The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence

by Tracy Whiting

  “Breathtaking. If I weren’t a committed man…” He let the implication hang in the air. “You had better watch Améline. You did say she was on the hunt.”

  Havilah had to laugh. “That’s not the hunt I meant. I was talking about the job search. He’s all hers if she wants at him.”

  Whatever she said about her and Thierry, Laurent wouldn’t be convinced, which was just as well.

  She ventured to change the subject. “What time is it?”

  “Time to eat. And then we can sneak off and play Holmes and Watson.” He rubbed his hands together with excitement.

  “Laurent, who are the two gentlemen you were talking to?”

  “That’s Ellis Wise, he’s the president of the Center for American Scholars. They have a similar residential scholars program in Ravello, Italy. He’s on the board. I just can’t see him shoving Kit into the orchestra pit. He’s damn near seventy. The younger rat bastard, Lowery Jason, is the accountant and treasurer for the foundation. He’s also on the board, of course. He’s a distant cousin or nephew of some sort to William Knowlton. I know for a fact he just arrived this morning; I picked him up at the airport in Marseille.”

  Havilah wasn’t so sure she could just rule out Lowery Jason as a suspect. Gasquet’s words when they were in Paris at her apartment about the killer having resources were in the back of her mind now. And Jason Lowery, cousin-nephew to William Knowlton, certainly had the financial means to arrange his travel in and out of France at whim. As far as Wise was concerned, she couldn’t see him thrashing Kit. The guy had a cane. It could be a ruse. So she kept him in the running of suspects as well. That was four. She made five. So where were numbers six and seven?

  “Why did you call the Jason character a rat bastard?”

  She was smirking. Laurent had clearly been watching too many mafia movies here in the South not too far from the Italian Riviera. She wondered though if Cassis was like Aix-en-Provence, which was a perfectly beautiful bourgeois town with some questionable cosa nostra connects running through it.

  “He’s always threatening cutbacks,” he pouted, now trying to justify calling the founder’s relative a misbegotten rodent.

  “Who’s missing?” Havilah continued, ignoring Laurent’s childish pique.

  “Fassin, of course. She will be in for the meeting tomorrow morning. And Jean-Luc Cabassol. He is a photographer who lives in Marseille. He will be here tomorrow morning as well. He’s doing an exhibit in Bonn. Like you, he’s new to the board.”

  She studied the terrace, the sumptuous spread. The whole setup, she decided— dinner, the mingling of social classes, murder, mystery, a plush manse, a quasi-remote location— was beginning to feel like Agatha Christie’s Thirteen at Dinner. Oddly, there were thirteen of them at the dinner. Who would be the unlucky one this time around? She hoped it wouldn’t be another Astor professor. Also invited to the dinner were two couples who had vacation homes in Cassis and regularly attended Félibrige Foundation events.

  Havilah scarfed down at least six salmon canapés, chasing them with the endive and Roquefort salad, the scallop and avocado carpaccio, the black olive tapenade on several pieces of baguette, and the warmed chèvre on toast. She sampled a Bandol red. It was delightful. She finished her meal off with crème caramel, some berries, and a sparkling Muscat from Beaume-de Venise.

  Thierry, freed for an instant from Améline’s adoring clutches, strolled over casually. “You’ve got quite an appetite.”

  “I aspire to be a growing woman. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “I’m learning a lot, you could say.”

  Just as he said those words, Améline returned from the W.C and rushed towards the terrace. “Havilah, why didn’t you tell me that Thierry was an aficionado of American and French writers? He’s brilliant.”

  Havilah wanted to say, because I didn’t know that. Instead, she just shook her head as if in agreement and sipped the Muscat.

  “The next time I’m in Paris he’s promised to show me his Aristide Maillol collection during the years when Dina Vierny was his muse. I visited the Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol in 1997. The museum was exhibiting Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work.”

