Fleur De Lies

by Maddy Hunter

  “Yeehaa!” whooped Dick Stolee, cheering him on. “What he said!”

  “Shut up, Dick,” warned Grace. “You’re not gypping me out of an inground burial just because Dick Teig is too cheap to spring for Helen’s.”

  I’m not sure what this discussion said about the Dicks’ fiscal ideology, but it said a great deal about the effectiveness of powerpoint presentations.

  “Does everyone remember the number of the bus we’re on?” I broke in in an attempt to redirect their attention.

  Silence descended with an audible thud. Gazes flitted left and right.

  “Do we get lifelines?” asked Nana.

  “We’re on bus number twenty-one,” I told them. “If you think you’re going to forget, write it down.”

  “This sounds like something we should vote on,” asserted Lucille.

  “Didn’t we just vote on something else?” asked Alice.

  “What were the results?” asked George as he tugged on his cervical collar.

  “What was the question?” asked Nana.

  This is where the truly adept travel escort could work her magic to reestablish order. “The water garden is thataway.” I pointed them in the right direction. “Japanese bridge, lily pond, and possibly other water hazards, so watch where you’re going. Looks like there are plenty of signs to guide you, so don’t forget to read them. Ready?” I raised my arm like a green NASCAR flag, paused for a beat, then slashed downward. “Go!”

  They took off like a herd of camels, bumping, shoving, and cutting each other off—all except Margi and Osmond, who remained behind, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings as they focused on their iPhones.

  “Margi?” I stood in front of her, waving my hand to distract her. “Hello? Anybody home?”

  She looked up as if surprised to see me, pulled out her earbuds, then sidled a glance slowly left and right, smiling nervously. “Where’d everyone go?”

  I pointed to the path. “Water garden.”

  “Have they been gone long?”

  “About ten seconds.”

  Relief flooded her face. “Shoot. I can catch up with them in no time flat.” She shifted her gaze to her phone. “Right after I finish this transaction.”

  “You’re conducting Internet business right now?”

  She nodded with the kind of gusto that could cause head trauma in children. “My shopping network is hosting a special trunk show featuring designer medical scrubs, so I’m ordering one in every color except black. Black washes me out.”

  “But … Margi, we’re in Giverny. One of the world’s most beautiful gardens. Are you sure your time wouldn’t be better spent touring the grounds, then ordering your scrubs? Remember, we’re only here for three hours, and there’s a gift shop at the end of the tour that’s supposed to be really fantastic.”

  She frowned at her phone as she poked the screen. “This can’t wait. I’m live-streaming the show, so it’s now or never. It won’t take long, Emily. I promise. I’m just waiting to see if they carry my size.”

  Yup. Nana had sure called that. Maybe an intervention was exactly what Margi needed, or a trip to a country without cell towers and Wi-Fi.

  “Okay, I’ll leave you to your shopping, but I warn you. If you have to race through the grounds at the last minute to take everything in, Bernice’s pictures will be a lot better than yours, and that’ll give her bragging rights.”

  “Gotcha.” She stuffed her earbuds back into her ears and returned to her show, happily oblivious once again. I wished I could be so indifferent to the possibility of Bernice Zwerg earning official bragging rights. It might not bother Margi, but it terrified me.

  I turned toward the fence and put a bead on Osmond.

  “Are you planning to join the group?” I asked as I approached him.

  He held up a knobby finger for me to hold that thought.

  “Writing to Solange?” I whispered as I stepped closer.

  He gave his screen a final poke and looked up, his face split with a jack o’ lantern grin. “She’s a quick study, Emily. She’s already sending me email. We’re both going to set up Skype accounts so we can talk face-to-face, and she’s going to create a Facebook page, and …

  and …” Excitement filled his rheumy old eyes. “She wants me in her life again, Emily. She says she still has a lot to tell me about the war years, but I told her I knew about her husband coming back, and let her know how happy I am that she’d been able to share so many years with him. I think that was the ice breaker. It let her know I didn’t want to relive the past or question anything about her family. I only want to look toward the future … with her as my very, very dear friend.”

