Royal Flush

by Stephanie Caffrey

  I surveyed the mess and sighed. Before cleaning it up and starting over, I decided the best course of action was to take a deep breath and brew myself a pot of strong coffee. At least I couldn't mess that up too badly, I figured. As I sat on my stool watching the coffee drip into the carafe, I realized I was simply procrastinating, avoiding the inevitable. Snapping out of it, I reluctantly wet a cloth and got down on my hands and knees to mop up the hollandaise, and I don't mind admitting I stuck my finger in and tasted some right off the floor. Naturally, it was delicious, which made the whole thing that much more frustrating.

  With my attempt at a low-carb breakfast an unmitigated debacle, I regressed to my old ways and poured myself a big ol' bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and skim milk, which I scarfed down in front of my laptop. After futzing around on the internet for a few minutes, I finally decided to get to work. Melanie had done her own internet research, as anyone in her position would do, but I had my own ways and methods. A good chunk of my training at investigator school had involved sneaky ways to get information about people without lifting more than a few fingers.

  Before checking out Kent, I ran an internet search for Melanie Weston. In my brief tour of duty as a PI, I'd learned that sometimes the client who hired me turned out to be more interesting than the subject of the investigation, and I didn't want any surprises. Melanie's was a common enough name that I didn't have high hopes of finding her, but sure enough she popped up in a few headlines. At the ripe old age of twenty, she'd been arrested for drug possession and wound up making the Los Angeles Times as a result of her family's prominent name. And, a year later, she was pictured with her dad at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a medical clinic in a downtrodden area of Los Angeles. Since then, nothing. Pretty boring stuff, which was fine with me.

  Henry John Kent was another matter. There were a million Henry Johns and John Kents, and a much smaller number of Henry John Kents. But remarkably the one I was looking for did not appear to have any presence on social media, at least under that name. I realized I should have asked Melanie for that kind of information. I had his Las Vegas address, but little else. I'd have to take a different tack.

  Apart from William and Harry, and the obvious folks like Prince Charles and the Queen herself, I really didn't know much about the British Royal Family. I didn't much care about them, either, but I was going to have to fake it if I wanted to earn my fee with Melanie. One of the papers she'd given me was an extended royal family tree, which started at the top with Queen Victoria (1819-1901). I had heard of old Vicky, of course, but I hadn't known she had nine children, all of whom became either dukes or princesses of some kind. The line of succession ran through her oldest son, Albert Edward, who became Edward VII. His oldest surviving son then became George V, and when he died his son Edward VIII took over. But Edward (I seemed to recall) had a thing for a divorced American, and so gave up the throne in favor of his younger brother, who became George VI. George died in 1952, leaving the throne to his daughter Elizabeth, whose children are Charles, Anne, Andrew and (you guessed it) Edward. And that was as far as the family tree went.

  I shook my head in frustration. With all those kids in the family, there would be hundreds of cousins to sort through. This was not going to be easy. I went back to the computer and tried to find a universal guide to the royal family, the kind of tome that might have all the third-cousins and great-grandnephews and all that kind of thing. But no such thing seemed to exist.

  I sighed and reached for my cell phone.

  "Mike, you at the office?"

  Mike Madsen was the licensed private investigator who was supposed to be supervising me during my probationary first year as a detective. All that meant was that occasionally I had to check in with him to make sure I wasn't blundering around too wildly. In reality, we had started working together as equals because his business was a little on the slow side, and I had made a few headlines, which generated some business. We shared office space, and that resulted in a fair amount of mild sexual harassment with Mike finding himself on the receiving end. He was a good-looking, corn-fed Mormon, a bit on the quiet side, and pretended to have very little romantic interest in me at all. It was all an act on his part, I could swear.

  His voice was skeptical. "Yeah I'm at the office. Why?"

  "Want to go to the library with me?" I said it as enthusiastically as I could, the way a parent tells a child it's a real treat to try asparagus.

  "Uhh, how come?"

  I explained the problem to him. He was silent for a minute, turning it over in his head. Whenever I brought work his way I wondered if he was purely grateful for the opportunity, or if it was mixed with a little bit of jealousy that well-paying clients were coming to me, a newbie private eye, instead of someone like him who'd been at it a decade or more.

  "Yeah, I could squeeze that in, I suppose. Just finishing up a report for General Casualty. A guy who claims he slipped and fell at Harrah's turns out to have quite a problem with slips and falls. He's sued six different businesses in the last three years."

  "He should get a walker," I said. "You sure you can pull yourself away from such a fascinating case?"

  "Hey, it pays the bills. Don't knock it."

  Our office was right on my way to the downtown library, so I agreed to swing by and pick Mike up. As usual, his attire drew inspiration in equal parts from 1950's TV dads, bug exterminators, and cut-rate funeral directors: a white, short-sleeve dress shirt, black tie, black pants. I didn't mind the shirt, since it showed off his muscular arms, but the rest of it made me cringe. I nagged him about it at least twice a week, but it was clear that he gave my fashion advice about as much weight as anyone would give dieting advice from Rosie O'Donnell.

