Royce Rolls Read online

  The case was the case, and now the case had changed.

  The Royce family was plenty messed up, all right, but he didn’t think they were criminals. Not yet, anyhow. He studied his list. Persons of interest? The thing that was the most interesting was the idea that the people on this list were all there was.

  Somehow, Harry doubted it. He had begun to sense that there was more to Bentley Royce than anyone realized.

  Harry tossed the paperwork on his desk. The case was thin. The details were suspect. He’d spoken to the teen in question himself, and she’d seemed perfectly normal—balls of steel, but normal. Something was off.

  There had to be more than this.

  Harry Connolly, senior detective, head of the Homicide Special Section task force, was sure of it.

  He would bet his career on it. And in fact, he was. So he picked up the file and began to read again.

  PERSONS OF INTEREST

  LAPD HOMICIDE SPECIAL SECTION

  RE: BENTLEY ROYCE, MISSING PERSONS

  •Dave Nagao, Nobu, apprentice sushi chef

  •Dr. A., therapist

  •Maureen Reynolds, Mulholland Hall, Honors English teacher

  •“Venice,” probable transient, frequenting Santa Monica library

  •“Chicago Bulls Cap,” probable transient, frequenting Santa Monica library

  •“Spots,” probable transient, frequenting Santa Monica library

  •“Fox,” probable transient, frequenting Santa Monica library

  •Joshua Lee, Reference Desk, Santa Monica library

  •“Lawrence,” meeting leader, Santa Monica Seventh Street meeting, AA

  •Porsche Royce, sister

  •Mercedes Royce, mother

  •Maybach Royce, brother

  •Guadalupe Flores, housekeeper

  •Jeff Grunburg, Lifespan Network president

  •Razz Jazzy White, head of Whiteboyz music label, father of T. Wilson White

  •Pamela Pearson, Rolling with the Royces, producer

  •Ronda Mahoney, CAA, agent/manager

  •Tracey from Hair & Makeup, freelance, frequent home visits (according to sister)

  •Brad B from TryCycle, instructor, three times weekly

  •Ileana Raku, skincare facialist, Friday appointments

  •Louis from Barneys shoe department, friend (note: self-described)85

  Harry turned the pages in the file and kept reading. To his dismay, the sworn statements weren’t much help either.

  “Two vegetable soybean rolls, extra shiso, two spicy tuna, one tofu special. Cold soba noodle salad. She used to come in with her brother every night and pick it up. I think she liked me.”

  —DAVE NAGAO

  “Miss Royce was a deep thinker with college aspirations. I wasn’t expecting that. I wasn’t expecting much. Not from her, not in my class. You know celebrities. I mean, you probably know celebrities. Can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one at Mulholland Hall’s Upper Campus, right?”

  —MAUREEN REYNOLDS

  “Always on time. And a great, full brow. Really natural. I just cleaned it up, really can’t take any credit for the shape.”86

  —TRACEY FROM HAIR & MAKEUP

  “I don’t know anything about that missing actress from the news. Why would a famous reality television personality come into a library? And wouldn’t you think I’d notice, if she did? And if she was famous, why would she even talk to me? In fact, why are you talking to me? Don’t talk to me. This is a library. In fact, just don’t talk.”

  —JOSHUA LEE

  “Bentley? No puedo hablar ahora. Mi jefe me va a matar. Usted no sabe Mercedes Royce. Ella es una perra fría.”

  —GUADALUPE FLORES

  “Bentley’s been with us for six seasons. She’s no Porsche, of course, but then who is? Her presentation was getting better. We were encouraging her to spin, to take care of herself. The attitude needed a little work, to be honest, but we have people for that. She played Bentley Royce perfectly, we never once thought about recasting. We’d even talked about giving B her own story line. But I think we all know how that turned out.”

  —PAM PEARSON

  “Doctor-patient privilege. All I can say is, she liked animals.”

  —DR. A.

