Death on a Starry Night

by Betsy Draine

  “They left out the apostrophe,” observed Klara, after studying the card. She knew her English. This woman demands perfection, I thought. It wouldn’t be easy to work under her disapproving gaze.

  “It’s not a misprint,” Toby explained. “That’s how the town is spelled. Don’t ask me why, but there’s no apostrophe in Duncans Mills.”

  “Where in California is this wayward town?” Hans asked.

  “On the coast above San Francisco,” Toby answered, but Hans didn’t have much to say to that, and the conversation petered out. Soon enough, Montoni announced that it was time for dinner.

  The Hostellerie de la Fontaine was a rustic bistro with exposed stone walls and simple furnishings. The wooden chairs had straw seats and the tables had no tablecloths. “Sit where you like,” Montoni told us. “We won’t be formal here.” However, he conducted Isabelle La Font to a table set for six that had a card on it saying Réservé. They were joined there by Benjamin Bennett and his wife, Shelley, and by an older British professor named Bruce Curry with his wife, Jane.

  Two other tables were also set for six. Angie, who wanted us to stay together, stood behind a chair at one of them and waved us to seats surrounding her. Those speaking French gathered at a third table, and the Dutch couple joined them. They must be as capable in French as in English, I thought. That left only one person to be seated. I patted the chair next to mine to invite Maggie McBride to join us. We’d met earlier at the hotel. She was red-headed, nicely rounded, and full of fun.

  “Maggie, come sit with us.”

  “With pleasure, if you don’t mind Emmet.” That’s when we noticed the blue-gray pup, standing steady and silent, at her heel. “He’s a desperate pest when other dogs are around. Other than that, he’s strictly trained. So will you have us?”

  “Of course,” I replied, again patting the chair next to mine. The dog leaped right onto it and firmly planted his rear.

  “You’ll see. He won’t move again till I tell him. Or he wants to.” Maggie gave a gravelly laugh and parked her own rear on the next empty chair.

  “I love the name Emmet,” Angie said. “How did you come up with it?”

  “Have you not heard of the Irish rebel Robert Emmet? He was hanged by the British, bad cess to them.”

  Hearing his name, the canine version of the martyred hero thumped his tail on the chair. “Good lad,” said Maggie, and she popped a piece of bread into his mouth. He chomped once and gulped but didn’t otherwise move.

  Over kirs (I got mine after all, when a tray of them was delivered to each table), Maggie told us she was in France for a year, on research leave from University College Dublin, and naturally she had brought her best friend. In France, as Maggie knew, well-behaved dogs are welcome in restaurants. It’s common to see them sitting under the table or even occasionally curled up nose to tail, dozing on a chair. Emmet was on the alert, and when the waiter brought an appetizer tray with prosciutto on it, he rose to four paws, gazing expectantly at his mistress.

  “Sit!” Maggie hissed, looking away from her dog, as if to shun him. Emmet licked his chops and sat.

  “I’m famished,” said Angie, unfolding her napkin and spreading it on her lap. “What’s for dinner?” She handed me the menu for translation. We were offered a set menu of typical bistro fare. A vegetable terrine as first course, followed by coq au vin, a selection of cheeses, and profiteroles for dessert.

  “Sounds good!” Angie said. And so it was. The wine was plentiful, served in pitchers that were replenished as soon as they were empty. The bread was warm and crusty. The chicken was succulent in its red wine sauce, thick with mushrooms, pearl onions, and bacon. Simple boiled carrots were served alongside.

  When conversation lagged, I glanced over to the bar and saw that the sullen man remained on his stool. Obviously, he had not been invited to the dinner, nor did he belong to our group. Then how did Isabelle La Font know him? And since she did, why hadn’t she asked him to join us? After all, Toby and Angie and Emmet were eating with us, and they weren’t giving talks this week. Some of the other diners glanced in his direction as well. For her part, Madame La Font occasionally looked his way with a strained expression. But Ray Montoni made a point of paying him no attention. As the meal progressed, the man at the bar kept his back to the diners, nursing his drink.

