“So that fellow you’re with, he’s your uncle?” She arched her heavy eyebrows. “Sure. You don’t want to keep a cute guy like that waiting too long.”
CHAPTER 11
“Millie O’Neill. Chicago,” she said, as we plodded along the rocky street. “You probably noticed our tour group at the hotel, a bunch of obnoxious old women in the bright blue van.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond, but she didn’t wait for a response. “Forty years I worked with the school system without a real vacation. Unless you count visits to my sister and her noisy family, and I couldn’t wait to get back to work. I turned sixty-five and retired last month. People at work convinced me to take a trip, and I let a travel agent book me on this tour with these old biddies. The sights are nice enough, but I have to say, the women are BOR-ing!”
None of this was getting me any closer to information about the man she’d seen, but I let her go on another minute. “I heard about what happened in your room, and I kind of started watching you, and it’s been the most exciting thing I’ve done on the whole trip. Why, these old crones on our tour won’t go out after dark!”
We were walking uphill now, and Millie wasn’t breathing any harder than I was. She was short and stout. She might not look sixty-five if she was made up a little, had her hair styled, wore something besides polyester—a green striped shirt and green pants.
“You said you saw someone following me,” I said. “What did he look like?”
Her eyes lit up. “Well, he’s not a bad-looking guy, if you care for that sort. Thirty-something, dark hair, kind of long and oily-looking, a little mustache. Always wore sunglasses. I can’t tell you much more, but I’d recognize him if I saw him.”
“Tall or short? Fat or skinny?” I asked.
“Just medium—except he does have those nice biceps.” She patted her own upper arms, surprisingly firm.
“Do you remember anything else about the man?” I asked her.
We were both pumping harder now. Our path angled to the right and turned into the main thoroughfare, if you could call a narrow cobblestone street a thoroughfare. The castle was straight ahead of us, but the steep incline had slowed us considerably.
“There’s one more thing, come to think of it. His arms were hairy. Hairy as a bear. He was wearing a tee shirt. Some kind of design on it, but I couldn’t tell what.”
“When did you first notice him?” I asked, feeling like an interrogator, but she only doled out information if I asked questions.
“This morning, after that detective asked me a bunch of questions. I wasn’t snooping,” she said. “I was just coming up to my room. My group walked into town, and I’d already been there on my own. They take three times as long as they should to do anything, plus they clog up the sidewalk, like hairs in a drain pipe.” We both walked a little faster.
“And you saw this man?” I tried to urge her on without appearing too impatient.
“He was just milling around in the hall. I wouldn’t have thought much about it if I hadn’t known about what happened in your room. When he saw me, he went back downstairs, and I followed him. I watched him, and a few minutes later, he started following you, out on the grounds, and down to the old part of the hotel. I couldn’t believe you went inside!”
“I can’t quite believe it, either,” I said. “But I’m an architect, and I was intrigued.”
“An architect.Well! My sister’s boy wanted to be an architect. He was artistic, but he couldn’t do the math.”
I was sorry I had digressed. “Anything else about what the man was doing?”
“Just watching you, the best I could tell. And when he saw me, he disappeared in the cypress trees.” Her voice changed, as if she had come at last to the end of her long story. “So you can see how my curiosity would be sparked, can’t you? And after all that excitement at the hotel, to find you here at Les Baux and then to see the same suspicious-looking guy waiting right outside where you were having lunch—”
“He was here?”
“Yes, indeedy.” She looked quite proud of herself.
“All right, you’ve convinced me you’re one of the good guys,” I said.
“Do you mind telling me what the bad guy wants?” she asked.
Good question. “All I can figure out is that somebody thinks I have something I don’t have,” I said. “Or maybe I do, and I just don’t know it.”
We had nearly reached the castle, when both of us at once spotted the troop of American women from her tour group. One was waving at her, calling in a shrill voice, “Millie! Hurry! It’s time to go to the bus!”
