No Place Like Home - A Camilla Randall Mystery (The Camilla Randall Mysteries)

by Allen, Anne R.

I led him back to the kitchen in silence. I needed to work up some sympathy for Ronzo, not remind myself of why I hated him.

  "Dorothy's still in bed," I said. "I'll go wake her up."

  I shuffled back down the hall and knocked lightly on the door, desperately hoping Dorothy might be an early riser and already awake.

  Nothing but silence.

  I knocked again, louder.

  Still nothing.

  I opened the door a crack. The drapes were drawn and I couldn't see much in the dawn light, so I opened it wider. I could see Dorothy's blond head on the pillow. And her tiny body asleep on top of the bedclothes. Could anybody be that thin?

  I flicked on the light. The bed was empty and un-slept-in. What I'd seen was a wig tossed onto the pillow—and the "Manners Doctor" outfit, carefully smoothed on the bed.

  But Dorothy herself was nowhere to be seen.

  Neither was her purse—or Ronzo's notebook.

  I checked the little half-bath, and it was empty too.

  Dorothy was gone.

  This was crazy. Where could the woman be? She'd seemed so weak and frail. Not the sort to go out for an early morning hike. Maybe she'd been embarrassed by her over-indulgence last night and taken a taxi home. But what would she have worn, since she left her clothes here?

  Marvin didn't seem to notice I wasn't my smiling self when I got back to the kitchen. He simply went on with what he'd been saying.

  "But here's the biggest news of all: I talked to the people at the motel when I got home last night. They said the pool guy saw Ronzo talking with two guys who had a couple of kayaks. One of the kayaks was a two-seater. Their third guy got sick on bad oysters and went back to Fresno. So they needed a third person to paddle."

  "And Ronzo volunteered?" That sounded like him.

  "Yup. And they were going to go north. Toward San Simeon."

  That sounded vaguely interesting, but insignificant compared to the fact that my new employee had disappeared into the morning mist, apparently naked.

  Chapter 73— The Fugitive

  Doria woke to the sound of birds. Noisy ones. She'd never been one for camping, so she'd never realized birds sang that loud. Their trills were pretty, if not conducive to sleep.

  Joey's head lay next to hers on the pillow. Joey Torres, her long lost love. It was all too much to make sense of.

  They hadn't made love. Although the words were unspoken, he probably sensed—as she did—that physical intimacy at this point would be way too much, way too fast.

  And her body was still too fragile from her surgery.

  But they'd talked well into the night. Forty years was a lot to catch up on. He'd obviously been through some rough times, but he was still the same funny, witty Joey she'd fallen in love with at that sing-along so many years ago.

  She pulled on the running suit she'd borrowed, slipped into her shoes and went outside to answer an urgent call of nature. She grabbed the shovel with a toilet paper roll on the handle that Joey had instructed her to take "fifty paces" from the campsite to dig a makeshift latrine.

  She was a bit fearful that she'd meet the proverbial bear doing the same thing in the woods, but otherwise, it was an oddly freeing experience. Her years of yoga classes paid off.

  When she returned to the site, Joey was preparing breakfast on the tarp-covered area in front of the tent. He lit a can of Sterno and set an ancient percolator on the burner to boil. He'd set two places on the little table, each with a plastic bowl, a tin cup and a spoon. A battered cracker tin filled with granola sat between them, plus a can of evaporated milk.

  "It's the good stuff," he said. "That granola is from the health food store in Morro Bay. It's got flax seed, cranberries, and almonds. They let me have it when it hits the expiration date. I used to have to fight old Tommy the Tooth for it. But now he's gone—I guess I'll get my pick."

  "Tommy the Tooth? Is that the man who owned the whiskey everybody was drinking at the camp when I arrived? He hasn't reappeared?"

  Joey glanced up from his coffee making.

  "Nope. They might have been right about him being dead. I thought maybe he got picked up by the cops, but he'd have been let out by now. They usually only keep him overnight if he's drunk and bothering people. They don't like to keep us longer than necessary. They know we sometimes get ourselves arrested so we can get medical help and a warm place to sleep."

  Doria's brain started whirring as she remembered some of the patio conversation she overheard last night, plus the things Camilla said yesterday as they were driving from Morro Bay. Those missing men—they seemed to be connected.

