Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6

by Lise McClendon

  Yet, so much had changed these last few years in the nation of France. Kings gone, armies marching, nobles stripped of their riches, priests and monks thrown adrift. Here in the countryside little changed from day to day. The bell had been removed from the local church by the Army to use the metal for weapons. The priest had run off. But what else? Not much unless you counted handsome strangers arriving unannounced.

  Had she run away from all the action, the important business of the capitol? She knew she had and now she wondered if her idyllic goat-herder life was really what she wanted. Jérome might be in mortal danger but at least he was doing something to save his country. He was a patriot, doing important work. What would he think of the sister who once chanted and marched to Versailles, who shook her fist at royals, who demanded affordable food and better conditions for everyone? Now she could be found with those fists around goat teats, doing the job of a milkmaid.

  Oh, it was honest work. She was proud of the way she’d learned new tasks, how she’d gone from a city girl to a woman unafraid to get into the mud with goats. But part of her longed for more, for an engagement with big events. They were happening, now, but so far from here that they were invisible, as cold and ephemeral as the mistral that blew in from unseen mountains in the springtime. She wanted to find the source of the wind, to be part of its force. To help bring the winds of change to France.

  And yet, here she sat, in her tattered gown and broken boots, shivering as the winter came closer. Soon it would be the month Frimaire, of frost. Grazing the goats on the hillsides would be cold business and she had no coat. The idea of a wool coat, or even a cotton one, filled her mind for a moment, pushing out revolutionary thoughts and dreams. A nice wool coat, heavy on her shoulders with sleeves long enough to cover her hands. Perhaps a man’s overcoat. But how to find one? How to afford one?

  Odette looked up and down the tiny village street, checking the citizens for warm garments. None to be seen. Perhaps it didn’t get terribly cold here. But almost as she thought those words a breeze blew her hair off her neck. A cold wind that portended winter.

  She stood up and tucked Jérome’s letter into her bodice, next to her heart. It wouldn’t be enough to keep her warm this winter but in its own way it might help her survive.

  Nineteen

  Pascal knocked on the new door shutters, admiring their solid nature if not their peeling paint. It was late and he wasn’t even sure Merle was home. He had driven from the Languedoc, stopping only briefly at his own cottage to pick up clean clothes, and felt the fatigue of the day in his shoulders and knees.

  He knocked again and got out his phone. Did she keep her mobile by her bed? Of course she did, she was an American. He started to call then changed his mind, texting her that he was at the door and could she please let him in.

  There was no reply but in a moment he heard the rhythmic pounding of feet on the stairs and across the room. Then the locks turned, including the padlock inside the shutters, and there she was. Merle stood in a pale nightgown in the moonlight, her hair a mess, arms crossed, a flicker of suspicion in her eyes. Then she reached for him and pulled him inside.

  He let her re-lock the doors behind him as he flicked on a lamp. He dropped his duffle bag by the stairs. It was good to be back with her, even though it would be short and she might be angry about that. He’d been ignoring her texts for days.

  She stood awkwardly by the old dining table, fingers tracing its lines. “Come here, chérie,” he said hoarsely. He held out a hand and she put hers into it. “Look at you,” he whispered. They kissed as his hands roamed over her.

  She pulled back finally, to catch her breath. “And look at you. What are you wearing?”

  He laughed. He was still in the farmer’s disguise of blue jumpsuit and muddy boots. He took off the burgundy beret and stuffed it in his coat pocket. He still had the white in his hair. She fingered it. “Is this the real you?”

  “Someday but not today. I have been undercover again. It is quite thrilling,” he grinned, giving her a sample of the gimpy old man walk. “Can I use your bath for a clean up? And then we—” He pointed up the stairs. “Can you wait for me?”

  Merle put both her hands behind his neck and kissed him again. “All I do is wait for you, Pascal.”

