So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 (23 page)

"How will I find you? Where will I go...?" My groggy mind could hardly grasp what was going on.

"Bank parking lot at the end of the street. I'll meet you there. With Bucky." Joe slammed the door and ran into the smoke-filled cottage.

I backed out and tried not to scream as I saw the roof of my store ablaze. The front windows were scrawled with some kind of spray paint. I could make out the words, "WHORE" and "MURDERER". There were more, but I knew I didn't have a second to spare to read them. If a spark fell down on the car, it would be all over.

I heard sirens coming down Main Street as I took off for the bank parking lot.

I pulled into a space in the empty lot and worked at fighting my panic. I took a cough drop from my purse to soothe my smoke-scratchy throat. Thank goodness Joe had the presence of mind to grab my purse and phone.

And now he was risking his life to save my cat. What an amazing man. I understood why Dorothy had loved him, in spite of his bizarre lifestyle. Most homeless people were seriously ill or down on their luck, but Joe seemed to have chosen this life. 

A few minutes later, Joe reappeared, carrying a bundle wrapped in my Laura Ashley bedspread.

I let him in the passenger side of the car and saw Buckingham's ears poke out from the bundle. He let out a powerful meow that let everybody know exactly how he felt about this kind of disruption to his nocturnal routine.

"I know how you feel, mister," Joe said, stroking the cat's head. "I don't like it either. Let's get outta here, Doctor."

"But shouldn't I stay here and make sure things are...all right?"

"They're not all right, honey. Not all right at all. And the last thing you want to do is get in the way of the firefighters when they're doing their job."

I realized that made sense. I felt terrible abandoning my store. But I would do no good staying here in a state of panic. I started to turn the key in the ignition and then stopped when I realized I had no idea where to go.

"Um, where? I don't seem to have a home at the moment, and you don't either. You're homeless, right?"

"Of course I have a home. I hate that word, 'homeless'. Me, I'm a hobo. A traveling man. But right now I got a nice cozy place over in Edna. Down by San Luis Creek. Cleanest camp in SLO-town."

"I don't want to impose..." A homeless camp. I didn't want to spend the night in a homeless camp, did I? "I could go to a motel..."

"Suit yourself. But they probably won't take the cat. And whoever set fire to your building, they're still out there..."

"The cleanest camp in SLO-town it is, then." I tried to sound cheerful.

Joe was right. At the moment, I'd feel safer with a bunch of homeless people than in the best hotel in town...alone.

––––––––

P
lant felt all eyes on him when he re-entered the banquet room. He was acutely aware of how ridiculous he looked in George's suit and huge shoes. Even if they didn't all recognize him as a murder suspect, he stood out as a foreigner with remarkably bad taste in clothing.

He wasn't sure if he should rejoin his table. He could imagine they were all whispering about him now. He was the nutter Yank who'd just run off after the barmy bloke.

Vera came running over, obviously distressed.

"Oh, thank goodness. I was afraid you wouldn't come back, and I had no idea what I'd tell the police." She put a hand on his arm. "I do apologize for Declan. You can't take a word he says seriously. He's never been quite right since his bicycle was hit by a car when he was twelve. And now he seems to have developed a fondness for drugs and wild conspiracy theories. Poor Bryony is mortified."

"Where can I find him—Declan? I think he's the witness I need to prove my innocence."

"Oh, dear—are you sure? I'd hate depend on Declan for anything. He still lives with his Mum and Dad, even though he works for the Tesco in Doncaster and has to commute. Bryony keeps telling him he should move there."

"He works for Tesco? Like Neville Turnmarsh?"

"The poor chap from the Old Hall? Yes. I believe they were friends. Bryony says Declan's been acting odder than usual since they found the man's body."

"And Declan is a friend of Oliver, too? Your garden club friend's son?"

"Oh no. Not anymore. They had a terrible row about a year ago. They never speak. Although I suppose they would all have been at the reenactment. Oliver belongs to a Tudor group. They fight like cats and dogs. You'd think the Wars of the Roses were still going on."

