So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 (29 page)

"I do feel sorry for his poor mum." Oliver's mother swooped off to greet another woman in similarly avian headgear.

Plant was left facing the unfortunate Oliver.

"Your mother tells me you're involved with historical enactments, Oliver?"

"Mater has it wrong, as usual. My name is Owain. I changed it nearly a year ago, but she refuses to accept it. She belligerently remains part of the
hoi polloi
in spite of my attempts to educate her."

"Owain? As in Owain Glendower, the Welsh hero?" Plant realized he might have done better going into the church alone. The man was not only rude, he did not appear to be quite sane. 

"Yes. 'He of Wales, that swore the devil his true liege-man'." Oliver spoke in a strange, stagey voice. "But you're from Hollywood. I don't suppose you've even heard of William Shakespeare in that place where 'foolish gnats make sport'."

"Actually, I majored in English Literature at Princeton..."

Oliver lifted his lip in an almost comical sneer.

"Oh, a tiresome, wrangling pedant."

Plant wasn't sure Oliver knew the meaning of any of the words he was reciting. It was hard to believe a person would be that insulting to a perfect stranger. So he took a leaf from the Manners Doctor's book again and pretended the man was merely befuddled and not the oaf he seemed.

"Owain, your mom said you were you at the reenactment at the Old Hall last Sunday. Did you happen to see Declan there? The bride's brother?"

"That base, fawning spaniel? I doubt it." Owain/Oliver kept his sneer in place, but his eyes went dark.

"Did you happen to notice if he was dressed as Richard III?"

Oliver's face contorted in rage.

"Why would I notice how he was dressed? He's a traitor. He used to be in the Glendower Retinue and now he's gone over to the Plantagenets, the ignoble wretch. Those toads threatened to kill me, you know."

This was interesting news.

"I didn't know. That's terrible. Declan threatened to kill you?"

Plant knew he was treading on dangerous ground. The man was obviously unbalanced. But if Declan had threatened Oliver, maybe he had done the same to Neville. Could Declan himself be Neville's killer?

"Declan is one of the villains who have been sending me death threats via email," Oliver said. "He calls himself Dickon online now. Dickon the Pig. Dickon was Richard III's nickname, and the white boar was his symbol. It is so fitting that the Plantagenets chose a pig for their emblem, isn't it?  Swine, all of them. But only Declan is stupid enough to call himself a pig's willy. On that, I must agree with him."

Plant took a minute with this. "Oh, dick...on...the pig." I get it. I suppose he meant it as a pun?"

"Unlikely," Oliver said. "Dickon has no more brain in his skull than I have in my elbow. He and his friends Alfred the Cake and Libra Rising used to be nothing but tedious online trolls. But when they started sending me photographs of my mum's house and emails saying my mutilated corpse would appear in the
Swynsby Sentinel
, they crossed a line. But they've learned their lesson now, haven't they?"

Plantagenet found Oliver's seething anger a little terrifying.

"You think they learned a lesson? How?"

"Libra Rising is dead now, isn't he? I understand the witless coppers think you killed him. Probably because they're reading the idiot
Daily Mail
. But no Yank would be clever enough to use poison from the Old Hall garden. Poor little Neville, dead in a pool of his own vomit. Just deserts, I'd say. The other two had best heed the warning."

Plant's mind raced. "This Libra Rising—the man who threatened you—that was Neville Turnmarsh?"

How did Oliver know about the pool of vomit? Had that been in the papers?

Oliver nodded. "Worst of the lot. Bloody Londoner. The others simply followed him. Declan's too much of a muddy-mettled twit to do anything on his own. But now he knows what will happen if he threatens me again. Never fall afoul of a gardener who knows his medieval herbs."

Plant felt a chill that froze him to the spot.

Oliver/Owain's mother had said her son had a "stomach bug" after the reenactment on Sunday. The docent woman said even touching wolfsbane could cause intestinal distress. Oliver himself might have picked those stalks of wolfsbane. And taken some with him to feed to Neville.

"Are you Mr. Smith?" He was interrupted by remarkable-looking man tapped Plantagenet's shoulder. He looked to be of African descent—a rarity in this provincial town—and had dreadlocks that hung nearly to his waist, dyed a tomato red.

