Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 20
Outside she moved around the flowers, watering. Pascal was just a worker, not a thief. That was a relief, and enough. She was moving around the wisteria when she did a double-take. A rose bush she’d never seen before sat in newly-turned earth. It hadn’t been there yesterday. Planted next to the white clematis vine, by the wall.
The soil was still mounded and soft around the woody stem. A tag dangled from its base, a label: “Reine de Violette.” Queen of Violet. A purplish-red blossom rose toward the sun. Who had planted it — Pascal? She stalked the edges of the garden, looking for new plants. There was a new, tiny clematis, almost invisible, in the northeast corner. A tiny row of marigolds next to the stoop.
She spun around, heart pounding. Someone else had a key to the garden.
* * *
The gendarme stood on his steps, locking the door to the tiny police bureau as she rounded the corner. Lunchtime, time for his card game. He blinked a few times as if trying to place her. This new hair had its devices. “Madame,” he said, nodding.
“Bonjour.” Damn, in French. “Do you know if Madame Labelle had friends or relatives, here in the village?”
He wiped his mouth, narrowing his eyes. His shoes were suddenly fascinating. “Non. Pourquoi?”
She’d been trained to spot liars, and he was one. She told him someone had gotten into her garden. Someone who had a key to the gate. “Did she have any relatives here? Or maybe a close friend.”
He brought his dark eyes up to hers and bid her good day. He walked away in slow, steady strides, the swagger of authority as universal as mother’s milk. Off to his juicy, card-playing lunch. What had he lied about? Justine had relatives here in town, or friends? Did he know who had the key to her garden gate?
She knocked on the door of the gendarmerie but no one answered. She’d have to suss out the inspector elsewhere. As she walked back through the streets, she looked at the faces that passed. Was one Justine’s friend, or a cousin or a sister? They stared back, unsmiling, looking through her as if she was invisible.
* * *
Pascal returned about one-thirty from lunch. Upstairs the sound of pounding started. Downstairs she looked over the will and invoices again, spreading them out with the other papers she’d gotten from the lawyers. Weston Strachie had made some distributors angry. He hadn’t delivered his wine. Maybe he meant to deliver these cases mentioned, maybe he had paid for the wine in the basement with these men’s money. Maybe he’d had problems with customs or something. It didn’t make him a thief.
She spread her hand over the will. Not again today, she thought. Reading about Harry’s devotion to Courtney and Sophie was too hard. She folded it and put it away.
So, back to work. Next on the list: the rug. She opened the trap door to the basement again. The place gave her the creeps, but since they’d found the wine it had begun to look more pleasant, a disguise of filth and vermin to keep out intruders. The stairs creaked as she stepped slowly under the floor, sweeping the flashlight around the dank, earth floor and the mossy stone walls, eyes peeled for furry rodents.
Most of the junk was gone, old bottles, nests of cotton that were once clothes, ancient preserves and unrecognizable lumps of mold. The wooden kegs she’d fallen into must have once held potatoes or carrots but animals had cleaned them out. She kicked one and saw a huge cockroach skitter away.
The rolled-up carpet, source of whiskered varmints, was large and heavy. Setting down the flashlight, she picked up one end. Under it was a piece of tarp. Oil cloth, it felt like. So maybe it wasn’t rotten. She shook it, hoping any mice would run away, but nothing came out. Dragging one end toward the stairs, she groaned under the dead weight. As she backed up the stairs, knees splayed, the length of the rug swung out, knocking over bits of broken kegs like a mermaid’s tail.
Heaving it around corners, she pulled it out into the garden into the golden summer light and took a good look at it. The exposed top was covered with mildew. The sides weren’t so bad, and the oil cloth had at least partially done its job of protecting it from creeping damp. She kicked it with her foot, unrolling it on the gravel by the table.
An Oriental rug of reds and blues, very faded. Worn too, with places where the backing showed through. She folded it back in half so that the moldy top could be scrubbed, filled the tub with cistern water and got a scrub brush from the house.
