Bennett Sisters Mystery, Volumes 1-2, page 29
“In the garden. A special spot.” Pascal tipped his head to the back yard. She followed him out the door, through the dark to the pissoir. The crime scene tape was torn. He pushed open the door. Handcuffed around the ancient stone stool, his bloody head resting on the porcelain ring, sitting on the dirt in his leather pants, was Jean-Pierre.
“You bastard!” She spun to Pascal. “Get the key for these off him. Is the wine all right? Did you check it? What happened to that other guy? Did he catch you, Tristan? Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
The policeman watching Jean-Pierre was the one who had been posted outside her house. He looked at her guiltily. “Where the hell was he while I was being forcibly detained? And where were you, Pascal? What took you so long? Were you sleeping? Are all the dishes broken? How many bottles did we lose?”
Pascal took her handcuffed hands and put them over his head, around the back of his neck. He clamped his hand over her mouth as she talked, adrenaline surging through her. “Get the key! Don’t fool around, my wrists are killing me! My feet are bruised, my ankle is twisted —”
“I can’t hear you, blackbird,” he said. “What is that you say? The only way to stop your mouth is another mouth?”
Tristan laughed.
Pascal winked at the boy. “Okay, if I must.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The next two days were full of repair, human and maison, and storytelling. Merle recounted her adventure with the thieving gendarme to numerous officials, from Capitan Montrose and again to his superior from Bergerac, then to a high-ranking Policier Nationale officer in a very strange uniform. Most humiliating that one of their own was so bad, caught in the act. She felt a lot better than they did.
Merle, Pascal, and Tristan dropped all their repairs and drove to the hospital in Bergerac to see Albert. They were not allowed in his room so they left flowers and a note for him with the nurses. His sister’s daughter, Valerie’s mother, was to travel down from Paris to take him home with her for recuperation.
The doors to the house were a total loss — front, back, and shutters. Andre Saintson, the locksmith, conjured up substitutes, probably from the ruins on his street, and planed and sanded until they fit. He put on new locks, with deadbolts. Madame Suchet dragged a pair of door shutters out of her basement that would serve, a flaky red paint on their boards. They didn’t have the pretty round top of the broken ones but they would do.
The cheap dishes and glassware were not mourned, having performed their civic duty on the hard head of Jean-Pierre. He in turn broke a Malcouziac rule and ratted out his uncle, the mayor, the original schemer with Anthony Simms. Pascal was very happy even if the Inspector broke out in a sweat, smoked endless Gauloises, and was generally theatrical.
The wine had mostly been saved. Two bottles of Château L'Église-Clinet had broken when the trap door landed on Jean-Pierre. A bottle of Cheval-Blanc had cracked. But the remainder, miraculously, was intact. Pascal arranged for it to be stored at a government facility but Merle felt uneasy and made him take her with him. It was inside a prison yard in Toulouse. Better than any other alternative, she thought, re-reading the detailed receipt for the 99th time.
* * *
The next morning Tristan was clumping down the patched up stairs in the famous hiking boots as she walked in the house. She handed him a pastry.
“Pascal was here. He wants you to meet him. There’s a note. He said I was too sleepy to remember.” He pointed out the slip of paper on the table. They bit into their pains au chocolat. “Mom? Are you going to marry Pascal?”
She choked. “What?”
“He likes you. And you like him, don’t you?”
Her boy, almost a man, wore his youth fresh on his early-morning face. His hair stood out in all directions and he gave her that half-smile, just like Harry’s. “We live on different continents. But we’ll come back here, don’t you think?”
“Not if we sell it.” He flopped in a chair and inhaled another pastry.
“Would you like to keep the house, come back here in the summers?”
“Would Valerie come back too?”
“Maybe.” She read the note: ‘Meet me for lunch at Cafe Eloise, one o’clock.’
“I might, like, get a summer job or something.”
She ruffled his hair. “Keep your options open. Like Dad always said.”
