So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 (20 page)

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M
y first instinct was to call the police about the knife-in-photo incident. But I was still embarrassed about the last time I called. Maybe they wouldn't think a knife in the door was a "credible threat" either.

Then there was the fact I had a known international criminal living in my house. If they started asking Peter questions, they might ask me about the money laundering. I'm such a terrible liar. I'd probably get us both thrown in jail.

I'd almost forgiven Peter for letting me think he was dead, but I don't think I could have forgiven him if his criminal activities landed me in jail. I got put in jail once and it wasn't at all nice.

And I probably should have told Peter why the knife photo was so scary. But that would have involved talking about Ronzo and I didn't want to do that. I had made it very clear to Peter that I didn't approve of his criminal activities, so it was going to be hard to explain that I'd been previously mixed up with a psychopath.

Besides, if Peter knew I was in danger, he might not go back to England right away. And I knew Plant needed help more than I did. Henry had reported Plant was still under suspicion although they hadn't officially charged him yet. Apparently they could keep him in jail for several days without charges.

Peter was probably the only person who could save him.

So I put the knife in a plastic bag and hid it in my sock drawer. Then I tried to bury my anxieties about the whole thing. I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened and that everything was back to normal.

Even Jen B. seemed to be her old self by Wednesday afternoon.

"I'm sorry I got so bent out of shape about Ronzo," she said as we worked on shelving the new shipment of books. "I told Elijah you'd never have dated him if you had any idea he was a psycho kitten killer. I told him how Ronzo seemed like this totally good guy, in spite of the Sopranos accent. But Elijah is still being crazy about it. I think I might have to break up with him. Now he won't let me wear leather shoes. I don't mind not eating meat, but I do not want to give up my shoes..."

Jen held up her foot, elegantly pedicured and wrapped in a strappy Sergio Rossi sandal.

I nodded, trying not to show the anxiety I felt when anybody mentioned Ronzo.

"I'm afraid if I had to choose between a man and my designer shoes, the man might lose out to the Manolos..." I gave her a smile.

"I told Elijah that wearing leather shoes isn't the same as killing kittens, but he lumps it all together."

I hated the thought I'd caused a rift between Jen and her sweetheart.

"I understand why he's upset about Ronzo. I am too."

Jen leaned in. "Well, I like your new boyfriend much better. That English accent is to die for."

Peter had been in and out of the store for the last two days, mostly to keep me updated on his cyber-triumphs. He always stopped to charm the Jens, too.

He was becoming more endearing by the hour. He had not only got the worst of the Amazon reviews removed, but he'd also got most of them off Book Reviews dot Com and managed to delete my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

He'd even created a new website for me, equipped with safeguards he said made it harder to hack.

"Peter's not exactly my boyfriend..." I started to say. But the truth was he was feeling more and more like one.

I was going to miss him a lot when he went back to England. Which would be soon. He was monitoring last-minute cancellations for flights out of both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

My cell phone rang. Peter.

"I've got a red-eye flight out of Los Angeles at 11:00 tonight," he said. "I've booked a shuttle bus to LAX that leaves from Santa Maria airport at 5:30. Can you drive me?"

"To Santa Maria? That's over an hour away!" I checked my watch. It was past four. 

"Then we'll have to get started, won't we?"

I looked up and saw Peter sauntering into the store, wearing his backpack.

"Don't worry," Jen said. "I know how to close up the store. Go ahead." I turned to Peter. "Too bad you have to go. I like you so much better than that Ronzo."

"Who's Ronzo?" Peter said. "And why does everybody clam up when his name is mentioned?"

"Sorry. Gotta go," Jen said.

"We have a bus to catch." I ushered Peter out the door.

––––––––

P
lant reminded himself that despair was a useless emotion. Allowing it would mean Glen had won—that Glen had the more powerful, fit mind as well as body.

Plant was pretty positive he hadn't killed Neville. He might be capable of hallucinating dead monarchs, and even smiling young lawyers, but he could not kill anybody. Especially by stabbing them.

