And then she burst into laughter.
“Oh, my! You had me going for a minute!” she said, through her giggles. “Your mother should have told me what a tease you can be.”
If she thought I was kidding, I wouldn’t argue.
“I hope you went someplace nice,” I said.
“Well, actually we went to one of those noisy places where they have a whole room full of video games for the kids,” she said. “But your nephew had fun, and your mother and I had such a nice talk. She told me all about your decorating plans for the new house. It sounds so…unusual!”
“Yes, any decorating scheme Mother comes up with usually is,” I said. I wondered if she was still enthralled with a jungle theme, and whether or not her rendition of it would include live animals. “Don’t noise it about—you know how Michael is about keeping his private life private.”
Although, considering how rapidly costumers appeared to come and go on the show, I supposed she’d be lucky to know Michael’s face.
“Right,” she said, looking momentarily quite solemn. And then her face broke into a smile again. “I was so sorry your father couldn’t join us.”
Damn. Too much to hope for that both of them had been out of harm’s way.
“But it was so nice of him to babysit your niece.”
“Niece?” As far as I knew, Mother and Dad had only brought Eric along to the convention. Much as Mother adored her grandchildren, she preferred having them around one at a time, ideally with Dad and other adoring relatives available to take care of any actual work the little dears caused.
“Yes, little…Samantha? Or was it Sabrina?”
“Salome?” I suggested.
“Yes, of course! Such an unusual name; I do think it’s so much better for children to have their own names, instead of a name every other child in their school has.”
I made a mental note to speak to Salome’s keeper. What the devil did he mean by putting someone he hardly knew in charge of Salome? Especially someone like Dad?
As the costumer nattered on about baby names, I found myself warming to this cheerful and apparently uncomplicated woman. She was probably the only person from the Porfiria cast and crew who hadn’t yet said an unkind word about the QB. Despite, I suspected, considerable temptation. And I had the reassuring feeling that anything that came into her ears or surfaced in her memory would come straight out her mouth, unless it was too negative to repeat.
If I could just drag the conversation back to the show.
“Oh, was that Nate?” I said, pretending to spot him behind her.
“Was it?” she said, turning to look. “Well, he must have gone out again.”
“Now he’s been with the show a long time, hasn’t he?” I asked.
“Since the first episode,” she said. “Isn’t that amazing? He’s the only one, apart from Walker and Miss Wynncliffe-Jones herself.”
“Makes you wonder what he’s got on her,” I said.
She blinked, and then decided to assume I was kidding.
“Oh, you,” she said, giving my shoulder a gentle, playful shove. “No, if you ask me, he’s sweet on her.”
“Nate?” I exclaimed.
“Of course,” she said. “He’s been with her for ever so long—since they were much younger. Why else would he stick with her through all the…difficult times.”
Yes, difficult would pretty much describe any times spent in the QB’s company. But Nate and the QB? Why did I suddenly have the picture of an ordinary housecat yearning after Salome?
I pleaded the need to mind my booth, and headed back to the dealers’ room, still pondering what the costumer had said. I took a long way round, though—deliberately—a way that took me past Salome’s lair.
I ducked under the vines that screened the room’s doorway—had they gotten thicker since yesterday? I was pretty sure they had, and I doubted the convention decorating committee had time to make the changes. Someone definitely wanted the room’s doorway to be hard to find. I could think of only one person who would care.
Salome lifted her head and inspected me briefly before closing her eyes and returning to her nap. That was more reaction than I got from her keeper.
“Didn’t I just see you in the lobby?” I asked.
He looked up, puzzled. He was holding a coffee cup that he hadn’t had earlier.
“I went for breakfast,” he said.
“Leaving Salome all alone apparently. Not that your choice of cat sitters is exactly inspired—do you really think my father is the right person to look after Salome while you’re off doing whatever you were doing yesterday afternoon?”
“I have to eat, don’t I?” he said, “and go to the bathroom occasionally? Besides, I’m not really worrying about anyone going near her with him around.”