The mold was superficial, probably developing since the hole in the roof. With elbow grease and soapy water, it yielded. The hard work was satisfying, the way it had been when they first arrived. She threw the rest of the water on the rug, swished it around, rinsed it with a clean tub then called it good.
The sun had left most of the garden. She had managed to get herself soaking wet. Her pink polo shirt clung to her chest, more than a little transparent, her blue running shorts dripping on her bare feet. Putting the tub and scrub brush away, she considered stripping off her wet clothes right here. The towel would serve as back-up in case Pascal was still around. She unbuttoned a button and stopped. Yves and Suzette had a good view of the garden.
As she stepped into the kitchen she heard footsteps on the stairs. So, Pascal had almost caught her naked in the garden. The thought made her skin crawl, or maybe she was just cold. The house stayed at least ten degrees cooler. She paused at the kitchen door just as a creature, a large hairy mouse, ran up through the trap door and stopped at the bottom of the stairs, staring at her.
The animal sat up on its haunches, the size of a small rat. It didn’t look like any rodent she’d seen. It had a long nose and big, round ears but was chubbier, almost Mickey Mouse-ish. His black eyes were large and round, the fur brownish gray. But he was a mouse, a filthy rodent, and he wasn’t running away.
Pascal peeked around the doorframe from the lower steps. “I see you have company,” he whispered, smiling at the thing.
The creature looked fairly tame, chewing something, unafraid. “What should I do?” she whispered through chattering teeth.
“Say hello.” He crouched down on the step. “Bonjour, petit loir.” The animal turned its black eyes toward him for a minute then jumped backwards like a miniature kangaroo.
Merle backed toward the kitchen door. “Here you go. The big wide outdoors. All yours.” She stepped aside. “Tell it to go outside.”
He clucked his tongue. The loir twitched its long hairy tail. Pascal eased over the stair railing and dropped softly onto the floor. “Close the trap door,” she whispered. He tipped the door until it closed with a loud thunk. The animal took off like a shot up the stairs, its skittering claws scratching against the wood.
“No! Not my bedroom!”
“If only I hadn’t closed off the ceiling.” Pascal’s eyes moved over her and she crossed her clammy arms over her chest. “But the window is open. And the chimney. It will escape.”
“Will it come back?”
He shrugged. “The loir is a harmless little creature. Nothing to be afraid.”
She sat on a dining chair, still shivering. “What did you call it?”
“A loir. You do not have them in the United States? It is cousin to the English dormouse.”
She shook her head, feeling droplets fling off the ends of her hair. If we had them in the U.S. she didn’t know about it, and didn’t want to know. She really should change out of these wet clothes. Her hands were stiff. Pascal disappeared then returned with a towel he wrapped around her shoulders. “Forgive me. You are the shivers.”
“Thanks.” She pulled the towel closer. “I think I — I — ”
“Wait here. I get you some dry clothes.”
“B-but.” But he was gone, up the stairs. To look through her drawers. And chase the loir out, she hoped.
He came downstairs with underpants, a sweatshirt, and jeans, then went outside into the garden. Stepping into the bathroom, she peeled off her wet things, dried roughly and pulled on the warm clothes. She dried her hair ends and rubbed her face. He had brought her underwear, plain, white cotton ones as if that was who he thought she was: a plain, white woman, slightly worn and a little baggy.
Holding her wet clothes in a ball, she stepped outside. He was still here. Smoking a cigarette. He crushed it under his boot, picked up the stub and put it in his pocket. “Better?”
She threw her wet clothes over the clothesline. “Have you got another one of those?” He dug the pack of cigarettes out and lit her one. She smoked with jerks, hand to mouth then handed it back to him. “That’s enough.”
He crushed it under his boot like the other. “You are still cold? I can make chocolat chaud.”