  “I saw that exhibition. I had to sit down after viewing it,” Havilah said. She remembered it well. She began the viewing thinking a seven-year old could do this drivel. By the end, she was incredibly moved and disturbed by the childishly drawn skeletal figures and the piercing social commentary. There were sketches involving Sarah Bartmann, the South African woman who was exhibited and dissected in Paris as well. All three of them fell silent; Havilah assumed each was thinking about how young the talented artist was when he overdosed from speedballing heroin and cocaine.

  So Thierry Gasquet was a French-Moroccan Renaissance man. Havilah raised her glass in Thierry’s direction. He returned the toast. Améline started up again, much to Havilah’s delight— she had just received a sign from Laurent. She stepped back from Améline and Thierry, bumping into Ansell Neely.

  “Excuse me, Ansell,” she said clumsily.

  “It’s okay, Havilah.” He leaned in, grazing her ear, as he gently touched her elbow.

  A frisson followed by tingles raced through her body. What the hell?!

  Wobbly, she excused herself to go to the W.C., moving quickly and quietly down the Académie’s large staircase to the first floor where Laurent was waiting at the front door. She rubbed both her ears nervously when she reached the landing. She was going to have them checked.

  X

  “Laurent, when will you be able to move back into the Trianon?” Havilah asked as he pushed open the small wooden door that led to the garden.

  “Soon, I hope. They said by Saturday. We were to have a concert in the Greek Theater next Sunday. But we can’t do that now, I don’t think. It would be inappropriate. I’m just glad the other Centennial events begin at the Musée Municipal Méditerranéen in Cassis rather than here. It would have been a logistical nightmare.”

  They continued walking, skirting under the caution tape barrier that led directly to Kit’s first floor apartment door. Laurent fidgeted with the keys and then pushed the door open. It was dark inside. The police had shuttered all the windows and the balcony doors. Since it was still light outside, Laurent opted to open a few shutters for natural light rather than draw attention by turning on one of the lamps. Someone surely would notice fluorescent lighting.

  The apartment was a mess. Furniture had been turned over and pushed around awkwardly. They moved quickly. Havilah surveyed the kitchen and then the living area. She opened drawers. She moved to his bedroom and then back to the office space he had created in front of the balcony fronting the Mediterranean. What inspiration. To be writing right above the sea, she thought.

  She walked through again. What the killer or killers didn’t take, the police had. This time she found a note in the bedroom on a bookshelf that read: STOP. Another in the living room on a side table: STOP. And one on the desk: STOP. Two were in large, dark printed fonts. Times New Roman 18, she guessed. The third filled the page with “Stop” in bold letters. Perhaps Kit was using these post-its to let himself know when to quit writing. Writers and their idiosyncrasies. She had hers as well. She couldn’t write before taking a shower. And she did her best work in a fluffy pink bathrobe in bed. She crammed the notes into her purse just in case they meant something more and began perusing the desk drawers. Inside she found three plain envelopes whose stamped provenance was Nashville, though there were no return addresses. She scooped those up as well. There was nothing else in the apartment that hadn’t been cleared out by the police or the killer. Her work here was done.

  They were in and out in ten minutes.

  “Laurent, I’d just like to walk the way Kit would have walked from his apartment to the Perched Terrace.”

  He agreed and followed her out the door and down a set of stairs. Havilah walked to the terrace, a masterfully crafted wooden structure, and looked out. This was his last view. She
saw something small and white in one of the flowerbeds. She reached over the police barrier and snatched up whatever it was— a cigarette butt.

  “Do you know if Kit started smoking again?” She stared curiously at the butt.

  “You know we don’t allow smoking on the foundation grounds. I never saw him smoking. That doesn’t mean he didn’t sneak off and do it,” he whispered with a bit of agitation that not only had smoking occurred but someone had littered the grounds.

  She studied the butt that could have been Kit’s or the killer’s, handling it carefully, so as not to touch the filter where the lips would have. Havilah knew Kit had smoked in his twenties. He had given the habit up not because of health concerns but because it discolored the teeth and left an odor in clothes and hair. He admitted to occasionally smoking as a treat for some accomplishment. She wondered if this was a treat of some sort— his last unbeknownst to him, or if the killer was casually smoking as he or she drained the life out of another human being. Perish that thought.

