Ghostwriters In The Sky

by Anne R. Allen

  “Not together, I’ll bet,” said Herb Frye the Sci-Fi guy, with a wink at Vondra.

  Alberto gave a pleading look at the two workshop leaders.

  “Miss Moore is with the Sheriff’s search and rescue team, looking for her missing sister-in-law. Please take the guests back to their rooms.” He gestured at me to go down the hall to the lobby.

  But I could hardly move through the increasingly unruly crowd.

  “It’s those tree people, isn’t it?” said the Miss Manners fan. “I saw them on the eleven o’clock news. They had an old woman tied to a tree. Dancing around like a bunch of devil worshipers, chanting about rapes. Or grapes. Something like that.”

  “I knew we shouldn’t have come. It’s conference number thirteen,” said one memoirist to another. “Didn’t I tell you it would be bad luck?”

  “Where are the police?” said the woman with beige hair.

  Alberto looked as if he might pass out. “You must make them go to their rooms.” He left in the direction of the service wing.

  I turned and faced the crowd, blocking the door.

  “Everyone needs to go back to their rooms. Now.”

  The alpha smugster came at me with defiant eyes.

  “What’s in there, Doctor? What are you hiding? Got some S/M party going on? A little stomping? Some foot fetish action?” He came at me, reaching for my pump.

  I shoved him back. “What part of ‘NOW’ don’t you understand?”

  He lost his balance and fell backwards.

  “Herbert, help me. These people have no sense,” Vondra said as she stepped out of the way of the falling smugster.

  There was no more smugness in the young man’s eyes as he picked himself up from the carpet and fled. He actually looked frightened of me. The rest of the writers followed. I heard whispers and the word “dominatrix” as they scurried away like so many shooed-away chickens. I have to admit to a small feeling of satisfaction.

  But behind me the door pushed open, nearly knocking me over. Mitzi Boggs Bailey barreled through, followed by Miguel, his jacket still unbuttoned.

  “Dr. Manners isn’t all right,” the old woman said, pointing at me. “I’ve told her before that her kind is not welcome here.”

  Mrs. Boggs Bailey was still clad in her Doris Day quilted peignoir, now much the worse for wear. Her wispy gray hair was tangled with oak leaves, and her face smudged with mud and soot.

  “I was on TV,” she told me. “To save the trees and the squirrels. We got tied up and they had cameras. Now I’m more famous than you, Miss phony Dr. Manners!”

  “I’m supposed to take Mrs. Boggs Bailey to her room,” said Miguel. “Reporters are keeping Miss Moore outside. But Mrs. Boggs Bailey doesn’t like the room…” He lowered his voice. “I have not told Miss Moore about…Mr. Roarke. Alberto said he will speak with her.” He gave a weary sigh. “Can you take Mrs. Boggs Bailey to the lobby? I will see if I can get another room.”

  The lobby was deserted, and the phone was still off the hook, but I could see major activity in the parking lot outside. Gabriella, flanked by Silas and Rick and a number of young people in orange Search and Rescue shirts, spoke to a crowd of reporters.

  Rick and Silas. Together. Helping Gaby. They looked chummy. I hoped that meant Rick had stopped suspecting Silas.

  A few moments later, the front doors burst open and Gabriella stomped in, looking as if she’d been herding cattle over the mountain. Rick followed after doing some crowd control with a knot of reporters outside.

  “I don’t like her,” Mrs. Boggs Bailey said, pointing at me. “She’s bad news.”

  “You leave her alone, Mitzi,” said Gabriella. “Where the hell is that Miguel? Isn’t he supposed to be on the desk? And Toby? If he didn’t cut the workshop short tonight like I told him…”

  “Oh, Gabriella!” What could I say?

  “What is it?” Rick ran to me. His eyes showed nothing but concern. If he knew about Toby, he was a remarkable actor. I wanted to cross him off my list of suspects. Somehow the froggy tissues seemed to trump the road rage.

  “There’s been a terrible, um, accident,” I said, relieved to be able to let him comfort me.

  It wasn’t an accident, but I didn’t know what to call it—a gang killing? The word murder wouldn’t come out.

  “Did somebody hurt you?” Rick eyed the Fendi pump.

