Randall #02 - Ghost Writers in the Sky (18 page)

“
Let’s say a few, um, uninterrupted minutes of your time?” Mr. Montgomery grabbed the phone as Luci’s face turned the color of the satin roses on her bag.

He kept grinning. “If you won’t take a call as important as mine, I’m sure you don’t need to take that one.” With some difficulty, he found the off button and silenced the phone. “I read in the Manners Doctor column that the mobile phone is the abomination of our current era. I agree. No machine should take precedence over real human contact.” 

I wondered if he counted his precious guns in the category of “machines” but did not want to risk angering a man so famous for his gun collection. Besides, he had what looked like a recent scar over his left eye that suggested he might also engage in hand-to-hand combat.

“
Come on, Lucille. We have some unfinished business to discuss.” Walker’s big arm encircled Luci’s shoulders in a way that was at the same time casual and menacing.  “And this young lady has a presentation to give. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Manners.” 

He escorted Luci out into the melee of her waiting fans.

“
Luci! Ms. Silverberg, would you read my manuscript? Please, Luci…” I recognized the voices of several smugsters.

I expected them all to follow her, Pied-Piper-like, but a rush of writers pushed into the little banquet room, scrambling for seats. Rick came toward me, his face dark with emotion, but before he could speak, Gabriella, just behind, grabbed his elbow. 

“
No way can everybody fit in this room,” Gabriella said. “Captain, run and tell Miguel to keep the Ponderosa set up. I’ll round ’em up and head ’em back over there. Camilla, did you get that?”

I did, but just barely. My mind was still reeling. I couldn’t figure out what Luci wanted from me. It was more than bizarre that she offered to give me money instead of extort it. Was she mixed up with the murders somehow, or was the place simply a magnet for dangerous lunatics?”

“
Dr. Manners? Head ’em up; move ’em out?” said Gabriella.

All I could do was nod.

Rick took my arm. “Please tell me you didn’t sign anything Luci gave you?” 

I shook him off. “Of course not. As you ought to know, I don’t have a book to sell. I wish you’d tell your precious agent that.”

“
Go!” Gabriella said to Rick. “Before we get stampeded.”

I finally managed to get myself back to the Ponderosa Lounge, as did most of the writers. Plantagenet hadn’t moved from his seat and was still studying the contents of Mrs. Boggs Bailey’s Oscar Wilde find, cell phone to his ear. Mrs. Boggs Bailey sat at the end of the row watching him like a proud mother.

“
Are you all right?” she said when she saw me approach. “Why did you come back?  He can’t let you read Obadiah’s letter, because he has to take it to Silas.”

Plant clicked off his phone and put it in his pocket. “I’m not going anywhere, darling. I caught Silas at one of his stores nearby. He’s on his way back here.”

I guess my relief showed. He stood and kissed my forehead.

“
Don’t look so forlorn, darling. I wouldn’t miss your talk for the world. But I’m eager to get somebody to look at this stuff to find out if it’s the real McCoy. I think this must have been what Ernesto was talking about on the night he died. He kept saying he had something spectacular to show me. Silas has a first edition
Redding Gaol
himself, locked up in his safe, so he can authenticate it pretty easily. I hope he can do the letter too. It’s the real prize—it would prove my imaginary friendship between Oscar and Jane really happened.”

I felt the flutter of stage fright as I looked up at the podium.

“
I think I’d better get up there and say something to these people.”

Plant looked behind him. “Looks like you’ve got a full house. Except for Ms. Silverberg.”

I looked at the crowd. He was right. No Luci. She must still be in the clutches of Walker Montgomery.

Plant grabbed my arm and pointed in the direction of the stage.

“
Uh-oh. It looks like Captain Road Rage may be living up to his reputation.”

Gabriella and Rick stood in front of the stage engaged in what looked like a heated argument. Without giving me a glance, Rick stalked out of the room. Plant was right about his obvious anger. It was just as well Rick preferred Luci to me. The two of them could have lovely rages together.

