“Advance?” I stopped mid-bustle to look at Rick in this new light. “You have a contract? Congratulations. You must find all these amateur workshops boring.”
“Believe me, I need workshops. I’ve got a great agent, is all. Lucille Silverberg. She’s going to be here this weekend. In fact, she was due last night, but she got hung up in L.A., thank goodness. I don’t get a penny until I’ve finished the book, and I’m going crazy trying to end it. It’s up in the car.”
I watched him sprint up the hill to the Saturn. That whole exchange was odd. Usually writers with agents were too far up the food chain to bother with conferences—especially a Z-list one like this.
Over at the Zorro cabin, the Ferrari sat in its former spot next to the fountain. Two of the Sheriff-Coroner’s investigators were pulling out the seats, looking for God-knew-what. Plant must have been moved out of the cabin. As soon as I got some sleep I had to find him and ask about the mysterious gun and that smashed phone Detective Fiscalini claimed he found in the Ferrari. Right now I was too sleepy to make sense of any of it.
Rick rushed back in.
“Here it is.” He presented me with another of the ubiquitous gold folders. “Except the last four chapters. They’re still in progress. I’d appreciate any comments you’ve got.”
I set the folder on the coffee table with ceremony. “I’ll bet everybody here is sick with envy. These people would kill to get an agent. How did you do it?”
“Dumb luck. My agent found me. Or Toby did. He sent Luci a short story I wrote about busting a Hollywood sex party—you get a critique from him as part of the conference—and I guess he went nuts over it, because the next thing, Lucille Silverberg was on the phone, offering me a contract to expand the story into a book.”
“Congratulations. I didn’t know agents did that.”
“She and Toby are tight, is all. She’s going to be the main speaker on Sunday. I think most of the people here came to meet her. She’s a big shot in New York publishing, I guess.”
I only semi-stifled my yawns, but Rick didn’t seem to be getting the signal it was time to go. His face looked tense.
“You’re not going to help Plantagenet Smith if you withhold evidence, you know.”
I didn’t like this on/off policeman thing.
“Don’t be silly. I’m not withholding anything. I’ll be happy to tell Detective Fiscalini and his investigators anything they want to know. Nobody asked, but I did witness Ernesto being humiliated in front of everybody, and he took it very hard. Then he went down to Plant’s cabin and—who knows why—but he shot himself. Plant was his idol. I suppose he was afraid he’d never have that kind of success, so he…”
Rick’s words finally sank in.
“What do you mean—help Plantagenet? What’s happened to him?”
“He was taken to the county jail for questioning early this morning. Fiscalini is pretty tight-lipped, but I got some information out of Sorengaard. It wasn't a suicide. Definitely foul play.”
“It wasn't suicide? But, who could have killed him?” This wasn't making any sense.
Rick gave me a strange look. “From what he told me, it’s looking a whole lot like your friend the screenwriter killed the Cervantes kid. Did they have some kind of tiff? Just tell me what you know, and maybe I can help.”
I flopped down on the couch—my head full of the horrible image of Plant in his Zegna and Ralph Lauren, sitting in a smelly, seedy cell: the ghost of Cary Grant trapped in some Spaghetti Western nightmare. So unfair.
“I know Ernesto shot himself. I saw it.” I looked up at Rick—all stony-faced policeman now. Did he really believe Plant could be a murderer?
“You saw it? If you witnessed the death, you should tell the investigation team. They’re still collecting evidence in the cabin over there. I can go with you.”
Why was he so dense?
“I don’t mean I actually watched. But I did see the boy humiliated. And I saw the body. And the gun that killed him. He had it in his hand when I got there.”
“Smith held the weapon when you arrived at the cabin?”
“No.” I was getting annoyed now. “Ernesto—his body—did. A silver-colored gun was in his hand next to...” I didn’t want to revisit the memory. “It was on the pillow. Silas said it was left over from Ernesto’s gang days.”
“A .22 caliber pistol?”
“It was a gun. The kind that makes people dead. They’re sort of one-size fits-all, aren’t they?”
