(17/40) Provence-To Die For

by Donald Bain

  The next hour was spent settling in and ferrying clothes from my luggage up the stairs to the bedroom I now thought of as mine. The suitcase was too heavy and awkward to maneuver in the small stairwell, and I wasn’t willing to risk a wrenched back just to make unpacking a little easier. Plus, I was a bit sore from my tumble at the hotel. Half the contents from the duffel had to come downstairs anyway. I lined up my winter boots on the floor under the hooks and put a pile of books on an end table in the living room, making efficient use of the round-trips.

  As I’d done for her, Martine had left a letter for me in the kitchen detailing useful information, such as where things could be found in the house, and who the neighbors were.

  M. Telloir will stop by with fresh eggs. He takes my olives to market in the picking season; we have a fair exchange. No need to pay him. Mme. Arlenne has a house directly across the paved road from our driveway. She will be happy to sell you root vegetables if you run out before the market day, which is Friday. I left you some food in the refrigerator, so you won’t have to shop right away. Help yourself to anything in the pantry, and anywhere else, for that matter. The bakery in the village opens at seven. It’s best to go in the morning when there’s a good selection, and make sure to count your change! You’re welcome to use my car. It’s in the barn. The key is under the mat.

  I wouldn’t take her up on this last offer. Martine had forgotten I don’t drive.

  I found milk, butter, eggs, and a loaf of sliced bread in the refrigerator, and laughed at the irony as I made myself French toast for lunch. I wondered what the French called this dish. Following my first meal as a temporary resident of Provence, I wandered around the house, Martine’s note in hand, locating the references on her list, starting in the kitchen. The “pantry” turned out to be a large bookcase covered by a yellow-and-white curtain that hung from a rod secured to the top. One shelf held rows of fruit preserves, another jars of olives, tomatoes, onions, cauliflower, and other vegetables; a third was filled with tins of fish and meats, boxes of pasta, and dry soup and other staples. Suspended from the side of the pantry was a narrow fabric bag with a flap at the top like an envelope. There wasn’t anything in it, and I wondered what it was for.

  The pantry stood to the left of the kitchen fireplace, which had a small, square, raised hearth. A massive mantel supported by carved wood columns framed the blackened grate. Resting on top was a squat yellow flashlight. Martine had told me that she’d had a new heating system installed, but because of the expense, she usually used both the downstairs fireplaces to combat the cold. Since hot air rises, the heat they generated would warm the bedrooms, at least for an hour or two, plenty of time to get comfortable under the quilts. I checked the stack of wood to the right of the fireplace. There were enough logs for one night of burning but not more than that. I assumed there was a woodpile outside.

  I slipped into my boots, pulled on Martine’s barn jacket, and tied the scarf I found in her pocket over my hair. While I’d been unpacking, the threatened storm had come through. The full brunt of the weather had passed, but clouds still obscured the sun and a stinging mist hung in the air. I let myself out the front door, crossed the patio, and headed toward the barn, really more of a low stable, catty-corner to the house. The barn doors were on well-oiled hinges, and one easily yielded to my tug. Happily, it was the side of the barn without the car. Daylight spilled in through the open door, illuminating the accumulation of old tools, discarded furniture, paint cans, and tarpaulins. It was like finding a private junk shop. I pulled the scarf from my hair and wandered among the flotsam and jetsam that had washed up in Martine’s garage.

  The barn smelled like a combination of gasoline and hay, not at all an unpleasant aroma. Martine’s navy-colored car sat on one side of the dirt floor, a veteran of the French road wars, with scars to prove it. It was old and battered, but as she’d once said to me, “It runs, and that’s all you should ask of a vehicle.” The other half of the barn was what interested me. I picked my way among wobbly chairs, unloved tables, empty picture frames, and rusted hulks of equipment, the purpose for which defied my imagination. Stopping to examine a blue-and-white pitcher with a small chip, I heard a soft mewing. I peered into the comer in the back where a rickety staircase led to the loft, and saw a sleek gray cat slip into the barn through a hole near the bottom step. We stared at each other, both of us sizing up whether this stranger was friend or foe. Finally I crooned, “Here, kitty, pretty kitty.” The cat gracefully leaped over several toppled paint cans to get to me, and wound its damp body between my ankles, purring loudly.

