C Corwin - The Unraveling of Violeta Bell

“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.”

I went immediately to the metro section and the death notices. It was that morning. In just ninety minutes. At the Umplebee amp; Meyers Funeral Home. “We’ll have to go,” I said.

She scrunched her face apologetically. “I can’t.”

“Don’t be silly. You can drive.”

“I can’t. I’m on deadline.”

I’d been in the newspaper business for fifty years. I’d heard reporters use that I’m on deadline excuse a million times. Then watched them play at their desks most of the day like it was kindergarten. “Whatever story you’ve got to crank out-you can crank it out when we get back.”

“I really can’t. Nancy needs my story for Sunday.”

I picked up my phone and dialed Nancy Peale’s extension. “Hi, Nancy-it’s Maddy.”

“I heard you were back.”

I bit my tongue. “I just saw in the death notices that Violeta Bell’s funeral was this morning. Would you mind if I went along with Gabriella? I feel a part of the story. Sort of. And there’ll be lots of important people to oogle.”

I waited patiently while my words worked their way through Nancy’s synapses. “I’m sure it would be okay,” she finally said.

I put my phone back in the cradle and smiled at Gabriella. “You’d better scamper back to your desk, dear. You’ve got an assignment coming.”

So, at ten-thirty, Gabriella and I headed for Umplebee amp; Meyers. In Gabriella’s Mini Cooper. Chuck Weideman, the paper’s best photographer, and a real believer in three square meals a day, was crammed into the backseat like a semester’s worth of college laundry.

Gabriella’s assignment, of course, had nothing to do with the questions roiling around Violeta’s murder. That was my assignment. No, Gabriella’s assignment was to write a respectful story on the funeral of a woman much loved by the city’s la-de-das. Weedy’s assignment was to get a nice respectful photo of a tear running down the cheek of somebody important.

Umplebee amp; Meyers is one of Hannawa’s better funeral homes. It sits right on the city’s shared border with Greenlawn. White brick. Hunter green window shutters. Oodles of grandiose columns. It fits right in with all the neighborhood’s fancy beauty parlors and real estate offices. We parked. Weedy stayed outside with his cameras and Snickers bars. Gabriella and I hurried inside.

We followed the spongy rose-colored carpet down the central hallway to the chapel. I’d been to several funerals there over the years, so the fancy touches didn’t surprise me. They did surprise Gabriella. “A real live harp player, wow.”

The chapel was half full. Fifty people, maybe. I spotted the mayor’s wife and a number of retired judges. There were lots of older women in new outfits. We sat in the back, even thought there were several rows of empty chairs in front of us. I nodded at Joey Junk, who was also sitting in the back, and like us, not appropriately attired for such a fancy funeral. And what was Joey Junk doing there? One professional paying respect to another? One partner in crime to another? A murderer too curious to stay away?

Gabriella took out her reporter’s notebook and started jotting down her impressions of the gathering-the little bits of color that can make a so-so story sing. As for my impressions, well, I recorded them directly into my noodle.

There was a wall of flowers across the front of the chapel. Centered in front, on a beautiful marble-topped stand, rested a bright, violet-colored urn. To the right of the urn stood a blue, yellow, and red flag. I poked Gabriella. “Looks like somebody believed her.”

She responded with a “Huh?” Which was not a bad response given that there was no way in hell she could know what I was mumbling about.

“That’s the old Romanian flag,” I explained. “It has the royal coat of arms on it. Either Violeta left detailed instructions for her funeral, or somebody knows for sure what we don’t know for sure.”

There were several big sofa chairs in the front row. The family chairs. In one sat bread heiress Kay Hausenfelter in a flowery summer dress that showed too much back and probably too much front. In another sat Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy. Next to her sat her antsy, hot-tempered daughter, Professor Barbara Wilburger. Both were dressed in black. Both wore wide-brimmed black hats. Next to the professor sat Gloria McPhee, wearing a somber gray and brown plaid suit. Next to her was husband, Phil, sweltering in tweed. Just as the minister stepped behind his portable pulpit and tapped the microphone to make sure it was on, I recognized someone else. His arms were folded across his chest, pulling his suit coat tight across his ample back. It was Detective Scotty Grant. What in the hell was he doing there?