“Tell you what, cherie, you can go with Michael and me to the vide-grenier in Noyers. There will be at least forty tables set up with books, toys, china, and other wonderful things to look at, plus food stalls. If Andres, the man who sells ukuleles, is there, he and Michael may play some duets.”
That was enough to set the teenager dancing around Katherine in circles, swooping in to kiss her on both cheeks before running off down the hill, probably to tease her little brothers unmercifully about what they would be missing. Katherine shook her head and wondered if she was helping Jeannette or merely indulging the child’s impulsive nature.
CHAPTER 8
That evening, Katherine sat on the chaise with her arms wrapped around her knees while Michael picked out the tune of another new song he was writing. The white dog curled up at the foot of the chair, watching them both with liquid brown eyes while Gracey attempted to climb onto the battered chaise and Katherine’s lap.
“Down, Gracey,” Katherine said, pushing ineffectually at the mass of black fur that leaned its full weight against her shoulder. “Darling, I’m afraid. Remember when Yves and Albert came to blows? If the police hear about that, will they suspect Yves? I mean, should we not tell the police if it will only make things worse?”
Michael looked up at her, pencil poised in one hand, smiling quizzically. “You think Yves snuck up on Albert in the middle of the night because Albert broke a plate over his head? That’s a little extreme. I don’t think you can keep it a secret, Kay. Everyone else saw it.”
“We could ask people not to mention it, couldn’t we? I could call everyone and explain.”
“Explain what? Adele was there, remember? And J.B., who wasn’t even there, threw it out in front of a cop.”
“Oh, damn, that’s right. At least part of the story, not the whole thing. Do you think the policeman understood?”
“I’m not sure he paid any attention. I’m just saying you can’t cover it up.” He plucked a few more notes, strummed a chord, and jotted something on the score paper on the stand in front of him. “I know you have good intentions, Kay, but next thing you know, you’ll be arrested as some kind of accessory. Think about it. I won’t be able to bail you out because I don’t know how the system works and can’t speak a word of the language.”
“Oh.” Katherine was quiet for a minute, looking meditatively at a spot on the wall.
“I was teasing, sweetie, but I don’t much like your look. I have a hunch you’re considering something that will make matters worse.”
“Michael,” she began, drawing a deep breath, “what if—”
Her husband shook his head and smiled at her in exasperation. “This hasn’t got anything to do with us and, unless you start meddling, it won’t. Please, sweetheart, stay out of it.”
Katherine opened her mouth to speak, but shut it again. Michael was only trying to protect her, and she loved him for it. But if he was determined to keep this tragedy at arm’s length, she had her friends to think about, or at least Yves, who had brought suspicion on himself with his bratty behavior, but who was hardly a murderer. Katherine worried that if the story of his quarrel with Albert got around, he might be interesting to the police. Who should she call first? She still had the serving plate Penny had lent her for the lunch party and it was past time to return it. Yes, that would be tomorrow morning’s chore. That and finding those missing silver spoons, which she was sure she had put in the armoire in the kitchen.
* * *
Katherine didn’t have to call. Penny was waiting for her on the patio when she and Michael got home after their early-morning drive for baguettes and coffee.
“Darlings,” Penny said. “Something is going on. Police cars and vans, every one headed up to the castle. I was trying to reason with the builders the whole time, so I missed it. I would have walked over, but they actually proposed bringing the pipes to the new bathroom right through the kitchen, under the ceiling. Can you imagine?”
Michael exited the conversation into the house, as he frequently did when Penny showed up, and Katherine waved Penny to the chairs under the pear tree to fill her in on the tragic happenings at the château. She had hardly begun when a voice called, “’Allo, mes amis,” and a middle-aged string bean of a man in jeans so short his ankles protruded jogged the length of the driveway to join them. Emile had recently retired from his dental practice and was concentrating on his twin passions of pétanque, France’s age-old version of bocce or lawn bowling, and playing music, in which, he said, he was inspired by Michael Goff, the famous American rock star who was now his neighbor. Nothing Michael had said could disabuse Emile of the conviction that Don Henley might show up any day for a jam session with Michael.