He had trouble killing spiders, for goodness sake. That awful squish.

This is what he knew: somebody or something had killed Neville. And somebody or something was trying to pin the murder on him.

He had to figure out who the somebody or something was.

Logically. He needed to be logical. Which would be easier if he didn't keep getting visited by ectoplasmic apparitions.

Which he did not believe in.

Another thing he knew for certain.

A lot of the evidence against him seemed to come from the scribbling Neville did in his copy of the
Daughter of Time
: that address and phone number.

That's what had condemned him: scribbles—scribbles he hadn't even known existed. Although he would have if he'd read the book instead of Alfred Duffield's awful play.

But why had Neville written in his book? Was it really just a flirtation thing? A flirtation in the middle of a terrorist mission?

Pooh and Piglet said the Old Vic explosion had been caused by a bomb. And it was looking more and more as if Neville had planted that bomb.

Plant remembered Neville had a satchel. He hadn't taken it when he went to the Pit bar, had he? He'd left it under the seat. Next to Plant's raincoat. Which Sanjay said had bomb residue.

So Neville was a terrorist—and terrorists tended to have enemies. Which meant he could have been killed by anybody. Certainly anybody at the Old Hall that day. There were probably lots of people at the event with strong opinions about the burial of Richard III, if that's what the bombing had been about.

And a lot of them had big swords.

So why did Sanjay say there had been no blood?

That was the weirdest thing of all. How could anybody have imagined all that blood? And the stink. That place was so smelly.

So many things needed to be investigated, but now Plant seemed to have nobody to do any investigating while he sat in this dismal hole.

He had nobody at all. Camilla probably didn't have a clue anything was wrong. And Silas...just the thought made Plant's fists curl with rage.

Did the man know what was happening and simply did not care? Plant had no idea how he could ever forgive Silas for being on a tropical island, carrying on with Glen Jones while his husband was losing his mind in this terrible place.

He had to hope that Camilla would sense something was amiss. When she started to worry, she'd call somebody. She used to know powerful people. Not that she'd had contact with them for years. But maybe the Randall name would still hold some clout here in England. Her mother had entertained Prince Charles and Diana at Randall Hall in Connecticut back in the 1980s.

He'd heard Camilla's ancestral home was now owned by a rapper named RobbR.

And Camilla was a penniless bookstore owner who was soon going to lose the store as well. The one thing that was clear in all this was that Camilla was not going to be paid the royalties owed her.

Silas would probably gloat as he repossessed her store and cottage.

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T
he drive down to the Santa Maria airport was not comfortable.

I kept trying to say as little as possible about Ronzo and Peter kept asking for more. I found it annoying that a current sort-of boyfriend wanted to know so much about my former sort-of boyfriend. I dropped some hints that I thought his prying was a bit rude.

But he didn't pick up on them.

"Why are you being so cagy about this man? Is he still in your life? Why does everybody have kittens when his name comes up?"

"Have kittens? What do you mean by that?"

Did he know? He must know. I so much didn't want to talk about it. I felt my face heat up as I gripped the wheel. I did not want to talk about kittens. I didn't even want to think about kittens.

"'Have kittens' is an expression," Peter said. "Maybe you don't use it in America? I simply meant the man's name makes people go jittery for some reason."

I sighed. I decided to give him a sanitized version of Ronzo's suicide story and hope that would be the end of it.

But Peter was not satisfied.

"You were seeing this bloke, who was supposed to be your plus one at Plantagenet's wedding and the chap decided that rather than fly to a charming wedding in California wine country—on a ticket that was already paid for—he'd rather shuffle off his mortal coil?"

I tried for a casual laugh.

"That's it, in a nutshell, yes. I've been trying to tell myself it didn't have anything to do with me, but of course I felt hurt that he didn't feel he could turn to me."

I swerved into the fast lane to avoid a slow-moving truck carrying a load of broccoli through the Nipomo Mesa. My old Honda was doing seventy miles an hour, but I still feared I might not make it to the airport in time for Peter's shuttle bus.