Inside Merle climbed the stairs to get some socks and grabbed the blanket off her bed. In the kitchen he stirred milk in the saucepan. She sat on Tristan’s bed in the parlor, wrapped in the blanket. When had a man ever cooked for her, she wondered, as he handed her a mug of hot chocolate. “Did you make one for yourself?” He poured himself a cup from the saucepan and leaned against the doorframe.
“You make great cocoa. Thank you.” And you make great conversation, for a brain-dead person. “How is the work going upstairs?”
“Pas mal. I can stay and clean it up but tomorrow there may be more mess.”
“As long as I can get, you know, to my bed — my bedroom — my room.” Christ. Had her brain frozen? A racking shiver went through her.
He looked at her over the cocoa and then at the liquid in his mug. Merle drank, and finally got warm. He set down his cup on the stove. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You don’t think the little thing, the — ?”
“Loir.”
“The loir will be back?”
“He is harmless. You will sleep all right?”
“Oh, sure. I guess.”
“Everyone has a loir now and then. It is very French.”
So she curled up, extremely French, under her covers, cursing in French to keep away rodents, listening for scratching noises, for claws on wood. Something on the roof woke her at three with its scritch/scritch; by five she called it quits and got up. She felt ridiculous and squeaky, like the silly blond in the old gothics who needed a man to protect her. That was not her.
“Only a fricking mouse,” she said loudly to the dust motes on the stairs, hoping to scare ‘le petit loir’ if he hid somewhere. The thought of things scampering over her in the night, and their little whiskers and teeth. Pascal hadn’t been afraid. But he wasn’t sleeping with rodents.
* * *
When the hardware store opened at eight o’clock she was there to ask about grills for her chimney, to keep out birds and small animals. The clerk showed her different sizes, all rather pricey. She had been expecting a piece of chicken wire but these were ornate affairs, ranging in price from twenty to sixty euros, depending on the strength of the iron bars and the number of curlicues.
What size was her chimney opening, they asked. She didn’t know. At home she made an espresso and set Albert’s ladder up against the house. The sun was rising over the hills to the east, sending golden rays from behind a bank of deep purple clouds. Halfway up she stopped to admire the sky. On top of the hill to the east, framed by sunrise, the big Château looked like Cinderella’s castle, with turrets and flags and shrubs sculpted into animal shapes. The wine-tasting tourists had asked her about it, was it worth the big price tag. She didn’t know a thing about it. Over there, still in shadow, was Château Gagillac where trucks were moving in and out around the tasting room. Loading wine? Would they schedule another tour? She did so miss Gerard’s scowling face.
Onward, skyward. She passed her bedroom window and kept going. Those shutters needed paint, badly. At the edge of the roof she stopped again. Pascal’s work was twelve or so feet to the left but she could see the new tiles, the patched spot. It looked good, blending in with the old tiles and secure from the weather. He hadn’t reset the gutter though. It hung, swinging loose.
She set her hand on the tile roof. The clay tiles were slick moss, and steeper than she imagined. Walking across them to the chimney was out of the question. Down she went, looking over her shoulder at the winery again. Now the big barn doors of the aging room were wide open. A truck was backing into it. Maybe loading barrels to take to the commune.
As she lowered her foot to the next rung the ladder lurched to the left. A jolt of adrenaline snapped her to attention. She had been sightseeing from her perch when she should have been watching what she was doing. She looked down. One leg of the ladder was sinking in the wet dirt below. Her foot slipped but she hung on. Her heart beating in her ears, she waited for more sinking. She was ten feet off the ground and it would be nice to take the rest one rung at a time, thank you very much. Slowly she put a foot down on the next rung. The ladder sunk a little more, tipping west.
Quick or slow, that was the question. She eyed crash sites below, soft mud straight down where she’d washed the rug. Hard rocks of the path or gravel of the patio if she went left with the ladder. The ladder sunk a little more, tilting precariously. On the upper end, where the ladder touched the roof, the left leg was barely in contact with the gutter. Another inch and —
With a two-rung hop Merle pushed off the ladder, falling to her right hip and catching herself with her right arm. Her shin banged against the bottom rung and she cursed loudly. The ladder fell sideways out from under her flying feet, taking down some of the ripening pears as it fell. A loud peal as it clanged against the top of the wall resounded off the stone buildings like a church bell.
