by Julie Sarff
“Ah yes, Sargon-the-Sexy was it? Tell me, was that a scintillating story?”
His words shock me so much that my mouth forms a round O. The prince laughs and sprawls about in his squashy chair.
“It’s a joke, Lizzie,” he laughs. “Just a joke.”
My mouth remains firmly locked in a round O.
“Let me see, I’ve studied history….Sargon was….Sumerian correct?”
“Akkadian,” I state, my mouth finally functioning correctly.
“Same difference.”
“Not at all. The Akkadians were conquers of the Sumerians. They came hundreds of years after the establishment of Ur.”
His blue eyes blaze hot. A coy smile passes his lips. “Like I said, same difference. So tell me, Lizzie, how many wives did he have?”
“Well…one…as far as we know. The historical records are spotty.”
“Did he have an active love life in addition to being married?” he asks.
“No idea.”
“Hmm, cuz you know people only care about your love life. He conquered the city-states of Sumeria? Boring. He had five wives and a couple mistresses, that’s what everyone wants to know,” the Prince says, with a hint of mischief in his eyes.
With those words, a little of his charm seems to dissipate. Maybe he is a spoiled brat like the tabloids report. What is this childish preoccupation with wives and mistresses?
“It may interest you to know,” I explain, sounding exactly like my seventh grade English teacher, “that according to legend, Sargon’s mother was worried that he might be killed as a baby, so she put him in a reed basket and floated him down the river. He was plucked from the waters by the royal irrigator Akkai. Historians believe this story was later adapted by the Jewish people for their own savior, Moses.”
“You don’t say.” The Prince stares up at the ceiling as if very bored. “And tell me, Lizzie, what kind of hero story will you create for me? I am 29-years old and I haven’t done anything, other than date a thousand women. Oh, and that last part you can’t put in any book. I know the contract with your publishing company promised to keep silent about my love life. And since, I’ve never done anything of any import, I suspect my biography will be very short.”
I look at him with fresh eyes. Yes, I agree, this biography is going to be very short. I click my pen one last time and settle into my work.
Chapter 4
Twenty minutes later, I find myself storming back across Green Park. The Prince is nothing but a self-centered child, I think, as I pass rows of yellow tulips in full bloom. This morning’s extremely short interview consisted mostly of the Prince asking me questions about myself and wondering what it was like to be a self-made woman at the age of 28.
“Hmm, self-made,” I snort. I wish. Even with five biographies to my name, I barely make enough money to pay rent. When I told the Prince I have two doctorate degrees, he replied that the only thing he had done was graduate with an undergraduate degree in art history. Ten minutes into our conversation, Alastair returned with a tea cart and an urgent message. Apparently his royal highness was double-booked and would have to reschedule our interview.
“If we don’t leave immediately, we will be late. It would appear there’s been an accident on the M5 and it’s going to take much longer than I thought to get to Bath,” Alistair informed the Prince.
Alex mumbled an apology and was out the door. I remained in the office for ten minutes, drinking my tea in the company of Queen Adelaide and friends. Afterwards, a security guard escorted me back out the way I came. The whole morning was a complete waste of time.
Wearing a harsh expression on my face, I pass by the rows of yellow tulips in a huff. But the moment I come upon the Canadian-British memorial that sits halfway between the Sheraton and Buckingham Palace, my expression softens. I’ve been here before, not with Sean, but with my family when I was little. The memorial itself is not interesting in the least. It’s a large metal structure in the shape of a wedge with a bunch of maple leaves inscribed in it. When we were young, my brother and I found it a hoot to slide down, despite the sign that reads “Do Not Touch!” We slid down the memorial over and over, on our knees and on our belly, while my father hemmed and hawed and tried to get us to move on to view the palace of the King.
I stop a moment to watch a like-minded boy inchworm his way across the metal structure, when wham, I am hit from the side by something large. The force of impact sends me reeling. My glasses fly off my face and both my bag and my head hit the ground with a thud. My bag falls open on impact and out rolls my ball of yarn with tea cozy attached, while my papers scatter to the four winds.
