So Much For Buckingham: The Camilla Randall Mysteries #5 Read online

  He'd never even sent an explanation for missing Sunday's wedding. Just a text saying: "Sorry. Something came up. More later."

  But after five days, "more" had still not appeared. I checked Ronzo's blog, but for some reason it wouldn't load. I couldn't find anything but an ad for the Webhost.

  The man had even flaked on his own blog.

  Okay, it was probably time to let go of my hopes for that relationship.

  Mr. Ronson V. Zolek was simply one more bad boyfriend who'd decided to evaporate.

  I clicked on the Amazon page for Good Manners for Bad Times again. I should delete that comment I'd made to DickonthePig. It wasn't wise to dignify that sort of lunacy with a response.

  When my page came up, I could hardly believe what I saw.

  There were now nine one-star reviews, each nastier than the one before. Some made more mysterious references to my taste for "Tudor." Somebody said, "Worst novel ever. The plot was dum and the people were dummer." Another said it needed an editor and had a lot of typos. Of course none of the reviewers gave their real names. They called themselves enigmatic things like "Alfred the Cake", "Smart Bitch," and "Libra Rising."

  I knew the book didn't need more editing. My editor, Pradeep Balasubramariam, was meticulous, and Sherwood used two excellent proofreaders from Lincoln University. I doubted any of these people had read a word of the book. They didn't seem to have even read the blurb. How could anybody think an etiquette handbook was a novel?

  I clicked on the U.K. Amazon site, where I usually sold pretty well, hoping it hadn't been affected. But I found more of the same. Much more. There had to be twenty-five of them. A lot were worse than the U.S. ones. The "reviewers" called me names and threatened to keep me from ever selling another book.

  Several seemed to have confused me with Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. One even accused me of causing the death of Princess Diana.

  And of course my sales had stopped dead.

  I calmed myself with deep breaths as I realized I couldn't go off adventuring with Plant now. I needed to stay here and figure out how to stop this nonsense. It could end my career.

  Where were those Sherwood people? I needed help from Davey and Liam. They understood this tech stuff. Maybe they could talk to Amazon and find out how to fix the whole mess. These lunatics must be confusing me with somebody else.

  My phone rang. Plant. I hated to let him down, but this had to be dealt with.

  "I don't think I can go, Plant. The most terrible thing has happened..."

  "I know." Plant's voice sounded choked. "I just saw the story on CNN."

  "CNN? It's on television?"

  I couldn't bear it. I'd suffered through two awful media scandals in past years and now apparently I was going to be plunged into another. And this time I didn't even know what I was accused of doing.

  "I'm so sorry, darling. I realize you won't want to come to London now. There will probably be a funeral.... Do you need me to stay with you? I should cancel the trip."

  "A funeral?" My career wasn't quite dead yet.

  "For Ronzo. Ronson V. Zolek. Isn't 'Zo What' the name of his blog?

  Hardly breathing, I Googled CNN—and there was the headline:

  "'ZO WHAT' BLOGGER A SUICIDE."

  I clicked on it and read, "We have a breaking report that Ronson V. Zolek, popular music blogger and Rolling Stone contributor appears to have taken his own life. A suicide note was found in his home in Newark, New Jersey..."

  Chapter 4—Plantagenet

  Plantagenet drove like a demon toward the San Francisco Airport. Camilla had insisted he go ahead with his plans and take the trip to London without her.

  But now he felt guilty.

  She'd been so devastated by the news about Ronzo last night that she hadn't made much sense. She kept babbling some nonsense about Amazon reviews and somebody named DickonthePig.

  She also refused to accept the Ronzo story and wanted to believe the CNN report was some sort of hoax. Shock and denial: the first step of the grief process.

  Maybe he should have insisted she come with him. There would be nothing for her to do but feel miserable. All by herself.

  When he stopped for gas outside of King City, he pulled out his phone, hoping to convince her to come, but realized he didn't have three hours to drive back and forth to Morro Bay.

  Instead, he filled up and sped on to the airport, wondering if he was being a terrible friend.

