Lineage Most Lethal (Ancestry Detective)

by S. C. Perkins

  I got Grandpa’s proud face again. I was killin’ it on the impressing-Grandpa scale today. “It does indeed look that way to me,” he said.

  Then, almost simultaneously, our faces fell.

  I said, “That means we have to find the right three copies of The Thirty-Nine Steps amongst, what, possibly double digits of editions over the last hundred or so years?”

  “I think,” Grandpa said slowly, “that we may only need two right editions of the book.”

  I frowned. “Why is that?”

  He pointed to the three lines of undecrypted codes.

  “I’ve been thinking. Hugo told you to ‘keep them safe.’ There are eight lines of code, corresponding to eight different people. The operation I took part in had eight spies, one of which was Angelo Zeppetelli. His great-grandson, Rocky Zeppetelli, is on this list.” He tapped the list of names again. “I think these eight people may be related to the eight original operatives of my 1944 mission.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding. It made sense. “And you’re thinking these people might be in danger?”

  “I am,” he said. Then he began circling the last three groups of code. “And since I was one of the eight spies, then one of these ciphers is likely your name.”

  I was stunned at the thought. “But if I’m in danger,” I said slowly, “then you must be, too. You’re one of the original eight operatives. Maybe even the only one still alive.”

  “Odds are, it’s very likely I’m the last one still alive,” Grandpa said.

  “That just proves my point,” I said. “But furthermore, why would it be me on the list? Why not Dad, or Maeve?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “I don’t have the answer to that, but it’s a hunch.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. It felt reassuring. “Hopefully Ronda will have the editions of the key text we need and we can find out for sure. I’ll try to go to the bookstore tonight. We could be completely wrong and this may be referencing a whole other operation that I had nothing to do with.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I said, and Grandpa smiled.

  “Now, my love, drive me to the shuttle and let’s come up with a plan, including talking to Chef Rocky.”

  TWENTY

  “Where is everyone?” I asked Mrs. P. when I walked back into the Hotel Sutton a little while later. I’d expected to see a Sutton family member at every turn, but the place was as peaceful and quiet as always, except for the muted croons of Frank Sinatra coming from the direction of the bar. However, scenting the air was a heavenly mix of mint and chocolate, making me crave a peppermint-spiked hot cocoa.

  After all the mental and emotional workouts I’d had today, plus worrying about the same workouts’ effects on my grandfather, I felt like I could really use some time to chill out and process before I interviewed Pippa’s cousin—maybe with that peppermint hot cocoa, which was sounding more divine by the second. Then I remembered Grandpa wanted me to find Chef Rocky, so chilling out and hot cocoa were probably not going to happen.

  Speaking of Grandpa, it was only when his shuttle to Wimberley was driving off that I realized he hadn’t told me the most important thing: the full story of the joint OSS–SOE mission involving him and seven other spies.

  To be honest, I still had a feeling he didn’t want to tell it, that he was hoping whatever mission Hugo had set us on would be resolved so quickly that he wouldn’t have to divulge any of the secrets he’d kept so safe for over seventy-five years. I couldn’t blame him if that were the case.

  “Lucy? Did you hear me?” Mrs. P. said with a harried look from behind her station at the front desk. “I said most of them went shopping.” She lowered her voice, glancing up the staircase to see if anyone was coming. “And heavens, I’m glad of it. With them all being family, they feel a level of comfort here that’s, shall we say, a shade above your most demanding guest. I don’t think I’ve ever answered so many calls for niceties in my years with the Sutton company. They’ve about run me off my feet.”

  I chuckled. “Thank goodness the whole hundred-plus family members aren’t staying here.”

  “If they were, dear,” she said wearily, “I’d have to invent a long-lost cousin who’s suddenly become ill and ask for the week off.”

  “Or you could let me do your genealogy,” I said. “I’m sure I could find you an infirm cousin somewhere.” Angling my head to eye her dramatically, I said, “Pollingham … Are you sure it wasn’t originally Pohlmann? Because I have a client named Frieda Sue Pohlmann who’s a massive hypochondriac. I’m sure she’ll claim you as a relative if you’re willing to humor her that the heat in her forehead might be a severe case of bird flu, when she’s actually just been gardening in the sun for an hour.”

