Reluctant Witness

by Barton, Sara M.

  Maybe that was why I felt such a kinship with Nora. We both understood the importance of farming, of caring for the land. It was in our blood. For someone like me, cut off from a normal life for so long, Nora’s story gave me a chance to reconnect with what mattered most to me, the family I had lost, the way of life I had lost.

  After lunch, Nancy and I went clothes shopping at a local mall, picking up some jeans and tops for me, along with a winter jacket and sneakers. It gave us an excuse to linger as we perused the racks. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was time to head out. Vince had the RV gassed and ready to go.

  “Shake a leg, people! Time’s a-wasting. Hurry, hurry,” he instructed us impatiently.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put a sock in it, Vince.” Nancy winked at me as she went through her purse. She pulled a couple of things out and placed them on the bed. “We’re ready when we’re ready.”

  “Fine,” he sniffed, standing at the doorway, examining his fingernails one by one. “You ladies let me know when you’re ready.”

  “We will,” she agreed cheerfully, returning to the bathroom for a handful of tissues. Carefully folding them, she tucked them in her purse, added the other items, and at last reached for her suitcase. I took that as my cue and followed her to the door. “Now we’re ready.”

  “Will wonders never cease!” Vince responded sardonically.

  “Wait till he finds out I’m driving,” said Nancy, poking me in the side. “Oh, we’re going to have some fun now!”

  Vince protested all the way down to the parking lot, even while his partner pushed back. She reminded him that she was more than qualified to drive the camper and pointed out that it didn’t require a special license before he finally ceded the keys to her.

  “Don’t mind Vince. He likes to be in charge. That’s because he’s got trust issues,” she explained as she sat herself behind the wheel. He glowered at her from the passenger seat.

  “No, it’s because I like to get to where I’m going in one piece.”

  “Well, make yourself useful while I’m driving and keep a look out for tails, because if we pick up one, we’re going to have to deal with it.” Nancy backed up the Coachmen Freelander, inching it out of the tight space as the reverse warning system beeped its alert. I could see Vince tense up as she narrowly missed the fender of a small green Toyota.

  “Careful, Zemaki!”

  “I am, Lorenzo! Just chill, will you?”

  Once we were safely on the highway, I grabbed a soda from the small fridge and retreated to my double bed in the back of the RV. There I picked up my paperback and got myself comfortable for the long drive to Kansas City.

  The next chapter started with a routine visit by Nora’s parents to three coffee plantations up in the hills of Saint-Claude, to check on the crops just before the expected harvest. On the way back down the mountain, on the way to Baie-Mahault, their car crashed into a stone wall. Juliette Hazen was killed on impact. Poor Jim struck his head on the windshield and suffered severe head trauma, never regaining consciousness. He died several days later.

  A witness reported seeing a small white hatchback run the sedan off the road. The local police later found the car, wiped clean and abandoned three miles away. Was it murder?

  Nora Hazen, as their only child, inherited more than just her parents’ estate. She also inherited their problems. Not only had Jim built a very successful international coffee business, he had attracted the interest of a very powerful drug cartel that wanted to use his successful business to their advantage. Chartier, posing as Beaumont, began to take over the company by seducing Nora. As horrified as I was by the thought that she was a pawn in a very ugly game, I understood Interpol’s need to let it all play out. To an agency responsible for halting international crime, it was an opportunity to catch him in the act, but if only Inspector Noiret could keep her alive.

  “We will use multi-layer, gas-tight-and-water-resistant plastic liners for all of the oak barrels,” Alain insisted at the meeting he called to discuss operational changes. “They will better protect the product during shipment.”

  “It seems like such a waste to change what has been working for us,” Luc Martin replied, pouring himself a glass of Perrier from the bottle on the table. As chief financial officer, he was focused on the profit margin. “We pay an extra ten percent in labor and material costs.”

  “So? We will pass that on to the customers.”

  “But lined barrels?” Guy Cloutier seemed shocked by the suggestion.

  “Oui. It will protect the green beans from moisture, pests, and fungus. That means our product arrives at its destination in better condition than it would if we shipped it in the wooden barrels without it.”

  “But, Alain, if we are shipping the green beans in plastic liners, do we really need to use the oak barrels? Why not switch to jute bags and reduce our costs?” asked Colette Maupin, the shipping supervisor.

  “You let me worry about that,” said my husband. “I plan to recover the costs selling the barrels in the United States.”

  “Sell the barrels?” She challenged his suggestion with disbelief. “People will want to buy these?”

  “Mais oui. We shall easily make our money back on them.”

  “Nora?” Guy turned to me, concerned. “You are the president of Le Papillon. What do you think?”

  I started to speak, trying to appease both men, but Alain cut me off. There was a bitter note in his words, one that concerned me deeply.

  “I have made the decision and it is final. If you do not think you can live with it, perhaps it is time for you to seek opportunities elsewhere, Guy.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” was my husband’s sharp retort. A wave of shock struck me, forcing me to my feet in protest.

  “Alain, Guy has been with this company since my father started it!”