  I reminded myself that he was none of my business and turned my attention to making Maggie comfortable. “Angie and I have Irish grandparents on our father’s side,” I told her.

  “And where are your people from?”

  Angie’s the family historian. “Our grandmother was from Headford, outside Galway,” she said.

  “I know it well. My father used to take us there when he went salmon fishing. And your grandfather’s people?” Maggie looked to Angie for the answer.

  “County Tyrone. The town is Bally-something.”

  “Naturally. There’s a batch of Bally-somethings in the North. Protestant towns mainly. But your people are Catholic, like mine, I take it,” she said, with a nod toward Sister Glenda.

  Angie replied. “That’s right. These days, I guess I’m more serious about it than some in my family.”

  “That would be me,” I admitted. “I hardly ever go to church, and then it’s only to make my father happy. After Mass, he likes to show us off to the priest.”

  Maggie plonked down her wine glass. “A fine lot they are, chasing after boys’ bums.”

  With a nun and a half at the table, how was that going to go down?

  Sister Glenda sniffed and then let the air out in a puff. “May those that do it rot in hell,” she said. She downed her wine and poured another glass. Was that her third? Her fourth, maybe? “They’re not all like that, not at all, but the ones who do it are a scandal to the Church.”

  At my right side, Emmet whimpered softly. He didn’t take well to the tone of conflict. Maggie scratched his forehead.

  Toby took the opening and changed the subject. “Tell us about your dog. Is he an Irish breed?”

  “That he is, a Wicklow Terrier. Now, his people were Irish on all sides. Dog-people, of course.” She laughed, and that restored the banter.

  We were then occupied with choosing from the cheese cart. I knew what I wanted—the goat cheese I’d picked up a taste for in the Dordogne. While waiting for the others to make their choices, I glanced around the room and saw Isabelle La Font rise and walk over to the French-speaking table. She greeted the table in general and then kissed one of the two Frenchmen on both cheeks, twice over. I guessed that meant something warmer than hello. He remained seated but tilted his cheek for the busses and looked up at Isabelle with an opaque expression. She stayed bent toward him, putting her hand on his shoulder and casting her head at an angle, giving him what looked to me like an affectionate smile. He shifted slightly, away from her. She removed her hand from his shoulder, turned, and walked back toward her seat. As she passed me, she looked hurt.

  It was soon time for dessert. Each of us had a profiterole the size of a baseball, filled with berry ice cream and covered by a hard caramel glaze. My kind of dessert, especially when accompanied by the queen of sweet wines, Muscat de Baumes-de-Venise. Pure golden nectar.

  Over at Ray Montoni’s table, the discussion was heating up. Benjamin Bennett, the American professor, was doing most of the talking, and I could guess why. The issue was surely the current dispute over Van Gogh’s death. Bennett was working on his own biography of the artist, and his conference paper was billed as a rebuttal of the controversial theory suggesting the possibility of the artist’s murder. Bennett had the most at stake if Madame La Font supported the conclusion of his rivals, so my guess was he was pressing for a preview of her talk. She kept her eyes on her plate, looking up only to shake her head no. “Tomorrow,” I heard her say twice. Ray Montoni appeared uneasy. Bennett persisted. Finally, his wife glared at him, and he sat back in his chair.

  Then there were raised voices at the bar. I gathered that the solitary customer was d
emanding another drink, while the bartender was coaxing him to go home. Heads turned. Madame La Font spoke to those near her, got up, and carried her glass over to the bar. She stood next to the belligerent man and talked to him, with her head close to his. I couldn’t make out what they said, but the hostility in his voice carried throughout the room. She touched his wrist and lowered her voice to a whisper. That seemed to help. They continued in this manner for a few minutes but then his voice became loud again. Abruptly he slammed his hand on the bar, slid off his stool, and strutted cock-like out of the restaurant. She lowered her head for a moment, then raised it and drained her glass.

  Returning to the table, she flagged the waiter. Her companions seemed to be questioning her about the man who had just walked out. She shook her head a few times, not speaking. Gradually the sound level in the room returned to normal as people picked up the threads of interrupted conversations. The waiter brought her another glass of Baumes-de-Venise. She lit a cigarette.