  Mrs. P.’s eyes had been growing rounder, then her laughter burst out and she leaned on her desk, fanning her blotchy cheeks. “Och, Lucy, you are terrible, but you do make me laugh.”

  The sound of the front door opening made me turn, and the newly married couple, who’d checked in yesterday just minutes after Hugo had been carried away by the ambulance, came into view. They were so wrapped up in each other, they could scarcely be bothered to give Mrs. P. more than a starry-eyed nod when she cooed, “Why, hello, Mr. and Mrs. Nguyen-Sobnoski. I hope you’re having a relaxing stay.”

  “They took each other’s last names,” she said in an undertone when they’d passed by the front desk and, with a giggle that only honeymooners could make without the whole world rolling their eyes, began walking up the back staircase. “I think it’s lovely, of course, but my, they’ll be forever spelling it to people on the phone, won’t they?”

  I grinned. “True, but now they’re officially one in a million—or even trillion—and that’s pretty fun. Especially considering Nguyen is the most common Vietnamese surname in the world.”

  “So long as you want to be one in a trillion,” Mrs. P. said dryly. “I happen to like being just another face in the crowd.”

  I rested my elbow on the front desk and grinned. “So, are you like Roselyn, then? Not wanting me to have a crack at your family tree?”

  Mrs. P. grinned back at me. “No, little Miss Nosy Parker. It’s because I already know. I was born in Florida, but my family is almost all English.” Her accent, which had always had a trace of something not American, affected a working-class London accent that could rival any actor on the long-running English soap opera EastEnders.

  “Me mum and me dad were about as far from being toffs as you could get. Hardly two shillings to rub between them their whole lives—though me dad always claimed he was the son of a peer. Mum never believed him, though. Told him if he were, he wouldn’t have said, ‘Cor blimey, you ain’t half a corker, are you?’ the first time they met and taken her to a Lyons’ for tea and a bun on their first date.”

  This made me laugh so hard my eyes watered. Mrs. P. handed me a tissue. “And so how did they get to Florida?” I asked.

  Her eyes were shining with mirth. “Mum won a lottery when she was barely pregnant with me,” she said. “Wasn’t much, a few hundred pounds, but it was during the winter; they were miserable and just wanted to go somewhere warm. Dad chose Florida, they went, and they ended up staying. Dad was great with cars and found a job working for a car company. Mum worked as a housekeeper at a hotel that became one of the Suttons’ first outside of Texas.” She shrugged. “They never had much money or a fancy house, but they were happy enough.”

  I was about to ask her how she decided to go from being a nurse to following in her mum’s footsteps in the hotel business when Mrs. P. looked around, noted we were alone, and leaned across the front desk.

  “So, how did it go at the police? Did they give you any news about our poor dead man?”

  By forcing myself not to think of Grandpa’s and my farcical subterfuge, I just managed not to blush. “Not even a bit,” I said. “I got the impression they don’t even know how he died yet because he’s low priority.”

  “Och, how sad for the man,” Mrs. P. said
. “Low priority, indeed.” She shook her head in dismay, then asked, “Were they pleased you found the fountain pen?”

  I made a comical face as we heard the front door opening again. “All I know is they were ticked off with me that I accidentally wiped it off. I explained that it had been thoroughly Boomer-slobbered, but that didn’t seem to make a difference.”

  “It would have if they’d ever had to clean Boomer’s slobber off of anything,” Pippa said, coming up beside me in blue running tights and a long-sleeved white athletic top, pink-cheeked from a midday run on Lady Bird Lake. Boomer himself was panting at her heels, though he still wiggled ecstatically when I went to pet him. He snorted and snuffled around my lower legs, no doubt picking up NPH’s scent.

  “I agree with that,” Mrs. P. said. She looked at Pippa, affecting a casual tone. “So, what did Mr. Eason think of the Montblanc Lucy found? Is he already thinking of clients who might buy it?”

  Pippa gave her front desk manager a look that was not unlike a preschool teacher playing referee between two squabbling children.

