Death of a Modern King

by Angela Pepper

  “The past three to six months.”

  Samantha told me to wait a moment, and she pulled out her laptop.

  Jessica caught my eye and gave me a sly smile. She knew what I was up to because she’d been the one who suggested the line of investigation in the first place. We wanted to know if Dieter Koenig had bought any houses for his girlfriend, Della.

  “That’s odd,” Samantha said, clicking away.

  We both leaned over her shoulder, expecting to see something interesting. Listings and images scrolled across the screen in a blur as Samantha did search after search.

  “What’s so odd?” I asked.

  “The internet access is really fast here,” she said.

  We left her to her database and helped out with the remaining open-house snacks.

  After ten minutes, she said, “Sorry, but I’ve looked at everything local for the past six months, and none of it’s tied to the Koenigs. They actually don’t own much real estate, other than the mansion and the surrounding land with the airstrip. If you’re looking for a real estate family, that would be the Canusos.”

  “Thanks for looking,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  Samantha closed the laptop and gave me a mischievous grin. “Buy this little dollhouse, and we’ll call it even.”

  I patted my pockets. “I would, but I think I left my darn wallet at home.”

  “Maybe next month,” she said. “I’m having another open house in September. You two should come. There’ll be cupcakes.” She started packing up her display materials and tidying the dishes. “Just come and say nice things to get other people excited.”

  “Like shills?” Jessica asked. “You shouldn’t have to be dishonest to sell something.” By the arch of her eyebrows, she seemed to be on the verge of saying something about the undersized beds.

  I gently grabbed my best friend by the arm and pulled her toward the front door.

  “We’ll drop by,” I promised Samantha. “For the cupcakes.”

  I managed to get Jessica safely outside and down the street before she started ranting about the undersized beds. I interrupted only to make sympathetic sounds. The staged beds were only a few inches shorter than regular ones, and the rooms would accommodate regular-sized beds, albeit with less walking space around the furniture, but I understood that for Jessica, it was about the principle of the thing. She was perfectly fine with telling white lies to protect someone’s feelings, and she was fine with me fudging the truth to get information for a case, but she hated the notion of a business or person scamming people out of their hard-earned money.

  I stayed agreeable as we walked back to the duplex. I understood where she was coming from. Her father had been known as a con man, and even though he disappeared when she was quite young, his reputation lingered, and she rebelled against it.

  We reached our boring tan door, and she paused. “But at least the porch was really sweet,” she said.

  “The porch was the best,” I agreed.

  My phone started buzzing with an incoming call. As I pulled it out to answer, I said to Jessica, “Go ahead and get started on the dusting and mopping while I take this call.” I winked. “I shouldn’t be too long.”

  She looked skyward and shook her head as she went inside.

  “Day Investigations,” I answered. The number had come up with no caller identification, so I assumed it was business.

  A woman replied, “Is this Logan Sanderson’s assistant?”

  “Sure,” I said, gritting my teeth. I was becoming one of those people who gets her knickers in a twist when someone gets her job title slightly wrong. I liked to think of myself as easygoing, but it bothered me when people called me an assistant or a paralegal or a secretary. Those were all respectable jobs, and I didn’t think being a consultant was any more dignified, but I still wanted people to call me what I was.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” She had a European-sounding accent that, combined with her impatience, made her sound cartoonish, as though she were about to order someone beheaded. “Speak up!”

  “Yes, I’m here. I’m Stormy Day, Logan Sanderson’s assistant. How may I be of assistance to you?”

  She breathed, “I need to meet with you. Can you come right now?”

  “Let me check my calendar.” I stared up at the blue sky. “Yes.”

  She rattled off an address. It was just outside of town, in a pocket of luxury rentals not far from the Koenig Estate.

  She added, even more breathily and urgently, “It’s very important. And very private. You mustn’t tell anyone.”

  Chapter 17

  The first thing I did after my phone conversation with the mysterious woman was call Logan’s office.

