As he closed the door, he looked at me with pleading eyes.
“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?” I found this 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.
Chapter 40—Rampaging Writers
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 such a pain! 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.
“There you are, you two!” said Donna as she made her way over to us. “You are so, like, totally cool!” Flinging her arms around us both, she planted a patchouli-scented kiss on my left cheek, and then one on Rick’s right.
“Thank you. Thank you! Thank you for getting my manuscript to Luci. I knew she’d totally love it when she read it. I’m sorry I got in bed with Rick, but swear to God, I thought he was Toby!” She flashed a smile at Rick, then turned back to me. “I did not know about Toby being, like, dead down in the bar. I was way late, and I thought Toby had been waiting all that time—and he’d be all mad at me.” She squeezed my hand. “I wouldn’t do that to you, honestly. The Captain isn’t even my type.”
Rick raised an eyebrow.
Donna tossed back her hair.
“I like more Anglo types, you know? You could be my uncle or something.” She grabbed his arm. “It’s not like you’re old and flabby like Toby or anything. But—it was so dark. You kept going on about your headache, and then I realized the voice was wrong, so I got the hell out…I tried the other room fourteen, but the key didn’t work. So I put the champagne back in the ice machine. It wasn’t until then I realized I left my manuscript on the nightstand.”
She kept playing with her hair and glancing over at Miguel and Alberto at the desk. I wondered what she was up to.
She went on. “I figured I could come back and get it in the morning, but I slept late and the maid had already packed up the room. I was, like, practically suicidal. That’s the only hard copy. My printer cartridge ran out of ink right before I left home.”
So that’s what the girl had been looking tragic about—her lost manuscript. Not Toby.
She smiled prettily. “Anyway, it finally got to Luci and that’s what’s important!” She kept watching Miguel, who was now fending off five romance writers who had shared a suite but wanted separate checks.
“I told you so,” I whispered to Rick. “It wasn’t me giving you that headache.”
Rick gave an apologetic shrug.
“But, Donna,” I said, trying to put this new piece of information into the puzzle. “What about earlier? Were you looking for Toby in the cabins earlier? Did you come into my cabin—the Roy Rogers cabin? Did I throw a shoe at you?”
Donna kept watching Miguel.
“Why would I throw a shoe at you? Do you know what these shoes cost?”
“No. I threw a shoe at you.”
“Whatever!” She gave me a scornful look. “I gotta go!”
“What do you suppose that was about?” Rick gave me a bemused smile. “Aside from the fact it seems we both nearly got lucky with Donna last night?”
I shrugged. I needed to get to Luci’s room before Donna did. Luci had probably contacted Donna right after she snuck out of Plant’s talk. She probably thought Donna had some kind of blackmail thing going herself with those letters. Who knew how she’d treat a girl she believed was poaching on her territory?
I wondered if I should tell Rick about the letters. I needed to be careful. If he told Detective Fiscalini, people’s lives could be ruined. And I didn’t know for sure the letters were related to the murders. The person I needed to talk to first was Plantagenet. He could help me figure out what to do.
I asked Rick where he was.
“He and Silas Ryder left for San Luis Obispo right after the talk. They were going to compare their Oscar Wilde find with a book Silas has in his store up there.”
I had a sudden feeling of abandonment. I wished they hadn’t gone off on their wild goose chase without telling me. With all this forgery going on, the whole Oscar Wilde thing had to be a hoax, too. I could have saved them some trouble. Of course, I hadn’t been that available—what with getting stuck in broom closets and listening to concierge confessions.
“So, shall we go?” Rick said.
“I don’t think so. San Luis Obispo is over an hour away… ”
“I meant to go looking for Mitzi. Do you really think she’s hanging with your ex? That can’t be safe. We’d better go look for her. Have you had the pleasure of visiting the Maverick Saloon?”
I tried to think of how I might get out of revisiting the haunt of my biker friend, when there was a howl from the top of the stairs.
Donna clutched the banister above and screamed at us.
“She’s gone! They took her! Oh my god, I saw the ghost—it flew right off the balcony!”
Donna slowly descended, looking as if she might faint. She clutched what looked like her manuscript in her arms. Its crumpled pages dripped with red.
“My manuscript—it’s covered in blood!”