  Later they opened the shutters and let the moonlight wash over them. It was still hot in the upstairs bedroom, and their bodies glistened with sweat. They were silent, a little breathless with the intensity of their lovemaking. Pascal glanced at Merle and her lips were parted, eyes shut, the curve of her chin lit up by the moon. He waited until she opened her eyes to speak.

  “I ran into an old friend yesterday. At the vineyard where I was playing the old man.”

  She rolled on her side, facing him. “A woman?”

  He clenched his jaw. “No, blackbird. An old adversaire.”

  “An enemy? You don’t have enemies, Pascal.” She kissed his shoulder.

  “Many men I have put into prison, chérie. This was one from fifteen years ago. I had almost forgotten him.” But not now, with that scar. He would not forget that face. “He was the owner of the vineyard. Another one, not where I saw him. From an old family, he inherited the vineyard, a familiar story. He got in over his head. Took loans from some unsavory characters. Cut corners. He was guilty of fraud many times over. We caught him eventually but I was undercover for most of that summer.”

  Pascal paused, picking at his cuticles as he remembered the outrage of Léo Delage at his betrayal. Pascal had worked in the mixing room that summer, hauling grapes, helping the experts, when he wasn’t drinking and playing cards with Léo. His arrest came as a shock to the winery, the deception of a false friendship. The worst type of treachery, the kind with a smile and a pat on the back.

  He didn’t feel guilt over the operation. Delage was a criminal. But the personal deceit, the acting, the falseness— it got to a man sometimes. It made him feel dirty, as dishonest as those he put away.

  “And what? He’s out of prison?” Merle asked.

  “He was in prison eight years then he disappeared. Left the country or something. But he returned in May, on an expired passport. He jumped the gates at Marseille.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  Of course he had. But he didn’t want to worry Merle, just inform her. So he said, “Nothing like that. It was just strange. He talked of peasant uprisings and guillotines and Louis the Sixteenth. I think he’s gone mad. He’d changed a lot over the years. I never would have recognized him.”

  He rolled to face her and set his palm on the curve of her cheek. “I shouldn’t have brought him up. He is a toad of a man.”

  “Where were you?”

  “In the Languedoc. A lovely little vineyard that grows Bourboulenc grapes, and tries to sell them illegally outside their AOC.” He smiled at her, pulling the sheet up to cover them. “Let’s forget everything about him. Okay?”

  She snuggled closer, burrowing into his chest. “I’m so glad you’re here, Pascal. I’ve missed you.”

  He pulled her close and nestled his nose in her hair, pulling the essence of her into him. If only it could stay like this. What were they to do? “I feel very selfish. I am glad you didn’t go home to see Tristan. I should feel bad about my selfishness. But I don’t.”

  She looked up at him. “I feel exactly the same way; guilty but not guilty.”

  “Can a lawyer do that, plead both ways?”

  “This lawyer can.” She paused then asked, “Have you heard from Clarisse?”

  “No. I think that is the last of that.”

  “But what about the boy?”

  “I told you, chérie. We couldn’t have children. She couldn’t. She was infertile. She lied about all that.” He tipped up her chin. “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Of course. But, I don’t know, don’t you ever think maybe it could be possible? That you’d like to be a hundred percent sure? That you should get tests?”

  “Paternity tests? T
hose are meaningless in France. The thing is, blackbird, that a woman in France can just say, ‘this boy is your son,’ and the courts can make you pay support for him. Neither they— nor I— can force the child to supply his DNA. Since Clarisse never even mentioned a son until that day, and never made any legal challenge, I am sure she made the whole thing up for that day in Paris. She was trying to get money out of me, any way she could. She’s like that.”

  In the morning, Pascal showered again and packed his car. He had to keep moving. Merle didn’t ask him where he was going but he could see that little wrinkle between her eyebrows asking the question. Maybe it was just the question of why he had to leave at all, although she knew that answer. Was it something about Clarisse and that horrible day in Paris? Or was it just the situation, the two of them, coming and going and never knowing when they would see each other? Whatever it was, it made him sad, that wrinkle of worry, of doubt. If there was one thing he wanted, it was to make her smile.

