The Unraveling of Violeta Bell (22 page)

“I guess that’s a plan.”

“You bet that’s a plan,” I said. “Meanwhile I’ll give you an idea for your first column. Does your dog make you sick?”

“That’s a stupid idea.”

I headed for the door. “You think so? Do you know that dog hair can make your tonsils swell up like basketballs? Make you snore? Ruin your last chance at love?”

“Love, Mrs. Sprowls?”

I gave her my best Morgue Mama scowl. “That was an unfortunate slip of the tongue, Gabriella. And if you ever tell anybody, I’ll see to it that your next job is writing want ads.”

The afternoon crawled like an 800-year-old Galapagos turtle. Finally, at 4:30, Eric reported what he’d found. He was quite proud of himself. “There are 120 units at the Carmichael House,” he said. “The turnover rate during the eight years Violeta Bell lived there averaged 7.9 percent a year. That’s 183 owners, total. Seventy-two percent of those owners were single women. Four-point-four percent single men. Married couples, happily or otherwise, 23.6 percent. That’s forty-three couples if you can’t do the math in your head.” He handed me the list I wanted with all the married couples’ names.

“Alphabetically, too,” I said, pretending to be impressed. “Now what about the obits?”

He continued his geeky presentation. “Assuming we ran all their obits, a grand total of eight married men passed on to their heavenly reward during the last eight years.” He not only gave me copies of their obituaries, but a cover sheet listing their names and dates of death.

I sent him back to his desk and got to work on the obits. One husband had died the same month Violeta moved in, so I eliminated him as the likely lover. That left seven. Two had died in nursing homes, which meant they had probably been out of their condos for some time. So I eliminated them. That left five. One of the husbands was ninety-seven when he passed. Men being men, I couldn’t totally eliminate him, but I did put him in the unlikely category. That left four.

I checked those four against the first list Eric gave me. Two wives had sold their units after their husbands died. Two still lived there. Was one of them the nice gal who didn’t have a clue her husband had an affair with Violeta Bell? Or was Kay Hausenfelter lying? Was that husband still alive? And did his wife actually have a clue? Was Kay covering up for her? Or was Kay telling a much bigger lie? Was Kay Hausenfelter covering up for herself? Sending me on a wild goose chase? Looking for a goose that didn’t exist?

And there was an even bigger question: How in the hell was I going to find answers to those other questions?

I fled the morgue at five. Drove straight home. I gave James a quick walk. Boiled a packet of Tabatchnick’s Golden Cream of Mushroom Soup for my supper. Thank God it wasn’t an Ike night. I watched a couple hours of TV, flipping back and forth between the
Everybody Loves Raymond
marathon on Channel Nine and
The Naked Archeologist
on The History Channel. I was slipping into my pajamas when the phone rang. It was Detective Grant. “Don’t tell me you’re home from work already,” he said.

I knew he was yanking my chain. “I just walked in the door.”

I was standing in my dark bedroom with one leg in my bottoms and one leg out, but I could see the grin on his big round face. “Well, Mrs. Sprowls,” he said ever-so-nonchalantly, “I’m sitting here behind my big policeman’s desk with a very interesting report from my pointy-eared pals at BCI.”

I hopped into the second leg. “And?”

“Looks like Prince Anton and Violeta Bell are siblings. A ninety-percent likelihood, anyway.”

“A ninety-percent likelihood? That’s the best you can do?”

There was a long silence. Then the sound of something being slurped. “Apparently testing for
siblingship,
as the elves call it, is not as conclusive as other types of DNA testing. Especially when you don’t have a mother or father to test. Which in this case we don’t.”

To say the least I was disappointed. “Can’t they squeeze out another ten percent?”

“We’re not talking about making lemonade, Maddy. Be happy with the ninety. It’s as close to a slam-dunk as you can get. Then, of course, there’s the scrapbook.”

“The scrapbook?”

“Yeah—she had a scrapbook. Mostly birthday cards and Christmas cards and gooey crap like that. But there are several pages of clippings on Prince Anton and his sons. From Canadian newspapers and magazines.”

I screeched at him like a cuckolded wife. “And you’ve had this all along?”

He hemmed and hawed. “Actually—no. After I got the BCI report this afternoon, I went back to Violeta’s condo. To make sure we hadn’t overlooked something. Seems we weren’t as thorough as we should have been.”

