The Prince and I: A Romantic Mystery (The Royal Biography Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) (5 page)

Chapter 7

Emmeline Vance appears to be shocked by the size of my apartment.

“It’s a closet,” she muses.

“Yes,” I reply. 

“Writing biographies doesn’t pay?” she asks and glances at my sad assortment of clothes that hang on the rod above my bed.

“Filthy ones do,” I add, thinking about the unauthorized biography of the Prince I read last night. Emmeline follows my gaze to the bed where the book lays open.

“Oh that, I read that. Claims the Prince has slept with everyone from here to Kentucky. The Palace is suing the man who wrote it you know. They’ll probably win, too, since the writer was a formerassistan
t
.
I’m sure he was subject to a confidentiality agreement.”

Something on my face makes Emmeline glance at me sadly. “You’re not…you’re not….”

“Not what?”

“Well, you’re right about his age, and most young ladies who meet the Prince, well, they fantasize about him. Who wouldn’t? His future wife will live in a palace.”

Even though I’m only wearing a bathrobe and slippers, I puff up with dignity. “I am a professional, a professional. Our relationship is strictly professional.” I am sure that, by repeating the word “professional” three times in two sentences, the true meaning of my sentence is clear: I do fantasize about the Prince romantically. Quite often, actually.

“Uh-huh,” Emmeline draws out. “Well, back to the real world. I need to tell you a few things.” She looks around as if she would like to sit somewhere, but other than my bed, a small night table, a hot plate, a sink and a tiny refrigerator there is no furniture in my apartment.

Emmeline heads for the refrigerator and plunks down. She is shorter than me and weighs about twice as much. I fear for my fridge. It makes a strange humming sound, as if it is frightened.

“As you know, Schnellings is paying me to represent you. That is, unless you are officially arrested, in which case you are on your own, and you will need the best criminal attorney you can afford.”

I shift back and forth uncomfortably on slippered feet.

“Anyway, I was contacted by Mr. McKenzie’s lawyer. He left a message for you at Schnellings an
d
—
”

“And?”

“And in his will Mr. McKenzie left you everything, all his personal possessions.”

I groan. So Sean was so hot and bothered with Tatum that he never remembered to change his will? I did. First thing after he was gone, I named my parent’s the beneficiaries of all my worldly possessions. Sadly they are all contained in this very room.

“His files and his computer have been removed by the NYPD, but his lawyer says there are a lot of clothes at the apartment he shares with Ms. Bouviers. The lawyer wants to know what you want done with them.”

“Leave them at Tatum’s…”

“That’s another thing I want to talk to you about. Ms. Bouviers has been taken into police custody.”

“What?”

“She’s been arrested, as of very late yesterday evening.”

“Arrested for what?”

“Murdering Sean.”

I stop shifting from side to side, surely I haven’t heard correctly.

“Why on earth would they suspect her?”

“From what I’ve learned, their next door neighbor reported that Mr. McKenzie and Ms. Bouviers fought a lot.”

That’s ridiculous. Sean doesn’t fight. Sean studies. Sean researches. Sean writes. He doesn’t fight. He was, perhaps, the most mild-mannered person I ever met.

“A friend of mine who’s a private detective talked to Ms. Bouviers’ neighbor this morning. The man said he heard Ms. Bouviers threaten Sean on the night he died. According to the neighbor, she threatened to kill him.”

I shake my head. “Tatum’s always been prone to histrionics. In the last five years, she’s gotten in so many confrontations, she’s probably told half the eastern seaboard she’d like to kill them.”

“She sounds charming,” Emmeline says.

“Men seem to think so,” I reply. And it’s true. In high school she was
the
cheer leader. The one that stood at the top of the pile. Honestly, the other eleven girls on the squad barely mattered. Yet, for some reason, she and I were best friends. Maybe it was because I was the only one who could put up with so much drama in one tiny package. And since I wasn’t a threat to her when it came to boys, maybe that’s why she confided in me. I was the history nerd. While Tatum was living for afterschool practices and football games, I penned a 50,000 word paper on Ashurbanipal. My teacher gave me an
F
for “being overly wordy.”

After high school, we both went to the same university. An entire contingent of boys from our high school followed, hoping that at some point, Tatum might look their way. Occasionally they would break down and corner me in the dorm, telling me that if they couldn’t be with Tatum, they didn’t know what they were going to do.

“Steady on!” I would yell in their faces, because I was a British history major. For some reason these words sound so odd to the American ear that I found they had the effect of rendering Tatum’s suitors immediately sober.

