Love & Death in Burgundy

by Susan C. Shea

  Jeannette stared at Brett and then at Katherine. The confusion on her face mirrored Katherine’s thoughts. She reached into her pocket and brought out the brass piece. “Cette chose? This little thing?”

  The policeman strode over to the girl and held out his hand. “The key and the other object, s’il vous plait. Ah, it is an old percussion cap—an antique bullet, you see?”

  The clearing erupted into a handful of conversations, a small babel of languages, each one trying to untangle the skein of confessions. Above them, ringing with British certainty, Pippa’s “I knew it,” which Katherine thought was disingenuous in the extreme given that Pippa had ten minutes ago pronounced with equal authority that J.B. was a killer.

  The gendarme in charge had had enough confusion too, Katherine guessed. He held up his palm again and all talk ceased. Then he dismissed Pippa, Mme Pomfort, and Mme Robilier, along with Maurice, to their disappointment, and ordered J.B. into one police car and Brett into the other. He instructed the sheriff, pried from his cell phone, to escort Jeannette, assuring an alarmed Jean that it was only to provide her a lift home to change into dry clothes and then to come to the police station at Auxerre, where she could tell them exactly what she saw and who said what. Did Jean wish to accompany them? When the sheriff gave him a nasty look, he demurred.

  The policeman nodded as if he had known that would be the father’s answer. The girl would have a female police officer and someone from the social services with her during the interview, he said, and assuming she was telling the truth would be delivered home shortly by their good neighbor, the sheriff. He raised an eyebrow and looked at Jean as he said it.

  The stage began to empty. The uniformed policemen left first, looking impassively forward, J.B. sitting in the backseat of their little car, waving his hands for emphasis as he told them something. The policeman ducked into the front seat of the chauffeured car with a drooping Brett slumped in the back. The sheriff, visibly annoyed at the interruption of his phone conversation, backed his van out. Jeannette peered through a passenger window at her father with a combination of childish appeal for protection and an ingenue’s thrill at her starring role.

  Before he left, the lieutenant told Katherine and Jean that he would have to speak with them again after he had taken a statement from the visiting Americans. Katherine realized she had better do something about J.B.’s car when she noticed Jean eyeing it appraisingly. “May I call his wife and have her pick it up? After all, you don’t suspect her of anything. She’s a famous singer, you know?” He looked confused. “Well, not really famous, more well known, if you understand. Country music?” When he merely stood there, staring into her face, she decided it was probably best not to say more. He might decide Betty Lou was worth investigating, and then where would she be with the fête coming up soon?

  The lieutenant must have had a similar thought because he said, loud enough for Jean to hear clearly, “The sheriff will bring the car keys and then you may move it to your house, d’accord? Okay? I know nothing will happen to it in the meantime.” He looked at Jean directly to drive home his point.

  When he finally drove off, Katherine turned for home, only to be accosted by Jean, who, to her complete shock, grabbed her roughly and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Merci, Madame, you saved my daughter,” he said gruffly, “my only girl child, who looks like her mother but has twice her brains.” After which, wiping his arm across his watering eyes, he shambled away toward his house, from which Katherine could hear shouts of excitement from Jeannette’s brood of siblings, doubtless getting a look at their sister being delivered home by the dreaded sheriff.

  The message light was blinking when she stumbled, exhausted, into the house. As she collapsed on her chaise and the dogs nosed around their food bowls in hopes of a snack, she pressed the button. It was Adele. “The strangest thing has happened. Sophie called from the office to say Albert’s lawyer has been on the phone to her, wondering why Albert never came to his office to sign some loan papers he had authorized. She wondered if I knew anything about it since the deal was with that horrible man who showed up the day poor Albert died. I’ve left a message for the lieutenant. It seems that your American friend entered into some kind of agreement with Albert to build a music studio in America. Too strange for words, but Sophie says my husband has made a few similar loans over the years and makes money from them somehow. But American music? How very odd.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The next week was consumed with speculation and rumor, delivered to Katherine by Emile in tortured gossip that was invariably false, or by Mme Pomfort and Mme Robilier, who wanted to relive the day in concert during their visits to Katherine’s house. As they sat on the patio sipping lemonade and fanning themselves against the midsummer heat, the two women replayed their heroic actions on that fateful day when they and their neighbor Katherine rescued la pauvre petite Jeannette from the clutches of an evildoer and his dangerous son. As results of the investigation and the court’s decision to treat the case as something a good deal less than murder were reported in the papers and via the supermarché clerk’s daily delivery of gossip, the clucking became louder. Reigny’s judge and jury, Mme Pomfort, had a little of Mme Defarge in her and would have voted for the guillotine. Mme Robilier was more generous, saying more than once to Katherine that the poor boy had such a dreadful father it was no wonder his judgment had slipped.