I forced myself to simmer down. Not an easy task. “So, the DNA and the scrapbook pretty much make the case?”

“Yes, they do.”

“And I was right.”

“Yes, you were.”

“And you were wrong. Not to mention sloppy.”

“Yes and yes.”

I had oodles of questions for him. I asked the only one that counted. “What do we do now?”

Said Grant, “That was going to be my question to you.”

“I suppose the polite thing would be to tell the prince first,” I said. “Before you leak it to the media.”

“I agree.”

“To see how he reacts to the news.”

“Absolutely.”

“That’s what we’ll do then.”

Grant tickled my eardrum with his happy little laugh. “No—that’s what you’ll do. You already know the man. You can better judge his reaction.”

Now I laughed in his ear. “You still don’t believe it’s possible that Violeta was killed because of her royal blood, do you?”

There was another long silence. Another slurp. “Frankly, your theory is just too far-fetched for me to devote my department’s resources to it,” he said. “Especially since I’ve got a couple of much better leads to spend the city’s money on. And then there’s the political ramifications of the thing.”

“Political ramifications? Who gives a flying frog about political ramifications?”

His irritation was growing. “He’s a Canadian, Maddy. And Canada the last time I checked is another country. And I’m not too crazy about getting our fair city into an international brouhaha unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“And I’m not too crazy about getting myself killed,” I snarled.

He snarled right back. “Do you really think I’d let you go ahead with this if I thought you were in any danger?”

“Yes, I think you would,” I said, joking but not joking. “I’ve been nothing but a burr in your saddle since the day we met.”

“Actually well before that happy day,” he said, also joking but not joking. Then he turned into a teddy bear. “Look, Maddy, I don’t think you’re going to be the one finding the murderer this time—the gods do owe me this one—but your interference in the case has already done a lot of good.”

“Good? I haven’t discovered diddly.”

“But you have, Maddy,” he said. “You discovered who Violeta Bell really is. Or really was, I should say. And you found out what actually happened to the prince’s brother. He’ll be grateful as hell. Probably fall head-over-heels in love with you and whisk you away to some smelly old castle in Transylvania.”

It’s always fun sparring with Scotty Grant on the phone. Especially when I get the last jab. “So, while I’m writing my
guess-who-your-brother-was
letter to the prince, you’ll be following up on your other much-better leads?”

“That’s my plan.”

“Including which one of those two dead husbands was Violeta having an affair with?” I asked. “And whether they’re really dead?”

I’m sure if a cringe made a noise, my ear would have been ringing like the Liberty Bell. “Actually, when I went over the list I counted three husbands,” he said.

“You’re counting the ninety-seven-year-old?”

19

Thursday, August 17

Dear Prince Anton,

Thank you so much for your hospitality the other day. And for the autographed photograph. Given that I showed up at your door like a beggar, you didn’t have to be so kind. You were truly a gentleman.

Sorry to say, I was not exactly a lady. When you weren’t looking, I stole one of your teaspoons and then one of your pipes. I’ll return both when I get them back from the police.

I gave them to the police to have your DNA checked. Not because I doubted your royal lineage, mind you, or suspected that you might be somehow involved in Violeta Bell’s death. I just wanted to see if Miss Bell was truly a member of the Romanian royal family, as she claimed before her murder.

As it turns out, you and Miss Bell are siblings.

It’s all very complicated, but the coroner’s autopsy found that Miss Bell had undergone a sex change operation. Which means your brother faked his death and then sometime afterward had the aforementioned surgery.

I realize that this startling news will be hard for you to believe. And while it would be impolite to discuss the details of my research into the life and death of your brother/sister in this letter (some of those details are a little on the disappointing side, I’m afraid) I will be more than happy to share what I’ve learned with you, should you be interested.

Dolly Madison Sprowls
Head Librarian
The Hannawa Herald-Union

20

Saturday, August 26

Ike and I arrived at the Salapardis’ at six. The invitation was for five. We parked on the street and hiked up the winding asphalt drive toward the house. It was one of the biggest houses in Yellow Creek Township. Which was saying a lot. Yellow Creek is where Hannawa’s new money lives. In houses so showy that even the old money shakes its head.

