He shrugged.
“The one thing I’ve got going for me right now is Walker,” he said. “They like me for it, but they love Walker. Stupid as that is.”
“You don’t think it could have been Walker?”
“No way,” Chris said.
“Why not? Not that I necessarily disagree with you, but I’d like to hear your reasoning.”
“Oh, it’s not that I don’t think he could kill someone,” Chris said. “If he was mad enough, and scared enough, I can see him losing all sense of reality and doing something he’d be very sorry for, five minutes later. But I don’t see him daring to kill the QB, even if she was firing him, and from what I’ve heard of how it happened, there’s no way he could have done it.”
“Why not?” I said. “No guts?”
“No head for heights,” Chris said, “and absolutely zero sense of balance or coordination. I’m his stunt double, remember? And not just for sword fights. Anything where he goes more than three feet off the ground, or anywhere near an edge, they bring me in. Rumor has it you did the balcony climb when you found her, right?”
I nodded.
“Not a lot of fun, was it?” Chris said. “No way Walker would even try that. The man won’t even climb a stepladder to change a light bulb.”
“Did you tell the police about this?”
“Yeah, of course I did. I’m not trying to withhold evidence that would help the poor guy. I know I didn’t do it, but I don’t think he did, either.”
“Do you think they believed you?”
“Probably not. He’s lawyering up, anyway. Don’t you love that phrase? Lawyering up.”
“I’m fonder of the phrase, ‘no longer a suspect,’” I said. “Who do you think did it, anyway?”
“No one with the show, if you ask me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s just a show,” he said, sounding rather surprised. “Just a job. Yeah, we all gripe about how she treated us, and if she fires us, we’re upset for a while. But it’s only a job.”
“Spoken with the sublime self-confidence of someone who can probably walk into half-a-dozen better paid jobs the minute Porfiria’s canceled,” I said.
“Yeah, but even so—the crew can get work, no problem,” Chris said. “The actors—maybe some of them won’t ever work again, but none of them believe it. They all think the next audition will get them
“Those two people in the Amblyopian ranger costumes? Why?” I asked, following the direction of his pointing finger.
“No, I mean the fans generally. All of them. They’re the ones who get obsessive about this. They don’t like the way a character is developing or how an episode ends, and the next thing you know, there’s a Dumpster full of petitions in the mail room; the network’s mail server is down from the overload; protest sites all over the web. It’s a job to us, but for them it’s reality. So when the police finally figure out who killed her, it won’t be someone who got fired or was paid too little or treated badly on the set. It’ll be someone who doesn’t think Porfiria should have declared war on Urushiol, or double-crossed Mephisto, or slapped her maid Alopecia in season two.”
“That’s crazy,” I said.
“And killing people is sane?”
I couldn’t exactly argue with him.
“Just do me a favor, okay?” he went on. “When you and Michael move into that fancy house in the country with the jungle room and the Moroccan tent room and whatever else your mother has planned, get a damned good security system, okay? ’Cause I’d hate to wake up one morning and read in the paper that you got stabbed by some wacko who thinks she’s the chosen bride of Mephisto, and you’re messing with her man.”
And with that rather melodramatic closing line, he tapped his watch, picked up his musketeer hat, and strode out in the direction of the ballroom.
Okay, he had a good point. Several good points, in fact. I made a mental note to talk to Michael about installing a security system, and another mental note to have a serious discussion with Mother about her decorating schemes.
And then I sat back to ponder his take on who killed the QB.
A fan? Maybe. His reasoning sounded logical to me. But somehow, it didn’t feel right.
I was trying to figure out why when a voice interrupted my reveries.
“Have you seen Nate?”
Chapter 26
I looked up to see Typhani standing in front of the booth.
“No, sorry,” I said. “Anything important?”
“Damn,” she said. “It’s just that I’m trying to be as helpful to Nate as possible. I mean, it would be really cool if he could get me another job in television, you know?”
“So you liked working for the QB,” I said.
“Not really,” she said. “I’d have quit after the first week, except I knew she’d give me a lousy reference, and bad-mouth me to everyone in the industry, and I really want to work in television. So I stayed—what could I do? Anyway, it’s a pain not to have another job lined up and all, but it’s not like this one was much of a loss.”
For some reason, Typhani’s cool reaction to the QB’s death bothered me more than most people’s. Or maybe hers was just the last straw.
“God, is there anyone not happy that she’s dead?” I said. “It doesn’t have to be someone who was actually fond of her, you understand. Just someone more hurt than helped by her death.”
Typhani was frowning. Good grief, she was taking me literally.
“I can’t think of anyone offhand,” she said. “But I can ask around if you really need to talk to someone like that. Only I don’t understand what you want them for.”
“She’s gotten you used to trying to do six impossible things before breakfast, hasn’t she?” I said. “No, that was just a rhetorical question.”
“That means she was just blowing off steam,” Steele translated. “She doesn’t really want an answer.”
“Okay,” Typhani said, and from the look on her face, I could tell I’d just been filed in the category of people to be avoided because they asked boring questions, like what were you going to do with the rest of your life.
“I’ll go find Nate,” she said, and hurried off.
“Sorry,” I said. “She gets on my nerves.”
“Look on the bright side,” he said. “I bet she got on her late employer’s nerves, too.”
Even in my temporary, feeling-sorry-for-the-QB mood, I had to smile at that.
But I also remembered how, when I’d found her crying in the bathroom, Typhani had said the QB was too mean to live. I agreed. Hardly enough to make her a suspect though.
A little later, I spotted a suit jacket approaching through the fur, feathers, and chain mail.
“Morning, Ichabod,” I said.
“Good morning,” he said. He grabbed the edge of our booth table like a swimmer reaching a life raft. He looked awful. Not hung over, like Chris. And not dazed and shell-shocked as he’d been yesterday. More like profoundly despondent.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I learned some very strange and disturbing things last night,” he said. “I’m not sure how I can possibly face the fans at my panel today.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Those con parties always get pretty wild. Chances are, most people won’t remember whatever it is you think you did, and even if they do, it’s a very tolerant group.”
