by C. R. Corwin
It was time to steer the conversation to my investigation. “As I recall, your great-grandmother, Princess Violeta, married a commoner after she was banished from the royal family.”
The prince became a bit defensive. “Gavril Clopotar. A very fine man.”
“He raised Prince Anthony’s son as his own,” I agreed.
“Yes, he did. A fine thing for him to do.”
I let him know I’d done my homework. “And Prince Anthony’s son—your grandfather, Constantin—should have followed Carol I as king. Instead, the throne went to a nephew of the king. And the living heir of that nephew is King Michael I. Who was kicked off the throne when the Communists took control in the forties. And if the monarchy were restored, Michael would get the throne back. Unless the parliament did the proper thing and recognized you.”
He toasted me again. “You are a diligent student.”
I was ready to let the cat out of the bag. “The truth is, I’m working on a murder investigation for my newspaper—the Hannawa, Ohio, Herald-Union. In a roundabout way it may have something to do with you.”
He reacted to this startling news by warming up my tea. “Such an American thing, murder.”
“We’re very good at it, no doubt about that.”
“And just who was murdered, Miss Sprowls?”
“Another Violeta.”
His eyeballs were floating, a sign that a lot was going on inside his head. “Violeta is a common Romanian name.”
“This one claimed to be the queen of Romania.”
“Claimed?”
I got his point. “She never offered any proof. And she proved to be a fraud in other ways. But she did make the claim publicly in our newspaper. And a few days later she was found dead.”
“How old was she, this Violeta?”
“She claimed to be seventy-two.”
“And her last name? What did she claim that was?”
“Bell.”
“Bell?”
“Doesn’t ring one?”
An expression that could be interpreted as relief calmed his wrinkles. “That’s not a Romanian name. Of course it could be a married name, I suppose.”
“She was never married,” I said. “As far as anybody knows.”
I kept my mouth shut now. Let his mind work. We sipped our tea and watched the sailboats and gulls. Let the sun and the quiet soak in. “Is the fact that she claimed to be the queen of Romania your only hypothesis for her demise?” he finally asked.
“The police think her murder is connected to the theft of antiques from her condominium,” I said.
His ears perked up, the way James’ do when my microwave beeps. “Antiques? None of them had anything to do with Romanian history, did they?”
Knowing what was found in Eddie French’s apartment I had to laugh. “A bejeweled crown, you mean?”
He did not appreciate my little joke. “All of the crowns are accounted for, Miss Sprowls. But there are plenty of important family heirlooms floating about.”
I told him that Violeta Bell had been an antique dealer. I showed him a list of the antiques found in Eddie’s apartment. I told him that I had a suspicion they were fakes. “More than likely her murder had nothing to do with her claim to be royalty,” I said. “It’s just one of the improbabilities I need to put to rest before tackling more fruitful possibilities.”
A sad smile turned up the ends of his mustache. “Forgive my irritation, Miss Sprowls. I’ve spent much of my adult life trying to find a set of lead soldiers that had been given to my greatgrandfather when he was a boy. By Prince Albert of England. One hundred tiny Romanian Hussars in all their glory. Cavalrymen. Romania, you see, won its independence for helping Russia drive the Turks out of the Balkans. And the British, who had sided with the Turks, wanted to repair relations with the new Romanian nation. So they were more than toy soldiers. They were diplomatic chess pieces.”
My next question was obvious. “You wouldn’t kill for them, would you?”
He laughed. “Not literally, I wouldn’t. But it is quite a coincidence that my great-grandfather would grow up to marry the daughter of a cavalry officer, isn’t it? Who knows, I may owe my very existence to the romantic roilings fostered by those lead soldiers.” His manner suddenly changed. He became passionless. Analytical. “Let’s get back to why you came to see me. You’re wondering if I had something to do with this woman’s murder. In the event her claims were true, I might want her out of the way in case the monarchy is restored. Yes, there is a small royalist party in Romania today. And a few of its members actually support my cause. But there is no room in the new constitution for a monarch. Not even a toothless figurehead.”
He was right. I’d Googled the new Romanian constitution. It didn’t say boo about a king or queen, except, somewhat cryptically, that no one could exercise sovereignty in one’s own name. “Couldn’t the constitution be amended?”
“Yes, but it would take quite a groundswell of public support,” he said. “And that’s not very likely. Certainly not in my lifetime. Or old King Michael’s.”
That, too, jived with what I’d read. “What about the next generation of heirs? You have three sons. King Michael has five daughters.”
He poured more tea for us. “Surely you don’t expect me to opine on the possibility of my own sons thinning the royal herd.”
“Of course not. I’m sorry.”
He winked at me. “If they were so inclined, I think they would start with me.”
I toasted him. He was a funny man. An attractive man. “You had an older brother. Petru. Did he leave any heirs?”
Prince Anton shook his head no. Pointed across the bay. “He drowned himself right out there. A half-mile off that point. Fifty-two years ago. When he was twenty-six.”
