A Twist of Orchids

by Michelle Wan

  Kazim’s eyes returned to the hornet.

  “All right,” he said finally. “Maybe we can do a deal.”

  Compagnon’s mouth stretched into a terrible grin. “What do you have to deal with? Like you say, you’ve spilled your guts.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s something else. You drop all charges against me, leave my parents out of it, and I’ll give you something you don’t have.”

  The adjudant’s prominent eyes grew wary. “I’m listening.”

  “Are we on?”

  “What have you got?”

  “I know what happened to the old woman.”

  “What old woman?” asked Compagnon, frowning.

  “Merde.” Kazim threw up his arms. “The one who fell down the stairs, quoi!”

  •

  Their lunch was long in coming. By the time it arrived, they were both starving.

  “How is it?” Julian asked. She had ordered braised lamb shanks that he had insisted on cutting up for her. He himself was tucking into an ample, straightforward serving of steak and fries, the meal he had been denied at Chez Nous the night Mara had dragged him away to save Joseph.

  “Mmm,” she said with her mouth full.

  The waiter Emile gave them a nod of recognition as he hurried by.

  And there was more than a Kangoo full of heroin to talk about. The morning’s Sud Ouest had carried the story, not of the drug bust—that news was still breaking—but of the arrest of the rhyming burglar. Loulou had “débrouiller-ed” the matter. The gendarmes had paid Christine and Alice a visit, the bronze animalier were being held as evidence but would eventually be returned to Prudence, and Adjudant Compagnon, another major triumph to his name, was full of himself. Interestingly, Alice had claimed all responsibility for planning and executing the robberies, including the doggerel. Christine, Alice maintained emphatically, was innocent in knowledge and deed.

  “It’s the only thing I don’t understand,” said Mara. “Why is she doing it? Why shoulder the blame? They were both involved. They had to be.” In fact, she thought that of the two women, large, stolid Christine was the more likely to take everything onto herself, to do the sacrificing. She seemed to love more.

  “Pragmatics,” Julian said around a mouthful of very rare steak. “They probably worked it out between them. Alice’s weavings necessarily link her with the targeted houses, so she took the rap.” He swallowed and followed up with a sip of wine. “Someone’s got to look after the sheep. Besides, Alice will probably get a short sentence, with time off for good behavior. And they’ll probably let her go on weaving while she’s inside. She’ll have an exhibition, to a lot of fanfare, when she comes out, and everything’s brilliant.”

  Pragmatics. With a splash of tease, for dashing Alice was enjoying her moment of celebrity. Indeed, she competed with Adjudant Compagnon, the man she had so sorely twitted, for media space. The Sud Ouest had devoted its entire center section to the case. Why had she written the poems? For the fun of it, mon cher. Why had she made a target of Jacques Compagnon? “Oh,” she had replied unrepentantly, “the world is too full of people who take themselves so seriously. We need a little fun in our lives, n’est-ce pas?”

  A few minutes later, Mara said, “The only person we can’t sew up is Donny O’Connor. He’s getting away with attempted murder, and he and Daisy are returning to Florida the day after tomorrow.”

  “There’s not much we can do about it.”

  “Bastard. I never liked him.”

  “You never liked her.”

  “Or her,” Mara admitted. “But for different reasons.”

  “Maybe it’s because the two of you are alike in some ways,” Julian risked observing.

  “Alike?” Mara jerked her head up sharply. “Alike? Is that how you see me?” She was shocked.

  “I mean, deep down.” He wished he had not said it. “You both have that core, go-for-it disposition.”

  Emile, on his way past their table to the kitchen, interrupted them to say quickly: “You were asking about that third party?”

  “Who?” glowered Mara, still affronted.

  “The one who was supposed to have lunch with Monsieur Luca last month.”

  They both looked at him expectantly.

  “Well, that’s him. I thought he seemed familiar when he came in, but it wasn’t until he sat down at the same table that I realized who he was. Monsieur Luca has a reservation today, you see. It jogged my memory because that fellow was the first to arrive the last time as well. I recollect he hung around for a bit, and then he left.”