"I'm Liam," he said. "This is Davey." He gestured at a little man with fierce black eyebrows. "We're supposed to escort you into the church. Vera says the groom's side looks right barren compared with Bryony's crowd."

Plantagenet shook hands with them and turned to introduce them to Oliver/Owain.

But the man had evaporated.

Plant wondered if Oliver realized he had just confessed to murdering Neville Turnmarsh.

––––––––

R
onzo handed Buckingham to me and helped me put him in the carrier.

The sun was setting over the bay. This bald Ronzo still looked remarkably handsome, silhouetted against the pale pink sky. He took off his sunglasses.

"I guess these aren't much of a disguise."

"Actually, they are. That and the hair. The no-hair. I wouldn't have recognized you. But somehow my cat did..."

Ronzo's eyes looked different. Frightened. His old swagger was gone.

Neither of us said anything for a moment. The happy bluegrass fiddle tune wafted from the barn and I could smell Ronzo's familiar aftershave. It all seemed so normal, even right.

I wanted to hug him, but I had no idea who—or what—I'd be hugging.

"To tell you the truth, he's my cat," Ronzo said after a minute. "He had a sister, and they killed her. They said they were going to kill Bucky next—and then my Nana—so I put him in the carrier, left a suicide note and hopped on the plane. That ticket to California was about all I had. I'd got it cheap because my cousin Vinko bought it for me with his frequent flyer miles, so obviously I couldn't cash it in. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money on me that day. I didn't want to withdraw anything from my bank, or they'd know I wasn't dead."

I worked at taking this in.

"You've been here...all this time? You flew to San Luis Obispo the Friday before the wedding? Like we planned?"

"Well, not exactly like we'd planned, obviously...I couldn't see you. I had to play dead."

The fog was rolling in and the evening air took on a clammy chill. I felt as if I had landed in some kind of alternate reality. This was Ronzo, but not-Ronzo. This wasn't like Peter cheerily pulling one more con, but a raggedy bald guy who was a kind of pathetic shadow of Ronzo.

"You pretended to die to keep somebody from killing your cat? Were they getting back at you for stomping on those kittens?"

I put the cat carrier in the back seat of the car. I had no reason to trust this man, but part of me longed to believe in him.

"That wasn't me!" Ronzo's voice cracked with emotion. "Please. You gotta believe me, Camilla! It ain't me in that video. It's a guy named Mack Rattlebag—a musician I gave a bad review. Joe said you wouldn't believe me, even though I told him we had something special. I knew you were in his tent this morning, and I wanted to come over, but he nixed it."

The men Joe was talking to in the willows. No wonder the New Jersey accent reminded me of Ronzo.

I turned and faced him and saw his eyes were damp with tears. I could see he was feeling terrible anguish, whether he was lying or not. But I still didn't know if I should invite him to sit in the car with me to talk—or run to find a policeman. My body stayed tense, in case I had to jump in the car and get away from him.

"I found Joe right away," Ronzo said. "I went to his camp with Marvin when I was here before. I remembered it was near the San Luis Airport, so I walked until I found it. I begged Joe to help me hide. I figured if anybody knew how to do disappear, it was J.J. Tower. I couldn't contact you, because I was afraid I'd put you in danger, too. But of course, they got to you anyway. I should have known...I'm so, so sorry about your store. It's all my fault."

"Your fault? Did you know Elijah was going to try to burn down my store? Is he connected to this Rattlebag person?"

Elijah. He was still out there. I realized I still hadn't warned the Jens.

Ronzo looked confused. "I don't know any guy named Elijah. I'm talking about the people who have been stalking me—who made that disgusting video. They're a steampunk band called Leftenant Froggenhall. I gave them a bad review. Not a terrible one—but not a rave—and, well, I'd hooked up with the singer, Lady Rufina, a couple of times, and she thought I owed them five stars. She thought I could make the band famous. So she went ballistic. I didn't realize how crazy she was. She knew I loved my cats, so she..."

Could this be true? If it was a lie, it was an awfully creative one.

"But I saw you on the GoreFest site! Marva showed me that horrible 'Kittehs in teh Towah' video."

My voice rose to a squeak. I so much wanted to believe.

