Death of a Modern King

by Angela Pepper

  “Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Without warning, Della threw her arms in the air and launched herself at me. I became the recipient of an enthusiastic, very chesty hug. When she pulled away I checked my shoulder blades for knives. With no signs of any sharp objects lodged in my back, I had to assume the unthinkable.

  Della thought we were friends.

  She adjusted her cleavage again. “I’m so glad I got to see you today,” she said.

  “Me, too,” I lied.

  Her expression grew serious. “Now go,” she commanded, pointing one long fingernail at the door. “I can’t go you-know-what if anyone else is in the bathroom.”

  “Fair enough. I was just leaving.”

  “See you around. Give Logie a kiss for me!”

  I left Della to her privacy in the washroom and stood in the hallway for a minute.

  The only thing more unsettling than having Della as an enemy was having her as a friend.

  But my father had urged me to have an open mind. Was she really so bad?

  We’d met under stressful circumstances, and she’d suffered huge losses within the last six months. I could give her a second chance, setting aside the whole mud-wrestling incident and everything else that happened at the Flying Squirrel Lodge in February. I might forgive and pretend to forget, the way Officer Kyle Dempsey had declined to report the exact manner in which Della had taken possession of his firearm.

  Sometimes letting things go as water under the bridge was the peaceful way to live. At the very least, I could stay neutral and simply do my job.

  I walked down the hall to Logan’s office. His leather chair was empty, as was his office. I made my way back out to the reception desk.

  Corine was holding the mini-bagel with both hands and inhaling deeply. She explained, “If you really smell your food, you get satisfied faster. Most of our sense of taste comes through the nose.”

  “And here I’ve just been using my mouth this whole time.”

  She smiled. “Did you have a nice lunch with Logan?”

  “I haven’t seen him. I thought you’d know where he was.”

  She picked up her phone and called the boardroom and a few other places before reporting back, “He must have slipped out of the office when I was downstairs getting the mail.” She gestured to a stack of envelopes and flyers secured by a blue elastic band. “I was only gone for a few minutes.”

  “Our Logie—I mean Logan—can be sneaky,” I said.

  “I’m sorry you missed him,” she said. “If you run, you might be able to catch him in the parkade.” She sounded and looked extremely apologetic.

  “Thanks, but I can always catch up with him later.” I gave her a sly look. “I happen to know where he lives.”

  On the elevator ride down to the parkade, my mind was very open. I had new information that could be shifted to form new pictures.

  Della was preparing for a battle, and meeting with a lawyer. Had I detected any sign of a baby bump on her slim midsection? I’d placed my hands on her waist during our hug and felt her as much as I dared, just short of groping. If she was pregnant, she wasn’t showing yet.

  The math was easy. One third of thirty million dollars was a sweet ten million.

  But carrying an heir to the fortune made her less likely to kill Dieter. If there was a pregnancy, it was still in its early stages and nowhere near a sure thing.

  By the time I reached my car, I’d run dozens of scenarios. He could have been pressuring her to terminate the pregnancy. That gave her motivation. Then again, she could have simply left town and had the kid then sued him for support.

  What if she wasn’t pregnant? Would she still be entitled to anything? I’d have to talk to Logan and get the real scoop. If she was trying to get her own reality TV show, as the women in the office had mentioned, she could be launching a frivolous lawsuit solely for publicity.

  One thing was clear. Della was very much mixed up in whatever had happened.

  Chapter 11

  There’s nothing quite like a smudge of lipstick on your collar, courtesy of a dame in distress, to make you feel like a cheap detective in a classic movie.

  When Della hugged me at Logan’s office, I was so busy trying to frisk her for a baby bump that I didn’t notice she’d left a souvenir of her lips on my shirt. I toyed with the idea that if the makeup stain didn’t come out, I’d bill it to Logan.

  After leaving the Mesa Office Tower, I drove to Broad Avenue and my store, Glorious Gifts.