Most of the new homes in Yellow Creek are fanciful reproductions of the golden past—plantation-style colonials, pointy-roofed Tudors, Victorians with gobs of gingerbread. The Salapardis’ house, however, was quite modern. It was comprised of a dozen or so glass boxes stacked this way and that like the pieces in a Jenga game.

The invitation said it was going to be a backyard barbecue, so we followed the cobblestone walk around the side of the house. “I’ll probably be the only black person here,” Ike grumbled.

I squeezed his arm. “And I’ll probably be the only Democrat.”

He smiled at me the way I wished he wouldn’t. I smiled back at him the way I wish I wouldn’t. We had a way of grounding each other—unfortunately. “Don’t worry, Sweetie,” he said. “I’m sure the serving staff will be Democrats.”

We laughed our way toward the enormous flagstone patio behind the house. Just below the patio was a swimming pool. Below the pool was a horse barn and fenced-in riding ring. Below that was a long sloping lawn sprinkled with dogwoods and blue spruce. Below that was a lake lined with yellow willows.

We climbed the stone steps to the patio. Both of our fears proved to be unfounded. Ike quickly counted three other black guests and I spotted one of the most prominent Democrats in the city, Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy. All-in-all there were maybe a hundred people there, dressed casually but expensively, mingling like a hive of honey bees. Bustling among them were those Democratic servers Ike had joked about, in crisp white shirts and black slacks, some balancing big trays of finger food on their palms, some toting wine bottles the size of artillery shells.

Jeannie Salapardi saw us and came running with her fishbowl-sized margarita. “Maddy! I’m so glad you could come.” She smooched the air a foot from my cheek. She stuck out her hand for Ike. “And you’re Mr. Sprowls?”

“So far I’m still Mr. Breeze,” he said. “Ike Breeze.”

“Well, Mr. Ike Breeze, don’t you let Maddy escape,” she said. “She’s one of a kind.”

“Thank God for that,” said Ike.

Now Jeannie got as serious as her margarita would allow. “Even though it didn’t work out exactly as we wanted, Eddie and I are still grateful for your help. My husband, too.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Ike said.

“Ike’s a businessman, too,” I explained.

Jeannie pouted apologetically. “Then you know how it is. Work-work-work, 24/7. But I’m hoping he’ll be here later.”

Jeannie hurried off to welcome another couple coming around the corner. Ike and I headed for the lemonade.

That night’s party was for Eddie. Sort of a combined going away and going straight party. After several meetings with the prosecutor’s office, Eddie had agreed to plead guilty to a single charge of aiding and abetting. In exchange, he agreed to tell everything he knew about Violeta Bell’s fake antique business. That had led to the arrest of antique dealers in Tuckahoe, New York and Brattleboro, Vermont. Also arrested were a pair of talented furniture makers in Buncombe County, North Carolina, a whiz-bang metalworker in Mckeesport, Pennsylvania, and a crafty potter in Zanesville, Ohio.

The antique dealer in Tuckahoe confirmed that on the night of July 4, just four hours before Violeta Bell was murdered, Eddie was at his store unloading a shipment of just-made 19th century mantle clocks. The Tuckahoe Motor Inn confirmed that Eddie had checked in shortly before midnight and had watched one X-rated pay-per-view movie after another until dawn. Another establishment in that leafy New York City suburb, G.W. Moley & Son Auto Repair, confirmed that on July 5 a yawning man wearing a bright orange baseball cap paid in cash to replace the muffler on an old bread truck.

So that coming Monday Eddie French was going to court. To plead guilty and start doing the twenty-four months in state prison the prosecutor’s office promised him.

Eddie, by the way, wasn’t the only member of the French family to have a heart-to-heart with Detective Grant. His sister, Jeannie, confessed that she owned that bread truck Eddie used to deliver Violeta Bell’s fake antiques. “My brother was broke, as usual, and was already driving his cab on a suspended license,” she explained. “He was crying how he could get his life in order if he only had a truck. So I made sure he had one.” She bought the old Hausenfelter truck from Richfield & Sons. She paid a mechanic at her husband’s Mitsubishi dealership to pry the identification number off the dashboard. She bought new license plates and stickers for it. She made sure it was insured. She filled it with gas and had it parked behind her brother’s apartment.