“Drowned himself? Suicide?”
“The authorities ruled it an accident. How do you accidentally get an anchor rope tied around your feet?” His eyes were cloudy with tears. “A passing boater found our boat. The motor was still running. The propeller turned sharply to the right. The boat going round and round like the hands of a clock. X marks the spot. Intentionally it seemed to me. ”
My eyes were clouding up, too. “I lost my brother when he was nineteen. In Korea. His death was an accident. If you can call anyone getting killed in a war an accident. He was accidentally shot in the leg by one of his buddies while crossing the Han River. He tumbled off the pontoon bridge and drowned before they could pull him out.”
The prince pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to me. While I dabbed my eyes with it, he pulled the tears from his with his pinky fingers, studying each tear before he wiped it off. “Both drowned,” he said softly. “Horrible.”
“I always felt sorry for the boy whose gun went off,” I said. “His name was Andy Brown. He was from Connecticut. Over the years he must have written me a dozen letters apologizing.”
The prince was still working on his eyes. “Horrible.”
“When he died they sent me a letter he’d attached to his will apologizing one last time.”
“Horrible.”
I changed the subject before we both fell apart. “The only thing I need to know, I suppose, is whether Violeta Bell was telling the truth about her royalty.”
He stood up. Stretched until I could see his belly. “I am something of an expert on the Romanian royals, as you can well imagine. There are no living Violetas. And certainly no Bells. Like I said, Bell is not a Romanian name.”
“Well—I’m sure there’s nothing to it.”
We walked back to his bungalow. Along the way he showed me his vegetable gardens. Like every other backyard gardener in North America, he had enough zucchini to feed an army. Back inside, he led me into his tiny den. There was nothing on his desk but a gooseneck lamp and a long rack of smelly pipes. He rummaged through a bottom drawer, pulling out a folder filled with shiny photos of himself. He took one out, careful not to get his fingerprints on it. It was the same pose that appeared
on his website, the one with the big Romanian flag, the silly little bow tie and big manly pipe. He rustled through the top drawer until he found the fancy gold ballpoint he wanted. When he was finished scribbling, he read the inscription to me: “To Maddy. Thank you for your company on such a beautiful summer morning. Anton.”
It was so informal. So unassuming. Then again, printed across the bottom of the photo, in raised gold letters, was a less humble assertion:
His Royal Majesty
Anton Alexandur Clopotar
He slipped the photo into a white envelope. The prospect of him giving me an easy DNA sample nearly buckled me at the knees. But just as he was about to lick the envelope, he seemed to think better of it. He tucked in the flap and handed it to me.
Before leaving I gave him copies of the various stories we’d run, including Gabriella Nash’s original feature on the Queens of Never Dull. I gave him my business card. “If anything comes to mind, you’ll let me know?”
“I will.” He took my hand and kissed it. I almost dropped my car keys.
I spent the afternoon at my cottage. I tried to nap in the most uncomfortable Adirondack chair ever built. Which is saying something. I walked along the rocky beach until my feet ached. I tried to coax James into fetching a piece of driftwood. I made six pancakes for my supper and ate every damn one of them. I went to bed at nine and, for all I know, snored up a storm.
In the morning I wrestled James into the backseat of Ike’s car and drove straight back to Hannawa.
14
Friday, August 4
Eric Chen stood in front of my desk, sucking on his morning bottle of Mountain Dew while shaking his head in pity, an impressive display of his multi-tasking skills. “I knew you couldn’t take an entire week off,” he said.
“Some people have a work ethic,” I growled back.
“And some people don’t have a life.”
“My life is more than adequate,” I assured him. “I accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish. Including getting away from you for a few days. I’m rested and restored. The sweet, lovable Maddy Sprowls of old. Now get to work before I fire your ass.”
Eric sauntered off to BS with the boys in sports. I started deleting four days of worthless voice mail. There was one call I actually had to listen to: “Hello, Mrs. Sprowls. This is Dr. Menke’s office. The doctor wanted you to know that your results are back from the sleep center and that you should make an appointment as soon as you can to discuss them.”
I deleted the message from my phone. But I couldn’t delete it from my brain. I called the doctor’s office. There was an opening at 4:20 that afternoon. I hemmed and hawed for a minute then took it. I went on deleting messages like it was an Olympic sport.
Just as I was nearing the finishing line, Bob Averill pressed his huge palms into my desktop like a couple of toilet plungers. “I heard you were back!”
“Yes, Bob, I’m back. And I’m no closer to solving your little problem than when I left.”
“I was just hoping we could pick up the speed now,” he said. “Bear down a bit.”
“I’m one little woman, Bob. I can pick up speed or bear down. But I can’t do both.”
He left in frustration. And despite my snippiness, I got busy doing both. First I motioned Eric back to my desk. I used my best sign language to have him bring along his clipboard and a pen. “I’ve got a shitload of stuff for you to research,” I said, patting the seat of the chair he’d just pulled up with his foot.