  “Not me. Toby, he’s…” I pointed toward the Longhorn Room with my shoe.

  Gabriella made a noise as if someone had hit her and started down the hall.

  “Stop her!” I pushed Rick in her direction.

  But he wouldn’t budge. “What’s wrong? Why shouldn’t Gabriella go to the bar?

  I didn’t know how to begin.

  “Don’t let her see what they did in there. It’s too horrible.”

  “They? Who are they, and what did they do?”

  “Alberto the concierge thinks it’s a gang. Vigoras. Viagras, something like that. They left a snake on the wall. In blood.”

  “A snake on the wall?” Rick eyed my shoe. “You were going to kill it with that?”

  “No. The snake is a graffiti—graffito.”

  “It’s Toby,” said Mrs. Boggs Bailey. “He’s not all right. He’s got a cow head on top of him. Dead as a doornail. Serves him right, scribbling on the walls like that.”

  Chapter 19—Disturbing the Peace

  I think it was Rick who finally called the Sheriff. He cleared the crime scene and Detective Fiscalini and two uniformed officers showed up about twenty minutes later. Rick met them in the lobby, looking professional as he muttered with them in staccato cop-talk.

  Gabriella sat behind the desk, the color of chalk, not saying a word, and Alberto hovered while Mrs. Boggs Bailey chatted into the phone about the pleasures of being tied to a tree while chanting environmentalist slogans.

  I sat in one of the lobby’s big leather chairs, cradling my shoe. It was somehow comforting. Much resoled, but designer Italian leather just the same.

  The coroner’s team arrived a few minutes later. Alberto led them all off in the direction of the Longhorn Room, except for one of the uniformed officers who stood guard at the door as Rick helped clear the non-guests from the parking lot.

  I let out an unladylike yawn. “Sorry,” I said.

  “You should be sorry,” said Mrs. Boggs Bailey. “You and your kind.” She put down the phone and walked over to the officer. “You should arrest her.” She pointed at me. “She’s not all right, that phony Dr. Manners. You should arrest her for disturbing the peace.”

  “Mitzi, What the hell are you talking about?” Gabriella had suddenly come to.

  “Her!” said Mrs. Boggs Bailey, pointing at me. “She pretends to be Dr. Manners, but she’s not all right.” She looked me up and down. “At least you changed out of that other dress. Your boobs were hanging out. Disgusting.”

  The officer looked uncomfortable. He gave a glance at Gabriella.

  Gabriella stood. “That is Camilla Randall. She’s the Manners Doctor. She doesn’t disturb the peace. She helps make the world a nicer place. Mitzi, go to bed.”

  “I can’t. I haven’t had my whisky sour. You know I like a whisky sour before bed.” She came out from behind the desk and walked slowly toward my chair. “You’re a degenerate. You were disturbing the peace at the Saloon. People there don’t like your kind.”

  Gabriella strode toward us, holding up a hand to the wary officer.

  “Ms. Randall hasn’t disturbed anybody’s peace. My sister-in-law Mitzi has disturbed people’s peace. And I—God knows—have disturbed people’s peace. I disturbed Toby Roarke’s peace. You want to see somebody whose peace got disturbed; you go right down that hallway. You’ll see disturbed peace, all right.”

  During this speech, Gabriella’s voice steadily increased in decibels. But she choked on her own words and her voice went to a whisper. “He never wanted to be a cowboy. Me—I wanted him to be a cowboy. But he was an a
rtist. A poet. A sweet, kinda limp-wristed poet—and, oh Lord, did I disturb that man’s peace!”

  I stood to put an arm around Gabriella’s shoulders, trying to give comfort as she went on, through her tears.

  “You want to know who killed him, really? It was me. I killed his soul.”

  I held the weeping Gabriella in my arms as the deputies stared.

  The lobby filled with a terrible silence.

  Outside we could hear Rick talking with a couple of reporters. They raised their voices, but Rick’s stayed calm.

  Rage-free.

  That was reassuring.

  Mrs. Boggs Bailey picked up the phone again.

  “Gaby’s crying,” she said. “Gabriella Moore, the TV star. She’s not all right. Her boyfriend’s dead. You wouldn’t believe the blood. All over the walls. I thought it was that Dr. Manners who did it, but Gaby says she killed him herself. I’m not surprised, the way that Toby runs around.”