  Despite the warmth, she shuddered as she placed the butt in her clutch along with her other finds. She debated whether to give it all to Gasquet. It could be important. She couldn’t run any forensics. But then she inwardly blanched at what would undoubtedly be his first response. He would calmly but sternly, as seemed to be his way, name every infraction Havilah had committed: sneaking off, going to the grounds, tampering with an investigation. Whatever, she thought dryly.

  She knew all roads went through Gasquet if there was to be any headway made in solving Kit’s murder and protecting her ass. But given how he had brushed her aside when she attempted to make her last interventions, she needed to make sure she had something concrete to present to him. The notes, envelopes, and a cigarette were simply not enough, since the police hadn’t even bothered to collect them. She would do some more digging tonight and hopefully be able to present Gasquet with something better by tomorrow, she decided. She didn’t fully understand why she needed Gasquet to see her as more than a ward of the French state in distress. Perhaps because she wasn’t accustomed to being treated as helpless or, worse, useless.

  “How close were Améline and Kit?” she asked as they crossed the street.

  “Very close. They started seeing each other openly in late March.”

  “Was it serious?”

  “It’s hard to say. They were certainly adult about it. I think they enjoyed one another tremendously. But you know how these academic affairs go. I don’t think either one considered themselves a couple or were looking for marriage or monogamy. They had a meeting of minds. I think they were both too careerist for sentimentality. But good sex? Well, who doesn’t enjoy that?” He smiled widely, no doubt thinking about the great sex he had with the boyfriend.

  That was way too much information. But she had asked. She just couldn’t see Kit, with his meticulousness about his hair, pleasuring someone.

  She and Laurent arrived back in his office at Académie at 8:15, just as Thierry and Améline were descending the steps. Thierry had a quizzical look on his face.

  “Would you care for a digestif, Havilah?” he asked attentively. “You look a little out of sorts.”

  “Actually, Thierry, I’m exhausted. I’d like to go back to my room.”

  She was exhausted. Being in Kit’s apartment, those odd but perhaps explainable notes, touching that cigarette, left pits in her stomach and chest that felt like forebodings.

  “But Havilah, it’s so early,” Améline pleaded as she looked longingly at Thierry.

  “I know, but I’ve had a long day. Thierry, don’t feel compelled to leave because of me. Laurent can give me a ride back to the hotel. That’s not a problem. Before I forget, Laurent, where and what time is the board meeting tomorrow?”

  “At the civilized hour of 9 a.m. in the library.”

  “I wouldn’t want to impose on Laurent, Havilah.” Thierry Gasquet gave Améline a kiss on each cheek. “Besides, Améline and I will see each other tomorrow evening at Bar de la Marine.”

  Havilah’s head swiveled around like it was on rolling coasters. He didn’t. He got himself invited to her meeting with Améline. The smoke billowing from her nostrils distracted her from thinking about the despair in her stomach.

  “Yes, of course, dear,” Améline agreed.

  Dear! Dear! Havilah stared evenly at the both of them. Thierry shrugged his shoulders. He held open the door and then put his hand on her back; they moved silently towards the car. She couldn’t snarl or glower while Laurent and Améline were watching their every move. He assisted her into the car and then took his seat.

  “Buckle up, Havilah.”

  She glared at him. He started the car and did a U-turn to head back in the direction they had come. As soon as they were at the end of Avenue Jermini, they both started snipping.

  “What are you up to?” he bellowed first.

  “How dare you weasel in on my evening with Améline.”

  “I didn’t know you were that way for Améline,” he deadpanned.

  “You’re making jokes, now?” She rolled her eyes.

  “You left the party. Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Did you think I didn’t notice you pawned me off on Améline? Then the unbearable flirting with that foppish Neely character. We are trying to solve a murder and prevent another one. And I am here to protect you. Where you go, I go, until this is over.”

  “Which question would you like me to answer, Agent Gasquet? A bit possessive aren’t we? And so soon. This could be worse than marriage.”

  “Til death do us part then, Havilah.”

