Randall #02 - Ghost Writers in the Sky (25 page)

Rick leaned back against the bureau.

“
Alberto, calm down. You don’t really believe Gabriella killed Toby? Not over some loan papers—or canceling Jackie Collins?”

Alberto looked up, his hands shaking.

“
But she did kill him. I found the blood. It was on the balcony outside her office—and down the servant’s stairs—all the way to the bar.”

“
Gaby’s office is the one next door—above the kitchen?”

“
Yes. You can reach it from a private stair from the utility yard, and also from the hall outside this room.”

“
And those stairs we came up lead to the Longhorn Room?”

“
Yes,” Alberto said. “The blood was not so much, but I saw the trail of drops. It is my job to notice…” He buried his face in his hands.

Rick’s face was unreadable. “You saw blood you believed was Toby’s and you removed it?”

Alberto looked up again, his lip quivering. “Yes. I cleaned it with bleach, so no one would see what she had done. But the ghosts know. They have been here. The ghosts, they have left me a message...” He stood and picked up a wooden carousel of old pens. “You see! They took the pens and now they are returned!” He thrust the carousel into Rick’s hands and started to pace. “It is not Gabriella’s fault. It is mine. I should have told her. Now, Miss Randall, you must tell her I am sorry. You can do it in a way that is kind. And Captain, you must take me to jail.”

“
Are you sure?” I tried to make some sense of Alberto’s story. “About the blood? Maybe the stains were old. Or red wine or something.”

 
Rick nodded. “You’re mistaken, Alberto. I think Fiscalini’s dead wrong on this. Gaby didn’t do it.”

I wondered if I should tell him about my gangbanger-accomplice theory about Miguel. Probably not, under the circumstances.

“
Plant says Gaby couldn’t be responsible for the spray painting,” I said. “Think what it’s going to cost to replace that wall covering. It’s fur, for goodness’s sake. And she could never lift that cow head.”

Rick gave me a surprised look and nodded.

 
Alberto just looked pained. “I know what blood looks like,” he said with a sniff. “Anger can make a person strong. Toby had been with Ernesto. Perhaps she was jealous. Toby was always with the students—boys, girls, he did not care. He would make a rendezvous in one of the empty rooms. He would write the room number on a bottle of champagne and tape a key on the bottle. I was furious he was always losing keys. Everybody knew he stole those keys.”

“
That’s the problem with that scenario, Alberto. Everybody knew,” Rick said. “Even my mother-in-law. She told me how Gaby’s been putting up with Toby’s tomcatting for decades. Why would Gaby kill one kid Toby was hooking up with, when there were dozens?”

Urgent knocking startled us all.

Rick opened the door. I heard Miguel’s voice and froze. He knew about the secret staircase just as well as Gabriella did. He could have waited for Toby in the servant’s hallway, ambushed him at his front door, then dragged him down to the bar.

“
She is gone.” Miguel’s voice was breathless. “Mrs. Boggs Bailey is gone. I am very angry with Donna. She left Mrs. Boggs Bailey at the cabins, while she came to the Hacienda to look for Ms. Silverberg.” He shifted from foot to foot as if he were still running. “Mr. Kahn and his people are gone, too. They called many times demanding room service from the bar, but we do not have the staff.”

“
Don’t panic,” I said, as much to myself as anybody. “Jonathan’s probably out looking for excitement, and Mrs. Boggs Bailey might have insisted on tagging along. Isn’t there a casino around here where he could drink and gamble?”

Miguel shook his head. “No drinking is allowed at the Indian casino, except in the five-star restaurant. Perhaps the saloon in Santa Ynez. Miss Moore forbids Mrs. Boggs Bailey to go there.” He stopped for breath, then started back down the stairs. “I must go. Only Santiago is at the desk…”

“
You have left Santiago at the desk?” said Alberto, suddenly the efficient concierge again. “He speaks no English. Go! Go!” As he closed the door, he looked pleadingly at me. “Can you get Mrs. Boggs Bailey? If she is with Mr. Kahn, she will get into terrible trouble. She always finds trouble…”

“
I’m afraid I don’t have a car.” I could not go searching the watering holes of the Santa Ynez Valley for my drunken ex-husband. I had to find Luci—and retrieve those letters. I’d worry about Miguel and his gang later. At least he was too busy at the moment to murder anybody else.

