“You see, plenty more. Weston didn’t tell me about the wine of course. He didn’t tell anyone. It took me ten years to find it. Ten years I could have used the money. Of course it wouldn’t have fetched then what it does today.” She patted a bottle lovingly. “Good old brothers. They’ve been good to me.”
“To you?” Merle asked. “Did Harry know about this wine?”
Amanda acted like she hadn’t heard the question, running a hand down the rows.
“Wasn’t it Harry’s wine too, Amanda?”
“Wes never said. Sylvester didn’t even know. He wouldn’t have noticed I had money if you hit him over the head with it.” She looked at Merle. “Don’t be stupid. There was no will.”
Pascal put a hand on Merle’s arm, as if she was going to strike the old woman. His cell phone rang. “I’ll take this upstairs,” he told her. “Be gentle.”
Merle backed up to a wall and leaned against it. “How did you do it before Clifton? Sell the wine.”
“I had someone deliver it. It’s not difficult to get someone to deliver a package for you in New York. I prefer hand delivery. So when Clifton came back from Florida with me this fall he got the job.”
Came back with me? “He wasn’t really your husband, was he?”
Amanda chuckled, still in a dream-land of wine. “He wanted to get married. But just for the money.”
“So you sent him back to Florida.”
“No, dear. That was his idea. He really was quite a bastard when he wanted to be.”
“Well, I’m sorry he’s dead,” Merle said quietly.
“Oh, me too. Quite sorry. Very sad.”
Pascal appeared in the doorway again. “We should lock up the wine now.”
*
By the time they had locked all the doors, turned out the lights, and helped Amanda navigate up the stairs, it was getting dark outside. Four-forty-five, twilight of the month and year, New Years Eve was upon them. Merle sat Amanda down at the kitchen table again as Pascal arranged the rug over the trap door. Amanda took a sip of lukewarm tea and asked Merle to microwave it as the cars pulled up out front. Silently their headlights streamed across the lawn.
Pascal answered the knock.
“Who is it?” Amanda called. To Merle she said, “The neighbors are always so kind. Word must have gotten out.”
Pascal stood in the doorway. “Company for you, Mrs. Gillespie.”
She stood up, smoothing her blouse and smiling. “Is it Esther? Who is it?”
A large black policeman moved into the kitchen. “State Police, ma’am. You’re under arrest for the death of Clifton Gillespie. You have the right to an attorney…”
Twenty-Six
The taxi stopped in front a busy liquor store just before the bridge. Pascal jumped out and returned five minutes later with a bottle of champagne and two plastic cups. As the driver pulled through the toll center Pascal popped the cork, let it bounce around the interior, and they laughed as bubbles went everywhere. The cabbie cursed in some foreign language.
Merle lay her head back on the set, angling herself so she couldn’t see the meter ticking away the dollars. It was worth it, she knew it, taking an expensive cab ride home. But her Yankee ways were deep. Pascal’s phone rang for the seventy-fifth time.
“Is it Mateo again?” she asked, eyes on the Sound, twinkling in the moonlight.
“Mmm. May he rot in hell.” Pascal downed his champagne and poured himself more.
“I can’t believe Amanda would poison Clifton.” It was still too fresh, this revelation. But her brother had the same lack of morals.
“I can’t believe they did the autopsy so fast. But they knew what they were looking for.”
“Because of the sandwich? She packed a lunch for his getaway?” She laughed. “That is rich.”
“Packed him an arsenic-laced sandwich and sent him on his merry way. I guess he didn’t like it much. He only ate half.”
“Conveniently leaving the evidence. Pascal, while everything was crazy out in the living room I looked in that wooden trunk in her bedroom.”
“Tampering with evidence?” Pascal scolded.
“It was empty. Completely empty. I think he stole her money too. She must have been keeping it under the bed.”
“They found a large amount of cash on him. But no wine.”
She turned to him. “You made that up. To make her mad enough to turn on him.”
He shrugged. His phone rang again. He swore and hit the button. “Allo?” Merle could hear an irate voice as he held the phone away from his ear. “Mateo, c’est vous? Qu’est qui se passe? Vraiment? Oooh-la-la. Dommage.”
