A Twist of Orchids

by Michelle Wan

  “It’s because the case for Donny as burglar looks stronger than Donny as murderer.” Julian leaned his head wearily against the padded wall of the booth. The atmosphere in the café was warm and comfortable, the smell of coffee strong on the air. A few early patrons paused over steaming bowls of café au lait to glance their way.

  “Say the O’Connors work as a team,” Julian went on. “They get themselves invited to people’s houses. Daisy knows antiques. She does the selecting—you saw the way she scoped your front room when she was there—Donny does the grunt work. Plus, she’s a natural for moving the stolen articles.” He yawned gustily. He recalled that he and Mara had agreed to go orchid hunting that day. At the moment, he wanted nothing more than to get horizontal for about ten hours.

  Gloomily, Mara admitted the force of Julian’s reasoning. She thought angrily of Prudence’s bronze animal pieces, her Lalique lamps, her Degas statuette, probably sold by now to purchasers in New York, Philadelphia, London, and Paris.

  “All right,” she conceded. “Maybe the O’Connors are behind the robberies as well. But that doesn’t change the fact that Donny went to the house last night to murder Joseph. The police just don’t get it.”

  She had been repeating variations of this complaint for the last four hours. Fed up with it, Julian went to the bar for a newspaper. He had to settle for one of the regional weeklies, dating back a few days, but he did not mind. He had not had much chance to read the news of late.

  “The problem is,” he said, sitting down again and shaking the tabloid open, “we might have got him if you hadn’t acted prematurely.”

  Mara stared at him. “If I hadn’t what?”

  “You clouted him too soon.” Then he said, “I’ll be damned.” He folded the paper back to show Mara a photograph of a large woman standing on the deck of a boat. “That’s her. Adelheid Besser. On board the Ropax Bosporus I on its maiden voyage to Istanbul. Says here it’s the first of a new line of roll-on/roll-off vessels carrying freight as well as passengers and their vehicles between Marseille and Istanbul. Apparently it can do up to thirty knots an hour. So that’s how she went.”

  Mara was not interested in Adelheid Besser or the Ropax Bosporus I.

  “So what are you saying? I should have let him smother me?”

  “At least given him a chance to attack you properly.”

  “Oh, thank you very much. Maybe you should have been the decoy. No doubt you would have done a better job.”

  “Hmm?” Julian had gone back to his reading. “Wouldn’t have worked. My beard. Dead giveaway.”

  • 38 •

  A few days later Daisy came to the house. Mara received her alone since Julian was out, still dealing with a client’s hedge.

  “Oh,” said Mara a little nervously, as she opened the door. Was the woman going to scream at her? Attack her with well-manicured nails? Mara had, after all, accused her husband of attempted murder. No, she revised, as Daisy, in her perpetual cloud of scent, marched straight past her into the front room and sat down uninvited on the art deco sofa. She was dressed for the occasion: mid-heels, a tailored plum-colored linen suit, a blouse with a frilly collar—businesslike but conciliatory. She wanted something. Warily, Mara lowered herself into an armchair, one of a recently acquired pair of bergères.

  “I came to tell you the police have released Donny.” The Barbie doll fixed Mara with unblinking eyes that today had a cobalt hue. “Donny was absolutely out of the country during three of the break-ins. We both were, which puts him—and me, in case you were going there—out of the picture. And before you ask, the gendarmes have verified all this. I can also vouch for Donny being at home with me on the other four occasions.”

  “I’m more concerned about last Friday night and the other times he tried to frighten Joseph to death,” Mara said, equally direct.

  “Those incidents never happened,” Daisy snapped. “These monsters you keep talking about don’t exist. They’re all in Joseph’s head. Everyone knows he hallucinates. Look, I’m telling you Donny went over there simply to make sure Joseph was okay.”

  “At three o’clock in the morning?”

  “He couldn’t sleep. I was in New York, and he often can’t sleep when I’m away. So he decided to go to the house and check things out. The police have cleared Donny of any suspicion of house-breaking.”