“Emile, do sit. I’m glad you’re here,” Katherine said, patting the chair next to her. “Now I can tell you both at the same time.” Emile pulled the women up one at a time to kiss them properly on both cheeks, then dropped into the chair, a nascent potbelly visible under an old striped jersey.
“It is terrible, non?” he said in shocked tones. “Our own Albert, shot to death by robbers in the night. And the thieves tied up poor Madame and took everything from the safe.” He shook his head repeatedly as he spoke.
“What?” Penny said. “Robbers here? And they killed Albert?”
“No, no,” Katherine said. “I mean, yes, he is dead, but he wasn’t shot and Adele wasn’t tied up.”
“Yes, yes,” Emile said. “Madame Durand at the supermarché told me, and she heard it from the man who delivers the baguettes.” Emile began to explain how the bread truck driver had heard, but Penny interrupted.
“Oh my gosh, are we safe? Maybe I should go lock my front door.” Penny stood up suddenly. “My car’s not locked either, and my jewelry—”
“Sit down, Penny,” Katherine said in a sharp voice so unlike her normal one that Penny sat as abruptly as she had stood, and both she and Emile stopped speaking. “Adele is fine, well, not fine, of course, but not injured. She told me she simply found him on the stone steps at the back of the upstairs hallway, which they use to go down to the kitchen, when she went for his morning coffee. She told me she thought it might be a heart attack.” For an instant, Katherine saw Albert, his crumpled, fragile body as it must have been, and the reality of his death as something other than a test of her social standing washed over her again. She shivered and jumped up to straighten the oilcloth on the rickety table between her and her guests. “It’s terrible,” she said with a lump in her throat, and plopped down in her chair again.
Penny and Emile sat silently for a moment, absorbing this new information, Emile looking stricken that his unimpeachable source at the supermarket might have gotten her facts mixed up. Penny looked worried.
Penny broke the silence. “I hate to say it, darling, but while Albert may be pitiable in death, he was hardly loved even before he hit Yves over the head with a plate.”
“Quoi?” Emile said in a shocked voice. “What? Albert and Yves were fighting? But, do you think that Yves, he perhaps—”
“No,” said Katherine and Penny at the same moment.
“It wasn’t—”
“You mustn’t—”
“Oh dear, this is what I was worried about,” Katherine said. “The police may not understand how trivial their quarrel was, and I think it would be better not to mention it at all.”
“Agreed,” Penny said, the anxiety in her voice making Emile look at her appraisingly.
Katherine took comfort in the realization that Emile wasn’t good friends with anyone who had been at the party. He was unlikely to probe elsewhere. Unless, of course, the bread deliveryman had heard it from Marie, the young cheese maker who had recently moved to Reigny. Marie and her husband lived within sight of Emile’s house, so he might well run into them on the way to the café or the poubelle, the only communal gathering places in Reigny.
“Even if the police didn’t put much faith in the idea that someone killed him, they’d have to at least check o
ut people’s motives if there are rumors,” Katherine said. “We don’t want them wasting time looking at anyone in the village.”
“Of course not,” Penny said.
“But who would do such a terrible thing?” Emile whispered.
“Tourists are in and out all summer,” Penny said, jumping on the idea of alternative suspects too quickly for Katherine’s taste. “Maybe someone saw something worth stealing and … Oh well, best not to speculate,” she added, seeing Katherine’s frown and slight shake of the head. “I guess I’ll go back to Chicago without stories of dining with the landed gentry in their châteaux. Not that I thought they’d invite me. They snubbed me even before Yves flirted with their daughter.” She shrugged.
“He never spoke to me.” Emile’s look said he was insulted by this slight in village propriety.
