Dying to Get Published (7 page)

Chapter 11

Sam had some nerve. The only communication Jennifer had had with him since their date had been a brief message on her answering machine: "Hey, beautiful. Don't forget Steve Moore's party. Call me as soon as you hear from him."

When Sam didn't call her back and Moore booked the party for tonight, she'd been reduced to leaving an answering machine message herself. She'd given him Dee Dee's number. And the cad had done just that—called Dee Dee.

So this was how she got to spend her Saturday night. Working with Sam in the kitchen and dodging Steve Moore in the living room.

She dropped a box of utensils loudly on the inlaid stone floor. Sam was definitely more trouble than he could ever be help, and she suspected he hadn't even bothered to get his TB screening. Why else would he refuse to show her the results?

"The test was negative," Sam insisted, opening a large crate and lifting silver trays onto the hand-tiled kitchen counter.

"I still want to see your arm."

"When the test is negative there is
nothing
to see. I do have a chicken pox scar in a rather interesting place if you'd like to see that."

She wished she didn't have to see him at all, and she certainly didn't want to get acquainted with his anatomy.

"Tuberculosis is a serious disease," Jennifer grumbled, "and if one of our guests—"

"What are the two of you fussing about?" Dee Dee asked, coming through the back door and dropping a large box on the floor.

"Help me out here, Dee Dee," Sam begged. "Jennifer wants to rip my clothes off right here in the kitchen."

Dee Dee stopped in mid-motion and studied Jennifer.

Jennifer made an unintelligible noise. "I don't think he had his TB test done. He's not willing to show me his arm."

"I offered some alternatives, but she didn't seem too interested," Sam piped in.

"Oh, that. Of course he had it done," Dee Dee said. "He brought me the results. Do you think I'd let him serve if he hadn't? The two of you need to get yourselves together. Mr. Moore has seventy-five guests arriving in less than forty-five minutes and only the three of us to feed them."

Dee Dee pointed to Sam. "You set up the wine and punch station. I want you to man it. I'll show you the portions. Don't worry about the hard stuff. Moore got a bartender for that."

"And you," she said pointing to Jennifer, "set the oven at 250 degrees to warm the stuffed mushrooms, the ham biscuits, and the sausage rolls. The cold canapés are packed in ice, so they'll be fine until we need them. I'm going to set up the hot food station."

Dee Dee swept out of the room carrying a large chafing dish.

"Where did she learn to bark orders like that?"

"The Marines—as a military brat. Eighteen years at twelve bases. No one goofs off around Dee Dee when she's working. She won't tolerate it."

"And what's your excuse?"

"My excuse for what?"

"For not tolerating anything—and me in particular. I thought we had a nice time the other night."

A nice time
. Just the words every girl wants to hear—two weeks after a first date. At least he remembered there had been a date. "It was pleasant enough."

"I don't suppose you would call it a date, more like a business dinner, but I thought we got along pretty well."

Terrific. Now their dinner wasn't even a date. If she'd known that, she would have worn blue jeans. But he was forgetting the roses. Roses made it a date no matter what he said, and she had the dried petals to prove it. She'd saved them—to make potpourri, of course.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Sam beat her to it. "Moore's invited most of the brass from Channel 14—the station manager, the producers and anchors from all the news programs. And one or two of the network bigwigs from New York might even show up."

"I'm surprised the police didn't investigate Browning's death as a murder from the beginning." Jennifer opened the box on the floor, extracted a large baking pan and began unwrapping it.

Sam cocked his head at her. "Oh, yeah? Why do you say that?"

"He came off the top of the building from the rear and into an employee parking lot in the middle of the day. No one saw it happen, and the police estimate that the body lay there for at least half an hour before someone found it."

Sam grinned at her as he uncorked a bottle of wine to let it breathe. "I know. Browning was used to making big splashes. If he decided to take that dive on his own, he would have made it straight into the stream of downtown traffic—preferably rush hour. After all, the man had been before the cameras most of his adult life. It would have made great footage for the evening news. The networks would have picked it up in a minute."

Jennifer slipped the pan filled with mushrooms into the oven. "So who or what are we looking for?"

"Browning was mixed up in that scandal in North Carolina when he was working for the network. He was down there to 'get the experience' of a major hurricane. Only he left his crew in a beach house to ride out the storm while he ducked out supposedly to get in touch with New York and wound up holed up in a public shelter."

"I remember that." Jennifer clucked her tongue. "The crew didn't make it, and Browning's career died with them. What a waste and all for some stupid news story."

Sam nodded. "Sometimes we journalists can get a little over zealous."

"Sometimes?" She looked him up and down. What was zealous if not posing as a waiter at some party? She noticed the tuxedo shirt looked better on him than it did on her. She really would have to talk to Dee Dee about new uniforms. "Browning never spoke to the press, if I remember correctly, although they were unmerciful in their criticism of him. He just faded away."

"To reemerge right here in Macon."

"So you think there's more to the scandal, more than a single miscalculation?"

"Browning acted like a scapegoat."

"I don't know. I thought he acted like someone who had goofed big-time and was shamed by what he had done."

"Exactly my point. No apologies. He just stuck his tail between his legs and ran. The man had played the system for years. He knew how to work it, but he didn't even try."

"And that's really the question, isn't it?" Jennifer asked. "Why didn't he at least try a defense?"

"Exactly."

"Smacks of a payoff."