Thanks to all the college classes I took while in high school, I graduated with my bachelor degrees in two years and moved far away. It was at Cornell, where I was studying for my master’s degree, that I met Sean. We moved on together to Smith, and after we obtained our doctorates, we were both hired at Schnellings. We made a pittance, ate Raman noodles every night from a cup, lived in an apartment only slightly larger than the one I have now, and travelled the world in cramped airplane seats to do research in our respective fields. I thought life couldn’t get any sweeter.

Sitting with a hand on each knee, Emmeline lets out a sigh and I stop thinking about the past. It’s strange to have a lawyer pay me a visit. Strange to have one sitting on my refrigerator which is now humming voraciously. I ask Emmeline why she came in person and she informs me that she was walking by my apartment building on her way to work, so she thought she would just drop in.

“So you don’t think she did it?” Emmeline asks.

“Nah,” I reply. “Tatum was at the book launch party, too. I saw her on the stairway right before I found Sean. Although, of course, if the police believe Sean was killed by a hit man, then I suppose Tatum could have afforded it. She told me once she receives $19,000 a week in alimony from her second husband.”

“The police say the murder happened right before Tatum was seen coming down the stairs. Tatum was the last one to see him alive and she has no alibi for the ten minutes she was in the office with him because, of course, they were alone. From what the private investigator who works for me found out, Tatum claims Sean was killed after she left. Although the police are adamant that Sean was killed either during the time she was in the office with him, or very shortly afterwards.  And there’s something else.”

I sit down on the edge of bed.

“The neighbor, the one who insiststhey argued a lo
t
—
he says he saw a woman coming and going from their apartment at all hours of the day. He thinks they were having some kind of a ménage a t
r
—
”

I hold up a hand, “They were doing no such thing. There was no
ménage
.”

Emmeline Vance arches a suspicious brow. “Right, well you know them better than I do.”

“Yes, I do,” I agree solemnly. “And I can’t believe the police forced me to come back to New York as a person of interest only to turn around and arrest Tatum. Such a waste of time.”

“Yes, well,” Emmeline responds, “NYPD is as NYPD does. Anyway, there is one more thing. According to Mr. McKenzie’s will you are the inheritor of his cottage in Bourton-on-the-Water.”

What? My mouth falls open.

“I take it you didn’t know about the cottage?”

“I…no…I mean, we barely had money to rent an apartment larger than this. How could he afford a cottage in the Cotswold?”

“Oh good, at least you know where it is. Mr. McKenzie’s lawyer is mailing you the keys, so…” Emmeline Vance stands up and makes to leave. “Ms. Rue… Trudy, if I may, it sounds like there may be a lot of things you didn’t know about your ex. The cottage was purchased with cash about six month ago, so it’s yours free and clear.”

Well, I’ll be. She’s right. It does appear there are all kinds of things I didn’t know about my ex. How ironic that I was the one who introduced him to Bourton-on-the-Water and then unbeknownst to me, he ended up purchasing a house there.

As I show Emmeline out, I hope that I am done learning new things about my ex. Honestly, I’m not sure how many more revelations my poor heart can take.

Chapter 8

Since Tatum has been arrested for the murder, Emmeline works out a deal whereby I am free to leave the country as long as I continue to update Detective Puyn as to my whereabouts.

Before I leave for England, I visit Tatum. Her ex-husband, Tom Bouviers is refusing to post bail. In the city jail, I find Tatum looking dreadful. Her hair is uncombed and she wears a bright orange jumpsuit. We sit on opposite sides of a sheet of glass with a small mesh hole so that we can talk to one another. Tatum is so angry that a vein pulsates at her temple.

“I thought I’d never see the likes of you again, so much for our friendship,” she says heatedly.

I have no idea what she means by “so much for our friendship.” I think it goes without saying that if someone steals your life companion then the friendship is over.

“I came to see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“You don’t have a million in the bank so you can post my bail?”

“No,” I reply quietly. “I wish I did. Your mom called me. She’s so distraught.”

Tatum snorts and looks like she is about to stand up and walk away. “I want you to pack up all his clothes and other crap and get it the hell out of my apartment. What’s left of it anyway, the police took his computer and some files. You take what remains. Everything was left to you anyway.”

Is that what she is angry about? Surely, not. She has a hefty weekly income, she’ll be okay. Yet it’s surprising that she doesn’t have one kind word for Sean. What kind of a person is she? Maybe she really did kill him. Maybe she wanted his book royalties. Maybe she was going to move to his cottage in the Cotswold where she would lure some other poor man into a dismal relationship.

