Burgundy

by Janet Hubbard

  Olivier chased after Max and saw that she and Hank were bending over what he assumed was a boar. Moving at a slow pace he turned to one of the hunters who said, “Something’s wrong. I can’t see what’s happening from here.” Olivier picked up speed, and as he drew closer, he saw that the form on the ground was a human. He heard Max say to Hank, “We stop the bleeding, treat for shock, and keep her warm.”

  “Okay, but I’m putting pressure to the wound and the bleeding won’t stop.”

  “Let me. She began pressing hard below the armpit. “I’ve got to wrap my fingers around the brachial artery. There, it’s better, but she’s losing a lot of blood.”

  Hank said, “Her pulse is awful weak.” He touched the girl’s face, “Hey, don’t leave us. Hang in there.” To Olivier’s annoyance, Tim had his camera up in front of his face, taking multiple photographs. When Olivier reached him to ask him to stop, Tim moved the camera away from his face and tears were coursing down his cheeks. “I will know who shot her!” he shouted in French into the air. He lifted his camera again and the click, clicking started all over again. Some of the hunters turned their faces. A group of them had gathered a few yards away and were busy lighting cigarettes. Tim had started yelling again. “Who the fuck would shoot a girl? She doesn’t look like a pig!”

  Hank stood with the girl in his arms, pausing for a moment to regain his balance, and started walking toward the house, breathing heavily. The girl’s silvery hair made her look ethereal in the early morning light. Olivier motioned to the chief of the hunt who was calling the police and ambulance on his cell phone. Max and Tim kept pace with her father as he took long strides toward Jean-Claude’s house. Tim turned frequently, continuing to take photographs.

  Olivier had to stay and take charge. He went to the chief of the hunt, and told him to call everyone together, which he did. “Can anyone step forward as a witness?” he asked.

  No one budged.

  “We put the warning signs up,” Jean-Claude said. “We did everything according to the law. What the hell was she doing running out like that?”

  The other hunters clustered around closer.

  “Everyone gather at Jean-Claude’s house,” Olivier said. “And hand your rifles over to him once you arrive there. They must each be labeled with your name and phone number. The police will take them after that.”

  The men began mumbling among themselves, and Olivier overheard remarks like, “Who does he think he is?” Then someone whispered, “Shut up! He’s a magistrat.” Another said, “No crime has been committed. He can’t just take over.”

  Alain, who looked soberer than earlier, said, “We called the local police, Olivier. It’s an accident. These things happen, and they know how to deal with it.”

  “First we must officially identify the victim,” Olivier said.

  “That’s easy,” Alain said. “It’s Lucy.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Max walked rapidly alongside Hank, her fingers pressing the artery. Tim kept taking photographs—turning to focus on the men who were slowly wending their way up, and then back to Lucy. Click. Click. The door was unlocked, and Max held it open for Hank. The room where they were gathered earlier was empty. Hank lowered the girl onto a long table, and Max removed her own coat and placed it under her to elevate her. The bleeding started again and Max ran and grabbed a scarf hanging on a hook, and made a tourniquet. The blood flow ceased.

  “I’m worried about the bone being shattered,” she said. “I could make a splint.”

  “She’s already passed out,” Hank said, “probably from pain. We’ve staunched the bleeding, that’s the main thing.” Tim was hovering over her, talking quietly to her. Max paced. She hadn’t felt right about the hunt from the moment it was mentioned. She felt in her jacket for the pocketknife her brother Frédéric gave her years ago, and wrapped her hand around it for comfort.

  Yvette entered the room wearing a coat and hat. “What happened?” she asked in French, standing mid-room, looking unsure, and not a little angry.

  Hank turned to Max. “Ask her to make sure the ambulance is on the way. And ask her where she’s been.”

  Max waited while Yvette called to make sure the ambulance was on the way. “Five minutes,” she said. She walked over and looked at the girl and said, “Mon Dieu, it’s Lucy! I step out to the boulangerie to get more bread and come back to this.” She turned on Tim and his camera, and said in a strident voice, “Put that thing away.” She looked again at Tim. “You were on the hunt, too?”

  “I was. I wanted to capture a boar mid-air. No idea what I got, it all happened so fast.”

  “That film will be a big help to the police,” Hank said to Max. “Make sure he keeps it.”

  “The ambulance is here,” Yvette said, glancing out the window. Two emergency technicians rushed in and immediately began working on Lucy. “We’ll hook her up to oxygen,” one of them said. He looked up at Max, “You did the tourniquet? Looks good.”

  Olivier walked into the room, a grim look on his face. He stepped back as the attendants passed by. He whispered to Max, “Is she alive?”

