by Sally Wright
Finally, when Jack was beginning to feel desperate—as though all the time and money he’d spent, and the hopes he’d had of coming to France and finding who the real traitor had been, slipped away as he lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling—he decided to visit the art museum on the slim chance that someone who worked there would know what had happened to Camille Benoit.
It felt to him like a last chance. And yet he found himself postponing the moment—walking the cobbles behind the cathedral, past the Lycée where Camille had taught in 1944; sitting in the cold, dark, much embellished church, studying the interior—before he walked to the Musée Des Beaux Arts that almost grew against the southern side of the old cathedral.
The stone walls around the museum were ten- or twelve-feet high, and it wasn’t until he’d walked under the tall, pillared, carved stone arch that he could see the museum and its garden.
Then Jack hurried, running up the stone steps, rushing through the huge front door to the imposing antique reception desk, where he asked if anyone knew Camille Benoit and how he might get in touch.
It took six more days of wandering in the dark while the woman curator made undisclosed calls to unnamed contacts before he received a message from Camille. She was working at Château de la Flocellière, five hours or more southwest of Tours, restoring a painting. If he wished to meet her at the château there in the village of Flocellière, she would be willing to speak with him.
It was May 6th when he saw her face for the first time since 1944—the thick curly amber hair escaping in wisps around her face, the rest wrapped loosely, fastened with a tortoise-shell comb on the back of her elegant head. The strong bones and wide mouth. The dark eyebrows. The gray-green eyes that seemed to pierce his soul.
Excerpt From Jo Grant Munro’s Journal
Thursday, May 7th, 1964
Alan and I made love last night after he was indicted like we might never get a chance again. Like nothing else existed in the world but us trying to climb inside each other’s skin. And while we loved each other, for all that time, we were free of the horror of his life being laid on a razor-thin line.
I woke up an hour later, half pinned under Alan, with Ross crying across the hall, on the other side of the dining room.
I’d breast fed him for three months, but I’d never had nearly enough milk, so I held him that night just as close and gave him a bottle of formula, and told myself I was doing what I could. Which was when I thought about the medical study I read a year or so ago in which it was claimed that the smaller one’s breasts, the higher one’s IQ. It may not be true, of course (medical studies being what they are), but it made me smile, when I needed to, before I kissed the side of his head.
I was almost dozing again myself while I rocked him, when I found myself unexpectedly remembering something Alan had told me sometime in the fall. That there’d been a lab supply distributor that Carl had bought a lot of stuff from, who lost Equine’s business after Carl left when they found they could buy more cheaply from other suppliers. Someone had said he was upset with Carl, though I don’t think I ever knew why.
When I got back to bed, Alan was awake, and I asked him what he knew about the guy, and he said he’d look into it.
Alan took his lie detector test this afternoon. He seemed to be very calm about it, because he said every answer he gave was true, and if the test was reliable at all, they’d figure that out. It can’t be introduced as evidence, but it may help Earl begin to rethink his assumption of Alan’s guilt. I just hope the test results end up being accurate.
Friday, May 8th, 1964
Spencer trailered Tracker over about five thirty, and he and Alan rode cross country for over an hour while Jo watched Ross and cooked dinner. She’d always cooked more elaborate dinners on Friday night than normal, making it into a minor celebration when they sat and talked longer than usual, and even drank a glass of wine, while they looked back on the week, and discussed what they were reading, and planned the rest of the weekend.
They ate in the dining room (where they always ate when they weren’t out under the arbor), and they used good china and silver from Alan’s mother’s family. That night it was chicken in mustard sauce, with brown rice and mushrooms, and crisp cooked kale from Toss’ garden.
Alan opened a bottle of wine from the Rhone Valley that his mother’s family had sent him from France. And they talked of what had befallen them all since they’d last had dinner.
“I was all set to manage the barn manufacturer, but Blue Grass burning down made me reconsider. Rebuilding would cost an arm and a leg, even with the insurance money, and there’s not much left of the business. If we tried to start up again, I’d still be left with Richard and Martha outvoting me. So …” Spencer had been twirling his wine in his glass, watching the deep red swirl, before he thoughtfully inhaled the fruit and spices, and took another sip. “I decided to talk to Everett Adams.”
Jo said, “I know Everett. He was pretty much my parents’ age, and he used to manufacture some kind of small equipment for the war effort. He got into horse vans afterwards. Right? I haven’t seen him in three or four years.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly right. So to make a very long story short”—Spencer held his glass out toward Alan, who poured him another inch in the big balloon glass—“he and I have come to an agreement. I’ll buy him out over time, giving him a steady income without a huge one-lump-sum to have to pay taxes on, while I try to combine our businesses.”
“What about Richard and Martha?” Alan set his elbows on the table as he looked across at Spencer.
“Their advisors told them there’s not enough left of Blue Grass’s client base to make it worthwhile to try to rebuild. So they’ll take two-thirds of the insurance money, and I’ll take my third, assuming, of course, that we actually get it, and use it toward buying Everett’s. We’ll sell the Blue Grass land, and what’s left of the buildings. The small warehouse is still intact, and it’s a good commercial location. We may have to pay for the demolition, but someone will end up buying.”
