Page 33 of Killer on the First Page
“Well, maybe he’s someone’s plus one.”
“He was alone. He came alone, left alone. I don’t know his name, but I recognized his face. He works at the Opera House. He was the one who put up our poster.”
“The janitor? Nah, I’ve seen that guy. He has a huge handlebar mustache.”
Miranda gave Edgar an arched-eyebrowReally?look.
“Oh, right. People can shave their mustaches. That would explain the pale upper lip...”
“Whoever he is, he certainly seems to have unnerved Mr. Valentine with his question.”
A raspy voice, as abrasive as it was insistent, returned. Beloved children’s author Wanda Stobol was growling at Edgar. “What’s the goddamn holdup? Are we going to see those goddamn books or not?”
The other authors had practically queued up behind her, eager to get in, and Edgar called across to Andrew: “Can you grab the key to the reading room? It should be hanging on the wall in the kitchen.”
Andrew let the authors in. They shoved past him, into the narrow confines of the reading room, and immediately started going through the stacks of John D. Ross novels as though it were a Black Friday event. The excitement grew with each volume. “The first Trevor Lucas story! Mint condition, too. You know how hard that is to find?” “Look! The one where they misspelled his name on the cover page.” “That’s right! John D.Rose. A rarity!” “Appropriate, given his relentless flower-themed titles, I’d say.” “Here’s the one with the cover Joan Collins modeled for before she became famous,Greenis the Geranium of Envy.” “Are germaniums even green?” “Creative license, give it a rest.”
But what they really wanted to see was—
“The manuscript,” Kane Hamady demanded. “Where is it?”
The hard-boiled author had been unnaturally quiet throughout the evening, had barely swaggered or thrown an intimidating look Fairfax’s way. He seemed almost to be holding back, waiting to see what Fairfax would do. If it was a feud, it struck Miranda as very much performative, the way celebrity marriages often were.
“The manuscript?” said Edgar. “Oh, that’s locked in the cabinet.”
And immediately they were pressed up against the glass like urchins at a shop window.
“Can we—can we look at it?” asked Wanda.
“Ponder its mysteries?” said Inez.
“Enjoy its prose?” said Penny.
From the doorway, Miranda called out. “Edgar, it’s cold in here. Close the transom. You’re letting the heat out.”
Grumbling, Edgar picked his way past the knot of writers. The transom above the window was indeed open a crack, letting in a thin slice of cold air. Reaching up, he pulled it in, closing the latch with a firm, loudclick. He checked the radiator below the window as well, since he was there.
“No heat,” he complained. “What are we paying Melvin for?”
Melvin Jacobson, he of the guided tours and manure emporium, was also the local furnace cleaner and serviceperson.
“I mean, we signed up for his elite package, right? Furnace is still groaning and the heat just dribbles in.”
Edgar fiddled with the radiator setting, cranking the knob one way, then the other, then giving up. When he turned around, he caught Inez trying to turn the cabinet key to access the manuscriptwhile several of the other authors apparently ran interference. Ray Valentine, for one, seemed to be trying to block Edgar’s view.
Annoyed, Edgar went over to them. “That’s enough. Out we go.”
As he shooed the urchins from the shop window, the publicist, Sheryl Youngblut, hung back. She waited in the hallway outside the reading room while Edgar locked the door behind them.
“Mr. Abbott, I understand why you wouldn’t want writers going through an unpublished John D. Ross manuscript,” she said. “Plagiarism pitfalls abound. But as amarketingtool, that manuscript would be a godsend.”
“You’d have to talk to Helen Ross.”
“I have talked to her—I mean, I tried to. She’s sweet, but you know how she is once she gets an idea in her head.”
“I don’t, actually,” said Edgar. “I only met her the one time.”
A tight smile from the publicist. “Well, you must have made quite an impression on her.”