  Maybe Joey knew something.

  "There's a man—a blogger—who's been looking for Tom. I think his name is Ronson or something?"

  Joey's face went through a scary transformation. His eyes intensified and his mouth almost vomited the name. "Gonzo Ronzo? I hate that guy. Follows me all over the country. I gotta keep one jump ahead of him. It's like I'm that fugitive in the movie, and he's Tommy Lee Jones—following right behind me out of sheer cussedness…sometimes I want to kill that dude."

  Joey stopped his rant and poured her a cup of coffee.

  "Sorry. I didn't mean to get carried away. I just hate him is all. He won't go away. Thinks he's gonna get famous by proving J. J. Tower didn't die in that fire." He gave a harsh sigh. "Dude is smarter than the average reporter—I gotta give him that. But he thinks he's effing Hunter S. Thompson."

  Doria sat down in the camping chair and dug into the granola. It was surprisingly delicious with the evaporated milk.

  "He knows you're alive—this Bonzo Gonzo person?"

  "Bonzo!" Joey let out a big laugh. "I like that better than Gonzo. Yeah, he thinks he knows I'm alive. But he's never got close enough to prove it." Joey took a sip of his own coffee. "He usually comes around pretending to be one of us, camping out and feeding everybody a sob story about his time in Iraq. But this time, he put on a suit and pretended to be a lawyer. Told a bunch of guys who hang out at the Mission that I had some big money coming. Said they'd get a cut of it if they helped him find me."

  "Did anybody fall for that?"

  "Nope. They didn't have a chance. Cause Tom got there first. Said Bonzo was his territory. Tom was a mean old customer. You didn't mess with him."

  "He had enemies?" This was a new development. "Do you think somebody might have killed him because they wanted to turn you in to this blogger?"

  "Nobody liked Tom much, but na—I don't think anybody would kill over getting a cut of the supposed fortune of an old hobo. Luckily nobody believed Bonzo's story about me being J. J. Tower. When you've been living on the road a while you learn not to trust anybody. You sure don't believe some guy in a suit who comes around with a fairy tale."

  "A fairy tale that happens to be true." Doria reached across the little table and squeezed Joey's hand.

  He squeezed back.

  "Yes and no. Joey Torres is still alive. J. J. Tower is dead. He was a jerk. I don't want to be that guy. And whatever money or royalties he left behind went to the girlfriend who said she had my kid. They deserve it. I don't. And nothing—nothing—is going to bring that guy back to life, even if I have to kill somebody else to keep J. J. dead."

  "You'd kill somebody to protect your anonymity?" Doria felt a pang of fear. She really didn't know what this man was capable of.

  "Yeah. Tommy knew that. I told him, loud and clear. I told him I've got a weapon and I know how to use it. You learn to take care of yourself when you live on the road."

  Doria body went cold. If she remembered right—on that first night with Lucky and Bucky, Joey had been the one who'd brought Tom's bottle of whisky back to the camp.

  And he'd just told her he had the means and the motive to kill the man.

  Chapter 74—Dorothy-Free

  When I got back to the kitchen and told Marvin about Dorothy, he gave me a skeptical look, as if I'd lost Dorothy on purpose, or made her up entirely.

  "Who is this Dorothy person
? She's your employee?"

  I gave him a quick run-down of yesterday's events.

  When I mentioned the Manners Doctor outfits, his gaze intensified. He jumped up, his eyes wide. His hands started to shake and his voice squeaked. It was as if I'd triggered some latent insanity.

  "The outfit—it's in her room?" he said in a breathless voice.

  I watched him dash down the hall, half-wanting him to discover Dorothy in her bed safe and sound and find out I'd been dreaming.

  But the little room was still quite Dorothy-free.

  However, Marvin appeared to be having a psychotic break.

  He picked up the clothes, one by one, and smoothed them, as if they belonged to a beloved child. When he got to the wig, I was afraid he might burst into tears. He collapsed on the bed and held the ball of blond synthetic hair to his heart like a cherished pet.

  "It's her. I can't tell you…can't begin to tell you…how relieved I am. I thought she might have…I don't know. I thought Harry might have found her. Killed her."

  It was way too early in the morning for this kind of theatrics.

