Royal Flush

by Stephanie Caffrey

  "So he's a grifter?"

  He sighed. "I suppose I would say he has tendencies in that direction, yes. But I didn't think that was the case with Melanie. Not at all."

  My mind was running in overdrive. I wondered if Melanie had found out he was a con man, or if that's essentially why she'd hired me, to confirm what she already suspected. And if she knew, she made herself a target.

  "So you don't think Melanie had any idea that he was a fraud?" I asked.

  He shook his head again. "She was smart, as I said, and she married the guy."

  "Okay," I said, racking my brain for something else to ask. He was being very cooperative, and I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity to learn more from him. "Let me ask you this. If I called him up and asked to meet with him, do you think he'd do it?"

  He smiled. "If I sent him your photo, he'd do it in an instant."

  I arched my eyebrow and put my hands on my hips.

  "Sorry," he said. "I meant that as a compliment. Seriously, though, I don't know. He's got a good thing going here, and I doubt he wants to talk about it. And if he did, how would you know what to believe?"

  He had a good point. What was the point of talking to a known con man if I couldn't trust a word he said?

  "Why don't you give me his phone number," I said, "and I'll give it a shot."

  He nodded grimly and retrieved his cell phone. He punched at the screen a few times and then showed me the number on the screen, which I then entered into my own phone.

  "Thanks," I said. "I might get in touch with you again, if I need anything else."

  Thomas cocked his head and flashed me a half-leer, half-smile. "I hope you do," he said.

  I rolled my eyes at him and turned to leave.

  "One more thing," he said. "Don't tell Kent I talked to you, okay?"

  "You got it."

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I walked slowly back to my condo after talking with the fake Kent, aka Thomas Q. Dyson, and along the way I spent an embarrassing amount of the time wondering what the "Q" stood for. Quincy? Quentin? The truth was I was just procrastinating the obvious next step, which was to call up the real Kent and arrange a sit-down where we could talk. Even though he was a con man, I reasoned that a meeting might be useful if he believed I didn't know he was a con man. The kind of lies he might tell could be just as important as the truth.

  I fixed myself a four-egg omelet, watched the noon news, and then steeled myself for the phone call. You'd think that someone who took her clothes off for perfect strangers would be an outgoing, easy-mannered person when it came to making a simple phone call, but the truth was that I dreaded such things. The phone had always been a source of awkwardness for me, mostly because I communicated as much with my hands and facial expressions as I did my voice, and the phone deprived me of that, as well as the ability to read the expressions of the person on the other end of the line.

  After flitting around my apartment stalling for time, I finally picked up the phone and pressed Send. One ring. Two rings. I began to feel that sense of relief that the call would go to voicemail. But then a voice answered. The nerve of that guy, answering his own phone.

  "Uh, Mr. Kent?" My voice was quavering.

  "Who's asking?"

  "My name is Raven McShane. I'm a private investigator hired by your late wife, Melanie. You and I need to talk about a few things."

  Silence reigned on the other end. Had I come on too strong? "Talk about what kinds of things?" he asked, finally.

  "I'll explain more in person. But let's just say part of it has to do with the British monarchy."

  More silence. "I have class this afternoon, but if you want to meet me somewhere, I guess I could give you five minutes."

  "Okay, great," I said. "Where do you live? I could meet near your house."

  Another long pause. "What if we meet at a Starbucks? There's one on Flamingo halfway between UNLV and the Strip. Can you do four o'clock?"

  I agreed and quickly hung up the phone before he changed his mind. I figured my cryptic reference to the royal family had been enough to pique his interest and force him to try to figure out how much I knew about his activities.

  I had a couple hours until four, and nothing to fill it. Mike had claimed he was busy, so I texted Carlos to see if he'd want to join us at Starbucks.

  I don't drink coffee, he texted back. It was his way of negotiating a fee.

  Fifty bucks, I responded, knowing he'd reject the offer out of hand.

  No.

  Just be there, idiot, I replied. He'd find a way to make it happen.

