Persimmon Crown

by R J Fournier

  Sophie hobbled in, her bracelets banging against the crutch. “I broke my foot.”

  “How terrible. Sit down, please.”

  Frank came into the room. Helen introduced them. “How did you do that?” he asked.

  “Skiing.” She took off her jacket before collapsing into an armchair. She was wearing a black sheath that pulled above her knees as she sat. The low neckline revealed a tattoo of flowers and vines that twisted into her cleavage. She’d removed the nose ring, leaving a small red mark. Silver rings still lined the outer edge of her left ear. “It is embarrassing, no? I am a very good skier.”

  “Accidents happen to the best,” Frank said.

  “They removed the cast last week. This boot is much easier to walk. Soon I will not need a crutch.”

  “Would you like something?” Helen asked, her suspicions momentarily forgotten in the face of the girl’s injury. “We’re just about to eat dinner…”

  “Non, merci. I am meeting a friend later.”

  That explained the sexy dress, Helen thought.

  “Some wine?” Frank offered.

  “Non, merci,” she answered again, but with a different inflection.

  Coco Chanel came into the room, going up to Sophie and sniffing her boot.

  Sophie yanked her foot away.

  “Don’t worry. She just wants to get to know you,” Helen said.

  “I do not like dogs.”

  “Coco, go lie down,” Helen commanded.

  The dog obeyed by plopping down with a harrumph beside Sophie’s chair.

  Helen decided the best strategy was to let lying dogs sleep and to divert the conversation. “Where were you all this time?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. She didn’t want it to come across like an interrogation.

  “In a cabin in the mountains. The doctor was very kind and let me stay with him.” She smiled at Frank then, turning to Helen, asked, “Who is looking for me?”

  “The police.” Frank said.

  Not quite true, but Helen was glad Frank had said it.

  “But why?”

  “They found your disappearing so soon after your aunt’s murder suspicious,” Helen said, which she hoped was true after the police read the article in that morning’s newspaper.

  Sophie appeared surprised. “Do they suspect me of her murder?”

  Helen had to relent. “They just want to talk to you.”

  “I do not know what more I could tell them. I had not seen her for a month before she died.” She met Helen’s eyes more directly than she had since arriving. “That must have been a terrible shock for you, finding her body.”

  “Less so than I’d expect.”

  “Don’t let her fool you. She was a mess afterward.”

  “Frank, you exaggerate so.”

  “I would have been quite scared,” Sophie said. “What if the murderer were still there?”

  “I thought she’d had a heart attack or some other natural cause,” Helen said. “Murder didn’t even enter my head.”

  “You must have looked around though. Did you see anything?”

  “It was quite dark in the shed.” Helen paused. “To be honest, I did feel a little uneasy and glanced around.”

  “You must have had a flashlight. Perhaps on your phone?”

  “My phone is too old. Why?”

  “I thought you might have been able to see someone hiding in a corner.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t. I’d have collapsed from fright on the spot.”

  “I am sure not.” Sophie glanced at her own lap then back to Helen. “She was not my aunt, you know. I just—“

  “You told me—”

  “I thought it easier that way.” She sat up straighter and pulled her booted foot closer. “Madam DuQuenne believed me. Etienne—Etienne Cheyne was her brother—told me they had not spoken for thirty years. I could have been his child. She would not have let me in otherwise.”

  “But why do it? Why did you visit her if she wasn’t your aunt?”

  “Etienne and I are friends.” She smiled at Frank. “He has lived in our village as long as I can remember. My mother did not want me seeing him, but that made him more intriguing. I would sneak over to his house, and he would give me a glass of wine.” Although Helen hadn’t given the slightest hint of disapproval, Sophie looked at her and said, “It is not unusual for children to drink wine in France. He would talk, like any old man telling stories from the past except he was good at it. Of course, he liked a young girl as an audience.” She returned her smile to Frank. “I began calling him mon oncle. In a way, Madam DuQuenne was my aunt, you see?”

  “But why come all the way here,” Helen asked, “to visit a woman you’re not related to and don’t even know?”

  “I did not come just for her. After I graduated from the Marais, I decided to take a year to travel the States.”

  “The Marais?” Frank asked.

  “The dance school.”

  “But your foot. Will you be able to dance?”

  “I have decided I am not suited for the dance. Besides, they did not allow visible tattoos.” She raised a hand toward her decorated shoulder.

  “What will you do now?” Frank asked.

  “I do not know.” Facing back to Helen, she went on, “When I arrived in California I thought about the painting Etienne told me about. It was very romantic, you see, his story of the king giving it to his ancestor when the convent was suppressed. A real piece of French history. I wanted to see it.”

  “What painting?” Frank asked.

  “The one I took a picture of,” Helen said.

  “You saw it?” Sophie asked, her voice more excited than Helen had ever heard it. “So it is still there? The police haven’t taken it?”

  “At least not when I was there.”

  “And it was not damaged?”

  “Other than the frame. Someone pried the stones out. Here, I’ll show you.” Helen retrieved her phone from her handbag and handed it to Sophie. “I’m curious about the jewels. I mean, the lack of jewels in the frame. I thought you said they were paste.”