  “Now, Mrs. P., I know you and Uncle Dave don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, but he really is knowledgeable about antiques. He’s just had a stressful time of it, and sometimes it gets to him. I think you would, too, if you’d gone from being respected in your field to having no one who would hire you.”

  Mrs. P. sniffed in a way that said it was Uncle Dave’s own fault, but didn’t say anything.

  “Boomer, stop that,” Pippa chastised when she noticed him bumping my foot with his nose. “Oops, Lucy, I think you tracked in some chocolate mint.”

  Pippa pulled Boomer away and I bent to pick it up, but Mrs. P. was already there with handheld dustpan and brush.

  “Och, no, I think it was my fault, girls. I was taking a stroll out in the knot garden after lunch and I must have brought it in with me. Everything sticks to these trousers, you know.” She tugged on the leg of her black pants.

  “So that’s why I’ve been smelling mint and chocolate,” I said, peering at the trampled, weedy-looking herb before Mrs. P. tossed it in her trash can. “Though I didn’t know there was actually a variety of mint called chocolate mint.”

  “We have a ton of it in the knot garden,” Pippa said. “Chef Rocky uses it for his famous chocolate mint–chocolate chunk gelato.”

  I was practically salivating. “Please tell me we’ll be having some tonight.”

  “No doubt we will, if I can find him to confirm, that is.” Pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, Pippa said, “He’s been gone from the hotel since lunch and he’s not answering my calls or texts. Has he checked in lately, Mrs. P.?”

  Mrs. P. shook her head. “Though I was out earlier, running errands for the gala preparations, so I wouldn’t have seen him if he came in during the lunch hours.”

  “Is that unusual? For Chef Rocky to not answer?” I asked, feeling a ripple of fear as the names on Hugo’s list flashed through my mind. I’d been hoping Chef Rocky would have shown back up at the hotel by now and I could run down to the kitchen to talk to him.

  Though what I would say would be another matter.

  “Hi, Chef Rocky. I’m Lucy, your nosy resident genealogist. I uncovered a plot from World War Two and it’s possible, but not for sure, that your life may be in danger. Thanks for the pasta carbonara last night, it was delish!”

  Yeah, that sounded super sane and believable.

  “Oh, it’s hardly unusual,” Mrs. P. was saying, to which Pippa mostly agreed, then splayed her hand and made a so-so gesture.

  “If he leaves last minute like he did today, he’s usually good about responding,” she said, “but, yeah, if he’s off duty, he’s one hundred percent checked out and won’t reply for hours.” Pippa gave me a what-are-you-going-to-do shake of her head. “He’s incredible with food, but he’s your textbook definition of a mercurial chef. This time, though, I didn’t get any kind of heads-up that he needed time off, and it’s just not like him to ignore me.”

  I said, “Do you think he left a message on Roselyn’s voice-mail by accident? I remember she was looking for him earlier. Maybe he called her instead?”

  Pippa snapped her fingers. “That’s probably it.” She feigned wiping sweat from her brow. “Whew, thought I was losing it there. Thanks, Lucy. You’re not just my favorite genealogist, you’re a lifesaver.”

  “It’s all part of my full-service package,” I deadpanned as I caught the time on the mantel’s nineteenth-century ormolu clock. “Speaking of, it’s time for me to go set up for my interview with your cousin Catherine in the back parlor.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  It’s the early 1970s and we’d just seen a rerun of Them!—it’s a horror classic from 1954—completely silly now, but at the time, to three seven-year-old girls…? Anyway, so there we were, Judy, Janie, and me, playing down in the ditch, right at the entrance to one of those huge concrete sewer pipes that was going in the ground. You could do things like that back in those days.

  “So we’re scared half to death, and daring each other to walk into the pipe. Finally, we plucked up our courage and got halfway in when, suddenly, there’s this shadow at the other end and a huge ROOAAARRRR! Well, the three of us went tearing out of that pipe like our pants were on fire, screaming bloody murder, falling over each other and scraping our knees in the process. And lo and behold, if it isn’t Gramps, belly-laughing so hard he could hardly breathe.

