A Stiff Critique (9 page)

“We’re cool by ourselves,” Travis answered, his voice low and angry. “We don’t need Slade Skinner to push us around.” Then he crossed his arms across his chest and glowered across the table. Heathcliff, I realized. He looked exactly like I had imagined Heathcliff while reading
Wuthering Heights
as a teenager.

Mave raised her hand. Carrie nodded at her.

“Joyce Grenfell said it best,” Mave told us with a smile that half-closed her round eyes. “‘If I should go before the rest of you, break not a flower nor inscribe a stone,’“ she recited. “‘Nor when I’m gone speak in a Sunday voice, but be the usual selves that I have known—’“

“I vote to keep going,” Vicky interjected in a surprisingly high-pitched voice. I took a better look at her bony face. It wasn’t a bad face, just thin. Her mouth looked oddly heavy and sensual against the backdrop of scarcity.

“‘Weep if you must, parting is hell.’“ Mave continued her eulogy, putting a hand on her chest for emphasis. “‘But life goes on, so sing as well.’“ Then she smiled broadly, wrinkling her face even more deeply, and bowed her head.

I gave Mave a little round of applause. Donna was the only one who joined me, though.

“Shall the record show a ‘yes’ vote?” Carrie asked, her tone transforming the formality of her words to a teasing affection.

“You betcha,” Mave confirmed with a wink.

“Me too,” Donna chimed in. “Slade wasn’t always, well, exactly in harmony with everyone, but he had, well, integrity. He’d want us to validate our own experience, I’m sure—”

“I vote yes, too,” Nan put in brusquely.

“Joyce?” asked Carrie with a look at the brunette.

“I suppose we should go on,” Joyce answered softly, her pale skin pinkening as she spoke. Debilitating shyness, I guessed. No wonder the poor woman had less of a life than Carrie.

Carrie turned her eyes to Russell.

“I’ll go with the consensus,” he said, nodding ever so slightly. I had forgotten how pleasant his voice was to the ear, deep and melodious. I would have expected a harsher tone from a true-crime writer.

“Then we are all agreed to continue as a group,” Carrie concluded. “Which brings us to the second issue for discussion.”

“Now what?” Nan demanded with a toss of her blond hair.

“I’ll make it very simple,” Carrie answered, her round, freckled face deadly serious. Once again, she ran her eyes over each of us in turn. “Does anyone here have any information that might be relevant to the identity of Slade Skinner’s murderer?”

Her question was greeted with absolute silence. Even Nan kept her mouth shut. Travis jutted his head forward as if he were going to say something, but then seemed to think better of it and leaned back again with his arms crossed.

“Slade told me he had a date with someone last Saturday after our regular meeting.” Carrie’s voice was stern as she went on. “He said that ‘someone’ was a member of our group. I have asked you each individually, and I will repeat the question once more to all of you. Did one of you have a five o’clock date with Slade Skinner last Saturday?”

Still no one answered. I looked around the table, Nan was staring up at the ceiling with an expression of strained exasperation. I couldn’t tell if it was real or feigned. Vicky was concentrating on a cuticle she was chewing. At least she was eating. Russell sat perfectly still, his eyes resting lightly on Carrie. Mave’s head was tilted, her eyes wide with what looked like rapt interest in the proceedings. Joyce’s eyes were closed, her hands clasped in front of her. Maybe she was meditating. Donna was smiling sweetly as she twirled a piece of hair around her finger. And Travis was still glowering across the table.

I had no idea if any of them was harboring guilty thoughts about meeting Slade and/or killing him. Neither did Carrie apparently.

She sighed deeply, then asked if anyone had any ideas at all about Slade’s murder. At least this time there was a response.

“Well, uh,” Donna began. “There is my family.”

“And…” Carrie gently encouraged her.

