And—worst of all—Miss Betsy Baylor agreed. She had accused Doria of grand theft auto.
Plus—now Doria's head began to roar—it seemed Harry had filed for divorce the day before the fire.
Her body felt as if it had been pressed into the plush chair by a huge weight.
"Harry was divorcing me?" She could hardly get the words out.
She didn't know why the fact Harry had been planning to divorce her was the part of the dreadful story that hit her hardest, but now she had to fight tears.
"You didn't know?" Enrique hovered above her, clutching a set of keys. "Oh, sweetie, we're so sorry."
George rolled his eyes. "That's not exactly the worst of Doria's problems. The police think she's a murderer." He patted her shoulder. "But we know you didn't kill him, Doria. You'd never burn down your house right after you had all that decorating done."
They were interrupted by loud knocking on the display window outside. A group of well-dressed people peered in the window. A large, bearded man held up a wine bottle, while his handsome silver-haired companion waved. Beside them, a pretty blonde woman in Chanel smiled, most of her face hidden by huge sunglasses. She looked familiar. As if she might be a celebrity.
Doria turned away, praying none of them had seen her face. This place was probably full of Hollywood people. Half of them ripped off by Harry, no doubt.
"They're waiting for us…" Enrique gave the window people a wave.
George tensed. "Get them out of here. Tell them we'll meet them at Novo."
His anxiety was contagious. Doria grabbed his hand.
"Do you think people really believe I'm a criminal?"
"Yes, people really believe you're a criminal," George said. "You need to find a safe place, then call your lawyer. I'll take you out the back so they don't see you."
Enrique called to George from the front door.
"Silas says we have to get over there and eat fast. We have to be at the mission by seven-thirty or they'll give away our seats."
George ushered Doria quickly to the back and through a little workshop. He opened the door and gave her hand a squeeze.
"I wish we could help more, Doria. Good luck."
She didn't want to let go. "When I come back—for you to appraise the ring…should I come in this door—would that be safer?"
George gave her a look of great pain, as if he were passing a kidney stone. He pulled away.
"Doria, you can't come back. We're breaking the law as it is, not telling the police."
"But where can I take the ring? I don't care if it's some pawn shop. I really need…"
She could feel George's oh-so-polite hand exert pressure on her back. He wanted her gone.
She dropped the ring into his pocket. "Please put it in the vault. It's all I have in the world…I'll come back after I've cleared things up with the police."
Of course she had no idea how she was going to do that now. The police would probably throw her in jail. Not the best place to recover from a tummy tuck.
She stepped down into the parking lot. Everything still looked the same: the sun was still beaming golden evening light on this happy little Oz of a town, and a delicate breeze still swayed the jacaranda trees—but everything had changed. There was not going to be any happiness for her here.
She was a suspect on the lam, dead broke, with nowhere to go.
Chapter 34—Police Presence
I found it difficult to enjoy dinner. First I'd had to explain my black eye, which obviously made Silas miserable, since the bounced paycheck was his fault. He kept apologizing as I tried to get him to see he was only responsible for Brianna's check, not her taste in boyfriends.
I didn't tell them about my awful experience with Ronzo at the wine tasting. Some things are too humiliating to admit.
Once Enrique and George arrived, the men all talked inanities, way too loud, and everybody's smiles looked phony. Enrique and George were full of conflicting explanations of their tardiness, and there was hardly any time to enjoy the expensive appetizers and entrees Silas and Plant ordered.
I had no idea how they'd pay for them. Silas had brought wine from his own cellar, but of course there was a corkage fee. I couldn't afford to chip in much more than the price of my own meal. So embarrassing.
Enrique and George seemed to be embarrassed about something, too. They acted even more edgy than Plant and Silas. Maybe they were going through similar financial difficulties. George kept putting his hand in his pocket, as if he were feeling around for some non-existent cash.
My roast quail salad was delicious, but I only picked at it.
I made several almost-impolite mentions of the time, but the men insisted on lingering too long over dessert. Even though the restaurant was just across San Luis Creek from the Mission, this meant they had to rush to avoid losing their seats.
What was worse, some food or craft fair was closing up in the Mission Plaza, so their way was blocked by vans loading up market umbrellas and tables and boxes of avocado concoctions, hand-made birdhouses, and exotic costume jewelry.
They got through the maze and were half way up the mission steps when I saw him—on the other side of the plaza, out near the street.
Ronzo. I could see his blond head shining in the golden evening light.
He stood chatting with two policemen. They looked chummy.
So I'd been right the first time. He probably was a cop. At least he looked at ease with them—in fact he looked as if he was lecturing them. Maybe he was FBI, as Skinner said—which would explain the suit.
I turned away, hoping he wouldn't see me. I didn't need to hear his excuses. He had a phone. There was no reason to leave me alone for nearly two hours. I'd been an idiot to go to the winery with him after he'd showed he was a liar with that ancient phony gun trick. It would be my own stupid fault if I let him lie to me again.
"Quite a police presence in our little downtown tonight," Plant said, still faking cheerful banter with George and Enrique. "We saw a couple of uniformed cops by your store when we were waiting for you two. I wonder if something's up."