  The day was still reasonably cool, if you can call eighty-nine degrees "cool," so I decided to make another walk. Halfway to UNLV meant about a mile and a half for me, about a half-hour walk back in the general direction I'd come from earlier. When I arrived, I spotted Carlos' Mustang parked up the street. He was still sitting in the driver's seat, so I snuck up behind the car and then banged as loudly as I could on his window. His face went white, which for a dark-skinned guy is no small feat, but what I hadn't counted on was that he'd reach instinctively for the Glock he kept under his front seat. When the barrel of the gun was pointed between my eyeballs, I realized the joke was on me, not him.

  When he finally figured out my lame gag, he dropped the gun back under the seat and started shaking his head back and forth. When he climbed out of the car, his expression was a mixture of disgust and lingering fear.

  "I'm very jumpy," he said. "Don't ever try something like that again." His seriousness was uncharacteristic.

  I flashed him a lame smile. "Good thing you don't drink coffee."

  "No coffee, but I kind of have a Red Bull habit. Even worse."

  "I guess that explains why you're so jumpy," I said. "I just hope you didn't wet yourself."

  "Haw haw," he fake-laughed. "Why don't you feel my pants and tell me?"

  "Um, no thanks. Let's go inside."

  We walked in and scanned the place. Late afternoon isn't exactly prime coffee-drinking hour, so it was half-empty. Kent hadn't arrived yet, so I ordered myself an afternoon pick-me-up double espresso, and Carlos and I found a spot with a window.

  A few minutes later, I turned and saw Kent coming out of the men's room, fumbling with what looked like a black iPhone. He had beaten us there after all. He had no idea what I looked like, so I went over to introduce myself to him. When we shook hands, he looked me directly in the eye and held my glaze. It was an intense, almost menacing look, forcing me to look away after just a few seconds.

  "So what is this all about?" he asked. His accent was definitely British, but a little different than Thomas Q. Dyson's. "You said something I didn't understand, something about royalty?"

  I smiled and motioned him to sit down at a table with me. Carlos lingered at the counter near the window, within earshot but not close enough to suggest we were together.

  "We can get to the royalty part in a minute," I said. "First things first, though. Are you Henry John Kent?"

  "Yeah."

  "You mind if I ask to see some ID?"

  He looked at me skeptically but reached into his back pocket and produced a student ID from UNLV.

  "Anything else?" I asked.

  His eyebrows shot up. "Why, who the bloody hell do you think I am?"

  "Sorry, it's just that there's been some confusion in that department."

  He fished in his wallet and came up with another ID card, flinging it down on the table. This one was from the UK. I had no idea what proper UK identification looked like, but his ID card looked official. There was a shiny hologram embedded in the card, as well as a photo in front of a background designed like the Union Flag.

  "Fine," I said. "You wanted to talk about royalty? Here's the deal. Your late wife hired me to investigate a claim she was a little iffy about. The claim was that you were related to the British royal family and needed fifty grand to help you pay legal fees in a lawsuit you had over an estate. Is that about the gist of it?"


  He leaned back in his chair, looking wary. "I never said that," he said curtly.

  I nodded and tried to put on a friendly face. The evidence suggested he was pretty much a scam artist, but I decided to let him think the opposite. "To be honest, I doubted your story at first. So did Melanie. But I did some poking around, and sure enough, you're legit."

  This seemed to catch him off guard. He shifted in his chair before responding. "I'm legit. I know that. I don't need you to tell me who I am."

  "But you can see why Melanie might have been a little skeptical, though, right?"

  He smiled cautiously. "She could have just asked. It's not as if it's some great big secret."

  I couldn't put my finger on it, but despite his standoffish tone I was developing a tiny bit of a liking for young Mr. Kent. It wasn't his accent, per se, but more the way he talked. It was a slow, cautious way of speaking that I gathered was a product of a mind that wasn't exactly England's finest. For some reason it was giving me a warm tingly feeling that I had to shake off.

  "She probably didn't want you to know she had her doubts," I said. "Especially since you were newlyweds, right?"