  We made our way through downtown and up to North Las Vegas Boulevard, where the main branch of the Clark County Library System was housed in an imposing tan building. I wasn't ready to confess that in more than a decade living in town I had never set foot within its doors. It wasn't that I didn't read, it's that I was lazy. Most of the trash I read could be picked up for under four bucks on Amazon, so it was hardly worth the trip.

  Mike seemed willing to take the lead, so I gladly let him type away on the electronic card catalog computer.

  "Upstairs," he said.

  We climbed the stone staircase and found the section on British history. There were about a hundred books on Churchill and Henry VIII (and his wives), but nothing much on the present royal family.

  "There are some recent biographies out there," Mike said. "You know, Diana, William and Kate, all the celebrity type of stuff. But I doubt those kinds of books would include anything about this obscure cousin you're after."

  I nodded. "Well, you went straight for the computer. I always like to ask a live person. This is what they do, after all."

  He looked skeptical. "Knock yourself out."

  He followed me over to the reference desk, where a smartly dressed woman was staring at her computer screen. She was trying to look as if she was working on something exceedingly important, but I had a hunch she was probably just comparing pumps at Zappos.com or Nordstrom. When she finally looked up, she actually managed a wide and winning smile.

  "Can I help you?" she asked.

  "Probably not, but it's worth a shot. I'm looking for a guide to the British royal family. Not just the queens and princes, but the whole bunch of them."

  She pursed her lips. I supposed she was expecting me to ask where the bathroom was, or when the next issue of Entertainment Weekly would be arriving.

  "Let me just make a call, if you don't mind." She spun around and pulled out a one-page phone directory from a desk behind her.

  I nodded and then pretended not to eavesdrop on her call. From what I could tell, she might actually be talking to someone who knew something.

  "So, here's the deal," she began. "We don't have anything like that here, or even in the county system. But the university library does. If you want to head up there, just go to reference and they'll
help you out. You can't check it out, but they'll let you look at it."

  I nodded in approval. "Thanks a lot!"

  Mike sighed audibly.

  "Told ya," I said. "People aren't all bad, you know. Sometimes they can even be helpful."

  "I still prefer machines," Mike said. He said it in a way that made me think he was at least partly making fun of himself.

  I shrugged. "Machines don't keep you warm at night, though."

  "Electric blankets do," he offered.

  I rolled my eyes and kept my mouth shut as we headed to my car.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I had little doubt that I was one of the least distinguished graduates in the history of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Whenever our alumni publications arrived in the mail I would force myself to glance at them, and of course every graduate who did anything even remotely interesting made sure to alert the magazine that they'd popped out another kid or finished a residency in gastroenterology. The only graduates lower on the social ladder than strippers were the couple of guys who'd gone into politics, but even they felt the need to let everyone know they were representing such-and-such district in the state legislature. I sometimes fantasized about sending in a blurb for myself: "Raven McShane (Arts '04) recently performed her five-thousandth lap dance and has been featured on the covers of Hot Rod and Guns & Ammo magazines. In 2011, she dated celebrity chef Bruno Massarone, but ended the relationship after he bought her a smoked ham as an anniversary gift."

  As we pulled into the UNLV parking lot, it occurred to me that it had been more than ten years since my graduation, a fact I had a hard time getting used to. I paid an outrageous fee to park the car, then we hoofed it three blocks to get to the library. They'd rebuilt it since my college days, and now instead of a drab old brick building it was a half shell of glass and steel, giving it an edgy, industrial look. Mike and I found the reference desk just off to the side of the checkout area. It was manned, if that's the right word, by a kid who looked to be no older than fifteen, pimples and all.

  The kid fixed me with a skeptical look. "How can I, uh, help you?"

  I told him what I was looking for, and he trudged off to speak to one of the grown-ups who were waiting in the wings. A middle-aged woman with jet-black hair nodded solemnly and then crouched down to a shelf that happened to be only a few steps away from her. She pulled out a massive tome the size of an atlas and showed it to the kid, who pretended to be interested. Satisfied, she hefted the book over to the desk and placed it on the table with a dramatic thud.

  "This should do the trick," she said. Her expression was quizzical, and I didn't blame her. Why in the hell was a thirty-something woman sporting a too-tight pink T-shirt and aftermarket breasts asking about obscure British royalty?

  "Thanks," I said, eyeing the book skeptically. "It turns out I have royal blood in me, so I want to check and see how I'm related to Prince Harry. Hopefully not too closely!" I giggled, for effect.

  She smiled politely and pushed the book over to me. Sure you are, honey, she was thinking. "There are tables right over there, but the book can't leave this area, all right?"

  I nodded and grabbed the giant thing, and Mike and I found a sleek table in the corner with the most natural light.

  The book's title was ambitious: Theakston's Cyclopaedia of the British Monarchy, the Nobility, and the Descendants of Her Royal Highness Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India. I checked inside the cover.

  "Published in 1971," I muttered, my heart sinking. "That's not going to help too much."

