by C. R. Corwin
She was never going to land a major role with the Hannawa Little Theater. “The bread truck?”
“The bread truck,” I explained. “He delivered her antiques in an old Hausenfelter bread truck and you’re the widow of Harold Hausenfelter.”
Her acting improved a bit. “That’s just a coincidence. That’s what that is.”
“I’m not saying otherwise.”
I left Kay and the box of picture frames and wandered off to look at an exercise bicycle. Not that I was ever going to buy an exercise bicycle. It was just time for me to wander off. It was pretty clear that Kay Hausenfelter knew more about Violeta Bell’s very complicated life than she was letting on. Which meant she might also know something about her very complicated death.
All-in-all, Kay bought four picture frames and a bright pink bud vase. Ariel bought three vegetarian cookbooks. Gloria bought an ant farm as a gag gift for her ex-exterminator husband. I bought nothing.
Before calling it a day we stopped at another six houses. In addition to my prying, there was a lot of laughing and good-natured ribbing. I could see why these women enjoyed each other’s company. Each was a hoot in her own way. But despite all the fun, I had not been seduced out of my suspicions. They all knew more than they were letting on.
“Lunch time!” Gloria McPhee sang out as Eddie pulled away from the last house.
Eddie wound through the city’s hilly northern neighborhoods. I figured we were heading for a restaurant. But before I knew it we were on Hardihood Avenue heading back to the Carmichael House.
Eddie pulled up to the entrance. Gloria handed Eddie an envelope. “You can pick Maddy up in an hour,” she said.
“It will be my unconstrained pleasure,” he said, playfully tugging on the bill of his Woolybears ballcap.
We piled out of the cab with our treasures. Eddie drove off.
It seemed odd that Eddie was dismissed in such a businesslike way. He’d been so much a part of the Queens of Never Dull for so many years. You’d think they would have invited him up for lunch, wouldn’t you? Then again, Eddie had appeared quite content to take the envelope and motor off. Clearly, Eddie French had been a lot closer to Violeta Bell than the other three. Nothing more than a hired gun, if you will. Unless that efficient little scene I’d just witnessed had been prearranged for my benefit, of course.
We crowded into the elevator. Gloria punched the button for the sixth floor.
Gloria’s condo was really something. Artsy. Modern. Walls had been knocked out between the kitchen, dining room, and living rooms. The hardwood floors looked brand new. The furniture clearly was. Everything was either black or gray, or creamy white. Two black and white Shih Tzus were running around like a couple of nuts.
Gloria’s husband waved at us from the kitchen. “I hope everybody likes cat and rabbit,” he called out. He was wearing one of those stupid mushroom-shaped chef hats.
Gloria must have caught my wince. “Cat food and rabbit food,” she explained. “Salad with grilled salmon. Phil’s a real comedian.”
Gloria was the only married member of the Never Dullers. And from what I’d gleaned from Gabriella Nash’s story on them, and Eric Chen’s research, happily married to boot.
She had been born Gloria Ann Gillis. She’d moved to Hannawa from a coal-mining town in Western Pennsylvania when she was nine. “Daddy had what today they call black lung and had trouble keeping a job,” she’d told Gabriella Nash for her story. “We moved from one rental to another. So I got to know about houses at an early age.”
She’d bought her first home when she was only twenty-two. “All I ever wanted was a place I couldn’t be evicted from,” she’d told Gabriella. After a few years fixing up that first little rundown house on Baxter Street, she bought a slightly bigger and better house three doors down. That was followed by a pretty cape cod on Walhounding Avenue. “It was cute as a bug,” she’d said, “but unfortunately it also had bugs—termites. That’s how I met Phil.”
They were married in October 1962. A month later they had their first of six children. In between babies Gloria got her real estate license and little by little she became one of the most successful Realtors in Hannawa. Even though she was well into her seventies and had plenty of money, she continued to sell houses.
“Cat and rabbit now being served in the grand hall,” Phil announced in a horrible English butler’s accent. We headed for the dining room table. It was long enough to land a 747.
Phil McPhee looked more like a Presbyterian minister than a retired pest exterminator. He was tall and thin with enough white hair on his head for a dozen men his age. His teeth were a little yellow and his nostrils a little fuzzy, but he was by and large a handsome man. According to Eric’s research, he’d graduated summa cum laude from Ohio State University, with twin degrees in business and entomology. Eric had found an article on him in Pest Control magazine. “I was a practical young man,” he’d said of himself, “who was more interested in making a lot of money killing bugs than no money studying them.”
Phil kept us laughing throughout our lunch. And his salmon salad was as good as his jokes. After sherbet and coffee Gloria gave me a tour of the condo. The bedrooms were spectacular. Their bathrooms were too magnificent to use. Gloria and Phil both had an office—not converted spare bedrooms but actual offices with built-in bookcases, daybeds and massive desks. I particularly liked Phil’s desk. It was an old roll top with three long rows of pigeonholes. I also liked his wastebasket. It was covered with hundreds of hand-painted ants going every which-away. “Our oldest daughter, Carol, made it for him. For Christmas. Probably ten years ago. She’s an art teacher in Buffalo of all places.”
