No Place Like Home - A Camilla Randall Mystery (The Camilla Randall Mysteries) (34 page)

Marvin and Ronzo were now trying to educate us on the subject, between Fantasia's screams.

Ronzo had apparently figured out Harry's scheme after talking to Fantasia's father and some assorted fishermen in various states of inebriation. Some people said they'd seen the missing boat up here, and there was speculation that Fantasia might be opening her own brothel at the Raggedy Inn.

So Ronzo had hitched a ride with a couple of kayakers the next day and jumped off at the cove where the boat was beached.

Which turned out to be a bad idea. Harry's Dangerous Dudes had caught him almost immediately.

Ronzo told his story in small bursts while Marvin tried to calm Fantasia, which only made her scream louder.

Plant and Silas were looking into each other's eyes from across the room. Plant mouthed "I love you" to Silas. They seemed to have given up hope.

Ronzo had not, as was obvious from the way he was twisting his ropes, trying to get himself untied in spite of the wounds from what must have been quite a beating. I tried to work at my knots, too, with no luck.

It always looked so easy when people did it in movies, but my efforts only seemed to be rubbing the skin off my wrists. And make my wounded arm hurt like crazy.

But I refused to believe we were going to die here. It was so random, and…stupid. Harry Sharkov. How could this person who was such obvious slime get away with our mass murder?

Hope and despair were at war with the terror that almost had me screaming, too.

But we all got quiet when we heard scurrying outside, even Fantasia.

The rifle man took a step back to look.

He made an awful noise. Not very loud. Then he fell forward. Spurting blood from his throat.

Fantasia screamed anew as a group of men—scruffy ones I hadn't seen before—leaped over the rifle man's body and ran toward us. One had a shotgun. Another had a knife. A big, bloody knife. A third had a hammer—a plain claw hammer—but it looked as if it could be pretty lethal. He had a scarred face and was missing one arm below the elbow. Two others rolled the dead man over and took his rifle and a revolver from a shoulder holster.

The man with the knife came at us. He was well along in years and had a limp, but he wouldn't need speed to do to us what he'd done to the rifle man. A scream almost made its way out of my throat when I realized the old man was cutting the ropes on my wrists.

The man with the shotgun—a leathery, long-haired man who seemed to be a leader of sorts—took a knife from a belt holster and started to saw away at Fantasia's ropes.

She stopped screaming.

"Better keep screaming a little bit longer, girl." He gave a rough laugh. "Or they'll know something's going on. You're one hell of a screamer. Led us right here."

Plant and I stood, trying to rub circulation back into our hands. Once Silas was free, he ran to Plant and gave him a hug.

"I'm sorry, Plant. I should have believed you."

Marvin hugged Fantasia. "But the lesbian sex was special, wasn't it sweetie?" he said.

The man with the wild hair was still cutting Ronzo's ropes. Once he'd freed him, he reached out and shook Ronzo's hand.

"Hi there, Bonzo," he said. "Let me introduce myself. They call me Hobo Joe. Not to be confused with J. J. Tower, who happens to be a dead guy. You shouldn't have let poor old Tommy the Tooth bullshit you like that."

Ronzo gave a big laugh.

"No shit?" He gave me a quick look of apology. "I mean, um, you knew Tommy was giving me info about you?"

"Totally bogus," Joe said. "Like the photo this jerk sent to your blog." He pointed at Marvin with his thumb. "I'm just an old hobo. Not some dead a-hole, okay? And you totally didn't fool me with that suit. You're a rock and roll guy. Maybe Tommy couldn't tell, but I could."

Ronzo gave him an enigmatic look and started to say something, but the knife man interrupted.

"Listen—we'll all be dead a-holes if we don't get the heck outta here," he said. "We got a van up at the top of the hill. Move slow and steady and real quiet. Those crooks all seem to be down at the pier. If they don't see us, we're home free. If they do, looks like we're all gonna be crispy critters."

He sniffed the air, thick with the stink of kerosene.

"You go on ahead, Bucky," Hobo Joe said. "I'll cover you guys. This weapon's got a pretty good range." He brandished his shotgun.

"How the hell did you guys find us?" Ronzo said as we trekked up the path.

"I read Gregg shorthand," said Hobo Joe from behind us. "You sure had everything detailed in that notebook. You should be a real reporter, you know that? Why are you wasting your time with that Internet crap?"

Doria could hardly breathe as the police car slowed and stopped a hundred yards or so from where she was standing.

It parked right behind another, unmarked car that had just pulled over. She wondered if the two women in front seat of the first car might be from the FBI. She was wanted by the FBI as well as the local police, according to that USA Today article.

She made her slow way toward the policeman, who had got out of his vehicle and seemed to be going to join his cohorts in the other car. Best to meet him halfway, and show she was giving up voluntarily.

She called to him, "Officer, I'm not dead. I guess you figured that out."

The policeman looked over his shoulder.

"Ma'am? Do you need assistance?"

"I think my guardian angel wants me to turn myself in."

That was the message of course. It was what she should have done from the beginning. That very first day at Betsy's. All this running and hiding. It was pointless. If she was guilty of a crime, she should pay.

After all, Martha Stewart had gone to jail. And been very gracious about it.

Doria felt a huge weight lifting from her body.

The policeman was talking to the women in the car through a half-rolled down window. The driver gave him something. A small piece of paper.

"Are you from the FBI?" she called to them.

The policeman turned and looked at her with an odd expression—as if he didn't quite believe she was there. Or she was out of focus and semi-visible.

"Ma'am, have you been drinking?" he said.

"No. Lucky would probably kill me," Doria said with a laugh.

