From Here to Paternity

you can get away from the fact that this must have something to do with the Tsar business—what with both Doris Schmidtheiser and Bill Smith dying.“
    “The Tsar is dead. Long live the Tsar,“ Shelley said.
    “Pete? You think so?“
    “It’s certainly the obvious guess. Bill didn’t want to have anything to do with it, but Tenny said Pete encouraged poor old Doris. Didn’t she say he was the one who first hooked up with the Holnagrad Society and got them to have their annual meetings here? And if Bill was, by their estimation, the rightful Tsar and had no children of his own, Pete is the heir to the throne.“
    “But, Shelley—it’s all so absurd! How could anybody take it seriously? The last Tsar died nearly eighty years ago. Why would anybody in their right mind think Russia wants another one?“
    “Oh, I don’t know. I actually heard a program on CNN a couple months ago and some political science professor was saying the only thing that could prevent a dozen civil wars in the former Russian entity was the restoration of a monarchy. For unification. More symbolic than real, I think he meant.“
    “I’ll bet it’s only him, three history buffs, and some psychic in Ohio who believe that,“ Jane scoffed.
    “Well, there are different kinds of ‘serious’, you know. Like that other guy—what’s his name? Stu somebody? The guy Lucky was so upset with. He’s got his own candidate for the position and he doesn’t seem to make any pretense that he wants to put the guy on the nonexistent throne. He just wants to make a bunch of money off of him. There can be an awful lot of money in simply being a celebrity. Maybe Pete saw himself that way. The rightful heir. Movies. Maybe a book. Who knows?“
    “But you heard what Linda Moose foot said. Bill could have died at any minute anyway. Why not just wait?“
    “You’ve got me.“
    Jane thought for a moment. “There might be some reason. I don’t know—wait. Remember Lucky telling us that the last Tsar abdicated on his own behalf and that of his son—the little boy with the disease—“
    “Hemophilia.“
    “Right. Well, suppose Bill was getting fed up with all the foolishness and had decided to sort of symbolically do the same thing. Abdicate on his own behalf and that of his heirs. He might do something like that just to get Doris and her people out of his hair. A man knowing he hadn’t long to live and wanting to finish out his life in peace and quiet—? I don’t mean it happened that way, only that it’s possible there was some ‘time pressure’, if you will. Some reason Pete couldn’t just wait in line patiently.“
    Shelley shrugged. “I guess it’s possible. Or maybe Bill knew his father wasn’t the guy Doris thought he was and had finally decided it was time to tell her so. It all came down to what he knew, after all. His father might have told him about his childhood in Minneapolis or some place and Bill never saw any reason to mention it, thinking it was none of their business. From what Linda says, he’d have been like that. Not confirming or denying the story, because to do either would involve telling personal things he didn’t want to share.“
    Jane nodded. “It would be in character for him, that’s for sure. But if he knew that he wasn’t what they thought, and knew he was going to die soon, he might have wanted to get Pete out of the whole business before he made a spectacle of himself and made Bill himself look silly after he was dead and gone and couldn’t do anything about it.“
    Shelley frowned. “But how does either of those scenarios fit in with Doris?“
    “Hmmm. Good point. If Pete wanted the ‘title’, Doris would be his strongest supporter, you’d think. She’s the one who had done all the research, gotten her followers convinced. He’d need her.“
    “Unless she didn’t recognize him as Bill’s heir to the title.“
    “Why wouldn’t she? Unless Bill had a son nobody else knows about.“
    “Pretty thin, that,“ Shelley said.
    “Well, suppose, then, that Bill had decided to abdicate for both of them, like we were speculating. Wouldn’t Doris have to recognize such a gesture as valid?“
    “Sure. Because it’s the last Tsar’s abdication that made Bill’s right to the title valid in her eyes.“
    “And if Bill had already told her before he told Pete, Pete would have to get rid of her before she could lead her crowd off to find the next one in line.“
    “If it happened. I mean, if