Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) (19 page)

Nina tried to respond to this, but she was about to cry.

They were in silence for a time.

Finally Molly Badger said, quietly:

“It’s the right size, too.”

Again, silence for a time.

Finally Margot said:

“Someone must have seen you, Molly.”

Molly Badger nodded:

“Yes. Someone did.”

“Who?”

“The beauty queen.”

Nina, who’d studied the list of cozy guests quite thoroughly, nodded and said:

“You mean Suzy Maples?”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

Nina looked at Margot:

“Suzy Maples writes the Chrissie Oakton Mysteries. Chrissie is young and beautiful, and takes part constantly in beauty pageants. All of the murders she solves take place at such pageants, and the victims are always beauty queens.”

“That’s good,” said Margot, thoughtfully.

“Her cat is a beautifully groomed Siamese named Skipples.”

“Her real-life cat?”

Nina shook her head:

“No. Her fictional cat. In real life her cat is a Siamese named Whiskers. I saw it earlier this morning having sex with that gray yard cat that the staff calls Sluggo.”

“Well, that’s not good.”

“No, she won’t be pleased.”

“What was Suzy doing downstairs so early, Molly?”

Molly Badger was sitting up now, and she had reached back to take into her small hands the red rose that sat above her cot. Smelling it, and smiling, she said.

“I love this rose. It gives me courage.”

“I know. But as for Suzy––”

“She was putting her makeup on.”

“At four in the morning?”

“She said it takes her a long time to do it. She has to start early.”

“I see.”

“Anyway, I’m sure she saw me. She asked who I was. I told her. I didn’t say I was self-published, but––they know. They always seem to know. Anyway, she said some vicious things to me, words I can’t repeat––and then she went back to doing her nails.”

Margot nodded:

“All right. She must have called Harriet Crossman.”

A look of fear came into Molly Badger’s face.

“So they know? They know I’m here?”

“I’m afraid they do.”

“Then they’ll be coming for me.”

“Not if we get you out quickly.”

“Those sirens! Waa daa! Waa daa! Oh, I hate the memory of them!”

“It won’t get that far. But you’ll have to leave, Molly. I’ve asked one of the boys to get a car ready. He should be up here any time now. You can go down the back stairs.”

“But where? Where can I go, Margot?”

“Why don’t you just stay in Abbeyport for a few days. I know the name of a motel there.”

“And they’ll accept me?”

“Yes. They’re good people, and brave.”

“Oh, thank you! Thank you! Oh my God!”

“What is it, dear?”

“The sirens! I hear the sirens!”

“That’s a fire truck, dear. Out on the road.”

“It’s so hard to tell the difference––”

“I know.”

Molly Badger was standing now, and she put the book she’d been reading in a small suitcase that she took from beneath the cot, saying:

“I want to thank you so much for letting me stay here even for this short amount of time.”

“I’m afraid it wasn’t much––”

But Molly shook her head, saying:

“It was enough. I accomplished what I wanted to accomplish. Just being here allowed me to do that. And now I can promise you—I
will
be published!”

“Certainly you will, Molly.”

“Not only that—but I’ll be the one who gets the HBO contract!”

How
, thought Nina,
in the hell are you going to do that?

But she didn’t say anything, and, if she had, she would not have included the ‘hell’ part.

(She was already thinking like a cozy writer.)

By the time Nina and Margot had reached the main meeting hall (secure in the knowledge that Molly Badger had been whisked down the back stairs and was now being taken safely into Abbeyport), the main morning’s meeting had begun. The room was full, the beaming face of Jessica Fletcher was blessing the proceeding, and Harriet Crossman had just begun an address that began innocuously enough, but was to lead to trouble.

Nina and Margot stood in one of the room’s corners while Harriet spoke, the microphone squawking a bit as she said her first words:

“Good morning!”

“GOOD MORNING!”

“I wish now to declare as open the first morning session of Year 2015’s annual Congress of the American Guild of Cozy Writers!”

