Unforced Error (11 page)

“Good,” Rep said. “I hate to sound all-business about this, but I think we should go straight from the hospital to Norm Archer's office tomorrow.”

“Why?” Linda asked.

As gently as she could, Melissa told her about the residue found on Peter's saber, and the perfect genetic match with Quinlan's blood.

“But that's impossible,” Linda said. “It just can't be.”

Good defense
, Rep thought.
Worked for O.J.

Rep's phone rang. He stepped out of the room and, seeing signs warning sternly against the use of cell-phones in the vicinity of patients' rooms, almost jogged to an open lounge area at the end of the corridor.

“This is Cerv,” the voice said when Rep answered. “I wanted you to know that two Missouri Highway Patrolmen left here three minutes ago with the material you brought to me, and the original records documenting chain of custody of said materials from the time it came into my hands.”

“Missouri Highway Patrol,” Rep repeated. “Not Kansas City, Missouri Police Department or Jackson County Sheriff.”

“Correct.”

“Is your written report finished yet?”

“It isn't started yet, except for the computer-printouts with the raw data, but even if it had been they wouldn't have gotten it. That's work product.”

“Right,” Rep said. “I'll talk to you later.”

Hands clasped behind his back, staring with grim distraction at a mural of Tweety Bird grinning against a garish, red and orange background, Rep stayed in the lounge instead of hurrying back to the room. He told himself that, no matter what, it had been the right decision to tell Pendleton about the saber. The police would have had it within a few days in any event, and this way Peter could be depicted as having nothing to hide. A cynical defense lawyer, seizing on the Karin Henderson neé Pendleton angle, might even try to make something out of Sergeant Pendleton sending Highway Patrol troopers instead of local police officers to pick the evidence up.

Right
, a minority report in his psyche was saying.
You know what, buddy? You screwed up.
His gut felt hollow.

The police would have a preliminary report on the saber by tomorrow morning at the latest, and maybe within a couple of hours. They might waste an hour checking the Damons' home again, but it wouldn't take them long to start checking hospitals. The next move Rep and company made had to be the right one, and they had to make it fast.

“Who was on the phone?” Melissa asked from behind him a few minutes into his reverie.

“Cerv,” Rep said, turning to face her. “Pendleton didn't waste any time. He's already had a couple of his own boys pick up the saber.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I'm not sure, but whatever it is, Linda gets a vote. So let's get her and Dame Diane Klimchock out here to talk things over.”

The conference lasted about twelve minutes, which was enough time to come up with three options: (1) wake Peter up and try for an early check-out; (2) stay with Peter until either he woke up and they could talk to him or the police came; and (3) split up, with Rep staying by Peter's bed and the others going back to the library to interview the security guard when he came in early.

For Melissa and Linda, who had seen Peter writhing in his own vomit less than six hours ago, (1) was out of the question. That left (2) and (3). They picked (3), on the theory that if Linda weren't there when and if the police came she, at least, couldn't be interviewed.

They marched back to the room. Peter was gone.

Chapter 17

Klimchock accomplished more in the next three hours than Rep and Linda did—which, unfortunately, wasn't saying much. She drove to her apartment, fed Bloody Helpless (her dog) and Bone Idle (her cat), took Bloody Helpless for a walk, sorted her mail, checked her answering machine, changed from a Modern Career Wear linen skirt-suit and silk blouse into a Casual Moderns linen skirt and cotton blouse, dined on a microwaved pot pie while scanning the
Kansas City Star
, enjoyed a Dunhill and a cup of Earl Grey, and drove back to the Jackson County Public Library. From this she gained a measure of contentment, reinforced adoration from Bloody Helpless, complacent indifference from Bone Idle, and two answering machine questions from John Paul Lawrence, who was wondering whether funding for the Liberty Memorial library expansion project had run into some kind of snag.

Rep and Linda, by contrast, spent their time in the VW checking the Damons' home, Linda's hotel room, the Country Club Plaza, the Kansas City Jazz Museum, Stroud's, Bryant's, the libraries at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and Rockhurst University, and every other haunt and hangout Linda could think of where Peter might have gone to ground. They accomplished absolutely nothing. When Klimchock and Melissa finally reunited with them at the public library guard station shortly before nine-thirty that night, they would see a bedraggled, ill-tempered, and empty-handed pair.

For most of this interval, Melissa thought she was faring just about as badly. Linda told her that Chelsea Tuttle stayed at the Raphael Hotel near the Plaza when she visited Kansas City, but a few calls confirmed that she wasn't registered there or in any of the major downtown hotels.

So,
faute de mieux
, Melissa drove the Taurus to the encampment in search of Sergeant Pendleton. Not without difficulty she eventually found the Missouri Partisan Rangers sector of the encampment. She reached that area just after retreat, with plenty of daylight left but no military chores remaining for the re-enactors. So it aggravated her a bit that Pendleton took his own sweet time before moseying over to see her.

“Good evening, Sergeant,” she said, choking back her pique and offering a reasonably warm smile. “Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.”