He was not happy. “We? What about that lesson I gave you?”
“One lesson and I’m Bill Gates?” I motioned for him to put pen to paper. “Find out everything you can about the death of Petru Clopotar. Prince Anton’s brother. He drowned in the St. Lawrence River. Fifty-two years ago. In Reed’s Bay.”
Eric scribbled away. “Any idea how Canadian law enforcement works? Who would handle something like this?”
“Just find out everything you can from whoever you can,” I said. “The prince says it was suicide, but apparently some authority or the other ruled it an accident. Let’s see if we can find out which was most likely.”
“And that’s important because?”
“Petru was the prince’s older brother,” I explained. “Which would have made him king some day—if the monarchy were restored and the Clopotar family recognized as the rightful heirs.”
“You’re saying that maybe Petru’s death wasn’t an accident or a suicide? That maybe the prince off’d his own brother?”
I gave him a rare smile of affection. “If Prince Anton wanted the throne so bad that he’d kill his own brother—and that kind of thing does happen in royal families—then maybe he’d kill Violeta Bell now.”
“Why would the prince care if the official cause was accident or suicide?” Eric wondered. “Just as long as he was dead?”
It was a good point. “Maybe your investigation will answer that,” I said. I moved on. “I also want to know when Prince Anton’s father died. His name was Dumitru. Dumitru Clopotar. Maybe he died suspiciously, too. Also, find what you can on Prince Anton’s three sons. Where they live. What they do for a living. Their views on the monarchy. Whatever you can. I guess that’s it.”
Eric angrily tapped the bridge of his nose with his pen. Tap-tap-tap-tap. Transferred aggression, I suppose. “Well, this shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes.”
I matched his sarcasm. “Take all weekend.”
“And what will the well-rested Maddy Sprowls be doing while I’m frying my eyeballs?”
I shooed him away from my desk. “Don’t worry, Mr. Chen. I’ll be frying my eyeballs, too. I need to find out what was so urgent fifty-two years ago that Prince Anton might have killed his brother. And what is so urgent now that he’d kill Violeta Bell. Or more likely, have both of them killed.” I motioned him back. “Any idea how we can we find out if Prince Anton left Wolfe Island shortly before the murder?”
Eric played dumb. “I wouldn’t have the foggiest.”
“Me neither. Start with the ferry operators.”
I got busy marking up that morning’s paper. I made it all the way to the bottom of page one before Gabriella Nash smiley-faced her way to my desk. “You’re back!” she sang out.
Good gravy! How many times was I going to have to hear that? “And I see you’re still working here.”
“Yes, I am—you know about the funeral, right?”
“Not Violeta Bell’s?”
“Uh-huh. This morning.”
I went immediately to the metro section and the death notices. It was that morning. In just ninety minutes. At the Umplebee & Meyers Funeral Home. “We’ll have to go,” I said.
She scrunched her face apologetically. “I can’t.”
“Don’t be silly. You can drive.”
“I can’t. I’m on deadline.”
I’d been in the newspaper business for fifty years. I’d heard reporters use that I’m on deadline excuse a million times. Then watched them play at their desks most of the day like it was kindergarten. “Whatever story you’ve got to crank out—you can crank it out when we get back.”
“I really can’t. Nancy needs my story for Sunday.”
I picked up my phone and dialed Nancy Peale’s extension. “Hi, Nancy—it’s Maddy.”
“I heard you were back.”
I bit my tongue. “I just saw in the death notices that Violeta Bell’s funeral was this morning. Would you mind if I went along with Gabriella? I feel a part of the story. Sort of. And there’ll be lots of important people to oogle.”
I waited patiently while my words worked their way through Nancy’s synapses. “I’m sure it would be okay,” she finally said.
I put my phone back in the cradle and smiled at Gabriella. “You’d better scamper back to your desk, dear. You’ve got an assignment coming.”
So, at ten-thirty, Gabriella and I headed for Umplebee & Meyers. In Gabriella’s Mini Cooper. Chuck Weideman, the paper’s best photographer, and a r
eal believer in three square meals a day, was crammed into the backseat like a semester’s worth of college laundry.
Gabriella’s assignment, of course, had nothing to do with the questions roiling around Violeta’s murder. That was my assignment. No, Gabriella’s assignment was to write a respectful story on the funeral of a woman much loved by the city’s la-de-das. Weedy’s assignment was to get a nice respectful photo of a tear running down the cheek of somebody important.
Umplebee & Meyers is one of Hannawa’s better funeral homes. It sits right on the city’s shared border with Greenlawn. White brick. Hunter green window shutters. Oodles of grandiose columns. It fits right in with all the neighborhood’s fancy beauty parlors and real estate offices. We parked. Weedy stayed outside with his cameras and Snickers bars. Gabriella and I hurried inside.