She began to drag her feet, like a scolded child.
“We’ll talk again at the hotel,” I said.
She lit up a bit. “Sorry I scared you.”
“You were just watching out for me,” I said.
“MIL-lie!” someone else called.
She rolled her eyes.
Alex was pacing when I reached the entrance to the chateau. “I was about to go in without you,” he said. He didn’t appear to be teasing.
“Alex, I met one of the American women from our hotel,” I said, breathless from hurrying, anxious to tell him about the man Millie O’Neill had seen following me.
Alex mumbled, “Honestly, with all of these strange incidents since we arrived, and it’s not like you to be late. I was worried that something really had happened to you.”
I was touched. My uncle might make fun of me—what had he said about international intrigue? But maybe he was concerned. At the same time, he was fidgeting, eager to enter the château. This was not the moment to tell what I’d learned from Millie.
“I took too long shopping,” I said, holding up my bag from the jewelry store, “and I had to call the Codes Department in Savannah. Everything took longer than I expected.”
“Codes Department?”
“Never mind. It’s all taken care of now. I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
“Are you ready—finally— to see this incredible site?”
“I’m ready to give it my full attention,” I said.
“Thank goodness.” Alex nudged me forward.
Back at the hotel, later that afternoon, Jean-Claude motioned to me as we passed the front desk. “A message for you, Madame.Wait, s’il vous plait.” He spoke rapidly into the phone, while producing two yellow tennis shoes with keys attached for Alex and me. The conversation went on a bit, but he held his hand out like a traffic cop, as if forbidding us to move. When he put down the phone at last, he flipped through a note pad and tore off a page. “The English is not so easy for me to write, so I tell you. Call Michael. A-S-A-P.” He shrugged as if he didn’t understand ASAP. “That is what he said.”
I thanked him while digging in my bag for my phone. Sure enough, I had a voicemail and a text message. They had come in while we were in the château. I’d silenced my phone while a tour guide was giving the history lecture. Climbing the stairs to my room, I listened to the voicemail. “Call me, Mom.” That was all, but I heard the anxious note in his voice. I read the text message: “Trying to reach you. Call.”
“Something the matter, Jordan?” Alex asked.
“I have to call Michael,” I said. “Hopefully he just needs money. Something like that.” My girls might call to chat, but not Michael. I was a little worried.
“We’re going into town for dinner tonight, right? Seven-ish?” Alex reminded me.
“Right. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
I called Michael the minute I was inside my room. He answered with a cheery, “Hey, Mom. I hope I didn’t worry you. It’s not like I was hurt or anything.”
It wasn’t his fault, he said. He’d been rear-ended at a red light by a van from a florist’s shop. No one was injured. The back bumper of my five-year-old Jeep Cherokee was dented. The van had sustained a little more damage, including a broken headlight, but both vehicles had been able to drive away.
“And you’re sure you’re all right,” I said,
remembering his voice on his message.
“Sure, I’m sure,” he said. “It was just a fender-bender. We exchanged driver’s license numbers and insurance information, and I made sure I wrote down the phone number and address of the florist’s shop. It was all printed on the side of the van.”
“You didn’t call the police?”
“It was morning rush hour—at a busy intersection. We just needed to get out of the way.”
“Where did it happen?”
“What is this—twenty questions? I was taking my laptop to this computer shop on Pryor Street. It’s been locking up. You know it’s two years old, so I don’t know if it can be fixed.” He gave a little laugh. “But you don’t want to hear that, do you? I shouldn’t have bothered you about the wreck. I just wasn’t real sure what to do at first. I’ve never had a car accident. But like I said, I got the information I needed.”
“You were right to call,” I said, “and the important thing is that you weren’t hurt.”
“I don’t have morning classes today, but I start at twelve thirty and go straight through until six thirty. It’s not like I’m goofing off.”
“I know that.”