  He got to the British Airways terminal way too early, with a couple of hours to kill.

  The first thing he did after checking in was phone Camilla, just to let her know he was thinking of her. But the call went to voice mail. She was probably busy at the store. Her two student helpers were not always reliable, and she often had to tend to everything herself.

  He fought the urge to call Silas. He had no idea what he could say that he hadn't said in ten other voicemails: "I'm sorry. Can't we talk? It's absurd that I'm going on our honeymoon by myself."

  None had been answered, even with a text.

  He found a seat by his departure gate and tried to get involved in the gift copy of Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, but his mind kept wandering back to the wedding and how he'd glossed over the growing rift between them as wedding jitters.

  When the guest had presented them with the book, Silas scornfully announced he'd read it years ago. But, he said, if Plant's education had been so neglected, he must read the book immediately.

  "You're named after him, so you should know the real story of Richard III. He was no 'poisonous bunch-backed toad'. He was a good king. Shakespeare took Thomas More's libelous propaganda as gospel. The Bard was a lousy historian."

  One of those nasty little zingers Silas let out so often these days.

  Plant had stifled the urge to point out he was not named for the last Plantagenet king, but the first: Henry I, the role he'd played in a production of Becket at Princeton.

  It would not have been the right time to admit he'd changed his name that semester. Or that his birth name was the tragically ordinary "John Smith"—devoid of even a middle initial—a secret he kept from everybody.

  Everybody but Camilla.

  Poor Camilla. What tragedy to lose her boyfriend in such an unpleasant way.

  He did hope she'd be all right. And that she'd stop looking at her book reviews Writers, like actors, should never read their own reviews.

  Every fifteen minutes or so, Plant checked his phone for messages, as the lounge filled up around him. A large, unkempt family with hillbilly accents parked themselves across from him, all chattering at once. One small girl stared at him as if he were a waxwork figure in a museum.

  "Is he a bad man?" The child asked loudly.

  Her mother gave her a slap.

  Plant tried to pretend he hadn't heard. He stared intensely at his phone.

  Which still held no texts from Camilla.

  Or Silas.

  Part of Plant's brain was hoping Silas would call and say it was all a misunderstanding and he was on his way to the airport and they'd continue with their honeymoon as planned.

  But he knew in his soul it wasn't going to happen. His new husband was in Maui. At the Haleakala Spiritual Awakenings Resort.

  With Glen, that little toad.

  Plant had already checked out the resort's website. It was all palm trees and idyllic beach scenes. A "home for the spirit" where "intuitive channel Glen Jones and his healing practitioners provide color and sound therapy, Feng Shui consultations, angel healings, empowerment counseling and crystal therapy to manifest health and prosperity by creating the right vibrations to allow guests to find their inner truth."

  A total load of bull bleep. "Home for the spirit" was probably just an excuse for meager food portions and no Wi-Fi.

  With a bit of malice in his heart, Plant searched his iPhone for Yelp reviews of the place. He needed to see somebody mocking all this nonsense.

  No such luck. There were twelve five-star reviews, each more g
lowing than the next. Apparently Glen had the only "LGBTQ Empowerment" counseling in Hawaii. Everybody felt cleansed and renewed. They got in touch with their healing angels and were dancing off to wellness.

  Of course the reviews were most likely bought and paid for. Everybody knew online reviews were bogus. Most likely written by people who had never even been to a Hawaiian resort.

  Like him.

  Truth be told, he secretly would have liked to honeymoon in a tropical paradise. But it had been Silas who first suggested London. Silas knew lots of Londoners he'd met at book fairs. Plant thought he'd seem selfish and unintellectual to suggest a resort instead.

  And now Plant was stuck playing the intellectual snob role.

  He had a devious thought. Nothing was stopping him from writing a one-star review of Glen's resort himself. Or maybe two-star to make it look a little more authentic. He could say he got a norovirus from the spa food or something...

  Somebody was being paged and told to go to the "white courtesy telephone". Did they still have those things in the age of mobile phones?

