Pursuit in Provence (A Jordan Mayfair Mystery)

by Phyllis Gobbell

  The room was no larger than mine at L’hôtel du Soleil, but the décor was more modern. Felicity let her head sink into the pillowy side of the oversized chair’s curved back, inhaled deeply on her cigarette, and exhaled a long breath of smoke. “This has been the longest night,” she said. I tucked the blanket a little tighter around her.

  “Why don’t you try to take a nap?” Portia said. “Or would you like something to eat?”

  Felicity shook her head. A good thing she wasn’t hungry because it was 2:45 A.M. The hotel’s kitchen crew would hardly be ready for business. Not even room service would be available. Four stars notwithstanding, this hotel was still in Fontvieille, and not a Ritz-Carlton. Not even a coffeemaker. I needed a strong coffee. Two empty mugs sat on the squat chrome-andglass table in the center of our sitting area. Someone had at least provided coffee for Felicity and Portia, who, according to my calculations, had been confined to the room for over two hours.

  A single lamp cast a weak light upon us, accentuating the shadows that gave Felicity a haunted look. She finished her cigarette and leaned forward, snuffing it out in the ashtray on the low table. Snuggling back under the blanket, she closed her eyes.

  Portia, in a black warm-up suit, looked too elegant for the wee hours of the morning. She wasn’t wearing makeup, suggesting she’d been roused from sleep, but she’d taken the time to grab a few diamond rings—or maybe she slept with diamonds on her fingers. Moments after Felicity finished her cigarette, Portia lit up. I’d never smoked, but I could see that smoking was something to pass the time. All I could do was examine my nails and ponder questions that I couldn’t reasonably ask yet— and remember how it felt to be in Paul’s arms, dancing.

  “Where’s Hunt?” I asked finally, just above a whisper, hoping Felicity would sleep. “In our room, making calls.” Portia checked her elaborate watch, studded with diamonds. “It’s not late, back in the States. Nine o’clock, Nashville time? Is that right? Felicity wanted Hunt to let some people know what happened, right away. She didn’t want to wait until morning.” Portia glanced at Felicity and gave a knowing smile, which I returned.

  “Why don’t you go back to your room,” I said. “You must be exhausted. I can take it from here.”

  “If you’re sure,” she said, without losing a beat. “Yes, it has been an exhausting night.” She stood, arched her back in a catlike stretch, and picked up the mugs. “I can bring more coffee. I think Hunt got this from the manager.”

  “That would be perfect,” I said. Maybe I had misjudged Portia. Here, in this situation, she seemed to have lost the affectations that were so annoying in Aix. Maybe she was not all that different from the rest of us, except for the diamonds.

  Portia had just closed the door when Felicity stirred. “Thank you for being here for me, Jordan,” she said, her voice still whispery.

  “I thought you were asleep,” I said.

  “I am a long way from sleep.” She straightened herself into more of a sitting position. She pinched the bridge of her nose, squinting. “My eyes are so tired, but I’m too jittery to sleep.”

  “Maybe you should lie down in the bed, get under the covers,” I said.

  “I’ll wait for Portia to bring the coffee. Coffee doesn’t keep me awake.” Felicity reached for the pack of cigarettes and lit up again. “Remember how I kept trying to quit smoking when we were in college? I did quit. For years. It’s just been the last few months that I’ve started up again. You might’ve guessed that it was stressful living with Barry. But I can’t imagine living without him.” Her voice broke, and she pressed her hands against her face.

  “I’m so sorry, Felicity,” I said. “I wish I could’ve been here sooner. I’m glad Portia was with you.”

  She looked up again, her eyes red, but dry. Contriving a smile, she said, “Portia was very fond of my husband. Oh, yes. Are you surprised? Didn’t you see how she doted on him in Aix?”

  “Not at all.” I stammered for something appropriate to say, but nothing came to mind.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter now.” Felicity reached for the cigarettes again, and this time she lit one, as the tension hung around us. “Do you know what happened tonight?” she asked.

  I said no, and she launched into an account, with a kind of breathless eagerness.