“You sounded like—well, forget it.” He relented a bit. “So about the insurance. Should I call the number that’s on the card, or should I wait to hear from this other guy. I mean he’s supposed to take care of everything. Like I said, it wasn’t my fault.”
“Call our agent, definitely,” I said. “That’s the Savannah number on the insurance card. Give him the information you have. That’s just procedure. I’m sure the florist will come through, but if anything goes wrong, our agent will be on top of it.”
“That’s what I was planning to do,” he said. “Sorry about the Jeep, but don’t worry, it drives fine. I guess the agent will tell me to get an estimate, right? It couldn’t cost more than a few hundred dollars to fix it.”
Michael hadn’t ever paid for a car repair.
“So I guess you’re having a good time, there in the sunny south of France,” he said.
“Oh, yes,” I said. “Wonderful.”
CHAPTER 12
* * *
That evening Alex and I walked to the town center for dinner. A pleasant walk, past high stone walls with greenery spilling over them. From behind one of those walls, a child’s voice rose in a call: “Bijoux! Bijoux!” and a spotted cat darted under a wrought-iron gate. The air was dry and only slightly cool. I was comfortable with a light jacket.
The shops were open. We had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the restaurant so we could stop by the tourist office, figuring it was a good place to get our bearings.
“I met one of the American women from our hotel at Les Baux,” I said.
“You mentioned that. I suppose that’s why you were late to the château.You struck up a conversation, and even though you could have waited until you were back at the hotel to visit, it’s always nice to meet other Americans when you’re abroad.”
Alex didn’t seem at all perturbed now, but it was harder to get to the point of my story than it would’ve been if I’d told him immediately, at the château.
“I thought someone was following me, and actually the woman was. Her name is Millie O’Neill, from Chicago. She said she’d been watching out for me.”
“Really? How odd. Ah, there it is.” Alex indicated the sign pointing to the Office de Tourisme, just off the main street. We turned the corner.
“I want to tell you what she said. Later.” Now was not the time.
“Of course.”
Inside, a woman who apparently pegged us at once as Americans, said, “Good evening, how are you?” She was my age or older, not as polished as the young woman in the Office de Tourisme at Les Baux, nor was her English as impeccable. Still, I had come to appreciate the willingness of the French to speak my language, though I was a visitor in their country.
“We close in five minutes,” she said. “You will come back tomorrow?”
We thanked her. Alex picked up a few brochures with pictures of windmills, which we’d seen on every piece of information about Fontvieille. He asked, “Could you tell us where the windmill is?”
She pointed in the general direction and used the map on the brochure to explain how to cut through another street to reach the Avenue des Moulins. “You will want to go in the day, yes? Not the night. The path is rocky,” she said.
Respecting her closing time, we thanked her and bid her bonsoir. As we returned to the main street, Alex said, “They refer to it as Daudet’s Mill.” He read from the brochure: “The famous poet Alphonse Daudet found inspiration for his work from the magnificent view of the Alpilles, the castles of Baucaire and Tarascon, and Montmajour Abbey, accompanied by the sound of Master Cornille’s mill.”
“Marvelous!” he said.
“Watch out!” I said as he narrowly missed sideswiping a cart of flowers. A bald little man who must have been the proprietor of Le Pruits Aux Fleurs gave us the look that was getting to be familiar, the indulgent gaze that said, Americans.
Alex gave only a brief notice of his near-miss. “Daudet’s Mill sounds like the perfect place to find inspiration for the opening for my book,” he said. “Let’s set aside tomorrow afternoon for this.”
“We’ll see,” I said, with a sidelong glance. “Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t go, if there’s something else I need to do.”
“You don’t want to see Daudet’s Mill?” Alex looked crushed.
