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.
“I’ve got to get through,” I said, “I have an appointment at police headquarters. With Detective Scotty Grant. About a murder.”
He folded his arms, so his elbows were level with my ears. “This is City Hall, ma’am.”
“And police headquarters is on the other side,” I said.
“Then you’ll have to go around.”
My civility was waning. “There are barricades on that side, too. And a goon worse than you, more than likely.”
“Please move back, ma’am.”
Now my common sense was waning. “For Pete’s sake! Do I look like the kind of woman the president needs to worry about?”
Two of the agent’s clones appeared out of nowhere. They let me through the barricade, all right. But not before confiscating my purse and clamping a pair of handcuffs on my dangerous wrists. A minute later I was in a trailer behind City Hall, justifying my very existence to this pair of extremely unfriendly young men. Their names were Canfield and Morris. They took turns bouncing questions off me, like I was a Ping-Pong table.
“My name is Dolly Madison Sprowls,” I said. “Although I go by Maddy-for obvious reasons-and I’m the head librarian at The Hannawa Herald-Union -that’s the newspaper here.”
“You have some proof of that?” Agent Canfield asked.
I pointed to my purse, which he was cradling on his lap. “No, but you do.”
He blushed and dug out my wallet. He studied my business card and my driver’s license and all the rest. He asked me if I knew my address and my phone number and my Social Security number. I rattled off all three.
“Why did you threaten the president?” asked Agent Morris.
“I did not threaten the president,” I said. “I merely asked the other agent if I looked like the kind of woman the president needs to be concerned about.”
Agent Canfield corrected me. “You said ‘worry about,’ ma’am.”
“I suppose in your business worry sets off more alarms than concern, ” I conceded. “In mine they’re pretty much tweedledum and tweedledee.”
“So you had no intentions of confronting the president?” Agent Morris asked.
“Absolutely not.”
“The agent at the line felt you were exhibiting anger,” said Agent Canfield.
“Poop! I was just worried- concerned -about getting to my appointment with Detective Grant.”
Asked Agent Morris, “And who is Detective Grant?”
“Chief homicide detective with the Hannawa Police,” I said.
“And why was it,” Agent Canfield wondered, “that you wanted to see a homicide detective at the very location where the president was about to speak?”
“I’m helping him solve a murder.”
“This Detective Grant needs help solving murders, does he?” asked Agent Morris.
“All the help he can get,” I said.
I was convincing enough that Agent Canfield called Detective Grant to confirm our meeting. Which was, as they say, problematic. I didn’t actually have an appointment with Grant. I’d just planned to pop in and ruin his lunch, as usual.
Canfield put the phone down. He pulled his sunglasses down so I could see his cold eyes. “He said he’s never heard of you.” Then he smiled somewhat humanly. “Actually, Mrs. Sprowls, he’s on his way to take custody of you.”