Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

“Hardly.” Lorna Fennick’s voice had turned sharp as filed tacks. “Pennyroyal Press practically invented the medical thriller as a salable subgenre. The imprint is extremely profitable.”

“Without Royal?” Temple wondered, looking up from skimming the late Chester Royal’s bio.

Before Lorna could answer, Claudia Esterbrook did. “More so, without him. I hear he had the RCD brass by the monkey’s marbles. No one had any control, editorial or fiscal, over him or Pennyroyal Press. And PP pulled down a very pretty penny, I hear—or did until lately.”

“Does,” Lorna Fennick said through her teeth. They were exceptionally handsome, and probably expensive. “We’re hardly helping Miss Barr with rumor-mill speculations.”

“Speak for yourself,” Esterbrook snapped. “Look; I’m outa here. Mr. Razor Mouth is getting ready to spit-polish the podium even as we shilly-shally. You can stay and feed fairy tales to Miss Barr, Lorna. That’s all the press sees fit to print anyway.”

“Whew,” said Temple when the door had crisped shut behind the woman.

“It’s a rough job.”

“So’s mine—now,” Temple said. “You’re in for a tough time, too. The local police will need a crash course in book publishing to investigate this case. They’ll want to know who,what,when,where, and why not. It’s the last thing your staff will want to deal with.”

Lorna pulled out a wine snakeskin cigarette case and lighter and gave Temple a quizzical look. When Temple nodded, she lit up and inhaled until her cheeks were concave.

“Claudia’s right,” she admitted on a dragonish puff of exhaled smoke. “Chester was a Royal pain. That’s between us.” Her eyes narrowed. “You ever flacked for a publisher? You have some insight on corporate ins and outs.”

“Repertory theater. The same thing: sell arts and entertainment; snuff scandal and any ragged bottom-line stuff.”

“Where?”

“Minneapolis.”

“The Guthrie.” Lorna’s murky eyes glinted with respect. “How’d you end up in Las Vegas, for gawd’s sake?”

Temple sighed. “A long and personal story. I’m saving it for the movie.”

“Anyway, you know how obnoxious these egotistical artsy types can be.”

Temple nodded. “The best are usually sweethearts, though.”

“Usually.”

“Besides, Chester Royal wasn’t a temperamental author; from his bio, he was an editor in chief—and more chief than editor nowadays. Wasn’t his position mostly business, not art?”

“More people are killed for bottom lines, baby, than art.”

“Still, that ‘stet’ sounds like the last word from an author whose precious prose has been tinkered with. Could any writers on the Pennyroyal Press list harbor a grudge for past indignities?”

“You’ve got the bios of the best-selling authors. The others have nothing much to gain—or lose.”

Temple frowned at the standard press releases—stapled, two-page, double-spaced sheets with small half-tone photos of the author and latest book cover notched into the text. Mavis Davis. Lanyard Hunter. Owen Tharp.

“I’ve never heard of them,” Temple confessed.

Lorna rolled her eyes, her inhalation so deep it was almost suicidal. “Welcome to the majority of the U.S. population. Most people buy only three or four books a year, including cookbooks, travel guides and horoscopes. Only a tiny percentage of the pop. are regular readers. Divvy that up by reader tastes— literary versus genre fiction like mystery, romance and sci-fi, add nonfiction—and a steady readership of a hundred thousand or so can fuel a middling novelist’s career.”

“Even a B act in Vegas pulls a bigger crowd in the six weeks during Lent,” Temple said.

Lorna shrugged. “Facts of publishing life. Makes it hard to picture most authors as crazed killers over such meager stakes.”

“Aha, but you aren’t considering artistic soul,” Temple said darkly. “I’ve known actors who would kill for a walk-on. This bunch, though”—she waved the releases—“looks pretty normal.”

Lorna snickered. “Show me a normal author and I’ll show you a walking contradiction. Like acting, publishing is built on rejection. A successful author is either someone with incredible luck and an inch-thick skin—or a very long enemies list and a memory to match it.”

“This Mavis Davis woman looks just like a nice woman from Peoria, Illinois, should: a fortyish Julia Child coming over with chicken soup.”

“Have a chemist check the soup before you sip it. Mavis Davis writes the ‘Devils of Death’ series.” Lorna Fennick warmed to Temple’s blank look. “Instructive little tales of killer nurses. Her last one, Death on Delivery, was about a serial baby killer. She also features kidnapping obstetrics nurses. We call her the Queen of White-Cap Crime.”

“Nice tag line. Is—”

“Yes, it is. You think any publisher would concoct ‘Mavis Davis’? We urged a pseudonym, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

“What about Lanyard Hunter?”

“The name—or the author?”

“The author. What’s his story?”

Lorna lit a new Virginia Slim—her fourth—and studied her copy of the release. “An intriguing case. One of those medical impostors.”