  “What about the poem the gendarmes found in his pocket?”

  “He never wrote it, and the only way it got there is if you planted it. Look, I’m prepared to cut a deal with you. Drop your ridiculous accusation, and we won’t have you prosecuted for trying to frame Donny. Tell the police you were mistaken. You know as well as I do that Donny would never try to harm Joseph.”

  It was as close as Daisy would ever get to pleading. Her makeup, Mara observed uncharitably, did not cover the age spots that were beginning to blotch her pale complexion. Papery skin stretched across jutting cheekbones to a narrow jaw. Her knees were knife-sharp and bloodless where they strained against her pantyhose, her wrists impossibly thin. She looked exhausted, as if she were held together by wires, but Mara did not feel sorry for her.

  “Think again, Daisy. When scaring Joseph didn’t work, and when your husband realized he was running out of time, he tried a more direct approach. He planned to make it look like a break-in, take whatever the Gaillards had of value, and leave the poem behind so the police could conclude it was a burglary turned violent. If we hadn’t intervened, Joseph would be dead. There’s a lot of land and money riding on Joseph’s death, as I think you know.”

  “You’re talking about the golf course? I know nothing about it. I don’t get involved in Donny’s business dealings. But I can tell you, if Donny needed the land, he’d get it, and he wouldn’t have to kill Joseph for it. He’d find a way. Legally.”

  “No. The fact that Donny hasn’t done so already tells me that he can’t. You didn’t have a rachat de la rente provision in your purchase contract, did you?”

  “A what?”

  “A clause allowing you to do a buyout. It would have let you pay Joseph off outright. Without it, you have to wait until Joseph dies before you can touch the land. Joseph has the right to stay where he is, and there’s nothing either of you can do about it. He intends to take up raising sheep again, did he tell you?”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Daisy snapped.

  “Maybe, but it’s his decision, and it’s your tough luck. The Gaillards sold to you in 1985. That means you’ve been paying out annuities for over twenty years. You were probably wondering how much longer this was going to go on. Joseph is shaky and slow, but otherwise he’s in good shape. And contrary to your belief, his heart is fine. He could last a long time. Easier and cheaper just to bump him off, don’t you think?”

  The blue eyes took on an arctic chill. Mara, a Canadian used to winter, discovered in that moment a new meaning of the term cold burn.

  “I think you’re despicable,” Daisy said with a vehemence that made the tendons of her neck stand out like cords. “I care about Joseph almost as much as I cared about my father. I would never let any harm come to him. Never, do you understand?” Her sincerity was undeniable. Then she dispelled any growing sympathy Mara might have had for her by slapping the sofa seat.

  “How much?”

  “What?”

  “This sofa. How much do you want for it? Name your price. Fifty? A hundred thousand?”

  Mara’s breath exploded from her in an incredulous laugh. “You think you can buy your way out of this?”

  “I’m prepared to do what it takes to clear my husband of this outrageous charge. If I can’t appeal to your common sense, what else can I do?”

  “You can leave,” Mara said, standing up abruptly. “I won’t change my mind about Donny, and this conversation is over.”

  •

  Mara was still feeling a little shaken over Daisy’s visit when she met Sébastien Arnaud at Prudence’s house later that afternoon. Their appointment was for two. She arriv
ed on time. He was late, as usual.

  “Bonjour,” he hailed her as he climbed out of his car. “Have you been waiting long?”

  One of his boys had been bitten by a dog, nothing more than a nip, but he’d had to catch the dog, find the owner, and then take the child for a tetanus shot. He looked as if he had been dragged backwards through the proverbial hedge. His hair seemed even more at odds with itself than usual, his jacket hung crookedly, his shirt was not quite tucked in. As he enveloped her hand in his big paw, Mara wondered how he managed to maintain his cheerfulness.

  They inspected the repairs from the outside and then from the inside. The damaged pane had been replaced and the faulty shutters put right.

  “Looks fine,” said Sébastien, satisfied with the job.

