Provence - To Die For

by Jessica Fletcher

  “She is so innocent,” he said, watching Claire’s face. “And he treated her so poorly, like some common piece of fluff. He knew she found him appealing. Why, Claire? I’ll never understand.”

  Claire bit her lip and kept her eyes cast down.

  “It’s not so hard to understand. A young woman’s infatuation with a powerful older man,” I offered. “He was very charismatic and Claire is very young. She would have outgrown him.”

  “I like to think that,” he said. “It is comforting to think that.”

  “You’ve always looked after her. When you saw her pull the knife from Bertrand, your first instinct was to protect her again by hiding the knife.”

  He looked at me quizzically. “How do you know this?” he asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “I didn’t know for sure until you said you don’t pay attention to every knife and fork. That isn’t the Guy Lavande I’ve come to know. The real Guy Lavande knows the location of every knife and fork, plate and pot and pan. Remember? You told me that in a kitchen, it’s important to be precise, to know where everything is. And that’s why you’re such a wonderful sous chef. Emil relied on you to have everything perfectly prepared for him, to know what needed to be brought in next, to have his special knives ready. Besides, Madame Poutine said she saw Claire standing over Chef Bertrand’s body. Who else would care enough to put himself at risk to help her by concealing the murder weapon? That’s a crime where I come from. No, I felt it had to have been you. And I was right.”

  A look of calm swept across his face, as though a suffocating weight had been lifted. He said earnestly, “Her fingerprints were on it. I was going to warn her but then she ...”—he gave Mme Poutine a fierce look—“but then she came downstairs and screamed and made Claire run away.”

  “But you helped her all the same. After Madame Poutine left. you hid the murder weapon, and then you put the knife with the rabbit blood on it in Mallory’s backpack to throw suspicion on her, and to protect Claire.”

  Claire made a small noise of distress, and looked at Guy.

  “Oui,” he said..

  “But my men searched this room,” an irritated LeClerq said.

  Guy looked away. “They did,” he said. “I waited till the officers were preoccupied with removing Emil’s body. While they were outside, I sneaked back in.”

  “It worked out, didn’t it?” I said gently. “The police arrested Mallory.”

  “And let Claire go,” he said. a tiny, satisfied smile crossing his lips.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, Guy,” Claire whispered.

  LeClerq’s nostrils flared. “Where did you bide the knife, Monsieur Lavande?”

  I pointed to the row of olive jars on the shelf above the stove, their designs, called hermines, all perfectly aligned. “Up there?” I asked Guy. “The one you straightened the other day?-He nodded. “Oui,” he replied. ”It is up there. I will get it for you.”

  LeClerq jumped up and grabbed Guy’s arm. “No, monsieur,” he said, “I will get the knife.”

  We all watched as the detective pulled gloves from his pocket and used them to grasp the jar. I went to help him, but he held on to the jar himself, placed it on the table, and removed the lid. I looked into the jar and saw the handle of one of the two knives specially crafted for the master chef Emil Bertrand. LeClerq extracted the knife and laid it on the table.

  Everyone stared at the knife except Claire, who gazed through the window into the medieval courtyard where Bertrand had been killed.

  “Ah,” said Mme Poutine. “You now have the murder weapon and the murderer.”

  All eyes went to Guy.

  He realized what was behind those eyes, the accusation that he had killed Bertrand.

  “No, no,” he said, raising his hands as though to shield himself from those thoughts. “I did not kill him. I hated him, yes. I may be guilty of concealing a murder weapon, but I am not a killer. You are wrong.”

  “Your protestations are not very convincing, Monsieur Lavande,” LeClerq said.

  “You don’t understand,” Guy said, this time extending his hands palms up, in a gesture of pleading. “Please believe me. You must believe me.” He looked from face to face.

  “I do,” I said.

  “Then it must be her,” Daniel said, pointing at Mme Poutine.

