Sharyn McCrumb - Zombies of the Gene Pool

Jim Conyers shrugged. "Cooperate, I guess. Once the medical examiner ran that tox screen and found a suspicious substance present in the deceased, there was no chance of stopping the investigation. The longer it drags on, the more publicity there's going to be."

Erik Giles interrupted him. "Could I have some of that wine, Jim?"

The others shushed him and went on talking at once, but Barbara Conyers flashed him a sympathetic smile and handed him the bottle and a plastic glass.

"What if we called a press conference and said we had nothing to do with it?" asked Angela Arbroath.

Jim Conyers shook his head. "People might naturally wonder why you saw fit to call a press conference over the demise of a total stranger. And then you'd have to tell them it was Pat Malone, and then- "

"Was it?" asked Jay Omega.

"What?"

"Was the dead man really Pat Malone? Can anyone swear to that?"

The Lanthanides looked at each other. "Well, after thirty years…" said Angela hesitantly.

"He was still pale," George offered. "And six feet tall."

"I thought Pat looked like a frog in the old days," said Barbara Conyers. "Sort of saucer-eyed, you know, and loose-lipped. But we've all changed so much. I wouldn't have known any of you on sight."

"It hardly matters," said Erik Giles, taking a sip of his wine. "He knew things about us that no one else could have known."

"He enjoyed it, too!" said Woodard indignantly. "He was going to make us all look like fools again. Just like he did to everyone in The Last Fandango!"

Ruben Mistral looked from Jay Omega to the laptop computer still set up on the table, and back again. "What are you getting at?" he asked.

"I'm trying to help you people settle this, before we all become suspects for the local police," said Jay. "And I think George Woodard made a key point just now. The man who died was going to make fools of you all by telling things that you didn't want made public. I think someone murdered him to prevent that. So, if we knew what the secrets were, it might help us guess who killed him."

Erik Giles smiled gently. "You needn't do all this on my account, Jay," he said. "I know I invited the both of you here, but you needn't feel responsible for me. We're not such old fogies that we can't take care of ourselves."

"It's the man who died that concerns me. One of your little secrets caused it."

Angela Arbroath shook her head. "The least important secret might have been the one he was killed over. How could you tell?"

Jim Conyers looked amused. "You're not suggesting that we confide in you, are you? If we didn't trust one of our own, why should we let you hear our secrets? Assuming, of course, that there are any."

"Well," said Jay Omega, shrugging. "I thought you might want to see the murderer punished. Or at least stopped from killing again. Especially since he killed a total stranger."

Angela stared. "What are you saying?"

He spoke slowly and carefully. "That man was no more Pat Malone than I am." He waited for the exclamations of shock and disbelief to subside before he continued. "The man's driver's license said that he was Richard Spivey, from a little town near Raleigh, North Carolina. And I believe that to be true."

"Richard Spivey!" cried George Woodard.

"Do you know him, George?" asked Erik Giles.

"I'd never seen him, but he'd been subscribing to Alluvial for years. Richard Spivey from North Carolina. He didn't write very often, though. He never discussed the Lanthanides, or claimed to be one of us."

"What address was used?"

Woodard shrugged. "A post office box, I think."

"How do you know he wasn't Pat Malone?" Angela demanded.

Jay pointed to the computer. "Because I asked." He told them about the call to Ethel Malone, and about the man in Mississippi who had found the obituary. "I think Pat Malone died a long time ago, and somebody decided to take his place. True, he had information that only one of the Lanthanides would know. Where would he get it? I thought the fact that he was on Elavil was an indication. And he was from North Carolina."

"Curtis!" cried George Woodard. "Curtis was in a mental institution in North Carolina."

"And Elavil is a drug used in psychiatric cases," whispered Angela. "Are you saying that this man was only pretending to be Pat Malone?"

"I don't know," said Jay sadly. "I think he may have actually believed it by now. He and Curtis Phillips were both patients in a psychiatric facility outside Raleigh. I know, because I called and asked. I'm pretty sure that he had heard Curtis Phillips talk about the Lanthanides for years and years until it actually became real to him. He remembered it as an experience, the way you visualize a movie you have seen, or a particularly vivid novel."

"But he didn't even know us!" Erik Giles protested. "Why would he want to embarrass us?"

"Because that's what Pat Malone would have done," said Marion.

Woodard laughed bitterly. "Another damned fan hoax!"

"It was very convincing," said Jim Conyers. "But I must agree with our host here that we have an obligation both morally and legally to provide any information that we can."

No one spoke. Brendan Surn seemed to have forgotten that they were there. The others glanced at each other nervously.

"If no one wants to confide in us, we could make some guesses," said Jay. "For example, there are sexual goings-on that one might rather forget three decades after the fact." He held up a folded slip of paper. "I have Jasmine Holt's phone number here."

In fact, he had a blank piece of paper, but he counted on the fact that no one would ask to see it, and the bluff worked.

"That business about my wife being promiscuous was totally exaggerated," said Woodard. "We were both believers in free love back then, and I believe she had sexual relations with a good many members of fandom. It was a philosophical statement. I see no reason to be embarrassed by it." Beads of sweat made his skin glow like damp cheese. He pushed a greasy forelock away from his eyes. "Of course, she's not at all like that now."

"Your kids might be less tolerant, though, George," said Jim Conyers. "Mine sure were." He sighed and glanced at his wife. "I guess I'd better tell you about this before you call Jazzy."

"Jim!" said Ruben Mistral warningly.

"The statute of limitations passed long ago, Bunzie," said Jim Conyers. "I checked."

"It was at a con, and we had all had too much to drink," said Mistral. "And we-I wouldn't call it rape, would you, Jim? We didn't know she was underage."

"You guys raped Jasmine Holt?" The question was out of Lor-ien's mouth before she could think better of it. "Sorry," she muttered, and pretended to read the cable television guide.

The color drained from Barbara Conyers' face. "Oh, Jim," she whispered.

He looked away. "It was before we got engaged," he muttered.

"Come on, no big deal!" said Bunzie jovially. "That was a hundred years ago. By the time she married Curtis we were all pals again. And when she married Peter I gave the bride away."

"I doubt if Pat would have told that story," said Erik. "He was just as involved as we were."

Marion glared at the Lanthanides, looking considerably less sympathetic than she had moments before. "There are some literary secrets here, I think, that might have been worth revealing." She noted with satisfaction that the Lanthanides had begun to look uncomfortable. "Take Dale Dugger's story, for example. It isn't very expertly written, but the atmosphere is wonderful. It's about a Martian soldier coming home from the war to find that he has more in common with the enemy aliens than he does with the people back home. It sounded very familiar."

Lorien Williams blinked in confusion. "But-that scene you described is famous! It's in Brendan's book The Galactic Watchfires. That's the chapter when Tarn-yan returns to Qar."