  They’d had dinner in Arles with Hunt and Portia, hit a couple of bars, and arrived late at the hotel, at their room on the first floor. Barry went right to bed.

  “I was taking a long soak in the tub when I heard a noise, two pops,” Felicity said. “I called to Barry. ‘What was that?’ He didn’t answer—but he’d had a lot to drink so I assumed he was asleep and didn’t hear anything. I finished my bath, put on my pajamas, and went into the bedroom.” Her hand moved toward her mouth. “He was lying in the bed with a pillow on top of him. And blood everywhere. Someone had murdered him!”

  I shifted to the arm of her chair and drew her against me. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I want to,” she said. “It’s like a terrible nightmare. I think it will help if I can talk about it. If I keep it inside, I can’t bear it.”

  The blanket had fallen down around her waist. She moved away from me, leaned against the cushiony chair back. She took a long drag on her cigarette. A moment passed, and she took up where she’d left off, her voice breathless again. “It must have been a robbery. The door to our patio was open. That had to be how the man came in and got away—or I suppose it could’ve been a woman.” She paused, and I wondered if she was thinking of particular women in Barry’s life. She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the cut-glass ashtray. “I told that inspector I hated to admit it, but probably we hadn’t locked the patio door earlier that evening, before we went to Arles. We’d been outside, enjoying the nice weather.”

  I wondered what Felicity thought the motive was for the shooting, but I didn’t have to ask. “He—or she—saw the bedside lamp on, and Barry was out of it.” Passed out? Even so, would a burglar risk coming inside the room if he saw someone in the bed? Felicity must have noted the skepticism in my expression. She said, “Barry’s pants were draped over a chair, and his wallet was in his back pocket. He always carried a lot of cash. I didn’t think to ask the detective if the wallet was gone. I wonder if Barry began to stir. The robber must have panicked. Grabbed a pillow and shot through it. Barry was so drunk, he wouldn’t have put up much of a fight.” Felicity’s eyes were wide and horror-stricken, as if seeing it happen.

  If Barry had roused up, why hadn’t the intruder simply run away? I thought, but I couldn’t see that our speculation was productive. “The police will figure it out,” I said, trying to keep a gentle tone, trying to keep Felicity from getting too worked up.

  “If I just hadn’t decided to take a bath,” she moaned. “If I’d gone on to bed and turned out the lights, I probably would’ve checked the patio door, too.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Felicity.”

  I was relieved to hear voices at the door. It was Portia with mugs of steaming coffee and a toiletry kit. A hotel employee was headed back down the hall. I took the mugs and the plastic bag from her at the door. She saw that Felicity was awake and said, “You must try to rest, dear.”

  “I will,” Felicity said, in a not-too-kindly voice, and Portia turned away.

  The coffee was a notch above your run-of-the-mill hotel coffee. Very welcome. Felicity took a sip and continued talking as if we hadn’t been interrupted. “It was an awful night, Jordan. Even before Barry—before he was shot. The whole time we were in Arles, having dinner, having drinks, Hunt and Barry were arguing, and Hunt and Portia were tense with each other, and I was upset, too. With Portia. And with Barry. Because they were flirting. Barry loved to party, and the more he drank, the more obnoxious he could be.”

  That much I believed. “Was that why he and Hunt argued? Because of Portia?”

  “Oh no, it was something to do with business. I didn’t get into Barry’s business too much, but Hunt has
backed him on several deals, and Hunt has made a lot of money from Barry’s deals.” She straightened out her legs, propping her feet on the glass table, displaying her fuchsia-tipped toenails. “Tonight there was some disagreement about an artist Barry’s promoting, someone he wants to get in the lineup for the International Music Fest. He might have mentioned her when we were at Guy Savoy.”

  “I remember Barry saying if you can imagine Carrie Underwood singing the blues.” And I remembered the beautiful young woman who had exchanged words with him in the alcove at the restaurant. Could she have anything to do with the murder? I would need to tell the police.

