She woke sweaty and breathless.
And alone.
Sixteen
Elise was due in Bergerac on the three-thirty train from Paris. Merle had heard from her youngest sister a week before and was surprised but pleased about the unexpected trip. She was acting differently since the events of the spring. At their sister Annie’s Scottish wedding Elise had met a Frenchman who later betrayed her rather mercilessly. To say that Elise now questioned her own judgment would be an understatement. Her denigrating self-talk was the topic of conversation in the family for weeks. Then Elise gathered her wits and moved forward. She dumped her dull boyfriend, Andrew, started jogging (of all things), began French lessons, and told her law firm that she needed better cases or she’d be gone by Christmas.
She was, according to the other Bennett sisters, a full-grown lawyer now.
So, when she decided to get a last-minute flight to Paris and visit Merle in the Dordogne, what could they say? She had vacation days and the cash to do it.
Merle was happy to have her sister, who was ten years younger and almost a different generation, come for a visit. She was getting a little lonely for conversation she could understand with Pascal gone who knows where, Tristan back home, and her French tutor forbidding her to speak in English at all. Plus, they would fly home together at the end of Elise’s trip. It was time for Tristan to go to college and Merle still insisted she was needed one more time.
They would, of course, have to do some sightseeing, cutting into the decorating and writing time. But it was August, and hot. Upstairs in Merle’s little maison de ville was a furnace, uninhabitable past ten in the morning. She was happy to walk to her new Peugeot with its dents and scratches and find the air conditioning was operable. Turning it up full blast she drove the backroads to Bergerac and collected Elise.
After hugs and exclamations of how great the other looked, the sisters piled back in the car. As they went around the roundabout for the second time (missing the turn-off the first time) Merle asked Elise about the sudden decision to come to France.
“I’m so excited you came,” she said. “Just curious.”
“Wouldn’t anyone jump at a chance to come to France?” Elise laughed. “But, seriously, I felt a little cheated in Paris in May.”
“You did get cheated. That scum Bruno.”
Elise waved a hand. “I’ve stopped thinking about him. Really. But my last two trips got cut short. I wanted to come on my own and spend some time. With you, of course.” She directed the vent to blow on her face. “Whew, it’s roasting here.”
They drove endlessly for the next few days, scouring the sun-bleached hills, wine-tasting at obscure wineries, and visiting chateaux on hilltops, including the abandoned one Merle had researched for her novel. They rented kayaks and paddled the River Lot. It was fun. But four days of playing tour guide to her sister left Merle with the impression that Elise hadn’t entirely changed. She was still the little one who expected her older sisters to placate her, coddle her, and buy all the meals. But it was fine, Merle told herself, as she rose with the birds that morning. Merle rarely allowed herself time to do absolutely nothing constructive. It went against the grain— and the huge to-do list.
Today there was a duty to attend. Irene had called and asked another favor. This time it didn’t involve the goats themselves, or nursing invalids, but selling goat cheese at the Thursday market on the Malcouziac plaza. Irene’s elderly cousin Jacques, whom Merle had met, was under the weather. A new driver had been found for the week but he refused to stay and sell cheese. A neighbor in Villefranche, the driver would only deliver the cheese to the market with the table and cash bag but not stay all day. Irene was a little desperate since losing the market funds to the notorious César.
Would Merle sell cheese for a day in Malcouziac? Of course. She agreed, relishing trying out her French and the dreaded numbers. She needed to be forced to think in Euros, in strange numerals, and this would do it.
Elise would help. Together, neither of them would have to sit behind the table for hours. They could wander, shop, get coffee, and otherwise be French for a morning. They dressed in colorful sundresses and big hats, making themselves laugh as they sashayed down the street in cute sandals in the fresh glow of dawn. To have a job, a duty, in a foreign land, was a circumstance neither had ever imagined.
Merle’s brain clicked into the numerals necessary for making change by about 11 in the morning. Before that, she simply let customers tell her how much change they required. Most of the cheese was € 2 or € 5 so nothing was terribly difficult. Elise brought them café au lait and croissants from the café in mid-morning and then salads about one in the afternoon. By then, the shoppers had thinned out.