I nod my head to her request. “I’ll remove his clothes and things from your apartment first thing tomorrow.” When I rise to my feet to leave, Tatum doesn’t even say good-bye.

That afternoon, right after arranging for a flight back to the U.K, I receive a phone call. Alistair’s voice comes through in impeccably enunciated English, “Hold please, for Alex of the House of Windsor.”

These words make me smile. A Mozart concerto plays in the background as I lie on my bed, back propped against my pillow. The hem of a long dress of mine brushes my face. I wait five, ten, fifteen minutes and then doze off.

“Lizzie!” An enthusiastic voice finally answers. “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to keep anyone waiting.”

My eyes fly open. “Not a problem, not a problem.”

“Lizzie, they tell me you are coming back to London in time for the weekend.” He says this with so much fervor that you would think we were long, lost best friends. 

“Oh, and the Palace told me you want more photos and news files from when I was six.”

“Yes,” I reply. Actually that’s not correct. I have a lot of information on Alex up until age three, but for some reason the Palace hasn’t sent me anything after that, except for a few recent headshots. I asked Alistair for more information about Alex “in years four and five.” Yet I haven’t received anything; no diary entries, no memoirs written by members of the royal family, no photos, nothing. I’m beginning to wonder if the lack of information has to do with the Prince’s brother’s accident, which happened when Alex was four. There must have been a lot of turmoil in those years. Based on what I remember, the death of the young Prince Albert was investigated and reinvestigated. The case was finally closed two years later when it was ruled an accident.

I must admit that I have been googling Albert’s death in the last few days. I was only three when it happened, and like I said, I’ve never been much interested in anything in recent history. From the scant bits that I have had time to read online, I learned that Alex and his nanny were alone with Prince Albert in the playroom at their maternal grandmother’s. The nanny and the boys were just entering the room when the nanny noticed the open window. She moved to close it, but not before young Prince Albert scooted past. Unfortunately, there was no screen on the window and the rest is tragic, tragic history.

“Yes, yes, more photos and news from age six would be great.” I decide not to press for years four and five, when the investigations were under way.

“Say, Lizzie,” Alex continues sounding so warm and inviting it is as if we are the only two people on the planet. “I won’t be in London this weekend, so I’m wondering if you could catch a flight to Edinburgh. You see, I’m having a belated 29th birthday party with a few dozen friends at Holyroodhouse, and I would like to invite you to stay over.”

Is the Prince really inviting me to Holyrood Palace? This is such wonderful news that suddenly I am a grown woman jumping on my bed, bobbing up and down among my dress shirts.

“Holyrood Palace -- I never thought in my wildest dreams I would get to see it.”

“See it, stay over in it, the whole bit. The dinner starts at nine, but if you get there early, I’ll show you around.”

“You’ll show me around?”

“Sure.”

“All of it?”

“Absolutely.”

“The Mary, Queen of Scotts’ chambers?”

“Of course, they are exactly as she left them and very ominous.”

“And the room of evil Lord Darnley,”

“Absolutely.”

“And the bed of Bonny Prince Charlie?”

“Ostrich plumes and all.”

I stop jumping. The story of Holyroodhouse is the story of the Stewart Dynasty. They call it the most romantic of His Majesty’s Palaces, but the castle is seldom used. It is old and crumbling, and from the pictures I have seen, it looks a little eerie.

“Like I said, I have about a dozen or so friends coming. You won’t mind sharing a room with my cousin Rose will you?”

“Actually I’d prefer it,” I reply quickly.

“Yeah, Holyroodhouse gets that reaction from people. It can be rather spooky. Not the kind of place you’d want to stay in by yourself. My brother Albert and I used to run into the apartments of Mary Queen of Scots at nigh whenever we could get away from Nanny Margery. We were good at stealing away from her. I remember hiding in Mary’s chambers behind a tapestry one night; my brother swore he saw the ghost of Bald Agnes. We tore out of there so fast, we ran right into Margery’s knees. I think we laughed so hard we fell down and rolled on the carpet. Nanny didn’t find it so funny. ”

“Hmm, poor Nanny Margery, you must have put her through her paces.”

“Yes, poor Nanny Margery,” he repeats and for some reason he sounds incredibly forlorn. I try changing the topic back to his party at Holyrood.

“What time should I be there?” I ask.

“Seven should be fine, gives me two hours to show you around before the guests show. Sorry, Lizzie, I’ve got to go. Have an appointment in Greenwich, and I’ll be late if I don’t get moving.”

I hang up the phone with a huge smile on my face. With lighting fast fingers, I dial my travel agent, who alters my ticket, changing my destination from London to Edinburgh.