“Not exactly. A .22 at point-blank range can certainly kill, but from what I could get out of Sorengaard, it seems like half this kid’s head was blown off. He said they found another gun that could have made the wound—a King Cobra .357 magnum. They found it in Smith’s Ferrari, along with a scarf that belongs to you. The car you drove up to the Hacienda—after the murder. You want to tell me about that?”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” I couldn’t hide my anger. “When the detective showed that big gun to me—it was the first time I saw it.”
Rick stared at me as if he were accessing an inner lie detector.
I didn’t like his attitude.
“Even if it is murder—which I can’t believe—why suspect Plant? There’s no motive. The boy was hot and had a crush on him. They were about to have great sex. How can the Sheriff’s people be so stupid?”
Rick sat in the chair opposite me.
“Actually, these local guys seem like a pretty bright bunch. They don’t have a big pool of possible suspects. Gaby says no one would have been around the cabins at that time of night, except Mitzi Boggs Bailey. Conference guests usually stay at the Hacienda and these cabins are for workshops and VIPs”
“Plantagenet wasn’t down here either. Gabriella can vouch for that. She’d just talked to him before you and I met her in the bar. He’d have walked down the hill, since he’d given Ernesto his car. That takes at least ten minutes.”
“Yes, Gaby met him in the lobby a little after ten. I was there, too, checking for messages. I didn’t know who Smith was at that point, but I figured he had to be one of Gaby’s VIP celebrities, with all that Italian tailoring on him. She invited him to join us in the bar, but he said he wanted to shower and ‘decompress’ because a couple of geezers had tailgated him all the way from the San Marcos Pass.”
I remembered Gabriella had mentioned the tailgating. Plant hated that.
“Your friend Smith was already upset, and then Ernesto rushed in, furious about Toby. He said some choice things in Spanish that I wouldn’t want to repeat.”
“To you? You knew him?”
“No, but you couldn’t help noticing—a Latino kid with that bleached hair and the gang tattoo. He was shouting that stuff to everybody, mostly to Smith. He probably thought nobody understood.”
“He yelled at Plant? They were fighting?” Plantagenet was the most non-violent man I knew, but everybody has a breaking point. I suppose something awful could have made him snap.
“No. They were arguing about Toby. Smith calmed Ernesto down and the kid took off in that Ferrari. I went up to my room and edited for about a half hour, and when I came back down to join Gaby for a drink, Smith was gone. Nobody knows what he and the boy did after that.”
“I do. Plant walked down to his cabin, trying to decide if he was being ethical sleeping with a fan who obviously hero-worshiped him. Ernesto had time to get undressed and tune in an erotic movie on the television. He left the Ferrari unlocked, so he may have been in a hurry about it. But if you’re planning to be dead in a few minutes, I guess you don’t worry about car thieves.”
“The car was unlocked when you went to drive it up the hill?”
“Yes. That’s why I was especially careful to lock it when I got up to the parking lot. But I guess I left my scarf in there. It must have fallen off.”
I touched my hair where the scarf had been. It felt sticky with road dust. “I’ll die if I don’t get a shower. Now. I’ll talk
to you later, okay?” I was desperate for some time to collect my thoughts.
Just as I managed to get Rick out the door, the phone on the desk rang. It was Gabriella.
“Sorry to bother you hon, but I’m wondering if you’d mind giving your presentation tonight for the paying customers instead of this afternoon. I need somebody to fill Plantagenet’s slot.”
I tried to focus.
“Plant’s slot? He’s still in jail? They really think he had something to do with Ernesto’s death? That’s so stupid. Don’t they know it was suicide?”
“Nope. At least the Sheriff doesn’t think so. The studio’s sending up their lawyers, but it looks like they’re charging your old friend Plantagenet with first degree murder.”
All I could do was grunt my agreement.
First degree murder. Were these people all insane?
Chapter 13—The Desperate Alarm Clock
After a long shower, I managed to sleep a bit. Probably because I tried to read Rick’s snoozerific novel. He might have a big name New York agent, but Blue Rage by M. J. Zukowski was not going to make any best seller lists that I knew of. I wondered what this Luci Silverberg person saw in it that I didn’t.