  My attention turned back to our table, where Toby was explaining to Maggie his non-role at the conference. “I’m just along for the ride. I’ll take any excuse for a trip to France. The food is great and the scenery’s fantastic. I even like the French. I don’t know why they get such a bad rap.”

  “It’s the waiters,” Sister Glenda said with authority. “They can be rude.”

  “So what?” Toby continued, undeterred. “I mean, we’re talking about the people who gave us the cancan, foie gras, and Edith Piaf, not to mention the bidet.”

  “Or the Declaration of the Rights of Man,” Maggie added.

  “Or Chartres Cathedral, if it comes to that,” noted Glenda.

  “There you go,” said Toby. “It’s churlish not to like the French.”

  I’ve heard Toby on this riff before, so I tuned out and turned my attention to the head table. It’s not that I meant to eavesdrop, but my hearing tends to be sharp enough to follow conversations from a distance. I think that’s true of most women. We’re more interested in strangers than men are. And we tend to get away with it. Nobody minds if a woman glances their way occasionally, whereas any man who tries that looks like he’s on the prowl. I could see Madame La Font was growing uncomfortable. Her face was flushed, and she was rocking back and forth in her chair. After some minutes, she reached a hand to her chest. She pushed back her chair and stood up, unsteady on her feet.

  I dropped my napkin and went over to her table. “Are you all right, madame?”

  “Yes, please don’t trouble yourself. I’ve had too much wine, that’s all. I’ll be fine.” Her host, Montoni, rose in concern. “No, no,” she demurred, waving her hand. “Please sit down. Finish your dessert. I’m just going to step outside to get some fresh air.”

  “Let me come with you,” I said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Montoni. “I’ll go.”

  “No, I insist,” she said. She was keeping her balance by pushing down hard on the table. Her command was firm. “Please, everyone. It’s nothing. I need a breath of air, that’s all. I won’t even take my coat. I’ll be back in two minutes.” She shouldered her bag and made for the door.

  Emmet bounded from his perch and trotted after her, yipping excitedly.

  “He wants to be let out,” said his mistress.

  “Bon! ” said Isabelle. “He can keep me company.”

  “That’s fine,” said Maggie. Raising her voice a pitch, she called, “Go ahead, boy. Go with the nice lady.”

  Emmet barked happily as Isabelle let him through. He scampered outside, and she followed him.

  Reluctantly, I returned to my seat.

  “Will she be all right?’ asked Angie.

  “She says she will,” I replied.

  “She didn’t look all right to me,” said Sister Glenda. “Dessert wine will do that to you. You can’t drink too much of it. It fools you, never mind how easy it goes down.” Sister Glenda had switched to cognac.

  At Isabelle’s table, Bennett and Curry leaned toward each other, talking intently. Ray Montoni seemed to be napping. His elbows were planted on the table, with palms raised to support his drooping head. Bennett’s wife, Shelley, kept turning toward the door, anticipating Isabelle’s return, or perhaps trying to decide whether to go after her.

  I kept an eye on the door too while I did justice to my dessert, finishing it slowly, with a sip of Baumes-de-Venise between each bite. When my dessert plate was spooned clean, I still had a half glass of the fortified wine in front of me. I was determined not to waste a drop. Even so, when the waiter came to clear the glasses, I gave mine up with at least an ounce of liquid gold still in it.

  Coffee was served, espresso. It came black, of course. In France, it’s never offered with milk or cream after dinner. Angie, though, wanted milk with hers. “You can ask for it, but you won’t get it,” I warned her.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Angie. “Why can’t I ask the waiter for milk?”

  “Try it,” I said. “Say, ‘Du lait, s’il vous plaît.’”

  “Doo-lay, siv-oo-play,” Angie said to the waiter when he went by.

  He looked at her quizzically. “Comment? ”

  I tried to help. “Du lait, pour mademoiselle, s’il vous plaît.”

  He nodded. It never arrived.

