No Place Like Home - A Camilla Randall Mystery (The Camilla Randall Mysteries) (27 page)

"But you haven't explained why you wanted to see him."

"He's a detective—Ronzo is. Didn't you know that?"

That Newark business card. Maybe it wasn't totally bogus.

"He really does investigations for some law firm? I thought he was a blogger who spent his time invading the privacy of former celebrities."

Marvin let out a derisive laugh. "He is. And he does. But bloggers have day jobs, you know? Nobody could live on what he makes with that Internet crap. They used to buy some of his freelance pieces for the print Rolling Stone, but now they've got him in the farm league in the blogs. His stuff is pretty out-there."

Somehow it helped to know Ronzo's blog was considered "out there." Maybe my former socialite friends wouldn't have seen it.

"So you're saying Mr. Zolek came all the way out from New Jersey because you sent him a picture of a hobo? Not because he wanted to write a tell-all piece about the Manners Doctor?"

Marvin shrugged. "You were gravy for him. Well, more than gravy. He was head over heels. And I totally freaked when he said he was romancing you. I did not want you to recognize me and out me as trans. Ronzo is old-school and it would have complicated things no end. But no. He didn't come here looking for you. He's looking for J.J. He's totally obsessed with the guy."

Head over heels. Right. Because he had somebody to make fun of on the Internet. But I had to let that go if Ronzo really was in some kind of danger. Some of Marvin's story made sense, but nothing connected.

"Why did you want him to come all the way out here if you're not friends?"

"Because of Harry. I knew Harry was planning something. He asked one of my girls to run away with him to South America. I overheard her talking about it. And now she's disappeared. Everybody keeps disappearing. I couldn't tell the police, for obvious reasons, but I figured if I got Ronzo interested, he might do some snooping on his own."

"Your girls? You have daughters? One is missing? "

I tried to put all this information together while picturing Marva/Marvin as a parent, but I was saved from the mental gymnastics by Plant, who slid open the patio door.

"Do you want to tell Camilla about your 'girls' or shall I?" Plant gave a not-nice smile. "Marvin here runs a brothel. An S/M brothel. Right here in our little neighborhood. He even takes it on the road as Mistress Nightshade's Traveling Discipline Show. Very handy for Harry Sharkov. I hear he was your best customer, Marvin."

Silas and Lureen appeared in the doorway.

"We've got papers for you to sign, Camilla," Silas said. "I'd love to sell you a little piece of property in Morro Bay."

His welcome grin pulled my mind from the unpleasant things I'd been picturing.

I was about to be a homeowner. And a business owner. My life was about to change for the better in so many ways.

So why did I feel as if we were all on the brink of disaster?

Doria lay as still as she could in the cold grass, hoping the beast wouldn't see her. It might smell her of course. And the moon was bright.

She hoped it would eat her quickly. It would be too horrific to have to watch.

She shut her eyes and tried to pretend she was somewhere else. Home. In Manhattan. And this was all one big, ghastly dream.

She heard something behind her. Barking.

A child's voice called out, "Toto! Come back! Don't run away again."

Doria looked up and saw little Toto, wagging a joyous tail. Above him, young Tyler, who didn't look quite so pleased. She petted the little dog. Tyler had been right. Toto could obviously find his way home.

"Are you that lady we kicked out before? Is that where Toto's been this whole time? With you?"

Thank goodness. The homeless camp was still here. She'd have a place to hide until morning. With people. Wild beasts wouldn't attack a whole bunch of people, would they?

She sat up and hugged Toto. "Did you scare him off?" She looked up at the boy. Did you see a mountain lion, Tyler? I was afraid I was going to be his dinner."

"Nah." Tyler's tone was scornful. "That was only a bobcat. They don't bother people. Might eat Toto, though, which is why I was trying to keep him from leaving camp. Toto must have smelled you out here. I guess he really likes you. I was afraid he wouldn't come back this time."

Doria heard a rustle in the willows. She prayed Tyler was right about bobcats.

But it wasn't a cat. It was Joe, the man with the guitar from the camp. He didn't have a guitar this time. He had a big shovel.

"What's going on here? You okay, Miss?"

"It's that lady from before," Tyler said. "The one that took Toto. She was passed out here."

"I didn't take Toto…" Doria sat up, trying to explain. "A man gave me a ride and he thought Toto was my dog…" She turned to Joe. "And I didn't pass out. I tripped."

The man came closer. "You been drinking? Lucky and Bucky don't allow drinking."

"I only had a little fume blanc with dinner," Doria said. "And I simply…fell down. These heels are low, but they're not for running. And there was a bobcat."

"Yeah, that cat hangs out here sometimes. He won't bother you. Probably looking for the dead raccoon I just buried." He indicated the muddy shovel. "We don't like to have dead stuff stinking up the camp." Joe held out his free hand to help her up. "Good to see you, Dorothy. I never got to thank you for that fiver you gave me at the Mission last week. So you decided to come back to us?"

"Yes. I'm um, I was staying with friends…up there." She gestured at Silas and Plant's glowing house up the hill. "But…" What on earth could she say? "There was somebody at the door. I thought it might be the police."

Joe's face widened into a grin, as if this explained everything. "No prob. Listen, I can let you bunk in my campsite. As long as you don't get near enough to Lucky or Bucky for them to smell that wine."

How a homeless person, reeking of B.O. and God knew what else could smell a little wine on somebody's breath, Dorothy did not know. But she wasn't asking. This nice homeless man with the deep, friendly eyes had come to her rescue.

He gave her a wide grin. "Don't worry ma'am. I won't get fresh. You're safe with me."

For some reason, she believed him. Something about him did feel safe.

"Thank you so much. You're saving my life. Literally. I'm terrified of those animals."