  Little Honey Boo-Boo was still staring at him with big, innocent brown eyes.

  Why did the child think he was a bad man? Was it simple homophobia?

  Plant put the iPhone back in his pocket. If he left a nasty review, he would definitely be a bad man.

  Besides, composing a review on the tiny virtual keypad would be a hassle. He'd decided not to bring his laptop. No way was he going to feel like writing, and at least he wouldn't have the laptop reproaching him all the time.

  He got up to escape the little girl's accusing eyes. He needed to get the circulation going anyway, before he became a sardine in the tin can of a plane for eleven hours.

  He should probably get some food, too. Maybe a cheeseburger. With bacon. Revel in the fact he wasn't subsisting on kale smoothies and twig salads with Glen and Silas.

  The young man at the burger counter gave him a sly smile. Was he flirting? Plant couldn’t quite tell. It had been so long.

  He found a seat in a less inhabited corner and went back to reading about Richard III as he munched his burger. He didn't know if he believed Ms. Tey's revisionist history. She made Richard out to be too good. He must have had a little villain in him to be a ruler in those brutal days.

  Everybody had a little bad guy in them, didn't they?

  But Plant was glad he hadn't left a nasty review of Glen's operation. If he was going to do something wicked, it should be a lot more fun. Preferably with some young, hot London bloke.

  Or two. Let Silas deal with that.

  Chapter 5—Camilla

  I wanted to feel glad that Plant had gone ahead with his trip. It would have been silly for him to miss seeing all those plays in order to stay home and be miserable with me.

  Especially since Silas was cavorting in Maui with my former lawyer.

  But as I pried myself out of bed on Saturday morning I already missed Plant terribly.

  I found it hard to get myself dressed and ready for work. I didn't even bother with a shower. My body felt like a machine with dying batteries—something separate from myself. I pulled on some elastic-waist slacks and an old cashmere sweater and shoved my feet into some comfy flats.

  Nobody would dream I'd been a fashion icon in my debutante days.

  My half-packed suitcase lay on the floor of my bedroom. I knew I should unpack and tidy up, but the very thought exhausted me.

  I'd been a different person when I packed that suitcase. A little whirlwind of hope and energy.

  Now I felt like a lump of...nothing. The face in the mirror looked like somebody else's as I put on my make-up.

  I'd barely slept all night, and every time I'd drifted off, reminders of Ronzo were there in my dreams: his goofy smile as he stumbled over a wine list...the silly cheap suit he wore to pretend to be a lawyer...his cute behind with its tattoo of a flying Fender guitar.

  And in every one, he was alive. Vividly, vibrantly, alive.

  I refused to believe he was dead. At least not by his own hand. How could he have done such a thing?

  As I drifted into the kitchen, I thought about our last conversation—just ten days ago. We'd talked about what wineries we'd visit and whether I'd be brave enough to go kayaking. I'd planned to pick him up at the San Luis airport on Friday evening.

  Last Friday. A week ago.

  His talk had been all anticipation and flirtatious banter. No hint of suicidal depression. Not even a little case of the blues. In fact, the conversation had got a little phone-sexy there at the end.

  In our months of emails and phone conversations, Ronzo had almost convinced me that he was somebody I could find happiness with. He'd even talked about moving out to California permanently to revive his abandoned music career.

  How could the man have decided to check out like that when he'd let me get so close to loving him?

  That was just rude. He could have sent me a suicide email. At least a text.

  And the thing was: Ronzo was never rude.

  His manners were old-fashioned and courtly. Even if he were dead—which I still didn't totally believe—I couldn't accept the idea that he'd killed himself. Why was everybody so eager to say he did?

  And why was the coffee maker taking so long? I needed caffeine. Now. Lots of it.

  Food held no interest for me, although I knew I should eat something. I'd bought some good bagels in anticipation of Ronzo's visit. I toasted one and spread it with cream cheese, but when I bit into it, the thing seemed to have turned to slime-coated Styrofoam.

  I booted up my laptop. Maybe CNN would have recanted the stupid story.