  My employee, Brianna Chang, filled me in on what the whole town already knew—Dieter Koenig had hit his head on the diving board and expired just as his two heirs were flying in for a landing.

  “Talk about the perfect alibi,” Brianna said. “Those rich boys had it all figured out.”

  As we talked, Brianna grabbed the cleaning supplies and wiped up a coffee ring from what we called our butler shelf. The shelf was her idea. Rather than getting annoyed at people for setting their takeout coffee cups within product displays and dribbling on everything, or forgetting their beverages entirely, we decided to accommodate our customers’ needs. We installed an extra shelf on our central island and left it empty, so shoppers could set down their drinks when they wanted to use both hands to consider a purchase. In the first month, the custom-built shelf had paid for itself.

  Brianna was a great hire, and older than she looked, which was about fourteen if she didn’t wear makeup. Her disposition was an entertaining mix of sweetness and sarcasm, which was probably why we got along so well. Plus she did an excellent job of running the store so I could traipse around town playing private eye.

  I asked her, “Is that what people in town are saying? That Drake or Brandon planned this?”

  She shuffled a display of teddy bears to dust their shelf. “Nobody else is saying that,” she said. “Just me. And you know I wouldn’t talk about my crazy conspiracy theories with anyone but you.”

  “I am the resident expert on crazy.” I stepped behind the counter and checked our supply of coins for the till. “What makes you suspicious?”

  “I was sleeping Sunday morning,” she said. “Like a regular person, sprawled out in bed, sleeping off the weekend’s fun. Nobody ever has an alibi for Sunday morning. But those two were on an airplane. A bullet-proof alibi.”

  The till drawer closed with a satisfying click. “Brianna, have you been watching true-crime shows?”

  “Just for research.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I’m thinking of doing a spinoff of my webcomic. It would be a murder mystery.”

  “I thought your webcomic was supposed to be funny.” I gave her a teasing eyebrow waggle of my own. Her webcomic actually was funny, but one of our running gags was that I pretended to not get her humor.

  She replied, “And what’s more zany than people trying to get away with the perfect crime?” She rubbed her hands together. “I could totally pull it off. The trick is to make it look like an accident.”

  I shook my head. “You would frighten me if you weren’t so adorable.”

  She picked up the big-eyed doll we agreed was her doppelgänger and blinked innocently, her face next to the doll version.

  “Is this the face of a killer?” she asked sweetly.

  “You’re about as terrifying as Jeffrey when he decides my shoelaces are snakes that must be murdered.”

  After closing up the shop for the day and taking a deposit to the bank, I went home. Logan’s truck wasn’t in the driveway. We didn’t exactly live together, but he did rent the tenant side of the duplex I owned. He lived there alone, and I lived with my cat and a roommate.

  My roommate and best friend, Jessica Kelly, wouldn’t be home until eight o’clock. She’d left me a note with detailed instructions for heating up the casserole she’d made that morning, and when I say detailed, I mean detailed. I had to tent the tinfoil a certain way so it didn’t stick to the cheese topping, and also put a cookie sheet on the lower tray so the bubbling sauce w
ouldn’t drip onto the stove interior and set off the smoke detector, which would give Jeffrey a scaredy-cat tail all night.

  Logan still hadn’t returned when Jessica got home at quarter past eight. He did send me one text message at seven, telling me he was working late and not to wait up.

  I pulled the casserole from the oven while Jessica got changed out of her Olive Grove uniform, a cream blouse and green slacks. She emerged in her usual all-pink wardrobe, with hot-pink jean shorts and a pale-pink sleeveless top, her red hair back in a loose braid.

  We started eating dinner while I caught her up on the day’s activities.

  “Your father loves playing detective with you,” she said. “And you make such an adorable father-daughter team.”

  “You should have seen him in his suit, with the hat and the sunglasses and everything. I don’t know if I’m cool enough to be his partner.”

  “Oh, please,” she said with a laugh. “What did Erica say about the general mood at the house?”