*
They arrived at Rick and Stasia’s New Years party in their dirty jeans, half drunk. It had been hours since they’d eaten and the alcohol, and relief that answers to most of the questions had been found, that justice had been served, went to their heads. Merle fell on the cheese tray and made herself several small sandwiches, thinking of Amanda’s sandwiches for her comrade, Clifton. How did you do that, put poison into a sandwich? Had they been in love? Were they just partners in crime? Did he steal her money? Whatever went down they had fallen out. Big time.
Merle remembered her earlier hope that Clifton was responsible, not Amanda. Now she silently backpedaled, hoping her wish hadn’t stuck wherever it landed in the cosmos, that whatever had happened had not been her fault because of her intention to spare Amanda. Who obviously didn’t deserve sympathy.
She munched, and hugged, and felt normality return in the warmth of her family. Such good sisters. Elise, in a short black dress and her hair wrapped up, lipstick bright, hopeful, an odd young man on her arm. Francie, defiantly single in silver lamé, giddy, boasting, brash, and lovely. Annie with her Scotsman, in his tartan tonight, his legs strong, encased in black socks and shiny boots. Stasia, the rock, the gatherer of good tidings, the maker of good moments. They were all so perfect, so right. And yes, Merle realized she was a little bit drunk. Still she loved them all, so much.
Pascal regaled the sisters and their friends with the story of Mateo LeBlond and his naughty exploits on the dark streets and in the dangerous discos of Manhattan. The story of Amanda, aunt to Harold, widow to Sylvester, was not so funny. She had been charged with first-degree murder. Plus there were loose ends to tie up. Although the wine in the cellar was almost definitely genuine even without contemporaneous paperwork, the cousins of Frères Celice wanted it analyzed in France, at the high tech labs at the Université de Bordeaux. It would be Pascal’s job to escort the bottles home.
Tristan ran up the stairs from the family room with his cousin Oliver on his heels, giggling madly, looking for someone to kiss as midnight approached. Merle raised her eyebrows, searching the room for someone unrelated to him and under forty. The boys grabbed a box of sparklers and headed outside instead. Merle sank into a chair, exhaustion catching her like a freight train. She was going to need a vacation from her Christmas vacation.
Pascal found her just before the clock struck. He held her coat, two sparklers, and a lighter.
“On y va, chérie. Il est temps pour les cierges magiques.” Time for sparklers.
On the front lawn a skim of snow clung to the grass. The moon had risen above the pine trees, turning the blue-black world of dead midwinter into something shimmery, magical, and fine. They shivered and laughed with the boys, listening to the adults inside counting down.
“Five, four, three, two, one.” Pascal swirled his sparkler in a figure eight, infinity, and kissed her hard. Tristan and Oliver whooped.
“Happy new year, blackbird,” he whispered.
*
Read all the Bennett Sisters Mysteries
Blackbird Fly
The Girl in the Empty Dress
Give Him the Ooh-la-la
The Things We Said Today
The Frenchman
I hope you’ve enjoyed Give Him the Ooh-la-la.
Sign up for the newsletter to hear about new releases, giveaways,
contests, and more
Click here
or copy and paste into your browser:
http://eepurl.com/A6bsD
*
Visit online at
www.lisemcclendon.com
Also by Lise McClendon
The Bluejay Shaman
Painted Truth
Nordic Nights
Blue Wolf
One O’clock Jump
Sweet and Lowdown
All Your Pretty Dreams
*
as Rory Tate
Jump Cut
PLAN X
*
as Thalia Filbert
Beat Slay Love
*
About the Author
Lise McClendon is the author of fifteen novels of crime and suspense. Her bestselling Bennett Sisters Mysteries is now in its fifth installment. When not writing about foreign lands and delicious food and dastardly criminals, Lise lives in Montana with her husband. She enjoys fly fishing, hiking, picking raspberries in the summer, and cross-country skiing in the winter. She has served on the national boards of directors of Mystery Writers of America and the International Association of Crime Writers/North America, as well as the faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference. She loves to hear from readers.
www.lisemcclendon.com
Give Him the Ooh-la-la Page 11