“Nonsense, Emile. He spent a long time talking to you at the last pétanque event, remember?”
“Ah, but that was to tell me that my friends were too noisy and that one of them drove into his hedge.”
Katherine attempted to bring the conversation back to her point. “So, we’re agreed we won’t say anything about the little fuss at the lunch party?”
Emile shook himself. “I myself am inclined to believe the bread man’s story, although I must keep an open mind until all the facts are known, no? Perhaps I shall stop in to visit with Henri. The sheriff and I, we need to discuss the maintenance of the pétanque court while I am on vacation in Spain in any case.”
Katherine hid a smile. Emile relished his self-appointed role as the town’s living newspaper almost as much as he enjoyed putting together the annual pétanque competition, where he played the accordion for three days straight and sang French café songs in an increasingly boozy voice. At the moment, she was sure he was trying to convince himself that no robbers would break into his little house, with its modest garden patch and the old Renault in the dirt driveway.
“I am not worried,” he said bravely when she asked. “My accordion is hardly the thing a robber would want, is it? Of course”—and here his voice took on a serious tone—“it might be something a mec could sell in Paris. Perhaps in the future I should keep it in the armoire, although that would mean finding somewhere else to put my suit. My dear Katherine,” he said, leaning forward, “I have the thought. It is not nice, I know, but Jean could have done this, non? Should we tell the police?”
“Why on earth would you think that?” Katherine said. “He’s not a violent man, and anyway, Jean would hardly creep into the Bellegardes’ house in the middle of the night.”
“He is a thief,” Emile said, his voice becoming heated. “One of these days he will wind up in the detention center in Joux-la-Ville, you will see. Last year, my new automobile tools disappeared from my shed.”
“And?” Penny drawled.
“The very next week, that Jeannette was using a brand-new wrench on her bicycle. When I asked her, she denied it was mine, but she would not let me inspect it.”
“That’s hardly persuasive,” Penny said. “You’ll never convince the police that Jean murdered the old man to steal car parts. Honestly, you let your imagination run wild sometimes, Emile.” She turned to Katherine. “Adele and I aren’t friends, but if there’s anything I can do, you’ll let me know?”
“Sophie has arrived, so it may be best to wait until things have settled down,” Katherine said. “The policeman in charge seems sharp. Unfortunately, he didn’t share any information with us. The doctor came to verify that Albert was truly dead, which I guess they have to do legally, and there were two uniformed gendarmes there when Michael and I went over.”
“You went to see what was happening?” Penny’s eyebrows shot up and Emile looked envious.
“No, I mean, we went over, but only because Adele called in a panic and asked us to come. And now I’m a tiny bit worried.” Penny looked her question. “They may have misunderstood Michael and J.B., for one thing. J.B. said something about the little upset at my ladies’ lunch.”
“Damn him,” Penny said. “What did the detective say?”
“What was this?” Emile said at the same time. “This is the fight you tell me about?”
“It wasn’t a fight, really,” Katherine hastened to say, realizing she had made a tactical error. She turned to Penny. “Actually, he only made reference to the argument, didn’t even say Yves was involved. And it was in front of a gendarme who didn’t appear to be taking any account of our conversation, and I stopped J.B. right away.”
Penny’s frown had reached the line between her perfectly shaped brows and she was gently chewing her lower lip. Emile was sitting on the edge of his chair, his head snapping back and forth between the two women and his expression alert.
Katherine sighed inwardly, but realized she had better finish her thought before Penny left. “I think the best thing you can do is to keep Yves away from them, and away from Sophie. Last time I saw her, I got the feeling she was still quite upset with all of us.”
“Not with you, surely?” Penny said.
“Yes, I think so. You know how it is—a person who’s been rejected imagines everyone is against her. Anyway, tell Yves to behave, will you? It is awkward that he and Albert had such a public falling-out right before Albert died.…” Her voice trailed off. She wished she knew what to do about Emile, who had a passion for gossip and was absorbing everything, as attentive as a cat with a new toy.