  “Something was wrong. She had eaten shellfish, and possibly nuts, during the last week. She tried to deny it, but I could see it in the pores on her forehead. It was like her skin wanted me to know, you know? And while I can’t say she herself was smoking, she was definitely letting herself be smoked on. There was clear blockage, borderline pre-blackheads. It was absolutely tragic.”

  —ILEANA RAKU

  “Was Bentley Royce a member of our Pack? I really couldn’t say. Was she taking her journey with us? You’d have to ask her. Celebrity client privilege. At TryCycle, we take that very seriously. This isn’t SheWheel, for god’s sake. We don’t just light a candle, toss you a water bottle, and give you a mini cupcake on your birthday. We give you a vegan, gluten-free one.”

  —BRAD B.

  “Do I know a Bentley? AA doesn’t stand for Alcoholics All-Identified, for the public’s gossip-mongering pleasure. If I knew her, I’d probably tell you she was a person, and she was hurting, and she was determined to stop living in the problem and start living in the answer. But I’m not saying I know her. You get me?”

  —LAWRENCE

  “Are you going to finish that cake?”

  —VENICE AT THE LIBRARY, LAST NAME UNKNOWN

  PORSCHE ROYCE COMES CLEAN IN ROYCE-WHITE CASE: ‘I DROVE HIM TO IT’

  AP: Beverly Hills, California

  Via Celebcity.com

  THIS JUST IN: Reality television celebrity Porsche Royce, who has been in the headlines ever since the Mulholland Drive discovery of the wrecked Audi allegedly carrying her sister Bentley Royce and fiancé T. Wilson White, has made a full statement to the LAPD task force investigating the case.

  While the details of such statements are not available to the general public, sources familiar to the case indicate that the would-be bride cited the pressures of a global television event as well as those inherent in every wedding ceremony.

  Royce reportedly spoke only of remorse and regret for allowing her fiancé and sister to leave the Soho House rehearsal dinner the night of the accident while pre-wedding (and pre-season-finale) tensions were running at an all-time high.

  While no new charges have been filed in the case, recent conversations appear to be moving the course of the investigation increasingly toward the Royce family itself.

  (Disclosure: Celebcity is a fully owned subsidiary of the Lifespan Network, which is itself a fully owned subsidiary of DiosGlobale.)

  Follow @celebcity for breaking details, or www.celebcity.com.

  * * *

  85 Production Note: Licensing is thinking about other directions. Could we spin Bentley as a Maxxinista? Or similar. —D

  86 Production: Is she a Visual Asset? Jeff is asking for more VA’s and fewer VP’s. (Visual Problems.) —D

  Nineteen

  WHAT THE DETECTIVE HEARS (MERCEDES ROYCE’S LAST CONFESSION)

  May 2018

  Rampart Division, Homicide Special Section, LAPD

  (110 North to West Sixth Street, DTLA)

  Mercedes Royce thought he was an idiot. That much was clear from their first five minutes together—when she’d all but called him that. And also, the rest of the minutes, when she’d called him just about everything else a person could be called.

  He had to admit it. She was a firecracker, and she could hold her own in a police precinct—that was for damn sure.

  She was rolling her eyes at him now, and he couldn’t even remember why.

  This time.

  “Let’s get to it, shall we? I’m not my children, Detective. I’m not as generous as they are, not as optimistic, and not as naive.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean, Mrs. Royce?”

  “It means, I know the ever-despicable Jeff Grunburg has y
ou on his payroll. I know that, in fact, because he has me on his payroll. I also know that because it’s my show, and I see every dollar that comes in or out of my budget, including your weekly check.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with consulting on a show, Mrs. Royce.”

  “I know, I know. You worked on Blown, and it was the best five minutes of your crappy little life. I get it. Believe me, I’ve sung that song, Detective.”

  “Harry.” He smiled, in spite of the abuse. “Call me Harry.” She was a piece of work, Mercedes Royce. Now he could see why that little rat Grunburg was always so paranoid about her.

  She nodded. “Harry, then. And I’m Mercedes.”

  “Mercedes.” He smiled. “You gotta love German engineering.”