  “Granny Nell came rushing out of the house at hearing our screams and was about fit to be tied! Oh my, but she did dress him down for scaring us. Made him doctor our knees up as we sat there on the porch steps, crying, and he just kept right on chuckling. After we calmed down, it was so funny we couldn’t stop laughing, either, and it’s been one of our favorite memories of our grandfather ever since.”

  Catherine’s face was aglow with memories, and she pulled up her right pant leg to just under the knee. “See? I’ve still got the scar from that day, and it still makes me smile every time I see it.”

  After a couple of seconds where I held the camera on her smiling face, I made a fist, letting her know I was stopping the recording. It was just past five o’clock, over an hour after we’d started, and I’d gotten some great material to add into the family presentation. Even better, Catherine had already contracted me to draw up the other side of her family tree.

  Outside the French doors, the rapidly darkening sky meant the landscape lighting was popping on, brightening the knot garden.

  “I wish I’d known Sarah Bess,” Catherine said, looking wistful. “She was one heck of a woman from the things we do know, and I’m glad the stories we’ve all been carrying around in our heads and hearts for so long are now being preserved in your wonderful video.”

  I felt like I’d been given a huge gold star and grinned like an idiot as I packed up my equipment.

  Just before the interview started, Grandpa had texted me to confirm he was home safe and would be meeting his neighbor John McMahon for dinner. Then in less than an hour, I was to have dinner with Pippa and several of her family members, including Uncle Dave, though whether we were going to have a special meal prepared by Chef Rocky was another matter. By the time Catherine had arrived for our interview at four p.m., there had still been no sign of the chef.

  Leaving my equipment in the corner, I slung my tote over my shoulder and went to check with Mrs. P. I found her post empty, save for a bell and a small plaque she habitually left when she had to step away for a few minutes. Ring Bell for Service. You Will Be Assisted Shortly, it read. I knew the bell was electronic and would send an alert to Mrs. P.’s phone, sending her rushing back to help whoever had rung it. I felt it likely she was fulfilling some request for another Sutton family member. If so, I certainly didn’t need to bother her.

  I turned and strode into the bar, thinking the bartender or one of the bar staff would know if Chef Rocky had shown up.

  Two steps in, I had to slow my pace. The bar was teeming with people and the s
taff was rushing to keep up. At the front of the bar, I glimpsed Uncle Dave laughing with a group of businessmen, all of them drinking Napoli old fashioneds. He was clearly starting the cocktail portion of our dinner early.

  The swinging door to the kitchen was flung open by one of the waitresses holding a tray laden with hot appetizers, and she breezed past me before I could stop her.

  “Okay, then,” I muttered. “I’ll just check for myself.” Pushing through the swinging door, I walked down a short corridor to the kitchen.

  The first time I’d ever been to the Hotel Sutton, Pippa had shown me around the entire former mansion, including the remodeled, state-of-the-art hotel kitchen where Chef Rocky had been gearing up to cook for a large luncheon being hosted in the ballroom. Pippa made introductions and Chef Rocky greeted me with a quick once-over and a flash of white teeth. Other than the fact he was clearly of Latin origin, with his slightly Roman nose, long-lashed brown eyes, and thick, dark hair expertly cut and styled to look like he’d just tumbled out of bed, he was moving at such speed around the kitchen that my best memory of him was of a sexy, dark-headed blur.

  I recalled him being like an emperor surveying his kingdom, checking things at a frenetic pace and barking orders at his team while they sautéed, stirred, chopped, and mixed various things at their prep stations. His team called back, “Yes, chef!” at regular intervals and I noticed he paused longer at the station where a pretty brunette who looked just out of culinary school was creating garnishes. She turned scarlet and almost crushed the dainty edible flowers when he commented on her progress. Beside me, Pippa cast me an eye roll that was more indulgent than judgmental.

  “He’s a good guy, but also as bad boy a chef as they ever made them,” she’d whispered, “which includes flirting with every woman over the age of eighteen and the full sleeve of tatts on each arm.”

  This was verified when Chef Rocky reached up to grasp a ladle hanging from a hook, which drew back the sleeves of his chef’s whites and exposed a myriad of colors racing up his forearm.