* * *
Pascal leaned against the building, smoking, as they rounded the corner. He stamped out his cigarette, kissing them on both cheeks, then led them into the bistro with an old checkerboard tile floor and red tablecloths. For some reason she’d never found this restaurant. But she’d be back. If they needed money for college she would sell the house then.
After lunch Tristan left to buy ice cream on the square. Merle and Pascal had peach sorbet and coffee. He reached into his pocket and slid her passport across the table.
She set down her spoon and stared at it, fingering the inside, her old picture with her stringy, gray hair. She leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you.”
“I am just the messenger. Montrose has charged Anthony Simms in the murder of Justine LaBelle.”
She frowned. “Did he confess?”
“I don’t think so. But the intent was there. The wine was a powerful motive.” He sipped his coffee. “What?”
“It’s just — remember when I was babbling that night? I know you do. When I was facing off Jean-Pierre I blurted out, did you kill your aunt the whore. I don’t know why I said it, but it makes perfect sense. She embarrassed them. They'd been shunning her for fifty years. Plus they wanted her out of the house so they could get to the wine.”
“Perhaps. Maybe they did it together. We know Simms was at the shrine that morning.”
She would go home, and forget about Anthony Simms. But would she forget Justine LaBelle? Not likely. She probably never knew about the treasure in her cellar. What a life she had.
Pascal leaned forward. “About the wine. It’s safe now but we should not tempt fate. You know how to call the auction houses?” She nodded. “Did you hear Simms say something about ‘my father’s wine’?”
She frowned. “Do you think he actually owned the wine? There were invoices in an old file left by Harry’s father. One of them was from a British company, in London.”
“An invoice for these wines, these vintages?”
“No. Other wines.”
“Then I doubt it. Hugh Rogers — his real name — he has a pretty good rap sheet in England. His father tells a tale, he says, of being swindled.”
“Out of this wine, my wine?”
“It’s just another of his cons.”
“How did he know it was in the house? I didn’t tell anyone, not even you.”
He smiled. “But you did let me drink some, cherie. It’s my belief that he came here knowing that the wine might be here, even though he had this other business, the wine scam. Probably picked this area for his scam because the house was here.”
“Wait. What did you say his name is?”
“Hugh Rogers.”
“He called the house. Back home. He was trying to get Harry to invest in Bordeaux futures. So he must have known about the connection with Harry’s father — and the house.”
“Did you tell him about Malcouziac?”
“I might have mentioned the house. But I didn’t tell him where it was. He must have found out on his own.” She fiddled with her spoon. “Do you think he has a legal claim to the wine?”
“No.” Pascal took her hand. “It is ancient history. An old family story, that is all. He is a swindler, a thief, a killer. I don’t believe a word he says.”
“You’re sure? I don’t want to take something that isn’t mine.”
He looked at her, tipping his head. “The wine is yours, Merle. All yours.”
As they walked out into the street she invited him for dinner. “On one condition,” he said. “You make your coq au vin again. It is just like my grandmother’s. And, yes, that’s a good thing.”
* * *
They sat outside in the garden in the evening, sipping pear eau de vie that Pascal had brought. It went straight to her head, making her dizzy even sitting down. Tristan was inside listening to music. The night was quiet, peaceful for once. She listened to the birds in the trees, the frogs in the vineyards. This was the way she imagined her French summer, not full of injury, intrigue, violence. She shut her eyes and tried to forget all that. The music rolled out the open door into the night, American music in a French garden, a perfect match.
She’d thought more about Anthony, or rather Hugh Rogers, and his connection to the wine. If he’d had a decent claim he could have pressed it with her. Instead he chose to steal the wine. That negated any thread of legal claim, she decided.
Pascal held out his hand. “Vous dansez, mademoiselle?” The music was Annie’s album, old Beatles songs. She swayed in his arms, as he twisted the hair on the nape of her neck. A bittersweet moment made ludicrously romantic by the night sky and his strong, warm hands. Even this — especially this — she had never imagined. And why not, her little voice asked, having finally released her from the what-what? She felt free, calm. A person who asks why not? A new person altogether.