  Angie was pouting over her espresso when Emmet sounded the alarm. First we heard him barking outside the door. The waiter opened it, and the blue-haired terrier ran in, his nails clicking on the tile floor. Maggie got up. “Something’s not right. He never barks like that unless there’s something wrong.” Emmet circled back to the door and stood with a foreleg raised. He looked back at his mistress. “He wants me to go see,” she said. She hurried out, as several others stood up, including Toby and me. Toby was out the door at a racer’s pace.

  Maggie and I caught up with him in the square, beside the fountain with its sculpted urn. Isabelle La Font was hanging over the rim of the basin, her head and right arm submerged in water, her feet no longer touching the ground.

  Toby sprang to the fountain, grabbed Isabelle under the arms, and raised her out of the basin. “Call an ambulance!” he shouted to the waiter, who stood outside the entrance to the restaurant in a cone of light. The waiter had been clearing tables and still held a plate in his hands. “Vite! ”—Quickly!—Toby urged.

  “Tell him to call the police too,” I said to Toby. The red leather bag that Isabelle had been carrying was gone.

  The dog’s eerie howling prompted a neighbor to open her shutters to see what the commotion was. I looked up as the shutters squealed on their rusty hinges. Stars still shimmered against the deep black sky.

  It wasn’t his mangled ear you noticed first. No, it was those piercing eyes and the way he stared straight at you, straight ahead no matter what. If something caught his interest off to one side, he would swivel his entire head rather than follow the movement with his pupils like anyone else. His eyes seemed fixed in place like a doll’s. And when he painted, he would step back, squint, and squeeze his eyelashes almost shut, and then he would paint like that. How could he even see what he was doing? As for that ear, it was hideous. The others teased him about it. But I refused to look at it, which is why, after all this time, it’s the eyes that I remember, those piercing, watery blue eyes.

  2

  TOBY HAD, on instinct, lifted the body from the fountain and laid it on the ground. Someone needed to take charge. I looked around for Ray Montoni. He was retching onto the cobblestones.

  “Have you checked her pulse?” I asked. Toby put his finger to Isabelle’s neck and waited. He looked up at me and shook his head.

  “Help me straighten her out,” I said. We had to try artificial respiration. You couldn’t know if a drowning victim was really gone, in spite of outward signs of death. Girl Scout training. I tried for a long time, but it didn’t work. I lifted my head up, exhausted. Maggie took me by the arms and helped me into a sitting position on the rim of the basin beside the unresponsive body. Sister Glen
da crossed herself as she stood over Isabelle’s inert form.

  “I’ll be all right,” I said.

  “That’s what she said,” Maggie humphed.

  Glenda’s murmured prayer rose into the winter air. Then there was silence.

  The restaurant owner came out to tell us the police were on the way. Their instructions were to have someone stay with the body. Meanwhile, the rest of us were to return to the restaurant and wait.

  “I’ll stay with her,” Toby volunteered. Professor Montoni, as head of the conference, was the appropriate candidate for that duty, but he was already heading back to the restaurant. I followed and saw that he was hurrying to “the little corner.” I stopped to ask the bartender to bring Toby his coat and then joined the others in the dining room. The English speakers were gathered around one table and, either seated or standing, were asking each other what might have happened. The French speakers seemed to be doing the same in a huddle on the other side of the room.

  “She was all right until dessert,” said Bennett. “Ray was right next to her during dinner. Maybe she said something to him that the rest of us didn’t hear.” He looked around for Montoni.

  “You can check les toilettes,” I suggested. Bennett went off on that errand.

  Professor Curry turned to me. “You were watching that fellow at the bar. What do you think he was up to—moping at the edge of our party?”

  “Does anyone know who he was?” I asked. Heads shook and shoulders hunched.

  Bennett reappeared with Montoni in tow, and Curry rose to give Montoni his chair. Our leader looked wretched. “Nausea,” he explained.

  “Here, have some water, Ray,” said Shelley Bennett. I noticed they were on a first-name basis. Then I remembered that the Bennetts and Montonis knew each other from Philadelphia. Ray Montoni taught at an art college in South Philadelphia. Ben Bennett was an associate professor at Drexel.