So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 (17 page)

I managed to pour three cups of coffee and put them on the table.

"Where did you find the Limey?" Marva said,
sotto voce
. "Very nice."

"I'm her publisher." Peter tapped away at the computer. "I'm afraid it's our fault she's in this mess." He leaned in to take a closer look at the screen and gave a yelp. "Bloody hell. Is this you, Camilla?"

He swiveled in his chair and gave me an appraising look. He seemed about to burst into laughter.

"Good god, woman, why didn't you ever tell me you had such a kinky side?"

I rushed over. There on the screen, with the hashtag #KinkyDrManners was a photograph of somebody who looked a lot like me, wearing nothing but a riding hat and pearls, using a riding crop on the bare buttocks of former Fox News pundit, Jonathan Kahn.

Suddenly the screen went blue and a message said, "Twitter is over capacity."

Peter let out a belly laugh.

"Dr. Manners, I think you just broke the Internet."

––––––––

P
lant received no more visits from Piglet and Pooh, who seemed to be finished with him. He lay on his bed in a half-awake state for hours—maybe days—wondering if it really was inevitable that he would be charged with Neville's murder.

How could they hold him in this nasty toilet of a room for 96 hours?

Four days of staring at walls. How could anybody stay sane in here?

He was kicking himself for not saying more to Sanjay about the importance of finding the young man who had been acting the part of King Richard at the Old Hall festivities.

As soon as the police talked to that guy, the whole mix-up would be solved. The actor had seen Neville dead before Plant arrived in the Hall. He even had blood on the sleeve of his costume, probably from trying to rouse the poor man.

Or, of course, he might be the killer.

So why weren't they looking for him?

He shouldn't be hard to locate. These reenactments were staged by various groups with names like "The Guild of the White Boar", and "The Companie of Mercia." He'd seen their names in the brochure. They would know who had been playing what part.

The police ought to be looking for a murder weapon, too. They might even find a nice big knife with some incriminating DNA on it. That's what happened in mystery novels.

Mystery novels. If only he had one. The most hackneyed cozy mystery in the world would be a welcome break from the horrible monotony in here.

Still, he'd like to tell all those authors that mysteries were not actually very cozy when you were in the middle of one. This one was frigid. How could any place be this cold in August?

He had not been able to get warm since he arrived. The concrete of his cell seemed to exude cold, like a refrigeration unit. And the icy blue of the walls made him shiver when he looked at them too long.

And it wasn't as if he had anything else to look at. There was a high window above his bed that let in daylight, but it was covered with some sort of opaque glass that didn't let him see any trees or sky—just a perpetual grayish fog that turned to an oily orange as night fell. Probably from security lights outside.

He wasn't even allowed the dignity of a dark night.

No. He wasn't going to feel sorry for himself. He needed to keep his thoughts positive.

What would Sherlock Holmes do? Or Miss Marple?

They would find the witness, and the murder weapon. And somebody with a motive. If it were Miss Marple, she'd find the culprit because he reminded her of somebody in her own village.

Plant tried the mental exercise of thinking about who in his world might be likely to commit murder. He didn't have much respect for Glen, but he was pretty sure Glen would stop short of murder. Marva/Marvin, maybe. He seemed capable of anything. Especially when he was in costume. Costumes could make people behave differently. It was like being anonymous. It could bring out the worst in people

And pretty much everybody at the Hall that day had been in costume.

Plus they'd all been milling around. Anybody could have run up to that tower. Well, not somebody very old or unfit. It had been a slog getting up those stairs.

He remembered the man in the puffy pants—the fee-collector at the door to the Old Hall. He would have known who had been in the building.

Maybe Sanjay could find the puffy pants man—if Sanjay could do anything. Plant had his doubts.

He drifted back into sleep picturing Sanjay in one of those
Rumpole of the Bailey
wigs. It did nothing to calm his anxieties.

––––––––

A
s I looked at the awful, familiar photo, my head throbbed and my face burned.

I whirled around and glared at Marvin.

