Chapter 10
Margaux refused to answer any more questions, so Bobby and I finally gave up and beat a retreat from the ballroom.
I did, though, overhear the beginning of the pitch from the woman who’d been waiting so patiently behind us. Tuna the Cat (a Bombay) solved crimes by sitting inside various box-shaped things. (In the first book, it was a coffin, where Tuna discovered a vital clue.)
Honestly, I would read the heck out of that.
Bobby and I emerged from the chaos of the ballroom, but the hallway was only slightly less congested, so we moved toward the front of the conference center until we found a spot free from people: a stretch along the wall of windows, looking out on Arcadia’s campus and the creek.
It was barely noon, and the promise of the early morning had been more than fulfilled with the crisp autumn sunlight, the clear skies, and the still beauty of green lawns and bright-leaved trees.
The interior of the conference center was less soothingly pastoral.
A few yards away, a woman was sitting on the floor, doing one of those adult coloring books while bellowing into her Bluetooth headset a play-by-play of everything (and everyone) she’d seen at the conference.
Across from us, a man was distributing foil-wrapped sandwiches, whose key ingredients (to judge by the smell, anyway) seemed to be canned salmon and mayo.
And one person, dressed in a leather skirt and a chainmail top, had fallen asleep under the water fountain (echoes of Fox).
“Are they like a cat?” I said. “Is it warmer down there?”
“What?” Bobby asked.
“Nothing. So, Margaux.”
“She didn’t like it when you asked for her alibi.”
“I noticed that too.” (Okay, it would have been hard not to notice.) “After that, she got cagey, right? But if she had something to hide, why talk to us at all? Why not send us on our not-so-merry way?”
Bobby frowned. “A lot of people involved in a crime will talk to police because they’re afraid it will be suspicious if they don’t. If she had something to do with Vivienne’s death, she might have believed that talking to us was a good way to make herself seem not like a suspect.”
“Then why not make up an alibi? Why not say she went back to her hotel room?”
“Good question.”
“Do you think she was telling the truth?” I asked. “That story at the end about this guy, Steven?”
“It’s worth checking out. It definitely sounds like there was bad blood, and I don’t like the physical aspect of their confrontation. Someone who gets physical once is liable to do so again.”
“And someone killed Vivienne by bashing her head in,” I said glumly.
“He’d have a motive to want her dead: silence.
Yes, he’d already told Margaux—but he was drunk, and he might not remember.
If word got out that he knew Vivienne had gotten someone wrongfully convicted, well, that’s a much bigger deal.
It would have repercussions for his career. There’d be legal considerations.”
“Or Vivienne might have been blackmailing him,” I said. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
Bobby nodded.
“So, Steven?” I said. “Start at the bar?”
“Like a real detective,” Bobby said with a grin.
The conference center bar—yes, it’s a thing, and yes, even on a college campus—was located at the far end of the building.
The location gave it a separate entrance, so that faculty and age-appropriate students could patronize the bar even if they weren’t attending an event in the building.
It had parquet floors, patterned rugs in muted tones, and modular, modern seating that combined brass and velvet in colors that an interior designer had probably called camel and raspberry.
Pendant lights would make the space atmospheric at night, but right now, sunlight poured in through the windows.
Most of the seating was taken with con attendees—as I mentioned, writers have a certain look, including the woman who had about a million unicorn stickers on her MacBook, and a man whose shirt said I SHOULD BE WRITING.
But a quick glance at Steven Block’s LinkedIn page identified him as the man sitting alone at the bar.
White, in his fifties, he had a square jaw and brown hair salted with gray at the temples.
He wore a suede jacket, a rumpled button-up, and jeans, and his ankle boots managed to turn the outfit into hip instead of I-forgot-hotels-have-irons.
“Mr. Block?”
He glanced up from his drink as I slid onto the stool next to him.
Bobby stayed standing, positioning himself like the third point of a triangle between the two of us.
Before Steven even opened his mouth, a wave of something sweet and boozy rolled over me—a hint that was almost brown sugar.
Bourbon, I guessed. And plenty of it. Underneath that was the unmistakable odor of sweat.
“Ah,” he said. “Mr. Dane. A Work in Progress. Very clever.”
“Seriously?” I said. “Does everyone here recognize me on sight?”
