Con Job (6 page)

Paul radioed for Vince, who arrived at the con suite, surveyed the carnage of empty serving tables, and disappeared again in the direction of the hotel’s hospitality offices. He wasn’t gone long.

“Our liaison was looking for me,” he said. “But they weren’t going to wait until they talked to us.”

“What’s going on?” Rita asked.

“One of the hotel kitchen staff found a zipper bag of white powder stashed on the bottom of a catering cart. Management called police, thinking it was maybe drugs. Initial word is it’s probably not cocaine, but it could be something bad — and since we’ve had two poisoning victims in less than twenty-four hours, they’re pulling everything.”

“Everything?”

“Staff suite, the hotel restaurants, the cash sandwich buffet, all of it. The food court is still open, because each of those franchises has its own kitchen, but they’re being told to check over everything and there’s a chance they’ll be closed, too.”

Paul gaped. “But we have thousands of people here. And a lot of these are kids without transportation or people who took shuttles in; they can’t drive out to get food.”

“The food court is still open for the time being. And there are the food trucks outside, though they were just to pick up overflow and were never intended to handle the whole con. Still, it’s something, until we hear more.”

“We can ask the hotel to waive in-and-out parking fees,” Rita said, “so those with cars can get off-site. They should be reasonable about that, since it’s their kitchen where the stuff was found.”

“That’s still going to leave a lot of people stuck if the food court goes down.”

Vince nodded. “I’m working on it. Meanwhile, let’s keep on keeping on. Jacob, what’s your next move?”

Jacob glanced at the shift schedule on the wall. “Um, I’m going on lunch.” He smiled grimly.

“Right.” Vince grimaced. “You’d better hurry.”

Jacob had to weave through an entire tribe of Water Benders to reach the
Star Trek
photo gathering at the far end of the conservatory. Below the glassy wall, a mob of red shirts held various frozen poses of clutching throats, pressing hands to imaginary chest wounds, or folding onto the ground in awkward positions as onlookers laughed and dozens of cameras and phone cameras snapped.

Jacob looked around until he found Jessica, dressed as an
Enterprise
-era Vulcan. “Hey, are you busy?”

She gestured to the red shirts. “Middle of a photo gathering, but I can talk until Vulcans are called. What’s up?”

“You knew about arsenic having a garlic smell.”

She nodded. “I read a lot of old cozy mysteries, even though some of them have a really skewed and outdated view on classism—”

“Yeah, but what I need to know is, how does one get arsenic poisoning?”

“In old cozy days? It was everywhere, used as a pesticide. Anybody could buy it. Nowadays it’s harder to come by. Because, you know, it’s toxic.”

The red shirts released their poses and moved to join the onlookers. Someone called directions, and several Captain Kirks, Mr. Spocks, two Uhuras, three Mr. Sulus, and a Dr. McCoy assembled and stood at attention.

“Hang on,” Jessica said, “lemme grab a shot of this.” She aligned the crew in her phone’s screen and snapped a couple of pics.

The conservatory featured lots of smaller gathering areas beneath one angled roof, incompletely separated by planters and couches in the ubiquitous sour colors of convention center furniture. The greenery did not adequately screen the next group photoshoot, featuring dozens of colorfully anthropomorphic ponies and interpretations.

“No idea on how someone would get it?” Jacob pressed. “Arsenic?”

“I presume you can get it somewhere, of course. Chemical supply companies, chemistry labs, really old warehouses full of illegal pesticides? Other than that, no, I’ve got nothing.”

A photographer, squatting and looking into his bulky camera, shook his head. “We’ve got to change angles; it’s like the
Enterprise
command is getting stalked by
My Little Ponies
. Everyone shift to your right.”

The cosplayers obediently shifted to one side, laughing as they glanced back at the faux ponies.

Jacob shook his head. “Okay, thanks anyway.”

He left Jessica with the
Star Trek
crowd and started for the food court. It was more than a little unnerving to enter the ring of fast food options — and was it his imagination, or did the court seem less over-crowded than usual? — but his stomach was growling and he had long hours yet ahead of him; he’d never make it without eating.