"How did this horrible thing get on the Internet? I thought you said all copies had been destroyed years ago!"

Peter would not get that smirk off his face.

"Mr. Skinner," Peter's voice was more clipped than usual. "Are you responsible for this? Did you take the photograph?"

"No, no. It's not even Camilla in the picture. It's me." Marvin spoke in a Marva voice.

"This is a photograph of you? The person with his trousers around his ankles?"

"No. The other one. The one who looks like the Manners Doctor. It's me. In a wig. Before I had the implants removed. Plus I was getting the hormones then. I thought I wanted gender reassignment surgery, but I realized in time that I'm happier being a cross-dresser. It's not politically correct, but it gives me so much more flexibility, you see."

"No. I'm not sure I do see." Peter went back to look at the photograph. "The breasts do seem to be a bit larger than Camilla's..."

I did not need a reminder of that. Certainly not now. I wished Peter would put a shirt on. I was having way too many mixed emotions about him at the moment.

"As a working dominatrix," Marvin said. "I like to be able to impersonate many different, powerful women, and they don't all have racks like the one that surgeon gave me."

I felt like hitting both of them.

"This is not about my breasts. Or Marva's. It's about my career. Which that picture has just destroyed. Marvin, how did this happen?"

"I don't have a clue, Camilla. We destroyed all copies of that photo after the, um, issues at the Golden State Writer's Conference were resolved five years ago. I haven't seen that thing since. I suppose I might have had a copy on my old laptop, for security...but I keep that carefully guarded. It has all sorts of private information about clients...oh, god, you don't suppose it's been hacked?"

"There's no such thing as private information in the electronic age," Peter said. He turned back to the computer. "All right. It's time to do some damage control. But it will cost us a bit. Camilla, we're going to have to do that errand at your bank."

The cash. Peter wanted to legitimize the money he'd smuggled into the country. My choice was to have that picture destroy my career or launder money for an international criminal.

"If there's anything I can do to help...I am so sorry this happened," Marvin said.

"Yes there is something you can do," Peter said. "Do you still have this hat and wig? Could you make yourself up to look like this picture?"

"Well, all but the boobies. I use falsies now."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Just make yourself look as much like Camilla as possible, if you would, Mr. Skinner. I know some news people in the U.K. who will eat up this story." He looked at his watch. "But first, Camilla and I need to go to the bank."

I glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten AM. "But it's time to open the store."

"Don't you have helpers?" Peter sounded impatient now.

"Jen doesn't come in until noon. I guess I can call and see if she'll come in early."

While I called Jen, Peter went back to the computer.

Jen did not sound at all glad to hear my voice.

"I can't believe you would call me asking for a favor," Jen said. "I'm not sure I want to come in to work at all. I'm embarrassed to be working in that store. Seriously. Jen is too."

"Please. I can explain..."

Jen had already hung up.

I turned to Marvin. "Because of that photo, I've lost both my employees. You need to watch the store for a while. Peter and I have some...um, banking to do."

––––––––

P
lantagenet woke with a stab of anxiety, aware of somebody in his cell. It still seemed to be daytime, since the light from the window was still gray—a dark gray. Maybe it was a rainy afternoon.

"Sanjay?" he said.

Sanjay seemed to come and go as he pleased around here. Plant fought grogginess, tried to get up, and was about to speak when he saw it wasn't Sanjay. Or Piglet and Pooh.

It was the King Richard reenactor from the Old Hall—still dressed in medieval garb.

The actor was a bit shorter than he, but had a regal stance. Again he portrayed the king's spinal scoliosis with dignity, not twisting his body into deformity like Spacey's Richard.

Plant's heart pounded. This man could clear him before the whole mess went to trial. Or at least he'd be an important witness. He hoped the man owned some other clothes, however. A jury wasn't likely to believe him dressed like that.

"I can't tell you how grateful I am...." Plant started to say.

The young man stopped him, holding his finger to his lips.