“How long are we supposed to stay here?” Elise asked, wiping salad dressing off her chin with a paper napkin. “It’s getting hot.”
She did look a little sunburnt on her shoulders, even with her big hat shading her face. Merle said, “We’re to wait for the driver to collect things, whenever that is.” She stood up. “I’m going to get you some sunscreen. The pharmacy is right there. I’ll be back in a second.”
Elise smiled proudly. “I will use my best Français.” She began with a shout-out to cheese buyers that escalated to loud. “Chèvre frais. Ici, mes amis!” Merle smiled at her, then turned to cross the plaza. Elise was happy in France, that was easy to see. With her dark hair tucked up in her hat, her cheeks glowed with sunshine and contentment. She hadn’t mentioned Bruno, the bastard who’d tricked her in Paris, for at least a day.
She was correct, Merle thought, in coming to France to cleanse that trauma. She was replacing it, day by day, with a pretty picture of La France Profonde, the deep country of traditional villages and idyllic backwaters. They made Merle happy, too, those old values, although now that she thought of it, the vandalism, corruption, and thefts in her village were hardly wonderful. Maybe La France Profonde was a myth, a fantasy for those who resisted change. Americans were no stranger to that emotion themselves, concocting wild stories of ‘good old days’ that never existed, or if they did were never very good.
Once again Pascal popped into her head, laughing at her view of France. Nothing was sacred, was it? Not a cherished belief or a timeless value. All would change with time and circumstances. Even during the 1700s, when the deep countryside of France was nearly inaccessible, chaos from Paris had reached out and affected everyone, whether a young man who was forced into the military or a Count whose holdings were under threat by the new order.
In the cool pharmacy, Merle itched to get back to her writing. The Count and Odette waited for her. She sighed. In two days, the sisters would fly back to New York. There would be no writing there. Her novel would have to wait until she returned to France.
Back at the market, Elise was talking to a short man in a wide-brimmed straw hat, clogs, and baggy pants. Talk about your France Profonde, Merle thought. Elise was loading the cooler with the remaining goat cheese. This must be the driver. They hadn’t met him this morning. The table had been set up, the cooler stashed under it, when they arrived at 7:30.
“Ah, there you are,” Elise said. “This is Antoine, the driver. We’re done at last.”
Merle moved around behind the table by her sister. The driver kept the brim of his hat dipped low so she couldn’t see all of his face. It set off alarms in her head.
“Antoine?” Merle stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
He shook her hand quickly like he was shy. His deep tan wasn’t unusual in this part of the world, not among farmers. Elise was zipping up the cash bag and putting it on top of the cheese in the cooler, the way it had come. She began folding the white tablecloth that draped the table.
“Can you help me?” Elise asked Antoine in French. He took the far corners and they folded the cloth. Merle picked up the small blue cooler called un glacière in French. Despite the heat, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
“Pardon, monsieur,” she began politely to Antoine
. She moved slowly around the table as he bent down to fold it up. “Since we didn’t meet you this morning we will need some identification that you work for Irene.”
Elise was staring at Merle now, incredulous at first and then suspicious of Antoine as well. He extracted a small card from his pocket and handed it to Elise. “It’s a motor vehicle registration,” her sister said. “It says ‘Irene Fayette.’”
“May I see it?” Merle asked.
Antoine snatched it back. “Madame waits. She is very strict.”
As he bent to pick up the folding table Merle stepped forward and brushed the straw hat from the man’s head. “Oh, pardon.” She watched the hat roll on the cobblestones and was not surprised to see the face under the hat was one she recognized.
“César. How nice to see you again.”
His black hair was matted with sweat and he was unshaven. He froze for a moment, glancing for help to Elise with upraised eyebrows, then back to Merle.
“My name is Antoine.”
“That may be,” Merle said. “But you are the man who stole Madame Fayette’s money, just like you’re trying to do today. And her camionnette. That’s obvious since you have the registration card for the truck.”