She closed her eyes tightly, memorizing the way he felt, his shoulder under her hand, the smell of his skin, his breath on her ear.
As the song wound down, he took her face in his hands, smoothing her hair. “Blackbird. That is your song.”
“Is that what my name means?”
“All your life,” he sang in a breathy, French accent. “You were only waiting for this moment to be free.”
He pulled her to his chest and sang along with John and Paul — the dark black night, broken wings, blackbird arising — as he stroked her hair. He smelled like fruit and life and sunshine.
Criminy. It was going to be hard to leave.
Book Four
The Beginning
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The skies hung low and gray with flocks of crows squawking in the bare trees. November in London was short, dreary days followed by long, damp nights. A change from her last trip to Europe but Merle wasn’t watching the skies. No dawdling this time. Pascal had helped arrange the auction of the “Fine Vintages, Rarely Seen,” as the Sotheby’s catalogue read. He had called Merle half a dozen times in the last three months. She often missed the calls because she was in meetings or wining and dining the corporates.
She had dreaded starting her new job, but to her surprise she wasn’t half bad. She began viewing herself as an anthropologist who studies corporate lawyers, dissects their social structure, mating rituals, and mindsets. They weren’t that complicated really. She enjoyed appealing to their generous sides, and most of them were generous if you knew how to press their buttons. Lillian Wachowski called her a magnificent closer and even took her out to dinner one Friday evening to celebrate signing a big firm to a long-term pro bono agreement.
The hotel smelled of fish and chips, full of bus loads of culture hounds. As she checked in, the clerk handed her a large envelope with the auction house imprint. The copies of the contracts she’d signed last month were inside, with more details on the auction. Her father had gone over the fine print and everything seemed in order. She was nervous about the auction. If the prices weren’t good, she had decided to refuse the sale. She hoped that didn’t happen, but the economy was still shaky.
The auction was in the morning, early, but her internal clock was off and she wandered the streets for awhile, considered a movie in Leicester Square, watched juggling instead, and window-shopped at rare book stores. A fine mist began to fall as she walked back to the hotel.
“Miss Bennett!” the desk clerk called. He handed her another envelope, letter size with the hotel imprint. Inside was a fax, handwritten. She sat on the edge of the bed.
* * *
Cher Merle,
As you see I am not in London. Things are very busy with the trial approaching. Gerard Langois and Hugh Rogers will be put on trial together for the fraud, a time-saving maneuver which I hope will not blow up in our faces. Rogers now claims Jean-Pierre Redier is responsible for Justine’s fall, or alternately that it was an accident. Can you come for the trial, my little blackbird? Pascal
PS. Enclosed my translation of the report on the pissotiere bones, just completed.
The next sheet, the forensic report on the bones, was short.
“The bones are female, 20 to 40 years old at time of death, approximately one-hundred-forty-three centimeters in height, brown-black hair, who has not delivered a child. The skull had received a hard blow, fractured: probable cause of death. Bones are contemporary based on clothing fragments and hair samples found within the encasement, possible burial thirty to seventy years past. Without dental records or DNA sampling, identification is incomplete.”
She would write to Dr. Beynac, maybe he knew who the dentist was in Malcouziac fifty years ago. But the chances were slim. Weston Strachie had probably wiped out all evidence of Marie-Emilie’s existence. The shame of the connection still made her ill. He may be long dead, and good riddance, but he was still the lowest sort of pond scum. She sunk into the worn bedspread. If only Pascal were here, to stroke her hair and tell her it was all over years ago.