  “Silence!” he bellowed at me, eyes blazing. Defeated, I sat back down. “It is not your place to tell me how to do my job, not when I just invested half a million dollars of my own money into this company!”

  “Forget it, Nora,” Guy told me angrily, rising to his feet. “It is not worth it! I will go!”

  The rest of us sat in stunned silence as he exited the room, fearful of what Alain would do next. I was haunted by the menacing tone of my husband’s words to me, but it was the glare he gave Guy that most disturbed me. It was as if I saw the man I married transformed into Le Scorpion right in front of me and he was ready to sting the honorable Guy.

  That was the last time I saw my father’s trusted confidant alive. Three days later, a fisherman checking his lobster pots found Guy floating face down in the water, his boat three hundred yards away. He had been dead for at least twenty four hours.

  I sat in the back of the Coachmen Freelander and found myself wondering about those oak barrels. Why did Chartier/Beaumont insist on using the special liners? Was it really an effort to improve the flavor of the green coffee beans? I didn’t think that was likely, but what else could it be? What was Chartier really doing at Le Papillon?

  We stopped for the night in Branson, Missouri, a bit of a detour on the road to Boise. Vince had booked us a pair of rooms at the Hilton Promenade in Branson Landing. After checking in, we took a stroll down to the lake and then hit the Ernie Biggs Chicago Style Dueling Piano Bar for dinner and singing.

  I wasn’t normally known for being rowdy, but Nancy’s penchant for having fun was contagious. Even Vince was grinning by the time we settled the bill and made our way back to the hotel just before eleven.

  “You think she’s something now,” he confided, “you should have been with us on surveillances. One time, she actually managed to catch a mugger just by opening the van door at the precise moment the whack-a-doodle was running by. She snatched the purse out of the guy’s hand and gave it back to the little old lady, all without compromising our surveillance.”

  “Hey, if the cops had shown up, that would have ruined all our efforts to stake out the
suspects. I merely made sure that the problem was contained. And we later sent three mob guys to jail.”

  “Never a dull moment,” Vince insisted.

  “You can say that again,” she grinned. “It beats falling asleep in the seat. Remember the time Dolenz did and he missed a meeting between the two goombahs? He woke up in time to see them come out of their social club. Boy, was he in hot water. The special agent-in-charge was so mad, he transferred him to Fairbanks.”

  “That seems kind of harsh,” I responded, but Vince cut me off.

  “You’ve got to consider the bottom line, kid. We had put almost two hundred hours into the case, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars. By falling asleep, Dolenz lost us the chance to get the evidence we could take to court. It took us another three months to catch them meeting again. The boss had no real choice but to make an example out of Dolenz. These weren’t petty criminals we were sitting on. They were murdering bastards.”

  “Well, when you put it that way,” I nodded, “I can understand why your boss did what he did.”

  “When you’re dealing with bad guys, you’ve got to be as tough, if not tougher,” he said, opening the door to the hotel for us. “You can’t let your people slack off, because the next thing you know, the creeps get the jump on you and you’ve got dead agents.”

  “I never considered it was so tough to be in law enforcement. Nancy seems so easygoing.”

  “Right up to the moment you’re on the wrong side of the law. Don’t let her sweet smile fool you, buttercup. Take my word for it -- she’s a tough, old bird.”

  “Watch who you’re calling old, vulture breath!” Nancy pushed the elevator button. “You’ve got a few years on me.”

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Nancy flopped on the bed the minute we got into our room. “Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I don’t even think I have the energy to pull on my pajamas.”

  “Well, I think I’ll take a hot bath before I go to sleep. Do you want to use the bathroom first?”

  “Perhaps I’d better,” she replied, grabbing a turquoise cotton outfit from her case. As the door shut behind her, I grabbed my book from the nightstand and took out my pair of pajamas from my case, the ones Jojo insisted I get. I smiled, recalling our conversation back in Virginia.

  “My advice is to always wear pajamas on the road, Marigold, especially because you never know when you might have to flee in the middle of the night. At least you’ll look half-way decent if you’ve got some pants on,” Jojo had pointed out. She drilled home the message with tales of mishaps and unfortunate incidents involving FBI witnesses, and even an agent or two, who made the mistake of sleeping in the nude. I decided then and there I didn’t want to end up being an FBI anecdote, and picked out a couple pairs of pajamas that looked like street wear.

  Nancy stepped out of the bathroom a moment later, ready for bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and set the alarm clock before slipping her long legs under the covers and pulling them up to her chin. “Boy, it must be some book you’re reading. I’m beginning to think you’re a book junkie. You’ve got to have your fix.”

  “The story reminds me of something that happened to me a long time ago,” I explained. “I want to know how it comes out.”

  “Interesting,” Nancy nodded. She eyed me carefully. “You don’t strike me as a woman with a dubious past, Marigold. You’re too...how can I put this? You’re too ‘girl next door’ to be bad.”

  “I am,” I laughed. “And no, I wasn’t some mobster’s girlfriend or a hooker, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “That makes sense.” She flipped on the television. “You’re probably a little too honest for your own good.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah. You don’t really have a poker face. You show your emotions.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was surprised. No one had ever told me that before. Maybe that’s why I was beginning to appreciate Nancy. She wasn’t shy about sharing her wisdom. “I guess I’ll work on that.”

