More Bitter Than Death: An Emma Fielding Mystery - By Dana Cameron Page 0,16

sure to catch your paper.”

Scott said he had to wash out his underwear or go commando the rest of the weekend. Brad, of course, had his schedule to keep and wanted to make sure he got enough sleep to counteract his present sleep deficit. Jay was going to another room to catch the basketball game, on which he claimed to have a sure bet. Lissa announced she was going back downstairs, and hit the bar. I had figured to go back to my room, but said I’d go with her, because Sue was going too and looked like she could use some friendly faces at the moment.

Carla yawned, fit to swallow a pig. “Well, I’m going to sleep, if my room’s warmed up any. It was as cold as hell when I left for the plenary, and they said they were going to work on it.”

“Funny,” I said. “Mine was as hot as hell. Must be Château Dante we’re staying in here.”

We walked down to the bar, and it was packed: The conference bar is like the watering hole on the veldt, with everyone stalking everyone else. I noticed Duncan over in one corner, holding court with the same effortless magnetism I remembered from years ago. He caught my eye, but didn’t do anything else, so I just followed Lissa and Sue to where they were going and hoped that the service would be a little better than it was this evening after the plenary. Sure enough, there were three waitresses pushing their way through the crowd. I hoped they were getting well tipped; the bar was nearly as hot as my room was.

We got a seat with Laurel Fairchild, who always seemed to occupy the same spot in every bar at every conference she went to. As far as I knew, she left only to present her own papers; she believed that she would run into everyone she wanted to simply by staying put and letting the world come to her. This time we lucked out, and got seats during a lull in her evening.

From a distance, Laurel resembled someone who’d been frozen in time at the last heyday of the hotel: black turtleneck, black cardigan, black Capri pants, a brunette bobbed Beatnik with cat’s-eye glasses. Closer up, you realized that she was maybe in her late forties or fifties, but it seemed like she’d always been at the conference and would always be. She swore like a trooper and would still be chain-smoking unfiltered Camels, if it hadn’t been for the fact that cigarettes were prohibited almost everywhere she had a reason to be.

Lissa said, “Good Lord, Laurel. Don’t you ever get bored of just sitting there, like a lump?”

“Christ, no. Not when I’ve got entertainment like the floorshow that’s been going on here for the past hour.” She gestured over to the corner, where Duncan was telling a joke, an energetic pantomime. I noticed that there were brownish spots on her hands now, something I didn’t recall from previous years. Yikes. It didn’t seem right that she should be showing signs of age.

She continued. “And my feet are killing me. I shouldn’t have worn shoes that weren’t broken in.”

I looked down and saw that she’d taken off her new pumps—pointy-toed, achingly narrow, and far too fashionable for me—and was rolling an unopened beer bottle with her stockinged foot. It was an old trick I knew from the field, but I usually saved it for more private venues. She was drinking a glass of wine, so I didn’t know what she was going to do with that beer when it warmed up…

“You could wear sensible shoes,” I said.

Laurel agreed so politely that I knew that my suggestion had been dismissed out of hand. “How you doing, Sue?” she asked, looking down past her glasses to the other woman. The effect made her look even more avian than ever, with her beaky nose and sharp, dark eyes. “Garrison unloaded a real shit-storm, huh?”

Sue nodded. “I’m okay, now. You always think you can deal with this better than you do, you get the rug pulled out from under you like that. I felt like I was going to throw up for a while there.”

Laurel nodded, looking sympathetic, and somehow at the same time gestured to the waitress as she passed with a tray of loaded drinks. Laurel had better bar karma than almost anyone I knew, and that was on top of her propensity for giving large tips. We’d be