  Mara and Julian stood up to see over the crowd.

  “Wait here, Julian,” she said.

  “No.” He tossed down his napkin. “We’ll both go.”

  •

  They approached the window table casually.

  “Business lunch?” Mara inquired.

  “What’s it to you?”

  Mara shook her head. She sat down on one side of the American. “He’s not coming, Donny.”

  “He was arrested last night,” said Julian, taking the chair on the other side. “He and Serge Taussat. It’ll be top story on the eight o’clock news tonight.”

  Donny looked from one to the other.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Big drug bust. Rocco Luca. The cops will be looking into all his dealings. That includes associates.”

  “Nothing to do with me,” Donny shrugged. “Never heard of the guy.”

  “Oh, come on, Donny,” said Julian. “Why are you here? At this table? I’m sure the police will be very interested in Montfort-Izawa. I take it Luca is the Montfort part?”

  “I told you. Never heard of him.”

  Mara smiled, not very nicely. “You should choose your business partners more wisely. Did you know you’d be laundering drug money? Or perhaps you didn’t care?”

  Donny’s face went hard and red. “Look, you two. I don’t want to be rude, but I’ve had just about all I’m fucking well going to take from you. You’ve got nothing on me, you never will. So get out of my face. Get out and stay out, you hear?”

  He pushed away from the table and left them, just as Adjudant Compagnon, accompanied by Laurent and Albert, entered the restaurant. They spoke with a waiter who said something and looking uncertainly about him. Heads turned curiously in the gendarmes’ direction. Donny was halfway across the floor, walking quickly, bum tucked under. Then he was past the gendarmes and nearly through the double glass doors when Julian realized what he was seeing: the guilty waggle. He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair.

  “Oi!” he yelled, skipping around a busboy. “Oi!”

  • 46 •

  “I know you’ve never liked me.”

  Mara did not try to deny it.

  Daisy looked around her, gravitated toward the art deco sofa once again, and sat down. As always, she was well groomed, but she looked tired and pale.

  “I’ve never liked you much, either, to tell the truth. I’ve always found you so—I don’t know—so earnestly Canadian.”

  Mara’s eyes flashed dangerously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Daisy sighed. “Forget I said it. I’m not here to pick a fight.”

  “Then what are you here for?”

  “I’ve come,” said Daisy without a trace of embarrassment, “to ask something of you.”

  Thrown off balance, Mara stared at her visitor. Then she did something that surprised even herself. She laughed. Her laughter started small and grew until she was coughing out breathless, slightly hysterical salvos. It was as if she were expelling all of the tensions of the past month. Daisy smiled, not her bright red elastic smile but a tight, bitter thinning of the lips, waiting for Mara to compose herself.

  “What?” Mara leaned back in her chair, regarding the Barbie doll with something like complacence now.

  “I had nothing to do with Amélie or Joseph. And I had no idea what Donny was up to. I want you to believe that.”

  “I sup
pose I do,” Mara admitted reluctantly. “If you’d wanted to kill Joseph, you would have succeeded. And you wouldn’t have relied on a chance encounter to push Amélie down the stairs.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Daisy ironically. “But that is how it happened, you know. Donny had come to France—”

  “Yes. You covered for him well. You let everyone think the two of you had arrived only in time for the funeral.”

  “I arrived in time for the funeral. I can’t help what you assumed. As I was saying, Donny had come out earlier to get things going on the golf course project.”

  “His business partner was Rocco Luca. One of France’s biggest drug barons.”

  Daisy lifted thin shoulders in the hint of a shrug. “Donny never was a good judge of character. Of anything. Luca was pressuring him to bring off the Montfort-Izawa deal. It’s been pending for years because it was pinned on the Gaillards’ land. I knew nothing about it. It’s God’s truth. I did the viager simply to help Amélie and Joseph out financially. They really were struggling. But Donny, being who he is, saw it as a development opportunity. He bought up the surrounding land with the idea of creating a golf–condo complex, and he made the mistake of borrowing from Rocco Luca to pay for it. When he couldn’t make good on the loan, because he’s always overextended and I wasn’t willing to go on bankrolling him, he gave Luca shares in the scheme in lieu of. He never expected either of the Gaillards to live so long.” Daisy pushed back a loose strand of hair.

