Royal Flush (15 page)

Detective Weakland answered and agreed to meet us again. He suggested In-N-Out Burger, which I found amusing, but I demurred and asked him to name his second choice. No sense reliving the drama of yesterday. Weakland was at a crime scene but thought he could meet us in about a half hour. Mike and I eased our way out of the crowd and walked back to our car. The service had been shorter than I feared, so it wasn't even noon yet.

We beat Detective Weakland to the restaurant and got ourselves seated. The more I studied the menu, the more appealing Detective Weakland's original suggestion of In-N-Out Burger was becoming. We were at a hole-in-the-wall Ethiopian restaurant that touted its halal offerings as its specialty. Mike's face looked as puzzled as mine was.

"Anything look good?" I asked.

He smiled nervously. "How bad can it be? This one here seems like it would be similar to Indian food." He was pointing at something called
alicha wat
, which the menu described as chopped beef and ribs with garlic and herb sauce.

I shrugged. "Doesn't sound too bad."

We both ordered glasses of water, after which Weakland joined us.

"What's good here?" I asked.

"Yes it is," he said, grinning.

"Huh?" I asked.

"
Wat
's good here," he explained, a little too enamored of his inane pun.

"And who's on first?" Mike asked.

I kicked him under the table. "Let's not encourage this any further."

Weakland looked disappointed. "Seriously, I always order a
wat
. They have a meat one and a lot of vegetarian and vegan ones. It's like a big curry stew you'd get at an Indian place, but a little earthier, with different spices."

"Fine with me," I said.

Weakland ordered for all of us, adding an Ethiopian beer called Bati for himself. And then he got right down to business.

"So, what's this amazing new development you want to run past me?"

Mike took out his phone and pulled up the photo. "This guy look familiar to you?"

Weakland moved the phone an arm's length from his face and peered down at it, reminding me of my nearsighted aunts and uncles. "Never seen him before. Who's he?"

"He was at Melanie's funeral today. As her
husband
."

Weakland closed his eyes and rubbed his nose. "I met her husband, as I told you. His name was something short, English, started with a—"

"Kent," I interjected.

"Yeah, that's it. Thin guy, light brown hair, kind of a carefree, playboy vibe to him. You're saying he wasn't there?"

"Exactly," Mike said. "Henry John Kent. We followed him around Las Vegas for awhile, assuming he was Melanie's boyfriend. She never told us they were married."

"So who the hell is the guy in your picture?" Weakland asked, shaking his head. His beer arrived, which seemed to cheer him up.

Mike shot me a look.

"What?" Weakland asked. "A guy can't have a beer at lunch anymore? Here's a little nugget for you that I bet you didn't know. The chief justice of the United States used to drink a beer at lunch every day, and he was in charge of the whole court system. And that was very recently. You know, of course, that the founding fathers were wasted when they drew up the Constitution. I think that means a lowly detective like me can enjoy a beverage now and again, don't you?"

I nodded vigorously. "Your logic is impeccable."

"Anyway," Weakland continued, "so your Kent was the same as my Kent. Which leaves us again with the same question. Who the hell is
this
guy?" He was holding Mike's phone at arm's length, still studying the photo.

I filled in some of the gaps. "I talked to Melanie's mom's cousin, and she said the family had just recently found out about the wedding, which was a private affair, and none of them had ever met her husband until the funeral."

Weakland leaned back and rubbed his temples. "So nobody around here will be able to answer that question, either. They never even laid eyes on the guy until now. He could have been some guy who walked in off the street, and they'd just nod their heads and say 'Hi, nice to meet you, sorry for your loss.'"

Mike nodded. "It's not as if they'd check ID. If the guy says he's the husband, they'd have no reason to doubt him."

I perked up. "So, Detective Weakland, did
you
check Kent's ID when you talked to him?"

He paused for a minute and slurped some beer. "I don't remember specifically, but it would have been part of our standard procedure when taking a witness statement."