I took a closer look at the ants. They were all wearing little gas masks. I also took a closer look at what was in the wastebasket. Nothing but several little tightly rolled balls of fur.
16
Monday, August 7
I was determined to have an easy day. I’d mark up the weekend papers, dawdle over my mail, have a long lunch at Ike’s, and then in the afternoon do a little personal research on the relationship between dogs, enlarged tonsils, and snoring. Dr. Menke usually knew what he was talking about—I’d been going to him for twenty-five years—but this business about James possibly causing my sleep apnea was a bunch of baloney.
Eric Chen quickly changed my plans. “I’ve got that stuff you wanted on the prince’s brother, et al.,” he said, falling in next to me as I headed back to the morgue with my morning tea. I’d only given him the weekend to investigate the Clopotar clan. I hadn’t expected him to get it done that fast. “No there there?” I asked.
Before he could give me one of his smart-ass answers, Louise Lewendowski swept past us with a manic smile. “You guys hear?” she squealed. “The president is coming to Hannawa! On Thursday!”
I cringed. “This Thursday?”
She was nodding her head like a Pez dispenser with Tourettes. “Isn’t it exciting?”
“With a capital E,” I said.
Presidents don’t generally come to Hannawa, Ohio. In fact you can count presidential visits to our city on one hand, even if you don’t have a thumb: Abraham Lincoln visited twice, once on his way to Washington to be inaugurated and once on his way home to be buried. Calvin Coolidge once gave a commencement speech at Hemphill College. Ronald Reagan once made a campaign stop at Hyker Hydraulics to tout American competitiveness. Two weeks after Reagan’s re-election, Hyker announced it was moving all 1,300 of its well-paying jobs to Mexico.
Contrary to popular belief, I wasn’t at the paper for the Lincoln or Coolidge visits, but I was here for Reagan’s. Pandemonium doesn’t begin to describe it. For three days I had one damn request after another. “What do we have on this?” “What do we have on that?” “I’m on deadline, Maddy!” “I need it yesterday, Maddy!” Good gravy! You’d have thought the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were spotted galloping up Main Street!
All of this over-kill reporting on the president’s visit would
be coming right in the middle of our shameless coverage of Violeta Bell’s sex change. For Sunday Dale Marabout had written a 3,000-word analysis of how the revelation was affecting the police department’s investigation. That morning’s paper featured medical writer Tracy Winkler’s snip-by-snip explanation of gender reassignment surgery. For Tuesday Tracy was examining the psychological impact of such surgery on family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. A feature on a local transgender college professor was slated for Wednesday. A huge package of stories was being planned for the weekend. The working title: JUST WHO WAS VIOLETA BELL? No doubt about it, my plans to take it easy were out the window.
By ten o’clock no less than eight different reporters had come crying to me about the stories they’d been assigned to write about the president’s upcoming visit. Gabriella’s request was the worst of all. “They want me to do a story on how the paper covers a presidential visit,” she whined as I scrolled through another indecipherable roll of microfilm. “I thought maybe you could give me a quote.”
“There’s nothing I can say that the paper could print.”
“Perfect,” she said. She scribbled it down and scampered back to her desk.
It took Eric and me until two o’clock to make everybody happy. Then we went out to lunch. To the Midas Muffler shop on Orange Street. If I wanted an update on his research on the prince’s family, I’d have to sit with him in the waiting room, eating stale snacks from the vending machine, while the rusty belly of his old Toyota pickup truck was fitted with a new exhaust system.
Eric’s lunch consisted of Strawberry Twizzlers, Chili Cheese Fritos, and his umpteenth Mountain Dew of the day. I chose the Fig Newtons and a slurp of tepid water from the drinking fountain next to the restrooms. We found a pair of empty chairs by a pyramid of windshield wiper fluid and got to work.
Eric licked the chili cheese off his fingers and opened the geeky backpack he’d brought with him. He handed me copies of the news stories and police reports on Petru Clopotar’s drowning. “Looks like they never found the guy’s body,” he said.
“And yet they ruled it accidental?”
“The anchor was missing along with him.”
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” I said, nibbling on my cookie. “Prince Anton told me the anchor had been tied around his brother’s feet.”
Eric tore open the Twizzlers package with his teeth. “The police figured he must have gotten tangled up in it and fell overboard.”
“Accidents do happen.”
“There were also fishing poles and live minnows on the boat,” he added. “And there was a cooler with sandwiches and beer.”
I shook the cookie crumbs off the police report. Mixing lunch and work is never tidy. “It makes you wonder why the prince insists it was a suicide, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe he’s afraid that his brother’s bones will still be found some day,” Eric suggested. “With a bullet rattling around in his skull or something.”
I finished his thought. “Which would make it either suicide or murder.”
Eric finished mine. “So the prince killed his older brother and made it look like a suicide. So he would be the heir and not just the spare.”