“Ow,” I gasp, feeling banged up. My elbow, which slammed hard into the pavement, zings with pain.
I watch a young woman hop off a blue bicycle, panic on her face. So that’s what happened—that woman hit me with her bike. She rushes over. Behind her a man in a tweed jacket has stopped his bicycle and yells at her, “I say, Marianne, that’s what you get for staring at all the male joggers.”
Marianne is all apologies as she helps me to my feet. At the same time, the man in tweed concentrates on chasing down my papers.
“There you are. Steady now. Can you tell me what day it is?” Marianne asks.
“Wednesday, March 1st,” I repeat, understanding that she is trying to determine if I have concussion from the fall.
“Nah, nah, that’s not it at all. Try again.”
It’s not March 1st? Once again I think I may be having short term memory loss, not from my head hitting the ground, but from my insomnia medications.
“Is it April?” I hazard. Honestly, I’ve lost track of time. I was in Hong Kong, then Singapore, then New York, and now I’m here. Somewhere an entire month has gone missing.
“Go on,” insists Marianne who has short, bright orange hair, and bright blue eyes to match. Everything she wears on her body, from her tights to her wool A-line dress, are in the boldest of colors, like the painting in the art gallery where Sean was murdered.
“April 5th,” I hazard.
“Nah, way past that, it’s the 15th. Maybe we should get you to a doctor.”
I wave her off. While the man in tweed is still chasing down my papers, I bend down and pick up my crochet.
“What is that?” Marianne asks, “It looks like a pink toupee.” I ignore her and stuff the unfinished cozy into my bag.
“Is that the Prince?” Marianne hazards, spying an 8 x 10 photo that fell out of my file. “He’s gorgeous, don’t you think? You some kind of a reporter?”
I don’t respond. It’s really not this woman’s business who I am. As it is, my elbow is still ringing, thanks to her, and the tweed man is still running, also thanks to her. I bend down once again and scoop up the photo of Alex.
“Here you are. I think I rounded them all up,” the man reports a minute later, returning my papers with a smile. If I had to guess, I would say he is in in his late 30’s. He’s got lovely crinkles around his eyes when he smiles and when he adds the quintessential, “Jack Preston, at your service,” I feel quite bowled over.
“Are we going to be needing a doctor, since my Marianne rode you down?”
I laugh and wonder what he means by “my Marianne?” Perhaps these two are together. Kind of an eccentric couple, she seems very young for him.
“Oh no, I’m fine.” I stuff the papers back into my bag and hobble off.
“Can we see you home?” Jack asks, his brow knit with concern as he catches up with me. “It’s the least we can do since Marianne ran you down. She’s a menace to society on that bicycle of hers.”
The more I protest, the more Jack is sure that the only proper thing for him and Marianne to do is accompany me back to my hotel. At the Sheraton, I demonstrate my ability to think clearly as Jack holds up various fingers and asks me to count. Assured that I don’t have a concussion, the couple bids me ‘good-day’ and I watch through the glass doors in the lobby as they mount their bicycles and peddle a
way.
Still feeling wobbly I climb the stairs slowly to my room, where I change out of my black pantsuit. It is torn at the both elbow and knees, and is completely unusable for any future event. For a while I stand with my Cornell university sweatshirt rolled up and awkwardly soak my aching elbow in the bathroom sink.
A half an hour later, I sit down and begin the Prince’s biography based on the notes in the file Meg gave me.
His Royal Highness, Prince Alex Phillip Oliver William Charles Henry—here I stop typing and laugh. The royal family really did cover their bases with those names. The only kingly monikers they have left out are Edward, James, Stephen, and John. Of course nobody would use those last two names, the original King Stephen and King John were two of England’s worst rulers.
His royal highness, Prince Alex Phillip Oliver William Charles Henry was born on a blustery day at St. Andrew’s hospital in central London. The Prince is the second and last child of his parents King George and Queen Amelia.
That’s right, I muse, as I sit at the small Queen Anne desk with my laptop open. Alex was the second child, his brother Albert died young, the victim of a horrible accident.