Gabriella had mounted the stage. She took the microphone and gestured to me. “Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks for your patience. Without further ado, here is Camilla Randall to tell you about the column she writes under the famous
nom de plume
, the Manners Doctor.”

I climbed to the stage, clutching my folder, and looked out at the sea of faces, most of whom were probably in the audience only because of Luci Silverberg’s delusional remarks. All they were going to get was some information about how to write a syndicated advice column from a columnist whose own syndicate was likely to drop her, after all this hideous publicity.

I opened my folder, took a deep breath, and froze. As I read the words on the page, I felt my whole life passing before me—

“
Newsbabes
: a chick lit novel by Lourdes Donna Inez Carillos.”

 
It wasn’t my folder. There was no speech inside. It had been mixed up with some other writer’s manuscript. I was going to have to wing it.

I made myself smile, cleared my throat and said, “The Manners Doctor likes to quote Lord Chesterton, who said that the people with the best manners are the ones who can make the largest number of people feel comfortable under the most uncomfortable of circumstances. So I’m going to make this short. We’ve all had a trying couple of days...”

Thank goodness for Lord Chesterton. I somehow stumbled through most of what I’d planned to say—almost glad Rick had run out on me. I decided to drop the final segment I’d planned—about how to write for the growing ethnic teen market—since there were not many non-whites or teens present, unless you counted Toby’s Donna Karan girl, who was now wearing lipstick precisely the color of Pepto Bismol. Her accent might come from Latin America, and she was probably still a teenager, but her blank mask of grief—or maybe fear—showed she didn’t hear a word.

Nobody did. The crowd grew more restless and noisy, as—inexplicably—more and more of them appeared—none of them Rick or Luci. But I could see people lining up along the back wall.

I closed and asked for any final questions.

“
Yes, I have a question,” said a heart-stopping, familiar voice from the back of the room. “It’s for Gabriella Moore.”

My head roared. I could hardly bear to look. My ex-husband.

“
Oh, look!” said Mrs. Boggs Bailey, jumping up from her seat next to Gabriella. “It’s that Jonathan Kahn from the TV. And some folks with cameras! And all my squirrel friends!”

I couldn’t breathe. There he was: Jonathan. Impossibly handsome as ever, in full camera-ready make-up, with every silvering hair in place.

Obviously he was here to disrupt my presentation. Nothing seemed to be beneath him these days. Did Luci know he’d be here? Is that what the photo was about?

 
A furious Gabriella turned around in her front row seat as Jonathan walked up the aisle, with his crew and a rag-tag mob of protesters and newspeople trailing behind.

“
Gabriella Moore?” he said into his microphone. “Why did you kill your lover, Toby Roarke?”

As the camera crew moved in on her, Gabriella let out such a string of curses that I feared several elderly memoirists might faint. I hung to the lectern for support myself, suffering from equal parts fury and embarrassment. How had I ever been married to Jonathan Kahn?

“
You have to let the whole world trespass on my property?” Gabriella roared, looking at the crowd of reporters, protesters and looky-loos streaming in the doors. “Who opened the gates for you, Kahn? What the hell are you doing on my ranch?”

“
I had telephone authorization from a Mrs. Bailey. She owns this property, does she not?”

 “
Kahn, you are one damned fool,” Gabriella said as Jonathan poked a microphone in her face. “No. I take that back. You’re two damned fools. First you’re a fool for saying that lying crap about Camilla, and then you’re a fool for wasting your time on some story a poor old crazy gal told you over the phone.” She pointed at Mrs. Boggs Bailey, who was dancing in front of the camera like a small child. “Meet my sister-in-law, Mitzi Boggs Bailey. Your news source.”

“
I’m Mitzi Boggs Bailey, the poet.” The old woman looked up at Jonathan with a coy smile. “Are you all right?”

“
Why sure, Mrs. Bailey, I’m just fine,” said Jonathan. He gave a signal to the cameraman to focus on Mrs. Boggs Bailey as he brandished the microphone. “Do you remember talking to me on the phone when I called last night?”