"But he wasn't a witness," Mike noted. "He was just the husband. The guy who called it in. My guess is you don't check the ID of family members of drug overdose victims. There'd be no reason to."

Weakland grimaced and rubbed at his temples. "It's fifty-fifty, I guess. Maybe we did, maybe we didn't. I'll check when I get back to the office."

Our food arrived, steaming hot bowls of a multicolored stew that glistened from the oil and fats oozing around in the sauce. It smelled delicious, so I dug in without hesitation.

"See what I mean?" Weakland asked. "Not bad, huh?"

I nodded, sucking air into my mouth to cool off the piping hot concoction. Weakland was right: it was delicious and more nourishingly wholesome than a giant cheeseburger could ever be.

I took another bite, then tried to keep us on track. "So we know even less today than we did yesterday. We don't even know if the guy we thought was Kent is Kent. Or whether the new Kent is the real Kent."

"Or whether
either
of them is the real Kent," Mike muttered.

"Does it really matter?" I asked. "I mean, it's very strange, but does it make it any more likely that Melanie's death was not an accident?"

Weakland's mouth was full, but he nodded vigorously. He finally came up for air and sucked down a swig of beer. "That's what I've been thinking, guys. I mean, this is all very interesting about the mysterious husband-slash-boyfriend and the bait and switch, but I doubt it means anything. And as to whether he's part of some royal family somewhere, who cares?"

I shrugged. "To me it makes things much less clear. Melanie just did
not
seem like a druggie. I only met her once, but I just didn't get that sense from her. And now we find out she's married, and the family didn't even know? And on top of that, we don't even know who the husband is because two different people have put themselves forward as Henry John Kent, a guy who's been asking for Melanie's money to help with some supposed lawsuit in England."

Mike, who had been devouring the
wat
, finally piped in. "And Kent is a guy who has at least one other girlfriend that we know of. We watched him spend an awful lot of time with a Japanese girl in Vegas, and she was giving him money too."

Weakland was trying to seem unimpressed, but his face betrayed a touch of concern. I supposed that, to him, all this information we were throwing at him meant a lot more work. Like everyone else, cops like things to be as simple as they appear, and they had no incentive to go poking around to make more work for themselves. Starting an investigation meant diverting resources from elsewhere, and in this case it might mean ruffling the feathers of a very well-heeled and influential family. I sympathized with Weakland's position, so I wasn't going to be too hard on him for not accepting the obvious, which was that something very fishy was going on.

Mike wasn't quite so understanding. "So that's not enough to get an investigation going? The two husbands, the secret marriage, the girlfriend in Vegas? What's it gonna take?"

Weakland smiled. "Well I haven't said 'no' yet. Let's just be patient, keep snooping around, and wait for the tox report. That should be next week sometime."

"Can you expedite that?" I asked.

He chuckled. "I get asked that question about twice a year. The answer is, no way."

I shook my head and turned back to my meal. Weakland's beer was looking awfully tasty, but I decided I didn't have time to take a nap after lunch. Mike and I would have some work to do.

We all attacked the remnants of our lunch in silence. I didn't think I'd be able to finish my bowl, but I did, and I managed to be the first one done, which was nothing new for me. It left me in the unenviable position of watching the other two enjoy the same deliciousness that I had already polished off. We left things hanging without any kind of resolution.

"So, you have my number," Weakland said. "Let me know if anything comes up."

I nodded, and when the check came Weakland was happy to let me pick it up, which I didn't mind, especially since we were the ones giving him more work and asking all sorts of nosy questions.

Weakland excused himself, leaving Mike and me to digest.

"He's right," Mike said. "That was very good. I've never tried Ethiopian before."

I smiled. "Keep hanging out with me, kid, and I'll show you the world."

He leaned back and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you're a regular Rick Steves."

"Huh?"

"He's a travel guide on PBS," Mike explained, a pillar of patience.

"Oh, you mean that dorky looking guy with the glasses? I used to watch his show with my grandma."

Mike nodded. "Yeah, but he's not dorky."

