embarrassed by all the action figures and fan fic.”
“You might want to check it out first,” he said. “Some of this stuff is pretty…raw.”
He was holding one of the fake comics by one corner, as if it were a loathsome object. Which it was, actually; I recalled that particular comic as an unpleasantly lewd parody without even the saving grace of any humor.
“Good idea,” I said.
I noticed that the receipt from the booth where I’d bought the spurious comics had fallen out of the stack and lay on the floor. I faked dropping my pen and managed to snag the receipt and stuff it in my skirt pocket while Steele was still shaking his head over the offensive comic. Silly, but I hated to admit paying good money for the stuff.
But before long, neither of us had time to worry about the fan fic. Either Harry’s efforts as an improvised sandwich man had helped or the convention-goers had gotten tired of watching the police and the press. More of them started coming into the dealers’ room, and for a while I had enough to do to keep me from fretting.
Steele and I each made a few more sales. Actually, I made more than a few sales, about half of them of Steele’s merchandise. Without discussing it, we’d fallen into a comfortable pattern. Steele kept an eye on the stock, packed and unpacked, cleaned and polished things, filled out sales forms, wrapped purchases, and generally took care of all the mundane and routine work, while I charmed swords and daggers into the hands of customers. Even without counting the savings on the booth rental, we were doing much better as a team than either of us would have solo.
Steele kept giving me approving glances, and I decided it was lucky I hadn’t worked with him like this a few years ago, before I met Michael. Under the right—or wrong—circumstances, I’d have assumed that because we worked together so well, we were meant for each other. I might have found his brusqueness with customers strangely appealing. After all, he obviously didn’t dislike me. He found me useful. You could even say he needed me. Once, that, combined with my innate compulsion to take care of people and his attractiveness, would have spelled trouble. The kind of trouble that’s hard to avoid because even when you spot it a mile off, part of you still wants to walk right in.
Thank God I’d learned better. Or maybe just thank God for Michael.
“Meg?”
I looked up to see Typhani standing in front of the booth.
“A messenger just dropped this off for you at the front desk,” she said, holding up a nine-by twelve-inch Kinko’s envelope. “I said I’d deliver it.”
Finally!
“Thanks,” I said, trying not to look too eager as I took the envelope out of her hand.
I grabbed a dagger from the table display and slit the envelope open. I peeked in, and was glad I hadn’t just fished the pictures out in plain view. Apparently Dad had reached Kevin to ask for blowups of my photos of the QB’s body. They were on the top of the stack, and I didn’t exactly want anyone seeing those.
Anyone included Typhani, who seemed to be hovering.
“Yes?” I said.
“It’s okay?” she said. “The desk clerk can describe the guy who dropped it off if you like.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I mean, unless you think there’s something I ought to know about the guy who dropped it off.”
“Well, you know, if it’s some kind of hate mail…”
“No,” I said. “Kinko’s and I are on reasonably friendly terms these days. Did Miss Wynncliffe-Jones get her hate mail in envelopes like this?”
“Yeah, some of them,” she said, nodding. “Well, not in Kinko’s envelopes. They came in the mail. But in envelopes like that.”
“Big, flat envelopes with cardboard inside to keep the contents from bending?”
She nodded.
“The first time she yelled at me for throwing away the envelope,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, how stupid can you get? Like whoever sent it would put a return address!”
I nodded. Typhani seemed to find that satisfactory and went off after fluttering her fingertips at me, the way a child would wave bye-bye.
So whoever sent the QB’s hate mail was taking some pains to make sure the contents arrived in good condition.
Not hate mail at all. Hate comics; I’d bet anything. And the shred of paper she’d been holding had probably been part of one of them.
I sat back a little—far enough that I could still keep an eye on the booth, but where passing customers couldn’t see what I was holding—and pulled out the photos.
Chapter 38
Kevin and the Kinko’s staff had done a nice job. I stuffed the 8?10 blowups of the QB’s body back into the envelope to save for Dad and concentrated on the two shots of the comic strip.
I’d done a good job, too. Or maybe I should give credit to Kevin again, for picking out such a good digital camera. Every line of the drawing was as sharp and crisp as if I had the original in front of me. Looking at it brought back something else: the drawing had been done on nubby-textured paper, off-white with colored flecks in it. I could see the flecks as clear as anything, and the faint shadows from the nubs.
Some kind of specialty drawing stock. All the artists I knew were particular to the point of superstition about their tools. They’d go to the ends of the earth to track down their favorite brands of pens, pencils, and drawing paper. Not that I didn’t understand. I felt the same way about my metal-working tools. So the paper was probably a useful clue for the police, who had the resources to identify it, track down where it was sold, perhaps even discover which suspects had bought it.
All it told me was that this wasn’t from a published comic. They generally used plain white paper, and much cheaper paper at that.
So I was looking at either an original, unpublished cartoon by Dilley, or a very plausible imitation.
And if I had to bet on it, I’d say the real thing. A real Dilley. I couldn’t prove it. Couldn’t even explain how I knew. But just as I didn’t need to look for a maker’s mark to see whether I’d done a piece of ironwork or whether it belonged to one of my blacksmith friends, I could tell Dilley had drawn this, and not some skilled imitator.
And then again…it felt different. In the published comics, the artist seemed to like Porfiria, despite her flaws. There was a strange innocence to her promiscuity, and a certain glow to her features.
But this Porfiria looked different. A faint piggish look to the eyes. A slight suggestion of blowsiness. And was that an ink blob, or had the artist drawn a large, dark speck stuck between her front teeth?
It still looked a lot like the QB. To me, even more like her than the published comics. Of course, maybe I wasn’t the best judge, since I thoroughly disliked the QB.
Maybe that was it. In the published comics, Porfiria was Tammy Jones, and Ichabod Dilley clearly worshipped her. But in this sketch, though apparently no later, she had become Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones, and he’d learned to hate her. What had she done to turn him against her? And did it have anything to do with her death?
Or for that matter, with his?
“Found something interesting?”
I started, and clutched the photo closer to my chest as I glanced up to see Steele looking at me with curiosity.
“No, just looking at some possible new PR stills for Michael,” I said. That seemed the most plausible explanation for why I’d been so absorbed in studying something from an envelope clearly marked “Photos—do not bend!”
Then again, maybe it was time to enlist another brain and another set of eyes. I longed to talk things over with Michael, but he was off dutifully schmoozing with his fans. Maybe I should stop being so cagy and bounce my ideas off someone. Failing Michael, Steele would do as well as anyone. Better than most in fact. Someone who