  “It’s more what she didn’t say.” I gave her a look as I dug the serving spoon into the hot pan of food.

  “Do tell,” she urged, so I did.

  Since she’d moved in with me in February, I’d been sharing details of my casework with her. We made our arrangement official in March, when Logan drew up some basic paperwork, and she signed a non-disclosure agreement. She became a consultant for my detective business, and I paid her a nominal monthly fee. It wasn’t much, because she was too proud to take more, but I had other ways of helping her. Jessica wasn’t a shopaholic or willfully irresponsible with money, but cash seemed to slip through her fingers like water.

  Our consulting arrangement had several benefits. Detective work could sometimes be dangerous, so if something were to happen to me, at least Jessica would know what I was currently working on, or who I’d gone to meet.

  More importantly, when I hit a wall in an investigation, complaining to her about how impossible something was could open up my mind to the answers. We called this the Rubber Duck Effect, a term I’d learned years ago from a software engineer friend. My friend’s boss would have frustrated programmers explain to a yellow rubber duck how something worked and where they were stuck. Because of the wonderful layers of the human mind, when they reframed the problem in terms easy enough for a yellow tub toy to understand, the programmers would lead themselves to the solution.

  We ate the delicious casserole and talked about how Della might figure into the Koenig case. All I knew for sure was that she’d been dating Dieter Koenig, she was taking meetings with Logan, and she thought a battle was coming.

  “Della would have gorgeous babies,” Jessica said. “But I think her career comes before having a family. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s not pregnant.”

  “If she is and she’s hiding it, she can’t hide it forever,” I said.

  “Not in those tiny dresses of hers,” she agreed. “Fashion might actually come first before career, then family.”

  I rolled my eyes. I’d seen her hike up a mountain in heels. They were chunky heels, not stilettos, but still.

  “Della is a talented singer,” Jessica said. “I’ve always been a fan, right from the first time I heard her hosting karaoke. Her meetings with Logan could be about music contracts.”

  I had to agree it was a possibility. It was just like Jessica to point out Della’s talent. Whereas my employee, Brianna, always came up with dark and twisted backstories, Jessica had a wonderful way of pointing out innocent intentions and seeing the good in people. She reminded me of a sheltered princess in a children’s storybook, with her bright-blue eyes and her thick, red hair that she was always braiding and twisting into elaborate hairstyles. Jessica had never left Misty Falls, and it showed in her trusting nature.

  “She might have a music contract in the works,” I said. “But there has to be something else. Come on, Jessica. Just try to think like a devious person for a minute.”

  She snorted and added some spinach salad to her plate.

  “Was Della wearing any new jewelry?” Jessica asked. “Maybe Mr. Koenig bought her something expensive or gave her a family heirloom, and she’s worried the sons are going to try to get it back. That could be the battle.”

  I didn’t remember any jewelry standing out, but we’d only seen each other briefly, and the way Della dressed, there was always a lot to look at.

  “I could check with Ruby,” I said. “If Dieter bought something locally or had an heirloom ring resized, it would have gone through the Treasure Trove.”

  Jessica let Jeffrey jump up onto her lap and pretended not to notice him licking the cheese sauce from the edge of her plate. If she and I were in a contest to see who could spoil him the most, she was winning. The little brat looked me right in the eyes, daring me to say something.

  “You should call Samantha Sweet,” she said, referring to my real estate agent. “Rich old guys like to buy penthouse apartments for their girlfriends. Since we don’t have any penthouses in town, maybe he bought her a house.”

  “A love shack,” I said. “Must be nice to be Dieter Koenig. Except for the whole dying part.” I shook my head. “Poor guy. He ducked out right when his life was about to get extremely interesting. I overheard some women talking at Tyger & Behr, about Della getting her own TV show.”

  “I’d watch that,” Jessica said.