  He pulled her into the garden and held her close in the morning sunshine that washed across the ripening pears on the espaliered tree and the golden stone of the house. The earth was torn up again, mounds of dirt were everywhere. He wished he could stay here and help her with her new laundry. And all the other little problems she had, the wrinkle between her eyebrows and especially those late night ones in the bedroom.

  “I will come again soon,” he promised.

  “You better,” she said, squeezing him against her. “Or else.”

  Twenty

  Sancerre

  Léo Delage hid in the rows of vines as the evening light finally left the sky. It felt strange to be back in the Sancerre, on the generational soil that had raised him and his siblings, that had fed his grandparents, and their grandparents before them. To smell the sharp scent of gunpowder in the dirt, the mint on the breeze, the heat in the clay through his shoes; memories he’d buried so deep during his years inside the prison at Chateauroux that when they returned, right in front of him, he had to blink, shattered for a moment by sensation.

  The vendange was underway. He hadn’t expected the harvest yet as the vineyard was hundreds of miles north of the Languedoc where he’d been working. They hadn’t begun yet in the south but for whatever reason— poor planning, inadequate knowledge, or mere stupidity— his son had signaled the start of the harvest here at Domaine Le Grand Vinon. Léo had his doubts about his son before. Now he knew that his eldest, who had left the priesthood to rescue the vineyard when Léo was arrested, was an idiot.

  It was full dark when Léo made his way through the vines to the square of light, the window in the mixing room. They would be crushing the grapes most of the night. He cracked open the door and peered cautiously inside. It would be nice to confront the idiot on his own since Léo himself was technically not allowed on the estate. His own estate, his vines, his domaine— it rankled. Still, it would be best to keep his presence quiet.

  He knew this building like the back of his hand. He crept along the perimeter, around the enormous vats, listening to the machinery working in a side room. Was his son not even here? Had the idiot delegated all the important roles and was off stuffing his mouth with canard confit as the winery foundered?

  Then he heard his voice. Adrien was speaking to someone in the control room at the far end of the building. Another man left the room and began walking toward the door. Léo pressed himself into an alcove, remembering it had once held herbs for warding off molds and odd smells when his grandmother was alive. The man walked briskly past, disappearing out the door.

  Léo poked his head out. Adrien was standing outside the control room, staring at his mobile phone or something. He had aged. No longer was he the thin, bearded, head-in-the-clouds esthète of his seminary days. He had grown fat, Léo thought with distaste, as if the business fed him too well. He still had a small beard but it was partly gray. His hair was still brown, he was of course not yet forty, but thinning. Fifteen years was a long time to be away. Would Adrien even recognize him?

  Only one way to find out. Léo walked slowly toward him, his gum-soled shoes squeaking on the cement floor. Adrien looked up, squinting. He wore glasses now, giving him a clerical look.

  “Who’s that? Whoever you are, you are not authorized to be in here, sir. You are trespassing. Please leave at once.”

  Léo kept walking toward him. Adrien was glancing around, agitated now, afraid.

  “It’s me, Adrien,” he said at twenty paces. “Your father.”

  Adrien kept backing up, now standing in the control room doorway with his hand on the knob. He straightened at Léo’s voice though, as if the auditory memory was dominant. He watched warily as Léo stopped at a close but nonthreatening range. “Do you recognize me?” he whispered, his voice strange even to himself.

  “Of course,” Adrien said too quickly. His eyes, like everyone’s, fixed on the scar. “What— excuse me. How are you? Where have you been?”

  “Well, that’s a long story, isn’t it? You only know half of it, you know about Chateauroux, oui? You didn’t come to visit but I understand that. Times were difficult.” When Adrien continued his blank stare, Léo continued. He had no wish to draw out all the years of trial and journey. The prison at Chateauroux was nothing to dwell on. “I was there for eight years. Then, South America. Have you been? It is very beautiful. The ocean, oh, yes, it is vast. Then, I am returned, back to the bosom of my family.” He smiled with the good side of his face.