  “I heard,” Mara said, choosing her words carefully, “that Assurimax is the insurer of all the houses that have been burgled. It must keep you busy.”

  “I’m always busy,” Sébastien grinned. “But I’m the agent only for this and two of the other affected properties. The rest are out of my territory.”

  Mara breathed easier, but only a little. There was still Loulou’s assertion that access to the company’s databases was all the burglar needed to identify which houses had things worth stealing.

  Sébastien went on to tell her that the claim settlements were a real headache because of the difficulty of valuing the objects that had been taken. Most, he suspected, were underinsured because they had appreciated over time, but that was the insuree’s problem, except that the insurees generally tried to argue otherwise. Also, most of the owners were out of the country, which complicated matters. He was grateful that Mara was standing in for Prudence. It made his work easier.

  “The burglar never takes paintings,” she observed. “I wonder why.”

  Sébastien shrugged. “He never touches anything on the walls. Paintings, prints, tapestries, plaques, sconces. Some, like a couple of Picasso pencil sketches, were pretty valuable. Maybe he doesn’t have a taste for them, or finds them hard to get rid of.”

  “And I don’t see the point of the poems, apart from needling the police, do you?”

  The agent chuckled. “The fellow has a sense of humor.”

  Something about the way he said it made Mara want to ask: “You don’t by any chance like poetry, do you?”

  But she did not.

  •

  Before they left, Mara checked the rest of the house. Everything was closed up tight. The refurbished Awful Wall stood bumpy and bare. She wondered what kind of covering Prudence was planning for it. A painting or anything rigid was impossible because of the uneven surface. A textile hanging might work, something that could be bracketed out at the top so that it would fall straight. Back home in Canada, modern handmade quilts were coming into their own as the new wall art. They cost a fortune. God forbid they should ever cover a bed. A quilt, she mused, would suit a country house like this. A motif of golds and browns would go well. The colors reminded her of something. She was thoughtful as they locked up behind them.

  •

  Toward the end of the day, Mara made a call to the Brames Gendarmerie. Adjudant Compagnon was warily interested in her question, but he did not have an answer. When he understood her reasons for asking, he agreed to have the matter looked into. It wasn’t the kind of thing his officers would have necessarily noted. They, like the absent owners, were interested in what had been taken, not in what had been left. She got her answer two days later.

  Then she called Prudence.

  “Your repairs are done. Sébastien checked things out with me, and everything’s fine.”

  “Merci a ton,” said Prudence. “Nothing on my stolen goods?”

  “Um, no.” Her friend had obviously not heard that Donny had been charged and later cleared. “Prudence, what exactly are you planning to do with the Awful Wall?”

  “The wall? Oh that,” said Prudence. “I’ve commissioned a tapestry. I had someone in last fall to take measurements and talk about colors. It should be ready by the time I come back in June. Why do you want to know?”

  • 39 •

  The farm looked almost deserted when she arrived. She parked in the courtyard, told Jazz to stay, got out of the car, and went to knock on the door of the house. She waited. She banged harder. Everything was very quiet. The sheep were nowhere in view. Had Christine and Alice taken them to market? But a dusty, green van was parked alongside the barn. Or maybe they were out in the fields shearing the animals, or whatever people did with sheep in this season.

  It did not surprise her to find the door unlocked when she tried it. People in the countryside rarely locked their doors.

  “Allo? Anyone home?” she called as she entered. She stood once more in their sunny kitchen. Considerable progress had been made on the rust and ocher weaving. The day was hot. Mara felt thirsty from her drive so she helped herself to a drink of water at the sink, where dishes had been washed and neatly stacked to drain. Then, after a quick look into the courtyard, she began to snoop.

  First, she snooped in the kitchen, and then in the room adjoining the kitchen, a kind of parlor-cum-office. There were shelves full of books and magazines. There was a desk, its drawers crammed with accounts ledgers that Mara scanned quickly. A cat lay on a daybed, regarding her with huge dilated eyes. Behind it, a yellow and green abstract tapestry decorated the wall. The woven signature at the bottom read A. Lescuras. Mara had already guessed that Alice was the weaver. The colors suited her.