  Gabriella pulled away, back to her imperious self.

  “Mitzi, get off the phone right now. You’re going to bed.”

  “You don’t have to shout.” She spoke into the phone. “Sorry, I have to go now. But it was nice talking to you, Mr. Kahn.”

  “Kahn?” I nearly jumped over the desk. Had Jonathan been the media jackal who refused to get off the line? Had he been listening the whole time? I should have realized he’d be all over this story, once he got wind I was involved.

  I grabbed the phone and shouted into the phone.

  “Jonathan, if you broadcast one word of that—one solitary word—I am going to kill you, do you hear me?”

  Detective Fiscalini’s voice came from the hallway.

  “Let’s not have any more killing, Ms. Randall. It’s been a long day.” His gopher face looked weary as he bustled into the lobby with one of the investigators.

  Gabriella gave me a pat. “Don’t worry. I doubt there’s anybody on the line. Mitzi has a rich imagination when it comes to her phone conversations. Yesterday, she was on the phone with Joaquin Murrieta for hours. Alberto, do you want to take her to her room?”

  “I want the Ronald Reagan suite. Or Frank and Jesse. You said I could have the James Boys. Miguel wants me to stay in room thirteen. But I won’t. I don’t need any more bad luck. I already lost my play. I think the ghosts took it.”

  Alberto gave Gabriella an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. The James rooms have been given to Detective Fiscalini for his investigation.”

  “But Gaby promised!” said Mrs. Boggs Bailey.

  “That was before you went AWOL, Mitzi.” Gabriella’s tone was not open to argument.

  As Mrs. Boggs Bailey and Alberto disappeared down the corridor, Detective Fiscalini pointed at my Fendi pump.

  “Can I see that?” I held it out for his inspection as he pulled a plastic bag from his jacket pocket. “Is this the shoe you’ve been threatening people with?” He spoke with the nonchalance of someone asking the time of day.

  “What are you talking about? I didn’t threaten anybody! I just told them to go to their rooms.”

  Detective Fiscalini took a pen from his pocket and poked it into the shoe’s toe box, dangling the pump from his pen before dropping it into the bag like so much dog poo. He examined it through the plastic.

  “It’s got quite a distinctive heel. Are we likely to find any wounds on Mr. Roarke’s body that correspond to this heel, Ms. Randall?”

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “You think I committed that horror? With a Fendi pump?”

  He continued in the same infuriatingly conversational tone.

  “You discovered Mr. Roarke’s body, right?” He perched himself on the arm of the chair. “Did you have an assignation with Mr. Roarke in the Longhorn Room tonight?”

  “Assignation?” I looked over at poor Gabriella. “What a ridiculous idea! Mr. Roarke was Gabriella’s… significant other.”

  Detective Fiscalini gave me his blank gopher-eyed look

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Fiscalini,” Gabriella said. “She’s not Toby’s type.”

  Rick came inside as the reporters’ car finally took off from the lot outside.

  Gaby put a hand on Detective Fiscalini’s shoulder as if he were an old friend.

  “Frankie, I could use a drink. I don’t suppose you’re going to let me in the bar?”

  “Not a chance. It’s a crime scene.”

  “What if I take Ms. Moore up to her apartment?” Rick said. “I don’t think anybody should be walking around here unescorted when we could have a serial killer at large in the building. If you need to talk to her again tonight, maybe you can interview her upstairs? She’s had a terrible loss...”

  As Rick escorted Gaby away, Detective Fiscalini resumed his armchair perch.

  “So what were you doing up here at the Hacienda at midnight, Ms Randall?” He looked down at me, leaning in a little too close. “The staff say that you’re staying down in the cabins. What was so urgent that you would violate a crime scene and steal a car to drive up here? That must have been some hot date.”

  I leaned away. He had awful coffee breath.

  “I did not have a date. And I wasn’t stealing. Plant gave me the keys.”

  “Then why did you go into the Zorro cabin looking for them?” Detective Fiscalini was beginning to look more like a rat than a gopher. “Do you know the penalties for interfering with a crime scene, Ms. Randall?”

