The Unraveling of Violeta Bell mm-3

by C. R. Corwin

  “You think so?”

  And going. “Was she, you know, feminine?”

  “Yes. Sure.”

  And going. “Sexy?”

  “She was no Maddy Sprowls.”

  And going. “Be serious. Was she the kind of woman that men, well, respond to?”

  He found an opportunity to laugh. “She was of a certain age, you know.”

  “I’d be offended if I didn’t know how you men are.”

  He playfully removed his arm from mine. Folded both arms across his chest. “Now I’m offended.”

  “Men like younger women. It’s nature.”

  Back went his arm. “Men like women, period.”

  “That’s better.”

  Ike and I stayed at the party until nine. Until the mosquitoes started biting and the bats from the woods starting buzzing the dessert table. When we got to my house, we took James for a late night walk. I held the leash. Ike held me. At one in the morning I slipped out of bed and went to the basement. For years now the paper has been computerizing the morgue’s files. Little by little all those wonderful old clippings are being thrown out. I lug them to my car and bring them home. The wonderful old filing cabinets, too. I’ve set up my personal morgue right there in my basement. One hundred and thirty years of Hannawa history.

  I went to the M cabinets. I looked up MCPHEE, P. There was a nice fat envelope of clippings on him. I sat down at the folding table by my washer and dryer. I clicked on my gooseneck lamp and read.

  I found one item from 1951. It was a story on six local National Guardsmen getting married en masse at City Hall before they shipped out to Korea. Phil McPhee, age twenty-three, was one of them. Accompanying the story was a smudgy old photo showing Phil and his new bride saying their I-dos. Read the caption:

  “I TAKE THEE to be my lawfully wedded wife,” says Pvt. Philip McPhee to high school sweetheart Lois Palansky. The McPhees were one of six happy Hannawa couples married Tuesday at City Hall by Mayor Dutch Schneider.

  Another story was from 1959. It was from the business section. Phil McPhee, with the help of a government loan, was opening a new exterminating business in the blighted German Hill neighborhood east of downtown. The accompanying photo showed Phil and the city’s new mayor cutting the ribbon with a big pair of cardboard scissors. Read that caption:

  BUGS BETTER BEWARE: Mayor Merle D. Blackburn helps local exterminator Phil McPhee open his new headquarters on East Apple Street. McPhee’s wife, Elaine, proudly looks on.

  I stuffed everything back in the envelope. I clicked off the lamp and sat in the dark. “Two previous wives,” I yawned. “Why am I not surprised?”

  21

  Monday, August 28

  I took my mug to the cafeteria. I gave it a good washing in the sink, something I do every Monday morning. My goals for the day were modest. Mark up the weekend papers. Stop itching the mosquito bites on my ankles. Have Eric find Phil McPhee’s first two wives.

  Phil McPhee was clearly a ladies’ man. He was more than likely a life-long philanderer. Just possibly he was the mystery man Detective Grant was looking for, the one who went bonkers and killed Violeta Bell when he discovered she’d once been a he.

  While the water for my tea was coming to a boil, I read the crap stapled on the employee bulletin board. I was yawning like the MGM lion. Saturday and Sunday had both been sleep-over nights for Ike. So I was exhausted-from staying awake so he couldn’t catch me snoring.

  There was a letter on the board from Reporters’ Guild President Will Canterbury on the upcoming contract talks with management. Given the paper’s falling circulation and advertising revenues, those talks were going to be brutal. There was also a cute little poster with dancing hotdogs, inviting “friend and foe alike” to Dee Dee Killbuck’s annual Labor Day patio party. An equally brutal prospect.

  I made my tea and headed back to the morgue. Every few steps I stopped, closed my sleepy eyes and took a nourishing sip. I hear that Eric does a hilarious imitation of me doing that, by the way, although I’ve never seen it myself. Anyway, I was half way across the sports department when I opened my eyes and over the steaming rim of my mug saw Prince Anton Clopotar standing in front of my desk with a long white box cradled in his arms.

