Several Deaths Later (15 page)

    

    

    The second clipping read:

    

    

    
SANDY CUMMINGS WINS MISS INDIANA

    
Sandy Cummings, a twenty-three-year-old doctor's receptionist from Muncie, was crowned Miss Indiana last night in an event that was telecast statewide for the first time.

    

    

    The clipping went on to detail runners-up and all the usual hype put forth by officials, one of whom said, "This shows you that not all our young people are out hurling rocks and picketing."

    Tobin had the sense that the clipping-like the photo-dated from the sixties.

    But what the hell did it mean?

    The next tape Tobin watched was a Roger Corman movie called
The Man With the X-Ray Eyes,
a very good remake of the Ray Milland original.

    He was about halfway through it-real time; no fast forward with a film like this-when Don Rickles (in what was apparently his movie debut) tells the Milland character that he knows all about him and could turn him in for a reward.

    It was that last word, "reward," that gave Tobin the idea.

    

    

    He called collect.

    When you call New York from somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you tend to run up a bill rather quickly.

    He asked for the entertainment editor and just hoped that the man or woman-Tobin was not a reader of the rag and so had no idea which-would recognize Tobin's name from his various TV appearances.

    A receptionist put the operator through to a second person and then a male voice said, "Conroy."

    "I have a collect call from a man who says he's Tobin, the TV critic. Will you accept charges? He's calling from aboard a cruise ship."

    "Is this a gag?"

    The operator sounded irritated. "I'm too busy for gags, sir." Ma Bell might have learned to grovel for business following deregulation, but she had yet to get herself a sense of humor.

    "Is this really Tobin?" Conroy said.

    "It's really Tobin," Tobin said.

    "You are not permitted to speak, sir," the operator said, "until Mr. Conroy accepts the charges."

    "All right, for God's sake, I accept the charges." When the woman rang off, Conroy said, "Bitch." Then, "So what can I do for you, Tobin?"

    "I'm on the same cruise ship where Iris Graves was murdered."

    "Say, that's right. Poor Iris. She was one hell of a

    woman-and I don't mean just looks-wise, either. Good reporter."

    "That's one of the things I wanted to ask you about."

    "What?"

    "What she was working on."

    "Can't tell you because I don't know and wouldn't tell you if I did."

    "You still pay $10,000 for your lead story?"

    "Yep. They can call us what they want but they can't say we don't pay our writers."

    "Writers" was stretching it where
Snoop
was concerned. Generally,
Snoop
got its stuff from waiters, parking lot attendants, and hospital officials-its Liber-ace AIDS story had been leaked by an orderly, for example-and then one of the staffers just "worked it up," doing a little what they liked to call "enhancing" along the way.

    Other less genteel folks called it lying.

    Tobin couldn't resist. "Do you pay twice as much if the story happens to be true?"

    Conroy surprised him by laughing. "Everybody I know who knows you says you're an asshole and, boy, they're right."

    "Thanks."

    "So in other words you've got a story you want to sell?"

    "Well, I can't write the story without some help from you but if you go along, I think I can piece together something you'd really like."

    "You think you can find out who killed Norris as well as Iris and this guy Sanderson?"

    "Yes."

    "You got any hunches right now?"

    "Not right now. But speaking of Sanderson-that would be my first question."

    "So we're going to make a deal?"

    Tobin knew there was a special place in hell for people who worked with
Snoop
but he also knew that $10,000 was the equivalent of five appearances on "Celebrity Gardener."

    "Just one thing," Tobin said.

    "Way ahead of you. You want me to absolutely guarantee you your anonymity."

    "Right."

    "Because you'd be ashamed to be associated with a rag like ours."

    "Right."

    "But you'd be more than happy to take our money."

    "Right."

    "What a hypocrite."

    "Were they working together?"

    "Iris and Sanderson?"

    "Yes."

    "No."

    "You're sure?"

    "I talked to her the day she died. She said she was getting close to finishing her story but that there might be an even bigger one because of Sanderson."

    "And that's all she said?"

    "Right."

    "So what was her story?"

    "I'm not sure."

    "I thought we were supposed to be cooperating."

    "Actually, it's true. I was on vacation and she suddenly took off on this cruise. All she told me was that she was going to expose a very big scandal about 'Celebrity Circle.'"

    "And that's all?"

    "That's all. She had this thing-she hated talking

    about stories before they were finished. Bad luck. I know a lot of fiction writers who are like that."

    "She use the word 'payday?'"

    "Huh-uh."

    "She say anything about any of the panelists on the show?"

    "I told you, she didn't like to talk about the story."

    "You want to give me your phone credit card?"

    "You serious?"

    "Of course I'm serious. I'm going to have to reconstruct what Iris was working on and since I'm in the middle of the Pacific, the only way I can do that is with phone calls."

    "I thought you TV guys made a lot of money."

    "Not when you do 'Celebrity Fitness' and stuff like that."

    "You need the money, huh?"

    "To be honest, yes."

    Conroy said, "Then let's make it I approve the phone tab up to two grand and I pay you eight grand if the story goes in as our lead."

    "I'm paying for my own phone calls?"

    "Two grand's more money than you had five minutes ago, Tobin."

    Tobin swore.

    "And we won't use your name. I promise you."

    Tobin said, "Deal."

    

    

    

    "You're not going to the costume party?" Cassie McDowell said.

    "I just haven't come up with a costume yet."

