The Prince and I: A Romantic Mystery (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Julie Sarff

  “Well, that’s interesting, because we took a statement from a Leanne Trisk who insists she heard you screaming at Mr. McKenzie. I have it here.” Puyn shuffles his papers. “She said she heard something about you calling him a bastard and a spiny anteater or something?”

  Emmeline sits back down and glares at me.

  “I did shout something, right before I saw him.”

  “So perhaps you weren’t completely over him.” Detective Puyn smiles triumphantly.

  “If your case against my client is based on the use of the words ‘spiny anteater’ the judge will laugh the prosecution out of the court,” Emmeline states loudly and begins to study her nails, as if this is all a huge waste of time.

  “I was tired, jet-lagged and yes, I called him something of the sort. But how could I have killed him? As you know, I was with my editor at the estimated time of murder.”

  “We believe it may have been a professional hit.”

  “What?”

  “We believe someone may have been hired to kill Mr. McKenzie.”

  “What makes you think that?” Emmeline snaps.

  “Suffice it to say the murder was well done, many of the video cameras in the secondary stairwell and on the third floor were smashed, and the type of gun that was used is not easily obtained under today’s gun laws, etc.”

  “You think I paid someone to murder Sean.”

  “We have not ruled out anyone, Ms. Rue.”

  It’s probably wildly inappropriate, but at this point I burst out laughing. Emmeline turns her big watery eyes on me as if I’ve gone mad.

  “Have you checked my finances? Go ahead check them. I can barely afford my rent each month, how could I afford a hit man?”

  “So you are offering to turn over your financial records?” Detective Puyn questions.

  “Yes,” I answer while Emmeline shouts a loud, “No.”

  I say yes again, and Emmeline intercedes telling Detective Puyn to get a search warrant if he wants access to my financial records. He states that he would be happy to obtain a search warrant and she responds something to the effect of “I’d like to see you try.”

  “No search warrant, no financial records,” Emmeline states as if that is that. “And now, detective, I think my client has answered all your questions. If you’ll excuse us my client has a job to do. She needs to return to London.”

  “That’s out of the question.” Detective Puyn holds firm. “We may need her for questioning at any time. We need her to stay in the city. I’m sure you can both understand.”

  Emmeline shakes her head. “If she is not charged with anything, she needs to return to work.” She glares at Detective Puyn and flares her nostrils like an enraged bull. Honestly, I think she could pin the man down in nothing flat. Detective Puyn doesn’t look intimidated, instead he turns to me and says, “You are a person of interest in a murder case, Trudy Rue. Do not leave the city or I will have you arrested. Have a great day, ladies, Sargent Fritz will show you out.”

  I stand up in a daze, surely this all a nightmare. Emmeline heads for the door, and I follow right behind.

  Chapter 6

  “Lizzie, so good to hear from you,” the Prince says several hours later as he comes on the line. “You were greatly missed at the charity function the other night.”

  I feel a whoosh of relief. Thank God I wasn’t fired from my job when the NYPD called me back to New York. Initially, Buckingham Palace sent a nasty gram to Schnellings informing them the biography was off. They stated that they didn’t want any of the controversy over Sean’s death to touch the Prince. Meg rang them up as soon as she received their message. She said she tried to do some fast talking, but the Palace held firm. The representative for the Palace informed her that,since the replacement biographer was now embroiled in a murder controversy, and the original biographer was dead, Buckingham Palace felt that their contract with Schnellings was null and void. Something must have changed though—perhaps Meg sicced the entire Schnellings’legal department on them—because a moment later, I received a phone call. It was Alastair saying I could continue with my job. He said I could conduct phone interviews with the Prince as long as I was not arrested. Then he immediately put the Prince on the line.

  In the fog of being named a person of interest in the murder of my ex, it’s hard to know where to begin today’s interview. Phone to ear, I lean back on my bed and stare up at my clothes which hang from a rack over my head.

  “I’m very sorry for the difficult position in which you find yourself, Lizzie,” Alex commiserates. “My legal team has told me that as long as you are not arrested for anything, the contract between the Palace and Schnellings is binding. So, go ahead, ask your questions.”

  Questions? I haven’t had any time to formulate questions. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

  “How would you like future historians to characterize your reign?” I ask, spitting out more nonsense.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Um, never mind. Silly question.”

  “I never want to reign,” the prince insists. “Next question?”

  There is an expectant pause.

  “Um, well, I read about your childhood. Descriptions of you by your nannies etc. They were supplied by the Palace. Sounds like you were a very happy child,” I say lamely, trying to regain the conversation.

  “I wasn’t,” he replies.

  Oh dear, this is going poorly. As a historian, I find it much easier to study the Narmer palette, and then form an educated guess as to what the first king to unite Upper and Lower Egypt was like, rather than to be forced to interview a living member or royalty. The dead don’t argue, which makes them convenient to study.

  “Oh?” I murmur, trying to get the Prince to open up about his childhood and feeling more like a shrink than a biographer.

  “Well, as you know my brother died when I was four. I’m pretty sure I was happy up until that point.”