Alan said, “Buying out Adams sounds like a real commitment.”
“It is. I’ve been evaluating Everett’s operation, which has plusses and minuses like you’d expect. And I’m hoping I can bring back the folks who worked at Blue Grass I really relied on, and attract our old customer base too, adding it to his. It’s risky. I’ll sell the farm if I have to, but it’s what I want to do. Maybe you guys can help me come up with a new name that’s similar to the old one, but different enough too.”
Jo said, “Didn’t Everett have a son in the business?”
“A mechanical engineer. That’s what made Everett willing to sell. His son got an offer to work for someone up in Pennsylvania he went to college with who makes medical prosthetics, and he finds that more interesting. Which I can understand too.”
“Yeah. More rice?” Alan passed the bowl to Spencer and asked how Richard and Martha were taking it.
“They think they’re being unfairly treated. As though I haven’t taken care of them the way I should. But I have to make a life, and do what I know how to do, and work with people I trust.”
Jo said, “Good for you.”
“We’re going to have to sell Mom and Dad’s house too, which bothers me, because they loved it so much, but taxes have to be paid. Martha’s going to have to get a real job, and so is Richard. And I think that’s what they both need.”
“What about the woman you were dating from the barn building company?”
“Elizabeth. We’re still going out, but I can’t rush into anything, that’s for sure. And if she’s as serious a person as I think she is, she won’t run from the risk, and will find the horse business interesting.”
Jo said, “Good. I hope so. I like her.”
Alan was pouring coffee into his cup and Jo’s, and refilling Spencer’s. “Have you ever had Buffalo Trace bourbon? I almost never drink any kind of liquor, but a guy I work with gave me a bottle for Christmas, and I’ve never
even opened it. You want to try a taste?”
Spencer raised his eyebrows, and smiled across at Alan. “Sure. I guess. I don’t drink much whisky either. Maybe one on New Years. But sure, I’ll take a small one. I do want to talk about the evidence in your case, though. There’s got to be something we can do to help figure this out.”
“The County Attorney and the cops aren’t getting to it. They think they’ve got their case made.”
Jo gave Ross his bath and played with him for awhile, then fed him a bottle and put him to bed, and finished the dishes while Spencer and Alan talked on in the dining room.
When she came back in to clear the coffee cups, they were both talking loudly, and waving their hands more than normal, and laughing way more than seemed reasonable, and she realized, like a knife in the chest, that they were both close to being all out drunk.
She stood there with her back to the archway into the farm office/study, trying to think of something to say. She’d never seen Alan even marginally loaded, or Spencer either one, and it made her feel panicked, as well as irritated, laid on top of everything else that had gone wrong in their lives.
They’d been drinking the bourbon neat, half an inch in a cocktail glass, but there must’ve been plenty of refills, since the bottle was less than half full. She picked up the last of the coffee cups and saucers, and reached for the bottle of bourbon, but Alan put his hand on it and said, “Hey, Josie. We might want one more. I’ll put it away in a minute.”
She wanted to say “You’ve both had more than enough.” But she didn’t. It wasn’t her job to tell Alan what to do. And she didn’t want to embarrass him in front of Spencer.
Then Spencer stood up and laughed, and said, “I don’t know, Alan. I’m more loaded than I thought.” His face was pink under his tan, and his blond-brown hair was sticking straight up as though he’d been rubbing his scalp.
“You think so?” Alan was staring up at him as though focusing took concentration.
Jo looked from one to the other, and said, “Spence, I’ll make up the guest bed for you. You can’t trailer Tracker home. You wouldn’t want to take that chance.”
Alan said, “Do I detect a note of censoriousness?” He was smiling, but there was a warning somewhere inside it.
Jo stood and stared at him, without knowing how to react.
Spencer watched her for a minute. Then nodded and said, “Hell. I haven’t been loaded in years. Not since France, at the end of the war. And one thing I do know, I’m not gonna like it in the morning. You either, brother. What were we thinking?”
He and Alan both more or less giggled, which made Jo feel even worse.
She went into Ross’s room off the south side of the dining room—her parents’ bedroom, the one they’d built at the south end with a bathroom behind it. She took Ross out of his crib there, and settled him in his bassinette, watching him turn on his stomach without waking—his head to one side, his behind in the air—before she rolled him through the dining room, across the hall, and into the living room, where she settled him close to their bedroom door.
Alan and Spencer stayed at the table, standing and talking and weaving around some, while she put clean sheets on the guest bed in Ross’s room, and more towels in the bathroom, with her mind in an uproar as the men laughed on.
The two of them finally went to bed about one, when she was feeding Ross again, but Jo couldn’t bear to go to bed, and she put Ross down, and sat on the front porch in an old wicker chair, feeling as though her life had turned dangerous in ways she’d never expected.
She’d drunk half a glass of water, and was blowing her nose, and trying not to cry, watching the stars getting hidden behind clouds—when she heard boot heels on gravel coming up from the barns on the south.
Someone was walking toward her, wading across the grass, and she waited and listened, hoping it was Toss, and not Scooter, the barn hand, who helped at the heighth of the foaling.