“My pleasure, entirely, ma'am,” he assured her. Shifting a cast-iron skillet with something sizzling in it to his left hand, he doffed his hat and sketched a hasty bow. “I'm afraid we can't provide any camp stools here.”

“Entirely unnecessary,” Melissa assured him. With only a hint of clumsiness she sank to a sitting position on the ground, pulling her khaki cotton skirt—definitely not period-authentic—up to her knees. Pendleton tamped down grass with his right foot, then squatted and set the skillet in the flattened space. An inch-thick slab of spit-roasted beefsteak graced the skillet.

“Didn't know if you'd had time to eat,” he said, offering her a one-bladed pocket-knife. “We're a bit short on utensils, too.”

“That's very kind of you,” she said, accepting the knife.

She hadn't quite believed Rep when he'd told her how true believers ate at the encampment. Sensing Pendleton's scrutiny, though, she had no intention of playing greenhorn. Gripping the knife's handle with the lower three fingers of her right hand and bracing her thumb against the dull side of the blade, she sank the edge into the meat, sliced as far as she could, then sawed through a bite-sized piece until she hit iron. She trapped the morsel between her thumb and the blade, raised it to her mouth and dropped it in.

“Delectable,” she said after she'd swallowed. “Thanks very much.”

“You're most welcome,” Pendleton said, nodding slightly. “Now, how may I be of service to you?”

“Well, I don't know if this will be useful to the police, but I thought of something today while we were all trying to recover from the uproar over Mr. Quinlan's death, so I figured I'd pass it along.”

“I'd be most grateful if you would.”

Melissa let Pendleton watch her enjoy another slice of beefsteak before continuing. The stuff really did taste good, worth even the juice that she could now feel running slowly down her jaw and the grease congealing on her fingers.

“I happened to visit the editorial offices at Jackrabbit Press last night, and saw something a little odd.”

“What time were you up there?” Pendleton interjected. No nineteenth-century linguistic flourishes now. All of a sudden it wasn't 1864 anymore.

“I didn't have a watch, but it had to be sometime before ten o'clock. I saw a letter on Mr. Quinlan's chair with a letter-opener stuck through it. Very dramatically, you know, not like the way you'd ordinarily leave a message for someone?” Her voice rose at the end to turn the declaration into a question.

Pendleton's expression didn't change by an eye-blink as she said this. She couldn't tell whether he was holding a pair of deuces or a full house.

“How did you happen to be there?”

“I was with Linda Damon. She works there, of course.”

“Right,” Pendleton said. “Speaking of Linda Damon, you wouldn't happen to know where she is right now, would you?”

“I couldn't say. Rep told me she's meeting with a lawyer tomorrow, though, so I expect she'll be in touch soon.”

“That would be good. Any idea who left this note?”

“It's interesting that you use the word
note
. I saw a letter typed on Jackrabbit Press stationery that I assume Mr. Quinlan signed, but there
was
a note hand-printed over the typing. I didn't recognize the printing, so I'd hate to speculate further. I'd be happy to take another look at it if you'd like.”

“Much obliged,” Pendleton said. “I'll pass that on to the locals.”

“Great. Rep said you were going to have them go over tomorrow and pick up the things he left at Dr. Cerv's lab. I suppose I could meet them there and save time for everyone.”

Pendleton's left eyebrow might have twitched a sixteenth of an inch. He offered no other visible reaction.

“I'll mention that possibility to them,” he said.

They exchanged farewells and Melissa headed back to her car. After slipping behind the wheel she gave it a frustrated bang with the heel of her right hand. She'd learned something—she just wasn't sure what it was.

Was Pendleton's mention of
note
calculated or inadvertent? Or did he just use it as a synonym for
letter
? Pendleton had asked her nothing about what either the letter or the note said. Did that mean he hadn't known enough about them to appreciate their significance—or did it mean he'd already seen them himself and didn't need her to fill in the blanks? He hadn't told her to sit still while he summoned one of the local detectives working on the case to ask her follow-up questions. Did that mean her information was old news—or did it mean he hadn't told the Kansas City police about sending his own men to Dr. Cerv after lying to Rep about what he was going to do? He hadn't reacted—

“Yipes!”

Surprise as much as fear provoked the mini-yelp. From the corner of her eye she'd caught a shadow passing across her side-view mirror. Adrenaline pumping, she snapped her head around, then sagged back in her seat in anticlimactic deflation. One of the re-enactors on his way back to his own car walked past the Taurus. She was jumping at shadows.

All at once she grabbed the wheel with both hands and pulled herself up straight. The passing re-enactor had white pants, red trim on his collar, and corporal's stripes tips up on his sleeve. Marine, if Rep was right. Probably the only one here, if Rep was right.

As discreetly as she could, she pulled the Taurus out of its parking space, waited until the Marine had gotten his own car under way, and followed him. A thirteen-minute drive brought them both to the Hilltop Motel, where the Marine pulled into a space outside room 125. Melissa parked half-a-dozen spaces away and, by hustling a bit, managed to reach the door just as Chelsea Tuttle opened it to the Marine's knock.

“Good evening, Ms. Tuttle,” Melissa said after about five seconds, as no one else seemed interested in saying anything.