  He nodded. I could almost feel his brain trying to work out exactly what I was driving at, why I was pestering him about all of this. "Yeah," he said. "Married only a few months."

  "And was there any kind of, you know, agreement? A prenup, something like that?"

  He straightened in his chair. "Not that I ever signed, why?"

  "Well, obviously she comes from a lot of money. That kind of thing is pretty common."

  "Right. But as I said, I never signed anything," he said, his wariness piquing. "So, was there anything else? I mean, not to sound harsh, but now that she's dead, does it really matter whether I'm related to the royal family?"

  He had a point. I wasn't sure if I should tip my hand about my concerns about Melanie's death or whether I should keep playing it cool. I was really trying to get a read on whether he had any idea Melanie had hired a private detective to investigate him. If he had found out, somehow, then that would have been a good reason to get Melanie to shut up. Permanently. But if not, there didn't seem to be any obvious reason he had wanted her dead.

  "So tell me about the lawsuit," I said. "The one over your estate."

  Kent clasped his hands together on top of the table, looking as if he'd rather be anywhere else in the world than sitting with me at a Starbucks. "To be honest, it's kind of a vague proposition."

  "What do you mean by vague?" I asked.

  "I can't fully explain it, but my lawyers have told me I have this potential claim against an estate that used to belong to my great uncle, who was a cousin of the queen. But it's been in another branch of the family for more than two decades, so they said if I don't act soon I could be out of luck. Something along those lines. But as I said, I don't fully understand our real estate laws."

  The wisp of an idea began forming in my head. "Did you go to the law firm, or did they come to you?" I asked.

  "They came to me. An old schoolmate of mine is a clerk there," he explained, pronouncing clerk like clark.

  "Got it. So you don't have any other money to pay them? Nothing from the family?"

  He shrugged. "Not fifty grand, no. I asked 'round, and they all pooh-poohed the idea."

  "One last question for you," I said. "You've been very helpful." His body seemed to relax a bit, finally. "Did anything about Melanie's death seem unusual to you? Apart from the fact that it happened, I mean."

  He nodded. "I knew she was a little bit into drugs, but the fact that she would OD was very surprising to me. She's not that kind of girl, really."

  "That was the impression I got from her too," I said. "So why were you guys apart the night she died? I mean, since you were married and all, it's a little unusual to be living so far apart."

  A barely perceptible crinkle appeared on his face. "I thought there was only one more question," he said.

  I smiled. "Sorry, it just occurred to me. Obviously if it's too personal you don't have to answer."

  He took the bait. "No, no, it's a fair question. I'm in school here, as you know, and she still preferred to keep her apartment in LA. We were together four, five days every week. Just not that one."

  I nodded. I couldn't think of anything else, so I stood up, and Kent followed my lead. I handed him one of my business cards in case he thought of anything else, and he smiled politely and left.

  Carlos was shaking his head at me.

  "What?" I asked.

  "You call that an interrogation?"

  "No," I said, feeling myself getting defensive. "We were just chatting."

  "Obviously."

  As we left the Starbucks, he elbowed me. "Nice car," he muttered, pointing at the Range Rover into which Kent was climbing.

  I fast-walked up the sidewalk to try to get a peek inside. The driver wasn't Jojia. It was a young black man, and he looked vaguely familiar.

  "Do you recognize him?" I asked Carlos, who had caught up with me.

  "That's the dude from the night club," Carlos said. "Remember? He was kind of hanging out, almost like a lookout or a guard or something."

  Then it hit me. "That's Charles," I said. "He kind of liked me, I think, and then my dress came undone, and—"

  "Trust me," Carlos said, "he still likes you. No guy is going to like you any less after seeing you half-naked."

  The Range Rover sped off, and Carlos and I stood outside, watching the rush hour traffic begin to snarl. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something struck me as odd about the whole series of events. I already knew that Jojia, who I hadn't thought about in days, was connected with Kent, and it was now equally clear that Kent was connected with both Jojia and her friend Charles.

  The same kinds of thoughts must have been circling in Carlos's mind. "Why didn't you ask him about that Japanese girl?"