The toasts seemed to be over, and Plant hoped he could go somewhere quiet to sort through this new information. He desperately needed to talk to Sanjay, who might not even know he'd been released. He had no idea how they did such things in the U.K.

Vera must have seen him eyeing the exit.

"I'm not quite sure what we're going to do with you once the party's over," she said. "We're quite happy to have you at the church tomorrow for the wedding. But I've no idea where to put you tonight. We've a full house, I'm afraid. More than full, with all the relatives. But I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."

"I can find a hotel room," Plant said. "No problem. I won't disappear off to California. I give you my word. They have my passport for one thing."

"Oh, that's a relief," Vera said. "Why don't you try the White Stag Inn? It's much nicer than Brenda's place, which I'm sure wouldn't be terribly pleasant for you, under the circumstances."

"Under what circumstances?"

Vera was obviously struggling for polite words.

"Well, isn't that where you...where your reenactor friend had his last meal? Where he was poisoned?"

"Poisoned?"

Plant had begun to feel he had a line on things after hearing about Oliver and his Glendower Retinue, but this baffled him.

"Are you talking about Neville? You think he was poisoned?"

"Of course. That's what you're accused of, isn't it? Poisoning your friend. Brenda isn't half furious. He'd eaten her famous beans on toast for his lunch, with her beetroot salad, and people have been saying such unkind things."

"Beans on toast?" Plant remembered he had been warned off Brenda's beans on toast by that old man in the scooter. "Neville had beans on toast at the Merry Miller?"

"Brenda's famous for them. She makes them with buckets of tomato sauce. I'm afraid I don't touch beans—I have terrible problems with wind—but yes, your poor friend chucked up the lot of it and made a dreadful mess on that stone floor of the tower from what they said in the
Sentinel
."

"Tomato? The beans would have been quite red? Mixed with beets, they might have made the exact color of blood!"

Vera looked offended. "I suppose. Not a very nice image though, is it? Not that any poisoning would be very nice."

"You're sure Neville was poisoned? Not stabbed with a large sword?"

Vera gave him an odd look.

"No. I haven't heard a thing about swords. If we can believe the papers, the man was fed something called wolfsbane. Also known as monkshood. Lovely purple flower, but it's a deadly poison. It grows right there at the Old Hall. One of the docents claims she saw you pick some before you rushed into the Hall. She's the main witness against you, according to the
Lincolnshire Echo
."

As Plant put this information together, he couldn’t help giving Vera a hug.

He was not insane. Just very queasy about blood. He hadn't looked closely. He hadn't wanted to go near that smelly corpse.

No wonder Sanjay thought he was such an awful liar. There had been no blood. Only vomit.

But now he could tell Sanjay for certain he wasn't a murderer. And he could prove it.

As soon as he found Declan.

––––––––

A
s Joe led me—with Buckingham in my arms—through a stand of willows and down a dark path, I wasn't at all sure I'd made the right decision. This was scary and so very...outdoors. I'd never been much of a camper.

I was beginning to think this was a seriously bad idea.

Still, Joe seemed to be well equipped. He had taken a bright LED flashlight from his pocket that he used to show me the way. When the path got a little wider, he turned to put a finger to his lips.

"We're going by the main part of the camp now and we gotta keep quiet because it's late and it's a school night for the kids. This is a kid-friendly camp. No booze, bad language or drugs of any kind. Lucky and Bucky run a tight ship."

At the sound of the word "Bucky", Buckingham raised his head out of his Laura Ashley cocoon and gave a little meow.

I gave his head a few strokes. "It's all right," I said. "Joe has a nice place for us to stay." I certainly hoped he did. I knew Dorothy had spent a few weeks here, but found the whole thing "too primitive."

"Oh, yeah, and there's one more thing," Joe whispered. "Lucky and Bucky don't much like cats. So keep your little guy from wandering around, okay?"

Easier said than done. I was already having trouble holding onto him. He'd been increasingly squirmy since we left the car. He'd been quiet earlier, probably from the trauma of the fire, but now he probably smelled all sorts of interesting things that piqued his feline curiosity.