He looked around the food court and thought of Dead-Laura’s fallen, twisted body and garlicky odor.

Vince had mentioned food trucks, and those were wholly separate from the hotel. And they wouldn’t have been on site yet when Valerie ingested a fatal dose of arsenic this morning, so she couldn’t have gotten it from any of them.

He consulted the mobile app and found the specified side street outside the convention space. He turned and headed for the doors.

A row of parked food trucks stretched outside the hotel, hawking everything from barbecue sandwiches to cupcakes to vegan stuffed potatoes. Jacob got in line at a pasta truck, perusing the blackboard menu. Someone had been having some fun tailoring the truck’s offerings for the weekend crowd:
The Full-Melty Alchemist. The Trouble with Dribbles Minestrone. Second Breakfast Egg Sandwich. Witch Hunter Ramen. Arroz Khan Pollo. To Serve Manicotti. Spaghetti and Spaceballs. Dalek-table Chocolate Brownie.

Behind him, a young man in full elven armor got in line. Jacob turned and gave him a nod. “Nice! First movie?”

“Helm’s Deep, actually.”

“Looks good.”

“Looks stupid,” said a man behind him. “What are you supposed to be, some sort of dress-up warrior? Why are you in a skirt?” He frowned. “Are these things feathers or leaves or what?” He plucked at the armor on the elf’s shoulders.

“Please don’t,” said the elven archer, politely but shortly, as he stepped toward Jacob.

“What? I wasn’t doing nothing.” But he sneered as he shifted his weight forward.

There wasn’t much room for Jacob to advance in the line, and he edged sideways to give the elf room to move. The man was facing them both, waiting in line but somehow more intent, and beside him stood a grinning friend. Both were wearing NFL jerseys, and both were a head taller than Jacob.

“So what is this freak show, anyway?” asked the one who hadn’t spoken yet. “I thought if we came in the day before the game we’d beat the crowds.”

“It’s a convention,” Jacob said. “For fans.”

“Fans?” echoed the man with a sneer. “Fans tailgate. Fans cheer and support the team. Fans don’t play dress-up.”

“That’s funny, coming from you,” said a slender woman with a dark pixie cut from behind him. She had a yoga figure beneath her jeans and fitted green t-shirt, and her casual posture emphasized every curve. “Or are you both really pro football players?”

They turned to the new woman in line. “Are you with this con thing?”

“Hm? Oh, no. No badge, see? I’m here for lunch, same as you.”

“Yeah.” His eyes ran over her, resting on the emerald curves. “You need someone to walk you around, maybe keep the freaks back?” He jerked his head to indicate the lines of costumed attendees on either side of them. “Sometimes people can get a little — well, anyone who dresses like that. Kind of runs up a flag, you know.”

“Oh, I do,” she said. “But it’s pretty easy to pick out the scary ones, if you keep your eyes open.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah, you just look at what they dress as. For example—” she pointed at the elf — “that’s one of Haldir’s archers. He came to defend a bunch of trapped innocents and fight to certain death, just because it was the right thing to do for a former ally.” She pointed further ahead in line, where others were starting to notice the conversation. “That guy in the plaid shirt and vest, next to the redhead? He waited two thousand years for her to wake up and remember him, protecting her all that time.” She turned to the next line, where Tony Stark was paying for a Ham Solo sandwich. “That guy carried a nuke through a rift, thinking it was a one-way trip, to save his friends. In the cine-verse, anyway.”

“What?”

“See the group over there? The tall one, he gave up his elite medical career and cushy privileged lifestyle to rescue his abused sister and hide her on the ragged frontier of space.”

“What are you talking about?”

She turned back to face them. “And you’re dressed like a man charged with real-life murder. And you, you’re wearing the number of a man convicted of felony assault against a police officer.” She crossed her arms. “So yeah, some people can really send a message.”

The men squinted at her. “What are you saying?”

“Me? I’m not saying anything in particular, just pointing out who people are dressing up like.”

“Why can’t I wear this? I’m a fan!”

“Hey, I think people can wear just about anything they want. And this guy chose to dress as a selfless hero.” She met the elf’s eyes and smiled.

“Bitch,” said one of the men.