  “So he murdered Amélie and tried to bump off Joseph.”

  Daisy’s face stiffened. “That’s not how it happened. That Saturday, Donny was supposed to meet Luca at the Two Sisters. He got to the restaurant early. He was crossing the porch to use the men’s when he saw Amélie starting up the stairs. She’d lost Joseph in the market, and she thought she could get a better view of the crowd from the porch, so he went down and helped her up the rest of the way.”

  “And helped her down,” Mara said harshly. “He gave her a murderous shove and coolly went back into the restaurant and out the back way using the elevator.”

  Daisy shook her head. “He swears he didn’t plan it, and I believe him. They were up there on the porch alone, no one could see them, and it suddenly came to him that with Joseph ill, if he could get Amélie out of the way, he could probably persuade Joseph to settle up and move off the land. Luca was leaning on him hard, and he really was desperate. So”—she took a deep breath—“he pushed her. Like a little kid who shoves another out of the way to get a toy he wants.”

  “And then he set to work on Joseph. First, he tried to get him into a nursing home. You gave him his lead there. But Joseph insisted on dying in his own bed, so your husband decided to speed things up for him by frightening him into a heart attack. And when that didn’t work, by smothering him. Donny’s not a toddler, Daisy. He’s a vicious, murdering bastard.”

  The porcelain-blue eyes went dull. “He’s weak. He always means well, but he’s weak. Do you know what my daddy said when I told him I was going to marry Donny? He said, ‘He’s a bad planner, baby. He’s a gambler who’ll spend his life and your money dreaming up big deals he can’t pull off because he hasn’t a clue how to get to where he wants to go, and he’ll always try to take a shortcut without seeing where it will land him.’”

  A silence fell between them. Daisy studied the Aubusson rug without seeming to recognize its value. With a sense of mild surprise, Mara realized that she wore no perfume. Her clothing was unusually casual: jeans and a cotton shirt. Was this a purposeful performance, calculated to win her sympathy? Or was this the stripped-down Daisy, someone whom Mara found she could not dislike quite as much as she thought?

  “What will you do now?” she asked.

  Daisy surfaced from her thoughts. “I have two choices. It’s the other reason I came to see you. I’m thinking of selling up and leaving France. That includes the viager. But I want to be sure the person who buys it won’t try to take advantage of Joseph. That’s why I thought of you. I know you’d never do anything to hurt him. Are you interested?”

  “Me?” For the second time, the Barbie doll had thrown her off center. It had never occurred to Mara to acquire more property. She already had more than she could manage. But on the other hand, it might be the only way she could ensure that she would not eventually be encircled by something she did not like. She pondered. Why not? And then she wondered, how much?

  “I—I don’t know,” she said faintly. “It’s a big property.”

  “I suppose you’ll want to talk to Julian?” This time Daisy had no trouble with Julian’s name.

  “Well, yes. I suppose I do.” The two of them together? Maybe they could swing it.

  “If you don’t buy it,” said Daisy with calculation, “I’ll have to find someone else who will. No telling what they’ll do with the land.”

  Mara sensed the arm-twisting and set her chin stubbornly.

  Daisy saw the chin. “There is an alternative.” She fixed her gaze on Mara. “You know Joseph has someone living in?”

  “Yes. Madame Tisseuil.”

  “Well, I heard from Jacqueline that she’s not working out as well as they’d hoped. She’s starting to get a little sloppy about his care. I know what you think of me, Mara. You think I’m aggressive and grabby and pushy.” She shrugged off any denial on Mara’s part. “You don’t have to be polite. And maybe I am all those things. But that aside, I really do care about Joseph. And, like you, I want him happy and well looked after.”

  “I know that,” Mara said sincerely. “Although we differ on how that should happen.”

