Randall #02 - Ghost Writers in the Sky Read Online Free PDF

of a local independent bookstore chain called “The Pierian Spring.” Bespectacled and attractive in a large, tweedy way, Mr. Ryder looked like a courtly bear as he stood and offered wine from the bottle he and Gabriella were sharing.
    “ Some of Gabriella’s Pinot Noir?  The grapes were grown right here on the Rancho.” As he filled two glasses for us, a phone in his pocket rang. He glanced at the number. I braced for a conversation-halting phone call, but he excused himself. “I’d better go take this,” he said, heading for the door. Good manners. I liked him.
    Rick gulped his wine, looking as if he’d probably rather have a beer.
    I took a sip. “Lovely,” I said. “Light, with a nice blackberry-coffee finish.”
    Gabriella dismissed my winespeak with a wave.
    “ Oh, it’s Toby’s Pinot. I’m just an old cowgirl, but Toby says beef isn’t cost-effective anymore. He’s planting grapes all over the damned place. Excuse my French, Dr. Manners.”
    So Toby Roarke was Gabriella’s significant other. Maybe that explained the alpha male behavior. But I wondered what Gaby thought about his flirtations with students like the exotically lovely Donna Karan girl.
     “ Dr. Manners?” Rick cocked an eyebrow at me. “Are you the famous Manners Doctor who…?”
    I braced myself. But instead of telling me what a bad boy he’d been, Rick put on an old-lady falsetto. “The Manners Doctor urges you to arrive at a dinner party ten minutes late. The hostess needs time for a glass of wine before the guests descend’.” He laughed. “My mother-in-law is crazy about your column.”
    Okay. I had to shut down the fantasies. The man had a mother-in-law. After what I’d been through with Jonathan, I wasn’t even going to smile at another woman’s significant other.
      Time for a change of subject. “I’ve heard people talking about these Rancho ghosts,” I said. “Do people really believe this place is haunted?”
    Gabriella gave an enigmatic smile.
    “ Yeah. We got us some ghosts. Obadiah and Joaquin. Obadiah Wilke was a ’forty-niner killed on the Rancho by bandits looking for his gold. Used to be a schoolteacher before he came prospecting.”
    “ Oh, so that’s why they say he’s a writer?” Rick’s voice had a tinge of sarcasm.
    Gaby laughed. “I guess. My husband Hank, rest his soul, said Obadiah left messages scrawled in his accounts book. He thought Obadiah was trying to tell him where he’d hid his poke.”
    I could feel the warmth of Rick’s body as we sat squished together at the tiny bar table. I hoped I didn’t smell of essence de biker : cigarettes, leather and toxic emissions. I needed to get myself into a shower.
      But Gaby kept on with her ghost story.
     “ Anybody loses pens or paper around here, they figure old Obadiah took it. Alberto, my concierge, says a whole lot of pens have been disappearing lately—especially his calligraphic ones. And about fifty years worth of vintage stationery he’s been saving in the back room went missing a few weeks ago.”
    “ I’ll keep my eye out for him—or them.” 
    “ Oh, you don’t want to see Joaquin.” Gabriella grabbed my hand. “Mean old customer. He’s the one killed Obadiah. Later they chopped his head off and showed it around every bar from here to San Francisco, pickled in a whisky jar. He wanders all over these hills looking for that head.”
    I couldn’t tell if Gabriella believed the nonsense she was spouting, or was just displaying her talent for dramatic presentation.
    Rick gave a skeptical grunt. “Joaquin Murrieta? Got a lot of haunting to do, that dude. Legends put him everywhere from Orange County to Yosemite.”
    Gabriella let go of my hand, but she still wasn’t smiling.
    “ Take it from me: that is one ghost you do not want to mess with. He’ll give you nightmares.”
      I stood. “I’m afraid I’ll have to brave the supernatural dangers and find my room. It’s two in the morning, my time.”
    Gabriella