"Don't worry." Joe grinned. "Anything really dangerous comes around, I'm pretty mean with this shovel. Carry a knife, too." He opened his coat to reveal a holstered Buck knife. "And I've got a shotgun in my tent. Somebody's gotta keep these kids safe."

He ruffled Tyler's hair.

"Kid, why don't you go back and let Lucky and Bucky know things are okay out here."

Tyler and Toto disappeared into an opening in the willows.

"So you shoot mountain lions and things? If they come to the camp?"

"Never had much trouble with animals. We can usually scare off a bear or a cat. It's the humans you gotta watch out for. Got some real predators out there. They need to know we can look out for our own."

Joe offered Doria his arm as they made their slow way down the hill.

"Thanks," she said. "We all need somebody to look out for us now and then." He didn't even smell terribly bad. Perhaps these people had a place they could bathe.

"I never looked out for a dead person before," he said. "I read in the paper that you're a dead woman, Miss Doria Windsor."

Doria froze. She couldn't breathe. He knew.

"Steady there," he said, holding her up with a strong arm. "Don't worry. I won't tell a soul."

"How did you… how you know who I am?"

He looked into her eyes. "I've known who you are for a long, long time, Dorothy."

Something about that voice. Familiar, but raspier and older. She looked up at Joe's bearded face, shadowed in the moonlight, haloed by his wild gray hair. He looked like a crazy homeless guy. But those eyes—those compelling eyes she'd first seen in the sunlight in front of the San Luis Mission –they seemed to contain their own fire. Was she really feeling an attraction to a scruffy old homeless man?

"You once said I knew you better than you knew yourself, Dorothy. You were such a tough little thing, even back in high school. I always said you were a survivor." He gave her shoulders a squeeze.

Memories came in a flood. She was back on the banks of the Blackstone River, listening to him play "This Land is Your Land" on his J.C. Penney guitar as his sweet tenor voice drifted into the humid Rhode Island night.

She could almost taste the strawberry wine.

"Joey? Joey Torres? It's really you?"

Marvin came in from the patio as I signed the papers. Silas and Plant stood together, keeping their distance from him, like herd animals sensing a predator nearby.

Lureen refused an offer of a glass of wine to toast my new venture and scurried off. I have to admit I was glad to see her go. I don't suppose it was her fault those awful L.A. people had bullied me, but she brought unpleasant associations.

With icy politeness, Plant offered to top off Marvin's glass of fume blanc.

"No thanks," Marvin said. "I need a clear head. I've got to start looking for Ronzo as soon as it's light." His voice was all business now. "If the poor bastard is still alive, every minute counts. I need to see whatever you've got of his, Camilla. If there's a clue in there, it might save his life."

"You're that worried about him—and your missing hooker—but you won't call the police?" Plant set the bottle on the sideboard.

"Ronzo's already tried to talk to them about Tom's disappearance twice. They wouldn't even take a missing persons report." Marvin snorted. "And I can't prove Fantasia is missing. I don't have an address for her. Only a cell phone number. And obviously that's not her real name. But I know she wouldn't stop picking up unless she was in trouble. I've still got her pay from the last gig."

Plant gave an unfunny laugh. "So your girl isn't missing. She's simply not taking your calls. Maybe she just doesn't want to work for you any more, Marvin." He sat heavily in the dining chair next to Silas.

"That's certainly what the police would say, which is why I haven't reported it." Marvin gave an elaborate shrug. "They're not exactly my number one fans, as you can imagine. Fantasia's father is a macho fisherman type, and sometimes he beats her up, so he could have hurt her, but I don't think so. I think Harry took her."

"Harry Sharkov took her? Where, to hell?" Silas was obviously not buying a word of this.

"Hear me out," Marvin said. "First, I know Harry asked Fantasia to take a trip to South America with him, and second, I know Harry was with her when the fire broke out. She was one of the two girls he asked for in the Jacuzzi. And she brought her own car that day even though it's the rule that everybody meets first to do costume and make-up, then travels with the Mistress. But Fantasia arrived late, by herself. I was furious."

Marvin had a way of telling the truth so it sounded like a lie, but I knew the part about Ronzo talking to the police was true.

I turned to Silas and Plant. "It's true about Ronzo trying to contact the police. He said he found out you can't really report a homeless person as missing. Because they're pretty much missing already. The police call them 'transients'. There's no way to prove they didn't simply move on."

"What is Ronzo's connection with this homeless man Tom?" Maybe Silas was finally taking the conversation seriously. "Are you talking about that toothless old drunk who panhandled in front of my Morro Bay bookstore?"

"Ronzo reached out to all the homeless guys," Marvin said. "He was asking about a photo of a local homeless man that, um, a fan had sent him."

Marvin seemed to be backing away from his own involvement in the story.

"Marvin says Ronzo came to California on a quest for a dead rock star." I realized how stupid that sounded even before it was out of my mouth.

"Dead rock stars. Dead hookers in Jacuzzis. Oh, my." Plant sipped wine. "I should be taking notes. Sounds like a great screenplay."

I didn't know what to believe. Marvin's slithery reality made everything he said suspect.

"Tom was feeding Ronzo information," Marvin said, ignoring the snark. "For a price. Every day he'd have some new bit of information about J.J. Tower—completely bogus, of course, but Ronzo kept meeting him. Until the day Tom didn't show up. Which was the day before Harry's house went up in flames."

"I fail to see the connection," Plant said.

I sipped wine. I was having a hard time following Marvin's story, too. It was past my bed time.

"I knew Harry was planning something," Marvin said. "The Feds were closing in on him. He needed a way out. What's better than faking your own death? Especially if you have a handy body nobody will miss. And a girlfriend whose father owns an ocean-going vessel."