Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) (18 page)

Garth Amboise stood there, dressed in a black robe.

He stared at her.

It was the same stare Margot had trained only a few minutes earlier on the copulating cats.

It was a vicious stare, a disgusted stare, as though Garth Amboise were contemplating all of the evil in the world condensed into one small Bannister.

“Brought your food,” she said.

He continued to stare.

“Here.”

He took the platter.

“The white things are grits,” she said. “If you’re from The North , then you may not––”

“I know what grits are. I hate them.”

“Sorry.”

“What is this box?”

“Gifts. From publishers.”

“Oh crap.”

“Probably. But there’s a collar in there for your cat.”

“I don’t have a cat.”

“Forgot that. But you might want to put the pendant on, the gold one that says AGCW. It might impress Sylvia Duncan.”

“All right. I’ll put it on and wear it. When is Duncan coming?”

“I think Margot said ten thirty.”

“Come and tell me when she arrives. My agents just called me; I’m first to be interviewed. After that I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“I’ll be up to get you.”

He said nothing more but merely took the coffee inside, took the box inside, and closed the door, locking it from the inside.

Nina stared at the door for a few seconds, then whispered:

“Oh let it be poisoned.”

Then she turned and left.

When she got downstairs, she saw Margot sitting in the far corner of the dining room, speaking very earnestly with Harriet Crossman, who seemed not at all pleased.

The dining room had been cleared of all culinary accoutrements and now served primarily for business reasons. Small groups were meeting in various areas, three and four cozy writers per group.

A large projector had been brought downstairs, and a light beamed from it.

On the opposite wall a huge, smiling, face was gleaming down on the participants of the meeting.

Nina stared at the face for a time, and then was aware of white-haired Rebeccah Thornwhipple, she of the erotic iron lung and the ninety-three year old protagonist, standing close by her side.

“Who is that?” she asked.

Rebeccah Thornwhipple answered with reverence:

“Oh, it’s Jessica.”

“It’s who?”

“Jessica. Jessica Fletcher. From
Murder She Wrote
.”

“What is she doing here?”

A shake of the white-haired head:

“Every culture,” she whispered, “worships its own deity.”

Then she toddled away.

By the time Nina had crossed the room, the conversation between Margot and Harriet Crossman had become quite intense:

“I thought I made our position concerning this matter quite clear last night.”

“I know, Ms. Crossman, but it’s simply not our policy––”

“Not your policy to what?”

“To turn people away!”

“Well you’re about to turn more than thirty of them away! There’s such a thing as principle, you know! We do not want to share accommodations with this woman. Or her kind!”

“But what harm is Molly Badger doing simply by
being
here?”

Several deep breaths.

For patience.

Finally:

“Ms. Gavin, you may or may not be aware of this. But both
Publishers Weekly
and
The New York Times
project, that by the year 2020, if current trends persist, more than a third of all Americans over the age of thirty-one will have published at least one novel.”

“That does seem a lot, but––”

“One hundred million novels, Ms. Gavin. In a country in which fewer and fewer people are actually reading novels.”

“But, if fewer people are reading them, then why are so many people writing them?”

“Because, given the quality of prose that is now being produced, it’s so much easier to write a book than actually to read one! Don’t you see that? And worse still, from our point of view:
 
a huge proportion of these works will be murder mysteries.”

“But why is that so bad?”

Frustration.

“Because, my dear Ms. Gavin, there are a strictly and tightly limited number of ways in which to murder someone. We try, as artists, to find more all the time, as God is my witness we do. We are always on the cutting edge; we are striving just as mightily as medical science only in reverse. But after a while, the supply of means simply runs out. People are killing other people by stuffing Christmas trees down their throats and, of course, that’s just ridiculous—and CHAOS REIGNS! All because of the Molly Badgers of the world!”

Silence for a time.

Finally Margot:
       

“All right. All right. I guess I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation.”

“I guess you didn’t.”

“We’ll go get Molly from her room and tell her she has to go.”

