Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 12
Arnaud disappeared into another room. Merle walked to the side of the large room, near a side window. There were stains on the wooden ceiling as if water had come through the roof. Spider webs and dust everywhere. The smell of mouse droppings and mildew. A staircase rose from the far corner into the dark. She looked up the stairs and saw a door at the top was closed.
“Mon Dieu, quel boue.”
Arnaud stood in the back room holding his nose, staring at burlap sacks of grain piled in the corner. Corners of them had been gnawed by rodents, with corn and wheat spilling onto the floor. The smell of rot hung thickly. The floor in this room was different, stone versus the dark-stained wood of the front. Arnaud opened the back door, letting in fresh air.
She stepped back into the parlor. On either side of the room sat a moth-eaten armchair and a tall, battered cabinet nearly six feet wide. Dozens of jars of ancient preserves in shades of gray, covered with dust, on the open shelves. She kicked the chair. Squeaks of vermin confirmed her fears.
“Merle! Come quick!”
Arnaud stood outside the back door in a flower garden bursting with blossoms. Lavender grew in a fragrant hedge, its purple spikes held over the gray leaves. Delphiniums, daisies, hollyhocks grew six feet high, blue, pink, white. On one wall red climbing roses, next to a framed grapevine with tiny grapes hanging in clusters. Arnaud pointed to the house. A pear tree had been trained onto a metal frame, flat against the stone house. Miniature green pears hung from the branches.
“And more, look,” Arnaud said. On the other sidewall, lavender wisteria had been trained to grow along the top. By the back gate, clematis bloomed white and purple in intertwining vines, covering the arch. A small stone building with a mossy tile roof was covered with a red clematis and pots of geraniums stood on either side of its door.
The garden was bursting with flowers. Under an acacia tree in a corner was a hammock. There was a graveled seating area, with two iron chairs and a small table. On the table was a potted yellow marigold.
“Wow,” Merle said. “Wow.”
“This jardin — it is like the Luxembourg Gardens!” Arnaud said, spinning to see it all. “These grapes will give you wine. Your own French wine, madame. Not much, maybe one glass, but your very own.”
Merle looked around, seeing the old woman’s work. “But — it’s her garden. Justine’s.”
“She was only the gardener.”
Some of the rose bushes were ancient, and the trunk of the grapevine was as big as her arm. He was putting on his jacket. “I’m sorry, madame. I must drive to Cahors again. The widow with too many children awaits me.”
“You’ll be back?”
“My work is done here. Ah, the name of the criminal lawyer.” He pulled a slip of paper from his inside pocket. “Antoine Lalouche, in Bordeaux. Excellent man. Give him a call.” He passed her the paper with his phone number on it. “It has been my pleasure, madame.”
“I can’t thank you enough. You — you saved me, not to mention my — my house.”
He gave her a little bow. “That is what I wanted to hear — my house. Congratulations. A lovely one it is.”
Then he covered his nose from the stench as he walked through the house. She felt her heart sink. Would the Inspector make a case against her? Is that why Arnaud had given her the name of a criminal lawyer?
From her doorway, Madame Suchet watched, arms across her ample chest, a frown on her face. After Rancard drove away Merle swallowed hard and walked across the street toward her. As she approached the old woman stepped inside and shut her door with a definitive thud.
“And a bonjour to you too,” Merle muttered, turning back to the house. Inside the front room she attempted to open some windows, hitting the sashes with the heel of her hand. Two complied, revealing generations of moths. She unlocked the shutters, sweeping the moths outside. She sneezed, and sneezed again.
A utilitarian space, both sitting and dining, basic, utilitarian. For a moment she thought she dreamed it, the sunlight streaming through the dust motes, the footprints across the dusty floor, the rough beams of the ceiling strung with spider webs. On the mantel was a small vase, white china painted with a delicate but unremarkable blue design. It was a cheap thing, yet it had somehow survived.
Nothing but dead flies inside. Maybe it was Harry’s mother’s, a relic from her French life. Marie-Emilie had dumped the last flower out with the water, onto the ground, then set it on the mantel to say goodbye.