Peter, on the other hand, continued to be infuriatingly calm. And infuriatingly nosy.

"Camilla dear, I think you avoided some serious agro on that one. The man was obviously a bit potty. He chose death in New Jersey over a visit to a beautiful woman in California?"

"I guess you could put it that way. It was pretty upsetting. I'm still not over it really. I only found out last Saturday."

"You were in love with this bloke?"

Was that jealousy I heard in Peter's voice?

"No! I mean, I thought I was—sort of—but that was before I knew what kind of man he was. I found out he did terrible things. Unforgivable things. He was mixed up with some awful people."

Peter went silent for a minute.

"Did your Mr. Ronzo happen to be very fit?" he asked.

"He had a good build, yes. He was wiry, like you." What a stupid question. Peter was in good shape himself and this kind of jealousy was totally out of character. "Peter, why are you being so rude about this? He's dead. I'm upset about it. Wouldn't you be upset if a friend committed suicide? No matter what he'd done?"

"Yes, I would. Especially if somebody stuck a photo of him on my door with a large knife. Did Mr. Ronzo happen to have a tattoo of a Stratocaster guitar on his very fit bum?"

How did Peter know? I clutched the wheel tighter.

"Who told you that was a picture of Ronzo?"

"You did. You froze up when that photo arrived." Peter gave a smug smile. "You usually babble when you're rattled by something, but you seemed to suffer through that photo incident in complete silence."

"I babble?" I knew I talked a lot when I was nervous, but it was a bit rude for him to say so.

"In a charming way, of course. Why won't you tell me about him? You can't think that I'd judge you for keeping company with someone who sometimes lives outside the law?"

"It's not that. I don't even know if what he did is precisely illegal. It's just...horrible. And his friends are horrible. I thought I was in love with him, and for me, that's even more horrible."

Peter was losing his calm. I could feel him stiffen beside me.

"Speaking as someone who does occasionally bend the law," he said. "I think it's best not to take unnecessary risks. Don't you think we'd be wiser not to risk arrest?"

"Aren't you risking arrest flying to the U.K. on a forged passport? And paying for it with laundered money?"

I didn't have a clue where the conversation was going now. I didn't want to think about all the laws I was probably breaking simply by harboring a man like Peter. Or what I'd do if the police asked me about him.

"Yes. Exactly," he said. "So let's not get ourselves pinched for speeding. I believe you're going a wee bit over ninety miles an hour."

I reduced my pressure on the gas pedal.

"Sorry. I don't want you to miss your plane." I had no idea I'd been going that fast.

"Do you think you can talk about this Ronzo person without such a dramatic need for speed? Why don't you start from the beginning? When you thought he was a decent chap."

"I thought he was a 'decent chap' until three days ago. When Marva showed me the video..."

I bit my lip. I did not want to get emotional. Not in front of Peter. I took a deep breath and launched into the story of how Ronzo and I met. How he seemed like a tough New Jersey mafia type, but he turned out to be a music blogger for
Rolling Stone
who also worked as a detective for a law firm.

I explained that his hobby was tracking down former stars and so he could do "where are they now" stories on his blog, and he'd come to Morro Bay trying to track down J.J. Tower, the legendary guitar player.

"But J.J. Tower has been dead for over a decade. He died in a famous Texas roadhouse fire." Peter said. "It sounds as if Mr. Ronzo was a bit daft all along."

"But he isn't! J.J. Tower didn't die in that fire! Ronzo knew what really happened..."

"You're speeding again, Camilla, my love. If I miss the bus, I'll find another way to get to Los Angeles."

I let up on the gas again. Thank goodness he'd changed the subject. I'd almost revealed a secret that wasn't mine to tell.

"Don't be so worried about catching my flight. There will always be another. And your friend Plantagenet will soon be out of the nick, whether I get to Swynsby tomorrow or not." Peter gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "Henry's put Vera Winchester on the job." 

"Do you think Vera can get help?" I adored Vera, but I wasn't certain that Sherwood's intrepid office manager could do battle with the entire British justice system.