  “Watch yourself, or you’ll be out of a job,” she snapped. “There are other chefs we can hire.”

  “It may not be your decision to make,” Daniel replied. “René will inherit his father’s restaurant.”

  LeClerq interrupted their exchange. “It seems everyone in this kitchen had the motive to kill Chef Bertrand,” he said.

  “Not me,” said Daniel. “He was taking me with him.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Madame Poutine said. “He was leaving everyone behind—me, you, Guy and Claire—everyone. He was planning to dump her, too. She may be a pretty little thing by Avignon standards, but she’s no match for Parisian ladies.” She laughed at her observation.

  Claire glared at Mme Poutine. “You were always jealous of me.”

  “You! I have no need to be jealous of you. What do you have I should be jealous of?”

  “I had Emil.”

  “You did not. You only thought you did.”

  LeClerq had heard enough. He picked up the knife, put it in an evidence bag, and announced, “You are under arrest, Monsieur Lavande, for the murder of Emil Bertrand.”

  “No,” Claire wailed.

  Guy turned to me. “Madame Fletcher, please help me. You believe me.”

  “Then tell him, Guy,” I said.

  Guy turned to LeClerq and again started to protest his innocence, but I interrupted. “Tell him, Guy. You know who the real murderer is.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You can. You tried to protect her, but you can’t anymore.”

  “Who, Madame Fletcher?” LeClerq asked.

  “Claire,” I said, addressing the young woman. “Are you going to let Guy go to jail? Are you going to allow him to continue trying to save you from your own mistakes? Could you be that cruel to someone who loves you?”

  Guy jumped from his seat. “No, she didn’t do it. I did it. She’s innocent. He deserved to die. He was abandoning her, leaving her behind.”

  “Claire,” I said. “If you don’t confess, Guy will be charged with murder. He has already committed a crime for you. If he wiped your fingerprints from the knife, chances are he left his own on it. Think about it, Claire. Could you live with yourself if he had to spend years behind bars for you?”

  “Claire, don’t say anything,” Guy shouted. “I did it. I did it.”

  Tears coursed down Claire’s cheeks and she shook her head. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “Yes, Claire,” he pleaded. “Let me do this. I love you.”

  “I wish I loved you instead,” she told him.

  He slumped down in his seat and plowed his hands into his hair.

  Claire raised her eyes to mine and I saw determination there. She pushed up out of her chair, cleared her throat, wiped her eyes, and began speaking. “Emil wasn’t only walking out on me. He was abandoning our baby.” She placed a trembling hand over her stomach. “Our child, a sign of our love. I was so happy when I discovered I was pregnant. Now, I thought, we would be together forever. And then she”—she glared at Mme Poutine—“she had to tell me how he didn’t really care for me. He was only playing with me. She ... she dirtied our beautiful love.” She shuddered. “I went to tell him what she said. I knew he would deny it. He was arguing with Guy. I waited till Guy went back to the kitchen and then threw myself into his arms. He pushed me away. He waved around a paper and said he had work to do, I was disturbing him. I said, ‘No, listen to me,’ and told him about the baby and he ... he said he didn’t want it.” She began to weep again. “He ... he told me, ‘Get rid of it.’ I couldn’t believe he could say that. It was our baby, the baby we made when we made love.” H
er voice hardened. “I ... I wanted to hurt him the way he hurt me. And the knife was right there on the table. I stabbed him, and he was so surprised. He just kind of sank down to the floor.” She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, reliving the scene. “And then I realized what I’d done. I was horrified, and I tried to take it back. I pulled out the knife. But it was too late.” Her voice quavered. “All the pretty words. I’d believed all his pretty words, and they were all lies.” She looked desperately around the room. “Why? Why didn’t he love me?”

  To my surprise, Mme Poutine walked to Claire and embraced her. The young woman collapsed, sobbing in the arms of her older rival. Mme Poutine crooned to her as if she were consoling a child.