  “What a beauty you are,” I said, stooping to scratch my new friend behind the ears. “Where do you live?” The cat wore no collar, and I hoped it had a home. Too often I’d heard about summer visitors who’d abandoned their pets at season’s end, leaving them to fend for themselves. But this cat appeared healthy and well fed, with a soft coat and clear eyes.

  I love animals, but I haven’t owned a cat or dog since I was a child. When we were married, my husband Frank and I had no four-footed pets. His allergies limited our choice of animals to fish, beautiful and entertaining but not what you cuddle up with. After his death I’d concentrated on my writing career, and even though my business trips were infrequent at first, I’d never found the opportunity to bring an animal into my home. But having a cat or a dog, while impractical for me now, was still a sweet dream I hadn’t let go. If this cat were to become a regular visitor, I mused, perhaps that dream would come true for two months in Provence. I looked forward to finding out.

  Grateful for the quiet company, I continued to explore the barn with my feline companion. In the back, partially obscured by a stack of warped boards, we found a treasure. It was dirty and rusty and its tires needed air, but there it was—a bicycle. It even had a dusty wicker basket dangling by a wire from one handlebar. Martine had said to help myself to anything. Surely she wouldn’t begrudge me riding her old bike.

  I pulled the bicycle out of the barn to inspect it in better light. The tires were flat but the wheels weren’t warped. Since it had no kickstand, I leaned it against a tree while I went back in the barn to search out an air pump, finding one on a shelf on the other side of Martine’s blue car. The air valve was rusty, but with persistence I managed to unscrew the cap. Kneeling on the damp earth, I worked the hand pump up and down to push enough air into the tires to determine whether there was an unfixable leak. There wasn’t A short time later the tires were plump and firm, and I was dirty and exhilarated. I’d give the bike a good cleaning tomorrow before testing it out, I promised myself. I rolled the bike back into the barn, leaned it against one of the mystery tools, and wiped my hands on an already greasy cloth thrown over a toolbox. My cat friend had left the way she’d come in, through the hole in the back of the barn. I hoped she would give me the gift of her friendship again.

  I closed the barn door. The sun was setting behind the clouds, painting streaks of orange and lavender across the sky. It would be dark soon. I looked around, regretful there wasn’t more time to explore. But I’d already had a very satisfying day, and the expectation of another good one tomorrow.

  That night, after a hot bath had soothed away the sore muscles brought on by my fall at the hotel, and following a supper of salad, bread, and a country pâté Martine had thoughtfully left for me, I made a fire in the living room fireplace and curled up to read. The book I’d chosen was a mystery by a popular author I’d never read before. His descriptions of eerie atmospheres and sinister characters were very well done, but the graphic descriptions of blood and gore had me skipping paragraphs. His hero was following a trail of blood on the floor, the crimson drops leading to ... A chill raced up my spine and I shivered. Outside, the wind wailed and rattled the shutters. The old house creaked. I heard two thuds. Instantly I became acutely aware of the sounds around me. The crackle of the fire and the pop when the flames hit a pocket of sap. The mantel clock with its slightly offbeat ticking to the time of its swinging
pendulum. The scratching of a branch brushing against an outside wall. I was in an unfamiliar house, out in the country, isolated, my nearest neighbor, whom I hadn’t even met yet, down the road past the orchard.

  “You’re doing a good job of scaring yourself, Jessica,” I told myself out loud. “It’s time you went to bed.”

  I marked my place in the book and left it on the living room table. This was not a good bedtime story. Better to tackle it during the day, and save the night for a different kind of book, maybe the novel by Rosamunde Pilcher that took place in Scotland, or perhaps the book of French poetry I’d picked up in the airport.

  I banked the fire in the hearth, checked the locks on the front door and the one in the kitchen, and went upstairs to my new bedroom. I changed into my nightclothes, washed up, and climbed under the covers. The sky had cleared. Moonlight spilled through the single window opposite my bed. The shadowed patterns on the cold white disk were sharply delineated. Off in the distance, an animal howled. A wolf?