Chapter 41—Always Wild
Panicked gasps came from the guests as they ran toward the stairs.
Rick pushed the crowd aside and climbed toward Donna.
“Who’s gone, Donna? What’s happened?”
“Luci! I went in her room. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have but…look. It’s all dripping blood!” She waved her red-stained folder at Rick.
He gave her a quick glance but his attention was on the hallway above. He looked like a coiled spring. I could see him feel for his weapon.
“Have you been hurt?” he said.
She shook her head.
“How about Luci?” Rick’s voice was metallic, efficient.
“How should I know? She’s gone.”
Rick ran up the stairs in the direction of Luci’s room.
Donna continued to wail. “Luci must have been reading my manuscript, because the pages were scattered all over…” A typed sheet escaped her grasp and sailed part way down the stairs. “Somebody get that!” she screamed “It’s the only copy I’ve got with me! My printer ran out of ink…” She reached for it and stumbled, sliding down the stairs to the landing.
I ran up to where she lay, covered in her crumpled, red-stained pages, still clutching the much dog-eared gold folder.
Miguel followed right behind me. He ran up to her and felt her forehead.
Donna came to life, pushing him away. “Do not touch me!” She started collecting the scattered pages and stuffing them into the folder and looked up at Miguel and me with disgust. “Can you guys do something useful and help me with this?”
Miguel looked at the pages but didn’t move. He spoke in a sharp voice.
“Donna, I told you not to disturb Mrs. Silverberg. How did you get into the room?”
“Maybe I kind of found the housekeeping key in the desk while you were busy helping those ladies.” She looked up at him with some stagy little-girl eyelash batting. “But it’s not like I knew everything would be all—totally—blood.”
Somebody screamed for help into a cell phone. People started to gather around the bottom of the stairs. A couple of smugsters tried to push past us and climb the stairs. Miguel pushed them back and stood on the bottom stair, blocking them as best he could.
The Englishman shouted, “So what, now the Sheriff’s people aren’t here? Why is law enforcement never around when you need them?”
Donna whimpered as a corner of a page tore.
Santiago rushed past me and gave Donna one of his odd little bows, presenting her with a fresh gold folder. He crouched beside her, picking up pages, murmuring something in a language I’d never he
ard before.
I leaned over and picked up a few pages. Some of the slimy red stuff got on my fingers. It didn’t look like blood. Or smell like it. But I recognized it immediately. Not my color, but I knew it well.
“Donna, this isn’t blood. It’s nail polish. Revlon Always Wild, I believe. Luci broke a nail earlier. She was probably repairing it.” Maybe Donna’s smelling faculties had been numbed by spraying perfume at people every day. “Couldn’t Luci simply have gone out for a walk or something? Maybe she went to the Saloon. I don’t think we have to assume anything criminal or supernatural is involved.”
Donna looked up at me with fury. “I know what I saw. It was a ghost. Out on the balcony. It was huge—like nine feet tall. With no head.”
More screams from below. Donna was good with the dramatics. If she knew how to put that kind of drama on the page, her book would be a best-seller.
“Donna, can you stand up? Did you break anything?” Miguel said over his shoulder while he kept watch on the crowd.
Santiago helped her to her feet, but Donna shook him off.
“I’m fine. It’s Luci that’s not fine. We have to find her. Who knows what they’ve done to her—if she’s still alive.”
Below us, the cat woman screamed hysterically into her cell phone, as did the Ralph Lauren woman and a number of memoirists. I searched the lobby for someone who looked competent to help with crowd control.
Where were Vondra and Herb Frye?
Santiago methodically collected Donna’s pages. As he handed them to her, I saw his eyes were full of hopeless longing. Miguel barked something at him, and he rushed down to pick up a load of bags, but he could hardly take his eyes off Donna. Poor boy. He was crazy in love.
Donna smoothed the pages and put them carefully into the folder.
“Why do you think something’s happened to Luci?” I asked her. “She might have gone out—for a drink or something. Maybe shopping. She obviously likes that billionaire cowgirl look.”
Donna looked up at me as if I were intellectually deficient.
“She just took off shopping? Without a car? Or her purse? In the middle of doing her nails? I don’t think so. She even left those fancy cowboy boots.”