Blinking, her ears ringing, she sat up, covered with mud. An inventory of the body found a gash in the shin, rising already into a goose egg. She gingerly rotated her shoulder. It felt all right, despite falling on it. She felt her arm, her wrist. Sore but okay. She tried to stand. Pushing up with her right arm was painful. Not to mention the sore leg. She looked at her wrist again.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” she whispered angrily. This was the problem with being practical. You wanted to do everything yourself to save a few francs and ended up nearly killing yourself. Years ago, in the blush of home-ownership, she’d decided to hose out the gutters, climbing all over the roof, having a good ol’ time up in the air until Harry came home and told her she could have broken her neck. She could hear him right now, scolding her from beyond the grave.
“Oh, Harry.” She sat on the patio chair, pushing the ladder off it. “I wish I could say this is all your fault.”
Pounding at the back gate. “Merle?”
She pulled the key out from the chain around her neck and unlocked the gate. Moving her wrist to twist the key hurt; she switched to her left hand. Albert wore his usual uniform, the blue farmer’s coveralls.
“I hear the big boom.”
Her wrist was beginning to ache. “I might have broken something.”
He insisted she go see the doctor, leading her through the streets to the Cabinet du Médecin of Doctor Beynac. Merle played her role as careless child. An x-ray and exam later, she was fitted with a cast made of rolled gauze and some new material simulating the outdated plaster of yore. The doctor was very nice, even nicer because Albert was an old friend. He also checked out the shin gash, dabbed it and bandaged it up.
“Be careful now, ” Dr. Beynac said, wagging his plump finger. “You should not be doing these things. Is your husband not able to do these?”
“I am a widow, docteur.” A stupid, careless widow.
“That old ladder,” Albert muttered on the walk home. “I will get a new one. That one is bad, very old, very bad.”
Merle stood in front of her house, holding her cast across her waist with her good hand. This could be awkward, not having a right hand. The fingers could wiggle but they couldn’t reach her thumb. “The ground was soft. It went — ” She mimed the sinking ladder with her good arm. “Then I jumped off.”
“Mon Dieu. I am feeling terrible. And the worst of it is, I must use that ladder to pick my plums this week.”
She led him through the house into the garden where the ladder sat where she’d left it, leaning on the wall. “I hope it still works.”
Albert grumbled, angry with the ladder as he carried it over his head and then out the gate. What was she going to do about the chimney grate? Pascal stepped out the kitchen door.
“I began upstairs,” he said. “The door was unlocked. That is not a good idea, I told you, leaving doors unlocked, even in the daytime —” He stared at her cast. “What happened?”
“The ladder,” she said. “It toppled.”
“What were you doing on the ladder?” His dark eyes looked angry. “That is not for you to do.”
“So said the doctor. I was looking at the chimney. I want a grate over it. I think the loir came down that way.” She sighed. “I kept thinking about his little whiskers.”
She lay back on Tristan’s bed after Pascal went upstairs to work. No work for Merle today. Next door, in Yves and Suzette’s bedroom, the lace curtain blew out on the breeze. She opened her own window to feel the air and heard Yves’s voice, murmuring, and Suzette’s high-pitched laughter in response. Were they making love? A hand appeared and their window snapped shut.
Upstairs the hammering began. It sounded like the clatter of her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
1951
The room is dark and Virginia is tired. She’s been struggling with the baby for a good half-hour and he won’t settle down. She’d found milk for it, then changed the diaper so she knew he was a boy. He wore rags, nothing more than strips of fabric wrapped around his strong young body.
Outside the noise has been muffled and gone out. That was so brief she thought maybe she dreamed it. But Weston came inside and told her the woman had run away. Without her baby, Virginia asked. It seemed unnatural. She had no business here, she was a squatter, a whore.