  We sat in contemplation for a few minutes before Jessica said, “That’s it! She was talking about her story, her life rights, when she told you she was preparing for battle.” Jessica straightened up in her chair, looking pleased with her deviousness. “She’s planning to leverage herself with the Koenig name, like that curvy model who married the old billionaire.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But the Koenigs aren’t that famous outside of Oregon, or billionaires. A billion dollars is a thousand million, and they’re not even worth a hundred million.”

  “Everything adds up, though,” she said. “She has the singing, the rich old boyfriend, plus everything that happened up at... you know.”

  At the mention of the Flying Squirrel Lodge, Jessica’s posture crumbled, as though she were becoming smaller. She hunched over Jeffrey, kissing his ears and hand-feeding him morsels of leftovers.

  Ever since our trip in February, my best friend hadn’t been the same. She’d fainted during the worst of it, but she had to live with the memory that she’d been in the arms of a killer. In some ways, she seemed stronger and braver, more willing to take risks. But other times, like now, she seemed to be less of herself. Broken. Or at least fractured. Like a beautiful dish with a chip and a fault line, holding together day to day, withstanding continuous use, but ready to fall apart with one good bump.

  I was brushing my teeth and getting ready for bed when my father phoned.

  Cryptically, he said, “You should come join me at the casino.”

  “Very funny. I’m in my pajamas.”

  “I don’t see anyone else here in pajamas, so you’d better get changed if you want to blend in. I’ll watch the door for you. If you leave now, you can be here in forty-five minutes.”

  I said I planned to be in dreamland in forty-five minutes, but he’d ended the call.

  With a sigh, I put on more of the makeup I’d just washed off.

  My father liked to joke around, but he wouldn’t send me driving out past town limits purely for amusement. If he requested my presence at the Canuso Lake Casino on the reservation lands, he had good reason.

  I removed my comfy pajamas and searched my closet for appropriate detective wear. A good detective aims to be a Gray Person, like a background actor filling out a crowd scene in a movie—not too flashy, unless there’s a good reason, but not too conspicuously clandestine, either. It does no good to dress like a ninja in all black when everyone else is wearing jeans and polar fleece.

  The Monday-night crowd at the casino would be wearing jeans, so that’s what I chose, along with a gray shirt and a zip-up summer jacket.

  Jess
ica was curled up on the couch, eating air-popped popcorn and watching a late-night talk show. I told her where I was going and invited her along, but she declined.

  “I’m afraid to set foot in a casino,” she said. “Gambling is the last bad money habit a girl like me needs to pick up.”

  I laced up my shoes and hesitated at the front door.

  She turned off the TV and gave me a concerned look. “Stormy, you look like you need me. Give me a sec to get changed.”

  “No, don’t worry. My dad’s there. It should be safe enough.”

  She snuggled Jeffrey, who was also giving me a concerned look. “Are you sure?”

  I twisted the door handle and said bravely, “If I don’t return, avenge my death.”

  “As always,” she promised.

  I left for the casino and whatever or whomever my father had found.

  Chapter 12

  People say the only way to leave the casino with a small fortune is to arrive with a much larger one.

  I drove to the Canuso Lake Casino with fifty dollars in my pocket.

  I hadn’t spoken to Logan all day, and he seemed to have his phone switched off, but that wasn’t unusual for when he was focused on a case.

  When I walked into the casino, I nearly bumped into the owner of Wild Buck’s, Mr. Owen Johnson. The small, bald man grinned and gave me a warm handshake.

  “Sheesh, look at you,” Owen said in his squeaky voice. “Coming to haul your father out of here before he goes bust?”

  “How much is he up by?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure about the cash situation, but he’s got two different women blowing on his dice for good luck, and they’ve got a couple of husbands who don’t seem none too impressed.”

  I shook my head. “Typical.”

  He yawned and patted my shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here to keep an eye on him, because it’s past my bedtime.”

  “Mine, too,” I said with a nod.

  He laughed and carried on toward the cashier’s cage to cash out his chips.