I told him about my own research. “When Petru went overboard in the fifties, there was real hope that the Communists would be driven out of Romania. Hungary was in open revolt. People in other Eastern European countries were grumbling. It would be just a matter of time before the monarchy was restored. That was only pie in the sky, of course, but nobody knew that then.”
“What about now? It’s still pie in the sky, right?”
“Where there’s sky there’s pie. Now, what about the prince’s father? Dumitru. Where, when and how did he die?”
Eric handed me an old Associated Press story. “Heart attack. January 1968. Skiing in Austria with his son, Prince Anton.”
My cynicism—as it has a tendency to do—was soaring like a runaway birthday balloon. “Father and son all alone on a remote slope in the Alps, no doubt.” I read the AP story. I hadn’t been that far off. The prince had found his father’s body on the floor of his hotel room when he went to get him for dinner. “What about the prince’s mother? She can’t possibly still be alive.”
“Old age. June, 1996.”
“And the prince’s three sons? Anything about them we need to know?”
Eric handed me his research. While I read, he gave a thumbnail sketch of each son: “Christopher. Age fifty. High school science teacher by trade. Currently Labor Party member of Parliament. No public views on Romanian monarchy….
“Anthony. Age forty-three. Assistant deputy minister of tourism for Ontario. No public views on Romanian monarchy….
“Simon. Age thirty-eight. Hosts an all-night bluegrass radio show in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. No public views on Romanian monarchy.”
I didn’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved. “Two politicians and a ne’er-do-well. They don’t sound very sinister, do they?”
Eric moved on to another one of my requests—whether Prince Anton had left Wolfe Island shortly before Violeta Bell’s murder. “The ferry operators know him well. They don’t think he’s been off the island since his wife died.”
I wasn’t about to let Eric off that easy. “I suppose he could have his own boat.”
He was more than ready for me. “Nope. Nope. And nope.”
“What questions do the last two nopes belong to?”
“Nope there isn’t an airport on Wolfe Island—not even for puddle jumpers—and nope he doesn’t know how to swim.”
I laughed at him. And myself. “You’re making that last nope up, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
The mechanics lowered Eric’s truck from the rack. We drove back to The Herald-Union for more insanity. Among the oodles of phone messages waiting for me was this one from Detective Grant: “You were right, Maddy. We had an expert look at that stuff from Eddie’s apartment. All fakes. Thanks.”
When I got home, Ike had supper waiting. Green pepper and onion omelets made with fake eggs. Sugar-free lime Jello topped with sugar-free Cool Whip. We walked James. We watched TV. We went to bed.
At two o’clock I was still awake, listening to Coast to Coast on the radio. You can’t believe a word that anyone on that show says but I just love it. It’s a welcome relief from real life where you’re not quite sure whether you should believe someone or not. George Noory’s guest was an Indian medicine man named Red Elk who said alien lizard people were living inside the earth. Occasionally these lizard people snatch humans and grind them into a powder that makes them live longer.
I was afraid to go to sleep. Not because the lizard people might crawl up through the heating ducts with their mortars and pestles. Because I’d start snoring like a Clydesdale. I’d wake up Ike and he’d start pestering me to have my tonsils out. Which I was not going to do.
So there I lay, hands folded on my belly like a corpse, listening to Ike’s soft breath and Red Elk’s unbelievable stories, thinking about Violeta Bell.
All of Hannawa was buzzing about the sex change thing and Detective Grant seemed to think it could have something to do with her murder. Which I did not think. There was no evidence that Violeta had a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or any other kind of friend or friends that would be so psychologically discombobulated by learning she had once been a he that he or she or they would kill her. No, there was no evidence like that at all. There was, however, strong evidence that she was trafficking in fake antiques. But would someone kill her over a fake fireplace mantel?
Could Eddie French be the murderer after all? He was in business with her. Presumably he knew more about her dark ways than most. But Violeta Bell hadn’t been stabbed or strangled or knocked over the head. She’d been shot. And Eddie had an aversion to guns. Or did he?
Kay Hausenfelter, on the other, was very comfortable around guns. And Gloria McPhee was the executor of her estate. And Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy paid Eddie’s bail. And
wouldn’t you think at least one of them would be in an emotional dither about Violeta’s secret past? Their unruffled reaction to the news simply wasn’t believable. Good gravy, I had a harder time accepting that Ike was a Republican than they were having with the coroner’s revelation that Violeta had been born with a you-know-what.
And what about Prince Anton? A few days after Violeta told the world she was the queen of Romania she was dead. Could she really have been a Romanian royal? Surely her claim was as fake as the antiques she sold. As fake as the name on her driver’s license. But what if it were true? And what if Prince Anton knew it? Had he so wanted to be king—if ever there was to be a king—that he killed her? Or had her killed? Two other pretenders to the throne standing in his way had met mysterious deaths. His brother and his father.
Of course if the prince knew that Violeta Bell really was a royal, then he also would have known who she really was. That once upon a time she’d been a he. Was she a cousin perhaps? Distant or otherwise?