Bell, Book, and Scandal (14 page)

Zac looked at Jane, going somewhat pale again.

"Ms. Smith, I'm Jane Jeffry. This is my friend

Shelley Nowack. We're attending this conference.

My friend Mel VanDyne was the police officer

who was first on the scene of Zac's attack, and he told me Zac had been found with a page of a book in his hand. I asked for a copy of the page and showed it to Zac. It's from the book he gave you at the front desk when you arrived. A book he wrote under a pseudonym."

"Sit down," Sophie said, pointing to the dining room table. When they were all seated, she looked at Zac fiercely and asked, "Were you the one who stole it back?"

"No. Why would I? Someone else did and we think we know who it was. This is my very last copy and I want it returned before you leave," Zac said, pulling the cover and pages from the bag.

Jane looked at Shelley as Shelley handed over the printout.

"This is the same page, Ms. Smith. I found it on the Internet in Vemetta Strausmann's e-pubbed book. Read both copies."

"What in hell is this about? Why are you three taking up my valuable time?" Sophie nearly shouted.

"Read both my page and the printouts and you'll know," Zac said.

Sophie put the pages side by side, running a finger down each line in turn. She stared at the pages for a long time before looking up. "Who put this on the Internet?"

"Your Golden Pig," Zac said. "Vernetta Straus-mann."

Sophie Smith's face was contorted with rage.

"That arrogant woman. That utterly arrogant woman! She plagiarized. Probably the whole thing. Thank God we haven't paid her much yet. After all the publicity, how are we going to bury this, Corwin?"

"Don't tell anyone about this yet. None of you," Corwin said. "Somehow we'll find a way out of it."

"You joke? Why should I keep quiet?" Zac asked. "You can try whatever you want to keep your dirty little secret. I'm not obligated to. And neither are these two good women. I'll bet it's no time at all before they figure out whose book she stole for the woman character's point of view."

Shelley and Jane exchanged a meaningful glance and tried not to smile.

"Corwin, call that horrible fat pig of a woman and tell her to bring herself up here right now," Sophie said.

He did as he was told. "Ms. Smith wants to talk to you immediately. Come back up to the suite now. You remember where it is, don't you?"

When he'd hung up, Sophie said, "All of you stay exactly where you are and keep your traps shut until I've spoken to her."

Vernetta and Gaylord took their time to change their clothes. They were back in the country-western outfits they'd been wearing when they'd arrived at the conference.

Vernetta came into the room with a deafeningyodel and said, "Nice to see ya again, Sophie. What's up?"

She sat down at the end of the table and spotted Jane and Shelley and glared. "What are those two doing here?" she shouted angrily. "I know who they are. The women that slut Felicity says are her friends. And what's Zac doing here?"

Sophie sat and stared at her. "You can't figure it out, can you? Ha! Do you expect we're all too stupid to know what you've done?"

"What I've done? What do you mean?" Vernetta asked, her eyes going little, mean, and piggy.

"You plagiarized Zac's book and someone else's," Sophie barked. "You've been found out." "Plagrized?" What does that mean?"

"It means stealing someone else's work — their intellectual property, a phrase you obviously don't understand," Sophie said at top volume.

"It's copyright infringement," she went on. "It's illegal. You'll be sued in court and return the money we've given you and not receive any of the rest," Sophie said in a now frigid voice.

"What's more, you're a criminal," Sophie continued, putting the cap on her tirade. "I know how you poisoned me with the chocolates you had sent to me. And you could have killed Zac by attacking him for that book. You'll go to jail for this." Sophie's voice had risen to a shriek. "You've made a fool of me.
Nobody
makes a fool

of me. I'll watch every step you ever take when you get out of jail someday."

Vernetta crossed her arms over her heavy breasts and sneered. "You're wrong about all of this. This plagrizing stuff is crap. It was a pair of really old books. I checked on the Internet and both of them were out of print. They didn't belong to anyone anymore. It was okay to use them. And I know Zac didn't write that book. It was some other guy. Somebody named Howard or Harold or some such smarty-pants name."