“Josie?” Toss appeared, outlined against the darkness, his soft low musical voice reminding her of her mother’s.
“Hey.”
“What are you doin’ out here?”
“Just sitting.”
There was light sliding out onto the porch, soft light from the hall and the dining room, and Toss must’ve seen her face when she looked to her right toward him.
“Mind if I sit too?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll use the facilities I come for, and be right back out.”
While he was gone, she tried to swallow the stone in her throat, and worked at not wanting to cry, but the more she tried the harder it got, and when Toss came back and sat down next to her, there were tears washing down her face, and the noises she made made her furious. Embarrassed, and humiliated, and disgusted with herself for crying like a little kid.
“Good thing we put a gate up at the road last year. There were folks from the TV and the papers there till right before Spencer pulled in.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the matter, honey?”
“You haven’t called me honey since I was ten years old.”
“I haven’t found you crying alone in the dark since then when your daddy died, even when you had reason. What’s happened?”
He handed her a large folded handkerchief, and she blew her nose and swallowed. “Alan and Spencer got drunk after dinner. I hate seeing people drunk. We have a glass of wine on Friday and Saturday. Maybe two, at most, one of those nights. But I’ve never seen Alan drink like that. What if he turns into a drunk? I couldn’t stand it, Toss! I couldn’t. I’ve got to respect Alan. If that goes, I don’t know what I’d do.”
“I understand what ya mean. I do. But—”
“If I can’t rely on Alan to be strong and sensible and trustworthy, I can’t face what we’re going through. I can’t! He’d be just like Jack used to be. And Butch, falling in the street. I couldn’t stand it!”
“He won’t turn into a drunk. He won’t, honey. He’s a real responsible man. Like your daddy. Like Tommy too. You married a man, Josie. He ain’t about to let you down.”
“Why would he get drunk? It only makes things worse!”
“Look at the pressure he’s under. Accused of murdering somebody he didn’t? Facing jail time? Losin’ you and Ross forever? Don’t you reckon that weighs on his mind?”
“Of course! But why would he go and get loaded?”
“He didn’t plan to.”
“That makes it scarier in a way. That if it happened once, he could slide into it again, just the same way without meaning to.”
“Why’s it scare you so much?”
“Drunk people act like fools. I saw it in college all the time. The guys from the war as bad as anybody. You start out a reasonable person, and a few drinks later, you’re either a raging bully, or a pathetic looking idiot, who’s lost every shred of dignity and basic common sense.”
“You ever get drunk?”
“Twice. The first time totally by accident because I didn’t know how much I could drink, and I was with people who were drinking a lot. The other time, when I was … when I realized the guy I was engaged to up at the U of M was sleeping with anybody wearing a skirt. I went out pretty deliberately and got myself soused.”
“How’d you like it?”
“I hated it. I got sick as a dog. I made a complete fool of myself and couldn’t even remember half of it. And it made getting over Nate a whole lot worse.”
“Right. That’s what Alan’s gonna think in the morning. It mustta been a desperate kinda thing he did tonight, but I’m tellin’ you, it ain’t in him to make a practice of it. I’ve seen drunks all my life, and I’ve overindulged myself from time to time, when I was a youngster, before you was born. I grew up and got over it.”
“He’s old enough to know better.” Jo started crying again, and struggled to stop, then drank the rest of her water. She gulped and sighed, and shook her head. “It’s kinda like the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“You know, I was born in nineteen hundred. I turned eighteen the last year of World War I, and I went right out and enlisted. I never went overseas. I spent most of my time in Kansas, carin’ for a bunch a cavalry horses on a post in the middle a nowhere.” Toss stopped then and smoked for half a minute. Then turned and looked right at Jo. “Your mother ever tell you ’bout me bein’ engaged?”
“No! Are you kidding? I never heard a word.”
“Well. I was. I knew Margaret from the time I was two or three. Church socials. Going to a one-room schoolhouse. She was older than me, three years, and she was way smarter. I used to listen to her recite, and answer questions real good, and work problems out on her slate, and I marveled at how quick she was, and how pretty, and good, and sensible, and all. I won’t say she didn’t have a temper.” Toss snorted quietly, and clicked his Zippo, and sat for most of a minute.
“She had a brother, who was younger like me, who had a real ugly harelip, and kids, being the nasty little brutes they are, they’d tease him, and make fun of the way he talked. He never seemed to pay it much mind himself. But Margaret couldn’t stand it, and she bloodied more than one nose, and I helped too, a time or two, when some cuss had it comin’.” Toss chuckled and stubbed out his cigarette, and rocked his chair back on its back legs, swaying it forward and back.
“I don’t know what it was she saw in me, but she saw somethin’. She went off and got trained as a nurse, and come back just when I was fixin’ to enlist. I asked her to become my wife, and Margaret … Margaret agreed.” Toss was quiet again. Staring at the sky.
Jo held her breath as she watched him, in a haze of light from the house. He’d never said much of anything about his past—not in her whole life—and she knew it meant more than she could understand, and she had to meet it just right.