Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 11
The pamphlet described the inside of the shrine as “damp.” Today, June 19, was the day she was buried, a traditional time for the faithful to honor her.
Monsieur Rancard had been out of the office when she called earlier, but would return her call later from the road. He was in Cahors again, his secretary said. The waiter brought her main course, chicken with a light sauce. As she looked up to thank him she saw the gendarme in the lobby. He was starting to get on her nerves: always present, never helpful.
The food was heavenly, sweet and tender. She finished her main course and sipped her wine. Then, in front of her table stood the manager and the gendarme. “Madame, pardon,” Framboise stammered. He tipped his head toward the door. “If you please come?”
Redier had his usual insolent look on. She wiped her mouth and followed them into the manager’s small office.
“Have you found my watch?” she asked.
Framboise blinked nervously, listening to the gendarme. “There has been an accident. Madame LaBelle,” he whispered. The gendarme growled some more. “She fell from the Shrine, down the cliff. She is dead.”
“What?” Rancard’s prediction that she would have to battle Justine’s descendants for the house was looking prescient. Merle frowned. “I’m sorry.”
“He wants to know your whereabouts early today. This morning.”
“Well, I saw her. I got up early. Jet lag.” Framboise translated. “I went out to go for a walk about six and saw Sister Evangeline and Justine get on the bus to the Shrine, so I walked up the steps. I wanted to talk to Madame LaBelle about the house.”
“The house?” Framboise asked.
“The one that is legally mine,” Merle said. “The gendarme knows which one.” Perhaps she shouldn’t be quite so forceful, she thought, watching the gendarme’s face. Getting the drift, finally. She could almost hear his thoughts: Greedy American tries to steal house from the poor, lonely Frenchwoman, by hook or by crook. “I tried to speak to Madame LaBelle yesterday. As you know. I thought with the crowd there I would have a better chance. I wanted to tell her I meant her no harm, that I would try to help her.”
“And did you speak to her?”
“Very briefly.”
The gendarme waved her to stand. Framboise said, “You must go with him and make a statement.”
She examined the cold, black eyes of the gendarme. The embodiment of authority. He, who smelled like cigarettes and garlic. Albert’s words: Must show respect. She stood up. “With pleasure.”
* * *
The small gray interview room in the small gray gendarmerie still had a photograph of Charles de Gaulle on the wall. There was a tiny window at chin-height that dropped a square of sunshine on the wooden table. The gendarme and a new man, someone she understood was from out of town, sat firing questions at her. So far she’d managed to say, “Je ne parle pas francais,” at least a dozen times.
“I want a translator, um — pour parler les mots entré anglais et francais.” How did two tribes ever communicate?
The out-of-town officer, introduced as Capitan Montrose, barked at Redier. They both left the room, locking her in, cigarette-free when she really wanted one. She had brought one pack of Slims with her and vowed to stop when they were gone. So far she’d only smoked one, out the window of the hotel after returning from the shrine.
Cigarettes. The telltale sign of nerves. It was only a statement. She had spoken to the deceased. She was accustomed to working with cops in Harlem, they didn’t intimidate her. So what were these nerves?
Having your attorney present during questioning was possibly not a right in France, but she wanted one. It was the language barrier. Capitan Montrose returned and sat down, his notepad on his knee. He was one of those indeterminate-age Europeans, somewhere between thirty and fifty, a bit jowly, hair still dark but a few strands of gray over his temples. His head was flat on the sides, his mouth small. Thick eyebrows looked crayoned onto his face. His skin was office-work pale and he wore a rumpled gray suit with an ill-fitting shirt.
Expressionless, he offered her a cigarette. Brown Gauloise, strong and bitter: after one puff she put it out. Redier returned, ushering in an older woman with a patrician air and blond hair she fashioned after Catherine Deneuve. The Capitan offered his chair.
“My name is Jacqueline Armansett. I am the head teacher at the school. These men — the inspector — have asked for my services in translating your statement.”
Merle smiled at her, hoping for some sisterly bond but feeling only a chill.
“The inspector asks for you to take him through all of your meetings with Madame LaBelle.”
“Today?”
“All.”
Merle began with the death of Harry and the inheritance of the house. She told of hearing about the squatter and her own work helping the homeless find shelter. Of coming to France and trying to speak to Madame LaBelle with her lawyer, and through the garden gate. She pointed out the bruise on her forehead.
“He says, do you have a witness to the rock-throwing?”
“Albert Tailliard. He lives across the alley.”
Merle repeated what had happened that morning, taking care not to gloss over witnesses, people who saw her come and go. She mentioned the man getting off the bus. The nuns in their robes, Sister Evangeline.
“Have you spoken to Sister Evangeline?” Merle asked them.
“Who is this please?”
“According to Albert she showed up last week to help Madame LaBelle with the legal battle over the house.”
“Legal battle?”
“Madame LaBelle thinks — thought — that she owned the house. My documents show that my late husband owned it, for fifty years. I inherited it when he died.”
“How did your husband die, Madame Bennett?”