“They don’t think it’s appropriate for me to write my autobiography and include them in it,” Donna went on. “They’re in, like, complete denial about their roots, how they made their money and stuff. Especially my dad. He’s been very abusive about the whole thing. Yelling his head off. Not really trying to communicate at all—”

“What does this have to do with Slade’s murder?” Nan cut in. “If anything.”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” Donna admitted. “But my dad did send his men out to get the manuscript back from everyone I gave a copy to.” She smiled suddenly. “See, he thought they had all my copies, but they didn’t. Oh, they took my computer and all my papers and everything from my house. But they don’t know that I’ve rented a work space. Everything they took from my house is duplicated there.” She giggled, her face looking more like a ten-year-old’s than ever. I wondered for a moment if she was mildly retarded, then decided against it. “So it didn’t do them one bit of good,” she finished up triumphantly. Maybe she was just emotionally backward.

“I believe I was visited by your father’s men Saturday evening,” Carrie said, her tone as serious as Donna’s might have been. Carrie wiggled one finger, then another. “They took my copy of your manuscript.”

“Mine’s gone too,” Russell added quietly. “Although I didn’t see who actually took it.”

“Good golly!” yelped Mave. “I couldn’t find my copy, but I just thought I’d put it somewhere goofy.” She swiveled her head around abruptly to look behind her, as if to catch the thieves here and now. “Those donkey bottoms better not come back again,” she declared fiercely.

“Listen, Mave,” Travis put in, jutting his head forward. “If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll come and stay with you. I’ve still got my copy. I checked.”

“Don’t you worry about me, you sweet boy,” Mave answered, straightening in her seat. “This old woman’s got ways of dealing with these kind of critters.”

Oh great, I thought. She’s probably got a shotgun somewhere. And I’d have bet she knew how to use it too.

“Wait a minute,” Nan said, glaring across the table at Donna. “Are you telling us you gave our addresses to these goons?”

“Well, not exactly,” Donna replied, her smile disappearing. Her face colored under Nan’s glare as she spoke. “But I did tell Dad that the group members had copies, and I guess his men found my address list when they took all my other stuff.”

“You guess?” demanded Nan. She shook a well-manicured finger at Donna. “Jesus, you’re an idiot! Don’t you have any sense at all? Are you trying to get us all killed?”

“Now hold your horses there, Nan,” Mave objected. She held up a hand, palm facing outward. “Donna didn’t know that those burro’s behinds were gonna steal everything.”

Nan reared up in her chair and opened her mouth again.

But Carrie’s tongue was faster. “Is anyone else missing their copy of Donna’s manuscript?” she asked.

“How do I know?” Nan replied, brushing her blond bangs out of her face with the back of her hand. “I didn’t know anyone was after the damn thing until today. The whole situation is totally absurd.”

“I’m not sure either,” Vicky threw in.

“I don’t know if my copy is gone,” Joyce murmured. “I’ll check as soon as I go home.” She took a deep breath before going on. “But I think our real concern here should be whether these men are actually violent.”

“They haven’t proved themselves violent yet,” Carrie put in. She paused before adding, “As far as we know, that is.”

The table went silent as the group considered her addendum. Finally, Donna spoke up.

“I don’t think my dad lets his men do any of the violent stuff anymore,” she said thoughtfully.

“Donna, this is important,” Carrie said. “Do you think any one of your father’s men is capable of murder?”

Donna frowned and chewed on her upper lip for a few moments.

“Are you thinking or in some kind of coma?” Nan demanded.

“Thinking,” Donna answered slowly. Then she sat up straight and smiled again. “No,” she concluded. “I don’t think any of his men are capable of murder. I mean, they are kind of ethically challenged. But they’re not
that
ethically challenged!”

I groaned aloud. But no one seemed to notice. Maybe everyone but Donna was trying to figure out what “ethically challenged” meant.

“I agree with Donna,” Russell said after a moment. A hint of a smile touched his even, Asian features. “Though I might not have used quite the same description.” He paused, then went on, his deep voice as reassuring as his words.

“I’ve got a few buddies on the police force,” he told us. “Even one with the FBI. After my copy of Donna’s manuscript disappeared, I talked to each of them informally. I asked if someone working for Donna’s father might have panicked and killed Slade while trying to retrieve Donna’s manuscript. But none of the guys I talked to thought it was very likely. Donna’s father and his business associates are respectable now. And more important, they’re trying to keep a low profile. They don’t want the cops climbing all over them in a murder investigation. They wouldn’t want to risk even a hint of suspicion. At least that’s the theory.”

