She knocked hard, pounding with her fist. “Pascal!?” No answer. She tried the door but it was locked. She rounded the house, beating at the sticky weeds and cutting grasses, to see in the windows. The curtains were drawn. She reached the kitchen door and gave it a good shake. Locked up tight. She tried each window, pushing up on the frames. The second kitchen window gave a little and she gave it a mighty shove. It went up a few inches.
Dragging over a lawn chair she stood to get leverage to winch the sash up. Finally, it was open enough to let her slip inside. She blinked in the darkened room. This was the dining alcove, a small space off the kitchen. A slice of sunshine came through the top of the window behind her.
She called his name again and for reasons she couldn’t articulate sniffed the air. It smelled musty and closed-up but nothing worse. Quickly she searched the rooms and found them messy but normal. Dust everywhere. And no Pascal.
The calendar in her mind clicked into gear. It had been twelve days since she’d heard from him, or seen him. It wasn’t that long, she told herself. Yet he had never gone this long before, never stopped answering completely. She pulled out her phone and looked at the gaps between texts before this one. Scrolling back she figured four days, five days at the most.
Where was he? Was he undercover somewhere, unable to break his cover to text her even once to let her know he was all right? She found herself getting annoyed, even angry, with Pascal. How could he let her worry like this? Didn’t he know the way women are— at least women in, well, love? Yes, it appeared Merle Bennett was definitely in love.
She let herself out the back door, the one with no deadbolt, locking it behind her. She turned to admire the view from his back yard, the leaves turning red, the yellow grass bent from the wind. Beyond the fence, she saw two black and white goats grazing. Were they the twins she’d helped into the world? She had never completely told Irene the story of the nabbing of César at the market in Malcouziac. It was time. Maybe the old woman knew how to reach Pascal.
She found Irene Fayette out in the yard, leaning on a walking stick made from what appeared to be a well-polished olive branch topped with a tennis ball. She wore a scarf over her hair and an old sweater and was feeding three goats from a burlap bag tied to her apron. She startled when Merle approached, showing a frightened face before frowning.
“I’m sorry, Irene,” Merle said in French. “I’ve surprised you.”
“You have.” She straightened and smoothed out her frown. “It’s not you. I have been in an odd state since the business with César.”
“Did you get your truck back?”
“Yes. That was a blessing. Thank you for helping with that.”
Merle nodded. “I assume the money was long gone.”
“Oh, yes. He says he sent it back to Greece, but who knows. Probably bought cigars and liquor.”
“Have you found a replacement besides the young student?”
The old woman shook her head. “It’s difficult. None of the young people want to do farm work. They want to get up late and party at night.”
They made their way to a weathered wooden bench under a spreading olive tree heavy with ripening fruit. Merle offered to go into the house and get them refreshments but Irene wasn’t interested. She sat heavily, shoulders slumped.
“Is everything all right, Irene?”
“Hmm? Oh, yes, my knee is much better. The therapist comes three times a week.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Merle found the old woman’s company oddly soothing, even though she seemed disturbed about the summer’s events. As if it was just a blip in a smooth-running river of life, a rocky turn and nothing more. The water would still flow; tomorrow would still come. And all the pleasures and rituals would return.
“I came by for Pascal,” Merle said finally. “But he’s not here.”
“Oh, eh?” Irene blinked, coming back from her reveries. “Not seen him for months.”
“Really? Months?”
“Since July, I think. Where is he?”
“Working somewhere, I guess.” Merle rubbed the wrinkle between her eyes. Where the hell was he? “Do you know anyone I could contact about him? A relative or a friend?”
“You mean the wife?” She said la femme, and Merle was unsure which woman she might mean. Did Pascal have more than one?
She bit down on her molars. “You mean Clarisse?” Irene nodded. “Do you have her number?”
They rose carefully and walked slowly back to the house. Irene was doing well, with hardly a limp. Her pace was snail-like however. In the kitchen, she rummaged in a drawer and brought out an address book, paging through it. “Here.” She spun the book around on the counter to show Merle.
Under the Ps was the listing for Pascal, two phone numbers then one for Clarisse and another one labelled PN. “Is this his Police nationale office number?” she asked. It was. She wrote all four numbers down in her spiral notebook and tucked it back in her jeans. She was eager to leave now, to dial all the numbers. To find him.
But first Irene wanted to have tea. Merle put the kettle on for her, found the loose tea, dumped it in a teapot, then waited for the water to heat. Irene had planted herself in a large flowered chair, her favorite spot, she declared. She put her feet up on the matching ottoman, laid her head back, and closed her eyes.
Merle went through the motions for tea, gathering cups and milk and sugar on a tray. When she presented it on a small wooden table near where Irene sat, she realized the woman was snoring. Merle poured herself half a cup, clinking the china dishes needlessly. Irene kept snoring, a soft kitten-like purr.
Finally, Merle wrote out a note for Irene, telling her thank you and à bientôt— ‘see you soon,’ then slipped out the front door. She sat in the Peugeot and stared at the numbers. Where to start? That was simple; you always start at the first on the list. That’s what a list is for.