  "I take it you know Dorothy?" I tried to speak in a reasonable voice, as if this man weren't having some kind of fit on my friends' guest room bed. "If I'd known you were friends, I would have asked her to join us last night. But she was resting. I think she'd had a little too much wine."

  Marvin held the dress against his own body, as he morphed into his Marva persona. "How could she have worn this? I'm a size fourteen." He held the dress against himself like a teenaged girl shopping for a prom dress. "She can't be more than a four. Oh, look—safety pins. She's poked pins in my lovely raw silk. I hope this can be repaired." He started to fold the dress and jacket carefully, like a sales girl at a good boutique.

  All I wanted was for the man to make a little sense.

  "You and Dorothy have some kind of…relationship, I take it?"

  Marvin let out a tragic sigh. "I thought we did. But she disappeared. Everything's gone totally surreal since I got home yesterday and found her gone. Seriously, I was terrified she might have been taken…by Harry's people." He scanned the room. "How about the purse? There should be a neat little Chanel-style bag—quilted, with a gold chain strap…"

  Now I was starting to get annoyed. "So are you really worried about Dorothy, or is this simply about getting your Manners Doctor outfit back? I take it Dorothy stole it?"

  Marvin put the folded dress and wig together into a neat parcel and gave me a huffy smile.

  "She must have found my Mistress Nightshade wardrobe and decided to wear this one, since the boxy jacket would cover up the fact it didn't fit. Clever girl. I couldn't figure out what she could be wearing, since I'd sent her dreadful cheap knock-off suit to the dry cleaner to get the blood out."

  Blood. It sounded as if he'd said, "blood." Maybe I needed more coffee.

  Or maybe I should call the police.

  "Dorothy's suit had blood on it?"

  He whirled around, looking me in the eye as if I'd done something terribly wrong. "Did Ronzo bring her to you? Has he been conning me? Maybe he sent me to San Simeon so he could snoop around my house."

  This was going too far. I used my coolest voice.

  "As far as I know, Dorothy has never met Ronzo. She showed up at the store yesterday with two other women in Manners Doctor outfits and offered her services. She's excellent with a cash register. And very cool under pressure."

  Marvin gave me a look of arch skepticism. "I can't imagine how she got there. She was still too weak to wander. Her tummy tuck was a mess and still needed time to heal. Seriously. When I found her, she looked as bad as some of our wounded guys in Iraq. Besides, I thought she was enjoying the hospitality. I still have three packages of Jell-O cups." He opened the drapes and surveyed the room in the brightening morning light. "And now she's flown the coop again, it seems."

  Marvin was even more annoying in daylight. I asked my question again.

  "You said Dorothy's suit had blood on it. Whose?"

  "Oh, hers." Marvin gave a half-smile. "Don't worry. No foul play. It was from the tummy tuck. She hadn't emptied the drains. They fill up with blood and you have to empty them regularly. But it's okay now. She's healing nicely. I took out her stitches yesterday. I was a paramedic in the Army you know."

  I didn't. But then, I didn't know much about the bizarreness that was Marvin Skinner.

  "Let's go back to the kitchen," I said. "Bring your outfit and anything else you think is yours. I'm going to pour us some more coffee and you are going to explain to me what the hell is going on."

  "Language, Doctor Manners," Marvin said.

  I wanted to hit him.

  Back in the kitchen, I topped up his coffee and wondered again if I should be calling the police.

  First I asked him the obvious questions—

  "Who is Dorothy, how do you know her, and where on earth do you think she's gone?"

  Marvin sipped his coffee and waved his hand as if my questions were too inconsequential to be answered. "It's a long story. What's more important, are you sure she put Ronzo's notebook in that Chanel purse? Because if Doria's gone, it's gone, and we have no hope of finding Ronzo."

  I heard stirrings in the hallway as Marvin spoke.

  The kitchen door opened and Plant walked in, obviously as much in need of caffeine as I had been.

  "What do you mean, 'Doria's gone'. Are you talking about Doria Windsor? Because apparently she isn't. She may not even be dead. They found no trace of her in that Mercedes. They've hauled it out of the water and there's no sign of her. And the CHP officer says he never saw Doria in the car. The man they found is the driver he saw. So the dead man is probably the person who stole the car from Betsy Baylor. Nothing to do with Doria, who could be anywhere. I just heard it on the radio."

  I shook my head. Everybody seemed to have lost their minds this morning.