“
I sure do. I told you about my play.” Mrs. Boggs Bailey beamed. “You stayed on the phone a long time. Much longer than old Obadiah does.”

“
And who is Obadiah?  Is he involved in these murders, Mrs. Bailey?”

“
Oh, I don’t think so. He’s kind of shy.” Mrs. Boggs Bailey grabbed Jonathan’s mike hand and moved closer to the camera. “Now that Joaquin—I wouldn’t put anything past him. He murdered hundreds of folks, you know.”

Jonathan put on his Walter Cronkite, serious-news face.

“
Joaquin? Is he the head of this gang—these Viboras who have been suspected of Toby Roarke’s murder?”

Mrs. Boggs Bailey let out a peal of laughter.

“
Joaquin isn’t the head of anything, silly. He doesn’t have one. Captain Harry Love cut it off. Put it in a jar of booze and took it to San Francisco. That’s why Joaquin’s so mad.”

“
I don’t understand, Mrs. Bailey. Are you talking about—?"

“
She’s talking about Joaquin Murrieta,” said Gabriella. “The 1850s bandit. Mrs. Boggs Bailey talks to ghosts, Mr. Kahn.” Gabriella’s voice got slower and more deliberate. “She suffers from dementia. I’m sorry you had to travel from New York for nothing, but there’s no story to report. The Sheriff has made no arrests at this time…”

Gabriella stopped mid-sentence as the crowd scattered and two uniformed Sheriff’s deputies, headed by Detective Fiscalini, filed into the room. Detective Fiscalini led them in a march down to the first row, where Jonathan and his entourage surrounded Gabriella and Mrs. Boggs Bailey. I felt almost relieved when I recognized one of them as D. Sorengaard, the nice deputy from the Solvang Sheriff’s substation.

“
Please,” I said, rushing from the stage to Officer Sorengaard. “This is all just another one of Mrs. Boggs Bailey’s phone calls causing trouble. She’s been babbling nonsense to Jonathan, and as you know, she suffers from dementia. Please, you know Gabriella Moore didn’t kill anybody.”

The crowd pushed in as Detective Fiscalini stood in front of Gabriella, acting as if he’d never met her before, as he read her name from some document as “Gabriella Mora Boggs.” He proceeded to arrest her for the murders of “Ernesto Jaime Cervantes” and “Tobias Patrick Roarke.” Gabriella’s face had drained of color, but she said nothing as a uniformed deputy recited her rights in English and Spanish and clapped her in handcuffs.

The Ralph Lauren woman looked as if she might attack Detective Fiscalini with her bare, be-ringed hands.

“
That’s ridiculous, officer. Don’t you know who this is? Mrs. Betsy Pike from
Big Mountain
! She’s an American icon.”

 “
This is a goof, right?” said one of the smugsters, pushing his way in. “How did Kahn know this was going to happen?”

“
Kahn has informants all over. And I’ll bet he pays way more than a deputy sheriff makes in a month,” somebody else said.

The red-faced Brit asked loudly why the officers repeated everything in Spanish when this was an English-speaking country. He then began regaling the crowd with his theories about “Mexican toy boys.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan, with two cameramen behind him, intoned a running commentary into his microphone. At one point, a gallant Plantagenet tried to grab the mike and called Jonathan several names that were probably intended to spoil the tape for basic cable TV, but Jonathan didn’t miss a beat as he spoke into the microphone.

“
Plantagenet Smith, I understand you’ve been implicated in the murder of your lover, Ernesto Cervantes. In fact, Miss Moore bailed you out of the county jail only a few hours ago. Tell me, did Miss Moore kill your lover, or did you?”

Plant pushed away the mike and lunged at the cameraman with a curse. One of the other crewmembers picked up a chair and gestured toward Plant as if he were taming a circus lion. The crowd pushed in closer.

“
Oh, please,” Plant said. “Are we breaking chairs now? What, are you going for the Jerry Springer demographic, Kahn?”