"So why don't we just get it over with?" Tobin said, once they'd all found various places to sit.
"Get what over with?" Cassie McDowell asked, reverting to TV. She was the naive schoolteacher of "McKinley High, USA." Her Bo Peep garb had never seemed more appropriate.
"Gosh, I can't imagine," Tobin said. Then, "What the hell do you think I'm talking about? I told Jere and you that I had the personal effects of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson in my room-and then each of you proceeded to break in. What the hell were you looking for?"
Kevin Anderson and Todd Ames had helped themselves to the quart of Wild Turkey Tobin had sitting on his bureau. They guzzled it without ice from transparent plastic glasses.
Ames said, "We don't have to answer a damn thing."
Susan Richards, lighting a cigarette, said, "I came here because I heard there was a party."
"Right," Tobin said, "so you jimmied the lock with a credit card and came in."
Tobin, as always when he was angry, paced. Being small and compact, he gave the impression of great energy as he did so. With his Burglar mask still on, he looked both greatly earnest and greatly comic.
He paused at Kevin Anderson and said, "I'm surprised you'd be afraid of him."
"Afraid of who?"
"Of Ken Norris."
Anderson's masculinity had been challenged. "Who said I was afraid of him?"
"If you hadn't been then you wouldn't have resorted to killing him."
Anderson set down his drink. He made his biceps bulky and his hands into fists. "You accuse me of killing him again, I'll punch your face in."
"Jesus, Kevin," Cassie said, "what we don't need is more violence."
Tobin turned to Jere Farris. "Why don't you share that notebook with us?"
"What notebook?" But he was flushing.
Tobin held out his hand.
Farris shook his head miserably-maybe he wouldn't have looked so miserable if he'd taken off his Stetson- and reached inside his leather vest. "Here."
Tobin tapped the notebook dramatically, the way a prosecuting attorney who'd trained at Warner Brothers would have.
"In this notebook," he said and thumped it again, rather enjoying himself now. "In this notebook is evidence that will convict one of you of Ken Norris's death-and the deaths of Iris Graves and Everett Sanderson."
"If you've got the evidence," said Todd Ames, smiling with capped teeth at Cassie, "then why don't you make a formal accusation?"
"Because as yet I haven't broken the code."
"Code?" Ames said.
"She wrote in her own shorthand. Not even her boss at Snoop can translate it."
He felt a genuine sense of relief pass through the five people packed into his tiny cabin.
He took to pacing again. He took to notebook-thumping again. He said, "You know what I think?"
Kevin Anderson said, "I don't know what you think but I also don't give a damn what you think."
"I think," said Tobin, undeterred, "that one of you killed him and that the rest of you are protecting that person." He thumped again. "But here's the trick. I also suspect that you're not sure which of you did it. You"-and he pointed to Cassie-"you may think it's Kevin and Kevin may think it's Todd and Todd may think-"
Todd Ames said, "You don't have a damn thing on any of us. You've got some queer notebook with some scrawlings in it, and that's all."
Jere Farris said, "And we've still got the show."
Tobin saw it then. Mention of the show made each of them smile. He saw how "Celebrity Circle" bound them up tight as blood. He said, "And that's why you're afraid that one of you is a killer. Because if that's the case, the show may well die. And your livelihoods will be all over." He turned to Farris. "What did you say about directing local TV news?"
Kevin Anderson threw back the last of the Wild Turkey and said, "I don't know about anybody else, but I'm leaving."
"Me too," Cassie said.
"One of you is a killer," Tobin said.
"You wave that goddamn notebook at us one more time," Anderson said, "and I'll put it someplace you won't like at all."
His anger served as a rallying point for the rest of them. Soon Tarzan was joined by a cowboy, a hooker, Robin Hood, and Florence Nightingale at the door.
"We're going back to the party," Jere Farris said, "and have a damn good time. You coming, Tobin?"
With that, they all laughed and left, slamming the door with undue finality.
The first thing Tobin did was go to the bathroom again.
Then he came out and lit up a cigarillo and took to pacing once more. His plan hadn't worked. He hadn't learned a damn thing.
Or so he thought until he began looking carefully at the jumble of personal effects on the bed.
Something was missing. He wasn't sure what. He just had the impression that not all the stuff Captain Hackett had given him was there now.
It took him ten minutes of sifting and ten minutes of trying to remember everything that Hackett had handed over before he realized what was gone.
Sanderson's newspaper clippings about the fire and the Indiana beauty contest. What bearing did they have on "Celebrity Circle"? And whose identity would they have exposed? Strange. Damn strange.