“And you are?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Bobby Mai.”
They shook, and Steven said to me, “You’ve been in the news. And I was Vivienne’s editor.” He picked up his drink. “I’m not sure if I’m mourning or celebrating. Care to join me?”
The bartender was drifting our way, but I shook my head, and she turned back.
“I suppose it’s always hard to lose someone,” I said, “even if the relationship was complicated.”
“Complicated.” Steven took a drink. A hint of a flush showed in his cheeks, and I realized, to my surprise, he was well on his way to being snookered. (Is that the right word?) “That’s a good way of putting it.”
“I only knew Vivienne for a short time before things, uh, changed. But she was intelligent and charming and insightful.”
“Yes, she was.” Steven held his glass, but he didn’t drink again. He cut his eyes toward me and then said, “So, which one is the top?”
Okay, if you think you’ve seen me flustered before.
“Uh, um, uh, uh—”
A surprisingly salesman-y laugh erupted from Steven. “I meant with your detective and—what’s the other one’s name?”
My relief must have sounded like when you let all the air out of a balloon.
“You know, that’s not something I—” I began.
“They should have had sex at the midpoint,” Steven said. “That was a real missed opportunity. This is why you need an editor.”
If that was the kind of feedback an editor gave, I could do without it. I mean, had he ever heard of cozy noir? (Okay, he probably hadn’t, mostly because I made it up.)
“You’re going to have to address it eventually,” Steven said. “Readers want to know that kind of thing.”
Bobby didn’t say anything, but the look on his face was somewhere between Good Lord and What is wrong with people?
“Uh huh,” I said. “Right. I’ll, um, take that into consideration.”
“Here’s a bit of advice for the second book: puzzles are big right now. See if you can have what’s-his-name solve a puzzle.”
I honestly had no idea what he meant—like, a jigsaw puzzle?—but I also didn’t want to ask, so I nodded.
“What’s the second one about?” Steven said. “I’m not taking pitches right now, but I’d be curious to hear a little about it.”
“Oh, well, I’d hate to impose.”
“No, please.” When I hesitated, he said, “Don’t tell me you’ve already found a home for it. Look, I can’t make you an offer right away, but I’m interested, and I’m sure we could work something out.”
So, here’s something I was quickly learning: people were much more interested in your work and your ideas after you’d had a bit of success.
“Did I hear something about a TV show?” Steven said. “Because that’s the kind of thing I could sell the heck out of to our marketing team.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said under my breath.
“Actually,” Bobby said, “we wanted to ask you a few questions.”
Surprise flashed in Steven’s face. And what followed was a hard mask. “Ah. I should have suspected. Not interested. And no comment, or whatever I’m supposed to say. You can try someone else.”
“We’re trying to figure out what is going on,” I said. “Vivienne’s death—there are things that don’t make sense.”
“Oh, it makes sense,” Steven said; that must have been the bourbon talking because his flush deepened, and he took a deep drink. “Plenty of people wanted Vivienne dead. And that’s not a confession.”
“Anyone in particular?” Bobby asked.
Steven’s mouth twisted. “No comment.”
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is why Vivienne was out there in the first place. In the grotto, I mean. It was dark. It was away from the conference. Why do you think she might have gone out there?”
“No comment,” Steven said again. But either it was the bourbon again or, like so many people, the urge to talk was too strong.
“She might have been out there for any number of reasons, I imagine. I can tell you this: Vivienne never did anything she didn’t want to.
And since I know what your next question is going to be, I was here, in the bar.
They’ve got to have me on camera somewhere. ”
“All night?”
“What do you mean all night? I was here when she was killed. That’s what matters.”
“Had you been in contact with Vivienne after she was arrested?”
“No, Mr. Dane. Believe it or not, getting arrested isn’t automatically the end of a writing career.
Even being convicted of murder isn’t necessarily the end of the line—in fact, there’s a very successful writer of historical mysteries who’s living proof.
But when people find out you lied to them?
Made fools of them? That’s the end.” He stared into his drink. “That is the end.”
“Was it the end for you?” Bobby asked.
“Well, it sure wasn’t the beginning.” He flagged down the bartender, signaled his glass, and waited while she brought him another. Then he sat there, not saying anything. Music played softly in the background—something mellow and instrumental.
“What happened?” I asked.