We’ll Always Have Parrots

Chapter 28

“Come on, boys,” Maggie said. “It’s time for lunch with the stars. Assuming they’ve found a restaurant that’s open.”

“Lunch with the stars?” I repeated.

“We each sit at a table with eleven people who have donated obscene amounts of money to charity for the privilege,” Michael said. “Dinner, however, is another story. I would rather dine with the star of my own personal firmament, if you can get away from your booth for an hour.”

“Flattery will get you anywhere, and Chris can fill in at the booth,” I said. “He owes me. What time?”

“Probably around six,” he said. “Early, anyway. I can come by when I’m free. We have to make it early, because the festivities start up again at seven. We’re judging the open costume competition.”

“And Chris and Harry and I are doing another stage combat demonstration,” I said. “As if everyone at the convention didn’t get to see me stab myself in the foot the first time around.”

“Well, I didn’t see it,” he complained. “I was off signing, remember?”

“I take it back,” I said. “For you, I’ll gladly make a fool of myself again.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said. “I’ve been doing that all day, and people keep applauding. Gotta run; try not to tick off Foley so much that he arrests you before dinner.”

“I have no intention of ticking him off at all,” I called after him, as he headed for the door. “I’ll be sitting in my booth.”

“I thought you’d be sleuthing,”

“That, too.”

As I turned to go, I realized that they’d left the dozen or so samples of fan fic on the table. I tidied them into my tote. Odds were they had nothing to do with the murder, but you never knew.

But as I walked back to the dealers’ room, I found myself thinking about the fan fic. And about the scrap of paper I’d found in the QB’s hand. Was it fan fic, or the real thing?

And was it perceptive, or just stupidly obsessive, to keep coming back to that scrap of paper? And to the perhaps irrational feeling that to understand it, I needed to know a lot more about what happened back in 1972? Maybe it was a good thing that I’d steered Foley to the fake Porfiria comics in the dealers’ room. But it would be even better if he’d poke into the real ones. Into the past. Would it do any good to suggest it?

No harm, anyway.

When I got to the dealers’ room, I found Foley himself standing just outside the door. He looked free, so I decided to tackle him.

“Have you got a moment?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, glancing at his watch as if to say, “But only a moment, so make it snappy.”

“Look, this may sound stupid, but are you looking at what happened back in 1972?”

“For example?”

“For example, that around 1972, Miss Wynncliffe-Jones bought all the rights to the Porfiria comic books for a sum now widely considered larcenously low? That shortly afterward, Ichabod Dilley, the creator of the comics, died under suspicious circumstances? And that the piece of paper found in her hand appeared to be a portion of one of those comics? A piece of paper, of course, that I haven’t told anybody about, apart from Michael.”

“We appreciate your discretion,” Foley said. “And we’d appreciate if you’d continue keeping quiet about the scrap of paper, although I don’t think it’s that strong a link to 1972. From what I hear, even the original comic books wouldn’t be all that valuable if not for the TV fans.”

He sounded—well, not exactly patient. More like he’d had plenty of practice in not sounding impatient.

“What about the fact that Francis used to be her agent back then?”

He looked a little less deliberately patient at that.

“I imagine he’s had a lot of clients if he’s been in the business that long.”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “And he’s probably seen a lot of them murdered, too; you know what a cutthroat place Hollywood is.”

Foley’s lips twitched slightly, but he didn’t say anything.

“Was there anything else?” he asked.

“What about the rumor that the relationship between Nate Abrams and Miss Wynncliffe-Jones was more than professional?”

Okay, I was grasping at straws here. The more I thought about Karen the costumer’s hint that Nate was—how had she put it?—sweet on the QB, the more I dismissed it as her overly romantic interpretation of events. And did Foley’s remarkably blank expression mean that he found this interesting, or just that he was really tired of listening to me?

“I don’t suppose you know anything to substantiate this rumor?” he asked.

“No, but if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

I expected him to ask who I’d heard the rumor from, or warn me about not interfering in a police investigation, but he simply nodded and walked off.

Damn. I didn’t get the feeling he’d totally ignored me, but I knew I hadn’t convinced him. Not surprising; all I had was my gut feeling that whatever happened in 1972 had something to do with the murder. Not much to go on.

But it was all I had. And just in case Foley’s focus on present-day motives didn’t work out, maybe someone should look into the past. Or start looking, anyway. By Sunday afternoon, the suspects would scatter over the continent. How far could I get in a day and a half?

At least I knew where to start. With the comic books.

“No way,” Cordelia said, a few minutes later. “Do you know what those comics are worth?”

“I don’t want you to give them to me,” I said. “I just want to look at them. It’s important.”

“Why?”

Probably not a good idea to say I was trying to solve the QB’s murder.

“There were only twelve Porfiria comic books ever published, right?” I asked.

“Right.”

“So what would you say if I told you there might be another one?”

“You have a lead on the Lost Thirteenth Porfiria?” Cordelia said, in hushed tones.

Apparently I’d accidentally tapped into an existing rumor.

“Maybe,” I said. “I need to study the twelve again first.”

Again. As if I’d ever actually read any of them.

“If you get it, you’ll let me handle the sale? This could be the biggest thing since…well, I don’t remember anything like it. You will, right?”

“Absolutely.”

Definitely an existing rumor—and not just any rumor, but one of mythic proportions in the comic book world.

It took me fifteen more minutes of wheedling, and in the end, I had to bribe her, but I finally talked Cordelia into letting me borrow all twelve issues of the original Porfiria. Chris willingly agreed to take my place at the booth. I left him and Steele perched at the two ends of the booth like matching gargoyles and stole away to my room to read the comics.

And was surprised to find Michael there, lying on the bed with a wet washcloth draped over his face.

“In the movies, they usually find something a little larger to put over the body,” I said.

“Well, I’m not that far gone yet,” he said, with a weak laugh. “Head’s killing me, though. Congestion. Thank heaven I have a break.”

“What happened to lunch with the stars?” I said.

“Postponed until tomorrow,” he said, “assuming either the health department reopens the restaurant or they find an alternate site. Just as well. I’m exhausted.”

“I could leave,” I offered.

“No, stay,” he said. “Your company will hasten my recovery, as long as you can manage not to tell me all the medical events currently happening in my lungs and sinuses. I really don’t want to think about all that.”

“Ah, you’ve been talking to Dad, then,” I said. “I was wondering what he was up to.”

“I just thought I’d ask what decongestants he recommends,” Michael grumbled. “How was I supposed to know that he considers decongestants a dangerous interference with the drainage that is part of the body’s natural healing process?”

“Because it’s been at least a year since you had a cold,” I said. “He goes off on these natural healing kicks every few years. I happen to have brought some of the decongestants he recommends when he’s in his normal, better-living-through-chemicals mode. I suspected you might need them before the con was over.”

“You’re an angel,” Michael said. “And if you wouldn’t mind running some hot water over this compress…”

With his compress reheated and the promise of relief washed down by a cold Coke, Michael perked up sufficiently to notice what I was doing.

“I presume there’s a murder-related reason for you to be sitting here reading comic books instead of minding your booth?” he asked, in a voice slightly muffled by the washcloth.

“Was that a slam at comic books?” I asked. “Although actually, I think ‘graphic novels’ probably are better words after all.”

“Makes you feel less silly?”

“‘Comics’ seems to imply a cartoonish style, and there’s nothing cartoonish about Ichabod Dilley’s drawings. Elegant’s more like it. The man’s brilliant. Or was brilliant, more’s the pity.”

“I could work up a good fit of jealousy over that remark if the poor wretch weren’t dead,” Michael said.