  “But— but you can’t be here, papa,” Adrien said, sounding like a school boy.

  “Then we won’t tell les flics, eh?”

  “You can’t be here, or anywhere near. Not in the village or in Sancerre. They have been here just recently, I am sure of it. After you— your— after what happened they come regularly, I know who they are. They think they fool me with their stories of distributors and merchants but I know who they are.”

  “Then, if you have such a good eye, I will hide when they come.”

  Adrien turned a vivid shade of scarlet and sputtered, “Absolument pas! This is my life now. I have a wife and two children and they can’t see you, ever. You must go before anyone sees you.”

  “You are so afraid, son? Quivering at the thought of the police? Such a child. You disgust me with your girlish fears. Where is your virilité? Your strength, your courage? Look at you.” He frowned at the shivering jelly that was his son. “You are afraid of your own father. Is that it?”

  “Papa, listen. Not two days ago a policeman was here, snooping around, asking questions, pretending to be a wine buyer. That is who I am afraid of. Not you. Although God knows I should be. Look at your face, it is— ”

  Léo stepped closer, to give his son a good look. “It is what? Hideous? This is what happens when you are a man sometimes. You stand up for yourself and you take your licks. You don’t shake in your boots like a little boy.” He took his son’s weak shoulders in his big, calloused hands. “I failed you, Adrien. I was not here. But you must pick yourself up and be a man.”

  Adrien flung his arms out, shaking off his father’s touch. He was furious now, so angry he spit as he spoke, red to the tips of his ears.

  “Don’t lecture me on the proper way to live, you— you viper. Get away from me! You disgust me. Do you know the mess you left? No, that never crossed your mind. Yes, you failed me, you failed all of us at the winery. Your wife who died of shame, your poor father, all your family. But you failed yourself most of all. I can’t stand the sight of you. My children will be better off thinking you are dead. Yes, that’s what I told them. You are dead to me. I am the vintner now. I am the caretaker to these ancient vines. I will see them through. You are no one. Nobody.”

  Léo heard the lock turn behind him as he left the mixing room. He stomped across the dirt parking lot, kicking weeds that had grown there. This place was dying a slow death from neglect and incompetence but he was out of it. It was not his anymore. He hated the sight of it.

  He had been wrong to com
e here. Wrong to think there might still be something for him here, in the place where he grew up, where he raised his sons. He didn’t regret seeing the back of it. It had failed him just as he had failed it. They’d gone down together, he and the winery. What could he possibly have done here but fight with Adrien?

  Bon débarras, Le Grand Vinon. Good riddance. We are done.

  As he reached his truck, cursing his son and the police and everyone who had wronged him, something occurred to Léo, something Adrien said.

  A policeman had been here, posing as a wine buyer. Just two days before. Was it a coincidence that he’d been on the trail of the man in the straw hat at the same time? He hadn’t thought d’Onscon had recognized him. But fifteen years, a stretch in prison, and a knife wound to the face would do that.

  He revved the engine, grinning into the night. The game was on.

  Twenty-One

  Malcouziac

  The first week of September in the Dordogne brought a welcome relief from the heat for a few days, enough to hint that autumn would come. In the countryside the grape harvest began, and with it a stirring of the old ways, a joining of hands to get the work done during long hours in back-breaking work. Merle didn’t participate in the vendange. She was too busy trying to get the plumber to work every day, harassing the suppliers of her new washer and dryer about delivery dates, and designing and sourcing a stone countertop.

  And then there was the vandalism. On Friday, the gendarme from Sulliac came to visit her finally, and take his own photographs of the mess. She also showed him the ruined sundresses stiff with dry fluorescent paint that she and Elise wore the night of the paint assault. He seemed mortified by that, and expressed his dismay and apologies to both the sisters in a nice way. But when she hinted that Madame Suchet thought the culprit was her nephew he shook his head sadly.