  The receptionist at Tyger & Behr, Corine, couldn’t put me through to Logan, but she did give me some reassurance about our breathy new client.

  “She’s the Countess of Krengerborg,” Corine said. “I thought she was just a kook, but I’ve done some digging, and she’s actually some sort of Danish royalty. She’s divorced from an earl but still has the title. You should refer to her as Lady Octavia.”

  “I assume that means Lady Octavia can pay for my visit,” I said as I walked into the house. Jessica gave me a curious look. “A member of the Danish royal family should be able to afford my services,” I said into the phone, more for Jessica’s benefit than Corine’s.

  “Of course,” Corine answered. “Just track your time. And since it’s a new client, and you’re meeting at her location, bring someone with you for security.”

  “Like my father?” I laughed. “Finnegan Day would just love to meet a breathy-voiced, divorced countess.”

  “Anyone will do,” Corine said. “How is Finnegan, by the way?”

  I frowned up at the living room ceiling as I kicked off my shoes. The way Corine said my father’s name, it sounded as though cartoon hearts were floating around in the air.

  I thanked her for the information on the countess and told her I’d try to rope my roommate into coming along as security.

  When I ended the call, Jessica let out a whoop of excitement and demanded details.

  I told her what little I knew, and we hit our wardrobes, jewelry, and makeup stashes like two teens getting ready for prom. Then we spent another twenty minutes removing half our makeup and scaling back on the jewels.

  Looking as if we were attending high tea at a fancy hotel, we blew ladylike air kisses at Jeffrey as we left the house. I drove while Jessica did background research on her phone.

  We learned that the Countess of Krengerborg was forty-one and had been divorced for three years. Following the royal breakup, she’d dated a number of European aristocrats, playboys, and even a few actors, including a man who was best known for his role as one of the world’s favorite spies.

  “That poor woman,” Jessica said. “Going from one broken heart to another, all of it blasted over the internet for the world to laugh at.”

  “But she got to have martinis with the man who made martinis sexy.”

  Jessica made the neutral hmm noise I’d come to think of as her way of disagreeing without being disagreeable.

  My car hummed as we left town limits, driving past the hill with the town’s infamous scary-faced house. The house had been renovated years ago for the filming of a horror movie and had recently been the site of a murder. The victim had been a similar age as the countess and even unluckier in love. A shiver crept up my spine as I got a premonition of finding the countess in a pool of blood. She’d sounded frightened on the phone.

  “Jackpot,” Jessica said, still focused on the screen of her phone. “This story was buried, but I cross-referenced the countess and the name Koenig and found something. Last summer, Lady Octavia was seen leaving the master bedroom of Dieter Koenig.”

  “The plot thickens,” I said.

  “Wasn’t he about a hundred?”

  “Seventy-five.” I checked the map on my car’s navigation system and watched for the turn-off road. “Was t
he countess here in Misty Falls last summer? I don’t remember that. There’s usually tons of gossip if someone from a royal family is in town. They would have mentioned it in the Mirror.”

  “Last summer you hadn’t moved back here yet,” she said.

  “Right.” Sometimes I forgot about the entire decade I hadn’t been part of the town. “What else does it say about Lady Octavia and Dieter Koenig? Were they officially an item? If she got divorced three years ago, that’s around the same time his wife passed away. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but it makes you wonder.”

  “These stories aren’t much more than rumors,” Jessica said. “There are no photos of the two together, but things have been quiet for the countess lately. It seems she’s been traveling around America for the last year and keeping a low profile. There’s some speculation about health problems and visiting wellness spas for alternative treatments. Her official statement is that she’s suffering from exhaustion.”

  “Exhaustion,” I mused. “That’s code for either rehab or facelift.”

  “Facelift,” Jessica said. “She strikes me as the vain type. I say facelift, and maybe new boobs, too.”