“That won’t be hard,” Penny said, getting up and pulling her cardigan around her shoulders. “He called this morning to tell me he went to an estate sale near Paris yesterday and stayed at a hotel there. He wanted me to have his assistant sit the shop today since he’s not sure when he’ll be back.”
“But no, he was in Chablis yesterday,” Emile said. “I saw him when I was driving to the new music store after lunch.”
“Not him,” Penny said, kissing Katherine and making her way to the steps, calling out as she went. “He went up to Paris before lunch so he could have a look at the man’s library before the sale began. Au revoir, I’ll see you later, Katherine. Let me know if I can do anything.”
“I think I must tell the police about Jean,” Emile said, sitting down again and running his fingers through his hair, which looked afterward as if a squirrel had used it for a nest.
Katherine, who had been hoping Emile would leave when Penny did, sat down too. “I agree with Penny, Emile. It wouldn’t be right. After all, you have nothing concrete to back up your suspicion, and think of the children. What if the police took Jean in for questioning? Who would take care of them? It would be hard on Jeannette. Everything would fall on her shoulders.”
Emile sniffed. “Ah, that one. She is her father’s daughter. She sneaks around, you know, spying on people. I have told you, you need to watch her, dear Katherine. She takes things. Last week—”
“Jeannette’s a child, for heaven’s sake,” Katherine said sharply, remembering her own moment of doubt and feeling obscurely guilty for it. “Please, Emile, leave the investigating to the police. Remember, there’s no proof that it was anything other than an accident.” She hesitated. “And, Emile, mon ami, I must ask you to keep our conversation about the little spat between Albert and Yves to yourself. It could so easily be misunderstood, and we don’t want that. Reigny is too small to cope with people turning against each other.”
“‘Spat’?” Emile said, looking confused, which might have been, Katherine realized with a stab of something like annoyance, a ploy to avoid responding to her request.
“An argument. Emile, you must give me your word. Don’t discuss it with the grocery checker or the music store clerk or anyone, promise?”
Pinned down by her look, he said, “Bien sûr, my dear Katherine. Of course not.” Eyes twinkling, he made a little zipping motion over smiling, pursed lips, a gesture that didn’t entirely reassure her. He unfolded himself from his chair, waved gaily, and loped up the driveway, elbows high and out to his sides, almost as though he inten
ded to take off flying any moment. Katherine sighed as she looked after him. She knew he was not thoroughly satisfied with the outcome of the conversation and had a hunch his mind was full of crackpot ideas to better protect his possessions from whomever was roaming his village looking for people to murder in their beds.
Katherine admitted to herself that she was uneasy also, beyond the shock of the old man’s death, although she couldn’t quite name what was bothering her. The possible tearing of the fabric of shared history that held the little town together, perhaps, if someone was guilty. Even the accusations were pulling at the threads that bound Reigny-sur-Canne into a community. They might not have accepted her yet, but Katherine was determined that she would find her place here. It would be too awful if Reigny was torn apart before it had become her community too. As she put out a plate of scraps from yesterday’s lunch for the yellow cat and snipped some parsley from the patch next to the kitchen door, she worried that the sudden death would affect everything until the mayor and sheriff told everyone all was normale. Meanwhile, she told the cat, “The best thing is to focus on Reigny’s fête, agreed?” It would be good for the village and show everyone, once and for all, that she was one of them. “Truth is, little one,” she muttered, looking down at the oblivious animal, “we really don’t have anywhere else to call home. You’re stuck with us, mon petit.” Thinking about their lack of financial options made her momentarily breathless. When her American friends e-mailed her—because no one ever wrote real letters anymore, “And don’t get me started on that,” she said to the cat—they told her how envious they were of her life in close proximity to Paris, eating at two-star restaurants, immersing herself in the sophisticated lives of the French.
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