Still chuckling, Shelley did the same thing. Shelley said, "I can see why you're such a good writer, Felicity. You have a fabulous imagination to think that story up on the spur of the moment."
Felicity preened. "Making up stories is what I do for a living."
"And you do it very well," Jane said. "On another topic, if I may. Is it worth staying here until the closing ceremonies? I want to go home and work on my book so I can fix it and send it on its way"
"I'm stuck here because I flew in and am flying back, so there's no choice. Besides, I hear it's going to be fun," Felicity said.
"Do you have plans for this evening? We're on our own for dinner, the brochure says," Shelley asked.
"No plans at all," Felicity admitted.
"We found the most wonderful restaurant over in the mall across the street. We'd like to go back," Jane said. "Want to come along?"
"I'd love to escape from here. When shall we go?" "I think we should go early," Shelley said. "We had an early lunch there, and by the time we left, the place was mobbed. How about five o'clock? Then we could find a good parking place, not wait in line, and do some shopping afterwards." "No shopping," Jane said firmly.
"I'd love to shop," Felicity said. "But as it is, I'm going to have to break the bank and FedEx home all the books I've bought. I won't have room in my suitcase for anything else. I've already purchased some new clothes as well from
one of the shops in the tunnel. I'm going to need a forklift to transport this stuff to the airport."
"We'll meet you here at about ten to five, then. You'll love this restaurant," Shelley promised. "And you'll have the thrill of riding in Jane's brand-new Jeep."
"You have a Jeep, too?" Felicity asked Jane. "I love my big Grand Cherokee but it's an old gas-guzzler. I'm thinking of buying a more efficient one."
"This is the new version," Jane said with all her excitement about it returning in a flash. "It's called a Liberty and is slightly smaller and is supposed to have great gas mileage."
Since Jane and Felicity were clearly going to go on and on about Jeeps, Shelley excused herself. "I'm going up to the suite to call home and see how the kids are doing and if my husband's sister Constanza has figured out the code to our safe. See you two later."
Jane took Felicity out to the parking lot and showed off the Jeep. She even let her drive it around the parking lot and was glad to know Felicity didn't drive anything like Shelley did.
Felicity vowed she was going to buy one just like Jane's when she returned home.
It was a good thing that they'd arrived early for dinner. The restaurant was already filling up when they arrived. "It's Sunday," Shelley said.
"Lots of families are shopping in the mall and are eating dinner out before going home."
By agreeing to sit in the smoking section next to the bar at the back of the restaurant, they avoided having to be around a great many badly behaved children. The area was all but deserted.
Jane and Felicity had exhausted the discussions of Jeeps. After the three women looked over the menu, the conversation, which they knew this time was private, reverted to Vernetta and her epubbed book.
"Jane and I mildly disagree about what Vernetta said when we met with her, Gaylord, Zac, and Sophie," Shelley said.
"What's the disagreement?" Felicity asked.
Jane said, "It's this — I didn't believe her denial of the plagiarism. She obviously didn't know what it was called. She knew she'd done it, although she claimed there was nothing wrong with what she did because the book was out of print. But she was very convincingly angry at being accused of the 'accidents' that befell Sophie and Zac."
"Zac's experience clearly wasn't an accident," Felicity said. "Why did you mention Sophie along with him?"
Jane replied, "I think somebody poisoned her. But not enough to kill her. I suspect it was in the candies Vernetta had sent to Sophie's suite. I think she added something to them and put the package back together very carefully before she sent them to Sophie's suite."
"Why would she do that?" Shelley asked. "Sophie was the open door to her fame and fortune."
"Maybe she was afraid with all these writing folks surrounding Sophie here, someone would tip Sophie off to what she'd done. She probably just wanted to put her out of commission for a while until the conference was over," Jane said. "She underestimated Sophie's powers of endurance."
"That could be true," Shelley admitted. "But why would Vernetta or Gaylord attack Zac?"
"If Sophie realized the book Zac had given her was important and it was missing, she probably asked him to bring her another one. Vernetta could have overheard this, or merely assumed she'd do so."
"That means she had to be the one who knew who wrote the book. Do we know she did?" Felicity asked.
"Apparently it was written under a pseudonym but Zac always copyrighted in his real name," Jane explained. "And she had to have had an old version of it from a used-book store in order to copy it."
"But how would she have known Sophie knew the book was missing?"
"Because she'd stolen it in the first place," Jane said. Then she stopped dead and said, "Wait. There was something said…"
"Is this another of your Frederic Remington moments?" Shelley asked."I'm afraid so."
They had to stop so Shelley could explain to Felicity what this strange remark meant. Jane paid no attention. She was racking her brains for what had fleetingly passed through her mind and instantly disappeared.
Twenty-five
Jane was determined to put the insight aside. What did it matter? If Zac and Sophie didn't care what had happened to them, why was it really any of her business to convince them otherwise? She'd heard of both of them in the brochure and the advance bulletins. But that was all. They weren't friends. They weren't even enemies.
She supposed she considered Vernetta an enemy. That woman was not a moral person. Then why should she have any interest in what Vernetta may or may not have done? Except that Jane felt strongly that plagiarism was a bad thing, if not actually sinful and criminal. She and Shelley had done what they could — which was significant — to prove Vernetta was guilty of it. Now it was time to let it go.
She had no reason to even think about it anymore. Whatever happened to any of them was no longer relevant to her. Her only concern was that she and Shelley not be publicly named as the women who
had figured it out, and Felicity had taken care of that. At least as far as Miss Mystery knew.
She drove Shelley and Felicity back to the hotel after dinner. The lobby was sparsely populated. According to the conference booklet, there was only one activity going on — a roundtable discussion of everybody's favorite mysteries. Felicity wanted to attend just in case someone mentioned her. Jane and Shelley tagged along on the understanding that they'd only stay a little while. When two people had cited Felicity as their favorite mystery writer, they felt they'd done their duty, and headed back to the lobby intending to go back to the suite and maybe order up a dessert from room service later.
They were stopped in their tracks by a scene at the front desk. The Strausmanns were checking out. They had an enormous amount of luggage, even a small trunk that presumably held their costumes. A bellhop was loading everything up to take outside. Vernetta was speaking to a tall, dark, cadaverous older man. Was he her lawyer who'd come to Chicago to escort them home to Kentucky? Or maybe their fundamentalist preacher, saving them from the big-city sinners?