Nice Weekend for a Murder by Max Allan Collins

struck them as somewhat uncomfortably similar to themselves and their own bitterness toward Rath.
    “You make a truly convincing nerd,” Jill said, smirking cutely, skin crinkling around the corners of her cornflower-blue eyes.
    “I know you are,” I said nasally, “but what am I?”
    “Takes one to know one,” she said nasally back at me.
    I gave her a sloppy, nerdy smooch and slipped my arm around her shoulder and we walked out into the hall and down to Curt’s room, where all the role-playing authors were assembling, prior to the first of the weekend’s two interrogation sessions, which was to begin just fifteen minutes from now. Partylike sounds were going on behind Curt’s door; we paused before going in.
    “You look so cute with that little mustache,” she said, pinching my cheek (facial cheek). “I’m tempted to just be a groupie and hang around and watch
your
performance.”
    I shook my head no. “I’d really prefer you to circulate—listen to the other ‘suspects.’ ”
    “What am I supposed to get out of that?”
    “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Just make sure you catch a glimpse of each of them, noting whether or not they seem unduly ill at ease.”
    “If they do, it won’t necessarily mean anything more than stage fright.”
    “Maybe not, but jot down some notes anyway. Also, look for any particularly obsessive game-players; anybody who seems to be taking this too seriously, or is really pushy in the interrogation sessions.”
    “How am I supposed to know what their names are?”
    I pointed to my badge. “They’ll be wearing them.”
    “Ah.”
    We knocked on Curt’s door, which Curt himself opened. “Well, Lester Denton in the flesh!” he said above the crowd’s conversation, doing a pop-eyed take. “Where on earth did you find that suit?”
    Jill said, “You’d be surprised. I didn’t have to dig all that far back in his closet to unearth it.”
    I shrugged. “The early seventies were a do-your-own-thing kind of era; apparently my thing was tacky plaid suits.”
    “Yesterday’s trendsetter,” Curt said, ushering us in, “today’s
nebbish
.” His room, which was filled with the other suspects, was easily twice as large as ours, a suite really; the fireplace was bigger, and the twin beds were boxed together, I noted. The suspects were all in costume, of course; only Curt was in civvies, a casual blue shirt and brown slacks. He had a glass of something in his hand—ginger ale, as it turned out—and he got us some.
    “Well,” he said, “you certainly look your part. Ready to live it as well as look it?”
    “Sure. How long did you say this session’s going to be?”
    “One hour; they get another hour with you tomorrow morning. Say, you know, you really loosened everybody up.” He gestured to the costumed suspects around him.
    “How’s that?”
    He raised his eyebrows. “Ah, well...” He put them back down. “I think my sense of black comedy got the best of me, in whipping up this mystery; some of the guests—Jack Flint and my brother, in particular—took a little offense at the way I’d written their roles, especially in regard to ‘Roark K. Sloth.’ ”
    “Hit a little too close to home, did you?”
    He mock-grimaced for just a moment. “Guess so. Anyway, that prank that got pulled on you last night, when the word got around, gave everybody a laugh.”
    “I noticed.”
    He put a hand on my shoulder, pretended to be somber. “You’re not angry with me?”
    “For making me the laughingstock of Mohonk? I’m livid. I’ll never speak to you again.”
    He shrugged, mugged. “Just so we cleared
that
up,” he said, and moved on to mingle with other members of his cast.
    Jill, who’d been at my side listening to all this, said, “You sure cut that guy a lot of slack.”
    “He’s done me plenty of favors. Remember my mentioning that one of my teachers at a writers’ conference helped me get an agent?”
    “Sure.”
    “Well, Curt was that writer.