  “You have to make the boobs match the face.”

  We shared an uncomfortable laugh. Making jokes about plastic surgery was preferable to imagining we were on our way to meet a heartbroken woman with a life-threatening illness. Was she really Dieter Koenig’s lover?

  “Where does the countess live?” I asked Jessica.

  “Not in Misty Falls,” she said, laughing. “But I read something about her splitting her time between Denmark and a penthouse in New York.”

  “Aha!” I said. “I bet she’s the family friend that Drake and Brandon Koenig were visiting before they flew home on Sunday.”

  “So, she wasn’t at the mansion pushing him off the diving board.”

  “Not unless she has a teleportation device.”

  Chapter 18

  We arrived at the luxury rental house, which shared a quiet cul-de-sac with two other homes of equal majesty. The homes were newly constructed but made to resemble turn-of-the-century Victorians, three stories high and with grand porches.

  Jessica stepped out of the car and gazed admiringly at the home as she smoothed the car wrinkles from her pale-pink skirt.

  “Nice,” she said. “I bet this house doesn’t have a sidesaddle toilet in a former linen closet.”

  “The linen closet probably has its own en suite bathroom.”

  She arched her red eyebrows in agreement as we approached the door. “With one of those fancy foot-washin’ thingamajiggies.”

  I snorted. Jessica enjoyed pretending to be less sophisticated than she was, misunderstanding the proper use of a bidet.

  The front door had both a brass knocker and a doorbell. We were on time, not a minute early or late for our two o’clock appointment. I rang the doorbell.

  A woman in a summer-weight houndstooth suit opened the door. I’d never been one to pore over Vogue magazines or worry about high-end couture, but even I could tell it was a Chanel suit. The jacket and skirt fit perfectly, and the woman looked anything but ill or in recovery from surgery. Platinum hair framed an elegant face with what seemed to be its original layout, with just a few wrinkles that were as stylish as her Chanel. Her body was more voluptuous than I expected, with healthy curves drawing my eyes up and down. It was possible she had gotten something inflated in the chest area.

  “I’m Stormy Day. We spoke on the phone. And this is my associate, Jessica Kelly.”

  Jessica curtsied.

  “Aren’t you two adorable,” the woman said, her Danish accent peppering her words.

  “It’s so nice to meet you, your excellency,” I said.

  “Call me Tavi,” she said. “All my friends call me Tavi, not that I have many of those these days.”

  “We’ll be your friends,” Jessica said warmly. If someone else had made a similar offer within a minute of meeting someone, I would have rolled my eyes, but Jessica was one of those people who genuinely led with friendship and treated everyone as worthy until they proved otherwise.

  Lady Octavia looked back and forth between the two of us. “If we’re friends, I don’t need to wear these tight shoes.” With a girlish laugh, she pried off the shiny pumps that matched her outfit perfectly. “Much better,” she said, beckoning us to follow her deeper into the house.

  She led us to the kitchen, where we found evidence of a battle with coffee supplies. The luxury rental was equipped, as most are, with the latest and greatest in specialty coffee dispensers. From the look of the sprayed coffee grounds and coffee-spattered knives strewn about, Lady Octavia had fought the coffeemaker, and the coffeemaker had won.

  “My English,” she explained, pointing to a sheet of paper taped to the inside of an upper cupboard. “I can speak English fine, but reading this small print is impossible.”

  “You poor thing,” Jessica said sympathetically. “I’ll take care of this while you and Stormy get started on your business.” At our house, Jessica and I preferred the low-tech, brew-a-pot method, but thanks to her experience in foodservice, there wasn’t a food-related machine Jessica couldn’t master.

  Lady Octavia said, “Tak. That’s thank-you in Danish,” and the two of us left the kitchen for a bright sitting room at the back of the house.

  The room overlooked an attractive flower garden, a meadow-sized green lawn, and mountains in the distance. Butterflies winged gracefully from flower to flower.