  “I didn’t go into the Zorro cabin! I’m very sorry about taking the Ferrari, but I didn’t have a choice—I was dealing with a headless ghost!”

  Detective Fiscalini’s inquisitive little eyes looked scornful.

  “Or something,” I added.

  “You had a date with a headless ghost?”

  After taking a careful breath, I repeated my story. Fiscalini looked at me as if I were making no sense at all. The only thing that interested him was the Mustang.

  “Are you sure it was orange?”

  I nodded.

  When he finally dismissed me, he asked me not to leave the area.

  “What about my shoe? And the Hermes scarf? It’s quite valuable, you know.”

  “The evidence will be returned when you’ve been eliminated as a suspect.”

  He gave me such a fierce look that I rushed out of the lobby to escape him.

  Did he possibly imagine I’d done that to Toby Roarke?

  Chapter 20—The Burberry Ghost

  I was halfway down the hallway before I realized I had no place to go. My first room was presumably still “not available.” But I wasn’t going back to the Roy Rogers cabin with whatever horrors were lurking out there. And the floor would be littered with broken bits of cowboy boot lamp.

  I had a thought: the Hole in the Wall. I’d probably be safe in the hidden banquet room. I hoped the key would be in its hiding place. Maybe I could stretch out on the carpet. Miguel said even most of the staff didn’t know that room was there.

  I walked quickly through the maze of corridors, trying to find the wood paneling that hid the door to the secret room. If only I’d been paying more attention to the route and less to Rick and his seductive kisses. I turned down a hallway I thought looked right, but soon realized I was in unfamiliar territory. Every creak and thump in the old place brought me closer to panic.

  I tried taking calming breaths.

  But I heard a coyote cry from the hills outside, then a bang from somewhere ahead. Hard to get calm when you’re lost in a maze with a murderer on the loose—or maybe a whole gang of them.

  No. This would not do. I’d never find the Hole in the Wall without a map.

  I didn’t have much choice than to go back to the lobby. Detective Fiscalini might treat me like a criminal, but at least I’d be safe. I hoped I could find my way back.

  At the end of the hall ahead I glimpsed a woman. She looked familiar. I wanted to call to her, but realized I’d probably cause more panic if I woke the guests.
I walked faster, trying to catch up, but the woman turned a corner and disappeared from view.

  Now I heard footsteps coming from behind me. Somebody who was breathing heavily.

  Somebody closing in behind me.

  I ran toward the woman as fast as I could.

  “Miss?” I hissed, in as loud a whisper as I dared. “Miss? Could you help?” I turned another corner and saw the woman at the other end of the hall. She looked tall and elegant, and wore her hair in a long blond bob like mine. “Please?” I hissed louder.

  But a heavy hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  “Camilla?”

  I turned and saw Rick Zukowski.

  “What’s got into you? I’ve been chasing you all over.”

  I told him about the woman.

  “Did she look like that?” He pointed ahead.

  Now I could see an ornately framed mirror hanging at the end of the hallway.

  “A tall, elegant woman who wears her hair just like yours?” He gave a gentle laugh. “Camilla, you’ve been running after your own reflection. There’s a mirror at the end of most of these hallways.” There was no trace of his usual mocking tone. “You’ve had a shock. It’s understandable. I’d say it’s time to get some sleep.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I was stressed. Or going crazy. But it was awfully strange that the woman in the mirror wore a Burberry coat. I did own a Burberry coat in that exact style, but it was back in my closet in New York.

  Right now, I was wearing a baggy black sweater and jeans.

  Rick walked me down the hall, away from the mirror, with its apparently supernatural powers. He seemed to think I needed wine. He carried a big bottle of Fess Parker Frontier Red, topped with the signature coonskin hat. He put an arm around me, but I pulled away.

  I still didn’t know if I could trust somebody called Captain Road Rage.

  “Come on. It should help you relax and get to sleep. Alberto let me choose a bottle from the dining room in exchange for giving up my suite to Mitzi. I don’t know beans about wine, but Jamal is gonna love the frog-sized headgear.”

  He seemed to be taking me to his room. Okay, I could either spend what was left of the night with ghosts, demon-possessed mirrors, or a presumably armed man with anger management issues. Who also liked little kids and cartoon frogs.