  Next, she snooped in the rooms leading off a central hallway. The first held a television and a shabby sofa covered by a knitted throw. A variant of the cache-misère. The second was a bathroom with an adjoining toilet. The third was a bedroom. Mara liked the neat simplicity of it: more whitewashed walls, minimal furniture: a dresser, a chair, an armoire, and—the only touch of luxury—a brass queen-sized bed stacked with cushions and spread with a colorful tie-dyed cloth. A sunburst weaving hung over the head of the bed.

  It was the shoes, organized on two slanted shelves, that made Mara suddenly and acutely conscious of her intrusion. They stood in pairs, worn and shaped to their wearers’ feet—big, wide, serviceable (Christine’s, Mara judged); narrower, more fanciful (Alice’s). Mara had often thought that there was something terribly honest about shoes, and ultimately vulnerable, as if scuffed toes revealed some personal sadness, unevenly worn heels an imbalance of character.

  She pulled open the dresser drawers. They gave off a scent of lavender. The armoire told her that Christine, whose larger, heavier garments hung to the left, preferred blues and greens, while Alice, on the right, favored brighter tones: yellow, magenta, orange. At the bottom of the armoire was a canvas tote. Mara unzipped it. What she found inside made her take a deep breath.

  There was a stag, a hare, a wild boar, a prancing horse, and a greyhound. All in bronze, none bigger than her hand, each individually wrapped in tissue paper. She knew each piece well. They were Prudence’s collection of eighteenth-century bronze animalier.

  She sat back on her heels feeling very sorry for what she was about to do. The distant bleating of sheep alerted her. She zipped up the tote, tucked it under her arm, and ran. A moment later, she was speeding away down the road.

  •

  Mara’s dilemma was that she liked them. In the space of thirty minutes, she had delved into their intimate life and had taken kindly to what she had seen. Except, of course, for the purloined bronzes.

  Julian was out, so there was no one to talk to about her discovery, and for this problem she needed more than imagined emails from Patsy. Mara poured herself a large glass of red wine and sat down to work out what she should do.

  An hour later, she made a telephone call.

  “Christine?” she said when the Gaillards’ daughter answered. “Mara Dunn. I want you to listen to me very carefully because I have something important to say. I’ve been to your house. I found what you had hidden in the bag in your armoire and—I took them. If you don’t b
elieve me, go and look.” She paused, then plunged. “I know that you and Alice are the rhyming burglar.”

  As reply she got a brief silence, then snatches of muffled conversation, the scraping of a chair. Several moments later, Christine said, “All right.” Her tone was interrogatory. What now? it seemed to say.

  “Why did you hang on to them?” Mara felt both aggrieved and sorry. Aggrieved that the bronzes had been there for her to find, sorry that she now had to do something about her discovery.

  “Are you recording this conversation or something?”

  “Of course not. This is just between you and me.”

  Christine breathed deeply. “We didn’t want to break them up. They’re more valuable as a set, but the person we deal with wouldn’t settle on a price.”

  “Who’s the poet, you or Alice?”

  Christine’s laugh was deep. “Alice, of course. The game was getting too easy. She wanted to liven things up. She’s a great one for livening things up, is Alice.”

  “Game? This was a game?”

  “No,” Christine responded heavily. “A necessity. We were in debt. We stood to lose the farm, our sheep, everything.”

  “And now?”

  “We’re not clear, but our financial profile is, shall we say, improving. Look,” she broke off impatiently, “why are you calling? What do you intend to do?”

  In fact, Mara was not sure. “I don’t know. I should take this to the police. I haven’t made up my mind.”

  “If you want money to keep quiet, we can’t pay you. Unless, of course, we do a few more burglaries.” Christine spoke with a bitter humor.

  “Bon Dieu, I’m not trying to blackmail you.” Mara was appalled that Christine would even think it. “I—I just wanted to let you know how things stand.”

  There was a silence. “I see.” There was another interval of muffled conversation at the other end of the line.