The bedside clock said five fifteen when I woke up, feeling a little sick as the memory of the horrors of last night came back: the terrible image of Ernesto’s body. How could it have not been a suicide? There had to be another explanation for the gun stuff people kept talking about.
I turned on the television. Flipping through channels, I caught a clip of Plantagenet accepting his Academy Award last February. Then an awful one of him getting out of a black and white Sheriff’s car. I felt a familiar constriction in my neck. It felt like watching the weepy court-house step footage of my own divorce hearing they played over and over last fall.
The reporter’s voice confirmed Gaby’s dire pronouncement.
“Oscar-winning writer Plantagenet Smith is being held for questioning in the death of his protégé, nineteen-year old Ernesto Cervantes, who was found shot to death in Mr. Smith’s bedroom at Gabriella Moore’s resort in Santa Ynez last night.”
The screen showed a still shot of a tough-looking dark-haired Hispanic boy.
“Mr. Smith, an openly homosexual writer, denies that the death was the result of a lovers’ quarrel.”
The picture changed to a sunny sidewalk outside a Spanish-style public building, where Silas Ryder, looking large and rumpled, blinked nervously at the camera.
“Silas Ryder, the Central Coast businessman who employed the deceased at one of his bookstores, stated that Ernesto Cervantes had no relatives except an uncle in the state of Sinaloa in Mexico. Mr. Ryder said Cervantes was a promising writer and a popular student at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.
“He was a good kid. A sweet kid.” Silas looked uncomfortable as he squinted at the camera. “He’d lost both his parents, and got involved with gangs before he was in his teens. But he’d put that all behind him. He was a good worker and had a talent for storytelling, but like so many writers, he could be self-destructive.”
The newsperson cut him off. Too much information for TV, of course.
All anybody would hear was that Ernesto was “sweet.” They’d hear that as “gay” and dismiss the whole story as sordid—just as Plant predicted. The reporter didn’t even let Silas finish what he probably intended to say about Ernesto’s suicidal tendencies. They wanted a drama, and they’d cast Plantagenet as the bad guy: a gay celebrity for the media sharks to feed on.
Of course, if it really was murder, Plant was an obvious suspect. And that was an awfully big gun they found in the Ferrari. Plantagenet had been alone in the cabin with the body when I came in. Plus his suit had that blood on it.
No. I wasn’t going to let my mind go there.
I picked up the remote and was about to click off when I saw the face of D. Sorengaard, giving a harried look at the camera. The newscaster was saying, “…In other news: more protests today in Santa Ynez, as environmental activists chained themselves to the ancient oaks that are slated to be cut down for more vineyards…”
I turned it off. I’d think of some way to help Plant, but first I had to get myself together for my talk. I wasn’t going to be speaking to a small group of non-fiction writers as planned. Plant’s presentation had been advertised to the public, and tickets had been sold. People would be coming from as far away as Los Angeles to see an Oscar winner, and all they’d get was the Manners Doctor.
My stage fright built as I reviewed the notes for my speech. I paced the room, lecturing the faux mission furniture on the rigors of daily column writing and warning the autographed photos of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans about a life that’s always on deadline.
I dressed in my brown Chanel suit and strappy cobra skin sandals—the things I’d planned to wear for my talk when it was scheduled for the evening after the opening reception. Now I wasn’t sure about the sandals. There was a lot of walking to do around that crazy hotel. I had a pair of pumps that would be more comfortable. Fendi pumps. Conservative, but chic.
If Plantagenet were here, he would have helped me choose.
Plantagenet. Always kind. Always helpful. Not a killer. It couldn’t be true.
Something Mrs. Boggs Bailey said flashed in my memory:
“They shot off their guns,” she'd said. Guns, plural. Could there have been a gunfight?
Maybe Ernesto had tried to shoot Plant—to rob him, maybe—and Plant was forced to shoot back. Anybody might do that if he/she happened to have a weapon handy. Which apparently Plantagenet did.
