Funny Business - Chapter 15, There is Trouble Ahead

by

Samantha Michelle Davies (SamanthaMD)

A very happy and relieved Liz was waiting for Charlie when he arrived at Reno late that night.

After a nice hug and a welcome home kiss, she asked,

“I saw you on TV. You scrub up pretty well. Perhaps you should do it more often? Say in a Courtroom?”

He laughed.

“The first & last time I’m afraid but thanks for the offer”

They kissed once more before heading out to the parking lot and the Range Rover.

On the journey south to Carson City, Liz quizzed him for all the gory details, the ones that weren’t shown on TV. Charlie duly obliged.

Just as they drove up to their rented home, Charlie asked Liz,

“What was with this ‘I’m not interested’ before I went east?”

“I wasn’t then but Jake kept texting me with all the details. In the end, my resistance crumbled and I switched on the TV in the RV. We pulled off the Highway and watched it together”

“What did he say when he realised that the mystery Journalist was sitting right beside him?”

“Not a lot. He is a man of few words is Anders.”

Liz giggled.

“What’s so funny?”

“Surely you have realised by now that Anders is a fashion luddite”

Charlie smiled.

“I see what you mean”

Then he changed the subject.

“Will you be resisting my interests tonight?”

“Now that sounds like a proposal I can’t refuse”

*

The following morning, Liz gave Charlie an update on the trip she’d taken with Anders.

“How are the drawings coming along?”

“Great. Just great”

“We have found a site with the perfect topology for the house. It is about a mile from where we parked the RV on our last visit. We surveyed the site. He taught me how to use one of those Theodolite thingies”

“Now we are back, Anders is going ahead with the design of the first module. We did decide to reduce its width to 6m. It will make the construction & transportation to the site a lot simpler”

“How many modules are there going to be? We did decide before I went east that survey needed be done first”

“We did. It is going to be seven to begin with”

“Wow. I hadn’t thought it would be that big”

“Don’t you want a nice place to live in or not?”

“Yes but…”

“No buts. Do you want somewhere nice to live in and call a home and have somewhere to show off all that nice furniture you are going to make?”

Charlie smiled.

“If you put it like that, then yes”

“Good. Then we’ll have no more arguments then?”

Charlie didn’t answer.

*

Two days later, Anders announced that he had completed the outline drawings and that he was ready to submit them to the County Planning Department in Elko for approval.

“I’ve filled in all the forms you will need”

“Aren’t you coming with us?”

“I’d rather not. It’s my Daughter’s first birthday tomorrow”

Liz smiled.

“That’s all right then. Charlie & I will go to Elko tomorrow. Just tell us what we need to do”

*

Charlie & Liz went to Elko the following day in the Range Rover. On the way, Charlie said,

“I got an email from Dad before we left”

“I didn’t know he was in the 21^st Century”, joked Liz.

Charlie grinned.

“He’s not really all that clued up but one of his Golfing buddies is. He set him up with an account and he can use if from the new fangled smart-phone that Mom bought him for Christmas”

“What did he say?”

“There have been lots of reporters sniffing around wanting to know where I am and if I’m with you again”

Liz groaned.

“Well you are with me my darling but the world should not know that for as long as possible”

“Indeed. But we are leaving trails all over the place” replied Charlie.

“What do you mean?”

“Credit Cards, phones, this planning application, vehicle registrations and all that?”

“Now that you point it out, yes we are. What do you want to do about it?”

“I think we should both change our names”

Liz stared at Charlie who was driving.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked totally surprised buy the statement.

He paused for a second before answering.

“You never told me why you didn’t take Bill’s family name when you were adopted?”

“That’s easy to answer. No one ever asked me if I wanted to. Why?”

Charlie laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“In some ways, it is better if you hadn’t. Then there would have been a direct link to Bill & Kat. Why don’t we do that now?”

“What do you mean? I’m a little confused?”

“Sorry. I mean for us to take Bill’s family name. Both of us. But, I have to ask, Will he & Kat mind?”

Liz thought for a few seconds.