The first number was Pascal’s mobile. She recognized it and dialed it anyway. Maybe this was the moment he would answer. Instead it went immediately to voicemail then announced the mailbox was ‘terminée.’ Did that mean full or dead?
She dialed the second number. It rang about twenty times and she hung up. Clarisse was next. She picked up before the third ring: “Allo, oui?”
In a burst of imagination Merle decided to be a bill collector from the fictional Banque du Sud-Ouest. “I am looking for Pascal d’Onscon.”
“He’s not here,” Clarisse said coldly.
“When will he return? It’s very important.”
“Never. Is that good enough for you?” She hung up with a bang.
Merle stared at the phone number. Was this Clarisse’s mobile? Because Pascal said she’d moved all over Paris in the last years. And why would he give Irene his ex-wife’s mobile number? Was she still his emergency contact? Had Clarisse lived here with Pascal? Did Irene know her?
Merle sighed. She was getting anxious— yes, jealous— about a woman he swore he didn’t care about, whom he said was a little crazy. Just stop, she told herself. Be a grown-up.
So the grown-up got serious, took a breath, and called the Police nationale. It seemed to be a Paris number. In her best professional French, she asked for Pascal, then his supervisor when he didn’t answer. She ended up talking to a woman who was the supervisor’s assistant. She tried to explain that she was searching for Pascal, that she was his special friend, that she hadn’t heard from him in weeks and was worried about him. After asking for her name and address, the assistant was curt with her. Maybe many women called, looking for the handsome Pascal, so many women that his personal life bored and annoyed her. For whatever reason Merle was shut down.
We do not give out information on our officers, madame. Au revoir.
Back at home, Merle’s phone rang later that night. Irene Fayette was calling to apologize for falling asleep during teatime.
“You need to rest, Irene,” Merle told her. “Give your leg time to heal.”
“Yes, yes,” th
e old woman said impatiently. “That’s what they tell me. But life is waiting for me, yes? I don’t have decades ahead. I must get up and act now.”
She sounded like she was giving herself a pep talk, a tactic Merle was familiar with. Irene continued, “Have you seen Jacques at the market?”
Merle tried to remember. “No, I don’t think anyone sold chèvre at the last market. Do you want me to sell again?”
“Perhaps. But I am worried about Jacques. You met him, yes?”
“At the market about a month ago. He’s your cousin?”
“Oui. He lives by himself, like I do. On the other side of Malcouziac, out in the country. Do you have time to check on him? It’s not far.”
“Of course.” Merle wrote down the directions to the old man’s house, somewhere to the north of her village. There was no street address, as happens in the middle of the hills. She promised to get back to Irene in a day or two.
She hung up the phone. Out in her garden the purple twilight soaked the sky in velvet. A cool breeze made her shiver. Autumn or lost souls? Was finding people her new profession? She didn’t like it. She wanted her people known, found, and safe.
Calculating the time in Connecticut, she called Tristan on his cell phone. He would be eating lunch or in class. But she needed to hear his voice.
“Mom! Hang on,” he said, his voice muffled with what must be lunch. Sounds of chattering and laughter, dishes and silverware. Then he was back, his footsteps in the background. “Okay, sorry. It’s too loud in the cafeteria.”
“How are you? How are your classes?”
“All good. Physics is a bear but I’m getting some help on that.”
“Did they set you up with a tutor?”
“An upperclassman. He’s super smart, and cool, too.”
They chatted for a few minutes then he had to run off to another class. He was taking six classes right off the bat. Merle worried it was too much, but if anybody could do it, Tristan could. She hung up, watched the stars come out, and sent him a wish for happiness and success across the ocean.
Tristan was good. One of her people was safe and sound. She could sleep a little better tonight.
Twenty-Three
Late the next afternoon, after supervising the unloading of the washer from a truck and the careful hauling of it up the alley and through the garden gate, Merle grabbed her purse and walked back to the parking lot outside the city walls. She had a vague idea where Jacques lived but wanted to leave herself enough time to get lost.
And lost was what she got. There were many small hamlets in the countryside north of Malcouziac, most of which had no names or identifying marks. Some were like Pascal and Irene’s, somewhere on a dirt road, hidden in the trees. Others were a collection of buildings along the pavement, once one farm but now converted to holiday homes. She stopped at an intersection with two direction signs, one back to Malcouziac and the other toward Issigeac, and called Irene for a consultation. The phone rang and rang. She must have been outside with her goats.
On either side of the road, wheat fields had been cut and harvested. The sun was setting behind a forested hill to the west. Remembering Jacques had mentioned Issigeac she put her car in gear and headed toward the town. Maybe someone knew him there.
The town was a beautiful old village but no one seemed to know this particular Jacques. She got all sorts of stories about a Jacques who was a small boy, another who was a priest, and a third who died last year. After a quick dinner in a bistro built in an old train station where she asked one last time if anyone knew Jacques, the chèvre salesman, Merle headed home. She was a little disgusted with her person-finding skills at this point. Both Pascal and Jacques were nowhere to be found.