  At least about the suicide. If Ronzo was dead, he must have been murdered. The killer could have forged that suicide note.

  Ronzo did have enemies. He reviewed a lot of music on his blog. He gave new musicians exposure for their YouTube videos and CDs. Fighting for his attention was something of an online game. People got totally bent out of shape when he didn't like their grainy amateur phone videos or whatever.

  He did say some band got mad at him a few months ago. A steampunk band called Leftenant Froggenhall. I remembered the silly name. They did heavy metal versions of Victorian songs like The Glow Worm and Bird in a Gilded Cage. Ronzo said he sort of liked them, but his review wasn't glowing enough and they started sending him poison pen letters.

  Maybe they'd sneaked into his apartment and stabbed him with an antique fountain pen or strangled him with aviator goggles or something.

  The CNN story was still there on the website, and there were no updates. It didn't say anything more about how he supposedly died. Just that there was a suicide note and blood was found at the scene.

  Ronzo didn't seem to be important enough to make the mainstream network news, and there was nothing about him at the New York Times. When I Googled him, all I got was endless links to his dead blog. I've never been much of a techie, so I wasn't sure where else to look.

  I finally stumbled on the website of the New Jersey Star-Ledger, which reported that music blogger Ronson V. Zolek, who had been missing for a week, had presumably taken his own life. They repeated the story that the police had found a suicide note and blood in his Newark apartment. They also reported his vintage Camaro had been found abandoned near the waterfront and blood had been found inside it as well. They were searching the Passaic River for his body. It was presumed he had first stabbed himself and then thrown himself in the river.

  Which meant he had botched the first attempt, but been so desperate to die that he had drowned himself.

  How likely was that? This was looking more and more like murder to me.

  If he'd been missing for a week it meant he would have done the deed last Friday. But that was the day he was supposed to fly out here. How could anything have happened between the phone call on Wednesday and Friday morning that was so catastrophically awful that he'd kill himself?

  It had to be murder. Newark was a dangerous town. It could have been a burgla
ry, or mistaken identity.

  Or maybe it was all a mistake—maybe it wasn't even Ronzo.

  Zolek was a fairly common Croatian name, he'd told me. He had lots of relatives in the area. And many of them, like his father, had worked for the Ronson Lighter Company he was named for.

  Maybe it was some cousin. That was it. It had to be.

  Of course, then where was he?

  I did another Google search, but couldn't come up with anything more.

  I poured another cup of coffee and hoped I wouldn't look too bleary-eyed to my customers this morning. It would be hard to explain that my sort-of boyfriend seemed to have sort-of committed suicide.

  I got through the day somehow. Thank goodness for Jen—it was Jen Barrett, whom I just called "Jen B." Luckily she seemed to have solved the boyfriend problems that had her moping around all last week.

  Jen took care of customers while I worked on the new shipment in the back room most of the day, trying to hide the periodic eruptions of tears.

  Jen didn't seem to have heard the news. Just as well. Both Jens tended to be emotional, but Jen B. was more so. They both liked Ronzo.

  In fact, he'd given a nice little mention of their You Tube performance as the singing duo "JenSation"—although I suspected he might have intended it to be ironic.

  Anyway, if the story turned out to be true, the Jens would hear soon enough. If it was just a mistake, I saw no reason they should go through the pain and confusion I was feeling.

  At about four in the afternoon, my cellphone rang.

  Probably Plant. I almost hoped he was going to tell me he'd decided not to board the plane at the last minute and was coming home to comfort me.

  But the voice wasn't Plant's.

  "Sweetheart, I'm sure you're as devastated as I am. But don't believe any of the nonsense. Somebody's lying. Ronzo was no pervert. And I know my pervs."

  It was Marvin Skinner, a.k.a. Marva, Mistress Nightshade, owner of a kinky traveling brothel. He did indeed know his perverts. Marvin didn't have the best of manners, but this was a new low for him. Ronzo and Marvin had been army buddies in Iraq. He should be showing some respect.