  “You’ll never get to sleep with the moonlight in your eyes,” I grumbled, flinging back the quilts and feeling around on the floor for my slippers. I crossed the room to the window and knelt on the window seat to keep from banging my head on the sloped ceiling. Tiebacks held the curtains open. I released them from the hooks, and started to pull the panels of fabric together when a movement caught my eye. A large tree in the front obscured my view of the barn, but I thought I saw the shadow of its door closing. Was someone sneaking around out there? I sank down on the window seat and stared through the branches, daring the prowler, if there was one, to show himself. The tree swayed with each gust of wind, and leaves rolled over the concrete patio outside the front door below, but no other shadows materialized.

  “This is ridiculous,” I told myself. “You can’t spend half the night watching out the window.” Without turning on a light, I pulled my coat from the wardrobe, put it on over my nightclothes, and padded downstairs. Now where had I seen that flashlight? Right! The mantel. I pocketed the light, crossed the kitchen, opened the front door as quietly as I could, and slid out. Moonlight filled the patio and illuminated the front of the garage.

  I walked quietly to the big barn doors and opened the one on the right. The wind grabbed the door and threatened to slam it back against the garage. I held on tight and peered into the gloomy interior, endeavoring to see if someone was hiding behind the rusting tools. I flicked on the flashlight and played the beam over the metal hulks and discarded furniture. The garage was empty. I shone the light on the ground. Were those smudges on the damp ground footprints? They appeared to lead to the left.

  Feeling a bit foolish but determined not to take any chances, I grabbed the nearby bicycle pump, latched the barn door, and tiptoed stealthily around the side of the garage. A trail led past the building, uphill between tall trees, and into the woods. The moonlight was fainter here—as was the wind—but by now my eyes had become accustomed to the dark.

  I listened to the sounds of the night. Was that some wild creature making those snuffling noises? I moved forward slowly, stopping every few steps, straining to hear over the rustling leaves. The moisture from the wet ground and soggy leaves underfoot seeped into my slippers. “Next time you chase a prowler, Jessica,” I told myself, “remember to put on your shoes.” A sound up ahead put all my senses on alert. I crept up the wooded path, gripping the pump like a baseball bat for protection, squinting to detect any movement that might give away the intruder. I crested the rise and stopped. About thirty feet in front of me, someone was kneeling on the ground, digging under a tree. A small dog was circling the person and whining.

  “You there!” I called out, forgetting to speak French. From the top of the hill, I directed the flashlight toward the kneeling figure. “What are you doing? This is private property.” I held the bicycle pump aloft. “You have no business here.”

  The dog barked sharply but backed away from this advancing apparition wielding an unknown weapon. The animal’s owner, dressed in a dark hooded jacket that concealed his face, cursed fluently and took off down the hill, a white canvas bag flapping on his back, the yapping dog running ahead of him. A moment later I heard the revving of a car engine and the whoosh of tires on the sand and gravel road below as the human and canine trespassers made their escape.

  I lowered the bicycle pump and stood for a moment, waiting for my pulse to slow. Well, it was nice to know it wasn’t just my heated imagination that had conjured an intruder, wasn’t it? What could he have been burying under the tree? Loot from a robbery, perhaps? I shone the light on the ground beneath the tree, but there was nothing to see, except a shallow hole with an earth pile next to it. A distant bark sounded, followed by a howl, and then more barking. Coyotes? Did they have coyotes in France? Suddenly aware of my damp slippers and cold feet, I hurried to return to the house, not even stopping to replace the bicycle pump in the garage. Tomorrow, I pledged to myself, I would come back and see if there was anything more I could find.

  Early the next morning, as I scrubbed down the bicycle in front of the house, M. Telloir arrived. I was dressed in my running outfit, gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, with an apron protecting the front of my clothes and a scarf around my neck for warmth. It was not exactly what I’d choose to wear to greet company, but since I hadn’t known he was coming, I couldn’t very well have prepared.

  “Philippe Telloir at your service, madame,” he said with a slight bow. He held a wire basket with a half dozen eggs nestled in hay. He had workman’s hands, rough and red, with large knuckles and grease worked into the lines of his fingertips.