Her eyes didn’t flicker. “I was right, wasn’t I? Helm’s Deep?”

The elf hadn’t expected her to speak to him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, you were right.”

“I thought the color was right.”

“Are you a costumer?”

“No, but I do have some figures. I’m sort of an uncommitted collector.”

“Forget this,” snapped one of the jersey men. “This line’s too long anyway.”

“Bitch,” repeated the other one, following.

The woman rolled her eyes and glanced at Jacob. “Sorry, didn’t mean to jump in. I’m sure you guys had it all sorted until he started eyeballing me.”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy pulling both fandom and football on him, just a little bit,” Jacob said. “And by the way, hi, Aunt Lydia.”

She grinned. “Maybe just a little. What’s for lunch?”

Jacob ordered an Expecto Pastrami, and Lydia got the Howl’s Moving Casserole. The elven warrior insisted on buying her a Game of Scones dessert as well before leaving them. “You didn’t have to come,” Jacob said as they started toward the hotel doors.

“I know.”

Jacob hesitated and then said, “But I appreciate the thought.”

“I really don’t mean to step on your toes. It’s not that I didn’t think you could handle it. It’s just, sometimes it’s easier if you don’t have to be distracted and think through all the legal stuff on your own.”

Jacob threw her a sideways look. “And you wanted to look for that FFVII figure.”

“The fully-poseable Cloud Strife with the intricately-detailed scale Hardy Daytona motorbike? Possibly.” She took a bite of her pasta.

Lydia was only fifteen years older than Jacob, but she was his aunt and legal guardian. She was also at least two points cooler than any attorney had the right to be, even according to his friends, but most of them didn’t know how grateful Jacob was to her. If not for Lydia’s willingness to take on the family tooth and nail, Jacob would be living a very different life. Instead, he had a normal school career and a good chance at his detective dream, not to mention a moderately healthy trust fund for emergencies.

If Lydia worried at all over him, it was only because of how fiercely they had fought to make this life, and she wouldn’t let it slip away from him. He could hardly fault her for that — and she usually stayed out of the way even while she kept her eye on things.

“Aunt Lydia,” he said, “I should probably warn you. There’s been some video and stuff showing up around the con—”

“Hold on,” she said. “What is that?”

In the corner, flanked by doors opening onto each street, stood a robot of gleaming white plastic, about nine feet tall. Jacob considered. “Looks like a giant robot,” he said with deliberately flat accuracy. “I don’t know which one.”

Lydia slowed, and as they watched the robot, surrounded by three spotters, began to fold in upon itself. As it knelt and inverted, wheels appeared, and a tail, and a spike where a hood ornament might appear, if the construct could be called a car.

“Wow. It really transforms.”

“We’ve got some great costumes here this year,” Jacob said. “I’ve seen some really good stuff already.”

“I wonder what kind of mileage he gets? Maybe I should upgrade.” She looked around. “Man, seems like such a happy cool place. Hard to believe there was a homicide here.”

“Two.”

She turned to stare at him. “What?”

“Since I texted you, they found another body. Same cause of death, arsenic poisoning via food.”

“Arsenic? Did I miss a trip back to 1913 or something?” She shook her head. “Same food?”

“Not sure.”

“Same time?”

“No. The first one was last night, and we saw the other in Con Ops this morning. She died in the hotel bar later.”

Lydia raised a tapered eyebrow. “The hotel bar?”

“It wasn’t open; she was just waiting there to meet with the con chair. But she was going to be waiting a while, because we were helping him avoid her.”

“Yipes. Bad romance?”

“Oh, no way. She was a corporate sponsor, and she was giving him a hard time about the con. I saw her yesterday, yelling at him in front of everyone because of a typo in the program guide. Which, to be fair, was in her company name — but it wasn’t worth that level of drama.”

“So is this con chair maybe a person of interest?”

“Heh,” said Jacob. “I’m sure he is, but he’ll have to take a number. Sorry, Aunt Lydia, but I kind of get the feeling that no one is upset about her. Shocked, yes, but not sad.”

“Ah.”