  Mike took the book and thumbed to the back. "But there are updates. Look here, this one's from last year." He pulled out a map-like insert that had been hiding in a pocket inside the back cover. Unfolded, it took up half the table.

  "Talk about fine print!" I whispered. You almost needed a magnifying glass to make heads or tails of it, but it looked to be exactly what we were looking for.

  While Mike studied the giant family tree, I paged through the book's index. There were a few dozen entries under the name "Kent," but there were no Henry Johns. He hadn't even been born at the time the book was published, of course, but I was hoping there might be a father or grandfather in there with the same name. I opened the book to the first Kent entry, but that line of Kents petered out in the 1920s. The second Kent entry dealt with a man named William Edward Kent (1849-1924), who appeared to be Queen Victoria's first cousin. A son of the same name (1882-1949) appeared next, and he had brothers named Alexander and Charles. Tracing their lines downward, I found the next generation of Kents, all of whom lived in someplace called Kingston-upon-Hull.

  "Where the hell is Kingston-upon-Hull?" I asked.

  Mike shrugged. "On the Hull River, of course," he said distractedly.

  "And where is that?"

  "Hell if I know. England?"

  I elbowed him in the gut, which was kind of like elbowing a piece of granite. He muttered something inaudible and then pointed to the chart he was poring over.

  "Here are some Kents. John, James, Richard, Nigel. They're all alive today and live in the same place, Kingston-upon-Hull."

  "No Henry John?" I asked.

  "Nope. Seems your guy is a fraud."

  I nodded. "I wasn't expecting any other result, really. But there could be others, I suppose."

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean, this is a big chart and everything, but it can't possibly list every single distant relative of the royal family."

  Mike shrugged. "It seems pretty comprehensive to me. And this is only from a year ago, so it's up-to-date."

  I frowned. "But still. It can't be this easy, can it?"

  "I think you're trying too hard. You probably got a nice retainer and found an interesting case, and now you're trying to milk it."

  I cocked my head sideways. "Wrong. I just think the mission is a little bigger than just pointing to a book and telling her 'Sorry, he's not in there.'"

  "Maybe, but 'Sorry, he's not in there' would be a good start," he said.

  Mike was being supervisor-Mike now instead of quasi-friend-Mike or blue-eyed-sexy Mike. Supervisor-Mike wasn't my favorite Mike, I had to admit.

  I thought about it for a second. "I mean, she doesn't care about the royalty business all that much. I think what she really wants to know is, who is this guy? And that requires more than just going to the library and looking in some musty old book."

  "If you say so," he said, unconvinced.

  "Mike," I whispered loudly, "she gave me ten grand."

  His eyes got big. Insurance companies usually paid a fraction of that. I figured Mike was so used to doing everything on the cheap that he had a hard time getting his mind around the fact that some people wanted the works.

  "And if he's not legit," I added, "she'd probably want to know what kind of trouble he's in that he's trying to scam her out of money. That's the kind of thing we can find out."

  He turned to face me. "A fair point. So what do you suggest?"

  I considered it for a minute. "Let's do a dossier on this guy. This Henry John Kent of ours."

  "A dossier? Where'd you get that?"

  "It just sprang into my head. Remember when I worked with Philippe LaGarde? He showed me some impressive dossiers they had done on people. High roller types who lost lots of money. Whales, he called them. It was all very professional-looking."

  Mike smiled. "Not a bad idea, actually. You're going to chew up that ten grand just following the guy around, though."

  I batted my eyes coquettishly. "I could always outsource the legwork. I know a guy who will work for cheap."

  Mike looked up at the ceiling, pretending to be exasperated. Or maybe he wasn't pretending. The last time he'd helped with one of my cases, he ended up getting shot.

  "We'll work it out," he said simply. "So, what are you thinking? Surveillance, of course. Anything electronic? Wiretaps?"

  My eyebrows shot up. "Um, my office chair is held together with duct tape. I don't exactly h
ave access to a lot of high-end technology."

  Mike smiled. "Okay, we can do it the old-fashioned way. Just gotta figure out what makes this guy tick, right? A little surveillance, maybe a little smash and grab."

  I nodded. "He goes to school right here, but I can't think of any way to find him. I have no idea what he looks like. His address is the only thing I've got."

  "No biggie," Mike said. "Here at school, he'd probably be on his best behavior. If we want to find out what he's really up to, it'll require watching his extracurricular activities. And by the way, why is he going to school in Vegas? Why not Oxford or something like that?"

  "I don't think the hotel management program there is up to his standards," I said.

  "Got it. So he's royalty, but he's studying to manage a Marriott?"

  I smiled. "That's what I wondered, but my client says he's got designs on creating an upscale resort out of his family estate. Assuming he wins his lawsuit, of course."

  "I guess it all adds up," Mike said, with eminent skepticism.

  I stood up and closed the book. Mike went and made a few copies of the Kent section of the book insert, so at least I'd have something to show Melanie for our efforts. I had nothing else on my calendar for the day, and it wasn't even lunchtime, so I told Mike I'd handle the surveillance on Henry John Kent. At least, until I got bored.