  She stared at him. “So, let’s not waste time. I’m guilty. I’m the one you’re looking for, but then, you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Not particularly.” He sat back in his chair, studying her.

  “I’m more than just the guilty party, actually. I’m also the judge and jury. I convict myself and everyone around me of a thousand crimes, sins, lapses of judgment, questionable decisions, bad calls, wrong answers, moral turpitudes—”

  Harry looked up from his yellow legal pad. “Can turpitude be plural?”

  She raised one eyebrow. “Do I look like I went to college, Det—Harry?”

  He narrowed his eyes, not really knowing how to answer.

  “Anyway, I do all that before you make your coffee in the morning, Harry.”

  “I don’t drink coffee,” Harry said.

  Mercedes looked at him like he was absolutely insane. “Who doesn’t drink coffee? What cop doesn’t drink coffee?”

  “Ulcer.” He nodded. “My gut.”

  “Ah. Stress. It’s a killer.” She sighed. “I suppose next you’re going to tell me your wife doesn’t let you eat doughnuts anymore.”

  “No wife,” Harry said. “Not now, anyway. Apparently I wasn’t marriage material, according to my ex.”

  She shot him a withering look. “When did this confession become about you, Harry?”

  “Confession? Is that what this is?”

  “I told you. I put them in the car together. I left my one daughter to be destroyed by that monster—to take care of my other daughter, who that same monster had already destroyed.”

  “But you’re not the monster.”

  “Of course I’m not the monster.”

  “The monster is the monster.”

  “And are you an idiot, Harry?”

  “I’m just trying to point out, Mercedes, that when you talk about that night, the person doing the attacking isn’t you, it’s Mr. White. He’s the monster.”

  “This is Hollywood, Harry. Do you really think there’s ever just one monster in the room?”

  “Why don’t you walk me through it, Mercedes? The last night?”

  “Bentley was being her usual . . . charming self.”

  “Would that be more or less charming than usual?”

  Mercedes thought about it. “She was more charming, actually. She hated her dress, but she shut up and wore it, which isn’t like her.”

  “That bad?”

  “The dress? It was spectacularly ugly but very chic, and someone had to wear it. It’s an origami designer Jeff wants to do his daughter’s bat mitzvah, so one of us had to take the bullet, and Bentley got the short straw, I’m afraid.”

  “How often is that? That Bentley gets the short straw?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just asking. You’re telling me she was more charming than usual on a night when another person might reasonably have been less charming than usual.”

  Mercedes’s eyes were blazing. “Is my missing daughter’s charm really the most powerful weapon in your crime-solving arsenal, Harry? What happened to DNA? Trace evidence? Fingerprinting?”

  “Of course. We’ll get there. Her phone records are being pulled now. Her room, you saw how quickly that was bagged and sorted. We have Tech taking apart her laptop. Detectives crawling over every inch of her school.”

  “And still nothing?”

  “Well, our focus has been the crime scene, until now. And look, you have to give us that. We did pretty well figuring out that gasoline was used as some kind of accelerant for the fire. Which means, of course, arson.”

  She shook her head. “Who intentionally lights a seventy-five-thousand-dollar car on fire?”

  “Folks have different reasons. Insurance fraud. Concealment of evidence. Homicide.”

  The last word seemed to stay in the air longer than the rest, and Harry immediately regretted saying it.

  “None of that means anything right now, of course. That’s why we’re starting over again with all of you.”

  She nodded.

  “So. Rehearsal dinner. Bentley was charming.”

  “She was.”

  “And she wore the dog of a dress.”

  “She did.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She was kind to Porsche while I handled the party and Bach tried to track down Whitey’s driver.”

  “And Whitey? He was . . . less kind.”

  Mercedes raised her head. “He was despicable. I had seen it coming. He was jumpy, secretive. You never knew what his motivations were. He either seemed too in love with my daughter, or totally ambivalent.”

  “And on the night in question?”

  “Drunk. Completely obliterated and totally rude. By the end of the night, Harry, I wanted him gone.” It was the truth, and she had no problem saying it.

  As far as Harry could tell, her problem was with what came after.

