“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.”