  I pulled a new hard-covered notebook from my purse and wrote the date and time across the first page.

  “Ready when you are,” I said. Below the date, I wrote Countess Octavia of Krengerborg.

  The air in the sunny room seemed to thicken at the mention of business. She turned to look at the mountains and twisted the glinting buttons on her houndstooth jacket.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” she said. “How can I get a copy of Dieter Koenig’s will?”

  “Everyone who’s named in the will is going to be contacted by Mr. Koenig’s lawyer.”

  “Has that already happened?” she asked.

  “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” I said, writing a note in my book. “Mr. Sanderson is a very busy man, but I’m sure he has everything under control.”

  She whipped her head to face me, her gray-blue eyes suddenly regal and cold. “Busy men are always thinking about control.” Her eyes narrowed. “That’s why they’re so busy all the time. Control and power. It takes all their resources, and they have little left to give.”

  I wrote down every word she said before asking softly, “Do you have concerns about the will? There’s a legal process for contesting wills in Oregon. Even the most thorough and legal will can be overturned legally, if there’s an appropriate reason.”

  “I do have concerns,” she said.

  “Which are?”

  She turned to the view again. “Private,” she said.

  Jessica came in with a tray and coffee for everyone.

  “Sweetheart,” the countess cooed, her chest heaving, straining against the shiny Chanel buttons. “You are a jewel. I really need this, too. I’ve been in too many time zones lately, and I made a mistake and thought you two were coming an hour before you did.” She fluffed her platinum hair with one hand. She had no manicure or polish on her nails, and they were trimmed shorter than my own.

  Jessica took a seat next to me on the tightly upholstered settee and complimented the view.

  “Let’s get to know each other,” the countess said. “You girls must tell me about your life here in this adorable town. Dieter always spoke so fondly of his home.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Did you really have me come out to meet with you just so you could ask for a copy of the will? You could have done that over the phone.” I smiled to soften my tone but didn’t take my eyes off her.

  She sipped her coffee, staring down into the dark-brown brew as though it might have answers. In my experi
ence, coffee usually did have answers, but not until the last sip. Patience, however, was never my strong suit. I preferred to cut through the icing and get to the cake.

  I gave Jessica an eye-flash of warning then turned to the countess. It was time to cut into the cake, so to speak.

  “Your child is entitled to be taken care of,” I said.

  The room was silent; even the chirping birds outside went quiet.

  I continued, “Even a child who is born out of wedlock and off the record. Lady Octavia, we don’t live in medieval times. Genetic testing is commonplace these days.”

  On one side of me, Jessica made a tiny surprised noise, and on the other side, the Countess of Krengerborg made a louder surprised noise.

  “The labs will run a simple test,” I said. “It can be done by swabbing the baby’s cheek, and you’ll have the basis of a very good case for contesting the will. At the very least, you’re entitled to child support.”

  “How did you know?” she gasped. “Have you been following me? What have you seen?”

  I nodded to her chest. “That’s a beautiful suit you’re wearing. I’ve been admiring it since we arrived. I’m not the queen of fashion, so I don’t know if it’s this season’s design, but I do know it was fitting you perfectly when we arrived. Now, however, it’s too snug at the top. The button that’s been impeccably placed at the apex of your bosom is threatening to pop off.”

  She self-consciously pulled at the jacket, trying to find more room where there was none.

  “You got your time mixed up,” I said. “Your milk might not have come down this much an hour earlier, but now you’re overdue for a feeding, aren’t you?”

  She got to her feet and covered her chest with crossed arms. “That’s none of your business,” she hissed.

  Jessica’s clothes rustled as she fidgeted next to me. I remained seated and touched Jessica’s knee to keep her calm.

  “I understand,” I said. “You didn’t want to tell me right away because you want to keep this out of the press, or maybe you don’t want to appear greedy.”

  She quickly answered, “The reporters. It’s them.”