“I know him enough to avoid him. He wasn’t a nice man.”
“So I hear.” Tony scratched his ear. “You ever argue with him?”
“He didn’t have—”
“Plants. Yeah I got that.” Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Mari Beth shift a bit, like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself. “I’ll need your contact information in case we have any more questions for you, ma’am.”
She wrote it down for him and then slid out the door, taking her watering can with her. Tony rubbed his face.
“I need to see the Injustice League file,” Capri said, stepping up to Mari Beth’s desk.
Tony watched Mari Beth’s reaction. She was one hard woman. Pity, because the packaging wasn’t bad. She was a petite woman, with sculpted brunette hair and very round china blue eyes. Neat figure, nice legs, though too short for his taste. She had to look up at Capri, and he could tell it annoyed her.
“Why?”
“I was standing there when he called and told you I was acting chief. With a raise. You can call and ask again. On speaker, if you don’t believe me.” Capri’s hands hooked on her hips.
Her bright red mouth pursed in annoyance. “You should have called first. I don’t have time to stop and look for it.”
“I need to see it, too, ma’am.” It was the least he could do after grilling Capri so hard.
“You know you can put your painted fingers on it in two seconds, Mari Beth. Unless you…lost it?”
The taunt did it. Call her a bitch, but don’t imply her office wasn’t well run. Mari Beth huffed a bit, then minced over to the file cabinet and dug through it importantly. When she’d stalled as long as possible, she removed a folder and handed it to Capri. Tony looked over her shoulder as she opened it. There was a cover sheet with basic info. Tony noticed the mailing address was to a post office box. There was an email address, but no phone number.
“Is it normal for an author to withhold his telephone number?”
Capri frowned. “No. Most of them are dying for The Call and it’s all over everything.”
She lifted the sheet and there was the title page, followed by Elliot’s cover letter. The cover letter was nothing special. Just, here’s my book and you should buy it.
Capri looked at Mari Beth. “You gave this to Dennis?”
“I’m supposed to give submissions to both of you.” She looked and sounded defensive.
“And just how many have gone to Capri in the last week,” Tony asked, not because he needed to know. “Out of all submissions received?”
“Well, now that Dennis is dead—”
“Before he died. Ball park figure?”
Her lips narrowed to an almost invisible line, but she didn’t dare not answer him. “We got, oh, twenty submissions this week.”
“And Dennis got how many of them?” Suddenly he did need to know.
“One or two.”
“Why would you give him this one?” Capri asked.
“You can see it was addressed to him.” She looked at Tony. “Mostly they’re just addressed to ‘editor’ and sometimes to Tique.”
“Tique?”
“He was the previous editor in chief,” Capri said. “He’s dead.” Capri seemed to hesitate, then she said, “I get a lot of stuff addressed to Dennis, Mari Beth. Why this one?”
She shifted from one foot to the other. “He came in when I opened it and insisted on it.”
She was lying, but he couldn’t prove it and she knew it. There was a pale gleam of triumph in her round eyes.
Her chin lifted. “I don’t see why it matters. It has nothing to do with why he died.”
It didn’t seem to, but Tony’s gut wasn’t so sure. Or he was just hungry. Sometimes it was hard to tell.
Capri noted down the contact info. “I guess I’ll have to email him.”
“Why?” Mari Beth’s tone was sharp.
“The manuscript is missing.”
Her thin brows arched. “Dennis has it.”
“Not anymore. I searched his office myself.”
She paled. “But…”
“I know it offends your sense of order, Mari Beth, but I didn’t lose it. And since Dennis is dead, you’ll just have to deal with it.”
Her chin went up again. “I’ll email the author. Did Mose Milton tell you what he was offering?”
“As little as possible. And don’t tell him we lost it, just that we need an e-file. If you could talk to him, I’d tell you to tell him to get an agent, but I don’t like leaving a paper trail for Mama Ducumb.” She looked at Tony. “I figure she monitors our email.”
Tony grinned. “I guess she wasn’t here the other day?”
“The moon didn’t turn blood red, so I don’t think so.”
Mari Beth’s mouth got impossibly thinner. “You shouldn’t speak about Mrs. Ducumb that way.”
“There’s a lot of things I shouldn’t be doing. I’ll add it to the list.” Capri started to leave, but stopped. “Oh, I need to see the file for,” she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, “Hibiscus Summer. The author is Flower Felding.”
“That’s one of Dennis’s authors.” Mari Beth was outraged.
“Dead men can’t have authors.” She stared at Mari Beth until she got the requested folder, but Mari Beth held on to it for several seconds after Capri grabbed it. Tony sensed a catfight coming. Since retreat was sometimes the better part of valor, Tony left. Not that he was opposed to watching two women duke it out. But he was on duty. He’d have to stop it and that just seemed wrong.
The next morning, it was hot enough that Capri started planning ways to avoid her office during the drive to work. Traffic was a bitch, so she had lots of time to think. She’d brought her personal laptop to work. If Elliot had emailed his book to Mari Beth, she’d find a cool spot and work on it—somewhere like the Starbucks down the road. Only one who’d get annoyed was Mari Beth, and Capri was already on her shit list. They’d almost come to blows yesterday.
It