  “Slipped?” Mme Pomfort said in shock when Madame ventured that opinion one day. “Pushed a distinguished aristocrat and leader of society down the stairs? Surely, my dear friend, that is not precisely what you meant?”

  Mme Robilier assured her in a soothing voice that it was indeed not what she meant, not at all, and that Mme Pomfort had been brilliant in giving the gendarmes her account of the events. Once Reigny’s acknowledged queen bee had been properly soothed, the women settled back into their companionable rehashing of That Day.

  Pippa also came to sit under the pear tree, announcing to Katherine that she had gotten several wonderful ideas for her stories from the events. “I was wrong about the murder, of course, but that hardly matters, does it?” She beamed at Katherine, who privately thought that it mattered a great deal. But she forgave Pippa’s declaration as being the kind of comment a mystery writer might be likely to make.

  “I missed the most important clues,” Katherine said to Pippa as she sipped her café crème. “I almost recognized that little thing Jeannette was carrying around, and the girl told me herself, more than once, that she had seen J.B. late that night at Château de Bellegarde. I didn’t take her seriously.”

  Pippa admitted she hadn’t quite given up on the idea of a genuine murder at the old castle. “Perhaps I shall have to write something spectacular, eh, a real murder with blood and gore?” she said thoughtfully. “I’m really quite chuffed, you know?”

  A visibly upset Betty Lou, on one of her frequent stops at the Goffs’s house, confirmed what Brett had admitted. She had known nothing until the day it all came to a head. Her son confessed to her that he had noticed the key to a gun closet sitting in the lock during a group tour. Instructed by his parents to visit Château de Bellegarde as a summer history lesson of sorts, it had been easy for him to slip back up the stone steps and take the smallest pistol, a little pile of empty brass percussion caps, and the key, figuring that when the owners found the key missing, they would think the theft could have happened at any time. It was for fun, a way to pass the long summer without his friends around. Betty Lou’s voice had hardened at Brett’s idea of fun. But the gun had turned out to be old and rusty, not worth keeping, and Brett had brought it back while he and Jeannette were skateboarding one day and tossed it into the shrubbery while the girl was coasting down the driveway. Then came the terrible night that he had tried to replace the bullets and wound up knocking Albert down the stone stairwell.

  After Albert’s death, when Brett came looking for Jeannette at the quarry to get the last percussion cap back and stumbl
ed on the scene with the police, he realized that the alternative to confessing was the possibility of his father going to prison. “I would have had a heart attack if I’d been there,” Betty Lou said, her voice gravelly. “But I’m proud of him for telling the truth.”

  “If you’d seen all of us making fools of ourselves, you would have attacked us instead,” Katherine said.

  “J.B. was devastated for Brett of course, but he was just signing a big deal with Albert. He wasn’t thinking straight.” Betty Lou lit a cigarette with shaking hands and inhaled deeply. “He decided to toss the key Brett still had on the property. If it was found, there’d be no way of saying how it got there, you know? How was he supposed to know the girl would be skulking around at two in the morning?”

  “Didn’t he think to call an ambulance or something?” Katherine tried to keep her voice neutral, but it had been bothering her once the story emerged.