He lunged for the cooler but Merle jumped back, swinging it out of his reach.
“Monsieur!” Elise yelled. César stumbled past Merle. “Monsieur, aidez-nous! Un voleur!” Help! Thief!
A large man in a tan summer suit and red bow tie appeared out of nowhere, tripping César as he righted himself and tried to run. The thief sprawled face-first on the cobbles and the man put a very polished shoe on his back to hold him down. He grinned at Elise, shoulders back, neck proud.
“Comme ça, mademoiselle?” he said in a bad accent.
Merle felt her mouth drop open. The man in the tan suit was tall and broad-shouldered, with tortoise shell glasses, glossy blond hair, and an insouciant smirk. Who was this handsome hero?
“Exactly like that,” cooed Elise, hands on her hips and pout on her lips. “Well done, monsieur.”
In the giddy aftermath of nabbing César a.k.a. Antoine, Elise managed to fall under the spell of another charming foreigner. It happened in a flash of a French summer. The savior in the market was British as it turned out, on holiday with a group of friends. They had all just been to a christening of somebody’s baby at the church in Malcouziac, an odd but atmospheric choice of venue. The hero’s name was Stephen; he was a banker in London. He had such a dishy accent, Elise exclaimed. His friends, a cosmopolitan crew of young professionals who had witnessed his saving the day and Elise’s gushing approval, invited the two sisters to join them at dinner that evening at Les Saveurs. Merle was more than happy to oblige. Les Saveurs remained her favorite local restaurant.
Before dinner, there was an afternoon of uproar. A public servant of some sort arrived from the mairie to take César into custody. He demanded that Merle and Elise accompany him to the town hall and make a statement. Merle tried to use her best French but the process was confusing and tedious. Elise insisted on telling the story her way, in her French, making the afternoon even longer. When the real driver showed up to collect the table and the cooler, he caused a minor ruckus himself.
By eleven o’clock that evening, Merle had been ready for bed for hours. But her little sister was just getting warmed up, talking animately around the large table at Les Saveurs to all the Brits. She focused on Stephen naturally, who eyed her as if she were a shiny object from a strange land. Merle leaned her chin on her hand, sipping the last of many glasses of wine, when the woman to her left leaned toward her.
“She seems quite taken with our Stephen,” the woman said with a smile. She was wearing something flowy and orange, and had a fine English pallor. “Your sister.”
“She’s a very friendly girl,” Merle said.
“I can see that.” The woman sat back and jingled her bracelets as if finished with her innuendoes.
Merle watched Stephen and Elise talking, heads together. He was wearing a sky blue polo shirt tonight. His dark blond hair was parted precisely and he looked like something out of a 1930s sailing advertisement. No wonder Elise liked him. But, wait—
“Is he married or something?” Merle whispered to the woman. What was her name? Ah, yes, Phoebe.
“‘Something,’” Phoebe said, chuckling.
“Is he— with you?”
Phoebe squinted at her with a disbelieving look. “Really?” She leaned closer and whispered, “Gay. One-hundred percent homosexual.”
Oh. Of course. Poor Elise. Well, she could figure it out herself.
Stephen didn’t walk them home although it was easy to see Elise was expecting it. He hung back in the safety of his friends outside the restaurant and pointed vaguely in the opposite direction as they all said good night. Elise sighed and took Merle’s arm as they walked carefully on the cobblestones down the dark streets. The evening was perfect, warm and starry, and the wine at dinner didn’t hurt their moods.
“Isn’t he cute?” Elise said when they turned the corner. “I could just eat him up.”
“Adorable.”
“Hell of it is, they go home tomorrow, so I guess that’s that. Fun while it lasted.”
“He was very brave today, jumping to our rescue.”
Elise put her head on Merle’s shoulder, making walking even more difficult. “He was.”
They walked the last block in silence, just concentrating on their footing while Merle dug into her purse for her keys. Elise stood behind her at the door, gazing upwards at the night sky.