  “I do not understand. You think they were made of glue?”

  “I’m sorry. Paste is an old word for fake jewels. Made of glass.”

  “Why do they call them paste if they are made of glass?”

  “I have no idea.” Helen was sorry she’d gotten them off topic. “So why did you think they were fake?”

  “I texted a picture to my…brother.”

  Helen caught Sophie’s hesitation. If Etienne could be her ”uncle,” André could be her “brother” in Sophie’s fluid family. Even though André had denied knowing Sophie, Helen asked, “You mean your cousin, André?”

  Sophie studied Helen like a cat approaching a snake. “No. My brother’s name is Quinton. Who is André?”

  “Someone I met in your aunt’s house…I mean Cécile DuQuenne’s house soon after she died. He said he was your cousin.”

  Sophie relaxed. “I have no cousins. Perhaps he took the jewels.” She put on an ingenuous look so at odds with her usual demeanor that Helen assumed she meant it as a joke.

  “I don’t think so. He was looking for something when I got there. If he’d already taken the jewels, he’d have left with them right away. Not that it matters if they were fakes. Still, it’s curious. Why did your brother think they were fake?”

  “He said no one would hang them on the wall like that. They would be too easy to steal.”

  “When did you see them?”

  “Two months ago, the day Madame DuQuenne kicked me out. I had not ventured into her bedroom before. That was the day I took the photograph that I sent to my brother. She caught me leaving her room and was very angry. She accused me of trying to steal the painting. She told me to tell Etienne if he will not take it back, she would do it herself. ‘Mon pèlerinage finale,’ she called it. My final pilgrimage.”

  “Do you have any idea what she meant?”

  “No, I am sorry.”
r />   “What happened after that?” Frank asked.

  “She told me to leave that night. I was lucky to have a friend who took me in.”

  “Is that where you’re staying now?”

  “No, a different friend. I should be going. I am supposed to meet him soon.”

  Frank stood to help her, but she’d already gotten up on her own and headed toward the door. As he held the door open for her, Frank asked, “How did you learn such good English? It’s perfect.”

  “Everyone studies it in school, of course, but I had an American friend. He spoke only English. In two years I had a lot of practice. I am good at languages. He was terrible.”

  When the door closed Helen said, “She was flirting with you.”

  “She was not. I’m old enough to be her father.”

  Helen felt a surge of love because he hadn’t noticed, but his obvious pleasure at the possibility made her respond, “More like her grandfather.” She immediately relented. “It’s all right. She is an interesting girl.”

  As they headed to the kitchen and their delayed dinner, she said, “I know one thing. She’s not telling us everything she knows. I wish I’d asked her why Cécile DuQuenne had let a supposed daughter of a brother she hadn’t talked to in thirty-five years stay with her. And what do you make of Cécile wanting her brother to take something back and it being her last pilgrimage? Pilgrimage implies something religious, don’t you think?”

  “Didn’t Marija Vitkus say DuQuenne was losing it?”

  “Maybe. But people often say that when an old lady is saying things they don’t want to hear.” Pulling out a baking dish, she added, “You can make the salad.”

  ELEVEN

  Delyth’s article almost hadn’t been published. “We are not in the business of tweaking the police’s collective nose,” Ted had said.

  “I asked for comment from the police,” Delyth said in her defense. She’d called Josh who responded he could not discuss an ongoing investigation, which she dutifully reported in her piece.

  Even so, Ted rejected it, saying it was based on the word of some old biddy, who was probably looking for attention. But somehow the managing editor saw it and suggested—he would never think to demand—that it should go into the next edition.

  When Ted told her it would run, the only change he wanted was to refer to it as the “persimmon murder.”

  “Why? Persimmons had nothing to do with it except in some bogus story the cops are peddling,” she countered, trying to sound confident that what she said was true.

  “That’s what people are calling it,” Ted answered. “If I have to publish the thing, I want to trade on the meme.”

  She resisted arguing that “persimmon murder” didn’t rise to the status of a meme, and changed the first paragraph.

  The day after her article appeared, Delyth was still basking in the rosy feeling of achievement. She held it up to admire. Second section but above the fold. Her moment of self-congratulations was interrupted by two phone calls.

  The first was from Helen Terfel who thanked her for the article. “I’m sure it’s going to stir the pot.”

  Delyth laughed. “You never know what’s going to rise to the surface when you start stirring. So far, though, I can’t say there’s much new to report.”

  “One thing that happened is Sophie Poirer showed up at my front door,” Helen said, again forgetting her intention to be careful about what she told a reporter. “She broke her foot skiing and was laid up in a remote mountain cabin with no phone and no internet connection.”

  “It must have been torture for her!”

  “She said she’d been friends with Etienne in their village and called him uncle. So she told Cécile she was her niece even though they weren’t related.”

  “But Etienne said he didn’t even know her.” Delyth had to back up and tell Helen more of the details of her interview with Etienne Cheyne than had appeared in the article.

  “I don’t know why Sophie would lie about it.”