She wandered through the ground floor, eyeing the piles of grain sacks with disgust. It was soon apparent to her there was no electricity in the house. Not an outlet or a light fixture. The only water was rainwater caught in a metal cistern sitting on hefty posts ten feet off the ground. Gutters off the roof funneled the water down to it and with a pull on a chain it flowed into a large washtub on the ground.
The stone house in the backyard was a latrine, an outhouse complete with rough stone stool topped with a porcelain ring. A rank odor and a multitude of dead insects as well as their buzzing descendants filled the small, dirt-floored space. A small, filthy window at eye level provided light. Merle hurried out into the garden, gulping air.
Summoning her courage, she mounted the stairs. The door at the top was stuck. She pulled on it until the doorknob fell off in her hand. Behind the door she could hear cooing and the occasional flutter of wings. A regular covey of pigeons, it sounded like. Back downstairs she pulled out her notebook and began making a list.
* * *
TO DO — Les choses à faire
Install new locks.
Drag furniture outside and wash.
Drag grain sacks outside.
Patch glass in windows as necessary.
Wash walls and ceilings.
Sweep & wash floors.
Clean chimney/fireplaces.
Fix shutters, paint.
Find roofer.
Arrange electrical hookup.
Ditto water service.
Find electrician.
Find plumber.
Take trash, chair (upstairs junk?) to — dump?
Paint walls.
Replace floorboards.
Wash windows.
Buy beds/furniture.
Plan bathroom.
Call Stasia in Paris.
* * *
Jean-Pierre Redier watched her leave the hardware store with a slip of paper in her hand. The American looked in both directions, gave the policeman a look as if to thumb her nose at the French state, then walked south. He flicked his cigarette into the gutter and followed her.
At the corner she consulted her paper then entered a building he knew to be Andre Saintson’s, the locksmith. Andre was an old man who kept a messy shop but he was the only man in town to change a lock. Jean-Pierre waited, smoking another cigarette in the doorway to the bistro where he sometimes drank after work. This block of Malcouziac had defied all efforts by foreigners to modernize it. Three townhouses were vacant. One had been broken into and vandalized repeatedly over the years, at least since his own youth. It was a party venue for the delinquents in town. Sometimes he had to walk one home after a night of drinking, but who could blame them? There was nothing to do in this little town.
This foreigner, this American, had created a problem however. She was not to be tolerated, according to his uncle. So Jean-Pierre had the boring job of following the silly woman around and finding something else to hold her on because apparently murder wasn’t enough. French law was adaptable. A person, especially a foreigner, could be held without charges for weeks if necessary. And according to some plan his uncle had yet to inform him of, it was necessary to get the American out of the way.
The problem was the inspector. Capitan Montrose was of the old school, a methodical and rational man who wasn’t likely to look kindly on any sort of covert action like throwing the woman in jail for littering. The jails, he had already proclaimed, were too full as it was, that was why he let her out, sure that she would obey his order to stay in the village. Let justice take its course, he said in his arrogant city way. Banned from Paris, Jean-Pierre thought, or else why would the inspector be assigned to the death of a putain, a whore? There was talk that the murder had made the newspaper in Bergerac, although Jean-Pierre doubted it. No one cared about an ugly old whore, least of all city people.
The old man emerged with the American, his tool box under his arm. Andre’s face had more lines than a French road map, from his previous profession as a grape-grower. His family had once owned the big mansion, the chateau on the hill, now a winery run by a multinational insurance company. No one liked the company, least of all the local grape growers who had last year accused them of importing cheap grapes from South America and calling it French wine. Nothing proven, but resentment ran high. Last week Jean-Pierre had run across a group of farmers plotting something in the parking lot of the village. They had smiled and slapped his back as if they were just having a friendly chat, but he knew otherwise.
On Rue de Poitiers, Andre bent over the front door as the woman talked in what Jean-Pierre knew to be the worst French ever to come from the mouth of a human. He stood at the corner, saying good day to an old woman. She looked down the street and in a second had him all figured out. It was impossible to fool the old ladies in this town. His mother had known them all, and now they all knew him.
