by Michelle Wan
Christine laughed harshly as she reached out to draw the other woman to her with a gesture that was both proud and possessive. “You don’t give up, do you? For what it’s worth, I have a witness who’ll swear that at the time my mother fell, I was here with her. My unshakable alibi. Isn’t that so, chérie? Meet my friend, my lover, Alice. We’ve been together seventeen years, and I don’t intend to let anything, certainly not my father, come between us.”
Alice stepped forward, tucking a strand of fly-away hair behind her ear and extending a slender, somewhat grubby hand. “Alice Lescuras. Enchantée.” Her voice was slightly mocking.
“Mara Dunn,” Mara responded faintly and took the hand.
Alice tightened her grip and pulled Mara toward her, laughing as she did so. “What Christine says is true, you know.” Her face was almost in Mara’s face. “We were here together.”
Mara tried to draw back, but Alice held her with surprising strength. Up close her long-boned body projected an almost feverish energy. Her mouth widened in a malicious grin.
“Her unshakable alibi,” she crowed triumphantly. “Beat that if you can!”
• 23 •
Mara returned home to find Julian in an even bleaker mood than when she had left him. He was sprawled on an ebony and bronze art deco sofa, the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in her front room. One of last year’s acquisitions, the sofa was shaped like a boat and was the only thing big enough for him to sprawl on. However, its contours, as everyone who sat on it discovered, were unsuited to the human body. Not surprisingly, she had not been able to offload it on anyone. It sat in her living room, looking interesting and taking up space.
“Christine’s gay,” she said.
He gazed at her dully. She wondered if he was having another of his Thumpers. But no, he didn’t have that bruised look around the eyes that usually went with his headaches.
She pulled off her jacket. “That’s what drove her and her parents apart. For Amélie and Joseph, for their generation, living in a closed rural community, having a lesbian daughter wasn’t something either of them could handle.” Forty years on, judging from the mayor’s smirk, she thought it still might be a problem for some.
Julian made no reply.
“So they covered it up and let the neighbors think Christine was the local Lolita. I think only Suzanne Portier knew the truth, but she never talked about it. Christine hated her parents, especially her mother, for forcing her to stay in the closet.”
She had to shove his legs over in order to sit down.
“She lives with a woman named Alice Lescuras on a sheep farm. I’m sure they’re barely scratching out an existence. In fact, that’s probably the only thing Christine has ever had in common with her parents: an unprofitable propensity for raising sheep.”
He frowned. “You’re saying they’re hard up and could do with money?”
“Well, yes.”
“So I suppose the verdict is Christine pushed her mother down the stairs and is now trying to do away with her father so she can pay her bills?”
Mara reddened. “I’m not saying that. I mean, it’s a pretty monstrous accusation.”
He sat up and regarded her with surprise. “You didn’t seem to think so a few hours ago. ‘Let her know we’re on to her,’ you said. What changed your mind?”
She crossed her arms and leaned back against the hard sofa cushions. “The problem is, I liked her. Them.” She saw again the homey interior of the kitchen, full of warmth and color. Christine’s side of the story had awakened her sympathy. The two women were struggling to make a life for themselves against a lot of lingering, unspoken prejudice. “I mean, you said yourself Amélie’s death was an accident. And so far Joseph has come to no real harm.”
“Ah. Sweet reason riseth like the morning sun.”
“No need to be sarcastic. Anyway, if Christine really wanted to bump her father off, why hasn’t she done it? Why just be content with terrorizing him? It’s more like someone is simply trying to give Joseph a good scare.”
The thought rested with Julian. He tugged at his beard. “Maybe that’s the intention.”
She stared at him. “You mean frighten him to death?” It was a clean, cunning way to kill. And hadn’t there been mention of Joseph having a weak heart? The heart was, after all, a muscle.
Julian shook his head. “Your mind is on murder. I’m saying, perhaps all Christine wants to do is gain control of things. She doesn’t have to do away with Joseph, just have him legally declared incompetent. Then she can make a case for taking over his affairs.”