“Pennyworth, isn't it?” Tuttle asked in a school-marm voice. “I'm afraid this isn't a very good time. In fact, it's a singularly bad time.”

“Would you excuse us for ten minutes, Corporal?” Melissa asked. “I feel awful asking, but it really is terribly important.”

The Marine picked up an almost imperceptible nod from Tuttle, touched the bill of his cap, and strode toward a sign that read ICE-VENDING.

“This better be good,” Tuttle said. “How did you even know I was here?”

“Finding you was mostly luck. I saw him leaving the encampment, and I remembered that dorm-lounge crack you made last night about your in-depth study of marine biology. I bet on double
entendre
and I won.”

“Congratulations.” Tuttle stepped away from the door, leaving room for Melissa to come in and close it behind her. “That'll teach me to be clever with editors. I should know better by now.”

“Quinlan told you he had a command performance around midnight. Do you know what he was talking about?”

“No. Probably just a standard Tommy fib. The only one at Jackrabbit Press higher on the food chain than I am is John Paul Lawrence himself.”

“Did you see Peter or Linda when you left the note in Quinlan's office?”

“Not a sign of either. Anything else?”

“Not much. I don't know if the police have questioned you about that dramatic little note—”

“They've questioned me all right. I walked into it flat-footed. Waltzed over to Jackrabbit Press for my noon meeting and was chatting with a brace of detectives five minutes after I got there. They'd found the letter, they naturally surmised that I'd written the note on it, and they wanted to know all about it. So I told them.”

“Did you mention your scene with Quinlan just after you left it?”

“I gave them the PG version. Your name didn't come up, for example, nor that little flick with the riding crop. I thought they might not fully appreciate the ironic turns of a creative mind.”

“Perhaps not,” Melissa said. “Why did Quinlan's letter infuriate you so much? Most authors would be thrilled to get an offer like that.”

“I'm wondering why I should tell you anything more. I give you a hand with that sniveling little weasel and you say thanks by intruding on an intimate evening. Remember, I'm a romance novelist. This isn't just meaningless, empty sex, it's literary research.”

“The police haven't questioned me yet,” Melissa said. “I haven't had to decide what version of the Quinlan encounter to give them.”

“Tell them what you like, honey. Their preliminary guess is that Quinlan was killed between ten-thirty p.m. and two-thirty a.m. My Marine had to be back by
reveille
, but I have an ironclad alibi from ten at night to at least four-thirty in the morning.”

“You're not talking to a blushing maiden,” Melissa said. “Your ironclad alibi brought a saber with him, and after two bouts of passion he had to be snoring away more than enough time for you to kill Tommy Quinlan and get back to bed.”

“You can't really believe I did anything like that.”

“I'll decide what I believe after you tell me why his letter got to you.”

Tuttle sighed, shrugged, walked over to her bedside table, and poured clear liquid from a crystal decanter into something that looked several cuts above the Hilltop Motel's basic room glass.

“Gin,” she said, with a cheers gesture toward Melissa. “Any for you?”

“No, thanks.”

“Okay. Jackrabbit Press has no business publishing
Inescapable Courtesy
. Tommy knew it. JP can't get the book reviewed by people who review novels like that and its distribution is all wrong for that kind of story.”

“Then why did you offer it to JP?” Melissa asked.

“A formality. JP had a standard option on my next novel. But all it could accomplish by exercising that option on
Inescapable Courtesy
instead of just carrying it over to my seventeenth romance novel was lose a lot of money.”

“Apparently Quinlan didn't see it that way.”

“He knew exactly what would happen. He picked up the option anyway because he was terrified I was going to blow the franchise. Find a mainstream publisher for
Inescapable Courtesy
, put the book out, and have it bomb.”

“Why would that be any skin off his nose?”

“My goodness,” Tuttle said. “You may not be a blushing maiden, but you're a
naïf
to the fourth power about the real world of fiction publishing.”

“Educate me.”

“If
Inescapable Courtesy
crashes and burns, then the beady-eyed little drones at Borders and Barnes and Noble will have permanently embedded in their hard drives that they only sold six-hundred-thirty-two copies of Chelsea Tuttle's last novel. So when my seventeenth romance comes out, they won't buy any. They won't look to see that the last novel was an ambitious, critically acclaimed, hard-cover experiment in surrealist meta-fiction. All they'll know is that Chelsea Tuttle doesn't sell any more. Those two retailers are a huge chunk of the book business, so JP's cash cow would have dried up.”

“Along with your career.”

“A risk I was willing to take for the chance to put my name on a piece of serious literature. Escape from the genre ghetto. Win respect as a writer, instead of just a storyteller. Quinlan wasn't.”

“But how would having the novel published by Jackrabbit Press instead of a mainstream house solve that problem?” Melissa asked.

“Tommy was going to force me to use a pseudonym. That stuff in his letter about ‘just the right marketing approach' was code for that.
Inescapable Courtesy
by an unknown would go nowhere, Jackrabbit Press would take its little bath, and I'd go back to writing about the sentimental education of art history majors. As far as the retailers were concerned, Chelsea Tuttle would still be money in the bank at the paperback rack.”