She clutched her hat to her head and quickened her pace. She spotted Theodore just where they had planned yesterday—leaning beneath the flags of the Whitcomb building.
Her heart started beating traitorously at the sight of him.
He arched an eyebrow when he saw her, and for a moment she thought of what it would feel like for him to slide his arms around her waist again, the weight of his hands grazing the curve of her rib cage, making her breath hitch—
She stopped, flushing. What was wrong with her?
“Covington,” he said shortly.
“Parker,” she said.
“Did you meet with Walt?” he asked. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t show,” she said. She pulled open the door to the publishing office before Theodore could frown or, worse, show her any pity. “Shall we?” she asked briskly.
They entered the foyer together, then rode the elevator to the fifth floor and announced themselves to Sam Whitcomb’s secretary.
“We’re here to see Mr. Whitcomb,” Theodore said.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“No,” Grace said. “But we have information about Harriet Forbes’s murder.”
The secretary ducked into Mr. Whitcomb’s office, then reappeared with a smile.
“You may proceed,” she said.
They stepped inside the large room, which was covered in mahogany wood and flanked with file cabinets. A wastebasket was overflowing with crumpled sheets of paper. The room smelled like stale coffee, and there was a typewriter and a dim, bronze harp table lamp on the desk.
“You have intel for me?” Sam Whitcomb said, rising to greet them. The windows of his office showed an expansive, bird’s-eye view of the fairgrounds and the stretch of his tent city below. “On the murder of the actress?”
“The police have made an arrest in the poisoning death of Harriet Forbes,” Grace said. “But we don’t believe they have the right man.”
With ink-stained fingers, Sam Whitcomb gestured them toward the chairs set before his desk.
He sank into his own chair, purposefully set above their eye level, and smiled at them with teeth that were big and overly white. He made Grace’s skin crawl a bit. Grace glanced at Theodore out of the corner of her eye.
For once, she was glad to see his unvarnished look of disdain.
Whitcomb raised an eyebrow.
“You’re friends with the accused,” he said. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” Grace said firmly. “And we’d like to talk to you. Off the record.”
Whitcomb set down his pen and gestured at her. There was a glint in his eye. “By all means. Proceed.”
Grace shared a look with Theodore, and he rolled out the caricature of the woman the fair artist had drawn.
“Do you know who this woman is?” Theodore asked.
Whitcomb gave him a skeptical look, then examined the sketch for a long moment.
“No,” he said. “Should I?”
“This woman was following Harriet relentlessly in the days prior to her murder.”
Whitcomb scoffed. “A caricature? You can’t be serious,” he said.