  “He wasn’t sure what had really happened. Brett was upset, and it didn’t sound like that hard a fall, he told me. He could have been stunned, could have woken up a half hour later. J.B. told me he decided to go over first thing to find out.” Betty Lou’s voice wobbled.

  Katherine looked over at her and saw tears dripping down her face. The singer took a packet of tissues from her bag and, after blowing her nose and scrubbing at her eyes, said, “Sorry. I cry a lot these days. Sometimes, I’m not sure who I’m crying for. The poor old man for sure, and his wife, who must hate us all. And for Brett, of course, my baby, who keeps making bad decisions. For J.B., who knows he did so many things wrong.” Her voice trailed off.

  * * *

  Jeannette, Katherine found out during one of their painting and modeling sessions, had seen a great deal. She had seen Brett throw the gun into the shrubbery. She meant to come back for it, but then Monsieur had died and there were gendarmes everywhere. She had found the little key that Brett’s father tossed late in the night. Jeannette explained that Mr. Holliday was not a good thrower and the key had landed right next to the paved driveway. Then, when Katherine told her the old man hadn’t been shot, she felt better, comprenez? Katherine understood, surely?

  Katherine did understand, sort of. “He was her first boyfriend,” she said to Michael, when he admitted that the whole affair was like a jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces.

  “So Brett’s not going to be tried for murder?” said Michael, despondent over the loss of a manager and a career comeback that hadn’t even begun.

  “No, apparently he’ll get off with a stern lecture and the forfeiture of his visa for some time, which will break Jeannette’s heart. J.B. lost his visa too. Betty Lou says the court was harder on him because he was setting a poor example for his son.”

  “I still don’t understand why J.B was going after the girl when you found him.”

  “Oh, darling, because Jeannette finally told Brett about seeing his father throw the key in the weeds, and Brett told his father.” She paused for breath. “And then Brett realized he needed to get the bullet thing back and ask her to keep it a secret so it couldn’t be traced to him.…”

  Michael stuck a fresh cigarillo in his mouth and rolled it around with his teeth. Katherine looked at him, trying to measure how much she had confused him. He picked up his guitar and, after playing a few quiet chords, looked up and said, “And J.B. wanted the key so badly at that point?”

  “Betty Lou says J.B. thought getting the key back and persuading Jeannette not to say anything might keep Brett out of trouble. It got out of hand when I misunderstood what was going on. I’m still embarrassed.”

  “You saw what you saw, Kay, and you did the only thing you could. I’m proud of you, baby, and that’s the truth.” He looked up at her and her heart swelled. Michael wasn’t big on compliments.

  She took a deep breath. “That makes me feel a little better, although I’m afraid J.B. will always remember Reigny as that place where he got falsely accused by some hysterical woman.”

  “He’ll be fine, although I’m not surprised he will be even less welcome in France than his son. He’s a tough character. You have to be in his business. And anyway, he’s no saint, leaving Albert’s body there for his wife to find. I don’t much like that. Come here, woman.” And he stopped playing long enough to ditch the cigarillo and kiss her full on the lips when she walked over to him.

  She was fairly sure she had explained it correctly. Adele wasn’t close to forgiving “that American hoodlum,” but she had been relieved to find out no Gypsies had broken in and murdered her husband. Sophie was all business about the contract with J.B., which she intended to sign now that the company belonged to her. After all, J.B. hadn’t killed her father. According to Adele, whose tone of voice betrayed some disapproval, Sophie was turning out to be a businesswoman first and foremost, a little like her father. Katherine privately thought Sophie was rather coldhearted, but maybe she took after her father that way too.

  Brett was gone from the scene. Jeannette was torn between the agony of lost love and anticipation of the amazing story of herself as heroine that she could tell when school began.

  In such quiet moments as Katherine had now that she was so completely part of Reigny-sur-Canne’s social life, she scolded herself for being blind to the truth of everyone’s behavior. She confessed as much to Penny as they sat under the pear tree, sipping Chablis Grand Cru that Penny had brought, left over from her dinner. “Why save it for something special when nothing around here ever is?”