  Guy crossed his arms on the table and lowered his head. Daniel stood behind him and squeezed his shoulders. Captain LeClerq caught Mme Poutine’s eye and cocked his head toward the door. Together they walked Claire out of the room, across the medieval courtyard where Emil Bertrand had betrayed his young lover. Together they took Claire away, while Guy wept quietly in the kitchen.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I suspect,” I told the Thomases, “that a French court and jury will take into consideration Claire’s youth, and the circumstances that brought her to the point of lashing out at Bertrand.”

  “He was such a bastard,” Craig said.

  “I’ll bet Guy will stand firmly with her through everything,” Jill said.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I agreed.

  “But why didn’t Mallory tell you about the knife as soon as she found it?” Jill asked.

  “Yes,” Craig added. “Why didn’t she?”

  The Thomases and I were sitting in the restaurant Christian Étienne, owned by the chef of the same name. An up-to-the-minute restaurant in a fourteenth-century building, Christian Étienne was characteristic of the juxtaposition of past and present that marked so much of modern-day Avignon. I recognized the symbol of Anne of Brittany, the hermine, stenciled on the beams above us and on the hand-painted wall that dated to when the queen of France had visited the walled city. It was the same image painted on the olive jars, into one of which Guy had dropped the knife Claire used to kill Emil Bertrand.

  “Mallory was afraid of the police,” I said. “She’d gotten herself into some trouble at school and had left others to take the blame. That’s why she was running away. She didn’t want to go back and face the consequences. Her friends were furious with her, and she was fearful of admitting her guilt to the authorities. She told everyone she was eighteen, thinking people would accept her as an adult and not question why she was traveling alone.”

  “It must be a great relief for both of you,” Craig said, ”now that her uncle is taking Mallory home.”

  “It is,” I said.

  “Did you have a chance to say good-bye?” Jill asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “We had quite a farewell.”

  “I came to say good-bye, Mrs. Fletcher.” Mallory stooped in the doorway of Martine’s house, picked up the gray cat, and stroked its furry head. She was wearing a flowered skirt and cotton sweater under her ski jacket. It was the first time I’d seen her in something other than blue jeans.

  “This is my uncle, John Cartright,” she said, introducing the man who stood behind her. “Uncle John, Mrs. Fletcher is the lady I told you about

  “My brother’s family and I are very grateful that you were here for Mallory,” said her uncle, thrusting his arm forward. “There’s no way we can thank you enough.”

  “No thanks are necessary,” I said, shaking his hand. “Won’t you come in and sit down? I have coffee and tea.”

  “We’ll come in for a moment, but we can’t stay long,” he said. “We have a plane to catch in Marseilles, and it’s a long ride to the airport.”

  Mallory put down the cat and we settled on Martine’s facing sofas. Mallory sat next to her uncle on one; I sat across from them. I had the feeling that John Cartright wasn’t going to let her get more than a foot away until the door closed on the airplane and they were on their way back to Cincinnati.

  “Mallory, you have something to say, don’t you?” her uncle said.

  Mallory fiddled with the end of her braid. She looked confused, then brightened. “We have a surprise for you,” she said. “We put it in the garage.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “We got you a brand-new bike. And for Martine, of course. It’s really hers, I know. It’s blue, like the old one, but much prettier, and it has ten speeds and a great big basket in front for your groceries.”

  “Thank you,” I said, “but what happened to the other one?”

  “I left it in the woods and someone took it,” she said. “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Fletcher.”

  “That’s not all you’re sorry about, is it?” her uncle prodded. He lifted her braid out of her hands and placed it gently behind her.

  “No,” Mallory said, a quaver in her voice. “I’m sorry I was such trouble, Mrs. Fletcher. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry I took your bike and ran away. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the knife. And ... and I’m sorry I was so rude when you tried to help me.” She dissolved in tears. Her uncle pulled a white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. She took off her glasses, wiped her streaming eyes, and dabbed at her nose.

