Bell, Book, and Scandal

'Ms. Smith, I'm Jane Jeffry. This is my friend

Shelley Nowack. We're attending this conference.

My friend Mel VanDyne was the police officer

who was first on the scene of Zac's attack, and he told me Zac had been found with a page of a book in his hand. I asked for a copy of the page and showed it to Zac. It's from the book he gave you at the front desk when you arrived. A book he wrote under a pseudonym.'

'Sit down,' Sophie said, pointing to the dining room table. When they were all seated, she looked at Zac fiercely and asked, 'Were you the one who stole it back?'

'No. Why would I? Someone else did and we think we know who it was. This is my very last copy and I want it returned before you leave,' Zac said, pulling the cover and pages from the bag.

Jane looked at Shelley as Shelley handed over the printout.

'This is the same page, Ms. Smith. I found it on the Internet in Vemetta Strausmann's e-pubbed book. Read both copies.'

'What in hell is this about? Why are you three taking up my valuable time?' Sophie nearly shouted.

'Read both my page and the printouts and you'll know,' Zac said.

Sophie put the pages side by side, running a finger down each line in turn. She stared at the pages for a long time before looking up. 'Who put this on the Internet?'

'Your Golden Pig,' Zac said. 'Vernetta Straus-mann.'

Sophie Smith's face was contorted with rage.

'That arrogant woman. That utterly arrogant woman! She plagiarized. Probably the whole thing. Thank God we haven't paid her much yet. After all the publicity, how are we going to bury this, Corwin?'

'Don't tell anyone about this yet. None of you,' Corwin said. 'Somehow we'll find a way out of it.'

'You joke? Why should I keep quiet?' Zac asked. 'You can try whatever you want to keep your dirty little secret. I'm not obligated to. And neither are these two good women. I'll bet it's no time at all before they figure out whose book she stole for the woman character's point of view.'

Shelley and Jane exchanged a meaningful glance and tried not to smile.

'Corwin, call that horrible fat pig of a woman and tell her to bring herself up here right now,' Sophie said.

He did as he was told. 'Ms. Smith wants to talk to you immediately. Come back up to the suite now. You remember where it is, don't you?'

When he'd hung up, Sophie said, 'All of you stay exactly where you are and keep your traps shut until I've spoken to her.'

Vernetta and Gaylord took their time to change their clothes. They were back in the country-western outfits they'd been wearing when they'd arrived at the conference.

Vernetta came into the room with a deafeningyodel and said, 'Nice to see ya again, Sophie. What's up?'

She sat down at the end of the table and spotted Jane and Shelley and glared. 'What are those two doing here?' she shouted angrily. 'I know who they are. The women that slut Felicity says are her friends. And what's Zac doing here?'

Sophie sat and stared at her. 'You can't figure it out, can you? Ha! Do you expect we're all too stupid to know what you've done?'

'What I've done? What do you mean?' Vernetta asked, her eyes going little, mean, and piggy.

'You plagiarized Zac's book and someone else's,' Sophie barked. 'You've been found out.' 'Plagrized?' What does that mean?'

'It means stealing someone else's work — their intellectual property, a phrase you obviously don't understand,' Sophie said at top volume.

'It's copyright infringement,' she went on. 'It's illegal. You'll be sued in court and return the money we've given you and not receive any of the rest,' Sophie said in a now frigid voice.

'What's more, you're a criminal,' Sophie continued, putting the cap on her tirade. 'I know how you poisoned me with the chocolates you had sent to me. And you could have killed Zac by attacking him for that book. You'll go to jail for this.' Sophie's voice had risen to a shriek. 'You've made a fool of me. Nobody makes a fool

of me. I'll watch every step you ever take when you get out of jail someday.'

Vernetta crossed her arms over her heavy breasts and sneered. 'You're wrong about all of this. This plagrizing stuff is crap. It was a pair of really old books. I checked on the Internet and both of them were out of print. They didn't belong to anyone anymore. It was okay to use them. And I know Zac didn't write that book. It was some other guy. Somebody named Howard or Harold or some such smarty-pants name.'

She slapped her large red hands on the table and went on, 'And I didn't do anything to your candy and you bet I paid a bundle for it. I even paid extra to have it gift wrapped. I never stole a book from you. I didn't even know what happened to Zac until word got around the conference. You ain't got a leg to stand on, you old tart.'

She stood up, her bosom bouncing violently. 'C'mon, Gaylord. We're gettin' ourselves a lawyer right now.'

She stormed out, dragging Gaylord in her wake.

Silence reigned. Jane, Shelley, Zac, Corwin, and

Sophie looked as if they'd been poleaxed.

It was Jane who spoke first, in a faint voice. 'I

suspect she was telling her version of the truth.' 'God help us all if she is,' Shelley said.

Twenty

'You can't mean that,' Sophie said. 'It's clearly plagiarism.'

'Oh, that part is absolutely right. She is a plagiarist. She's admitted it even though she doesn't realize it,' Jane said. 'What I meant is I believe that she didn't steal the copy of Zac's book. She didn't poison your candy. She isn't responsible for the attack on Zac himself. She was much too confident on those points. Didn't you notice the change in her voice and stance? It was obvious. She didn't even grasp the concept of copyright infringement, or that it was important.'

Shelley stepped in where Jane left off. 'We just assumed that since she's immoral — more accurately, ignorant about copyright law, and terribly vulgar — that she's prone to violence. We all have the proof of plagiarism. We have no proof whatsoever that she did any physical harm to anyone.'

'So who did?' Corwin asked.

'Who knows?' Jane asked. 'Someone with an

entirely different motive, I have to guess. I have no idea who that would be.'

'How can we find out?' Sophie asked.

'I'd guess you could ask more questions of the doctors who treated you, Ms. Smith,' Shelley suggested.

'They were all idiots. They hadn't a clue,' Sophie said.

'But somebody in the hospital probably took all kinds of samples, and since you recovered so quickly they didn't bother analyzing the samples,' Shelley insisted. 'I think you should contact the CEO or whoever is the head honcho and learn more answers.'

'I've already signed out ages ago. They wouldn't keep the samples for that long.'

Jane had been thinking of Zac's welfare more than Sophie's.