It was a powerful idea, not quite as nasty as murder, but Mara was very sorry to follow out its implications. Oh, Christine, she thought. “Well, if that’s her game, let’s hope my visit warned her off. I told her pretty clearly that I’d call the gendarmes if these nighttime apparitions continued. If she’s smart, she’ll realize she can’t get away with it.” She paused uneasily. “Although Alice might be another matter.”
“Alice? I thought you said you liked her.”
“I do. I like them both. But that one bothers me, Julian. There’s something wild about her. And a little crazy. I definitely got the impression she’s the moving force behind the two. And then—” She paused, reluctant to make the admission. “Oh, I may as well tell you. At one point, Christine said that in case I thought she had killed her mother, Alice would alibi her for the time Amélie died.”
“Good God, Mara, you didn’t accuse her of pushing her mother down the Two Sisters’ stairs?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for? Christine just came out with it. But then Alice virtually dared me to make something of it if I could. She was laughing at me, Julian. It was almost as if she were baiting me, as if she wanted the challenge.”
She shifted around to face him more directly. “Having met Christine, I’m not so sure she’s the murdering kind. Oh, I know she had a go at her mother when she was young, but she was acting out of childish anger and frustration. However, I wouldn’t put it past Alice to have done some more recent shoving.”
Julian gave her a long look. “You won’t be able to prove a thing, you know. If Alice can alibi Christine, then Christine can alibi Alice. That’s probably what Alice was really telling you. And it makes Christine equally complicit.”
“I suppose,” she admitted unhappily. She went on, “What I don’t understand is, if they wanted to kill Amélie, why they would choose such a public spot as the Two Sisters?”
He offered no answer.
Mara chewed a lip. “Okay. Let’s say Christine and Alice are in desperate need of money. They stand to lose their farm, everything they’ve worked for. They decide to ask Amélie and Joseph for a loan. It’s up to Alice to do the asking because Christine has cut all ties with her parents. So Alice arranges to meet Amélie at the restaurant since she knows the Gaillards do their marketing in Beaumont. But Amélie is no fool. She knows what Alice is after and has no intention of giving them a solitary centime. She leaves Joseph in the gents, goes to Two Sisters, intercepts Alice on the porch, and says no straight off. That would have been very much Amélie’s way. Maybe Alice didn’t set out to commit murder, but when Amélie turned her down flat, Alice saw red or simply saw an opportunity. As Loulou would say, paf!”
• 24 •
Julian could put it off no longer. The following day he went to Lokum. He had sent flowers and a card, of course, but had delayed this moment for as long as he could. The time Betul and Osman needed to bury their son and grieve, he told himself, the time he needed to gather the courage to face them. He was prepared for a poor welcome, but not for the heat of Osman’s anger that hit him like a palpable force as soon as he set foot in the shop.
“I don’t talk to you!” roared the big Turk.
“I’m sorry about your son,” Julian said. “I want you to know I tried. I’ll never forgive myself that I failed to find him in time.”
“Ha.” Osman’s chest swelled as if to block Julian from
stepping further into his domain. “What try? Too late. Is finish for my boy. And I tell you something, Mister Worry-about-Orchids. I continue to import salep. For memory of Kazim, I make Elan big success. Orchids be damned!”
Betul came out from the back room. She stared at Julian, haggard with grief.
“I’m sorry,” Julian repeated. “But please understand that I was working against the odds. Kazim was dealing drugs. He was an addict.”
“No! No drugs!” Osman’s luxuriant mustache seemed to rear up in a denial of its own. “Never drugs.”
“He died of an overdose.” Julian pressed home the unwelcome truth. “But I promise you one thing. Adjudant Compagnon isn’t satisfied that the Périgueux police have the full story on what happened to your son. If it turns out he’s right, I swear I’ll do everything in my power to help him find out the truth.”
Julian was not prepared for the father’s reaction.
“You keep nose out!” screamed Osman. His entire body went rigid. His face turned the color of chalk. “Go away and keep nose out. No one ask your help. Get out. Don’t come back!”
Betul burst into tears and fled to the rear of the shop.