“Thank you! Now perhaps we can get on about the business of the conference!”

And so saying, Harriet Crossman rose and left the table.

Molly Badger had been consigned to a small hidden room on the third floor of Candles (a floor seldom used except for the storage of unwanted furniture). It was almost invisible to one not already aware of its existence, its door blending into the paint of the walls and making it a better place for hiding than for living.

“Do you think she’s in there?” asked Nina, as she and Margot approached.

“She would almost have to be. She’s too frightened to come out and expose herself to the Published Cozy Writers during the day.”

“Do you have a key?”

“Yes. We almost never go in here. It was supposedly used to hide escaping Confederate soldiers from the advancing Union armies. I can open the lock if I need to; but let’s try calling out to her first.”

Margot put her lips near the keyhole and whispered:

“Molly?”

No answer.

“Molly Badger?”

Some movement behind the door.

Then nothing.

“Molly! It’s Margot Gavin and Nina. Your friends. Molly, you have to open the door.”

Silence.

“Margot,” said Nina, quietly, “you have to unlock it.”

“All right.”

The key was rusty, as was the lock.

Both screeched as metal scraped against metal.

Then there was a click.

“Open it!”

“All right.”

Margot pulled.

The door came open painfully, hinges having not been oiled, obviously, for decades if not longer.

Before them they saw little more than a dark cell, no more than ten feet square. Along the far wall stretched a cot, upon which the blanket-enshrouded body of Molly Badger lay. On a shelf on the wall directly above the cot sat a glass vase, and in that vase a single red rose.

There was a reading table at the foot of the cot. A candle burned low in its tarnished gold holder, and, by the flickering light thrown by the small flame, Nina could see the book that Molly had been reading upon going to sleep.

The Diary of Anne Frank
.

“Molly?”

Margot stepped into the room.

“Molly?”

No answer. No movement.

“Margot,” Nina whispered, suddenly quite frightened. “Is she––”

But Margot merely shook her head:

“No. She’s breathing.”

“Do you think she took some kind of drugs?”

“I don’t think so. There, look—she’s waking up.”

And in fact she was. She groaned a bit, stretched in the bed, finally opened her eyes, and managed a weak smile:

“Margot! Nina! You’ve come to see me!”

Margot nodded:

“Yes. Are you all right?”

“I’m all right. Just frightened.”

“Of what, child?”

“Of the others. I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me, if they find me here.”

“They won’t find you.”

“I don’t know. They hate me so much. They hate all of us. And why? Why could one otherwise civilized culture want so desperately to eliminate another, wipe them out completely?”

“I don’t know. It’s something I can’t understand.”

“Yes, so I’m a self-published author. But am I not still a human being? Does not a self-published author have eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us––”

“It’s all right,” said Nina, quietly but firmly. “We know the lines.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that it seems so unfair. They think they’re this Master Race of Writers, just because they’re all in Kindle Select.”

“I know,” said Margot. “But Molly, I have to tell you––”

“I crept down into the kitchen early this morning, about 4 a.m., before anyone else was awake. I know I shouldn’t have, but I wanted to see the world, the real world again. I found all of the presents that the publishers had sent. And––oh, this is so hard for me––”

“Go on, my child.”

“I took something.”

“What? What did you take?”

“I know I shouldn’t have, but they all looked so lovely, lying there on the various tables. I took a sweatshirt. Look.”

She reached under the cot and took out the shirt, holding it up proudly before her.

“It’s blue. Pale blue. It has American Guild of Cozy Writers stitched across the front, in bold, black letters.”

“It’s beautiful, Molly,” said Nina.

“Do you think I shall be allowed to keep it?”

Margot, consolingly:

“Of course. Of course, you will.”

“Because––because whenever I wear it, no matter where I shall be. Even,
if
I shall b––I shall look down at these letters, and feel the blue sky above me, and the green grass spread below me––and I shall know that I too am a true Cozy Writer.”