I smirked. "No, I guess
you
wouldn't think so. You two have the same fashion sense."

Mike sighed and fixed me with a pained expression. "So many insults. You think that doesn't hurt? You think I'm not crying on the inside?"

I choked on my water, with a half a gulp ending up on my chin and the other half on my shirt. "I call bullshit on that."

Mike beamed, proud of the fact that he'd caused me to make a mess all over myself. "Mission accomplished," he said. "Now let's get the
hell
out of here." He said "hell" with the relish of a seven-year-old who was trying to get a rise out of a grown-up.

"What's next, the F word?" I asked.

He shrugged, still grinning. "Since you've taken me under your wing and shown me the world, the sky's the limit."

"It's good to have goals, kid," I muttered. We got up and headed out of the restaurant. "Now what?"

"I think we have to bother the family," he said, holding the door open for me.

"Yeah, I was worried you were going to say that."

We stood for a minute outside my car. I was eyeing the clouds, which were beginning to look dark and threatening.

"That means we have to stay another night," Mike said. "At least."

I perked up. "And you know what
that
means?"

He cringed, almost imperceptibly. "No. But you'll tell me."

"Shopping!" I chirped, a little too excitedly. "I'm out of clothes."

Mike steeled himself and maintained a stoic expression. "We have some work to do, though, right?"

I pouted. There would be time for shopping, but it was going to have to wait. We climbed into the car, Mike behind the wheel, still without a plan.

Mike was concentrating, but all I could think of was how cute he looked when he was thinking. With his face in profile, I could tell it was drawn, his eyebrows furrowed slightly, with his slightly oversized, straight nose accentuating his strong jaw and cheekbones. He must have sensed my appreciative gaze.

"May I help you?" he asked, turning to face me.

"No, I'm good. I just decided to let you do all the thinking for both of us."

"That line's from a movie, right?" he asked.

"Yup."

"Care to share?" he asked.

"Nope."

His eyes got really big, and his face crinkled into a look that I translated as
this chick is wacko
. "Okay, then," he said simply. "I'm gonna guess Melanie's dad will be kind of hard to get in touch with, given that he's a high-powered billionaire with limos, chauffeurs, and bodyguards. So I'm thinking let's try the mom and see if we can get anything out of her."

That was essentially what I had been thinking, but I was enjoying him taking the lead. "We go to their house and just show up?"

"Got any better ideas?" he asked. "It's too late to catch them at the burial."

"I could cyberstalk her," I muttered, only half-joking.

"Um, let's go with Plan A." He checked his watch. "How long do you think a burial takes? I've never actually been to one."

"Half hour, hour," I guessed. "And they they'll probably have a fancy lunch or something somewhere."

"So they won't be home for another hour or so," Mike said. "At the earliest. And it might take us an hour just to find their place," he added. "And who knows how the hell we're going to do that."

 "Way ahead of you, Sherlock," I said, smiling. I produced a little scrap of paper from my pocket with an address on it.

"10308 Greendale Drive." He read aloud. "90077." He shot me a blank look.

"That's their address," I said.

"And you got this how?"

I smiled, more than a little proud of myself. "There was a visitation book in the back of church. Everyone who came to the funeral was supposed to sign in. Guess whose name and address appeared in the very first line. Her parents. Must have been her mom, from the look of the handwriting."

He nodded his head up and down. "Nice
work
."

"You never know when you're going to need something like that. It's not as if they're gonna be in the phone book."

"Well let's get over there and see what the place looks like." He punched the address into my car's navigation system, cursing under his breath at the cumbersome process, and then we headed off into the city.

I was enjoying having Mike chauffeur me through the heart of Los Angeles, a city I'd visited a few times on "business" but had never appreciated as a tourist. When I was younger, I'd filled out an "application" to attend a party at the Playboy mansion, and I'd even made the cut, scoring an invite signed by Hugh Hefner himself. But the night before the party I walked face-first into one of the stripper poles at Cougar's and sported a long, red welt across half my face. I didn't think Hef would go for that, so I backed out.