  I gasped. Spilled tea all over the front of my beloved Tweetie Bird tee shirt. The prince saw me, too. He hurried toward me. I retreated. My first thought was to take refuge in the ladies’ room. Which would have been stupid. The man comes all the way from Wolfe Island to kill me and the social impropriety of going into a woman’s toilet was going to stop him? Instead I trotted back to the cafeteria, where the only escape would be to dive through a fourth-story window.

  “Mrs. Sprowls, please!” the prince called out. “I want to see you!”

  The cafeteria was empty. I backed against the counter where I’d just made my tea. I reached into the utensil drawer and felt for a weapon.

  The prince stuck his head through the open doorway. “Making me tea, are you?”

  “I figured you’d want some.”

  He came in, smiling like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He was wearing his blazer with the emblem on the pocket. His polka dot bowtie. A pair of beautiful gray slacks with a razorsharp crease. Goofy tan-and-white saddle shoes. I wrapped my shaking fingers around a plastic butter knife. It was either that or a packet of McDonald’s catsup.

  He held out the box. “Friends?”

  I let go of the fork. Took the box. “Not a dead fish, is it?”

  “Roses, actually.”

  I removed the lid. It was roses. Yellow roses. A dozen of them.

  “Friends,” he said again.

  I took the roses from the box. I was no longer afraid of being murdered. That crazy notion was gone. Replaced with embarrassment. “If I smell them will my nose explode?”

  “I hope not,” said the prince. “I’ve grown quite fond of that meddling proboscis of yours.”

  I smelled the flowers. I put them back in the box and put the box on the counter. I refilled the kettle to make him some tea. “Darjeeling?”

  “Is there any other kind?” He sat at one of the empty tables. He leaned on his forearms while I washed out a mug for him. “Why would you ever think I meant you harm?”

  “My letter! Stealing your spoon and your pipe! Involving you in a murder!”

  He smiled at me. Not like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy. “You found my brother for me. Or should I say my sister?”

  “Does that matter to you? Petru having that operation, I mean?”

  He frowned and rubbed his knuckles. “It is a hard thing to understand. But if it made him happier than he was, well, who can quibble with that?”

  I poured the boiling water over the teabag in the mug I’d chosen for him. A big yellow one. I took it to him. Went back to the counter for the sugar and Coffeemate. “So you really thought he’d drowned himself in the river?” I asked.

  He knew where I was going. “I never knew he wasn’t happy being a man. Back then such a thing would never occur to you, would it? Not even today. But I knew he was confused to the bone about something.”

  I sat across from him. “So you assumed he committed suicide.”

  “We Clopotar men are known to take the unfairness of life head on,” he said.

  “And that’s what Petru did,” I said. “He burned his bridges and became the woman he should have been.”

  The prince smiled sadly. “I just wish he had let me in on it. I’ve missed him terribly all these years.”

  Memories of my own lost brother flooded my brain. I’d told the prince about him on Wolfe Island. “At least now you know Petru went on to live a long life as Violeta Bell. And from what her friends tell me, a happy one.”

  “Until her murder,” the prince said. “From what that detective told me, that must have been a frightening night for her.”

  I was surprised into silence. Not something that happens very often.

  He winked d
evilishly. “Oh yes, Maddy, I’ve already talked to your favorite detective. Last night at the hotel. He showed me the DNA results. And the scrapbook.”

  “Did he now?”

  “He is quite fond of you. Not to mention Irish coffee.” He dropped the big bombshell. “In fact, Mr. Grant is upstairs as we speak. With Mr. Averill and some extremely unhappy fellow named Winkler or something.”

  I corrected him. “Alec Tinker.”

  The prince stood up and flattened the pockets of his sports coat. “Actually I volunteered to come downstairs and fetch you.”

  I found a horrible plastic vase under the sink for my roses. I trimmed the stems with that plastic knife I’d fingered in the drawer. He carried the roses back to my desk for me. We took the elevator upstairs.

  Bob Averill’s office was gray and austere. The no-nonsense domain of a powerful man. He was slumped into his enormous black leather chair, slowly swiveling back and forth. The only thing on his desk was a copy of that morning’s paper. In front of him, on far more modest chairs, sat Detective Grant and Alec Tinker. There were empty chairs for the prince and me. The men were all wearing coats and ties. I was wearing baggy dungarees and that Tweetie Bird tee shirt with the big tea stain.