Suddenly there was the old priest, walking up to him with that stupid smile. Jean-Pierre tried to nod and turn away but the old man caught him.
“Have you found the killer yet, Monsieur le Gendarme?” Albert asked. He was the only person in town who didn’t call him by his first name and for that Jean-Pierre gave him grudging respect. He had no use for priests normally.
“Of course, Pére. But she had a Toulouse lawyer and she is out. You see? She is in the house as she wanted. She got rid of the old woman and it is hers.”
Albert’s smile fell as he looked down the street. “Madame Bennett? Oh, you make a joke. She is no more a killer than you or I.”
Jean-Pierre shrugged. Better to have lost a possible murderer to a bad system of justice, than to not have found the killer at all. “She wants the house, she seeks out Madame LaBelle at the shrine, she pushes her over the cliff.” He dusted off his hands: finis!
Albert frowned at Jean-Pierre. “Que tu est fou,” the old man muttered under his breath as he turned and walked toward the woman and Andre.
So now he would have to watch the old priest too. For an old man he had too much interest in things that did not concern him. Even his uncle the mayor had mentioned the meddlesome nature of Pére Albert who had come to the gendarmerie to plead a case for Madame Bennett. The captain had listened to him. They had some school tie. For Jean-Pierre who had not gone to university at all this was loathsome.
So he would keep his eye on Albert too. He had nothing better to do, or so his uncle would say. He was only one man, one simple gendarme for the entire village. But his uncle promised a cut of whatever he had planned, so Jean-Pierre would keep both eyes open.
Chapter Seventeen
Merle handed the old man the big skeleton key. “Does this fit?”
The locksmith examined it, hobbled out to the back gate and tried the key in the keyhole. It was too big.
“Desolé, madame,” he mumbled. Their communication was limited. Merle was tired and her French wouldn’t come. She resorted to hand gestures. It had taken him quite awhile to get the idea that she wanted her locks changed. He’d done the front and back door and now he wanted to know about the garden gate.
“Please. Oui,” she said. But he held out his hand again, as if he wanted the skeleton key, and mumbled something. She had no idea about the key to the gate. Except that Sister Evangeline had one. She’d seen the nun lock up the gate from Albert’s garden.
Andre fumbled around in his bag and tried a few things to open it. He couldn’t do it today, he possibly said, as he waddled back out through the house. With her new key she locked the door. Another trip to the hardware store netted a new padlock for the door shutters, this time accessible from the outside. She locked up and waved at Madame Suchet on her stoop.
Back at her hotel Merle put through another call to the U.S. Embassy. This time she got a live person and requested help with her legal situation. She was given a name and number of a functionary at the Nice consulate, but when she called there the phone rang unanswered. Next she called Stasia’s hotel in Paris. Tristan answered the phone.
“Mom! Why haven’t you called?” He sounded worried, very unlike a fifteen-year-old.
“Sorry. Are you having fun?”
“Yeah. But I’ve seen enough churches for awhile though. And rose gardens.”
“A person can never see too many rose gardens,” Merle said. “Listen, I have things to do here. The house is sort of a mess. Would you like to come down?”
“I thought you were coming here.”
“I could use your help. The house is awesome, Tris. Much bigger than I thought. It just needs some TLC.”
“Is it a mansion?”
“Not that big. But it’s got a beautiful garden. A huge fireplace. I could use your strong back, kiddo. We could work together. Just till time for camp. I miss you, honey.”
He probably missed her too, she thought after hearing tales of Oliver buying beer and being grounded by his mother for a day. Stasia had waltzed them through six museums and eight cathedrals, Napoleon’s tomb, the Louvre twice, and a bateau mouche — her schedule was like the Bataan Death March.
Stasia got on the line and the sisters worked out the details. Stasia wanted reasons, which were faked. Tristan would take the train to Bergerac tomorrow.