  “I’m Jessica Fletcher,” I said, drying my wet hands on a dishtowel I’d slung over one shoulder. “I’m pleased to meet you. Martine said you’d stop by.”

  He smiled at my greeting, his dark face lined from many years in the Provençal sun and wind, and wiped his right hand on his trousers before shaking mine. His eyes strayed to the half-washed bike. “It’s not bad, eh? You are doing a good job of it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But Martine, she ’as a car, you know,” he said, winking at me.

  “I know,” I said, “but I don’t drive. This will help me get around a bit faster than on foot. And if I can fix this basket, I’ll have a place to put packages.”

  “Ah,” he said, contemplating my predicament. “Marcel Oland can drive you. ‘E ’as a good car. Very fast.”

  I cleared my throat to hold back a laugh. “Yes, it certainly is,” I said. “Marcel drove me here from Avignon. Is he the only person who offers driving services?”

  “In St. Marc? Oui.” He stuck his hand under his tweed cap and scratched his head, revealing sparse strands of gray-and-black hair combed over his mostly bald pate. “There is old Peristolle’s son, but ’e is very reckless. You are safer with Marcel.”

  I sighed. Without an alternative, I would have to ask Marcel to drive me to Avignon next week.

  M. Telloir put down his eggs, squatted in front of the bike, and tipped his head from side to side. His blue hooded jacket was unzipped, allowing his solid stomach to push out over his belt. He pinched his nose. “How are you going to attach that?” he asked, pointing to the wicker basket, which dangled from the handlebar by a thread of wire.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I should be able to find something in the garage, but I haven’t looked yet.”

  “Let me see,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and pushing up. He walked toward the barn before I could say not to bother, moving with the ease of someone accustomed to working outside, his bowed legs giving him a rocking gait that reminded me of a children’s toy.

  I picked up the wet rag I’d been using to wipe down the saddle seat, and continued my chore, keeping an ear toward the barn where I could hear M. Telloir rummaging through the toolbox. The front half of the bicycle was indeed “pas mal,” or “not bad,” as he’d said, but the rust on the wheel spokes resisted my scrubbing. I’d finished removing the encrusted dirt and
was wiping the bike with a clean, dry cloth when M. Telloir emerged from the barn. He clipped the wire holding one side of the basket to the bike, banged the basket against his leg, dislodging a sprinkle of dirt, and handed it to me. “It ’ave to be rinsed,” he said. “Then I attach it for you.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate that,” I said, straightening from my polishing. “May I offer you something to drink, Monsieur Telloir? Martine has some English breakfast tea, and I think there’s a bit of cake as well.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to some tea,” he replied. He followed me into the kitchen, and while I filled the kettle, he removed a bowl from the cupboard, put his eggs in it, and deposited the bowl in the refrigerator. It was a familiar routine for him, I imagined, Martine entertaining him just as I was about to do. I put the kettle on the stove and took the bicycle basket to the sink. M. Telloir shambled over to the side door off the kitchen as I poured water over the grimy wicker.

  “I will be right back,” he said. The side door squealed as he opened it, and cold air circled around the kitchen, raising goose bumps on my arms. Two minutes later he reentered with an armload of wood and proceeded to fill the wood boxes next to the fireplaces.

  “Would you like for me to lay a fire?” he asked.

  “Are you cold?” I asked, placing two cups and saucers on the table.

  “No. No, I’m fine,” he protested. “But you ...”

  “I’m planning to go for a walk this morning,” I said, “and I wouldn’t want to leave a fire burning. But thank you for bringing in the wood. I’d wondered where the woodpile was.”

  “It is just outside your door,” he said, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. “The wind was bad last night, eh? It knocked down a few of your logs.”

  Okay, I told myself. Those were the thuds I heard. There’s always a rational explanation for everything, I thought. But why was someone digging in the woods behind the house? I eyed M. Telloir’s hooded jacket. No, I thought, I doubt he would be able to move as fast as my nocturnal prowler, but better not say anything yet. I poured water over the tea, sliced a small cake Martine had left in the fridge, and put plates and silverware on the table along with a pitcher of cream and a bowl of sugar.