  Katherine, the glass at her lips, paused to consider the vaguely insulting edge to the comment, then drank. Penny, she told herself, didn’t mean it quite that way. She nibbled at the squat peaches and goat cheese rounds she had bought at a good price in yesterday’s market in Avallon. “Aren’t the peaches delicious? I wish I’d had them at my vernissage. Did I tell you I sold a painting that day, and the gallery has sold another since?”

  “I’ll be able to say I knew the great artist Katherine Goff when,” Penny said, and raised her glass in a toast to her neighbor.

  “I had to race through the finishing touches on my shepherdess painting for the show. I think I’ll go back and see the paintings in the wonderful light they have in that gallery. Do you want to come with me? We could go shopping for antique linens. I know a wonderful store tucked away in an alley. The proprietress won’t yield on price, but it’s too good not to try, and sometimes I find a little something that has a blemish or a tear in the lace and she’ll discount it for me.”

  Penny laughed, but there was something in her voice that made Katherine look closely at her. “Wish I could, but I’ll be packing and closing up the house.”

  “But why?” Katherine cried out in surprise. “The fête weekend is almost here, and this is the perfect season. It’s not yet cold and the wind isn’t blowing. We need you to sing with Yves also. Don’t forget your duet.”

  Penny made a loud noise of disgust. “I can’t forget fast enough. Really, he is so juvenile. And frankly, other than you and Michael, there’s no one here of any interest. I’m thinking I may sell the mill house and get a pied-à-terre in Paris. Or perhaps in Rome, where it’s warmer. You could come visit.”

  Her decision didn’t make any sense until a week later when Sophie showed up with a lemon tart and a satisfied smile. Her mother was feeling much better and was considering hiring someone to conduct tours of the Château de Bellegarde again. There were so many tourists at this time of year, and one did not wish to disappoint them, you know?

  Would Sophie escort people through? “Oh no,” she said. She had too much to do at the Paris office. “But I will be here for the fête, and Yves and I have decided to sing some folk music. He’s teaching me now. ‘The Man of Constant Sorrow’ is triste, so sad, isn’t it? That’s what I came to tell you, in part. We would love it if Michael could hear us rehearse and perhaps accompany us at the performance.”

  “I didn’t know you sang,” Katherine said. I didn’t know you and Yves … she thought, but the moment sped by a
s the woman chatted on. Her color had improved drastically and she was wearing, wonder of wonders, a charming little sundress, très chic and definitely not from the flea market piles Katherine scouted for her own clothing.

  When Yves stopped by next, obviously to gauge his reception now that he had changed singing partners, Katherine asked him the question that had been bothering her so long. “When Albert died, you were supposedly in Paris. But Emile was sure he saw you in Chablis. You two have lived for a long time in the same town. I sincerely doubt he would confuse you with a stranger.”

  Yves pushed his hair off his forehead and looked at her, his eyes bright and challenging. “Ah, so you are our Miss Marple, then?”

  “Hardly. That’s Pippa’s territory. I got everything wrong and will never live down my horror at accusing the man who was going to become Michael’s mentor of pedophilia. But tell me.”

  “You must tell no one, understand, my dear Katherine? No one.”

  She nodded, curious. Since it wasn’t murder, there could be no harm in a small secret.

  “There is a doctor there, a specialist, I needed to confer with.”

  “You’re not sick, are you?” Katherine said with a small gasp. He certainly looked the picture of health.

  To her amazement, his face bloomed red and he mumbled into his lap, “I wanted to reverse a decision I made many years ago. In case, you know…”

  “In case what?”

  “What if I want to become a father, tu comprends?”

  Katherine threw herself back in her rattan chair. Of all the speculations she had made, this had not been on the list, would not have been for a million-dollar bet. She was, for once, genuinely speechless and could only look at the local rake with an open mouth. Finally, she gathered her wits. “And?”

  “I go for the surgery next month. But,” Yves said, reaching to tap her hand, “you will tell no one, d’accord?”

  “D’accord,” was all she could say, and she kept her face serious until he had driven off and she could begin laughing so hard tears sprang to her eyes.