She called Irene in the morning, early, at six. The phone rang ten times then finally she answered. Merle explained her wild goose chase of the day before and got better directions for another try. Apparently, she had been close, just not close enough.
“Does he have a telephone, Irene?” Merle asked.
“He did. But when I call it now it says it is not in service.”
“How do you communicate with him?”
Irene let out an exasperated sigh. She hadn’t had any communication with him for weeks apparently, since he’d called and said he was sick and couldn’t work. She’d tried to call but either he didn’t answer or the phone was disconnected.
Merle frowned. This wasn’t good. Anything could have happened to old Jacques. “Have you called his relatives or the police?”
“I am his relative,” Irene barked. “The only one nearby. Can you try again today please?”
Merle promised to give the search another round and hung up. At least Irene had her daughter to check up on her, and the therapist was still coming three times a week, she’d said. Was there a penalty for stubborn independence?
Merle was making espresso in the tiny kitchen when someone knocked on the front door. Her plumber, she hoped, to hook up the washer. Or maybe the electrician who had been MIA for weeks. She opened the door and unlocked the shutters. A policeman stood outside with a stern look on his face. It was the same gendarme who had come by about the vandalism.
“Madame,” he said formally, nodding. “I am here to tell you that we are making progress on the graffiti on your house.” He looked up, frowning.
“That’s excellent news, monsieur.” She waited for him to elaborate but he continued squinting with distaste at her house. “Did you notice those letters?” She stepped outside into the street and pointed. “There: P, C, R, F. The Communists. And over there, the sickle.”
He didn’t look surprised. “Oui, madame.”
“And there was similar vandalism in other villages around here. I found two from the news.”
“Oui, madame.” He squirmed a little then spoke again, in a slightly harsher tone. “I have had word from the Police nationale that you have been calling them. About— about a certain officer.” He raised a small notebook, tucked into his palm. “Pascal d’Onscon?”
“Yes! He’s a friend.” Merle’s heart leapt. Pascal must have checked in with headquarters. “Have they heard from him?”
“Madame Bennett. I am here today to inform you that you are to please stop contacting Nationale. The officer in question is undercover and cannot be disturbed. To give you information about him would jeopardize his safety. Please, madame, try to control yourself and refrain from calling him or his supervisors. It is a matter of national importance. We are counting on your discretion even though you are not a French citizen.”
He jiggled his head for a second at the end of his pompous little speech, gave her a squaring of his shoulders and a touch to his cap, and spun away on his heel. She watched him march down the cobbled street, looking into windows right and left, swinging his left arm wide. He turned the corner without looking back.
Merle stood fuming, appalled by the gendarme and more than a bit mortified. The day before she had called the headquarters of the national police in Paris four times. She kept hoping to get one of Pascal’s fellow officers, somebody who had sympathy for her situation. Someone from the Wine Fraud Division. She tried to find out the name of the man he’d put in prison years before, the one whom he’d met again a couple weeks ago. But her calls were routed back to the same assistant supervisor who apparently had her fill of Merle Bennett and her so-called love life.
How embarrassing. To have a gendarme come around and tell you to quit bugging people about your boyfriend. A man you might think was your boyfriend but obviously, madame, you are delusional.
She covered her eyes. Stop! She was thinking like a teenager now, undermining her own confidence.
Still, she went inside, pulled out her notebook where the story of Odette was unfolding, and made a list of all the kind, sweet things that Pascal had said or done, searching for a few bons mots in texts and emails, and her previously amazing memory. It wasn’t a short list, she had to admit. It ran to thirty or thirty-five or forty, from the way he called
her ‘Blackbird’ to singing snatches of Beatles songs while dancing under the stars. The weekend they pretended they were at the beach, holding hands in lounge chairs in the garden. Helping her sisters. Saving the wine, and herself. The weekend in Brantôme. Meeting her in New York and Scotland. The nights they’d made love. She embarrassed herself by counting how many times there had been over the last three years.
Then, because she was a lawyer after all, she made another list of the times he’d lied to her or hurt her. Then added the reason for those incidents. According to Pascal, because he cared too much. So those got transferred to the first list.
She fixed herself another espresso and went back to the heavy dining table and stared at her lists. With a gulp of caffeine she ripped them out and crumpled them up, angry with herself. She threw them in the trash can then stared out the kitchen window at the garden and gave herself a lecture.
“Enough, Merdle. He is missing. What are you going to do about it?”
Twenty-Four
Cousin Jacques lived in a tiny stone house, nestled near two similar ones with tile roofs, blue shutters, and weedy yards. Merle stood at the door of the one to the right of Jacques’s and spoke with an old woman with bright eyes and a red bandanna around her gray hair. Finding the cottage was harder than Irene thought but Merle had persevered, asking everyone she met to point out the way. It was only five kilometers from Issigeac but hidden in the hills.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “Jacques has been on the road for some time, selling the cheese. He goes away, goes from marché to marché all over the Dordogne and part of the Lot.”
“Yes, I’ve been sent here from his cousin, the chèvre maker.”
The old woman, who had merely introduced herself as Mignon, squinted at Merle. “But you are not French, madame.”
Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 5 & 6 Page 17