antique shop.”
Grant seemed more relieved than intrigued. “So, the prince didn’t kill his brother fifty years ago.”
“That’s right.”
“And there’s no evidence he killed his father.”
“Well, no.”
“Which means you have no evidence that Prince What’s-his-name is the murdering type.”
“I never said I did.”
“Which means you’re finally off this royalty stuff.”
“Not at all,” I said. “What if the prince had been happy that his brother drowned? Even if he had nothing to do with it? Then all these years later he realizes his older sibling still might be alive. He does some digging. Figures out what I’ve figured out.”
Grant corrected me. “What you think you’ve figured out.”
And I corrected him. “I’m sure the prince knows his Romanian. How many nano seconds after he saw the name Violeta Bell in Gabriella Nash’s story would it take his frontal lobes to start flashing Violeta Clopotar?”
“I suppose it’s a possibility.”
Both the president and I were really feeling our oats now. “You bet it’s a possibility,” I snapped over the roar of the crowd. “And if the prince wasn’t surprised that his brother committed suicide, he might not be surprised to learn he faked his death and had a sex change.”
“And the prince liked it better when his brother was dead and so he kills him now?”
“Kills her-but yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
Grant now reminded me why he was the detective, and I a lowly librarian. “It’s a nice theory, Maddy, I’ll give you that. But you’ve no real evidence. Not that the prince killed Violeta Bell. Not that Violeta Bell was really his sister or brother or whatever.”
It was time to confess. “I may have gone to see the prince during my vacation.”
I could see the headache wiggling across his forehead, like a million invisible worms wielding tiny sledgehammers. “Judas H. Priest! Were you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I was curious. And I wasn’t killed.”
He almost screamed at me. “You’ve just spent twenty minutes telling me what a cold-blooded killer the prince is!”
I pressed my finger across his lips to shush him. “Good gravy, Scotty. The Secret Service is going to wrestle you to the ground.” I gave him a few seconds to cool down. “I know I shouldn’t have gone. But you’ve been pooh- poohing the Romanian thing from the get-go. And I had to get a read on the guy-”
Grant started raking his eyebrows with his fingernails. “A read on the guy?”
“That’s right. And maybe stumble and bumble into something important.”
Grant was wilting in front of me like a bone-dry petunia. “And did you, Maddy? Did you stumble and bumble into something?”
“Well, for a few seconds there I thought he was going to give me a nice sample of his DNA.”
“His DNA? Judas H.-”
“To compare with Violeta’s,” I explained. “To see if they were related.” I took the photo the prince had given me from my purse. I handed it to Grant. “He almost licked the envelope. But then he didn’t. You can get DNA off an envelope, can’t you?”
Grant pulled the photo from the envelope and studied it. “Yes, you can.”
“And I imagine you have Violeta’s DNA.”
“The coroner routinely takes a DNA sample during an autopsy,” he said, beginning to un-wilt a bit. “In fact, we used Violeta’s DNA to back up the coroner’s finding that she’d once been a he. All that X and Y chromosome stuff I’ve never understood.”
“Well, it’s too bad the prince didn’t lick the envelope,” I said. I reached back into my purse. I pulled out a Ziploc sandwich bag. “Of course he did lick this teaspoon. Can you get DNA off that?”
Grant took the bag. Held it in front of his face. “You’d think it would be impossible. Slick surface and all. But sometimes you can.”
I pulled out another bag. “Surely you can get some from this.” It was one of the prince’s smoking pipes. “There’s enough stinky old spit in the stem to gag a buzzard.”
Grant was a much happier man now. “I suppose the prince just didn’t give these things to you.”
“I realize you probably can’t use any evidence from them in court,” I said. “But if you can have the DNA checked-well, we’d at least know if I was on the right track, wouldn’t we?”
The president had finished speaking. The crowd was going insane. The Marching Bear Cat Band was blasting the theme from Rocky. “That we would,” Grant bellowed. “That we would.”
The president waved good-bye to the crowd. Started moving up the steps toward us, fervently shaking hands with all the local pols and their well-scrubbed families. Before I could get out of the way, the president was eyeball-to-eyeball with me, smiling like I was a favorite sister. “So good to see you,” the president said to me.
I don’t have much patience with politicians. No matter how high an office they hold. But I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the president’s hand. “And good to see you-Madam President.”
By the time I got back to the paper I was shaking like a maraca. I’d just met the president of the United States. I’d been hassled by Secret Service agents. Been serenaded at close range by a marching band. I got off the elevator and headed straight for the women’s room.
Eric stopped me in the hallway. I was trying not to look like I needed to get there in a hurry but he’d worked with me long enough to know I did. “I’m done checking into that bread truck business,” he said.
With everything that had happened in the last two weeks, I’d forgotten all about that old Hausenfelter bread truck that Eddie French claimed no one owned. Of course, I wasn’t going to admit it. “And?”
Eric leaned against the wall to block my escape. He slowly opened his notebook and studied his notes. “Let’s see now-Hausenfelter Bread Company maintains a fleet of thirty delivery trucks. It routinely replaces five every year. The old ones are sold to a used truck dealer on Cleveland Road. W.E. Richfield amp; Sons.”
“Did you call them?”
His deadpan face told me he was enjoying my discomfort. “Of course I called them, Maddy. I’m an enterprising young man. A self-starter extraordinaire. Not to mention a multi-tasker of the highest order.”
“What you are is an idiot,” I snarled. “Just tell me what you’ve got before I explode.”
He dragged out a long, long, “ Wellllllllllll -if the good ole boys at Richfield amp; Sons don’t sell the trucks in a year they put them in the crusher and sell the metal for scrap.”
“So obviously someone bought that old truck Eddie drives,” I said.
“Obviously. But they wouldn’t give me any names. Company policy.”
I tried to step around him. “Check the title bureau.”
He moved to the middle of the hallway, blocking me again. “Already have. But there’s no record of Eddie French ever buying a truck from the Richfields or anywhere else.”
Another thirty seconds of this torture and I’d be dancing like James before his morning walks. “So we have no idea who owns that truck in his backyard?”
His straight face was beginning to warp. “We don’t know for sure about that particular truck. But somebody interesting did buy a used Hausenfelter truck from Richfield amp; Sons eleven years ago.”
I crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t be Kay Hausenfelter. I liked her too much for her to be the murderer. “Who bought the bread truck, Eric?”
“Jeanette Salapardi.”
“No!”
“She also buys the license plate stickers every year.”
“No!”