"Hey," said the driver, "Is that you, Dorothy? I didn't recognize you without the wig. It's Jen. And Jen's with me. I think we were speeding."

The policeman pulled out a notepad. "You got that right. I'm going to have to write you a ticket. You know this lady?"

"She's Dorothy," Jen said. "We were Manners Doctors together yesterday."

Was it only yesterday?

"I think she's been drinking," the officer said. "Maybe you can take her to the shelter. Or Alcohol Services. I'll tell you what, if you take your friend to the shelter, I'll let you off with a warning, okay? She shouldn't be walking out here. But remember this is 40 mile and hour zone. You were doing at least 60."

The Jen in the passenger seat opened her door and leaned forward to let Dorothy in.

"Where to?" said driver Jen, as the policeman strode back to his car.

Doria had no idea how to answer that. She fingered her angel pendant.

"Maybe back to that parking lot where we met," she said. "I have some friends who run a jewelry store near there."

And if she remembered right, they owed her a few dollars for the setting of that ring. Maybe if she gave it to Lucky for the camp, Doria would be let back in.

Obviously she didn't have to worry about the police any more. She was poor and homeless now—which made her close to invisible.

I sat next to Ronzo on what seemed to be a box of rotting potatoes. Fantasia sat next to us, smelling of some awful pop-celebrity perfume. The back of the van stank of so many unpleasant smells it was hard to isolate them.

Not that I was complaining. And neither were the rest of us.

I'm sure we were all grateful we could breathe at all.

I was also grateful that Fantasia seemed to have screamed herself out. She was leaning against Marvin looking like a small child who was up past her bedtime.

Ronzo was already texting somebody on my phone. Probably updating his stupid blog.

But after the friendly knife-wielding assassin called Bucky drove his rattletrap van the terrifying couple of miles up the dirt road and onto the smooth surface of Highway One, I realized that I hadn't been breathing much for hours.

I kind of had to tell my lungs it was okay to take in oxygen. Stinky oxygen still provided what I needed now.

Mostly it was the stink of humans. Homeless humans. We seemed to have been rescued by homeless people. Who had been smart enough to bypass Harry's guards and take the footpath down from the road.

Remarkable, but of course it made sense. Harry had killed one of their own.

"So how did you get hold of my notebook?" Ronzo shouted at Hobo Joe, who sat up front with Bucky.

"My lady friend found it." Joe said. "She thinks I killed you, dude, so when I saw that notebook, I figured I'd better find you and prove I didn't. I volunteered these guys to help."

Bucky gave a big laugh. "Yeah. My old lady wasn't any too happy about it. She thinks Joe made that stuff up about shorthand because he wanted us to help him run after Dorothy when she dumped him."

Joe gave a big laugh. "Hey, there's no law that says a guy can't read shorthand. I took it in high school. That's where I met Dorothy. Business class in high school."

"We thank you all," Plant said, turning first to Bucky and then to the other three men, who sat huddled with us in the back of the van. "You saved our lives."

"How the hell did you guys find me?" Ronzo said to Plant and Marvin. "Phones are useless in there. I bought a cheap one to replace the iPhone I lost in the fight, but they took it when they locked me in that damned cabin. I sure didn't think anybody would guess where I was."

"Marvin and I put our heads together," Plant said.

There seemed to be some grudging friendship growing between them.

Plant went on. "He asked around and found out you'd gone kayaking and I remembered how Harry was interested in the old motel, so we deduced you might be there."

Marvin gave a rough laugh. "Then we thought we'd paddle into a nice ambush. Not the smartest possible move, in hindsight." He nodded at the homeless men, too. "Thanks, guys. We'd all be dead if it weren't for you."

"I'm kinda disappointed. We wanted to kill Harry Sharkov," said the small bald one. "We figured if that shorthand was right, and Harry killed Tom to stage his own death, we could kill him and get away with it—on account of he was already dead. For the sake of old Tommy."

"You hated Tommy," said another man.

"But I hated that Wall Street scum more."

Silas seemed to wake from a trance.

"Harry. The bastard. He's alive. He's getting away with it. With my goddam money." He turned to Plant. "Our goddam money."

Plant put an arm around him.

Ronzo laughed. "I don't think so. I just texted a friend at the S.L.O.P.D. and suggested they to alert the Coast Guard. I don't think he'll get far. If he's even launched that thing yet. I don't think they'd got all the bugs out of that contraption."

"Your phone got a signal? I usually can't…"Silas's phone began to ring.

As he clicked on, I could hear him try to interrupt the caller.

"Of course you had to give her the money, George. Yes, it's nice the two policemen bought their wedding rings in your store, but there's no reason to bother them right now. My car is… unavailable at the moment, but somebody will be able to give Dorothy a ride, I'm sure. I mean Doria. Okay, you can put her on."

At the mention of Dorothy's name, Joe called out. "You got Dorothy on the phone? Let me talk to her." He held out his hand, then waved it away, "No. Second thought, give it to Bonzo here. Let him tell her I didn't kill you, okay?"

Silas handed his phone to Ronzo.

As Ronzo held it to his ear, his face went from his usual cocky smile to shock, and back to a smile.

"Doria? I'm talking to Doria Windsor? I'm glad you're not dead. I'm not dead, too. Feels good."

He handed the phone to Joe.

"She says she's sorry she thought you killed me, Joe."

Doria was happy Plant and Silas had enough food in the freezer for her to cook a meal for the whole crowd. She asked Bucky to go down and invite the people from the camp as soon as she arrived. Everybody deserved to be in on the celebration. She was so proud of Joey—and Bucky and his pals—for rescuing her friends.

Toto had come running up with Tyler right behind him, followed by the others. The little band welcomed her like family as they streamed on to the patio of Silas and Plant's big house.