Julian left. He stood outside on the sidewalk, shaken by the torrent of raw emotions he had just witnessed. Betul’s tears wrenched his heart. But it was the image of Osman’s face that troubled him more. He knew the man. Something had happened to frighten him badly. In fact, to Julian he had seemed more terrified than grieving.
•
Later that week, Jacques Compagnon held a briefing with his gendarmes at the Brames brigade headquarters.
“You all know my view on the Ismet case. Luca is running drugs again. So far, he’s kept it underground and out of sight. Kazim Ismet worked for Luca, ran afoul of him, and was killed on Luca’s orders. Now, Kazim’s death might just be Luca’s first mistake, and it may be the link we’re looking for, provided we can make it stretch far enough.” Hands clasped behind his back, the brigade head walked back and forth across the front of the meeting room. The fact that the space was very cramped meant that he had to turn every two or three strides, which was a little dizzying for him and his audience.
“The problem is, all we have is a voice recording possibly implicating Luca’s sidekick, Serge Taussat, and that’s tenuous. As you know, the police in Périgueux have found nothing to tie Taussat to Kazim or to that skip. You’re also aware that, as far as they’re concerned, the boy died of a self-administered OD. His pals dumped his body and took off. Case closed. However”—Compagnon paused to face the room squarely—“not for us. I don’t need to remind you that I’ve never believed Luca to be as clean as he looks. So”—the adjudant pivoted and walked in the other direction—“we continue to keep our ears to the ground. Just in case something breaks.”
“Sir,” asked a female gendarme named Lucie Sauret, “where does Monsieur Wood fit in all of this?”
Compagnon scowled. “Wood’s relationship with the case is limited to the fact that he’s a friend of the deceased’s parents, and they asked him to find their son and persuade him to return home.” The adjudant puffed out his cheeks and expelled a lungful of air. “I’ve never liked this picture. In the first place, they should have come to us about Kazim.”
Sauret ventured, “It’s the way with a lot of foreigners, mon adjudant. They distrust the police, and they’re afraid, so they try to handle things their own way.”
“If they had come to us,” Compagnon said bitterly, “their son might be alive today. He might also have given us the information we need to put Luca away.”
“Do you think that’s why he was disposed of, sir?” Sauret asked. “I mean, not because he was cheating Luca but because Luca thought he represented a liability?”
“It’s a distinct possibility. Which means”—the adjudant’s nostrils flared—“our Monsieur Wood’s amateur, bungling questions about the kid’s whereabouts could have put a draft up Luca’s backside and may be what got Kazim killed.”
“Now—” Compagnon paused to refer to a white board covered in point-form notes. His face went from a scowl to a ferocious grimace. “Any updates on our rhyming burglar?”
Someone else spoke up: “No trace of any of the stolen items, sir. And no new activity.”
The adjudant nodded. “However, there has been an interesting development.” He set off on another brief journey across the front of the room and pivoted around. “But before I fill you in, let me put the question to you. Is there anything in particular that strikes you about the burglaries?”
Fifteen faces regarded him intently.
Lucie Sauret said, “There’s seems to be no geographical pattern to the break-ins, mon adjudant. There were the three around Brames, but the rest were scattered all over the place.”
“All of the houses broken into so far have been insured by the same company, Assurimax,” offered Albert.
“Bon,” said Compagnon. “Both good points. Although the fact that Assurimax”—he began his return trip—“is the insurer is not necessarily remarkable in itself. Assurimax is the largest company in the region.”
Laurent stirred. “Mon adjudant, the burglar is selective, and he always seems to know which houses to hit.”
Compagnon paused mid-stride, rocking back slightly on his heels. “Good thinking, Naudet. So what does that tell you?”
Laurent frowned. “Well, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out which houses are closed up for the winter. But how does the burglar know which ones have things worth stealing?”
“That,” said Compagnon, looking pleased, “is the question. And the new development. If all of the houses were insured by Assurimax, and if someone were able somehow to access the client files of the different company branches, then wouldn’t this person be in a good position to pick and choose?” He looked about him. “So who are we talking about?”