"We had nowt to do with it," he said, just as he had in the Old Hall. "We knew nothing of the murders of our cousins until the vile deed was done."

"So you said," Plant managed to fight the heaviness in his limbs and get up from his bed to offer a handshake. "But I'd like to talk about what you saw in the tower at the Old Hall..."

The man looked away and distained Plant's offered hand. Apparently he was still in character and did not want a royal hand to be touched by a common one.

Plant kept smiling. He wanted to express how truly happy he was the man had come forward.

"I'm so glad you've come. You could be saving my life here. Have you told the police what you saw? Did you see who killed Neville—the Duke of Buckingham? You said there was another body...there were two dukes?"

The man said nothing and gazed up at the opaque window.

"We kept my brother's sons in the Tower for their protection. We were dearly fond of the boys. We would never have harmed them. But many of our enemies wished them out of the way. Henry Stafford for one."

Obviously the actor was not going to break character. This seemed a little unhinged under the circumstances, but Plant had known some Method actors who stayed in character for months.

He figured he should play along. He certainly didn't want to alienate the man who was his ticket out of this awful place.

"Henry Stafford?" Plant tried to remember what he'd read in
Daughter of Time
about King Richard's enemies. But he couldn't remember anybody named Stafford. "Do you mean Henry Tudor?"

"Are ye simple, man?" The actor paced the tiny cell as if he were the one in prison. "No. I mean Henry Stafford, the Second Duke of Buckingham. He plotted to kill the boys long before he conspired with that Welshman. Buckingham imagined himself in line for the throne. He was descended from Edward III, of course, but through the maternal line. It was a ridiculous claim, although a good deal more legitimate than Henry Tudor's."

Okay. This was how it was going to go. Plant tried to think of something appropriate to say.

"If Buckingham had the better claim, then why did he support Tudor?"

"He didn't. Buckingham supported himself. Only himself. Always. He curried favor with us in order to wheedle us into deeding him the Bohun lands that had belonged to his grandmother."

"Real estate? It's always about real estate, isn't it?" Plant smiled.

Richard gave him a disapproving look. "Once he had the land, the traitorous toad no longer required our favor. That was when he set about acquiring what he craved all along: our throne. Who was in his way? Our royal self and two beloved nephews. That's why he bribed that scurvy traitor, James Tyrrell."

Tyrrell. Plant remembered that name. Shakespeare portrayed him as Richard's henchman who murdered the boys.

"You're saying Tyrrell did kill the princes?"

"Of course. Henry was too weak to do such a thing. But Tyrrell killed the children at Buckingham's order, not ours."

"Why?" Plant and wished the actor would finish up with his game so they could talk about Neville's murder.

"Buckingham wanted to stir up rebellion against us so he could usurp the throne. It is the only way he could rally the aristocracy —by doing such a heinous thing and putting the blame on us. We had been making the nobles prosperous, so they had no reason to fight. Stafford wanted the boys gone because they had better claim than his. Even after the boys were declared illegitimate, they were a barrier to him. But they were no threat to us."

"But you executed Buckingham, didn't you?—'Off with his head. So much for Buckingham!' right? Once he was dispatched, why didn't you tell everybody he'd killed the children?"

"We never said 'so much for Buckingham'. That's a terrible line." The actor rolled his eyes.

"I know. Shakespeare didn't say it either. It was written by a 19
^th
century actor named Colley Cibber—didn't we have this conversation in the Old Hall? Do you remember?"

"Shut the hell up in there, Yank!" An officer banged on the door of the cell. "Go back to sleep!"

Plant looked at the door, then back into the cell, and saw his mysterious visitor was gone.

––––––––

W
hen Peter and I left my bank, and the money-sanitizing deed was done, I rushed back to the bookstore and sent Marvin home to get into his Manners Doctor costume.

Marvin said he and Buckingham had made fifteen sales. Which was good for a Monday morning. Even Marvin seemed to adore Buckingham, who now sat washing himself on the stool behind the register, as if he were indeed the one making the sales.