  Right. Four. I hadn’t quite reached that part of the biography yet. I do know that Alex’s brother, the heir to the throne, fell from a high window at his grandmother’s estate.

  “I’m very sorry about your brother.”

  This time the silence is even longer than before.

  “Look, Lizzie, I told Alistair when I agreed to this that I wouldn’t talk about that. Alright? The terms were agreed to by your publisher.”

  “Right, right you are. I’m sorry, Alex, I was thrust into this position and I never read the contract, but we won’t put in anything that makes you uncomfortable. Why don’t you tell me about your mother?”

  “Lovely woman.”

  Somebody help me, I’m getting nowhere.

  “She toes the monarchy line,” he adds. I have no idea what this means. “She’s a good woman. A good mother. She loves my dad and he dotes on her. I’d like to marry someone like my mom.”

  Uh-huh, I need a little more to go on than this, but Alex is done talking about his family and turns the tables.

  “So tell me, Lizzie, how about you?”

  “What about me?

  “Are you close to your mom?”

  “Why, yes, she’s a wonderful mother. She’s a district court judge. She always worked full time. My father quit teaching for a few years to raise us. He’s currently a professor of women’s studies at Colorado College, but he’s taught at Cornell, Harvard, and Princeton.”

  This kicks off a whole conversation about me. Where was I raised? What schools did I attend? What’s my favorite book, color, movie? The last thing the Prince seems to want to talk about is himself. After a while, we settle into a conversation about some of his favorite memories when he was a child.

  “So you wrestled in the mud like you were a couple of pigs?” I find myself asking him as the digital clock on my windowsill registers nine o’clock.

  “She cut off my hair, she scalped me. I was three. I looked awful. My parents made me wear a toupee until the hair grew back in. So one day, I paid her back by tackling he
r outside the stables.”

  “No way, a toupee at age three,” I laugh.

  “Well, my mom was too embarrassed to let anyone know that Rose had been left alone with me long enough to take a pair of scissors to my head. At the time my cousin was much older and wiser. She was five. She was playing hairdresser, you see?”

  I lose track of time as Alex tells me all kinds of funny stuff about when he was a small child. How when they first told him that his brother was the Prince of Wales, he replied quite seriously, “The Prince of Whales, but how?” In another antidote he told me about when he explained the rules of the road to his parents.

  “I told them that red meant stop and green meant go and white meant fall down on the ground and crawl on your belly.”

  “That would have made for messy intersections,” I laugh.

  “But seriously, Lizzie, compared to --who the devil have you been studying lately?”

  “Croesus,” I respond quite seriously.

  “Right, Croesus. Compared to Croesus, who probably did many interesting things--“

  “He invented the coin for Ancient Asia Minor. Up until then, it was mostly barter.”

  “Right, there you go, he invented the coin.”

  “Yes, and it was a huge success. The King’s riches became legendary.”

  “Exactly. What a kingly innovation. And after that kind of stuff, who cares about my cousin Rose scalping me? You know they’re only making you write this biography because of the horrid biography my personal secretary wrote about me.”

  “Alistair wrote a biography about you?”

  “Wow, Lizzie, I really like you. Where on earth did they find you? You know nothing about me. Don’t you watch the news? The biography wasn’t written by Alistair. It was my last personal assistant, Alfred Tarkins who wrote that piece of trash.”

  My brain goes into overdrive. First of all, the Prince of Wales told me he likes me, and what single woman in the world wouldn’t let her imagination run away at this pronouncement? But then, the follow up to that, the part about me not knowing anything about him and not watching the news —that part stung. Although it’s true. If it happened after 1875, forget it. That’s as far as I got in my college history classes.

  “You still there, Lizzie? You’ve gone quiet. I didn’t mean any of that in a bad way,” the Prince continues when I don’t respond. “I really do like the fact that you know nothing about me. It means you have no preconceptions. Stay that way. So many people see me on TV or in the tabloids, and they think they know me. You’re an open book and an open mind…..oh, hold on a second,”

  In the background I can hear a woman’s sultry voice.

  “Time to go already?” Alex asks her.

  “I’m sorry, Lizzie, I’ve got to go. It’s really late here. Or should I say early. Would you mind if I call you back? I promise I will, as soon as I get a free moment in my schedule.”

  He says all this with a quick goodbye. In the background I hear the woman purr, “Who are you talking to?” As soon as Alex hangs up, I am dressed and out the door. I don’t care if it’s late at night. This is New York. There’s an all-night bookstore in Times Square. I scour the place searching for the Prince’s “unofficial biography.” As soon as I find it, I race home and read in bed. I click my tongue several times in disapproval as I devour the book’s two-hundred pages in less than an hour. Is it true? Is the Prince’s past really this checkered?

  Chapter 7

  Emmeline Vance appears to be shocked by the size of my apartment.

  “It’s a closet,” she muses.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Writing biographies doesn’t pay?” she asks and glances at my sad assortment of clothes that hang on the rod above my bed.

  “Filthy ones do,” I add, thinking about the unauthorized biography of the Prince I read last night. Emmeline follows my gaze to the bed where the book lays open.