  I gave his arm a little rub. “You’re okay with that, are you?”

  “Yup. I’m not one of those high-maintenance fellas, Emily, but I mean to tell you, it’s sure nice being remembered, and treated not like you’re a useless old man”—his voice cracked as he drew in a calming breath—“but someone special.”

  I flashed a wistful smile before leaning over and kissing his forehead. “You’ve always been someone special, Osmond.” I nodded down the path. “I’m headed for the water garden. You want to tag along with me?”

  “Uhh, I’ll catch up with you right after I hear back from Solange. I just asked if she’d give me her opinion about the differences in France’s geopolitical landscape under its last six presidents, so I’m hoping for an answer any minute now.”

  I thought he might be sending Solange messages of a more personal nature, but given what a political junkie he was, maybe a message about geopolitics was personal.

  Leaving my two stragglers behind, I followed the path leading to the water garden and entered a world where a wood sprite might play hide and seek amid a cluster of ferns, or dance atop leaves that were big as elephant ears. The path meandered beneath a leafy canopy that rustled in the breeze and filtered light into the space below in a haze of silvery-green. A mud-brown stream flowed beside the walkway, its banks reinforced by wooden stakes that were woven together as intricately as a reed basket. I passed weeping willows whose narrow leaves drooped over the water like a mane of unbound hair, and a forest of bamboo whose stalks were growing straight as chopsticks. Clumps of purple and blue-violet flowers bunched together at the edge of the stream, while other blossoms coiled their way around tree trunks, swaddling them in clusters of bubblegum pink and fuschia. The gang had apparently dashed through this section, because they were nowhere to be seen, but I spied Bobbi and Dawna up ahead, sitting all by themselves on a bench, filing their nails.

  “Have you run out of scenery to take pictures of already?” I asked as I neared them.

  Bobbi eyed me with cool regard from beneath the brim of her cowboy hat. “Priorities, darlin’.”

  Dawna swatted an insect off her bare shoulder, nearly stabbing herself with her nail file. “Trees and bugs,” she whined. “I mean to tell ya, we got plenty of trees and bugs in Nacogdoches, so I don’t know why I had to get dragged here to see more.”

  “Because these trees and bugs once belonged to Claude Monet,” I pointed out.

  Bobbi gave her nail file a lackluster twirl in the air. “Woo hoo.”

  “Well, Claude Monet can have ’em,” drawled Dawna. “I think they’re borin’.”

  Nope. Couldn’t let that pass. “They’re not boring to the tens of thousands of tourists who pay to see them every year.”

  Bobbi narrowed her eyes into a squint. “Do you get paid for bein’ so irritatin’, sugah? I’ve seen you talkin’ to that bunch of old geezers. Are they payin’ you to babysit them or somethin’?”

  “Actually, they pay me quite handsomely to escort them on trips around the world.”

  “You gotta be jokin’.” Dawna laughed in disbelief. “You’ve conned folks into thinkin’ they need to pay you big bucks to hold their hands while they travel?�
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  “Yup.”

  “What a crock.”

  “Hold on now,” cautioned Bobbi, waving her fingernail file like a magician’s wand. “We might be in the market for new jobs if Victor doesn’t pull through.”

  “No way,” argued Dawna. “We’ll have jobs at Mona Michelle forever. Why do you think we’re here starin’ at trees and slappin’ bugs? Because we’re good at what we do. Irreplaceable even.”

  “We won’t be keepin’ our jobs at Mona Michelle if there is no Mona Michelle,” threatened Bobbi.

  “Shut your mouth,” chided Dawna. “Mona Michelle will be around forever.”

  “Not if Virginia has anything to say about it. If Victor takes a turn for the worse and dies, I wouldn’t put it past her to cash in her chips and liquidate the company. She’d do it, too. Just for spite. She hates us. We remind her of her lost youth, and she despises us for it.”

  “She can’t do that.” Dawna’s face lost some of its artificial glow. “Can she?”