  Havilah thought about going all Scarlett O’Hara on him. Living in the South among the Southern belles had taught her a good deal about the arts of feminine artifices and mock umbrage. It would have been amusing to hurl words like “bastard,” “inconsiderate jackass,” and throw in a high-pitched “How dare you?” and a few unquestionably unladylike WTFs to boot. She could have also deployed the old standby: the silent treatment. It would have all been too exhausting. She thought about all the ways women smacked men on the nose for their misdeeds. She knew he hadn’t meant what those words had come to mean since she met him almost eight hours ago. She decided that some things didn’t require a riposte. You just let it go. She choked back a giggle— it was the sparkling wine, the Bandol, chased by the Muscat. She’d never been much of a drinker. She was a consummate sipper of varietals, never ever finishing a glass. She had drunk two glasses of the dessert wine way too fast. Plus she had that nice red with the salad and cheese. The red was her artery opener after all that sinfully creamy butter and cheese.

  Then she just let it rip. She needed to release a range of bottled emotions, a kindling rage, fear, and frustration. It started as a low snicker, then a whoop; but by the time they reached the hotel, she was howling with laughter. She thought she must have appeared delirious to Gasquet, who looked at her neither smiling nor grimacing. It was not a judgmental look. She supposed he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, as the saying goes— for her to slap him still because of his callous remark.

  By the time they reached the elevator she didn’t even mind its coziness. She was feeling kind of wowsy-wowsy-woo-woo from the wine. She felt like she was coming down fast. Thierry took her room key and opened the door. She had now moved from hysterical laughter to profound melancholy. She was on the verge of sobbing. She stepped in the door just as Thierry gently touched her shoulder. It was one of those compassionate touches that could set off a torrent of tears. She held steady.

  “I’m sorry. I was thoughtless.”

  “Really, it’s okay.” She closed the door. The first wave of sobs quietly erupted.

  XI

  Havilah lay down on the bed. She had had a good laugh and a good cry. She undressed and decided to take a quick shower. It was only 8:25. The sun had gone down but there was still a good hour or so of daylight left. She had plenty of work to do this evening; she needed a shower to revive her energy. She looked over her assortment
of aromatherapy, wondering which one— the orange ginger for energy or the eucalyptus spearmint for stress relief— would give her the biggest boost. She went for the orange ginger. Soothing her would have made her feel vulnerable. The stress wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. She needed energy, even if it was the nervous kind. That state at least made for sharper thinking.

  After the shower, she made her favorite tea— African Red Rooibos. She carried a canister filled with the loose leaf tea and an electric French press whenever she traveled. While the tea steeped, she opened her clutch and emptied out its contents. She placed it all on the table and booted her computer. She wanted to reconstruct Kit’s last hours as best she could.

  Havilah listened to his message again. He had called at 8:40, according to his message and her time-date stamp. He said he was going to meet Améline. Either he never made it to the harbor, or she met up with him at the Perched Terrace. She could just call Fitts and ask. But she would have had to explain how she knew they were meeting; if she were the murderer, she would wonder what else Kit said in his message to her. It would have been all cat and mouse from that point onward. Havilah had to broach the subject gingerly tomorrow evening; she could even make use of “Dear” Thierry, as Améline called him, as a seductive primer.

  She scrolled through her cell phone calls. She had called Kit at 9:40 and again at 9:42. According to Captain Noubard, the killer or somehow Kit answered the telephone when she called the first time. The second time she called, Kit’s voicemail answered.

  She was certain that the cigarette was fresh. The Félibrige grounds were normally immaculate. The groundskeeper would have spotted an old cigarette butt and snatched it up immediately. And if the cigarette was Kit’s, she was also certain, given his other idiosyncrasies, that he would have smoked it at nightfall so that no one would know about his transgression; his sense of decorum would not have allowed him to leave trash on the foundation’s grounds. She decided to watch the night fall. It was still light at 8:40 when Kit called. At 8:40 Kit’s alive; by 9:40 he is being murdered and I become all at once a witness and potential victim. One hour.