  Felicity nodded, took one more drag on her cigarette and disposed of it. “Hunt said, ‘Not another red cent.’ I don’t remember much else they said, just that they were taking shots at each other all night.” She made a face of horror. “Oh, that was a terrible thing to say.”

  I made a gesture of dismissal. “I know what you meant.”

  “You don’t—you don’t think Hunt—no, oh God, what am I saying?” She picked up the toiletry kit, and headed to the bathroom, groaning, “I need to get myself together!”

  This conversation had taken a bizarre turn. I felt a rush of relief when a knock sounded at the door, not too loud, but purposeful. And the voice: “C’est moi, Inspector Bouvier.”

  He was a welcome sight, the short, rotund inspector, whose shirt had lost a button at the widest part of his midsection. “Bonjour, Madame Mayfair,” he said, with a slight bow. He came inside, bringing the news that Felicity’s luggage was about to be delivered to the room.

  I knocked on the bathroom door. “Inspector Bouvier is here,” I called to Felicity, “and they’re bringing your luggage.”

  “Oh, thank goodness! Merci beaucoup!” She stumbled from the bathroom, fooling with her hair. “I’m such a mess. You’ll have to forget you ever saw me like this, Inspector.”

  His eyes shifted from hers, back to mine. He was a master of concealing what he was thinking, but I imagined he was pondering her excessive concern about her appearance.

  “We have finished with the room for now,” he said, calling to my mind a team of crime scene techs and the medical examiner, all packing up with their little bags of evidence. “If we could get a statement from you in the morning at the police station, Madame Blake,” he said, “I think I can leave you now. No doubt you need your rest.”

  “A statement? But you questioned me already,” Felicity said.

  “It is procedure, Madame,” the inspector said, his tone just apologetic enough.

  “Jordan, are you going to stay?” Felicity asked in a high-pitched voice that sounded incredibly childish. “I think I might be able to sleep a little if you were here.”

  I said I would stay. “I’ll bring Felicity to the police station in the morning,” I told the inspector. “This morning, I guess it is. What time? And where is the police station?”

  “Let us say ten o’clock.” Inspector Bouvier gave simple directions. “Ah—here are the items from Madame Blake’s room,” he said, standing back for a hotel employee to enter, pushing a luggage cart weighed down with an assortment of bags. Barry hadn’t been too far off the mark when he’d said Felicity had a dozen suitcases. Poor Barry. Poor, obnoxious Barry. He was annoying, but he didn’t deserve to be shot.

  Felicity was preoccupied, telling the hotel employee to put this one here and that one there. She grabbed a small travel case that I assumed held her cosmetics and headed back to the bathroom, mumbling about how “yucky” she felt.

  The inspector gave a little shrug. He might as well have said, “Under the circumstances, we must overlook her silliness.”

  My eyes fixed on his white shirt, where he must have spilled a drop of coffee. He’d seemed such a fastidious man when we’d first met, but now, in the hours before dawn, he was rumpled, needing a shave, and he smelled as if he’d sweated in his clothes for a couple of days.

  “Another curious happening in Fontvieille,” he said, turning to leave.

  “Did you find the gun?” I asked.

  He hesitated, as if contemplating whether he should answer. “We did not find a weapon,” he said. I took it as a compliment that he’d decided to share that detail with me. “Now, Madame, we should all try to get some rest. The sky is already showing light.”

  He took a step and then stopped and shook his head. “I do not remember that we have ever had a murder in Fontvieille.”

  He could’ve been carrying bricks on his shoulders as he walked away, with more crime in the past week than he’d probably seen in his entire career in this quaint little village-town in the French countryside.

  CHAPTER 25

  * * *

  The police station was a sixties modern building, one story with no ornamentation, located on a side street. The building was not much larger than a double-wide house trailer, and the interior had all the charm of a mobile home, as well. Lots of cream-colored Formica. But the floor was an interesting construction, floor tiles made of marble chips. Much nicer than vinyl, the U.S. standard. I studied the walls and windows and ceiling and floor, and flipped through a newspaper I couldn’t read—but I was able to translate Lundi, Monday, which meant it was yesterday’s paper. After more than an hour, the inspector and Felicity appeared.