Which wasn't at all like him, but maybe I didn’t know him anymore. It had been a long time. Rick was right that success changes people. Look at Jonathan.
Was my taste in men so abysmal that I’d chosen a killer for my gay best friend?
I had to get through dinner before my talk. I doubted I could eat much, but Gabriella made it clear she expected me to join the faculty in the dining room. I changed into the Fendi pumps and touched up my make-up again.
I recognized the golf cart driver she sent to pick me up. He was the young man who had been furiously writing in his notebook at the front desk last night. He wore a nametag that said “Miguel”. His face, a dark teak-brown above his white long-sleeved shirt, looked nervous.
He helped me into the cart with careful ceremony.
“Can I ask you something, Ms. Randall? I heard you were there—in Mr. Roarke’s workshop—when Ernie read that story. The guy who got shot—he read a story about a rooster. Do you remember?”
“El Despertador Looks at the Stars. Yes. I thought it was very good. A little rough around the edges, but original and moving. Was he a friend of yours?” No wonder Miguel had that tense look. He was grieving.
“Kind of. He helped me sometimes with spelling and stuff. And titles. I never can come up with titles. That’s why I gave him the story to look at. He put the fancy quotation on it and that ‘Looks at the Stars’ stuff. Me, I called it The Desperate Alarm Clock. He said that wasn’t literary enough.”
“You wrote that—the story about the rooster?”
Wow. Ernesto didn’t write the story.
I suppose there was some small relief in knowing I’d been right about the alarm clock, but it kind of wiped out the possibility of suicide. Writers might be a self-destructive lot, but they didn’t kill themselves over other writers’ rejections.
“Yeah. Ernie didn’t tell me he was going to read it in the Cowboy Workshop, but I guess he didn’t have time to write something of his own. He does that sometimes. I heard a bunch of obnoxious TV writers talking about it at lunch. They said you liked it.”
“Yes. I did. You’re quite a writer.”
And Ernesto had been quite a liar.
Chapter 14—The Hole in the Wall
The Hacienda parking lot was packed with even more media vehicles. Now I understood why they’d been asking me all those questions about Plant—news of his
arrest would have been out by the time I arrived this morning.
I didn’t know how I was going to get through the melée into the hotel, especially since the media crowd was augmented by a large, unkempt crowd carrying picket signs.
But an unfazed Miguel drove up onto the lawn and followed a footpath around to the back of the main building, where he parked behind a laundry van. He led me through a utility yard to a door marked “Employees Only.”
“What’s going on out there?” I whispered as we entered a dark corridor.
“A protest. To save the trees. Mr. Roarke cuts down oak trees to plant his grapes—then the owls, foxes, squirrels—they got no place to live. So the college kids and the old hippies—they carry signs. Plus there’s a bunch of TV guys who want to put everybody on the news. Oh, did you want to be on the TV news—for publicity?” He stopped and gave me a polite, questioning look.
“Oh, no. Absolutely not.”
Amazing to think some people might see this as a marketing opportunity.
“Me neither. I’m legal, but I don’t need no questions.”
He led me past several offices, including one with a plaque on the door with a star that said “Miss Moore”—obviously a souvenir from her actress days. We then walked past the busy kitchen, where we were greeted by the bowing waiter who had held the door for me when I first arrived. He waved a soapy hand as he washed a stack of pots and pans. He said something in Spanish to Miguel, but Miguel rushed past.
“Don’t mind Santiago,” he said. “The guy is a dork. From Guatemala. Don’t speak no English. His Spanish sucks, too.”
Behind a heavy wooden door and there was another hallway, where linoleum gave way to guest-territory carpeting. Miguel stopped at what looked like a solid panel in the wall and took out a set of keys.
He inserted a key into a bit of carved scrollwork, and the whole panel started to move—a cleverly disguised door. I followed him inside to a small banquet room furnished with fabulous Art Deco antiques. Miguel laughed, giving me a smile over his shoulder.
“Crazy, huh? They call this room the Hole in the Wall—after the hideout of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—every name in this place is from old western movies.