"What? Cops? Watching our store?" George froze like a trapped rabbit.
"Don't worry. I don't think they're expecting jewel thieves in particular. They always put more uniforms downtown in the summer. They want the tourists to feel safe," Silas gave one of his paternal smiles.
Enrique and George still looked like naughty children afraid they were about to be caught at something.
"Maybe they're looking for Doria Windsor," Plant said with a laugh. "I heard she's still in California."
"She's here?" Enrique's voice rose to a squeak.
Plant laughed again. "I don't really think so. I'm sure she's off in Rio or Costa Rica sitting on a nice beach. But talk radio has been crazy all day with people who say they've seen her. Some woman called into an L.A. talk show and swore she saw Doria Windsor in a Tarzana McDonald's. Eating an Egg McMuffin. She didn't know why the police wouldn't take her statement. Said she had all her children as witnesses."
Silas laughed too. "Doria Windsor at a McDonald's. Yes, I'm sure that's where somebody would go to spend illegal billions. I suppose Elvis was with her, chowing down on a Big Mac with peanut butter and bananas?"
"What makes you say Ms. Windsor has billions?" George sounded almost belligerent. "I thought the FBI froze the Sharkov accounts."
"Because that money is missing," Plant said. "Somehow the biggest Sharkov account was drained by the time the Feds got to it. At least that's what NBC tweeted about an hour ago."
I had a flash of insight into what a service celebrities provided for ordinary people. Talking about the problems of famous people kept them from dwelling on their own. Of course I hadn't felt that way when I'd been one of those people myself, but now I saw that my own scandals might have contributed to the general good in a convoluted way. I felt an odd solidarity with the larcenous Ms. Windsor.
As they waited at the entrance with their tickets, I thought I
heard somebody call my name. Probably Ronzo. The voice was loud and masculine. But I refused to turn around. I did not want to deal with any more drama today.
Mercifully, they were ushered into the Mission just at that moment.
Thank goodness. I was going to spend a couple of hours getting lost in the time-travel ambience of the eighteenth-century mission and the marvelous a cappella music of Chanticleer. I could forget about Ronzo's rudeness, celebrity scandals and even put off worrying about my own looming disasters.
Chapter 35—Slice of Heaven
When Doria got back to the car, she took some deep breaths and tried to assess her situation. It couldn't be as dire as it seemed. There had to be a way through this. She knew she had a guardian angel looking over her, and now her job was to stay calm and figure out the best way to let that angel give her a helping hand.
First she looked in Betsy's wallet and counted what was left—only about fifteen dollars. Enough to buy a little food, but not a place to sleep. The shopping trip and the donation to the homeless man had been mistakes, but what was done was done.
Now that she knew how complicated things were getting, she didn't dare use Betsy's credit cards for a motel. At least not until she'd had a talk with her—and that conversation would have to wait until Betsy had some time to cool down. Betsy could be nasty when she got into a temper.
It was tough to face, but she'd pretty much have to sleep in the Mercedes until she got things sorted with the police and could get the money for her diamond. The most sensible place to park was probably in the safety of a retail parking lot.
Somewhere near a bathroom.
She decided to drive out toward the property in Edna Valley—not because she much wanted to see the ruins of her dream house, but because she knew the neighborhood. She'd only stayed in this area about a month before she had to go back to work in New York, so she hadn't learned her way around.
But she did remember a few little shopping centers on the way from downtown to the vineyard house.
She stopped at a mini-mall that housed a supermarket, some small shops, and what looked to be a thriving pizza place called Slice of Heaven—where she headed. It seemed to have enough patrons that she wouldn't stand out, but not so many she'd have to wait in a long line for the ladies' room.
The pizza smelled delicious, but she resisted. No point in wasting her small reserve of cash on a restaurant meal when she could get something healthier at the market.
Besides, a group of rowdy young people celebrating a birthday at a large central table had obviously consumed vast amounts of beer. They were having way too much noisy fun for her to relax and think.
And that's what she needed to do: think.
She headed for the rest room and checked her incision and drains, the way Betsy had showed her. She sat on the toilet trying to block out the noise and tried to figure out how to approach the law enforcement people—either the local police or the FBI—and set them straight without risking arrest. She wished she knew a lawyer to call, but all of Harry's were likely to be crooks.
She'd feel no guilt telling them everything she knew about Harry's business. Not that she knew much. He often chattered on about business, but she'd found it all either boring or ridiculous. Personal submarines. That had been his latest kick. She couldn't think of anything worse than to be stuck under water with only one or two other human beings. But Harry had been able to talk people into investing in anything.
It was silly for people to suggest she'd killed Harry. Being on the operating table in Los Angeles at the time he died was a pretty good alibi. And if the Ponzi scheme accusations were true, he had more than his share of enemies. And there were those mysterious people in Colombia…
At least the rumors of suicide seemed to have been quashed. That was progress of some sort.
Finding out Harry had been planning to divorce her was disappointing, of course, but anybody who knew her would tell the police how ridiculous it was to think Doria Windsor would kill over a divorce.
After all, she'd already been through five. Harry would have been number six.