  The prince was right on the money when he’d said how unhappy Alec Tinker was. And I knew why that was. Tinker had been left out of the loop. He hadn’t known about my investigation. Or that Bob Averill had put me up to it. Or that Bob was in cahoots with Detective Grant.

  “Now-where were we?” Bob Averill asked when we were seated.

  Tinker glowered at him like a just-castrated bull. “You were about to answer my question. Am I managing editor of this paper or not?”

  Bob responded calmly. “Yes, you are, Alec. And you will remain so.”

  Alec’s response to that was not so calm. “Don’t count on that, Bob!”

  Said Bob, “There are plenty of starfish in the sea, Alec!”

  Said me, “Let’s not get into a pissing match, gentlemen.” I turned toward Tinker. “Bob didn’t ask me to look into Violeta Bell’s murder for the paper. He asked me because his wife was on his back. And she was on Bob’s back because her sorority sister, Jeannie Salapardi, was on her back. Because Eddie French was her brother. And so Bob got on my back. And I got on Detective Grant’s.”

  Tinker wasn’t appeased. “Sounds a little unethical, doesn’t it?”

  Prince Anton was amused. “Not to mention a little kinky.”

  We all laughed. And while everybody was still in good humor I tried to put things into perspective. “Alec,” I said, “the only way it would have been unethical was if Bob had included you in our conspiracy. Bob is an ethical man. He would never blur the lines between editor and hen-pecked husband. That’s why he turned to me. As a friend. And now you, Mr. Managing Editor, have one hell of a good story to cover.” I turned to the prince. “Assuming that the prince doesn’t mind sitting still for an interview.”

  “I’ve already told what little I know to Detective Grant,” the prince said. “I’ve no objection telling it to you good people as well.”

  Bob Averill relaxed into his big chair and started playing with the uneven ends of his necktie. “The ball’s in your court, Alec.”

  And so Tinker took over the meeting, demonstrating for the umpteenth time in two years why Bob had brought him in as managing editor. Tinker addressed his first question to Detective Grant. “You’d better wait outside.”

  Grant stood and bowed like a bad Shakespearean actor. “I’ll get some coffee.” He left the office.

  Tinker then turned his attention to the prince. “Telling the media a different version of what you told the police can get you into trouble,” he cautioned. “And there is still a murder investigation going on. By the police and apparently by one or more employees of this paper. So before you talk to us keep in mind that-”

  Prince Anton interrupted him. “Everything I say can and will be used against me?”

  “I just want you to go into this with a clear head,” Tinker said.

  I playfully leaned toward the prince and pretended to whisper. “We’re going to do the story whether you talk to us or not. So you might as well give us your side.”

  The prince nodded that he understood. “The police don’t suspect me of anything. And rightfully so. And I’m sure the people of Hannawa are as curious about Petru’s old life as I am about his new one as Violeta Bell. We’ll all fill in the blanks together.”

  Tinker nodded back at him. “We’ll go ahead then.”

  Prince Anton was visibly pleased. He reached out and patted my hand as if to say thanks. “Is it my turn to exit stage right?”

  “If you don’t mind, we do have a couple of things to hash out,” Tinker said.

  The prince gave us an even grander bow than Scotty Grant had. He left.

  I started to get up. “Time for me to bow out, too, I suppose?”

  “Not so fast, Maddy,” said Tinker. “You know more about this story than anybody else. We’re going to need your wisdom.” He turned to Bob Averill. “If that’s okay with you, Bob.”

  Bob was still playing with his tie. “If it were up to me, I’d wear those clip-ons,” he said. “But the wife says I’m too important a man.”

  That was Bob’s way of playing Pontius Pilot, washing his hands of the whole mess. And why not? He’d been forced to get involved because of Jeannie Salapardi. And now Eddie was no longer a suspect. Jeannie had thrown a wonderful barbecue for him.