“An Assurimax employee?” someone said.
“An agent?”
“A temp who moves from branch to branch?”
“An IT technician?”
“A hacker?”
“Excellent,” nodded the adjudant. “As we speak, a specialized team is looking into it, and it may be just the thing to crack this case wide open! Meantime, our task is to concentrate on the jobs pulled in our jurisdiction, to stay alert to any possible further attempts, and to work in concert with other units. Our man may have moved out of our territory, but I don’t need to tell you how important it is to hammer this joker’s ass. He can’t be left to think he can poke fun at the Gendarmerie nationale and get away with it.” Compagnon did not refer to the specifically personal content of the last poem. He did not need to.
• 25 •
Mara was delighted to discover maple syrup at the supermarket in Siorac. It came in a little plastic jug with a red maple leaf insignia. For a moment, she was overcome by this small symbol of home found so unexpectedly on European soil. She held the jug to her, plunged into a childhood memory of her mother’s pancakes, light as angels, she and her sister Bedie as little girls, carefully pouring on the thick, sweet, shining syrup until the soft sponge of each pancake could absorb no more. It brought a lump to her throat.
That was how Daisy found her.
“Are you having a private moment in Sauces and Condiments, or can anyone shop here?”
Mara jumped and nearly dropped the jug.
Daisy wore a beige silk culotte-suit under the Aquascutum raincoat. A Hermès scarf that might easily have been tagged at three hundred euros was thrown casually over one shoulder. Her sugary perfume rode on the air. As much as ever, she reminded Mara of a superannuated Barbie doll.
“Oh,” said Mara, burying the maple syrup in the bottom of her shopping cart. Obscurely, she felt that if Daisy saw the precious little jug she would somehow take it over, too. “I thought you’d gone back to Florida.”
“We come and go,” Daisy responded breezily. “My work takes me back and forth. Donny’s, too. I’ve been meaning to get in touch, so
I’m glad I’ve run into you. We’d like you to come over for dinner. You and—I forget his name.”
“Julian.”
“Julian. Of course. Will sometime this week do? I’ll give you a buzz.”
•
And that was how Mara and Julian found themselves a few days later in the O’Connors’ expensively reconstructed (not by Mara) house in Grives, sitting at right angles to each other on adjoining sections of a low-slung, moss-green leather sofa. Their knees almost touched. They had been given champagne and strips of smoked salmon skewered around little slabs of brie. The champagne, which stood in a ceramic cooler on a glass-topped table before them, bore a very good label.
“Sláinte,” said Donny, flourishing his Irish heritage. He was all welcome and bonhomie, a big man eager to please.
“Chin-chin,” said Daisy, her red mouth pulling wide around the words.
Mara raised her glass. “Santé.” She was unable to match Daisy’s elastic smile.
Julian said, “Cheers.”
Neither of them had particularly wanted to accept the invitation. But Daisy had followed up with frightening efficiency, and Loulou had had to cancel their normal Friday dinner at Chez Nous. So there they were.
Through the windows Julian could see a seven o’clock sky that held the sun like a golden seine. He would have much preferred to be outside, breathing air that everywhere held the sweetness of lilacs. Instead, he was stuck indoors with a man who bored him slightly and a woman who couldn’t remember his name, whose heavy scent gave him a headache, drinking pricey champagne and about to eat a meal that Donny, who did the cooking, assured them would be “easy.” Easy to make, or easy to eat? Julian wondered. Maybe it meant something you didn’t have to chew. Donny wore an apron with big red letters that read “Keep Out. Danger Zone” on the bib.
Dinner turned out to be slices of fresh foie gras pan-fried in butter.
“You know,” Donny said, as he dished out at the table, “all this talk about the cruelty of force-feeding is way exaggerated, far as I can see. In the first place, it’s no worse than the way we keep battery hens back home. At least the ducks and geese here get to walk around a bit before they’re slaughtered. And then they only use migratory birds that gorge naturally. Just building on what nature set up in the first place. Heck, a lot of people argue foie gras is part of France’s cultural heritage, like the Louvre.”