  “And now he is. I got what I wanted. He’s gone and I’m left to feel guilty about that every day of my life.”

  Harry put down his pen. “Why is that, Mercedes?” He didn’t reach for the button beneath the table.

  He was transfixed.

  When Mercedes looked at him now, her chin trembled. “Because I got what I wanted—but he took my baby girl with him. And I would have thrown him off that cliff with my own hands, if I could have kept him from doing that.”

  Now the tears came. They leaked out of her eyes from behind her glasses, dripping down the front of her black suit and across her folded, manicured hands.

  “There’s a difference between feeling guilty and being guilty, Mercedes.”

  “Not to a mother,” she said.

  The tears still ran, unchecked. She didn’t even try to wipe them. Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded handkerchief, offering it to her.

  “That’s disgustingly unhygienic, Harry.”

  “That’s what my ex used to say.” He smiled, and she took it all the same, blowing her nose so loudly, the table rattled between them.

  Harry sighed. “Did you douse the car in gasoline and roll it off that cliff, Mercedes?”

  “No. I suppose not. Not like that.”

  “It’s not your fault, ma’am.”

  Harry sat back in his chair and wondered, for the thousandth time, whose fault it really was.

  MERCEDES ROYCE—MULHOLLAND MOMMY DEAREST? MAMA ROYCE PLAYS WEDDING EVE BLAME GAME

  AP: Beverly Hills, California

  Via Celebcity.com

  BREAKING: Did the mother of the bride all but toss her future son-in-law over the edge of a cliff? In the second Royce sighting this week, the celebrity matriarch of television’s beloved Rolling with the Royces made an unusual visit to LAPD’s Rampart Division, to speak with Detective Harry Connolly, the head of the task force investigating the death of her daughter Bentley and would-be son-in-law T. Wilson White.

  Royce’s appearance downtown follows her daughter Porsche’s conference with the same detective. Observers point to the flurry of recent family activity as indicative of new evidence in the Royce-White case.

  A controversial figure, even for the world of reality television, Mercedes Royce has long functioned as the head of the Royce entertainment d
ynasty, and as a leading figure in the world of televised docu-follow programming. She is reportedly hailed as “Mercenary Royce” by friends and rivals alike.

  (Disclosure: Celebcity is a fully owned subsidiary of the Lifespan Network, which is itself a fully owned subsidiary of DiosGlobale.)

  Follow @celebcity for breaking details, or www.celebcity.com.

  Twenty

  WHAT THE DETECTIVE HEARS (MAYBACH ROYCE’S LAST CONFESSION)

  May 2018

  Rampart Division, Homicide Special Section, LAPD

  (110 North to West Sixth Street, DTLA)

  “Ah, Maybach. The prodigal son returns.”

  “Here I am, Detective.”

  “Harry,” Harry said. “Please. Call me Harry. We might as well get comfortable with each other. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “Then let’s do it.” Bach nodded. “Seeing as I am the son, Harry, and I have returned.”

  Harry tossed his yellow legal pad to the table. “This is when, if you’re anything like your mother and your sister, you tell me how guilty you feel and how torn up you are about Bentley, and then I tell you that it’s all your imagination and you really aren’t to blame at all.”

  “Yeah? I hate to disappoint you, but you sound like a pretty crappy detective, Harry. And if that’s what you’re expecting, you’re way off the mark.”

  “How is that, Bach?”

  “First of all, I’m nothing like my sister or my mother. And second of all, unlike both of them, I really am guilty. Bentley’s death was my fault; I have the gasoline, and I know things about the last night of my sister’s life that only her murderer would know.”

  Harry nodded, glancing up to the green light flashing on the wall near the clock.

  He didn’t have to hit the button this time.

  He’d already hit it, the moment Bach had walked into the room.

  “Why’d you do it, Bach? Was it the gambling? Did he have something on you, something that could have gotten you into even more trouble than you were already in? Or was it your sister who was the problem? You were angry, because she was the one who arranged to ship you off to Europe, while she took the fall for you?”