She slapped her large red hands on the table and went on, "And I didn't do anything to your candy and you bet I paid a bundle for it. I even paid extra to have it gift wrapped. I never stole a book from you. I didn't even know what happened to Zac until word got around the conference. You ain't got a leg to stand on, you old tart."

She stood up, her bosom bouncing violently. "C'mon, Gaylord. We're gettin' ourselves a lawyer right now."

She stormed out, dragging Gaylord in her wake.

Silence reigned. Jane, Shelley, Zac, Corwin, and

Sophie looked as if they'd been poleaxed.

It was Jane who spoke first, in a faint voice. "I

suspect she was telling her version of the truth." "God help us all if she is," Shelley said.

"You
can't mean
that," Sophie said. "It's clearly pla
giarism."

"Oh, that part is absolutely right. She is a plagiarist. She's admitted it even though she doesn't realize it," Jane said. "What I meant is I believe that she didn't steal the copy of Zac's book. She didn't poison your candy. She isn't responsible for the attack on Zac himself. She was much too confident on those points. Didn't you notice the change in her voice and stance? It was obvious. She didn't even grasp the concept of copyright infringement, or that it was important."

Shelley stepped in where Jane left off. "We just assumed that since she's immoral — more accurately, ignorant about copyright law, and terribly vulgar — that she's prone to violence. We all have the proof of plagiarism. We have no proof whatsoever that she did any physical harm to anyone."

"So who did?" Corwin asked.

"Who knows?" Jane asked. "Someone with an

entirely different motive, I have to guess. I have no idea who that would be."

"How can we find out?" Sophie asked.

"I'd guess you could ask more questions of the doctors who treated you, Ms. Smith," Shelley suggested.

"They were all idiots. They hadn't a clue," Sophie said.

"But somebody in the hospital probably took all kinds of samples, and since you recovered so quickly they didn't bother analyzing the samples," Shelley insisted. "I think you should contact the CEO or whoever is the head honcho and learn more answers."

"I've already signed out ages ago. They wouldn't keep the samples for that long."

Jane had been thinking of Zac's welfare more than Sophie's.

"We could theoretically ask the police to survey everyone at the hotel and the conference about that parking lot," Jane said. "When and if they used it. If they noticed Zac's van coming or going."

"The same thing applies," Shelley argued. "Zac recovered. If he'd been murdered — forgive me for suggesting that, Zac — but if it
had
happened, they'd have taken it much more seriously and would have already been knee-deep in an investigation."

Sophie, for once, had waited her turn to speak. "I don't have the time or interest in contacting thehospital. I simply won't eat any edible gift a fan or writer gives me again. I still think Vernetta put something in the chocolates."

"So do I," Corwin said.

"When did she give them to you?" Jane asked. It was worth considering, she supposed.

"When I checked in. Not directly in person though. She had them sent to my suite with a note that they were from her."

"When did you eat one?"

"Oh, a couple of hours later. Quite a bit later, in fact. I'd gone over to that mall to get this dress. After such an early flight, I was tired and hungry and didn't want to wait for room service. They're always so slow."

"How many of them did you eat?" Jane asked.

Sophie looked disconcerted and admitted, "All of them. It was a very little box. Only six Godiva soft centers."

"What did you do with the box?" Shelley asked.

"I threw it away, of course. It's long since gone to the dump."

"So, Sophie is safe," Zac said. "What about me? Who else but Vernetta would want to destroy all of the copies of my books — and nobody say almost anyone who read one, please. I freely admit they were dreck. I'm much better at reviewing than writing my own books."

From what Jane had heard, not only from Felicity but also from other writers, Zac wasn't even a

good reviewer. He was careless with his reading and hated any book by a woman. He only temporarily liked her and Shelley because they'd been of use to him.