“A heart attack.” They stared at her through the smoke. “Oh, come on.” Merle rolled her eyes. Now she was a serial killer? “I had nothing to do with my husband’s death, nor with the death of Madame LaBelle. I walked down the road from the Shrine. Several people saw me as they drove up.”
“Can you give us names or descriptions?”
“A white van. I didn’t see the driver, I was too busy jumping behind a tree to avoid being killed. A green — one of those little cars. A woman was driving.” That should narrow things down. “I had a croissant and a coffee at the patisserie about eight o’clock. I bought a paper at the tabac, the International Herald Tribune. The agriculture strike is on the front page. I went back to my room and straightened it up. Monsieur le Gendarme can confirm that it was broken into yesterday and several things were stolen.”
The gendarme spoke to the captain. “What are they saying?” Merle asked the teacher.
“He says you reported a burglary.” The teacher listened to the captain. “What does your watch look like?”
“A gold link band, small with a pearl face with four tiny diamond chips. A Tag Heuer, old, scratched.”
The captain spoke to Redier who left the room. In a moment he was back with a small plastic bag with black writing on it. Inside was her watch.
Merle pushed the plastic down around the face of the watch; the scratch on the crystal, just as it’d been for years. “Where did you find it?”
The teacher blinked. “On the arm of the dead woman.”
* * *
Arnaud Rancard roared into town in late afternoon, just as Jacqueline Armansett tired of the translation game and said she had her own work to do. Merle had told and retold the details of her meetings with Madame LaBelle to the point she had nothing left to say. Capitan Montrose seemed to be satisfied, although the connection between her watch and the arm of Justine LaBelle was troubling. Redier seemed to think this constituted a smoking gun. His reasoning was classic: Since the American wanted the house she had to eliminate the squatter. Americans take what they want by force. Americans bribe people with expensive watches. Montrose, clearly the brains and her new best friend, shook his head at each of his proclamations.
Arnaud had called the hotel for Merle and received the news she had been arrested, true enough to get him to race his Benz over the roads to Malcouziac. Merle heard him shouting at Redier outside the interview room. The calmer voice of Montrose intruded and finally Arnaud was allowed to see her.
He kissed her on both cheeks. His color was high, and he spit out his words. “What the hell is going on in this little ville? They are crazy, all of them! I wouldn’t be surprised if the mayor was behind all this, that idiot!”
Merle felt confused, and a little frightened by what was going on, but she didn’t need to get as riled up as Rancard. Stay calm. “What are they going to do with me? Have they told you?”
“It is all a terrible mistake. I will call the Embassy for you. There is an American consul in Nice.”
“What can they do?” Nice was far away.
“Make sure your rights are not violated by these peasants.” He gestured wildly then sighed. “I will help you too, Madame. Whatever I can do, although of course I am not a criminal lawyer. Capitan Montrose, he is from Bergerac, from the courts. He will take over the investigation. In France we do not let the crazy gendarmes do investigation. They are too close to the population.”
“He seems reasonable,” she said.
“The Capitan will do you well.” He stood up suddenly. “I must talk to him.”
“Am I being charged with something?”
“Not yet. Do you have with you all the documents about the house?”
“In my backpack. They have it out there.”
She thought of Tristan in Paris again. His father dead and his mother in the Bastille. Merle hadn’t spoken to any of them since she left the U.S. Now she would have to call. She didn’t want Stasia to come, to get excited about all this. They didn’t need an international incident.
She put her head down on the table and felt the sun from the tiny window on her neck as if saying: See— France can be gentle and lovely.
No need to go back to the ‘burbs. No need to go home at all.
Chapter Sixteen
Merle sat on the tumbledown wall looking out over the vineyards. A bird flew to one of the stakes, perched there, singing. It made her forget about her headache for a moment. High on the tops of the hills, where the old forest still grew tall, wind tugged at the treetops. The sky was so blue it made her eyes hurt.
Harry never wanted to go to France. He lived for work. He would have missed out on great opportunities to make money, his most compelling desire. That single-mindedness defined him. She saw now, in a flash, that he could never have cared as much for her as he did about his money. Maybe he loved Courtney. Maybe he was incapable of that sort of love.
He did love Tristan. They had him in common. She would see her son tomorrow, either here or in Paris. Arnaud had been arguing her case relentlessly for the last twenty-four hours. For an estate lawyer he did like to argue. She smiled, thinking of him waving his arms in front of the stony-faced inspector. They would smoke Gauloises and decide her fate.
They had kept her overnight at the tiny gendarmerie, giving her a cot with fresh sheets and a cold dinner of chicken and salad and a glass of wine. She hadn’t slept well. The wine took the edge off her tension but she woke again at midnight, smelling their cigarettes outside the room. They talked on and on. The French have a great capacity for debate.
Early this morning she was served coffee and a croissant. An hour later, the inspector released her. Arnaud Rancard was not there. The inspector told her slowly: do not leave the village. Absolument, he said gravely. Then handed her a note.
‘Meet me at the house at 11:00. A.R.’
Now, on the wall, Merle checked her watch but it wasn’t there. She had left the hotel at ten, after a shower and change of clothes. Who had ransacked her room? How had her watch gotten on the arm of Justine LaBelle?
