We'll Always Have Parrots(32)

“The front desk is working on it,” the detective called over his shoulder. “Check with them in half an hour or so.”

“Great,” I muttered. I couldn’t sleep if I wanted to, and I really wanted to. I could keep my mouth shut about the murder with no problem if I could go someplace and collapse, but instead I had to spend the next half hour roaming through a crowd that would give me no peace if they found out about the murder and my discovery of the body. And they would find out, despite the detective’s orders. Human nature would see to that. Although, so far, the only convention goers who’d noticed the police seemed to think they were a group of fellow fans who’d come costumed as cops. There were stranger groups wandering about, including a posse of seven large white rabbits sporting red bow ties.

I considered calling my parents who, warned by my description of how wild the convention could get after dark, had taken rooms for themselves and Eric at another hotel nearby. But then I’d have to tell them about the murder, and the last thing the police needed was Dad underfoot trying to help.

I wandered back into the ballroom, where the crowd still milled around expectantly. Musketeers and armored knights rubbed elbows with court ladies, harem girls, and giant iridescent beetles. The costumes had gotten either more elaborate or more revealing, I noted, and everyone was wearing one. And quite a few of the crowd carried umbrellas or wore improvised newspaper hats to guard against the wildlife overhead.

“Excuse me,” someone said, tapping me on the shoulder. “Is this your tentacle?”

I turned to see a Michael clone—reasonably authentic, apart from being fifteen or twenty years too young. And he did appear to be holding a large rubber tentacle, though I had no idea why he thought it might belong to me. Probably just looking for an excuse to chat me up.

“Sorry, I have as many tentacles as I need,” I said. “What’s going on, anyway?”

“The Minstrels,” he said.

“Are they still going to play?” I asked. I thought I’d seen the police escorting Walker off with the rest of the suspects and witnesses.

“Of course they’ll play,” the Michael clone said. “The program’s only running an hour late.”

“Yeah, an hour is nothing,” said the bespectacled gladiator standing next to him.

“At least we’re finally on con time,” the clone said. “I was afraid this morning that it was going to be one of those totally lame cons where everything goes by the program book.”

“Yeah, totally lame,” the gladiator echoed. “And mundane.”

Sounded heavenly to me.

“But now look!” the clone exclaimed, flinging his arms wide as if to embrace the crowd. “Things are finally happening!”

You could have fooled me. The costumed crowd stood around, talking and staring at the stage, where a few amplifiers, microphones, and other bits of electronic paraphernalia had been deposited, looking more like a stylized representation of a band’s equipment than a working setup. Every once in a while, a technician would slouch out from the makeshift wings and fiddle with something, or add another component, and then amble offstage without looking at the audience, as if the success of the performance depended on maintaining the pretense that he was so focused on his job that he didn’t even notice their existence.

Not that many people watched with impatience. Everyone seemed to be having a grand time.

Everyone except one small figure huddled in a back corner, clutching a bottle of beer with both hands.

Ichabod Dilley looked anxious when I approached him, as if afraid I’d try to lure him out of the corner.

“Finished with the police, I see.”

I hoped he could tell me how the police investigation was going—maybe give me an idea when Michael might be free. But he stared at me as if I were speaking gibberish. Then he drained the bottle, set it carefully on the floor, reached into a brown paper bag at his feet, and extracted another beer.

I counted more dead soldiers in a precise line by the baseboard. Only three so far, but Dilley was rapidly working on another.

“I want to leave,” he announced, enunciating carefully.

“Okay,” I said.

“They won’t let me,” he said. “The police.”

“Sorry.”

“There’s a man over there wearing a fur-covered condom,” he said.

“Tell me to get lost if you like,” I said, “but just how do you know?”

“Because that’s all he’s wearing,” Dilley said.

“Ah,” I said. “No shoes?”

“I didn’t look,” he said. “Not at his feet, anyway. And not at anything else, either. Is that important, the shoes?”