  “Oh that, I read that. Claims the Prince has slept with everyone from here to Kentucky. The Palace is suing the man who wrote it you know. They’ll probably win, too, since the writer was a formerassistant.I’m sure he was subject to a confidentiality agreement.”

  Something on my face makes Emmeline glance at me sadly. “You’re not…you’re not….”

  “Not what?”

  “Well, you’re right about his age, and most young ladies who meet the Prince, well, they fantasize about him. Who wouldn’t? His future wife will live in a palace.”

  Even though I’m only wearing a bathrobe and slippers, I puff up with dignity. “I am a professional, a professional. Our relationship is strictly professional.” I am sure that, by repeating the word “professional” three times in two sentences, the true meaning of my sentence is clear: I do fantasize about the Prince romantically. Quite often, actually.

  “Uh-huh,” Emmeline draws out. “Well, back to the real world. I need to tell you a few things.” She looks around as if she would like to sit somewhere, but other than my bed, a small night table, a hot plate, a sink and a tiny refrigerator there is no furniture in my apartment.

  Emmeline heads for the refrigerator and plunks down. She is shorter than me and weighs about twice as much. I fear for my fridge. It makes a strange humming sound, as if it is frightened.

  “As you know, Schnellings is paying me to represent you. That is, unless you are officially arrested, in which case you are on your own, and you will need the best criminal attorney you can afford.”

  I shift back and forth uncomfortably on slippered feet.

  “Anyway, I was contacted by Mr. McKenzie’s lawyer. He left a message for you at Schnellings and —”

  “And?”

  “And in his will Mr. McKenzie left you everything, all his personal possessions.”

  I groan. So Sean was so hot and bothered with Tatum that he never remembered to change his will? I did. First thing after he was gone, I named my parent’s the beneficiaries of all my worldly possessions. Sadly they are all contained in this very room.

  “His files and his computer have been removed by the NYPD, but his lawyer says there are a lot of clothes at the apartment he shares with Ms. Bouviers. The lawyer wants to know what you want done with them.”

  “Leave them at Tatum’s…”

  “That’s another thing I want to talk to you about. Ms. Bouviers has been taken into police custody.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been arrested, as of very late yesterday evening.”

  “Arrested for what?”

  “Murdering Sean.”

  I stop shifting from side to side, surely I haven’t heard correctly.

  “Why on earth would they suspect her?”

  “From what I’ve learned, their next door neighbor reported that Mr. McKenzie and Ms. Bouviers fought a lot.”

  That’s ridiculous. Sean doesn’t fight. Sean studies. Sean researches. Sean writes. He doesn’t fight. He was, perhaps, the most mild-mannered person I ever met.

  “A friend of mine who’s a private detective talked to Ms. Bouviers’ neighbor this morning. The man said he heard Ms. Bouviers threaten Sean on the night he died. According to the neighbor, she threatened to kill him.”

  I shake my head. “Tatum’s always been prone to histrionics. In the last five years, she’s gotten in so many confrontations, she’s probably told half the eastern seaboard she’d like to kill them.”

  “She sounds charming,” Emmeline says.

  “Men seem to think so,” I reply. And it’s true. In high school she was the cheer leader. The one that stood at the top of the pile. Honestly, the other eleven girls on the squad barely mattered. Yet, for some reason, she and I were best friends. Maybe it was because I was the only one who could put up with so much drama in one tiny package. And since I wasn’t a threat to her when it came to boys, maybe that’s why she confided in me. I was the history nerd. While Tatum was living for afterschool practices and football games, I penned a 50,000 word paper on Ashurbanipal. My teacher gave me an F for “be
ing overly wordy.”

  After high school, we both went to the same university. An entire contingent of boys from our high school followed, hoping that at some point, Tatum might look their way. Occasionally they would break down and corner me in the dorm, telling me that if they couldn’t be with Tatum, they didn’t know what they were going to do.

  “Steady on!” I would yell in their faces, because I was a British history major. For some reason these words sound so odd to the American ear that I found they had the effect of rendering Tatum’s suitors immediately sober.

  Thanks to all the college classes I took while in high school, I graduated with my bachelor degrees in two years and moved far away. It was at Cornell, where I was studying for my master’s degree, that I met Sean. We moved on together to Smith, and after we obtained our doctorates, we were both hired at Schnellings. We made a pittance, ate Raman noodles every night from a cup, lived in an apartment only slightly larger than the one I have now, and travelled the world in cramped airplane seats to do research in our respective fields. I thought life couldn’t get any sweeter.

  Sitting with a hand on each knee, Emmeline lets out a sigh and I stop thinking about the past. It’s strange to have a lawyer pay me a visit. Strange to have one sitting on my refrigerator which is now humming voraciously. I ask Emmeline why she came in person and she informs me that she was walking by my apartment building on her way to work, so she thought she would just drop in.

  “So you don’t think she did it?” Emmeline asks.

  “Nah,” I reply. “Tatum was at the book launch party, too. I saw her on the stairway right before I found Sean. Although, of course, if the police believe Sean was killed by a hit man, then I suppose Tatum could have afforded it. She told me once she receives $19,000 a week in alimony from her second husband.”