* * *
The inspector shook his head so slowly she wasn’t sure if he was nodding off or saying no. Merle had tried to explain that she needed to pick up her son tomorrow in Bergerac and bring him here. She had perhaps said she needed to see him instead of get him. Conjugating verbs was a pain in the ass.
Finally she was sure he said no. Stay in the village. That is the bargain.
Albert might know if there was bus service from Bergerac or how much a taxi might cost. The gendarme followed her from the police station, his insolent face and boot steps everywhere she went. The old priest came to the door in his fencing jacket and tight white knee-pants. He had been practicing with a student in the alley because the school was closed today.
“You look very —“ she wanted to say ‘jaunty’ but said, “— professional.”
He waved his hand. “A glass of wine?”
Merle sat in the garden while he poured her the dark, oaky wine, a black Cahors. She hadn’t eaten anything since the croissant at the jail. In a moment he was back with some of the cheese she’d left him a few days before, still wrapped in its paper.
“You are so kind, Albert. I don’t know how to thank you.” He didn’t answer, just smiled. “What did you think of the house?” She’d taken him inside while Andre worked on the locks.
“The garden is so lovely.”
“You don’t have a key to the garden gate, do you? Andre couldn’t get it open.”
“Sorry, no. You should get Evangeline’s.”
“She’s gone, according to the inspector.” Merle set down her wine glass. “Is there a bus here from Bergerac?”
“Once or twice a week. I am not sure of the schedule.”
The wine made her melancholy. How did she, an upstanding citizen, a moral person, become a murder suspect? “I can’t leave the village. The inspector’s orders. And my son is coming down from Paris tomorrow.”
“I will pick him up. Think no more about it.”
“You have a car?”
It appeared he owned one of those curious beasts, an ancient Citroën, the Deux Chevaux. His was blue, and a bit rusty. In the morning she saw him off in it, with its roof rolled back, the bug-eyed headlamps wobbling, the bicycle tires bouncing. It barely made thirty miles an hour as it puttered away from the city parking lot. She’d given him a small list of things to buy for her: fly paper, scrub brushes, disinfectant.
At the hotel she asked the manager if she could rent two roll-aways with linens. A few minutes later, and several euros, a bell-boy helped her roll them over to rue de Poitiers. They walked back together, rattling over the cobblestones, around corners, up curbs, ignoring the gendarme. Back at the hotel she paid her bill. With her suitcase rolling behind her, she bought towels and soap, mousetraps and buckets at the grocery. At the hardware store she asked for the name of an electrician, and called him from the tabac. Giving his wife a garbled message, she crossed her fingers, dragged her suitcase along the stones, and unlocked the doors to her house in France.
* * *
She heard the little Citroën before she saw it pull up outside. Tristan looked good, tanned, rested. He explored the house, curled his lip at the mouse corpses his mother had dumped into the water tank and christened the outhouse.
“How was the trip?” She handed Albert money for gas and supplies.
“A beautiful day. This garden, madame. So lovely.” He looked around, smiling, then turned back to her with a tap to his beret. “Tristan and I talked about him fencing with my boys.”
“Really?” She laughed as her son fell out of the outhouse, gulping air just as she had. “That would be terrific, Albert. But first we have some serious work to do.”
“Jeez, there’s a lot of crap.” Tristan stared at the pile growing by the locked garden gate. Merle had dragged out the grain sacks, and the ruined armchair.
“You haven’t seen nothing yet.” Merle turned him back toward the house. They climbed the stairs and confronted the stuck, knob-less door.
“Now what?” Tristan asked. “You want some of this, Albert?”
“I have to put my car — ”
A crash. Tristan had broken the door’s hinges, flattening the old panels to the floor. Merle caught the back of his pants to keep him from falling on his face. Squawking and flapping of wings made her squawk too, as pigeons came at them, flying madly in circles. Tristan broke free and waved his arms, shouting at the birds as they beat their wings to lift that fat bellies off the crown of an armoire, windowsills, and a large hole in the ceiling. Two got by Merle and flew down the stairs.