“HUZZAH!”

Upon saying this, she struck the podium with a solid brown wooden gavel, shouting as she did so:

“THE SESSION IS NOW OPEN!”

“Hear, hear!”

“Our first order of business though, I must warn you, is to be a difficult one. It represents a difficult decision on my part, and one that I have labored over quite intensely.”

Silence in the room.

What is this all about?
wondered Nina.

Harriet continued:

“As you all know, at ten thirty this morning a representative from HBO is going to arrive.”

They knew.

More:

“The HBO representative is named Sylvia Duncan. She is said to be quite powerful in the organization. She will interview at some length any of you who wish your cozy series to be considered to be the basis of a new, nationally televised, mystery series. In short, from the pages of one or more of your novels, is to come the nation’s next––”

She turned and pointed to the image glowing behind her, spread across the wall.

“––the next Jessica.”

A kind of awed silence ensued.

“And yet––”

The awed silence transformed itself into a suspicious silence.

“…and yet, serious concerns remain as to which works, and which authors, the Guild itself is to put forward to Ms. Duncan.”

Now there were a few shouts.

“What are you talking about?”

“What is this?”

Harriet, hands in the air:

“Please, please just let me speak. This is going to be difficult enough, without our interrupting one another.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What the-------- are you talking about?”

First obscene word of the meeting
, noted Nina.

Not really a ‘cozy’ meeting, one had to say.

Harriet:

“As most of you know, we have in recent years given the coveted GACW seal—as well as membership in the Guild—to works which stretch the boundaries of what might truly qualify as cozy mysteries. Let us be honest with ourselves. There have been some very bloody murders committed within our pages. Also––”

She looked down at Rebecca Thornwhipple, who was seated, as usual, in the front row.

“––though I am no prude, I do take grave exception to the level of eroticism that we have allowed to creep into some of our narratives.”

“-------- you!” chirped Rebeccah.

The room gasped as one.

Harriet, though, continued:

“Now, now. I am not going to attempt to pare down our membership, nor do I intend to lead a movement to purify our writing, and bring it back to the pristine state with which Agatha and Jessica began it.”

Harsh voices now.

“See that you don’t!”

“Down with Crossman!”

Crossman, though, was not to be flustered:

“It is my contention, however, that this convention should vote as a group on a certain list of titles that it will recommend to HBO. And that these titles be those which embody our rules of true coziness:
 
charming villages—on the New England coastline whenever possible—genuinely lovable and eccentric, perhaps cantankerous in that we-love-them-all-the-same kind of way, characters:
 
town barbers, crusty lawyers, elderly gossips, and here and there an attractive young couple engaged to be married.”

“Boring!”

“Been done!”

“Also, that these chosen novels portray good, middle-class murders that even children can view and read about and talk about with their friends.”

“Children don’t read cozies!”

“To hell with children.”

And with that, another biscuit went flying across the room, striking one of Jessica Fletcher’s pearly white teeth before falling harmlessly to the floor.

Must have been left over from last night
, mused Nina.

But, of course, there had been biscuits for breakfast, too.

“We want, in short, what we were raised on watching television and reading library books:
 
good, straightforward knives and letter openers to the heart, and revolver shots—preferably one and perfectly placed—to the head. We do
not
want—and I’m not going to name authors’ names here, or mention novel titles—men being beaten to death by kickboxers, their throats mangled by karate chops and their eyes poked out by thumb jabs!”

“All right, that’s enough!”

A figure stood up in the middle of the audience.

Nina had not seen her before.

Though she wondered how it would have been possible to miss her.

The woman wore tight fitting black slacks and a tank top.

The latter was important because it showed off a chiseled and muscular upper body, biceps bulging, shoulders rippling.

The woman had short blond hair and ice blue eyes.

She spoke in an ice blue voice.

Everyone was instantly afraid of her.

Including Nina.

“We all know who you’re talking about. Okay let’s get it out on the table. I’m C.R. Wood and I’m a feminist cozy writer.”