“Are your friends on the police force investigating the possibility?” Carrie asked.

“They’re looking into it informally,” Russell assured her. “And they’ve talked to the Hutton police about it. But who knows?” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh, I forgot!” Donna piped up. “I’ve got floppies to give to everyone.”

Nobody looked thrilled by the prospect. But she pulled them out of her purse and handed them out to everyone anyway. Including me. I just hoped she wasn’t going to give her father’s friends an updated list of group members.

“This has my latest draft,” she told us cheerfully. “It’s even got a new title.”

I looked down at the label on the computer disk. It read “MY FAMILY, THE FAMILY—by Donna Palmer.”

“Catchy,” Mave said approvingly. Then she set her floppy down on the polished surface of the rosewood table. Keeping her eyes lowered, she spoke softly. “Been thinking of what Carrie said about Slade having a date with one of us after the last meeting. Wouldn’t want to think there was a murderer among us, but I can’t help but wonder if, well, if the son-of-a-gun wasn’t killed ‘cause someone was real hot under the collar over one of his critiques. He gave one heck of a nasty critique, that’s for sure—”

“That is an absolutely ridiculous idea,” Nan interrupted. “Slade was a professional. And so were his critiques.”

Did the lady protest too much? Nan certainly hadn’t appeared to have enjoyed Slade’s critique of her own work on Saturday. Though I seemed to remember her trying to act as if she didn’t mind his comments. And Slade was sleeping with Nan. He might have been even harsher with the others.

“I had another idea too,” Mave went on, apparently unfazed by Nan’s interruption. “What if someone got a burr under their saddle reading
Cool Fallout
? If you ask me, Slade drew some of his characters straight from real life—”

“That’s right!” shouted Travis. He leaned forward and hit the table with his fist. “The scheming, social-climbing real-estate agent is obviously Nan.”

“I resent that remark,” Nan announced coolly. Her voice wasn’t loud, but the way she narrowed her eyes as she spoke gave me goose bumps. She sat up straight in her chair and glared across the table at Travis. “I may be a real estate agent, but that’s where the resemblance ends. I have had lunch with Martin Cruz Smith. And Joe Gores. I am an author. I am not anything like the character in
Cool Fallout.
”

Travis opened his mouth again, but Russell headed him off with his own admission.

“Well, I certainly recognized myself as the stereotypical Chinese-American nerd,” he said without a sour note in his melodious voice. “Though at least Slade had the decency to make me an artist and curator instead of a writer—”

“I never noticed!” Joyce exclaimed. Her blue eyes were wide under her oversized glasses. She raised a hand to her temple, then drew it back over her black, permed hair. “Of course, the nerd. And the real estate agent. How could I have missed them?” She seemed to be talking to herself.

“Russell Wu is no nerd!” Travis protested hotly. “If anyone was a nerd, it was Slade. Sitting in his fancy house and thinking up nasty things to say about the rest of us. That’s not how a real man acts…”

I glanced at Russell as Travis continued his tirade. Russell’s face was stiff. With embarrassment?

“Did Slade ever do anything really
important
with his writing?” Travis demanded. He threw his arms into the air. “Did he ever care about the effect it had on others? No, he just blabbed on and on without a conscience. And to make fun of Russell—”

“Travis,” Carrie interrupted gently. “Maybe we could move on now.”

“Oh,” Travis said blankly. He sat with his mouth open for a moment, then waved a hand at Carrie. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Does anyone else have any other ideas about Slade Skinner’s murder?” Carrie asked.

No one spoke up.

“Then I’d like to ask the group’s permission to add a new member to our permanent roster,” Carrie proposed, a grin splitting her round face. Damn. I wished she’d asked me first. “I introduced you all to Kate Jasper at last Saturday’s meeting. Kate is my long-time friend.” She paused, then added, “And she writes short stories.”