But Rick seemed all too eager to go on a hunt. “I’ll drive,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll find Mitzi.”

He folded the loan documents and put them in his pocket.

“
But Alberto, Detective Fiscalini’s team is going to have to see these.” He took another look at the carousel of pens. “What were you saying about these? They went missing and then turned up again? You used them for the forgeries?”

 “
Yes,” said Alberto. “Obadiah started to take them a few months ago. One at a time. I was upset. I thought Ernesto had taken them. They were given to me by Wu Lin, who was housekeeper here when I was just a kitchen boy. He taught me the art of calligraphy, and I was passing it on to Ernesto. Toby asked me to teach him. Ernesto had just finished making new labels for the photographs in the gallery on the ground floor. He could copy every one of those autographs. He had a gift—not like Miguel. He has ten thumbs.”

“
Ernesto…he copied those autographs?” This was very interesting. Ty Hardin, Will “Sugarfoot” Hutchins—the autographs on the pictures downstairs—they were also the signatures on the Joaquin letters. They had to be forgeries, too.

And it looked as if Ernesto was the resident forger.

Glancing at my watch I tried to think of a polite way to make my escape. I had to get those forged letters away from Luci, now.

Rick saw me looking at my watch. “Give me a minute, Camilla. I have an obligation to report this cover-up right away.” He turned back to Alberto. “You thought Ernesto took the pens, but now you say the perpetrator was a ghost?”

 “
I suspected Ernesto, but my supply of old scrap paper disappeared, too—just writing paper—yellow and old, of no use to anybody. And some old ink. But they were locked in my supply cabinet—only Toby and Gabriella had the key. They said the thief must be Old Obadiah, but I didn’t believe—until the pens all reappeared—here in the carousel. In my locked room. The day after Ernesto died. It was a sign.”

“
The room was locked?” Rick examined the door. “Who else has a key?” 

“
Only Gabriella and Toby.”

 “
The writing paper—did it reappear, too?”

I knew the answer before Alberto shook his head. Of course the paper wasn’t returned. The gay cowboy letters had been written on it. Toby must have stolen the paper for Ernesto to use. Which meant they were working some scam together—planning to do some gerbilling, as Marva called it.

Marva. How did she fit in? She’d known about the letters. And she wanted them desperately enough to burglarize the Rancho. She also had just as much access to the murder scenes as Miguel, and a lot more motive. She said she’d worked at the Rancho as a kid, and obviously she knew her way around. She could easily have been the one to lie in wait and bonk Toby on the head—or follow Ernesto to Plant’s cabin and shoot him. And in spite of whatever hormones she was taking, Marva looked strong enough to have pulled that steer head from the wall.

Rick laughed with forced cheer.

“
Old Obadiah is a real generous ghost, isn’t he—first he gives those Oscar Wilde things to Plant Smith, and he then returns your pens?”

 “
It is not something to laugh about,” said Alberto. “It was a message—the ghosts took the pens because I was using them for crime. And now people have died. That is why I knew I had to turn myself in.”

Rick patted Alberto’s shoulder.

“
You did the right thing to tell me about it. Detective Fiscalini needs to hear your story. Right away.” He ushered Alberto toward the door. “I hope you know that tampering with the crime scene was a really bad idea—not just because it’s aiding and abetting. You did Gabriella a lot more harm than good. Now it’s going to be much harder to find the real killer—who is still out there, my friend. I’m sure of it.”

I followed them both down the stairs, wondering how to explain to Rick that the killer was probably a transgender dominatrix who looked a lot like me.