All of this whirled around in complete chaos in her brain. She knew she wasn't going to be able to make sense of things until she had some food and rest.
And some more Oxycontin. The pain was coming back. The bandage thing was like the most sadistic girdle she'd ever worn. It made her a little nauseous, but she figured she should probably eat before she took the pills, since it wasn't usually good to take meds on an empty stomach.
Someone banged on the bathroom door.
"Hey lady, did you fall in or what? I gotta go like crazy. Come on!"
More banging.
Doria walked out and gave the young woman as polite a smile as she could. The creature had a badly done streak of blue hair and a face red and puffy from too much beer.
"Why do old people spend so much time in the john?" the girl said. "I am never getting old!"
Doria was happy to hope for the young woman's wish to come true.
The supermarket had a deli where she bought a small tub of chicken salad. It was so inexpensive, she decided she could afford a little wine to go with it. No reason not to be civilized simply because things were hitting a bad patch.
She went back to enjoy her meal in the luxurious leather seats of the old Mercedes. How could she feel sorry for herself when she was surrounded by all this luxury—the burlwood dash, the maple and leather steering wheel, the surround sound speakers. She reached to turn on the radio, but decided against it. Listening to stupid lies about herself wouldn't do anything for her state of mind. She played the Nelson Riddle CD again instead.
The chicken salad was a bit heavy on the mayo, but perfectly adequate, and the screw-top Pino Grigio wasn't half bad. Drinking it out of the bottle reminded Doria of her teenaged days when she and Joey would go down to the Blackstone River with a bottle of Boone's Farm strawberry wine.
She panicked for a moment when she reached into the purse and pulled out a bottle of diuretics instead of the Oxy. Then a vial of tablets that looked like Wellbutrin. She once took those to quit smoking. She wondered if Betsy was fighting the nicotine demons again.
Funny. Doria hadn't thought about cigarettes for years. But right now, she craved one almost as desperately as the Oxycontin. She half wished she'd find an old pack in the purse.
But there wasn't so much as a tobacco shred. She did find a gold pillbox full of what might have been saccharine tablets sometime during the Clinton administration. Now they'd turned a dismal shade of gray.
Finally she unearthed the Oxy.
She took one, dumped the saccharine in the ashtray and put the Oxy in the pillbox so she wouldn't get it confused with the other pill vials next time.
She had no idea how women functioned with huge, unorganized purses, but Betsy's was making her loony, so she decided to dump the whole thing on the seat and sort through the mess.
She stuffed the rest of the cash in her pocket and put Betsy's wallet with the driver's license and cards in the glove compartment. No reason to keep them in the purse, since flashing around anything with Betsy's name on it would probably be unwise. She put the rest of Betsy's things into a shopping bag she found under the seat. All she needed for herself were some basic grooming products—Betsy even had a sample tube of toothpaste—and a tiny flashlight.
Which she used for reading a few chapters of Betsy's Oz mystery. A perfectly pleasant evening
Around nine, she felt ready for sleep. The wine was giving her a nice relaxing buzz and the Oxy was doing its magic. All she needed was a visit to the Slice of Heaven bathroom, and tomorrow morning, her life could start to get back on track.
The restaurant was now quite chaotic, with several of the birthday-partiers looking too drunk to drive home. The blue-haired girl was getting sick into an empty pizza box. Doria hoped they had designated drivers.
She lingered in the washroom, giving her teeth a finger-brushing, her body a bit of a sponge bath and
checking to make sure all was well in the tummy tuck department. She'd brought the wine bottle to fill with water, but it was still half full, so she took a few more swigs and decided to buy some bottled water in the morning.
When she'd finished, she was glad to see the noisy patrons had gone, except the sick blue girl who was apparently crying to her mother on her phone. An irritated manager was cleaning up the mess.
"Who's raising these kids?" he said. "Look at this. Food all over the place. One of them barfed on my rug. You know how long it's going to take to get that stink out?"
Doria gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's sad when they don't learn manners when they're young. I suppose they come from underprivileged backgrounds."
"Underprivileged?" The man practically vomited the word. "No way, lady. These college kids get everything handed to them. You should have seen the car one of those jerks was driving. A vintage Mercedes, in primo condition."
Doria let out a yelp. She looked across the parking lot where Betsy's Mercedes had been parked.
The car was gone.
Chapter 36—Dishy Boyfriend
I enjoyed the music so much, I'd almost forgotten about Ronzo as the crowd drifted out of the Mission.
But there he was. Standing at the bottom of the Mission steps. Waiting for me.
He waved.
That must really have been him calling my name before the concert. Had he been waiting all this time?
"Oh, look," Plant said. "It's your dishy boyfriend. I feel so awful about what happened this morning."
I tried to stop him, but Plant scampered down to greet Ronzo with a hand extended.
"I am so sorry." Plant pumped Ronzo's hand. "A gentleman should never burst into a lady's boudoir without knocking. I was a total idiot. But I hope Camilla explained to you that I'm not her significant other." He waved Silas over. "I'm Plantagenet Smith, and this is my fiancé Silas Ryder."
No Place Like Home - A Camilla Randall Mystery (The Camilla Randall Mysteries) Page 9