  Inspector Bouvier was kneading the loose skin of his face. No doubt he was sleep deprived, too. Felicity actually looked better than she’d looked when we’d arrived at the station. “Well, that’s over,” she said, taking a pack of cigarettes from her purse.

  I glanced around, expecting a No Smoking sign in this public place, but what was I thinking? This was France.

  “Au revoir, Madame,” the inspector said to her. “Once again, I am sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” Felicity said with a smile that was less than genuine, in a voice that in no way resembled the tone she’d used with the Inspector at La Regalido. She was out the door in an instant, already lighting up. I exchanged nods with Inspector Bouvier and hurried to catch up with Felicity. I realized I should tell the inspector about Barry and the young woman at Guy Savoy, but this was not the appropriate time.

  On the sidewalk, outside the entrance, I asked, “What was that all about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why were you so cool to the inspector?”

  She gave me a hard look. “Because I didn’t like his questions. That’s why. Could anyone substantiate my story? How much had I had to drink? Questions that sounded like accusations to me. How could he even dream that I’d murdered my husband!”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t take it like that,” I said. “I’m sure they were routine questions, just part of the statement he has to get.”

  “How about, ‘Did you have problems in your marriage?’ ” she said, attempting the inspector’s accent. “I think that’s crossing the line, don’t you? Who doesn’t have problems in marriage these days?”

  “Did you say that to him?” I asked, as we got into the car.

  “I said, ‘What’s that have to do with the person who fired two bullets into my husband?’ ”

  I felt myself flinch. Felicity didn’t seem to realize what a graphic picture she’d described. She continued. “I said, ‘Do you think the murderer gave a damn about how good our marriage was?’ And he had the nerve to say, ‘Two bullets, Madame?’ Can you believe it? But I told him I heard two pops, so why wouldn’t I assume two bullets? I think that put him in his place.”

  I was better able to appreciate how wrung-out the inspector had looked when he’d finished with the interview. As hard as it was to believe that Inspector Bouvier had not maintained the upper hand, it might have been true.

  At La Regalido, I pulled into the circular drive, my mind flashing back momentarily to the night before when Paul’s Mer-cedes had taken me to this destination. “Do you need me to stay?” I asked, as Felicity opened her car door.

  She dismissed the idea with a wave. “I think I feel a nap coming on.”

>   “Good. I’ll check with you later.”

  “I have the rental car, if I need to go somewhere.” She waggled her fingers at me. “A bientôt.You’ve been a dear, Jordan.”

  Felicity’s demeanor had definitely changed over the last hours. Probably she was still in shock. Or maybe it took a crisis for her to find the strength so deeply hidden to her in the normal course of things.

  Alex had left a message for me that he was spending the morning in the local library. “He rode Alain’s bicycle!” Jean-Claude said with a bright chuckle before he apparently remembered the murder. His face was immediately full of sympathy, as he expressed in great flowering sentiments how sorry he was to hear about the loss of my friend. I felt guilty. If only he knew my true feelings about Barry. But I agreed that his death was a tragedy.

  I was relieved to know that Alex was preoccupied, not counting on me to go with him to Arles or Avignon or one of the other sites he had on his agenda to visit. My agenda, too, but this was not a morning to go sightseeing. That was probably the reason Alex had gone to the library, I thought with a surge of affection, to give me a break.The trip had not turned out exactly as Alex had planned, but, all in all, he’d been a good sport. I owed it to him to tell about last night’s whirlwind dinner in Paris—not everything, but he’d be thrilled to hear about Lassare.

  Later, yes. Suddenly I did want to talk to someone, just not Alex. Not even Paul, and he would be busy at the museum, anyway. I dialed Millie’s room.

  “I didn’t really expect you to be in your room,” I said, when she answered.

  “We had a morning with no tours. A morning on our own. Can you believe it?”

  “Have you had lunch?” I was suddenly ravenous. How could that be, after the meal in Paris that didn’t end until almost midnight?