The sound of the footsteps must have been disguised by the rattling of keys. Suddenly a man stood in front of them, wearing gloves, a knit cap, and a black bandanna over his lower face. He held a can of some sort in his right hand. He pressed a button and paint spewed out with a whoosh. Elise screamed. Merle turned toward her sister as the vandal giddily spray-painted Elise’s dress in fluorescent orange swirls, turning her navy blue sundress into a crazy mess. Elise shrieked again, backing away as he pursued her.
“Stop that!” Merle cried, lunging forward to kick the paint can out of his hand. She missed and nearly fell over. The man said something muffled by his bandanna, then turned the spray paint on her. She cursed and yelled again to stop, holding up her hands to cover her face only to have them covered with slippery orange paint.
Elise made a grunting noise, sprang forward, and the man toppled over to the right, landing on his elbow, the paint can rolling away down the street. “Get out of here, you lowlife scum,” she yelled.
He got to his feet and took an aggressive stand, arms rounded and outstretched like he meant to grab them. Merle moved back, yelling at him in French to get away, holding her keys between her fingers as she’d been taught by her father years before. The man looked around for his paint can but it had disappeared into the shadows. His eyes were glowing in the starlight, a pale blue, and he breathed noisily.
They stared each other down for a ragged moment.
“Thierry?” Merle asked. “Go home. Laissez maintenant.”
The man looked at her, blinking, and didn’t move. Did he not understand? She repeated her demands that he leave immediately, pulling Elise’s arm toward the door. She had a hand on the door knob when she said his name again.
“Laissez ici. Allez à la maison!”
He laughed this time, then spun and ran down the street, into the night.
Seventeen
Languedoc
Pascal d’Onscon adjusted the burgundy wool beret above his eyebrows for the fifth time. He felt ridiculous in this get-up as an old-fashioned farmer from the countryside, complete with blue jumpsuit, powdered hair, drawn lines on his face, and the ubiquitous French beret. He had stuffed a small pillow into his underwear, giving him a paunch, also a necessity for the elderly.
He waited in his car down the road until he’d seen the boy, the grandson of the owner of the vineyard, drive past in a hurry for his afternoon pint with his friends
in the village. Pascal couldn’t chance meeting up with the grandson again. They’d spent too much time together on his last visit.
Antoine-Luc Gagne had spoken to him on the phone yesterday. The harvest was due to begin next week at Domaine Bourboulenc, the grandson said. They were busy organizing workers, finding extra help, extra tools, all the necessary preparations. It would take weeks to harvest this enormous vineyard but it was done painstakingly by hand, like the old ways his grandfather demanded.
Pascal’s hope was to find the ninety-year-old proprietor alone. He was nearly blind, giving Pascal an advantage in his disguise. Even if the two sons were around he was fairly confident they wouldn’t recognize him either. Men rarely looked at the elderly with the same eye they gave to young women or the competition for such women, men their own age.
After Antoine-Luc disappeared in a cloud of dust in a sporty American car with blue racing stripes, Pascal turned his BMW around and drove toward the vineyard gates, finding a shady spot along the lane to park. He got out, hiked up his underpants, and began a wobbly, bowlegged walk down the lane and into the vineyard itself. His line this time was an offer of harvest workers, a special connection he supposedly had with some North Africans. Moroccans and Algerians who spoke French were highly prized. He would supply a small army for the old man, if he agreed. Finding enough workers for the vendange was always a struggle.
The grandson had spilled some information about illegal sales across AOC territories the last time he was here; this time Pascal hoped to get final confirmation. Selling grapes to wineries outside of the AOC, the Appellation d'origine contrôlée, was a serious offense but difficult to prove. Grapes didn’t come with labels so wineries did much of the control themselves, to protect their reputations.
No one answered his knock on the door of the mas, the farmhouse now tasting room where he’d been offered refreshments the last time. He walked around the old building and found an older woman picking vegetables in a tidy bed. Her tomato plants were robust, heavy with ripe fruit she was putting into a large basket at her feet. She straightened and squinted at him from under her large hat.
Bennett Sisters Mysteries Box Set 2 Page 13