“Sounds like a good idea. I’m sure they won’t mind at all. I’ll ask him when I call them tomorrow”

There was silence for a while.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you but there hasn’t been a really good time before now”

“What?” asked Liz.

“As you are a member of Bill’s family, don’t you have a title or something?”

Liz almost died laughing.

“You yanks and your pseudo royalty kick. You threw us out in 1770 something remember. Yet many of you still hanker after some of the trappings of a Monarchy”

Charlie didn’t answer. Liz had a point.

Liz came to his rescue.

“The answer is no. As I’m not a blood or marriage relative I don’t get a title. I am an heir though”

“I wondered about that when you told me about the adoption”

“Oh, I’m firmly behind Kat and the Boys though so don’t get any big ideas about spending the money. Its not something we ever talk about though.”

“I know. I know. You bloody Brits. Holding everything in with that stiff upper lip and all that”

They both laughed.

Charlie loved her modesty. His former wife would have been boasting about the title in an instant.

“You never asked how much I got for the beach house”, asked Charlie in an effort to turn the tables.

“I doesn’t really matter as long as there is enough in the pot for us to build our dream home and a little bit for us to live on while we setup some business or other”

“There is more than enough for that”

“That’s ok then.”

“Don’t you want to know?”

“As I said, not really”

Liz looked over at Charlie. He looked sad.

“Look my darling. It really does not matter. Understand?”

He blew her a kiss.

“You are amazing. You know that. Other women would already be planning how they could spend it”

“Hey. Don’t think I won’t spend a good chunk of it eventually”

“As long as it eventually then I won’t mind” he replied.

Liz put her hand on his thigh and squeezed it gently.

*

The couple arrived in Elko in good spirits and headed straight for the planning department.

Submitting the plans & forms took a matter of minutes. When Charlie paid the application fee in Cash, they were all done and dusted.

Once outside, Liz said.

“I thought it would be harder than that”

“According to Anders, the hard part is yet to come”

Liz sighed in agreement. The thoughts of rejection and endless changes to the plans did not sit well with Liz.

“What shall we do now?”

“Why don’t we do that name change thingy”

“What here? Now?”

“Why not?”

“Liz. My darling, it is not as easy as that”

“Why not? Back home, all you do is go to a lawyers and he draws up a deed. You sign it, get it witnesses and you are all done. Fred Blogs becomes Bobby Kennedy in half an hour flat”

Charlie laughed.

“Here we have to go before a Judge and swear. Then it becomes a matter of public record.”

“Can’t you do like what they do with children’s records?”

“Oh, you mean seal it?”

“Yeah. That’s it”

Charlie thought for a few seconds.

“Perhaps. If we were to talk nicely to a judge.”

“Can you do that?”

Charlie thought for a moment.

“It depends. I’d have to talk to some local lawyers first”

“Ok. So that is a non runner then?”

“I didn’t say that”

“Well, you did, more or less”

He held up his hand in defeat.

“It might be better if we didn’t do it at the same place though. Less of a trail”

Liz glared at him. But she knew deep down that he was talking sense.

Just then Liz’s phone rang.

“It’s Kat,” she said as she opened it.

“Hi Kat. How are things in merry ole England?”

“Wet eh? How is Bill & the kids?”

“Great. Yes. He’s here beside me. We have just handed the outline plans for our house”

“You have. Ok. What’s wrong?”

“Yeah. I remember it. Next to the big dressing up box”

“That was the one that contained all the Indian clothes I think. Sari’s and Tunics. That sort of stuff”

“Yep that’s right”

“What?”

Liz listened intently to Kat for the next five minutes.

As the end of it, Liz asked,

“Where? When?”

“Oh Shit. That clobbers everything doesn’t it?”

“I think there is a Library or an Internet Cafe somewhere around here. We’ll read the email there and call you right back”

“Yeah. Bye”

She closed the phone and looked at Charlie.

“We are in deep do-do”

“What do you mean?”

Liz swallowed hard as she tried to put what she’d just heard straight in her mind.

“Let me think for a second”

Charlie let her think. He could see that she was worried.

Then she began.

“Do you remember when we were in England I told you that Bill & I used to play ‘dress-up’ in the Holidays?”