  Tinker happily continued with his ideas for our coverage. “As I see it, the story is this: An exhaustive Herald-Union investigation uncovers Violeta Bell’s shocking past. Finds her brother living on an island in Canada. A brother who, lo and behold, is a pretender to the Romanian throne. Which means Violeta’s claim to be royalty was true. How will these revelations affect the police investigation? Which plods on with little success.”

  “Sounds more like a book than a story,” I hissed.

  “We’ll give it all the space it needs,” said Tinker, undeterred by my sarcasm. “And of course we’ll do a story on you, Maddy. How your dogged research once again saved the day. We’ll recap your work on the Buddy Wing and Gordon Sweet murders.”

  It was time to for me to rain on his parade. “Absolutely not.”

  Pontius Pilot was suddenly interested in throwing his weight around again. “You’re a big part of the story, Maddy.”

  I wasn’t intimidated. “Let me put it in the clearest English I can. No way, Jose.”

  Unfortunately, Tinker wasn’t intimidated either. “To quote one Dolly Madison Sprowls, ‘We’re going to do the story whether you talk to us or not.’”

  I looked to Bob Averill for mercy. His grin told me none was coming.

  Tinker moved on with his plans. “It’s not exactly a police story. But I think Dale Marabout’s the guy for the job.”

  Dale Marabout is my best buddy at the paper. A terrific reporter, too. So I was as surprised as Bob and Tinker when I heard myself squeak, “Marabout?”

  Said Tinker, “He’s the best we’ve got when it comes to a big investigative piece like this.”

  I surprised myself again. “What about Gabriella Nash?”

  “She’s a gutsy girl,” Tinker said. “But I don’t think she’s ready for something this complex.”

  His “gutsy girl” crack stuck in my craw. “You want me to cooperate, you give the story to Gabriella.”

  Tinker put his foot down. “I’m giving it to Marabout.”

  “Then I’m keeping my lips zipped,” I threatened.

  Pontius Pilot metamorphosed into Solomon. “You could put them both on the story, Alec.”

  Tinker immediately saw the wisdom of his suggestion. “Gabriella did interview Bell before her murder. And she could certainly add a lot of background color to the story. There’s no question about that.”

  “And she is a gutsy girl,” I added.

  It was decided. Dale Marabout and Gabriella Nash would do t
he story together.

  The next thing to do was break the news to Dale and Gabriella. I cautioned against it, but Tinker had them summoned upstairs together. And of course both immediately balked at working together. “I’m not a big fan of double bylines,” Dale said.

  I knew what his real objection was. Gabriella had not only cried when Violeta Bell was murdered, she’d had a hissy fit when Dale was given the story. “Gabriella will behave,” I assured him. “Won’t you, Gabriella?”

  “I don’t like double bylines either,” she said, slumping back into an about-to-explode pout.

  Bob Averill now played his best role. God. “We assign the stories. You write them.”

  Of course even God needs a little help from time to time. “I don’t know beans about the news side,” I said. “But couldn’t they do separate stories? Dale a hard news story for tomorrow on Violeta’s previous identity and how we found the prince. And then for Wednesday, Gabriella could do an in-depth feature on the prince. And then for Thursday Dale could write about the police investigation going nowhere. Friday you could run that worthless story on me you want, written, of course, by Gabriella.”

  Tinker loved my suggestion. “A four-day, page one series. Outstanding!”

  Dale and Gabriella now quibbled about who should interview the prince first that afternoon. Gabriella said she should go first, since her feature was going to take a lot longer to write than Dale’s hard news story. Dale saw it differently. Not only was he not a fan of double bylines, he wasn’t a fan of “sloppy seconds” as he crudely put it. On top of that, he also had to cover Eddie French’s court appearance at four o’clock. So he’d have two stories to write for tomorrow.

  And so it was decided that they would interview Prince Anton together, in Tinker’s office, in fifteen minutes, with him sitting in as a referee. I would sit in, too. His idea, not mine.

  ***

  We gathered in Tinker’s office. There was coffee for everyone. Dale Marabout and Gabriella got their notebooks ready. Clicked their ballpoints. Tinker punched the button on his nifty little digital recorder. I sat there like the bump on the log I wanted to be. Yawning.