At least I knew where to start. With the comic books.
“No way,” Cordelia said, a few minutes later. “Do you know what those comics are worth?”
“I don’t want you to give them to me,” I said. “I just want to look at them. It’s important.”
“Why?”
Probably not a good idea to say I was trying to solve the QB’s murder.
“There were only twelve Porfiria comic books ever published, right?” I asked.
“Right.”
“So what would you say if I told you there might be another one?”
“You have a lead on the Lost Thirteenth Porfiria?” Cordelia said, in hushed tones.
Apparently I’d accidentally tapped into an existing rumor.
“Maybe,” I said. “I need to study the twelve again first.”
Again. As if I’d ever actually read any of them.
“If you get it, you’ll let me handle the sale? This could be the biggest thing since…well, I don’t remember anything like it. You will, right?”
“Absolutely.”
Definitely an existing rumor—and not just any rumor, but one of mythic proportions in the comic book world.
It took me fifteen more minutes of wheedling, and in the end, I had to bribe her, but I finally talked Cordelia into letting me borrow all twelve issues of the original Porfiria. Chris willingly agreed to take my place at the booth. I left him and Steele perched at the two ends of the booth like matching gargoyles and stole away to my room to read the comics.
And was surprised to find Michael there, lying on the bed with a wet washcloth draped over his face.
“In the movies, they usually find something a little larger to put over the body,” I said.
“Well, I’m not that far gone yet,” he said, with a weak laugh. “Head’s killing me, though. Congestion. Thank heaven I have a break.”
“What happened to lunch with the stars?” I said.
“Postponed until tomorrow,” he said, “assuming either the health department reopens the restaurant or they find an alternate site. Just as well. I’m exhausted.”
“I could leave,” I offered.
“No, stay,” he said. “Your company will hasten my recovery, as long as you can manage not to tell me all the medical events currently happening in my lungs and sinuses. I really don’t want to think about all that.”
“Ah, you’ve been talking to Dad, then,” I said. “I was wondering what he was up to.”
“I just thought I’d ask what decongestants he recommends,” Michael grumbled. “How was I supposed to know that he considers decongestants a dangerous interference with the drainage that is part of the body’s natural healing process?”
“Because it’s been at least a year since you had a cold,” I said. “He goes off on these natural healing kicks every few years. I happen to have brought some of the decongestants he recommends when he’s in his normal, better-living-through-chemicals mode. I suspected you might need them before the con was over.”
“You’re an angel,” Michael said. “And if you wouldn’t mind running some hot water over this compress…”
With his compress reheated and the promise of relief washed down by a cold Coke, Michael perked up sufficiently to notice what I was doing.
“I presume there’s a murder-related reason for you to be sitting here reading comic books instead of minding your booth?” he asked, in a voice slightly muffled by the washcloth.
“Was that a slam at comic books?” I asked. “Although actually, I think ‘graphic novels’ probably are better words after all.”
“Makes you feel less silly?”
“‘Comics’ seems to imply a cartoonish style, and there’s nothing cartoonish about Ichabod Dilley’s drawings. Elegant’s more like it. The man’s brilliant. Or was brilliant, more’s the pity.”
“I could work up a good fit of jealousy over that remark if the poor wretch weren’t dead,” Michael said.
Chapter 29
In between trips to the bathroom to reheat Michael’s compress, I went through all twelve comics, page by page, comparing each frame with the shot in my camera. It took most of the hour. I could probably have done it in half the time, even with the compresses, if not for the plastic gloves I was wearing.
“What’s with the gloves, anyway?” Michael asked.
“They’re supposed to protect the paper from the oils on my skin,” I said. “I suppose it makes sense; the paper’s pretty brittle and yellow already.”
“I didn’t realize you collected comics.”