  "You mean Jojia," I said. "I was trying to soft pedal it. If I asked him about her, he'd know I'd been tailing him, and then he'd really get his defenses up. This way, I just made it seem as if I had done a little poking around about his claim to be royalty, you know, nothing too intense."

  Carlos raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "So what are you thinking now? Is he off the hook?"

  I shook my head. "I have no idea, honestly. The one thing I've started wondering about, though, is whether Kent is actually a con man, or whether he's the one being conned."

  "How's that?"

  "Well," I said, "the story about needing fifty grand for a lawsuit didn't originate with him. An old friend of his came up with the idea. And the friend's the one who would be getting the fifty grand in legal fees."

  Carlos nodded. "I heard that part."

  "The point is, maybe the friend was conning Kent. Kent seemed a little, well, daft, I think is how the British would put it. A little naïve. He didn't seem to know much about the lawsuit, really."

  "Interesting," Carlos said. "So you think he might be a con man who's getting conned himself?"

  I thought about it for a second, momentarily transfixed by an unshaven man stumbling his way in the direction of the Strip. "That's a possibility," I said, noncommittally. "I don't know if it matters. But the point is, I don't sense that Kent is some kind of mastermind con artist."

  "So how does this all relate to the dead girl?" Carlos asked. He had a way of getting to the heart of the problem.

  "God only knows."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Carlos and I parted company, and, as usual, I had just as many questions as answers. When I got home I made myself a cup of green tea and stood out on my balcony, forcing myself to think through every angle. It was an unpleasant, hard slog, the kind of thing the mind finds a million ways to distract itself from.

  It was nice that Kent had agreed to meet with me, which suggested either that he was so clean he had nothing to hide or that he did have something to hide and wanted to see how much I knew about it. His bizarre friendship with Jojia still struck me as a littl
e off, and now the guy she had used as a kind of lookout was involved too. But did they have anything to do with Melanie? It seemed like a stretch.

  But it wouldn't be a stretch if Jojia and Kent were romantically close, I reasoned. In any three-way relationship the weakest link is doomed. Did Kent view Jojia as his Camilla Parker Bowles, his unachievable true love? And why did Jojia feel the need to have Charles stand watch outside their private VIP room at the nightclub? Stand watch for what? It was obvious that they were doing drugs in there, but that didn't seem all that unusual.

  The beginnings of a theory began to crystallize in my mind. If Jojia and Kent and Charles were up to something illegal, and if Melanie had caught wind of it, she would have made herself a target, someone to be eliminated. The connections were all there: Kent linked Jojia and Charles to Melanie, and their connection to drugs fit right in to Melanie's overdose. The idea found a welcoming home in my psyche, because it meant Melanie's death would have had nothing to do with the fact that she'd hired me, a worry I'd entertained since the very beginning. It would also explain the strange vibe I had gotten from Jojia and her immense entourage of friends. If I could figure out what they were up to, I figured Detective Weakland might finally decide to open the case as a murder investigation.

  It was Thursday night, which meant I was supposed to dance at my club. I didn't especially want to go, but I needed to keep up with it both for the money and for my expanding waistline. I had some time to kill before work, so I pulled up Jojia's Facebook page for the first time in several days. The first post on the top of the page was not from Jojia herself but from a girl named Janelle Petersen, and Janelle was not happy. The post was only a half hour old, and it read "You b!tch, I know what u did." Social media lends itself to such ambiguities, ambiguities I found annoying.

  Nothing on Jojia's page hinted at her whereabouts for the evening. Of course, it was barely even dinnertime, and she and her friends didn't start partying until midnight, or even later. My computer refreshed her page automatically, something it does all the time without me noticing. But this time, the post from Janelle Petersen had disappeared. One minute it was there, the next minute it was gone. I got a chill imagining Jojia looking at the exact same page I was looking at, at the same time, and I could picture her seeing the angry post and quickly clicking the delete button before anyone saw it. Who, I wondered, was Janelle Petersen, and what had Jojia done to her?