I gasped. Spilled tea all over the front of my beloved Tweetie Bird tee shirt. The prince saw me, too. He hurried toward me. I retreated. My first thought was to take refuge in the ladies’ room. Which would have been stupid. The man comes all the way from Wolfe Island to kill me and the social impropriety of going into a woman’s toilet was going to stop him? Instead I trotted back to the cafeteria, where the only escape would be to dive through a fourth-story window.
“Mrs. Sprowls, please!” the prince called out. “I want to see you!”
The cafeteria was empty. I backed against the counter where I’d just made my tea. I reached into the utensil drawer and felt for a weapon.
The prince stuck his head through the open doorway. “Making me tea, are you?”
“I figured you’d want some.”
He came in, smiling like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. He was wearing his blazer with the emblem on the pocket. His polka dot bowtie. A pair of beautiful gray slacks with a razorsharp crease. Goofy tan-and-white saddle shoes. I wrapped my shaking fingers around a plastic butter knife. It was either that or a packet of McDonald’s catsup.
He held out the box. “Friends?”
I let go of the fork. Took the box. “Not a dead fish, is it?”
“Roses, actually.”
I removed the lid. It was roses. Yellow roses. A dozen of them.
“Friends,” he said again.
I took the roses from the box. I was no longer afraid of being murdered. That crazy notion was gone. Replaced with embarrassment. “If I smell them will my nose explode?”
“I hope not,” said the prince. “I’ve grown quite fond of that meddling proboscis of yours.”
I smelled the flowers. I put them back in the box and put the box on the counter. I refilled the kettle to make him some tea. “Darjeeling?”
“Is there any other kind?” He sat at one of the empty tables. He leaned on his forearms while I washed out a mug for him. “Why would you ever think I meant you harm?”
“My letter! Stealing your spoon and your pipe! Involving you in a murder!”
He smiled at me. Not like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Like Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy. “You found my brother for me. Or should I say my sister?”
“Does that matter to you? Petru having that operation, I mean?”
He frowned and rubbed his knuckles. “It is a hard thing to understand. But if it made him happier than he was, well, who can quibble with that?”
I poured the boiling water over the teabag in the mug I’d chosen for him. A big yellow one. I took it to him. Went back to the counter for the sugar and Coffeemate. “So you really thought he’d drowned himself in the river?” I asked.
He knew where I was going. “I never knew he wasn’t happy being a man. Back then such a thing would never occur to you, would it? Not even today. But I knew he was confused to the bone about something.”
I sat across from him. “So you assumed he committed suicide.”
“We Clopotar men are known to take the unfairness of life head on,” he said.
“And that’s what Petru did,” I said. “He burned his bridges and became the woman he should have been.”
The prince smiled sadly. “I just wish he had let me in on it. I’ve missed him terribly all these years.”
Memories of my own lost brother flooded my brain. I’d told the prince about him on Wolfe Island. “At least now you know Petru went on to live a long life as Violeta Bell. And from what her friends tell me, a happy one.”
“Until her murder,” the prince said. “From what that detective told me, that must have been a frightening night for her.”
I was surprised into silence. Not something that happens very often.
He winked devilishly. “Oh yes, Maddy, I’ve already talked to your favorite detective. Last night at the hotel. He showed me the DNA results. And the scrapbook.”
“Did he now?”
“He is quite fond of you. Not to mention Irish coffee.” He dropped the big bombshell. “In fact, Mr. Grant is upstairs as we speak. With Mr. Averill and some extremely unhappy fellow named Winkler or something.”
I corrected him. “Alec Tinker.”
The prince stood up and flattened the pockets of his sports coat. “Actually I volunteered to come downstairs and fetch you.”
I found a horrible plastic vase under the sink for my roses. I trimmed the stems with that plastic knife I’d fingered in the drawer. He carried the roses back to my desk for me. We took the elevator upstairs.
Bob Averill’s office was gray and austere. The no-nonsense domain of a powerful man. He was slumped into his enormous black leather chair, slowly swiveling back and forth. The only thing on his desk was a copy of that morning’s paper. In front of him, on far more modest chairs, sat Detective Grant and Alec Tinker. There were empty chairs for the prince and me. The men were all wearing coats and ties. I was wearing baggy dungarees and that Tweetie Bird tee shirt with the big tea stain.
The prince was right on the money when he’d said how unhappy Alec Tinker was. And I knew why that was. Tinker had been left out of the loop. He hadn’t known about my investigation. Or that Bob Averill had put me up to it. Or that Bob was in cahoots with Detective Grant.
“Now-where were we?” Bob Averill asked when we were seated.
Tinker glowered at him like a just-castrated bull. “You were about to answer my question. Am I managing editor of this paper or not?”
Bob responded calmly. “Yes, you are, Alec. And you will remain so.”
Alec’s response to that was not so calm. “Don’t count on that, Bob!”
Said Bob, “There are plenty of starfish in the sea, Alec!”
Said me, “Let’s not get into a pissing match, gentlemen.” I turned toward Tinker. “Bob didn’t ask me to look into Violeta Bell’s murder for the paper. He asked me because his wife was on his back. And she was on Bob’s back because her sorority sister, Jeannie Salapardi, was on her back. Because Eddie French was her brother. And so Bob got on my back. And I got on Detective Grant’s.”
Tinker wasn’t appeased. “Sounds a little unethical, doesn’t it?”
Prince Anton was amused. “Not to mention a little kinky.”
We all laughed. And while everybody was still in good humor I tried to put things into perspective. “Alec,” I said, “the only way it would have been unethical was if Bob had included you in our conspiracy. Bob is an ethical man. He would never blur the lines between editor and hen-pecked husband. That’s why he turned to me. As a friend. And now you, Mr. Managing Editor, have one hell of a good story to cover.” I turned to the prince. “Assuming that the prince doesn’t mind sitting still for an interview.”
“I’ve already told what little I know to Detective Grant,” the prince said. “I’ve no objection telling it to you good people as well.”
Bob Averill relaxed into his big chair and started playing with the uneven ends of his necktie. “The ball’s in your court, Alec.”
And so Tinker took over the meeting, demonstrating for the umpteenth time in two years why Bob had brought him in as managing editor. Tinker addressed his first question to Detective Grant. “You’d better wait outside.”
Grant stood and bowed like a bad Shakespearean actor. “I’ll get some coffee.” He left the office.
Tinker then turned his attention to the prince. “Telling the media a different version of what you told the police can get you into trouble,” he cautioned. “And there is still a murder investigation going on. By the police and apparently by one or more employees of this paper. So before you talk to us keep in mind that-”
Prince Anton interrupted him. “Everything I say can and will be used against me?”
“I just want you to go into this with a clear head,” Tinker said.