“Yes. You said something about lots of clothes in the Attic”

“Exactly. Apart from the trunks containing all the clothes, there were a number of pictures of old family members. One in particular always attracted me. It was of a woman in Indian Dress.”

“Are you with me so far?”

Charlie nodded.

“One of Bill’s forebears owned this Tea plantation in India. He still owns a large part of it. This woman was slightly brown skinned so everyone always assumed that she was Indian. Well, she was but the wrong sort of Indian. To be PC, it turns out that she was a Native American”

“What has this to do with us?”

“Her name was Rose. Well, that was her ‘English’ name. Kat has found a whole load of records & documents that lead her to think that Rose was once called ‘Prairie Flower’ and came from the Paiute Tribe”

Charlie started to get the gist.

“According to the documents unearthed by Kat, Rose changed her name in Salt Lake City in 1887. She married Bill’s ancestor in Chicago in 1888. They came back to England in 1890 after his meat business in Chicago failed. They stayed in England for a year or so. Then they went out to India to run the family Tea Plantation. Hence the picture.”

“Still with me so far?”

“I think I get the idea. What happened next?”

“Well, they returned to England in 1899 with two sons in tow. Sadly both parents died of Malaria or some such tropical nastiness not long after their return. The Children were adopted formally by the family just to keep the lineage & inheritance straight.”

“Now for the killer. One of those children is Bill’s great, great grandfather. Both boys died at Paschendale in 1917. It turns out that the eldest, Edward had married and they had a child”

“What are you trying to say? How do you know all this?”

“That the easy part. When I was adopted into the family, I investigated the family tree. It goes right back to 1089 when the first Baron was granted his title by the King for stopping an uprising in Gascony. Remember, back then, France & England had the same King”

Liz paused for breath.

“Anyways, one of the things that any family as old as the Hardcastle’s does is protect its interests. When Bill’s ancestor came out here, he waived any claim to the estate for him and his heirs. However any wealth that they created in their own right was theirs and the property of their Heirs. Here’s where it gets complicated. The ownership passed to the children as one would expect in such cases. Then they were adopted into the family thus their assets became part of the families assets.”

“Yeah I get that. Inheritance 101”

“Right. Kat, who obviously has nothing more to do with her time these days has found that there was a clause in the law that deal with the reservation here included any assets owned by members of the tribe. To whit, Rose. She survived the requisite 28 days after her husband’s death. Therefore she inherited title to the land we thought was ours when the reservation was setup. When she died, the laws in England meant that her inheritance passed to her relatives and not her children. Thus the ownership of the land passed not to Bill’s family but to her relatives in the tribe”

Suddenly the penny dropped in Charlie’s mind.

“Oh shit!”

“Exactly”

“We don’t own the land. The Tribe does”

“So where does that leave us?”

“Potentially without a place to build a home”

“Bummer!”

“That’s all in the future. Kat is emailing me copies of the documents she has unearthed. Lets find somewhere where we can logon and get them. Then your Legal eyes can take a Shufti”

“Shufti?”

Liz looked at Charlie puzzled.

“Gander?”

“Nope”

She sighed.

“One of these day darling, you will understand”

He shook his head.

“Shufti means look at. Same with Gander”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I did”

Charlie shook his head and said.

“Wasn’t it Churchill who said, ‘Two peoples separated by a common language’?”

They both laughed.

“I think there was an Internet Café near where we parked the car” suggested Charlie suddenly very eager to see these documents.

Half an hour later, they had everything downloaded onto Liz’s laptop. They’d also got obtained some printouts of the documents.

They spent the next hour examining them over yet another cup of coffee. Eventually, Charlie said,

‘I think Kat is right on the ball. If the Treaty that setup the reservation is correct then the tribe owns the land. All because Rose survived her husband by more than 28 days. Are we going to tell Billy?”

“Yes but not today” said Liz.

“It’s early yet?”

“I know but I think we should put all this down in a document first. Just to get the dates straight and get Bill & Kat to check it over before we go blundering into action only to find that we have shot ourselves firmly in both feet with an arrow?”