Zac went on, "Vernetta took the trouble to see if the books she was stealing were out of print. She's not as stupid as she seems. I don't believe for a minute that she didn't know all along that I wrote it. All three of my books were under different pseudonyms, but copyrighted under my real name. She couldn't have plagiarized without owning a copy she'd found in some secondhand bookstore."

"How did you find out about it?" Shelley asked.

Zac said, "A good friend of mine had seen her book on the Internet and thought the title sounded familiar. He sent me an e-mail of the site. I'd never have known about the plagiarism otherwise. I'd forgotten after I was attacked, until she," he said, pointing at Jane, "showed me a page."

"How many other people have you told about this?" Jane asked.

"Nobody but the people in this room, the friend who tipped me off, and the literary attorney. To be frank, the attorney urged me to wait to file a suit until the book was published and Vernetta had lots more money. That's why I've kept my trap shut. So far," he added. It was clearly a threat aimed at Sophie.

"But you haven't," Corwin said. "If that was what you intended, why did you give Sophie that book of yours?"

Zac sighed and looked at Sophie. "We go a long way back together, Sophie and me. We've known each other since we started in the business. We've visited over the years at these conferences and exchanged a lot of gossip. I thought, in spite of my lawyer's advice, that she should at least have a chance at knowing what she was in for. If she didn't bother to read the book, I'd be off the moral hook."

"I guess I should thank you for that, Zac." Jane didn't think Sophie was even trying to sound sincere.

"When you said the book was missing, I suspected you took it seriously," Zac said. "That's why I went home to retrieve the last copy I'd kept. I'd really like to have it back or at least a Xerox of it."

"I'll make sure you do," Corwin said before Sophie could speak.

"I wonder, too, Ms. Smith," Jane said, "if Vernetta took your threats about the copyright infringement seriously. She seemed to think it was trivial and she was in the clear because the books were out of print."

"She was very cavalier about that, wasn't she?" Sophie admitted. "She'll see that I meant it when our attorneys point out that she has to give back all the money we've already advanced her."

"I imagine she's already spent it on those ridiculous clothes and the architectural drawings of her mansion," Corwin said.

"If Vernetta is an actual threat, won't that make her even more dangerous?" Shelley asked, glancing at Zac as she spoke.

"Not with you two ladies looking after me," Zac said with a slight smile.

"We can't be your bodyguards forever," Jane warned him.

She was realizing this discussion wasn't really going anywhere. She and Shelley had done all they could. She'd irritated Mel to a dangerous extent by snooping and asking favors of him. She hated letting this go. But it wasn't any of their business anymore. It was up to the attorneys now.

She stood up and Shelley followed her lead and rose as well. "We need to go along now and leave it in your hands," Jane said. "Zac, would you like help getting back to your room?"

"No, thanks. I'm feeling a lot better now. I'll stay here awhile. Thanks again."

Jane and
Shelley went
clown the hallway to their
suite. Shelley walked. Jane stomped.

When they were inside, Jane flopped into a chair and said, "If I don't have another RC very soon, I'll go entirely mad and my mother-in-law will finally be allowed to have my children to herself."

Shelley obligingly fixed her one the way she knew Jane liked it — a full can in a big glass with very little ice to dilute it. As she handed it to Jane she asked, "Did you really mean everything you said in Sophie's suite?"

Jane had taken her first big gulp and hiccupped happily. "Thanks, Shelley. Exactly right. Cold and strong enough to take my breath away. As for your question, I suppose I did mean what I said. Maybe. I was just so angry that Sophie, Corwin, and even Zac were talking solely about money and reputations. Corwin doesn't surprise me. He seems such a wimpy toady. But Sophie and Zac both suffered at someone's hands and don't seem

to give a fig for their own safety. How stupid can they be?"

"Remarkably stupid. Either one of them could have died from what happened to them," Shelley agreed. "So why are you so much angrier about it than I am? They aren't friends of ours. Neither happens to have died, though I agree that they could have. Why should you care so much?"