Page 24 of Killer on the First Page
A smile. “I have Harpreet.”
* * *
ASHARPREET’S ONE-WOMANappreciation society continued to lavish adulation on an inattentive and agitated Fairfax DePoy, Miranda remembered: “Mr. DePoy, my dear friend Bea Maracle is an avid and abiding fan of your work as well. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to make it tonight, but I was wondering if you might perchance sign a copy of your latest Jack Stryker novel,Boudoir of the Bourbons, to her.”
Harpreet threw a look Miranda’s way. “Duvet of the Plantagenets, you mean to say.Boudoir of the Bourbonswas the previous one.” A true fan would know such things. Then, fluttering her gaze back in Fairfax’s direction, Harpreet sighed, “Coverlet of the Capuletswas my favorite.”
But the celebrated historical romance mystery maestro was barely listening. He kept throwing nervous looks over Harpreet’s shoulder, watching the front door like a skittish rabbit awaiting a fox. Keeping an eye out for the dreaded two-fisted Kane Hamady, Miranda realized.
His feud with Kane Hamady may have sold a lot of books, and may well have raised the profile of both authors, but it hardly seemed afair fight to Miranda. Fairfax DePoy’s door-stopping novels, which Miranda hadn’t read but had been told about in great length and detail by Harpreet, were bodice-ripping tales of murder set in fifteenth-century England, featuring Jack Stryker, known to friend and foe alike as “Jack the Striker,” a veritable giant of a man who could smite these aforementioned foes with a single blow of his enormous fist, a man who rode into battle with a crossbow in each hand and the reins between his teeth, regardless of the implausibility or impracticality of this, a hero who was always described as “towering above other men.” Oh, and he was chronically short of buttons, to go by the open-shirted garb featured on the covers. And fifteenth-century rovers also waxed their chests, apparently.
“First time in Happy Rock?” Miranda asked.
“What? Oh. Right.” Addled and no doubt distracted by the impending arrival of his archnemesis, Fairfax, barely able to keep up his end of the conversation, said something about the “cutthroats of Tillamook Bay,” which Miranda construed to be a reference to the cutthroats in his novels. But Tillamook Bay? How did that fit in?
“A record. I was there for that,” he murmured by way of explanation, which only added to her confusion.
The bell above the front door jangled, and Fairfax DePoy locked sights on the figure coming down the hall toward them: Kane Hamady.
“Keep me away from him,” Fairfax whispered to Harpreet.
* * *
FAIRFAX NEEDN’T HAVEworried. Scoop Banister intercepted Kane before he could get halfway across the room, and Fairfax shrank away like a violet in a John D. Ross novel. (The Shrinking Violet of Cowardice, perhaps. OrVile is the Violet of Violence).
“I don’t readily fraternize with the ink-stained crowd, sweet cheeks,” Kane told the reporter.
“The, uh, ink-stained crowd?”
“Newshounds and their ilk, the scandal merchants and tabloid trash such as yerself.”
“It’s not really a tabloid,” said Scoop. “It’s our local paper.The Weekly Picayune?” She said it as though he might have heard of it.
He hadn’t.
“The Weekly Whatchamacallit? What’s a smart cookie like you doin’ in a boondock burg like this? But if you got questions, shoot. Can’t stand here flappin’ gums and crackin’ wise the livelong day, toots.”
“It’s not ‘toots,’ Mr. Hamady. The name is—”
“Call me Kane, hon, as in ‘raising’ or ‘candy’ or ‘six of the best on the backside.’ All the gals do.”
Cookie, toots, gals. She took a deep breath. Better to start over. “I’m Scoop Bannister. I’m withThe Weekly—”
“Your name is Scoop?”
“Uh, that’s what’s on my byline.”
“You know what? I love that. Can’t be your real name, though, right, Chuckles?”
Chuckles?“No. It’s not Toots or Chuckles or—”
“Don’t bust my chops, dollface. I’m just razzin’, see. No need for a rhubarb. You got moxie, kiddo. I’ll give you that. Can see you’re on the level.”
“Jane. My actual name is Jane.”
“I love that, too: Jane Bannister, ‘Plain Jane,’ girl reporter gettin’ the scoop. Great idea for a character.” He patted his pockets, looking for a piece of paper and a writing implement of some kind. “I should write that down... Nah, I’ll remember.”
“Now then, Mr. Hamady, before I get to the gist of the matter—whether or not you think a good time is being had by all—I wanted to ask about your ongoing issues with Fairfax DePoy and whether—”