"Especially in view of the presumed suicide. If he were murdered…"

He was doing it again, suckering her in, pulling her into a web of real-life intrigue. The bastard. "So who do you suspect is involved? Someone who will be in that room tonight?" She nodded in the direction of the den.

"Perhaps. Professional hazard: I suspect everything and everybody."

Just as she thought. He didn't have a clue about who murdered Browning.

"Someone might recognize you when you serve. You were a guest at the wedding."

"Well…
not exactly."

"Oh, no. Don't tell me you crashed that wedding. And you ate my canapés. Do you know how much a head it costs for an affair like that?"

"Lighten up. Nobody is going to starve if I have a couple of Dee Dee's ham biscuits." He lifted one toward his mouth, but Jennifer grabbed it from him. He caught her wrist with his other hand and for a moment they stared at each other. He had to feel the electricity that ran up her arm.

Jennifer broke his grip and took up the box of biscuits. "No one eats anything until later. And for you that's much later—as in maybe never."

He groaned. "Why don't you like me, Jennifer?"

"We have a professional relationship."

"And which would that be? Writing partners or eighteenth century mahogany sideboard to twentieth century wine dispenser?"

"I can't believe I agreed to this."

"Oh, you agreed, and whether you like me or not, you're lovin' every minute of it."

Chapter 12

Damn! The woman was obnoxious. Moore had invited the guest from hell.

Jennifer ducked back into the kitchen, dropped the tray on the counter, and covered her ears. If she had to listen to that screechy voice one more time, she was liable to commit an unpardonable act. The woman was constantly demanding more champagne and pestering Jennifer to "fix more of those cute little bacon-wrapped wieners, will yah, hon." Jennifer had never encountered someone so bereft of redeeming qualities from the top of her bleached-blonde hair to the spike of her teal heels.

She shuddered.

Dee Dee stuck her head in the doorway. "Sam told me to check on you. He said you'd reached a volcanic shade of red—which he insisted was not a particularly unusual color for you—and then you disappeared. Are you all right?"

Jennifer drew herself up. "I'm fine, but I'm finished serving this side of the room. If I have to go outside and come through the French doors to get to the other side, I will."

Dee Dee considered her friend. "The woman in teal."

"From the bow in her hair to the toe of her colored hose."

"I think you ought to reconsider," Dee Dee suggested. "Get to know her."

"Know her? I'd like for her to disappear. She's an escapee from some fairy tale, the evil Grizelda. She probably has tiny tots locked in her basement. Did you notice what a taste she has for pork, and you know what they say about the similarity to human flesh."

"Put all that aside, kiddo. She's a literary agent. Big-time stuff. She might do you some good. Her name's Penney Richmond. Ever heard of her?"

Jennifer froze. Her skin prickled to attention as all the blood drained from the upper part of her body and her knees gave way. She slid into one of the kitchen chairs.

"Did you say Penney Richmond?"

How dare she turn up in the flesh? How dare she
have
flesh?  Penney Richmond was a voice on the phone, a signature on a letter, an intended murder victim, yes; but was she actually a living, breathing, human being? Maybe human was too strong a term.

"What's she doing here?" Jennifer managed to ask.

"So you've heard of her. She's Steve Moore's agent. She got him a deal you wouldn't believe—we're talking six figures easy—and that's just the advance."

"Non-fiction always brings more than fiction," Jennifer said automatically.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. Maybe this project you're working on with Sam will pan out. It's good you're considering writing about a real-life crime."

And committing one? Would that require real blood?

"But Sam had better not let on who he is," Dee Dee went on. "If anyone finds out I let him do this… Are you sure you're all right?"

Some of the color was returning to Jennifer's cheeks. "Yes. I just need to sit for a minute. You go on back to your station, and I'll get some fresh ham biscuits out of the oven and bring them out."

Jennifer stared after her as Dee Dee disappeared back into the hallway. Penney Richmond was
real
. Real. How could that fact have escaped her before now? But she didn't have time to think about that. She had to return to the living room and start serving again. She had to listen to the conversation for Sam. And she had to see Penney Richmond.

She grabbed two oven mitts and pulled the oversized baking pan from the oven. The ham in the biscuits gave a sizzle as she plucked the appetizers from the pan and arranged them on a fresh salver.

She straightened her bow tie, brushed away the hairs that had escaped from her French twist, took three deep breaths, and threw back her shoulders. She could do this. She could walk into that room and pretend everything was just as it had been five minutes ago. Even if it wasn't.

She shouldered the tray and plunged into the melee.

The room was noisy and crowded, with a generous sprinkling of the beautiful people, mostly news anchors and a few other TV personalities.

A cackle broke above the din. Penney was somewhere on the left side of the room. Jennifer thought if she stayed to her right, she could effectively serve most of the guests without coming near the woman. She had to put all thoughts of Penney Richmond out of her head for now.

"This is the best damn food I've ever tasted," a rotund gentleman declared in a non-southern accent as he swept two ham biscuits into the palm of one hand.

Jennifer managed a smile. "Welcome to Macon. You must be one of Mr. Moore's New York colleagues."

"Actually, no." The man turned toward a circle of men directly behind her and bumped Jennifer's tray into the back of the man just in front of her. 

"Ham biscuit?" she offered sweetly.

The beautiful face of John Allen turned to her. He was even more handsome close up than he had been with the sun creating a corona abou
t his head on his wedding day.

"I hope you didn't get any of that grease on the back of my jacket!"