"It's not my backside in that video, Camilla. Lady Rufina had Mack—he's the bass player—get a fake tattoo to look like mine. He's kinda built like me. It's a pretty common design with musicians. I guess the two of them were into that disgusting crush stuff, so they made that video. It grossed me out as much as everybody else, believe me."

I felt relief flood through me.

"You're not the kitten killer? It's not you?"

"Of course not."

I could see pain and exasperation in Ronzo's eyes.

He turned away and peeked through the car window at Buckingham, who seemed to be relaxing in the carrier now.

"The night they emailed me that video," he said. "I found my cat Lucky dead on the back stoop with a note stuck into her body with a knife...it said my Nana was next. It was the most horrible day of my life."

He turned back and looked me in the eye.

"So I sent you the email from a library computer saying something had come up, so you wouldn't expect me. Then I took a bus to the airport. Left my car, my laptop, my phone, everything. Just brought a few clothes in my messenger bag. Not even a suitcase. I didn't want anybody in my building to know I was traveling, so nobody would suspect I was still alive."

I leaned against the car, looking at Ronzo silhouetted against the fading sunset. Everything he said was making sense, in a way, but it was all so improbable. If his story was true, he was a victim who needed comforting.

But distrust still tensed my stomach.

"So you got on the plane and they didn't ask for your ID or anything? Wouldn't the police find out you were alive when you checked in?"

"I pretended I was my cousin—Vinko Zolek. We call him Vince. Vinko is my middle name and we look kind of alike—so they usually buy it. I would have been screwed if they didn't. So I shaved my head and bought the shades. Vince is totally bald now, so I needed to look like him. I know it's cheating to use somebody else's frequent flier card, but Vince knew I was pretty broke and he flies all the time for business and had all these miles..."

Ronzo was worried I'd look down on him for cheating on frequent flyer miles. That was a good sign, somehow.

"So that's why the police didn't figure out you're not dead? You didn't leave them a body, I assume?"

"No. I was fresh out of dead bodies, except poor Lucky." Ronzo gave one of his familiar smiles. "But I cut myself with a razor and dripped some blood around and smeared on the doorknob. Then I drove my car to the waterfront, got some blood on the steering wheel, then left it there. Nice little vintage Camaro. I hope they let Vince keep it. I left a will giving everything to him."

"And then you flew out here and walked to Joe's campsite?"

"That's about it. After I'd been here a few days, I wanted Joe to tell you I was okay, but he...well he thought that might put you in danger. He said it was safer for me to stay away. He took Bucky to you because the couple who run the camp don't like cats. Pretty ironic since I named my cats after them. My Nana's cat had kittens right after I got back from my trip out here, so I took two..."

I stared at this man who looked sort of like Ronzo, and sort of like a bald homeless man, and wanted to make him stop talking so I could throw my arms around him and kiss him, but I still wasn't quite sure if that would be wise.

For one thing, he seemed to have slept with this Lady Rufina person.

"This all happened because you've been canoodling with some steampunk crazy woman? Ronzo, what were you thinking?"

"Not much, obviously." Ronzo looked at his shoes. "She's kinda hot. Not hot like you, but...Camilla, this was months ago. I didn't even know if you wanted to see me again."

I realized I didn't have a right to feel jealous. After all, I'd recently been doing some canoodling myself.

I kept falling in love with guys who pretended to be dead. What was that about?

"So you faked your death to save Bucky from Lady Rufina and Mack Rattletrap?"

"Not just Bucky. I had no idea what they might do. My Nana just went into Assisted Living—her memory is going—and Rufina knows where she lives. I thought it was better they if all thought I was dead. You're right that Rufina is a crazy woman. Right out of
Fatal Attraction
."

I stood by the car and listened to the Boll Weevils launch into
Man of Constant Sorrow
and wondered if anybody would ever realize that Joe, the homeless bluegrass player was one of the most famous rock gods of all time.

I took a breath, trying to ground myself. I could smell the salt air from the bay and the savory smells from somebody's barbeque. And Ronzo. He smelled so familiar. But I couldn't find any words.

All I wanted to do was kiss him, but I didn't know if it was safe.

"Ronzo, I'm so glad you're all right," I said finally. "I'm just so, so glad."

I didn't have to decide about the kiss, because he took me in his arms and gave me a soul-deep kiss that seemed to erase all the horrors of the past week.