    "You've only got about an hour or so before dinner." She herself was ready to go as Bo Peep, complete with bonnet and petticoats and big, clunky children's-book shoes. "You like it?"

    "You going to invite me in?"

    "Really, I need some positive reinforcement. Now, do you like it or not?"

    "It's cute. Now, are you going to invite me in?"

    He was in the corridor outside her door. Passengers got up in rigs ranging from Donald Duck to Darth Vader squeezed by. He felt foolish standing out there, as if they all knew that she wouldn't let him in.

    "What do you want?"

    "Just to talk."

    "About what?"

    Any notion he'd had that she'd been interested in him in any personal way was long gone. He stood there in jeans and his I SURVIVED THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE II T-shirt and said, "It's just a friendly visit."

    "Right."

    She turned just so in the light from her cabin, and he could see how quickly her face was aging and there was something sad about it, because her youth was all she'd had on "McKinley High, USA." No talent; not even animal charm. Just that cuteness, and now it was resisting the skin lotion she smelled of, now it was resisting everything she put up against the inevitable.

    "We didn't kill anybody-none of us."

    "I was just curious," Tobin said, "why you slapped Todd in the face last night."

    "Strain, and nothing more. I'm not exactly used to people being murdered. I was just reacting to the strain was all."

    "Sanderson, the private detective who was killed, had something in his belongings that made me very curious."

    She looked surprised. "You have his belongings?"

    "Yes."

    "How'd you get them?"

    "Captain Hackett."

    "Isn't that cozy?" From the pocket on her dress she took a package of Salem Lights and lit one. "I really don't have time for this. We're supposed to have an open bar for the passengers up on the Promenade deck in ten minutes. I wouldn't expect you to lower yourself for anything like that." She seemed agitated- and had been ever since he mentioned Sanderson's belongings.

    "I didn't know you'd won a beauty contest in Indiana."

    "What?"

    "A beauty contest in Indiana."

    "I never have been in Indiana. I was born and raised in Culver City. The only thing I like about the Midwest is that it's so far away I never have to go there."

    "You're sure?"

    "You think I don't remember where I live?"

    "Did you ever live in a trailer?"

    "No. And I'm sick of your questions."

    She looked sad then, and silly, standing there in her costume and he felt sorry for her. He wondered if she knew how sad and silly she looked. She was one of those doggedly happy people whom you secretly suspect are always miserable.

    Except now she wasn't even doggedly happy. She wasn't happy at all.

    "Does the word 'payday' mean anything to you?"

    "No." But she said it far too quickly.

    "Ken Norris used that word."

    "I wouldn't know."

    "When you slapped Todd you screamed at him that you were all glad Ken was dead."

    "I was drunk."

    "But you said it."

    "So?"

    "Why did you all hate him?"

    "You didn't like him yourself. I saw how you watched him."

    "But I didn't hate him."

    She adjusted her Bo Peep bonnet. "I need to finish getting ready, Tobin. I can't say I've enjoyed this conversation."

    Tobin said, "You wouldn't know where Ken Norris did his banking by any chance, would you?"

    And he saw it then-panic on her face. He had no idea why the reference would have rattled her but obviously it had.

    "Just get out of here," she said.

    She closed the door before he could say anything else.

    

    

    Ten minutes later he found the producer, Jere Farris, in one of the small lounges.

    There was a piano player in a red lame dinner jacket struggling with a Nat King Cole song. It was very dark and in the darkness tiny red candles burned inside red glass globes. The seats were leather. They made a squishing sound when you sat in them.

    Jere Farris looked relaxed for the first time in the two weeks Tobin had known him. It was due in large measure to the fact Jere Farris was potzed. Or at least seriously working toward such.

    Farris wore a white golf shirt with a sweater tied rakishly around his neck. A massive Rolex watch rode his slender wrist, diamonds glittered in the globe light each time he took a drink. He smoked a cigarette with a ferocity that was disarming in these days of anti-smoking campaigns everywhere you looked. But even here, away from the frenzy, there was an air of petulance and prissiness about him. He was not the sort of man Tobin liked much, self-absorbed and waspish, unwilling to acknowledge in any way that you might have griefs just as he had griefs.

    Tobin said, "Mind if I sit down?"

    "Seems you already have."

    "Mind if I order a drink?"

    "As long as you don't expect me to pay for it."

    Tobin said, "I'm now officially a pariah?"

    Farris jabbed out his cigarette. "I don't know what the hell you think you're doing."

    "Trying to find out what's going on. In case you forgot, three people have been killed."

    "Yes, and they've ruined the entire voyage. This was supposed to be nothing but good publicity."

    Tobin thought of Captain Hackett's remark about the callousness of show-biz people. "You all wanted Ken Norris dead."

    "You can prove that?"

    "Not at the moment but Iris Graves, the reporter who was killed, was working on it." He paused. "I've been going through her things."

    Farris reacted just as Cassie McDowell had. With surprise. "How'd you get her"things?"

    "Captain Hackett asked me to go through her belongings-and Sanderson's, the detective's."

    Farris sat back in his chair. He looked defeated. "I don't suppose you give a damn that you're ruining our livelihoods. I mean, I really don't look forward to directing local news. This show is my last best shot. I'm forty years old."

    Tobin calculated the effect of his words and said, "Do you happen to know where Ken Norris banked in Beverly Hills?"

    And there it was. The same sort of glare he'd received from Cassie. But Farris was more skillful at recovering. "Now how would you expect me to know that?"