* * *
The bidding on the Malcouziac wine began at 11 a.m., after a lot of 2000 vintages from Château Latour in Pauillac. Prices for those were good. Merle listened to the talk in the gilded rooms on New Bond Street before the bidding on her wine began, standing with well-dressed men and sophisticated ladies looking at three bottles, the representatives of her lot — Château Pétrus, Château Cheval-Blanc, and Château L'Église-Clinet, their old labels brittle but the glass shiny and bright, cleaned for the day. There was no tasting as they’d done for the new vintages; the bottles were too valuable to open. The Pétrus had the biggest reputation. The wine critic Robert Parker had given it his highest rating, 100 points. You could almost hear him salivating between the words. The L'Église-Clinet was less well-known but might, according to one gentleman, attract those looking for something different.
She settled into the back row, in good line of sight of the auctioneer. With amazing speed the Château Pétrus, 1946, sold for £2200 a bottle. The Cheval-Blanc '47 went for £2100, the L'Église-Clinet, 1949, sold in a split lot, half for £1200 and half for £1450.
Then it was over. Stunned, Merle had to stare at her notes for a moment before the figures sunk in. She punched in the numbers on her calculator, pounds to dollars. On the Pétrus alone, before the consignment fees, over 100,000 pounds sterling. That was more than $152,000 US. On the others, over $240,00. Altogether nearly $400,000. She couldn't believe it. She sent up a silent thank-you to the old bastard, Weston Strachie, then almost fainted from relief.
A ripple, a murmur, then the auction moved on. She drew a deep breath. All that scrabbling, angst, and panic over bottles of wine was finished. Pascal should be here. He had not let her down. He had done what he said he’d do, restoring her faith in men, or at least Frenchmen.
She gathered herself and stood up. She would see Pascal again, sometime. But now there was one more loose end.
* * *
The quiet village in Somerset, a crossroads of two narrow highways, could have served as a set for a Masterpiece Theater program, something from Thomas Hardy perhaps. No thatched cottages, but very nearly. Merle had taken the early train from London after a little solo celebrating — and banking — in London. The village was a couple blocks long in businesses, with old homes mixed in, an inn where she intended to spend the night, a small food shop, a bakery, a garage.
She asked the rental car clerk at the train station for directions to the even smaller village of Hockingdon. A flock of geese honked overhead, pointing her in the direction of the hamlet. Carefully she urged the little car onto the pavement (stay left/stay left, her right-handed brain scolded), into the rolling pastures and hills. Hockingdon wasn’t far, and she made it there by mid-morning. Fortifying herself with the thermos of tea she’d brought, she parked in front of the Round Robin Inn.
Still there, after all these years, and still open for business. Amazing. Weston’s archive of memories, including the menu from the Round Robin, sat on the seat. The fat bird on the sign matched the menu imprint. They hadn’t even changed the sign in sixty years. She had found a listing for the inn — complete with plump fowl — in a British touring magazine, but she’d also found six other Round Robin Inns from Leith to Aberystwyth. She hoped she’d guessed correctly. With that sign, she felt sure she had. Closest to London and over a hundred years old, the inn apparently embodied the village, nestled in the center of the single block of buildings.
Pushing through the heavy door, Merle stepped into the lobby. It smelled of grease and wet wool and bread baking. She took a seat in the deserted restaurant. An older woman, plump and red-faced, wearing a dirty apron, arrived at the table with a kettle and teapot.
Outside a motorcycle zoomed by on the street, rounding a school bus and barely missing a small child. Several pedestrians waved their fists in anger. A couple made their way across the street and into the inn.
The man and woman hung up their coats and scarves, chatting as they sat down at the window table. They were both gray-haired but looked youngish, talking in their country accents. Odd to be in a foreign country where you could understand the natives. Merle plucked a scone from the tray.
Tea in a pot was brought for the couple. Merle waited for them to settle in, then stood up. They didn’t seem startled at her approach. A good sign, she thought.
“Pardon the intrusion. I was wondering if you might be able to help me,” Merle said. “I’m looking for someone in the village who lived here in the fifties, someone who might remember a relative of mine.”
