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?
When the person Hannawa knew as Violeta Bell changed his sex, he also changed his name. He took the name Violeta. Prince Anton’s great-grandmother was named Violeta. But where did the name Bell come from? Bell wasn’t a Romanian name. Why would someone who wore their Romanian ancestry on their sleeve adopt such a non-Romanian last name? Could Violeta have been married to some guy named Bell before coming to Hannawa? Could she have chosen it out of thin air?
I slid out of bed, stepped over James, and padded into the kitchen. I called Eric. “You asleep, Mr. Chen?”
“I’m in the middle of a chess game with a guy in Rawalapindi, Pakistan.”
Eric was a chess player. When not playing with his goofy friends at Borders, he played with goofy strangers on his computer. “Hurry up and lose,” I said. “I need you to Google something for me.”
Suddenly sleep mattered to him. “Do you realize what time it is?”
I was adamant. “It’s time for you to lose.”
The guy from Rawalapindi was more cooperative than Eric. “Damn!” Eric squeaked. “He checkmated me with a pawn!”
“Good. Now say good-bye and get ready to Google.”
Eric fussed and fumed but he did as he was told. “Okay, shoot.”
“I need you to do a translation for me,” I said. “You can do translations, can’t you?” I asked.
I head a clickety clickety click. “What to what?” he asked.
“English to Romanian.”
Clickety clickety click. “What’s the magic word?”
“Bell.”
Clickety clickety click. “Bell- clopot. Oh, Morgue Mama! You are soooo good.”
“Now translate Clopotar into English.” I spelled it for him. “C-l-o-p-o-t-a-r.”
Clickety clickety click. “One who rings a bell.”
17
Thursday, August 10
Ike and I were in separate but equal pickles. Ike’s pickle was philosophical. Should he, as a good patriotic Republican, close his coffee shop at noon to attend the president’s speech at City Hall? Or should he stay open and sell as much coffee to the crowd as he could? My pickle was more practical. How was I going to get through that crowd for my very important tete-a-tete with Detective Scotty Grant?
Ike, after much stewing, decided to stay open. Not to make as much money as he could, mind you, but to serve his fellow citizens during their time of need. “Whether you’re the president or just pouring coffee, people need to know you’re there for them,” he explained. For my part, I decided to charge straight ahead, supporters, protesters, police barricades, and Secret Service agents be-damned.
I left the morgue at noon. The sidewalks along Hill Street were clogged with people. There was an American flag on every light pole. The police had already stopped traffic at both ends of the downtown. There were sirens blaring in the distance. Any minute now the president’s motorcade would be arriving. It took me ten minutes to get to Ike’s. I waved at him through the window but he was too busy to wave back. He just flashed his happy Republican smile at me and went back to making change.
I fought my way up the hill toward City Hall. That’s where the president would be speaking and the crowd was being sucked in that direction, like dust bunnies into a vacuum cleaner. At Hill and Spring I encountered a row of barricades. To get on the other side you needed an invitation. I showed the policeman the one Ike got from the Chamber of Commerce while he was still dithering whether to attend. The policeman let me through. Apparently I looked like an Ike to him. I squeezed through the crowd to Hill and Court and another row of barricades. From here on you needed a VIP invitation. Ike hadn’t gotten one of those. “Sorry ma’am,” the man in the suit said. From his buzzcut and sunglasses I gathered he was a Secret Service agent.