Joe led me a little farther into a clearing. He shone his flashlight on a tidy campsite with a large green tent, two matching patio chairs and a small table. I sensed Dorothy's work in the coordinated colors. Nearby were a fire pit and another table with a kettle and several neatly stacked pans.

Joe unzipped the flap of the tent and shone the light inside.

"See. Two sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses. I keep things nice in case...in case Dorothy ever changes her mind."

It looked like a perfectly suitable camping experience. If I had been a camper, I was sure it would have seemed quite inviting.

Luckily, I was exhausted enough that I didn't care. I collapses onto one of the mattresses and looked around. The sides of the tent were stacked with books. No wonder Joe seemed such a literate man. I set Buckingham down beside me, but he immediately bounded toward the tent flap.

"Oh, no! Catch him! How can we keep him inside? He'll just sneak under the canvas, won't he?"

"Not if we give him his own little cat condo," Joe said. "Hang onto him a while longer."

Joe disappeared outside and I captured Buckingham and held him firmly on my lap.

The mattress I sat on was comfortable and looked clean. After all, it had been good enough for Dorothy. It was sad to think Joe still hoped Dorothy would come back to this place. Her decorating magazine,
Home
, had found a new life online and she was back on top of her profession.

Joe came back in with a cat carrier. High-end from the look of it. Everything about Joe was so surprising, I hardly registered how odd this was.

"See. Just what the well-bred cat needs."

He scooped up Buckingham and ushered him into the carrier. The cat didn't seem to mind this at all. In fact, after a few turns, he settled down on the blanket inside the carrier, yawned, and curled up for a cozy nap.

"I hope you're sleepy, too, 'cause I'm gonna crash as soon as I hit the hay," Joe said. "It's been quite a day."

"It's been quite a week," I said.

––––––––

U
nfortunately, the White Stag Inn had no vacancy, so Plant took a taxi back to the Merry Miller.

"I've only one room left," Brenda said. "A single. We don't have but the three rooms to let. The others need repairs I can't afford right now. This place was built in 1785. You can't believe what it costs to maintain it. I'm sure you can find somewhere that's more...your sort of place."

She gave his gangster suit a disapproving look. He hoped he would have time to pick up some more suitable clothes for the wedding tomorrow.

"As long as there's a shower, I'll be in heaven," Plant said.

"No shower. Only a bath," Brenda said. "And you have to share it with the other two blokes."

"That will be fine," Plant said. Although his heart sank a little. But he didn't have the energy to look further.

The room was a tiny closet under the eaves with a locked door that led to the adjoining room. It must have been quarters for a manservant in the building's coaching-inn days.

But the bathtub down the hall was a huge Victorian-style affair and the water was hot.

All he wanted was to soak off the stink of jail and sleep in a warm bed with actual sheets and blankets.

Tomorrow he would figure out how to get in touch with Sanjay and put everything right. Maybe the police would take him off the suspect list once they realized he hadn't even known Neville had been poisoned.

Most important, he had proved to himself he was not crazy and not a murderer. He had not stabbed anybody. Nobody had been stabbed.

He also had not been hallucinating when he saw King Richard in the Old Hall. That had been the conspiracy-theorizing Declan with "something wrong with his back." 

As for the Richard he'd seen in his cell...he'd still have to sort that out. Probably dreams. Those waking-dream things people have under stress, when they think they've been abducted by aliens or visited by demons. A common psychological phenomenon, he'd read.

He lay in the warm water and soaked off the grit and horror of the past four days. When the water began to cool, he dried himself, reluctantly re-donned George's underwear—which would have to serve as pajamas—then ran back down the hall.

He scrambled into bed and fell asleep immediately.

But he woke to the creaking of floor boards—and the sense he was not alone in the room.

Was he still being visited by dead English monarchs?

"Richard?" he said. "Your majesty, I don't care if you're a hallucination or a dream or a ghost, but you have to leave me alone tonight. I need some undisturbed sleep."

He saw someone hover above him—a shadow silhouetted by the light from the street lamp outside.

Plant rolled over and ignored him. He was done with all this nonsense.

"We meet again, Mr. Smith." The man had a London accent.