  “No, I accept now that he really does want to remain in his home. So I’ve talked with him, and with Jacqueline. If I can’t find a suitable buyer for the viager, he’s going to get rid of Madame Tisseuil and I’ll move in to look after him myself. The place will take some fixing up, but it’s mine anyway when he dies. You’ll have me”—Daisy’s wide, red smile was back—“for a neighbor.”

  Mara swallowed involuntarily and choked.

  “Joseph has agreed to that?” she gasped.

  “Why not? He likes me. And I’ve had plenty of experience with my daddy.”

  “But”—Mara’s mind marshaled objections—“your work. Your travel. And you’re not here year-round.”

  “I can be, and I’ll hire in temporary care when I’m on the road.”

  “But”—for the first time, Mara felt genuine concern for the woman before her—“how will you deal with the neighbors? I mean, even if they believe you’re blameless in all of this, you’d still be seen as the wife of a murderer. It’s a small community. They’ll never accept you, Daisy.” She pictured Suzanne Portier, Francine Boyer, Huguette Roche, to say nothing of the men and the other commune residents, all of them standing stony-faced, like a human barrier. Community ill will could be a long-enduring thing, as Christine Gaillard could attest.

  Daisy’s face took on a set expression. “I’m not one to run from things, Mara. It’s what I don’t like about backing out of France. Part of me would rather stay and meet things head on. For my own sake, if not for Donny’s.”

  “So … are you saying the choice is somehow up to me? If I accept to buy the viager, you’ll leave? If I don’t, someone else will get it or you’ll stay and—and be here?”

  Daisy grinned. “Interesting prospect, isn’t it?”

  •

  Dinner was not at Chez Nous that Friday but chez Mara and Julian on Monday night, when the bistro was closed and Paul and Mado could join them. It was a joyful celebration that included not only Loulou (who had forgiven Mara and Julian for standing him up the previous week), but also Joseph and Jacqueline Godet. Paul was in an excellent mood, and Mado, looking gorgeous, shared wonderful news. She was expecting again. The couple had brought champagne, and everyone drank to the mother’s (and the baby’s) health. Mado joined in the toast with an unaccustomed glass of milk. Julian put out a tray of Betul’s savory snacks to go with the bubbly.
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  “What is this?” murmured Joseph, staring at the cocktail-sized dolmas before him.

  “Grape leaves and spiced rice,” said Paul.

  At this point, they were joined by Laurent and his girlfriend, Stéphanie, a tall young woman with freckles and corn-colored hair, so they did the toast all over again. The pair seemed shy in the presence of others, especially since Loulou could not refrain from firing broad hints about June weddings at his grandnephew. Perhaps that was why the young couple spent most of the evening exchanging bashful glances. Mara, reading symptoms of the tender, silly first throes of love, felt warmly toward the two and wistfully envious.

  “Tout est bien qui finit bien,” beamed Loulou. All’s well that ends well. “Monsieur O’Connor and the Besser woman have been charged, and Luca and Serge won’t be troubling us for a long time to come.”

  “That’s a relief,” Julian said. “Serge was tailing me, you know.”

  Laurent shook his head. “He wasn’t. He was on his way to Madame Besser’s to return some orchids that Ton-and-a-Half ’s girlfriend complained weren’t blooming. Serge just happened to fall in behind you, and when he saw you turn up the lane, he waited at the roadside until you went away. He never even realized who you were.”

  “Really?” said Julian, feeling oddly let down.

  But the best news that Laurent had to impart was that Betul and Osman Ismet had been cleared of any involvement in smuggling or possessing drugs. Osman, however, would have to answer for concealing Peter’s death and burying a British national under a false identity. Kazim faced charges, but his punishment was likely to be lenient, given his youth, his clean record, and his co-operation with the police.

  The meal was excellent. Julian’s starter of cold poached asparagus (fresh green sprigs, not white) and quail eggs in a tasty sauce béarnaise was much appreciated. Mara surprised everyone with a succulent veal roast (bought rolled, seasoned, and ready to cook from the butcher).

  “Better than that dog food you made me,” Joseph grinned.