  “It comes in handy when you’re dealing with predators. They love the smell of fear. They get their kicks from making women quake. But everyone is vulnerable in some way, Marigold. Just remember that the next time you’re terrified and make sure to look for it.”

  I thought about that as I filled the tub. In all my years of being in witness protection, no one had ever taken the time to explain things like that to me. Was it just because I was in danger at the moment that Nancy felt compelled to give me pointers? Did she see it as a way to help me help myself in an emergency? I entered WitSec when I was so young -- maybe the marshals just assumed I knew all these things, so they never bothered to teach me the finer points of hiding in plain sight.

  Slipping into the soothing water, I wondered Nancy would help me wash my hair in the morning. My ear was healing nicely and I was almost done with the antibiotics. I made a mental to ask Rocky about making an appointment for the stitches to come out. Where would I find a doctor who would attend to me without asking for answers about how it happened?

  Flipping open Vanilla Orchid Magic, I got right back into the story. What would happen at Le Papillon Coffee and Spice Company now that Alain had taken over?

  Guy’s funeral mass was two days later at the Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Guadeloupe on Place Saint-François. I drove myself to Basse-Terre in the Renault and parked around the corner from the cathedral. My heart was heavy. I didn’t believe for a moment that his death was an accident. It had come too soon after the deaths of my parents, and by then I already suspected Alain had a hand in a number of other disturbing incidents involving Le Papillon Coffee and Spice Company employees. Claiming he had important business to attend to elsewhere, my husband declined to accompany me. I was secretly relieved. Guy wouldn’t have wanted him there, pretending to care.

  Arlette and the three Cloutier children were devastated. I wrapped my arms around the grieving widow as she sat in the first pew and held her close, wishing I could trade places with her. Why should such a good man die, when I was married to Le Scorpion? It just wasn’t right.

  My horror at losing my business mentor, my family friend, clung to me through the rest of the day and into the evening. I dined with my husband on the terrace, barely interested in the stuffed crab. I found it nearly impossible to contain my tears, so great was my grief over losing Guy. When Alain informed me that he would leave for a business trip in the morning and expected to be away for two weeks, I nodded.

  “Do you not care that I will be absent?” he demanded, sounding like a petulant boy.

  “At the moment, I do not care about anything at all,” I replied woodenly.

  “Force yourself to care, Nora, if you know what is good for you.”

  We had a bitter row, one of our worst, and the angrier Alain got, the bolder I became. I wanted him gone from my life. I wanted him out of Le Papillon for good. How could I be free of a man who had just sunk so much money into the company? I felt trapped.

  Unable to speak of my true feelings, lest I betray the investigation, I left the table and hurried into the house, my fingers curled into clenched fists. I wanted to be away from him, but he grabbed me by the arm as I crossed the living room.

  “You think it is that easy to get rid of me, chérie? You think you will just dismiss me, like a servant?”

  “Tout fini!” I retorted. “I am all done being your wife!”

  He struck me across the face with such force the blow sent me reeling backwards. I fell into the wing chair and sat motionless, stunned. “I will tell you when it is ‘tout fini’, Nora, and you will do as I say! This is my house!”

  “Your house? I think not! I bought it. It is my name on the deed!”

  “Not any more. I own it. You see, you gave me power of attorney over your property just last week.”

  “I did no such thing!” I cried.

  “Careful, love,” he hissed at me. “You are showing signs of having a nervous breakdown! You’re beginning to forget what y
ou did.”

  “Liar!” I screamed. Alain smiled.

  “Alas, I have witnesses to support my claim. I will get you committed, ma petite.”

  I slammed the door to our bedroom in his face, barely able to contain my fury. What was I to do? I knew if I stayed here, he would surely kill me, too.

  I soaked in the hot water for the better part of an hour. I could see Nora’s relationship with Alain crumbling right before my eyes as she became more and more aware of Guillaume Chartier’s true identity. I worried that she was on her own. Where was Inspector Noiret -- had he just abandoned her after insisting she marry Le Scorpion?

  Once out of the tub and dressed in my pajamas, I decided to read for a little while longer, not wanting to wait until the morning to find out Nora’s fate. Would Alain have her committed to a psychiatric facility, as he threatened, or did he have something far more sinister in mind? I still had no answer to the most important question -- what was he really doing at Le Papillon?

  Quietly climbing into my bed, so as to not disturb my bodyguard, I settled down for the night. Nestling my head on a pile of pillows, I turned my back to the sleeping Nancy and picked up the paperback, opening it up to the last page I had read. It was now well after midnight, but I wasn’t sleepy. Thumbing ahead, I checked how much more I would have to read until I reached the next chapter -- nine pages. On that ninth, I found a yellow Post-It note with a notation written in blue ink. Remember Port de Basse-Terre, when you realized what they were smuggling?

  The handwriting was feminine, yet strong and precise; the neat loops leaned right without any hesitation. Did the author write it to her research assistant or did the mother write it to her son? What did she mean about the smuggling?