Strange that they didn’t even know who Sister Evangeline was. She must have been at the Shrine when it happened. Maybe she was even the guilty party, although Merle didn’t think so. A nun? Well, was she really a nun? Either way she didn’t come off as an evil person. Could someone have merely frightened Justine by the edge of the cliff, causing her to lose her balance?
Merle checked her backpack again. Everything she owned of importance was in there, except her passport. They had confiscated it. She had tried to call the American Embassy this morning about it, but hadn’t gotten through. She’d catalogued the contents of her backpack in a notebook. The documents about the house were there, the photographs, the mementos from the deposit box. They had rifled through it all then put it back except for the passport.
The stones of the wall were uncomfortable. She stood up and stared at the house. So silent, closed, absent. Was Sister Evangeline inside? What life had gone on there? She closed her eyes and imagined all the shutters painted — Sky blue? Grass green? Apple red? — and open to the breeze. The glass washed, the air changed. It would be a revival, a resurrection. Would anyone ever do it?
She hadn’t called Stasia yet. One more day and she might have some answers. Let it ride, Harry would say. Commit yourself, then let it ride. All you have to do is hang on.
Could it be the ride of my life, thanks to you, Harry Strachie?
He was dead, gone, buried. But he remained a force, a consciousness, a way to look at life. Not her way, but she had learned from him. To trust her instincts, to not be so rigid, to play the occasional hunch. She couldn’t deny the years they’d had. As much as she wanted to erase them from memory.
What would he say now — what the hell do you want that old wreck of a house for? She sighed. He didn’t care about houses, but he thought she did. Was he wrong?
The tires of the Benz squealed on the cobblestones as it turned the corner and came to a stop in front of the house. Arnaud wore the same clothes as yesterday, except for a clean shirt. He looked tired but immaculate, as always.
He kissed her on both cheeks. “How did they treat you? Okay?”
“I’m fine. How did you get them to release me?”
The old woman from across the street (Arnaud said her name was Madame Suchet) appeared on her stoop with her broom. She wore a scarf and high heels, watching and listening as she took tiny strokes with her broom.
“Through logic, of course,” Arnaud said as he opened his trunk. “Why would you, an American, come over here and murder an old woman? You are a lawyer yourself, one who helps poor people find housing in the United States. An officer of the court, a good citizen, an exceptional citizen. Not a greedy person but one who works for the state just like he does. Several times you spoke about wanting to find housing for Madame LaBelle. That is not someone who has villainy in their heart.”
He pulled a pair of long-handled bolt cutters out of his trunk. “And now, the house is yours.”
“Wait,” Merle said as he walked to the door and wedged the tool through the crack in the shutters. “Have you discussed this with the inspector?”
“Oh, yes. It makes the most sense of any alternative. He wants you to stay in the village, yes? Then return the house to you. And so — ” He positioned the cutters around the padlock and with a grunt pulled them together. A second try, with a grimace on his close-shaven face, and a clunk as the lock fell to the doorstep. Madame Suchet dropped her broom and disappeared into her house, presumably to call the gendarme. “Voila!”
“Did the inspector look at the papers?”
“Oh, yes, he looks over them all, and agrees that the house belongs to you. You pay the taxes all these years. That is evidence. The taxes are accepted because the state recognizes you — your husband — as the owner of the house. The inspector speaks to the mayor who has nothing to say. There is no argument, unless you are an insane gendarme who has your head up your arse.”
He set down the bolt cutters and pulled on the door shutters. The rusty hinges creaked. The left one refused to move. The open one revealed the front door with its multi-paned window and pretty, carved wood with faint traces of blue paint.
“And now, madame?” Arnaud said. “Your French home.”
Merle stared at the door. “You have a key?”
“You did not bring it?”
She unzipped her backpack and found the big skeleton key loosely taped to the letterhead .
“This is not for the door, madame.” He handed it back. “One moment.” He went back to his trunk, throwing in the bolt cutters and returning with a small tool kit. “We will change the locks anyway.” He stuck a small screwdriver into the lock, twisted it around, and gave the door his shoulder. On the third push Merle could see it was about to go and offered her own shoulder. They tumbled into the dark, moldy room.
Arnaud paused to brush his shirt clean as he looked around the room. Merle stood blinking, letting her eyes adjust. The front room was large, with a head-high mantel over a blackened fireplace complete with iron tools and a large pot. The air was dank and foul. A large table with thick legs, scarred with knife wounds, dominated the room.
The lawyer ran a fingertip across the windowsill on the side wall. “Not much of a housekeeper, was she?”
Merle took small breaths through her mouth. “Have the police been here?”
“Yesterday. There was so little, the inspector said, he wasn’t sure she even lived here.”
“So it’s all right to move in? It seems — disrespectful.”
“He took her things, what little there was. Some clothes, some food.”
“What about Sister Evangeline?”
“She was renting a room over the bistro. But now she has gone, I hear. Her self-proclaimed duty was to help Madame LaBelle. When the woman died, her responsibilities ended. So she told the owner of the bistro.”