  “You don’t see our promised bonus check being handed out, do you?” asked Bobbi. “The old shrew probably tore it up on the way to the hospital. Believe me, she’ll do anything she wants once Victor’s out of the picture. And first and foremost she’ll wanna get rid of us.”

  “But … how’re we gonna find other jobs that pay six figures in this economy? Pretty women always get the plum jobs, but even perfect tens like us might have a hard time this go-round.”

  Bobbi flashed a Cheshire cat grin. “So tell me more about this job of yours, Emily. Sounds pretty cushy. Talk to the old folks. Act like you care about what they’re sayin’. Take a head count now and then. Try not to lose any of ’em. Bring ’em back dead or alive. Then you get all the perks. Free plane fare. Free accommodations. Free food. Free optional tours. That sound about right?”

  “Just about.”

  “What’s the name of the company you work for?”

  “Destinations Travel, based in Windsor City, Iowa.”

  “Where’s that by?” asked Dawna.

  “Windsor City is halfway between Manly and Ames.”

  Dawna rolled her eyes. “I was talkin’ about Iowa.”

  “We wouldn’t actually have to live there, would we?” asked Bobbi.

  “Heck no,” I assured her.

  Bobbi smiled with the confidence of a perfect ten. “So how do we apply?”

  “The owners aren’t accepting applications.”

  Dawna yanked her bustier toward her throat and swung her hair over her shoulders. “They will after we send them our head shots. ”

  “I doubt that’ll convince them.”

  “If you got hired,” Bobbi said, looking me up and down in mock assessment, “we can get hired.”

  “I had special status.”

  The girls exchanged a meaningful glance. “So what’d y’all have to do to earn your special status?” taunted Bobbi. “Something naughty?”

  “I married the company founder and became co-owner. Goodness, would you look at the time? Gotta run, ladies. See you on the bus.”

  Two things occurred to me as I ambled off. First, it seemed apparent that Bobbi and Dawna were more dependent on Victor for job security than Jackie realized, so it was highly unlikely they’d want to kill him. And secondly, the more opinions I gathered about Virginia, the more I began to wonder if my original suspicions had been correct. Who, other than someone connected to the Mona Michelle family, would want to eliminate its top sales rep and its president?

  Not Dawna. Not Bobbi. Definitely not Jackie.

  Who would benefit the most, both financially and emotionally, if the company folded?

  Virginia.

  Who had access to Victor’s pills?

  Virginia.

  Who’d been a constant presence around the victims from the beginning, with numerous opportunities to tamper with their food?

  Virginia.

  I didn’t know who owned the mortar and pestle the police had found in the Martin’s cabin, but if it belonged to Virginia, I’d be willing to declare game, set, and match. Considering how many toiletries, cosmetics, and shoes a woman needed to pack for a two-week trip, why would she try to squeeze in extra kitchenware unless she had a deliberate plan to use it?

  And that thought gave me pause, because I realized that by packing the mortar and pestle, Virginia may have established that not only had she committed murder—

  She’d committed premeditated murder.

  Holy crap. Had the police been able to piece it together yet? Had anyone even bothered telling them about Virginia? Or were they getting most of their information from Virginia?

  I wheeled around and hot-footed it back to the bench. “Did the police interview the two of you last night?”

  “Yah,” said Bobbi. “Why?”

  “Did either one of you mention how much Virginia despised you or Krystal?”

  “Oh, sure,” Dawna cooed. “As if we’re gonna badmouth the wife of the guy who signs our paychecks. Do you know what kind of a public relations disaster that would be? We’d get kicked to the curb so fast, it’d take your breath away.” She shot me a disgusted look. “What a joke. Tell the police the truth about Virginia? If they wanna know anything, they can find out from someone who’s not a company gal. Shoot, just how stupid do you think we are?”

  Given that she probably meant that as a rhetorical question, I thought it best not to answer. But if neither one of them had disclosed any pertinent information to the police, then someone needed to, else Virginia might disappear into the crowds of Rouen while the going was good and escape justice indefinitely.