I write a few more boring lines about the Prince’s birth, describing how he spent his first few months with his mother and father at his maternal grandmother’s estate outside London. Meg has provided me with a picture of Queen Amelia’s childhood home. It’s a sprawling manor house. The Queen Consort came from banking money, and her parent’s home resembles a smaller version of Kensington Palace, surrounded by lush green fields. It must have been a cushy place to spend one’s early days.
I stick to the facts. I describe how the Prince spent most of his time in the company of his brother and his cousins, Rose, Ava, Olivia, Emily, and Annalise on his father’s side and his cousins Jack, Harry, and Alfie on his mother’s.
The rather dry details about the Prince, coupled with jet leg and my early morning appointment, cause me to nod off temporarily. Outside a car honks and I jerk awake. Obviously I am still badly in need of sleep so I abandon my work for today. Still feeling a bit wobbly, it’s all I can do to make it across the room and crawl underneath the duvet cover. I sleep for several hours when, mid-afternoon, my cell phone wakes me. I turned the ringer off earlier so I could sleep peacefully, but now the tiny device vibrates so hard, it jolts its way across the desk, intent on swan diving into the waste-paper basket.
“Good Afternoon, Ms. Rue?” Alistair says briskly when I answer the phone.
“Please, call me Trudy,” I invite.
“Um…well, we in the service of the royal family prefer last names, but if you would prefer Miss Rue to Ms. Rue, I will make a note of it.”
“What can I do for you, Alistair?” I respond, not wishing to get into an argument over Ms. vs. Miss vs. Mrs. and the sexism of it all. That’s more my father’s department. He is a professor of Women’s Studies at Colorado College. He penned an entire article last month for NOW magazine proclaiming that women everywhere should rejoice, as the terms Miss and Mrs. are finally falling by the wayside.
“Well, it’s rather short notice, but I would like to invite you to an event tomorrow night to make up for the short interview. There’s a charity ball —”
“A ball?”
I think I lost him after that. Doing research under the hot Sardis sun, sifting through bits of dirt for anything which might lead to discovering more about King Croesus, I never thought I would be invited to a charity ball.
“Yes, a ball,” he responds matter-of-factly.
“Like Cinderella?”
There is silence at the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry?” he asks a second later.
“Oh…um…nothing, sorry, was thinking out loud. Please, you were saying?”
“Yes, well,” he responds, sounding discomfited. “It’s an invite to the Lung Cancer Society ball. I will put your name on the guest list. We have a table and you can come along and observe, or whatever it is you biographers do. The Prince will be giving a speech. I’ll send a car for you at eight p.m. The event is black tie. You will need a gown.”
“A ball gown?” I ask incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Like Cinderella,” I mouth to myself in the mirror behind the desk. I think I actually let out a whoop at this point. Alistair goes silent. A few seconds later, he hangs up with a very frosty good-bye. I sit still for a moment, wondering how fast I can find a dress, then I pick up the phone to call Meg. I need her permission to expense the dress. I am about to dial her number when my cell rings again.
“Ms. Rue?” a person with a nasally New York accent asks.
“Yes?”
“Yes, this is Detective Puyn of the NYPD, I am wondering if you might come in for a few questions regarding the death of Sean McKenzie.”
All the mirth of going to a ball with a Prince is sucked out of me. Things become even worse when I tell the detective, no, I can’t come in. I am working in London.
“I’m afraid I really must insist you return to New York immediately. I’m sorry to inform you that you have been named a person of interest in the death of your late boyfriend. You need to return on the earliest available flight. Please let us know as soon as you arrive back in the States.”
With that, the good detective hangs up the phone.
Chapter 5
“He wasn’t my boyfriend, not anymore,” I explain to Mr. Puyn two days later. No charity ball with the Prince for me, I was on a plane returning to New York.
I glance around at the dreariness and grime of the detective’s small office. A very large woman in a flower-printed muumuu sits next to me. She continues to hiss in my ear that I mustn’t reply to any of the detective’s questions.