  “Barely.” Max followed the stretcher out to the waiting ambulance, with Hank and Olivier behind her. Max turned to them, “I’m going with her.”

  “I’ll follow in my car,” Tim said.

  “We’ll be there soon,” Hank said.

  As the ambulance turned around and slowly moved down the driveway, Max looked out the window at the hunters standing in a circle, then turned her attention back to Lucy, who looked lost in the blankets the attendants had wrapped her in. “She’ll need a blood transfusion for sure,” the attendant said, “but we can’t do that.”

  Max reached over and held Lucy’s hand, her thoughts going back to the day her brother arrived at the hospital in Manhattan in an ambulance, full of tubes, and already dead. “She’s your sister?” the attendant asked, and Max nodded.

  The emergency room in Beaune was quiet, compared to the ones Max frequented for her job in New York. A woman doctor appeared, and within minutes Lucy was taken to surgery. Tim arrived, camera in hand, and sat down. “What a mistake to let Lucy leave last night,” he said. “I think she went back to Anne’s cabin. I was afraid if I went looking for her, she would show up at my place, so I waited. I sat up all night. I didn’t know if she had decided to end our relationship, if you can call it that, or if something happened that prevented her from coming.”

  “She’ll be able to tell you herself once she wakes up after surgery.”

  “She could die.”

  “Not likely. I’ve seen someone shot eight times and survive. If the bullet misses your brain, you have a good chance of pulling through.”

  “That’s a relief. I’m going to get her through this, and I’m going to prove her innocent of everything she’s been accused of. And then I’m taking her to England.”

  Two policemen entered and looked around, then went to the receptionist to explain that they were here on account of a foreign girl being shot in the woods. Max waited while the receptionist explained that the girl was in surgery. Both policemen sat down in chairs placed along the opposite wall.

  The door opened and a woman doctor dressed in scrubs walked directly to Max and Tim. “You are family?”

  “Yes,” Tim lied. “We were with a hunting group…”

  The doctor said, “My sister called ahead to tell me she was coming in.” She looked disgusted. “These are the only gun accidents we have, of course. They are always ruled accidental. Personally, I hate the sport.”

  “Is your sister Yvette?” Max asked, but the doctor ignored her and continued speaking to Tim in broken English, though Tim assured her he understood French. “Bien. The bullet clipped the brachial artery,” she said. “There is massive damage to the tissue and tendons, as well as nerves and blood vessels. And there has been dramatic blood loss. If someone h
adn’t been there to perform first aid, she wouldn’t have made it. We have her on IV antibiotics because the danger of infection is high.”

  Max said, “Prognosis?”

  “Recovering fully is unlikely, but we shall see. I am a good surgeon, and I hope for the best. The bone wasn’t shattered, and her arm is strong. I will probably have to do another surgery before it’s over.”

  Max persisted. “Her eyes fluttered, but then she seemed to drift into a coma.”

  “Well,” the surgeon said, still not having introduced herself, “there was a lot of blood loss, even with the tourniquet. There is also psychological incapacitation. The person is too frightened or in too much pain to continue the fight. We will know more in a few hours after she is out of recovery. And now, I have another surgery.” She walked briskly away.

  Max noticed the police had waited at a respectful distance, but now they ambled over.

  Max said to Tim, “You go and see her and I’ll hold off these guys. Go!”

  He entered the door to the recovery room and the police turned to follow, but Max said, “Bonjour. I was a witness at the shooting. I happen to be a detective in New York, here on vacation, but I am happy to give my report.”

  They motioned her to a chair. She told them all that had happened in French, using technical terms that made them keep nodding their heads. “We get a lot of gunshot wounds in New York,” she said, and they didn’t bother trying to hide their fascination with a woman who had so much more experience with this than they did. She said, “I want to see the girl for one moment, and I will ask her fiancé to leave. Is that acceptable?” and they nodded. She raced in and saw Tim cradling Lucy’s head, and telling her over and over that he loved her. “Squeeze my finger if you hear me,” he said, and when she didn’t respond he said it again. He turned to Max, “The pressure was minute, but it was there.”

  “You need to go,” Max said. “Olivier will come and find you.”

  “I’m going to be busy developing film,” he said. He smiled, “I do it all the old-fashioned way. The door to my house will be unlocked if you need me.”

  He exited through a side door, and Max motioned the police in. “You really think she’s going to make it?” the younger one said.

  “Oh, yes. She’s going to be a bridesmaid at my wedding on April twenty-eighth.”

  Abdel was in the waiting room, and Max excused herself to speak with him. “Monsieur Chaumont called and told me what happened. He’s interviewing the hunters.”