Chaos had descended on the lobby in Alberto’s absence. Now that Plantagenet’s talk was over, and Luci seemed to have disappeared, everyone left seemed to be in a frenzy to vacate the premises.

Guests mobbed the desk, shouting at Miguel and Santiago. Miguel clutched the phone to his chest, as Donna tried to wrest it from his arms. Santiago stood at attention beside them, looking at the crowd with an authoritative scowl, but real fear shone through his eyes.

“
Call a taxi!” the Englishman shouted. “Phone a taxi to take me to Santa Barbara. I don’t care how much it bloody costs!” He pounded the desk in front of Santiago.

“
Call a taxi,” Santiago said, his accent thick. He earnestly pounded the desk in imitation of the Englishman.

I had to stifle a laugh.

Rick pushed through the crowd, saying something in Spanish that involved the word “Fiscalini.”

Miguel looked at Rick and shook his head as Donna clawed at his shirt sleeve, still trying to get at the telephone.

“
Okay, then you ring her room.” Donna fairly shrieked the words. “I told you she phoned my cell and asked me to meet her. Right now. But she won’t open her damned door. Tell her I’m coming up.”

“
Lucille Silverberg is not to be disturbed. Orders of Alberto. How many times do you want me to say it? She will not talk to anybody.”

Miguel shook her off. But I had to admit he didn’t really look like a double murderer. He looked like a little boy about to cry.

“
Except me,” Donna screamed. “She phoned me!  She read
Newsbabes.
She’s all—I’m ‘a genius of a businesswoman.’ That’s totally what she said. Then she told me to come up to her room ASAP and we’d talk money. Miguel, stop being an asshole! This is my chance of a lifetime! I’ll ring her room if you won’t. She’s not answering her cell.”

As Rick pushed through the crowd toward the desk, the phone in Miguel’s arms rang. He picked up the receiver and Donna pulled the rest of the phone from his grasp.

“
No. Nobody can talk to
Entertainment Tonight
,” Miguel said to the caller. “Unless they send a taxi…” He shook his head at Rick again. “The Sheriff’s men have left. I have heard nothing.”

“
Are you calling a taxi?” said a memoirist, grabbing the phone from Donna. “My cell can’t get a signal. We need a taxi. We are not spending another night here, with all these gangsters and ghosts and dead homosexuals running around. Why is there no limousine? We came in a limousine.”

Everyone screamed at once:

“
Why isn’t anybody here to carry my suitcases!”

 “
Where are the bellboys?”

“
I want my bill!” 

“
Give me that telephone!”

The Englishman tried to wrestle the phone from the memoirist.

“
Somebody call the bloody airport! Isn’t there an airport in this town? What about those hot air balloons? I’ll take one of those if they haven’t got anything else. ” 

“
Enough!” Alberto’s voice rang over the turmoil. As he strode toward the desk, the crowd parted to let him enter his domain. “Give me that!” he commanded, as all parties relinquished their respective grips on the phone.

He barked something at Santiago, who emerged from behind the desk and started picking up luggage.

“
Alberto, old chum, can you get me a taxi?” said the Englishman. The crowd closed in, calling for bills and bellboys and transportation.

“
I’d say we got here just in time,” Rick said into my ear. “I’ll call in the forgery information to Fiscalini after Alberto processes these people so they can go home. I don’t think the poor guy is going anywhere, and nobody benefits from keeping a hysterical crowd like this hanging around.”

I tried to lighten things up. “I can see the headlines now: ‘RAMPAGING WRITERS WRECK RANCHO!”

I figured Rick’s plan was to sit on the evidence against Gabriella while he did some sleuthing on his own. I wondered if he had the same worry I did that Miguel and his gang might have helped Gaby cover up the murder. At the moment, he seemed absorbed with watching Santiago carry more suitcases than appeared to be humanly possible. He was small but solid, and must have built up a lot of muscles washing all those pots and pans.