Charlie smiled.

“Oh my ever so sensible Liz. Why didn’t you become a lawyer?”

Liz laughed.

“Not my cup of tea really”

They both laughed when they realised the link to Rose and her family.

*

They stayed the night in Elko just to save on the driving. However, neither of them slept very much as they both had a lot on their mind especially about how they were going to go about telling Billy.

Both were dozing gently when just before dawn, Liz’s phone rang.

Reluctantly, she answered it not bothering to look at the caller Id.

“Hi Kat”

“Oh. Sorry Jake. I was expecting a call from England sometime soon”

“Yes. He’s here with me. What’s up?”

“Yeah. I know it. It’s a real rag. Supermarket Checkout reading for trailer trash I think you once called it”

“They have? That’s all we need right now. Do you know why they are doing this?”

“Really. That explains it. They have a lot to lose.”

“Yeah. I’ll tell him. More bad news”

“No Jake, it is nothing to do with you or the Magazine or the story. Thanks for the heads up. Take Care”

“We will. Bye”

She closed the phone.

“That’s all we need right now”

“What did Jake say?”

“One of those so called newspapers you see at Supermarket Checkouts, has just published an edition that reveals virtually everything about me. Who I am. Who I was. All the gory details”

“How? How did they find out?”

“Well, that information could only have come from two sources. I’m sorry to have to say it Charles my darling, one of them is your mother. The other is the PI who dug all the dirt on me to begin with when she hired him”

Charlie shook his head in disbelief.

“I can’t think she’d stoop so low”

“Me neither. I can only hope that it is the PI in search of a quick dollar” replied Liz giving his mother a somewhat dubious benefit of the doubt.

“What are we going to do?”

Liz smiled.

“You my darling are going to do nothing. Me? I’m going to get up, get dressed and go shopping”

He gave a big sigh.

“Shopping. Now why didn’t I think of that? Women go shopping in times of crisis! May I dare ask why? There is hardly a Macy’s just around the corner is there?”

Liz smiled.

“For my disguise silly. Do you think I should go blonde or black?”

“Eh?”

“Hair colour silly. Jake said that there is a picture of me on the front cover that was taken at last years Fashion Awards. My hair was a lot shorter then but it is the same colour. Just changing the colour may stop people from recognising me in the Supermarket, at least for a while”

“Hold on a minute Liz. Why don’t you let me go? That way, if there are copies of the rag at the tills you won’t be tempting fate?”

Liz smiled.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

He smiled.

“Ok. Then. You go. Don’t forget some shampoo and a pair of rubber gloves”

“Rubber gloves?”

“For you to wear when you apply the dye to my hair silly,” said Liz smiling.

While Charlie was out, Liz packed the few things they had bought the previous evening into a couple of plastic bags they’d found in the car.

Almost an hour has passed before Charlie returned.

“I was wondering where you’d got to”

“I didn’t realise that there was so many different colours”

Liz grinned.

“So?”

Charlie handed her the paper bag he was carrying.

“I panicked when this assistant asked if I needed any help.”

She looked inside and burst out laughing.

Liz pulled out the Hair Colour.

“This is almost Red! I would never have chosen that colour in a million years”

“Sorry” he said sheepishly.

Liz smiled.

“Don’t worry darling. It will do fine.” Said through slightly gritted teeth.

An hour later, they emerged from the Motel room. Liz with long red hair and a little more make-up around the eyes than was her usual style.

As they got into the Range Rover, Charlie said.

“You do look very different. Very different indeed”

“But do you like it?”

“Eh? Why do you ask me that?”

“Because dearest, you will see far more of it than me. So?”

Charlie smiled.

“Yes I do actually”

Then his gaze fell too the floor.

“What else?”

Reluctantly, he replied.

“Sometimes, you do look a little dowdy. Perhaps you might get a little more adventurous now that you have such a flamboyant hair colour to go with it”

Liz gave Charlie a really hard look.

“For a moment there Charles Everett, I had this thought that you might have bought this particular hair colour on purpose”

Charlie looked serious.

Then Liz laughed.

“Nearly had you there”

[Continued in Part 16]