  Since I seemed to be the lucky individual who’d assembled all the pieces of the puzzle into a complete picture, I figured the responsibility of informing the police should therefore rest in the hands of only one person.

  Rob.

  This was the beauty of being a lowly escort on someone else’s tour. You got to hand the ball off rather than shoot it yourself.

  Now, to find him.

  I hurried down the path, feeling as if I were following the yellow brick road through Oz, minus the witch and flying monkeys. Beyond more weeping willows and a dense stand of bamboo, I came upon a narrow footbridge that spanned a wider section of the stream, but crossing it would prove challenging since the gang had parked themselves all along the rail, mugging for photos.

  “You need to squeeze closer together or I’ll only be able to get half of you in the picture,” warned Jackie, who had apparently been awarded the honor of group photographer. She stood in the middle of the walkway, framing her shot, while at her feet sat a jumble of iPhones and cameras, nested safely atop her shoulder bag.“Tall people at the back!” barked Bernice, who’d positioned herself front and center.

  “We don’t got no tall people no more,” said Nana. “We’re all shrunk to the same size.”

  “How about we have the men stand in back?” asked Jackie.

  “I’m not standing in front of Dick Teig,” growled Helen. “We’re not speaking.”

  “Fine,” said Jackie. “Stand someplace else.”

  “I don’t want to stand by him either,” said Grace. “The cheapskate.”

  “I’ll stand in front of him,” Alice volunteered.

  “Good luck with that,” crowed Bernice. “The only thing that can fit between Dick Teig’s stomach and the rail is fresh air.”

  “Does anyone know the weight limit of this bridge?” asked Tilly.

  Eyes drifted to the planks beneath their feet before darting to the water beneath the bridge.

  “Would you just shoot the dang picture before this thing collapses?” Lucille yelled at Jackie.

  “Before you do anything, can I squeeze past you?” Without waiting for a response, I stepped onto the little green bridge, sucked in my breath, and angled past them sideway
s.

  “What was that?” asked Dick Stolee, craning his neck in every direction, his eyes shifting nervously. “It sounded like wood cracking.”

  “It was,” said George.

  They flew off the bridge in two seconds flat, everyone except George, who remained at the rail all by himself. “My leg,” he said sheepishly. “I can’t tell if it’s expanding or contracting.”

  I sprinted down the walkway, past the famous lily pond with its cache of lily pads glutting the surface, and its pink and white water lilies blooming as sublimely as they had a hundred years ago. Flat-bottomed rowboats hugged the shore on either side of the pond, chained to trees that hovered over them like doting parents. Color dappled the banks in wild disarray—pale pink, deep rose, lavender, dusky pink, bright magenta, soft coral—like house paints that had spilled and been left to dry. I snapped a quick picture of the pond and Japanese bridge, then navigated through another underpass that led me back to the original flower garden.

  Margi and Osmond had disappeared, but in their place were hordes of camera-toting tourists who were jamming the pathways like swarms of worker bees. Good Lord. How was I supposed to find Rob in this crowd?

  I wormed my way around clusters of people posing for group photos, danced around people loitering in the middle of the path, and ducked beneath people’s cameras as they took aim at the climbing roses, scarlet poppies, and towering hollyhocks. Plump pink rose blossoms twined around great iron archways that curved above the main path. Wildflowers dusted the air with wisps of color. Ornamental trees flaunted their slender trunks and miniature leaves. I tried to find an isolated spot for a Kodak moment, but tourists and their photographic equipment were everywhere, their heads invading my shot, their arms obstructing my vision, their iPads blocking my entire view.

  It used to be that when people snapped pictures, they’d look into the viewfinder of a camera, frame their photo, and press the shutter. The iPad has advanced technology so much that people no longer have to place a camera anywhere near their face. Instead, they can happily hold a device the size of a mattress over their heads and shoot whatever’s in front of them. Of course, no one else can see over, around, or through them to shoot their own pictures, but hey, not having to look through that viewfinder anymore is real progress.