  “Well, she admitted to lying about being Cécile’s niece.” Delyth’s mother would have placed Sophie among the damned, capable of any depravity, lying the least of them. “Maybe she and Etienne were having an affair, and he didn’t want to admit it.” As soon as she said it, she thought Etienne was the type of man who’d brag about bedding a woman fifty years younger than him. She immediately dispelled the disturbing image from her mind.

  “Sophie does seem to have a lot of male friends.” It was Helen’s turn for a small laugh. “Who knows?”

  “Did she say why she bothered to go out of her way to see an old woman she didn’t know and wasn’t related to?”

  “To check out the painting of the crucifixion for Cheyne.”

  “So maybe it is worth something.”

  “Maybe, but it’s still hanging in the bedroom,” Helen countered. “If it was worth killing for, you’d think the killer would have taken it with him.”

  “Maybe he didn’t have time.”

  “Too many ifs and maybes,” Helen said. “I’ve got to go, but call me if you learn anything new.”

  “You too.”

  The second call was from Samantha Gawley.

  “I just want to thank you for your article this morning,” Sam said. “It’s the best news we’ve gotten.”

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”

  “Still, Mike was more hopeful than he’d ever been.”

  “You’re seeing Mike?”

  Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t let him sit in jail alone. And, I don’t know, it’s like we used to be. I go to visit every day I can.”

  “Would you like to give me his side of the story?”

  “He still isn’t talking about it. I don’t know what I could tell you.”

  “Why don’t we meet for coffee?”

  Sam took a moment to answer. “I’m torn about talking with you. I appreciate what you’ve done for Mike, but you came down hard on the police. Josh Griffin’s a good cop.”

  “I know he is, but he refused to give me anything more than no comment.”

  “You turned that into sounding like an admission he wasn’t doing anything on the case.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Delyth hadn’t intended to hurt Josh, but the hook of accusing the police of dropping the ball on the DuQuenne investigation was too good to pass up. Had she gone too far?

  “The guys I work with hate you,” Sam said. “They’re ready to put you on the special attention list.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Routine traffic stops every time you drive through town. Some have been known to smash a taillight as an excuse to pull you over.”

  “Oh, my God. Is that a threat if I don’t back off?”

  “No. They’re just letting off steam. They’d never act on it. But you can see why I might not want to be seen talking with you.”

  “What if we make it completely off the record. You’ll get the chance to talk to somebody about it. I’m sure it’s been hard.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “You don’t. You’re going to have to trust your judgment of what kind of person I am.”

  Sam hesitated. Finally she said, “You know? I really can’t talk about it with anyone else. My cop friends don’t want to hear about it. My other friends think I’m a fool for getting involved.”

  “How about today?”

  “I don’t have to go in until two. The kids are with their dad. How about lunch?” She suggested a restaurant midway between them.

  Thinking back on the conversation, Delyth questioned whether it was unprofessional to go ahead with the meeting after promising away any hope of an article coming out of it. It was certainly atypical of a cynical profession that would see it as a waste of time. But she recalled Sam saying in their first interview that she felt closest to Mike when he was in Iraq, inaccessible and in peril. Now that he was in jail, their visits limited and his life on the line, she’d fallen for him again. Was it the man she loved or t
he danger he was in? Was Sam’s love for Mike real or pathological? Even if it couldn’t lead to a story, Delyth wanted to know.

  ◆◆◆

  They ordered at the counter, received a metal, numbered flag and found a table.

  A group of a dozen women were seated along one wall, their voices already rising in pitch and volume. Delyth looked around. Everyone in the room was female. “I guess this isn’t a usual cop hangout."

  Sam followed Delyth eyes. “Oh, you think I didn’t want to be seen with you.” She laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t think any cops would recognize you.”

  One would, Delyth thought.

  A waitress brought a lemonade and an ice tea.

  “I was surprised you weren’t at the prelim hearing,” Sam said.

  “I was busy that afternoon.” Delyth didn’t explain she’d fallen behind on her general assignment duties and needed to finish five obituaries, doing the clean-up work for an equally busy grim reaper. “I requested a transcript,” she added, She hadn’t, but now thought it was a good idea. ”Besides, a prelim doesn’t make a compelling story. Not by itself. It’s not even half the story because the prosecutor isn’t going to lay out his whole case upfront. Just enough to convince the judge he has a case.”

  Sam nodded.

  “What’s the prosecution’s current theory?” Delyth asked.

  “That Mike has PTSD and snapped and killed her.”

  They probably got that one off the evening news, Delyth thought. “What triggered his outburst?” Sam’s expression made her add, “According to the police.”

  “The argument over his stealing her persimmons.”

  “The police aren’t going to arrest someone based on one witness saying he saw them arguing. Freddie told me he didn’t even know what the argument was about.”

  “Now he’s sure it was over the persimmons.”

  Delyth might have just set herself up for a subpoena as a witness for the defense. Did Freddie Olsen, or did he not, tell you he wasn’t sure what the argument was about? Did he, or did he not, say that it was the police officer who suggested it was over stolen persimmons? Her testimony wouldn’t improve her standing with the police. Or with Josh Griffin. The final nail?