C Corwin - The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

You would have thought I’d showed up with a bundle of balloons and a huge check from Publishers Clearing House. “I am boiling water for tea-if you’ve got time to join me.”

“All the time in the world.”

He stood aside. In I went.

I’d already been surprised by his small house, casual dress, and accent-free voice. Now it was time to be surprised by his interior decorating skills. There were no dingy tapestries on the walls, no suits of armor, no stag’s head over a be-gargoyled fireplace. Instead his living room was decorated, if that’s the word for it, with the same lifetime of good buys you’d find in anybody’s house. The only sign of his purported royalty was a big blue, yellow, and red flag dangled from the ceiling on a pair of cheap plant hangers. “Is that the Romanian flag?” I asked, already knowing the answer. More than likely it was the same one he’s posed with on his website.

He hurried to the flag. He smoothed out the furls, like a sales girl in the drapery department. “This is the old royal flag,” he said. “The new one is a little simpler. No eagle, no tongue-wagging lions, no crown. Just the three stripes.” Then he rolled his eyes. “It is a little big for the room, isn’t it?”

I smiled graciously. “It’s a very cozy cottage. Right out of a magazine.”

“It’s been in the family forever,” he said. “Well, since we came to Canada. We had a more substantial house in Toronto, of course. But most summer weekends we were here.”

“I heard you live here year round now.”

“Oh, yes. Agnes and I retired here after my stint with the government. She just loved it. And so do I, of course.” His eyes danced about the room. No doubt he was savoring some special memory. “Anyway, I’m happy that you like it.”

I nodded that I did. “And the mansion in Toronto-your family still owns that?”

He laughed. “Mansion? I only said it was more substantial than this little box. My mother sold it and bought a condo on the lakefront after my father died.” He motioned me toward the kitchen. “We can have our tea by the water if you like.”

He poured a boiling saucepan of water into a beautiful bone china teapot. He placed it on a silver tray, along with a pair of matching cups and saucers, a sugar bowl and creamer. He emptied a canister of teabags on the counter. “I’m a Darjeeling man myself,” he said, picking through the bags. “But I’ve got at least one of everything.”

“I’m a Darjeeling man, too,” I said.

He lowered two teabags into the china pot. He picked up the tray and headed for the back door. “Too good a day to hide inside, wouldn’t you agree?”

He held the door open for me with his rump. We headed down his backyard toward the bay. There were plots of vegetables everywhere, surrounded with low chicken wire fences to keep out the rabbits or raccoons or whatever other short-legged beasts lived on the island. On a knoll just above his boat landing he had a small garden table and chairs. He poured my tea for me. It was so European. So aristocratic. No way was I going to tell him I grew up just over the border in LaFargeville. No way in the world.

“So Miss Sprowls-it is miss isn’t it?”

“Miss and Mrs. I’ve been widowed for some time.” Just as I wasn’t going to tell him that I was from LaFargeville, I wasn’t going to tell him that my husband had died long after I’d divorced his womanizing behind. I wanted him to relate to me. So he might just tell me things he’d never told anyone before.

He stirred a small mountain of sugar into his tea and then licked the spoon. “I’m a widower, too.”

“I saw your website.”

He brightened. “Did you, really? I don’t get anywhere the hits I thought I would.” He laughed. “Nobody gives a damn about grouchy old men who think they should be king these days.”

I took a sip of my tea. The sailboats and gulls made it taste that much better. “It’s a cruel world, isn’t it?”

“Actually, it’s a beautiful world.” He toasted me. Took a sip of his own. “If you read my website, then you know I’m quite content if the people of my homeland don’t want to restore the monarchy. But if they ever do vote to restore it, they ought to do it right.”

“Recognize the Clopotars.”

“The throne is rightfully ours.”

He was right, assuming that everything I read on the Internet about the Romanian royal bloodlines was true, of course. Prince Anton was the great-great-grandson of King Carol I. His greatgrandfather, Prince Anthony, to the king’s dismay, had married the daughter of a cavalry officer. When Anthony died unexpectedly, his bride-baby in her belly-was banished from the royal household. That baby was Prince Anton’s grandfather.

It was time to steer the conversation to my investigation. “As I recall, your great-grandmother, Princess Violeta, married a commoner after she was banished from the royal family.”

The prince became a bit defensive. “Gavril Clopotar. A very fine man.”

“He raised Prince Anthony’s son as his own,” I agreed.

“Yes, he did. A fine thing for him to do.”

I let him know I’d done my homework. “And Prince Anthony’s son-your grandfather, Constantin-should have followed Carol I as king. Instead, the throne went to a nephew of the king. And the living heir of that nephew is King Michael I. Who was kicked off the throne when the Communists took control in the forties. And if the monarchy were restored, Michael would get the throne back. Unless the parliament did the proper thing and recognized you.”

He toasted me again. “You are a diligent student.”

I was ready to let the cat out of the bag. “The truth is, I’m working on a murder investigation for my newspaper – the Hannawa, Ohio, Herald-Union. In a roundabout way it may have something to do with you.”

He reacted to this startling news by warming up my tea. “Such an American thing, murder.”

“We’re very good at it, no doubt about that.”

“And just who was murdered, Miss Sprowls?”

“Another Violeta.”

His eyeballs were floating, a sign that a lot was going on inside his head. “Violeta is a common Romanian name.”

“This one claimed to be the queen of Romania.”

“Claimed?”

I got his point. “She never offered any proof. And she proved to be a fraud in other ways. But she did make the claim publicly in our newspaper. And a few days later she was found dead.”

“How old was she, this Violeta?”

“She claimed to be seventy-two.”

“And her last name? What did she claim that was?”

“Bell.”

“Bell?”

“Doesn’t ring one?”

An expression that could be interpreted as relief calmed his wrinkles. “That’s not a Romanian name. Of course it could be a married name, I suppose.”

“She was never married,” I said. “As far as anybody knows.”

I kept my mouth shut now. Let his mind work. We sipped our tea and watched the sailboats and gulls. Let the sun and the quiet soak in. “Is the fact that she claimed to be the queen of Romania your only hypothesis for her demise?” he finally asked.

“The police think her murder is connected to the theft of antiques from her condominium,” I said.

His ears perked up, the way James’ do when my microwave beeps. “Antiques? None of them had anything to do with Romanian history, did they?”

Knowing what was found in Eddie French’s apartment I had to laugh. “A bejeweled crown, you mean?”

He did not appreciate my little joke. “All of the crowns are accounted for, Miss Sprowls. But there are plenty of important family heirlooms floating about.”

I told him that Violeta Bell had been an antique dealer. I showed him a list of the antiques found in Eddie’s apartment. I told him that I had a suspicion they were fakes. “More than likely her murder had nothing to do with her claim to be royalty,” I said. “It’s just one of the improbabilities I need to put to rest before tackling more fruitful possibilities.”