"Let me type a reply thanking this guy for his trouble," said Jay. "Then you can tell me what you found out, Marion. By the way, have we eaten dinner?"
Marion reached for the room service menu. "I thought you'd never ask."
When she came back from ordering a couple of chicken dinners, Marion turned back to Jay. "So, did he fake his death certificate so that he could get rid of his wife as well as his friends?"
"I don't think so," said Jay. "A guy from Mississippi went down to his local library and found an obituary for Pat Malone in an old newspaper on microfilm." He grinned. "Somebody who called himself Jim Hacker offered to break into the records of the University of Washington medical school, but I declined."
"Good. I'm sure the dean of engineering takes a dim view of professors being wanted by the FBI."
"I also got some interesting reminiscences from some old-timers that didn't quite square with things here. I get the funny feeling that the Lanthanides are still playing 'you and me against the world.' By the way, can you get me a copy of the time-capsule stories?"
Marion looked smug. "I already did," she said. "I asked Geoffrey Duke to make one for me. I thought it might be useful in case I decide to do an article."
"Good. Have you read them yet?"
"Of course not. I've been running errands for a certain engineer with delusions of grandeur."
"Oh. Well, sometime tonight I wish you'd take a look at them."
"Don't you want to see them?"
Jay shook his head. "No. I need you to read them in that sharklike way that English majors read things. Analytically."
"I see," said Marion dryly. "I'll try not to mistake that for a compliment. Anything else?"
"You have read the Lanthanides' published work, haven't you?"
"I just finished teaching the early science fiction course, remember? Of course, I have!"
"I thought so. Good. That ought to wrap it up."
"So what do you think about all this?"
"You first, Marion. Any news?"
Marion nodded. "Angela Arbroath says that Elavil is used to control depression, among other things, and Jim Conyers phoned his friends in law enforcement, and was told that the case is a suspected homicide, and that the investigators will be back sometime tomorrow to question everybody. Something called an MAO inhibitor got added to Malone's medicine. Apparently, a tablet had been crushed and added to his drink."
"MAO inhibitor. I know what that is. My Uncle Ewen… Well, anyway, that's interesting. Anything else?"
"The police have the deceased listed as Richard Spivey."
"Good," said Jay. "And do they think he was Pat Malone?"
"The Lanthanides? Yes. Angela says he had to have been. He knew stuff that only one of the Lanthanides would know." She ticked off the members' names. "Dugger's dead, Deddingfield's dead, Curtis Phillips is dead, and all the rest of them are here. Besides, if he wasn't Pat Malone, why would any of them kill him?"
"I wondered that," said Jay Omega. "And I don't know. But I rather think that they do." He looked thoughtful and then embarrassed. "Marion, did you bring my SFWA directory in that rat's nest of bibliographic papers you insisted on packing?"
"Yes. And don't say it was a waste of time, because I still might interview one of the Lanthanides for an analysis of early S-F for one of the journals. Maybe."
"You probably won't, but I'm not complaining about the fact that you brought it. I just need my directory."
Marion retrieved the booklet containing the membership list of the Science Fiction Writers of America and resisted the urge to fling it at him. Jay began to flip through the dog-eared pages. Several entries were marked with comments (e.g. "Sent thank you note") and a few had telephone numbers written after them in pencil. "She's not in here," he muttered.
"What are you up to now?" asked Marion.
Jay continued to thumb through the booklet. "Who is the most famous person I know in science fiction?"
Marion searched her memory. "Well, you shook hands with Arthur C. Clarke once."
"No. I mean the most famous person that I can impose upon." He handed her the booklet. "And your choice is limited to the people I have phone numbers for."
Marion began to flip through the pages, going from back to front. "You served on a committee with him once… didn't we meet her at a con last spring?" Finally she stopped turning pages, deliberating over one entry.
"Did you find someone?"
She took a deep breath. "John Brunner is an extremely nice person, and he seems to like you," she said carefully. "But since it is about three o'clock in the morning where he lives in Britain, I'd advise against presuming on his benevolence."
"Good point," said Jay. "I suppose I could wait until five a.m. to call him. That would make it ten on a Sunday morning where he is. But I wanted to get this done tonight."
"Get what done?"
"Look, if the Lanthanides don't get this solved very quickly, there will be all three rings of a media circus. I think I'd better explain that to them."
"I think they realize it."
"Like hell they do. They're just sitting around playing dumb and hoping it will all go away. But it won't, unless they start cooperating very quickly."
Marion's eyes narrowed. "What does this have to do with John Brunner?"
"Nothing."
"Then why are you going to call him at ten o'clock on a Sunday morning?" She wailed.
"Because I'm hoping that he has Jazzy Holt's phone number, and that he'll give it to me."
"You are going to call Jasmine Holt?" gasped Marion.
"Not unless I have to," said Jay grimly. He looked at his watch and sighed. "I guess we'd better try to settle this thing now. Tomorrow may be too late. Could you round up the Lanthanides and bring them here?"
"Why would they want to do that?" asked Marion. "Most of them hardly know you."
"Tell them that we will meet here at eleven to resolve this thing. If they don't show up, I will consider that permission to report my findings to the police instead. And then I'll call a press conference."
"You're going to do that? You? The person who wouldn't even tell the local paper about your award nomination?"
"This is different," said Jay. "Their sense of priorities is beginning to get on my nerves. And besides, I liked the man who was killed."
Ruben Mistral might have objected strenuously to Jay Omega's proposed meeting, except for the fact that his body was still running on California time, so it still seemed the shank of the evening to him, and he wasn't sleepy. Besides, the threat of adverse publicity appealed to the practical side of Mistral's nature, and he agreed that some son of discussion would be prudent. Marion persuaded the others to come by ending her summons with the statement: "-And Ruben Mistral is coming." With varying degrees of reluctance, everyone agreed to turn up at Jay Omega's room in one hour's time.
Jay spent the hour before the meeting online with the Fandango grapevine he had created in hopes that he might learn more useful bits of information about Pat Malone. He also made a phone call to Raleigh, North Carolina to check out a theory of his own. Marion read the time-capsule stories, with occasional snickers or caustic comments which Jay steadfastly ignored. Finally, though, ten minutes before the Lanthanides were due to arrive, he logged out of Delphi, switched off the computer, and turned to Marion. "Well?" he said. "Have you read them all?"
She looked thoughtful. "Oh, yes."
"What do you think?"