“So Dead-Laura was going to be hard, because there was just no context to it at all. But Valerie’s going to be hard because, as far as I can pick up, she made a lot of enemies.”

“Dead-Laura?” repeated Lydia. “Don’t they teach you how not to be callous?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean — her name was Tasha something. That was her costume, the dead Laura from
American Gods
, and she was doing this thing where she was gradually decaying over the weekend, like the character.”

“Oh,” said Lydia. “That’s actually kind of cool. And sad.”

Jacob’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was a text from Sam.
Audition in ten minutes. I’m starting to get nervous. Tell me something calming.

Aunt Lydia just verbally trashed two jocks who were picking on a Helm’s Deep elf.

That’s really cool, but you have a weird understanding of “calming.”

“Sam’s going in for her audition in a few minutes,” Jacob said aloud.

Lydia drew out her own phone. “Ooh, I’ll tell her to break a leg.” She finished the text and followed Jacob into Con Ops.

“Back from lunch,” he announced. “Is Daniel around?”

“He’s next door,” Rita said. “You need help with something?”

“What? Oh, no. This is my Aunt Lydia. I just wanted to introduce them.”

“I’ll meet him later, if that’s okay,” Lydia said. “Can I go catch Sam’s audition?”

“Sure, it’s just down the hall in Main Programming. Here, take a program guide. Also, you can use the mobile app, which will have all the updates as things change.”

“Do things change a lot?”

“Not a lot, but it happens. Panelist gets sick, someone doesn’t show up, people suggest it’s not a good idea to run a game of Murder when two people are dead. Scan this QR code, it’s a free app.”

“You’ll need a badge,” Rita said. “All the rooms have badge checks at the door.”

“Even if she’s just going to support a friend?” Jacob didn’t really expect her to concede, but he asked anyway.

“Sorry, them’s the rules. Vince was really adamant about not comping badges this year.”

“It’s cool,” said Lydia. “I’ll want to get into the dealer hall later, anyway. How much?”

She opted for the weekend pass instead of the Saturday-only badge — “in case I want to come back tomorrow” — and headed out the door.

“Hey, Jacob!” Jessica appeared, leaning over the pass-through counter. “Tag my sword for me?”

She’d changed into a pirate costume. He took the rapier, checked the edge — non-metallic and blunt — measured it, and tagged it. “I need to check the pistol, too.”

She passed it to him. “Even though it’s not remotely modern?”

“Any firearm replica, sorry.” He turned it over. “No orange tip, Jessica? Really?”

She turned up a palm. “For an eighteenth-century gun? I didn’t think it was likely anyone would mistake it for the real thing.”

“Not my rules, sorry.” He handed it back. “You can borrow some orange paint and tip it, or you can leave it in the room. But if Con Aid sees you with it untagged, they’ll confiscate it.” He glanced at the bin below the counter. “And they’ve been doing that all weekend, looks like.”

She nodded. “I’ll put it up before I head to Sam’s audition. Oh, check this out.” She swiped several times on her phone and held it out to him. “Look how the Trek pics were coming out, before they moved the crew. No depth of field, so it looks like the Ponies are right behind them. See that Rarity behind Captain Kirk? Like a Pony shoulder angel conscience or something. And this one, it’s like the Ponies are high-fiving because Applejack is giving Spock bunny ears.” She laughed.

“That’s funny,” Jacob said, mostly to be polite. “Sorry about the pistol. Tell Sam to be awesome.”

“That’s okay. I should have known, and I will. See ya.” She headed off again.

Jacob looked at the schedule on the wall. “Is Daniel doing interviews?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

Jacob left Con Ops and went down to the staff suite, now empty of all refreshment but bottled water and canned soft drinks. Daniel was speaking to another officer, in more traditional uniform. “Oh, hello, Jacob. Come and meet Detective Martin.”

“Anne Martin,” she said with a smile, extending a hand. “Daniel says we’ll be seeing you soon.”

“I hope so.”

There was a knock at the door, and Christopher Adams leaned in. “Hello? Is this where I should meet someone, to, you know, answer questions?”

“Come in,” Detective Martin called. Her friendly smile shifted from Jacob to Christopher as she moved to pull out a chair for him. “Yes, please.”