  "No. We're talking about Dorothy Castelo. Our Dorothy. She's not in her bed."

  "Dorothy Castelo is Doria Windsor's real name." Marvin spoke in a flat voice as if he were relating a factoid at a cocktail party. "Castelo is Portuguese for Castle. So she picked "Windsor" because of Windsor Castle. I read it in a profile of her in Vogue."

  My brain did somersaults. I did not want to be hearing this. Not any of it. Doria Windsor was a dead celebrity. Not the nice older woman who rescued me yesterday.

  Plant looked as bewildered as I felt.

  "Marvin," he said. "Are you saying that Doria Windsor is not only alive, but she slept in our house last night?"

  Marvin shook his head and gave an annoying smirk.

  "Apparently not. At least the bed is quite untouched. She seems to have evaporated sometime in the night. Our list of missing persons is growing at a rather alarming rate, isn't it?"

  I guzzled coffee. It didn't help.

  Chapter 75—Hobo Joe

  Doria took another sip of the milky coffee and blurted out the thought that wouldn't leave her head.

  "You would have killed Tom to keep him from telling Ronzo your real identity?"

  Joey gave Doria an intense, dark look, as if he were trying to access her brain with some kind of ESP. Then he let out a big laugh.

  "Did I kill Tom? Is that what you're asking? No way. I'm not saying I wouldn't have if had to. I didn't like the guy. He was a bully—and a mean drunk—but not worth killing."

  This didn't do much to soothe Doria's fears.

  "So how do you know Tom didn't give Ronzo your story? How do you know you're not about to be exposed in that blog?"

  "I don't think he believed I'm J.J. Besides, who cares what's on a stupid blog? Nobody reads those things. Ronzo's been demoted. He's never in the real Rolling Stone magazine anymore. Cause nobody believes his crap about J. J. Tower."

  "Sorry to be the one to break it to you, Joey, but everybody reads blogs these days," Doria said. "That's why Home magazine is hemorrhaging money and Tina Brown edits the Daily Beast."

  Joey laugh
ed again, but he wasn't smiling.

  Doria couldn't tell if he was covering up his crime with fake cluelessness or if he genuinely didn't comprehend the impact Ronzo could have on his life.

  "Hundreds of people in this town alone read this man's blog. That's why everybody was mobbing the bookstore yesterday. And poor Camilla didn't have a clue what he was doing until the mob showed up."

  "That's not going to happen to me." Joey said. "You want some more coffee?"

  Doria accepted the refill, although she felt altogether too jumpy already. She could be alone in the woods with a killer.

  "How do you know that? How do you know Ronzo didn't pay Tom a chunk of change and Tom's not sitting on a beach in Baja right now?"

  Joey snorted and gave her a pat on the head. "Doria, calm down. I'm not worried. Even if Tommy knew who I was, he wouldn't have had the smarts to do that. Tommy was not a big-picture kind of guy. He'd rather have twenty bucks today than the promise of a hundred bucks tomorrow. He thought he was playing Bonzo like a Stratocaster. "

  "Do you mean he was simply feeding the man lies?" Doria thought this Ronzo person sounded more like an idiot by the minute.

  "Yup. Tommy bragged about it all over camp. He'd sell Bonzo a different bunch of lies every day for like, twenty dollars a pop. He'd throw in enough truth to keep him coming back, like telling him I played guitar and where I usually go to busk for donations. He'd always give a place where I'd been the day before. He knows my routine. He wasn't dumb enough to send Bonzo down to Lucky and Bucky's camp. You don't crap where you sleep—not within fifty paces anyhow." He grinned and looked over at his toilet-paper- adorned shovel. "Speaking of which, it's about that time."

  Doria flashed on the image of Joey carrying a shovel the night before and tried to remember if it had toilet paper on it. She was pretty sure she'd have noticed. So he'd been using a different shovel to bury that raccoon.

  "Do you think Tom is dead?" She blurted it out before she realized this probably wasn't the moment to ask.

  "Dunno." Joey leaned on the shovel. "Twenty dollars' worth of Old Crow tends to make a man like that develop a case of drunk and disorderly real quick. So the cops might have taken him in. Or somebody could have killed him. Hell. Booze makes him so mean anybody might have killed him. There sure have been times when I've been tempted."