  I leaned forward. “I can’t say it’s all right, Mallory, because it’s not,” I said as kindly as I knew how. “You’re a bright, wonderful young woman with a lot to offer. There’s no reason to be dishonest or make up stories. It doesn’t improve the way you’re seen, and it diminishes your character.”

  “I know,” she said, hanging her head.

  “If you lie,” I said, “you’ll never know if someone likes you because of the tale you tell or if they’re seeing through to the real you. You were lucky with me. I have X-ray vision.”

  She gave me a watery smile. “I know,” she said. “You saw through me right away.”

  “Right away,” I echoed.

  “I’m going to tell the headmaster what I did when I get back.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. “You’ll feel better about yourself when you’ve taken responsibility. It’s an important part of growing up.”

  “That’s the same thing I told her,” Cartright said.

  “Tell me, Mallory, where did you go when you left here? The police were surprised they couldn’t find you right away.”

  “I didn’t go very far,” she said, embarrassed. “I went to Madame Arlenne’s. I lied to her and told her we’d had a fight and you’d called the police to have me kicked out.” She looked at me and blushed. “She believed me and let me hide there.”

  “And how did you end up in Albert’s barn, where the police found you?”

  “I got bored hanging around Madame Arlenne’s. She kept pressuring me to tell her all about the murder so she could gossip with her friends. I’d already told her everything I knew—except about the knife, of course. So when she went to hang out her laundry, I decided I’d go for a walk in the woods.”

  “Weren’t you afraid you’d be seen if you left her house?”

  “I was. That’s why I took the bike, so I could cross the road and get up your driveway quickly.”

  “You weren’t concerned about me?”

  “Madame Arlenne had seen you leave in the morning. She told me you drove away with a man and a woman. I figured it was the Thomases and you might be gone for a while.”

  “Go on.”

  “I walked the bike along the trail and I heard the howling again. Remember, we heard howling at night?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Monsieur Telloir thought it was a dog.”

  “Well, he was right. It was a dog—more than one, it turned out. I followed the sound till I came to a farm. I left the bike in the woods and sneaked into the barn. They had at least two dozen dogs penned up, and they weren’t being cared for. There was no water or food in the cages at all. They looked so sad. I felt sorry f
or them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I let them out.” She grinned at me. “They were wagging their tails and jumping on me and scampering all over. Some men came running out of the farmhouse and were trying to catch the dogs and the police arrived and all hell broke loose.”

  “Mallory, your language,” her uncle said.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Later, the police told me they’d been watching the property but couldn’t search it without some proof. When I let out the dogs, that was their proof, and they moved in to arrest Monsieur Belot. I heard sirens and didn’t know what to do, so I hid in the loft. When the police found me, at first they thought I was in cahoots with the dognappers.” Her smile faded and a frown replaced it. “But then they discovered who I was and arrested me.”

  “Well, I’m very relieved that you’re out of jail and all right,” I said.

  “Me, too,” she replied, smiling again.

  John Cartright got to his feet. “We’ve got a plane to catch, Mal.” To me he said, “Thank you again, Mrs. Fletcher. My brother and sister-in-law will want to write or call. Will you be at this address for a little while longer?”

  “Yes,” I said happily. “I’ll be here for another month at least, maybe more.”

  I walked them outside to their car.

  M. Telloir was walking up the drive with two dogs. He waved at us as the dogs raced ahead, barking excitedly. They ran in circles around Mallory, who squatted down to pet them. They jumped all over her, putting their paws on her shoulders and licking her face till she fell backward, laughing.

  “Ah, my ’eroine,” M. Telloir said, coming up to us.

  I introduced the two men. “She ‘as made me so ’appy,” he said, pumping John Cartright’s hand while Mallory got to her feet and brushed off her skirt. “I ‘ave my Chasseur back. ’E and Magie are going to be good truffle dogs together.” He turned to Mallory. “Merci, merci, mademoiselle.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, glowing with. pleasure.