“I would, but I’d also like to relax around the pool. It feels like we’ve been pushing ourselves every minute.” It wasn’t exactly true, but with the intruder in my room and a stranger pursuing me, I couldn’t say I had done much relaxing. I thought about what Millie O’Neill had told me, about the stalker. Alex had suggested that the cowboy might be a stalker, but now the word provoked more fear. Someone was still out there. Stalker. Why was someone stalking me? Sure, Alex was consumed with his research and writing, but I had other things to worry about. He’d be sorry if a man with hairy arms whacked me over the head.
“You can go to the pool at the Savannah Club,” Alex said, with a little pout.
His tone annoyed me. For an instant I wished that was where I was, in Savannah. A gift from my mother-in-law, our membership in the Savannah Club had provided as much enjoyment for me as for the children. Visions of the pool and tennis courts flashed through my mind. I could’ve given myself two weeks of hanging out at the club and returned to work rested and refreshed. As lovely as I’d found Provence, I had not bargained for the complications.
We turned a corner, and our restaurant came into view. The sign announced Le Patio. We entered through an ornate iron gate into a garden, and through an arched opening to the smell of garlic and baking bread.
Every meal that I’d had in France was worthy of being featured in Bon Appetit. Le Patio did not break the record. For starters, the classic ratatouille Provençal, a lively mix of eggplant, zucchini, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlic and herbs. Followed by striped bass in red wine sauce with black olives, and for dessert, vanilla macaroon with ice cream and sour cherry sauce. Alex asked the waiter to choose a local wine for us, and it was extraordinary.
Food has always been able to cheer me. After the decadent dessert, I said, “I was telling you about the woman I met, Millie O’Neill from Chicago.”
“Yes, of course. What was it about her? She said she’d been watching you?”
“Watching out for me.” As we sipped our wine, I gave Millie’s entire account of the man who had been following me at our hotel that morning and, later, at Les Baux. At first, I skipped over my exploration in the old section of our hotel because I knew it hadn’t been wise to venture into the dungeon-like room. But Alex listened so intently that in the end I told him about that, too.
“This Millie person, what’s her stake in the matter?” Alex asked.
I smiled. “You’ll just have to meet her. I think she’s just— shall I say no
sy?”
Alex turned his wine glass, watching the dark red liquid swirl. I imagined he was thinking that this wasn’t what he’d bargained for, either, when he asked me to come along on the trip. Then, still thoughtful, he said, “You don’t know her. She might be making it all up.”
“No, I believe her.” The couple at the next table looked at me, and I lowered my voice. “I believe her, Alex. Can’t you see it—someone is following me. Stalking me.”
“You said she’d been interviewed by Inspector Bouvier. Busybodies somehow manage to get details that you think they wouldn’t know.”
At that opportune moment the waiter arrived with our check, and we settled up without any more discussion. We walked through the arched door to the patio, where an arbor of olive branches provided a canopy for al fresco dining. We walked through the lush garden along a stone mosaic path. The scenery helped to calm me. Smiling diners were seated at wrought-iron tables arranged among huge terra-cotta pots of shrubs and flowers. And just before we reached the gate, we passed a man with dark, shoulder-length, oily hair and a little mustache, alone at his table, bent over a cell phone. He was dressed like a tourist in light pants and light shirt, with the sleeves rolled to just below his elbows. His arms were, in Millie O’Neill’s words, hairy as a bear.
I stopped. Alex stopped, too. “Jordan, what is it?” he said.
I walked toward the man who was now glaring at me. Had I been mistaken about who he was, had he not been the man described by Millie O’Neill, he might’ve appeared curious about why I was approaching. He might have even smiled. There would’ve been no reason for the alarm in his eyes.
“Do I know you?” I asked, quietly.
He didn’t answer. He muttered something into his phone, slapped it shut, and fastened it to his belt.
“Who are you? What is your name?” I asked. “Comment vous appelez-vous?”
He held his chin at a defiant angle, saying something in French that was almost inaudible.
Alex was standing beside me now, looking altogether baffled. “Jordan?” he said again, almost in a whisper. “What’s this all about?”
Pursuit in Provence (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery) Page 7
