Jill Churchill: Bell, Book, and Scandal

Twenty-three

After Felicity departed, Jane and Shelley halfheartedly started to pack for the trip home the next day. Shelley had two pillowcases. One for the clothes that needed dry cleaning, one for the clothes that could be laundered at home. Jane stuffed all her dirty laundry into one pillowcase. They loaded up their book bags, saving only two books each so they could choose between which one to read at bedtime. This would be the last night at the hotel and they wanted to be ready to make their departure as early and easily as possible.

When they descended to the lobby, it was as frantic with gossip as it had been the day when Sophie collapsed right in front of everyone. And the rumors were just as wild and varied.

"What does the sign say in the conference registration place?" Shelley asked.

"I'll wait to find out until I unload this disgusting pillowcase and the books in my car," Jane said. "I suggest you do so, too. We look as if we're sneaking out on our bill, piece by piece."

"We are. Except that there won't be a bill except for room service and our tip for the maid."

They managed to escape without much notice and returned with only their schedules in their book bags, and their purses.

As they crossed the crowded lobby to see what the sign said, they heard all sorts of weird snips of conversations.

"No, it wasn't Vernetta who plagiarized Zac. It was the other way around," a woman with pieces of her cheap red wig shedding on her shoulders claimed.

"Vernetta is so enthusiastic about being published, I'm certain she wouldn't have taken that risk," a terminally nice older man said.

"It isn't Vernetta, it's someone else and I've forgotten the name," a woman barely out of her teens said, then blushed.

"What does plagiarism mean?" a male voice piped up.

"The same as copyright infringement," an unseen woman replied.

"What's that?" the same male voice asked.

A tall woman wearing a short-skirted black suit said to a small group, "I'm a lawyer and what Vernetta has done is illegal. She'll be in big trouble when this gets around."

Jane whispered to Shelley, as they forged their way through the crowd, "She's nearly the only one who has it right."

Shelley, walking a few paces ahead of Jane,stopped in her tracks, causing Jane to run into her, and said, "We're not talking to anyone about this."

"No, we certainly aren't. We're acting as if we've never heard it," Jane agreed. "We don't want to blow our cover. Someone else can take the blame for this discovery."

By the time they reached the conference check-in area, the big bulletin board that usually had scraps of papers asking where so-and-so was meeting her, and where was the nearest hairdressing salon, was bare except for a large notice saying, "The rumors about plagiarism are rampant. We hope the participants of this conference can put it aside and not discuss it until all the relevant facts are known. It will make the end of this conference more pleasant for everyone."

Underneath this notice, someone had scrawled in green ink, "And keep you from being sued for slander."

"Another good reason to keep quiet," Jane said under her breath to Shelley.

"What's going on next?" Jane went on to say, fishing out her conference booklet from her book bag. "Let's see. Only two seminars. One is random questions that attendees have forgotten to ask so far. That might be interesting."

"Not very," Shelley said. "If they haven't thought of it yet, it's probably not worth discussing."

"There's another quiz sort of thing," Jane said. "I think I'll go to that one."

"I don't like quizzes. I'm going shopping," Shelley said.

Shelley was a first-class shopper. Jane wasn't. Jane only did so when she had a long enough list of things she really needed to make the trip worthwhile.

"Oh, the next session has something even you would like, Shelley. It's described as 'Let your hair down and fess up about the worst book reviews you've ever read.' "

"Now, that might be fun. And possibly good fodder for letters of complaint," Shelley said with a grin. "I'll meet you in the lobby for that one."

Jane was slightly disappointed by the quiz program. It was too much like one of those she'd seen on television where the moderator makes nasty remarks about contestants who give the wrong answers. Jane felt this trend promoted very bad manners as entertainment and wouldn't even let Katie or Todd watch them. And many of the questions really didn't have anything to do with mystery books.

She stuck it out as long as she could, then wandered back to the lobby. It had pretty much cleared out when the sessions began. She went up to the suite briefly to retrieve one of the two books she'd kept there and went back to the lobby to dip into it while she waited for Shelley to turn up for the next session.

A woman came and took the chair next to her. Jane was already caught up in her book and didn't even look up to see who it was. People with good manners didn't interrupt people who were reading.

But this woman did. Good manners weren't her forte.

"Excuse me, but I don't think we've met. I'm Lucille Weirather."

"I'm glad to meet you," Jane said with barely concealed horror, and pretended to go back to reading. It was the woman Felicity and Shelley had pointed out as the probable Miss Mystery. Jane oozed slightly to the right and turned her name tag over so the woman couldn't read it.

"What is your name?" the woman persisted.

"Why do you want to know?" Jane said, knowing she was sounding like Shelley did when she was approached by a stranger she'd taken a dislike to. Over the years, she'd learned a lot about self-protection from Shelley.

"I overheard you and your friend speaking to Ms. Jones in the food court, and you never called each other by name. I wondered if you could tell me more about the plagiarism."

Jane turned and pointed out the sign at the registration desk. "Have you read that? And I'm afraid you've mistaken me for someone else. I know nothing about it and don't even want to. I don't even know what you mean about a 'food court.' "

The woman stood up and said with a wicked grin, "Sorry to have bothered you, dearie."

Not as sorry as I am, Jane wanted to shout after her.

Jane tried to go back into the book and calm down, but the woman had spoiled it for her. She closed the book and glanced at her watch. Shelley ought to be turning up pretty soon if she meant to attend the next session.

A moment later Shelley appeared, walking noisily on her heels and flopped down angrily in the chair across from her. "I'm so angry. That awful woman that Felicity and I think is Miss Mystery cornered me as I was stopping at the drinking fountain."

"She caught up to you, too?"

"What do you mean? Has she been harassing you as well? What did she ask you?"

"She wanted to know my name and all about the plagiarism thing."

"You didn't tell her either, did you?"

"Of course not. I turned over my tag and told her she'd mistaken me for someone else, and I didn't even know what she meant by food court much less plagiarism and didn't want to know."

"Good for you!" Shelley exclaimed. "Almost word for word what I told her. Except I wasn't wearing my tag in the shopping area."

"She obviously wanted to name the two of us as her source." Jane paused, then exclaimed, "Oh,no! We have to find LaLane and tell her what the woman is doing."

Shelley leaped up as if her chair had exploded. "You're right! Do you know where she is or her room number?"

Jane remembered the room number and they called her from the nearest house phone.

"LaLane," Jane said when she answered, "this is Jane Jeffry." She went on to explain what had happened and begged LaLane not to give Miss Mystery their names. "She claimed her name was Lucille Weirather. That's probably not her real name either. So just don't tell our names to anyone who asks you, if you don't mind."