“Yes, the two of you had broken up, isn’t that right? And he had moved in with a close friend of yours—a Tatum Bouviers. They were about to be married, isn’t that correct?”
“If you want to know what Tatum Bouviers was up to, why don’t you ask her?” The muumuu lady says with a big Southern drawl. I have met her before. Her name is Emmeline Vance, and she is one of Schnellings’ many lawyers. I eye her up and down, and notice that her day-glow pink lipstick matches her muumuu spectacularly.
“I do believe it’s true, they were engaged. Someone told me they saw the two of them in Bergdorf’s picking out china,” I answer.
“And exactly who was that?” Sargent Puyn asks.
“An assistant at Schnellings, Mallory Barton.”
Sargent Puyn types this info into his computer.
“Oh and Kerry Winfrey saw them at Selfridge’s in London, but they weren’t picking out china. She said they were dropping some serious money though. Kerry Winfrey doesn’t work for Schnellings, she’s a historian friend of mine. She writes mostly about the Persian Kings, although occasionally she dips into the Medes.”
“They must have liked to shop,” Detective Puyn replies dryly. He’s a slight man, dark-skinned and very serious about his job.
“Hmm,” I brood darkly, “They must have.” Emmeline, who is sitting next to me, kicks me at this point. Obviously she doesn’t like the way I mumbled “hmm.”
“Were you upset at their impending nuptials?”
“Don’t answer that,” Emmeline jumps in.
“Not in the least,” I respond confidently. “I was sad initially, when Sean came home and told me it was over and that he was moving in with someone else. He packed up his clothes and left. But, totell you the truth, we haven’t been much of a couple in the last year or so. Sean has been living in England, doing his biography of the Prime Minister and I’ve spent a lot of time in New York. We really grew apart, I think —”
When I break off, Emmeline jumps all over the detective, asking what the meaning of all these questions are. She insists that I can’t be a suspect because, as the police have already established, I was with my editor at the time of the murder.
“But you did find Mr. McKenzie dead? You were the first one on the
scene?” Puyn asks.
“Don’t answer that,” Emmeline spits.
“I was. I was the first one to see him. He was just lying there, in a pool of his own blood. It was…” I cannot finish the sentence. I cannot even find the words to describe the horror of the scene.
“And then what did you do?”
“I screamed. I screamed and Herbert Townsend came running. He’s an accountant at Schnellings. He told me to dial 911, which I did, while poor Herbert turned Sean over and put him on the floor. He was yelling that we needed to do CPR. By then, my screaming had brought a lot of people running. There was a man at the party who rushed in and said he was a doctor. We let him through. He said Sean was dead. Still he and Herbert tired chest pumps… but there was nothing they could do…there was a hole in Sean’s face a mile wide and, oh God… there was no way anyone could survive that.”
“Well, I think you’ve heard enough from my client for one day,” Emmeline says reproachfully and jumps to her feet.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you, Ms. Rue, but I would like to return to my original line of questioning,” Puyn persists.
“She did not murder Sean McKenzie.” Emmeline looms over the detective, looking quite cross.
“Yes, but one more thing. According to your editor, Ms. Rue you and Sean McKenzie were college sweethearts, you’ve been together for seven years is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you are telling me that you were completely over him in the space of three months.”
“Completely.”
“Tell me, if you would, how does that happen? I’m just trying to understand how that works. The two of you were together for seven years, and then he comes home and tells you he’s leaving you for someone else, and three months later, you are completely fine with it all?” Puyn sits back in his laminate chair and crosses his arms.
“Well,” I begin slowly, “it happened like this. My father didn’t raise a fool. He’s one of the most well-known feminists of this generation. He has taught Women’s Studies for longer than you’ve been alive, Detective Puyn. And my father told me not to put up with nonsense from anyone. In addition, Sean left me for Tatum Bouviers, or as I knew her, Tatum Ford from high school. Whatever shred of love I felt for Sean died the moment I found out he left me for someone who was once my best friend. I cut off ties with both him and Tatum. And yes, I got over it all. That night at the gallery I went to congratulate him, to offer an olive branch of sorts. To let him know that I had moved on.”