Christopher looked uncomfortable as he sat. “Paul the Programming DH told me you’d want to see me. He said everyone who saw Valerie this morning needed to talk to you.”

“That’s right. But this is just a preliminary interview, you know. If you’d like to wait and speak when counsel is present, that’s fine, of course. No one is being charged at this time, we’re just trying to get a handle on who all is even around here.” Detective Martin had a soothing, dependable voice, and Jacob found himself liking her even across the room. He hoped he could develop a style like hers.

“Right. But I don’t need counsel. I mean, there’s no reason to need counsel for this.” Christopher Adams blew out his breath. “This is just — really nerve-wracking, you know? I mean, we weren’t friends, but….”

“Trust me, I understand. It’s never easy. But that’s why we have to do this.” She glanced at Daniel and Jacob. “Would you prefer to speak privately?”

“I’m probably not going to say anything that’s a big secret, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“All right, then. I’m going to make some notes, but again, this is just to help us get our bearings. It doesn’t mean anything more than that right now.”

He nodded.

“Can you please explain your connection to MEGAN!ME and Valerie Kimberton?”

Christopher pursed his lips. “We weren’t business partners.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“We were supposed to have a joint project, but it didn’t happen. I was approached by Eddie Thomas, of FunFilms, to do a web series — part industry reviews, part previews, part interviews, part comedy, lots of things. I would host it, as the Terra Vista Ranger. That’s my persona, see?”

It wasn’t apparent whether Detective Martin did see, but she dutifully made note of it.

“Eddie was a cool guy. We talked out a deal, and I was supposed to prep a first season and FunFilms would buy it and stream it. It was going to be something really cool; Eddie wanted me to cover other companies’ stuff, not just FunFilms, so it would be a pretty even-handed view.”

“How does that relate to Ms. Kimberton?”

“Eddie got sick. Stomach cancer. He’s doing okay now, I hear, but he ended up selling FunFilms, and MEGAN!ME snapped it up.”

“Including your show?”

“Well, that’s the thing. When the deal happened, Eddie told me MEGAN!ME wanted the show, too, and that it would be largely unaffected. I waited, but I didn’t hear anything. And then a few months ago, I emailed to say that the season was wrapped, we were just waiting for the new logos to replace the FunFilms logos, and that MEGAN!ME already had a few good product reviews in the season, and where did they want delivery?”

The officer frowned, guessing where this was going. “When was this?”

“I got the response on April fourth. Not going to forget that any time soon. It was from Valerie, the first time I’d heard of her or from her. She said MEGAN!ME had decided not to pick up my show.” Christopher didn’t succeed in masking his bitterness.

“What about the deal with FunFilms?”

“Eddie told me that Dan Peters, the MEGAN!ME CEO, really liked the idea and was excited about it. But the contracts never mentioned my show, which I guess Eddie missed or just plain forgot to check after they said it was a go. He was really sick, I guess I can’t blame him. But I guess we were both stupid.”

Detective Martin gave him a sympathetic smile. “Love many, trust few. I’m sorry it didn’t work out. What happened?”

“As far as I can tell, from talking to Eddie and asking around, Dan Peters was on board with it until Valerie took a stand. She said it was bad business to support anything which mentioned other companies’ catalogs and titles.”

“And they took her advice?”

Christopher scowled. “I asked a friend in Famion — they were bought out last year, but some of the staff stayed for MEGAN!ME — if she knew anything about it, and she’d heard that Valerie had a pet project of her own she wanted to do, a sort of fake video blog by a cute mascot character talking up various MEGAN!ME titles.” He shook his head. “Which is all kinds of stupid. First, people want real interaction, not an animated character giving them sales pitches. And second, how is a hyper-cute little mascot going to sell
Blood Drive
and other mature-audience titles? It’d be really limiting — or else it would send the wrong message to parents about the titles and draw a lot of complaints. I had completely different sets and different costume accessories for each bracket, to keep everything straight.”

Detective Martin nodded.

“Anyway, my friend heard a rumor in the company that Valerie was having her sister do the design for the
chibi
.”

Detective Martin held up a finger.
“Chibi?”