  Max told him about the morning and all that had transpired. He listened carefully, then said, “She didn’t go back to my cousin’s after leaving Tim’s. Monsieur Chaumont learned that there is a small cottage on the Bré property, and we think she may have been hiding there.”

  “That’s what Tim thinks, too.”

  “He and Lucy were caught on the surveillance camera leaving Yves’ building, looking like they were on the run. A hooded guy met up with them. The police are all over it, especially now that the uncle is screaming that French police are incompetent.”

  “Lucy is obviously unable to be interviewed now,” Max said. “Can you keep them away from Tim until he gets all of his film developed?”

  “I’ll try.”

  Olivier and Hank entered the room together. “It was difficult at Jean-Claude’s house,” Olivier said. “There was a lot of silent resistance from the hunters. In the end, they were saying that she had no business being on private land, and it was her fault that she was shot.”

  “Great.”

  “Alain helped me collect the guns.”

  “He disappeared into the woods,” Max said. “Just before the hunters lined up. Remember? He had to go pee.”

  “I don’t recall,” Olivier said. “Are you saying he didn’t return to his station?”

  “I don’t think so,” Max said.

  Olivier said, “I overhead Alain telling Jean-Claude that he had hired Yves to follow Yvette. It could have been an empty threat.”

  “By the way, where was the kid, Roland?” Hank asked.

  “He was supposed to show up at the hunt,” Olivier said. “Yvette said he had partied late the night before. Alain is certain he can have him in my office by five. As for Lucy, we have both a victim and a suspect in the same person. The Beaune police are here to guard a comatose patient who was shot, and who allegedly had escaped from a mental hospital in Westchester County, New York, and the Lyon police want her for questioning in the case of Yves’ murder.”

  Abdel said, “I’ll let the Lyon police know that she has a guard, and that we are here.”

  “A dose of logic might help,” said Hank. “Max?”

  Max knew he was referring to their old game of connecting the dots. She started. “Lucy Kendrick arrived in Lyon on September tenth and bought a red, vintage Vespa, which she drove north to the village of Viré, where the vignerons had started picking grapes. She was hired by Alain Milne, and picked for ten days, after which she migrated an hour north, to the Côte de Beaune region to pick. She went to Anne Bré, who hired her. She had made friends with Roland, age eighteen, the son of Alain, and soon he was going up to Beaune to see her. While at Madame Bré’s, she befriended Yves Laroche, a man who traveled each year from Lyon to pick grapes for Anne, a private investigator. Age forty.”

  Max turned to Olivier, who said, “After the vendange at Madame Bré’s, Lucy Kendrick took off to pick grapes in Chablis. Madame Bré had liked the girl and invited her to spend the winter, which she did. When we arrived in Burgundy on April sixth, we learned that she had disappeared.

  Hank interjected, “I bumped into her in a café and she took off like a mad hatter. She was running from an uncle named George.”

  Olivier continued, “Then on April seventh, Yves Laroche dies.”

  Max said, “Lucy is seen leaving Yves Laroche’s party with Tim. Roland was caught on camera exiting the building ten minutes after them. Others exiting the building are caught on the security camera, but we believe he is the last of Yves’ guests to leave. Tim and Lucy were nearby when Yves hit the pavement, and Roland joined them. Tim took photographs throughout the evening. He wanted to start developing them and sent Lucy and Roland to Anne’s cabin.

  “It is on the news that Yves jumped to his death. Tim takes Lucy to Paris for the night and Roland stays in the cabin and sleeps, claiming he was afraid of his father. When they return, Lucy goes to the cabin to check on Roland, and stays, as Tim is going to a hunt the next morning. During the hunt, Lucy is shot.”

  “Here we are,” Isabelle said. The outside emergency room door had opened and Isabelle and Anne Bré, both in elegant attire, stood there. “Jean-Claude told me what happened,” Anne said, “and I called your grandmother. Is Lucy alive?”

  Max nodded, surprised to see her grandmother looking vulnerable and afraid.

  Hank said, “She’s in a coma.”

  The two women took the seats offered them. Ignoring them, Olivier said, “I will wait twenty-four hours before asking the prosecutor to open an investigation into Lucy’s shooting. Let’s see if Lucy’s uncle shows up with the proper papers. He may want to move her to the United States as soon as possible. We will have to clear her name, though, before she can leave the country.”

  Isabelle, overhearing Hank say that his hunch was Lucy would be better off as a murder suspect in France than as a mental patient in the U.S., joined them, her face contorted. “Either alternative is wretched,” she said to Olivier. “Anne and I can watch over Lucy while you go arrest whoever did this to her.”

  “It isn’t as simple as that, Madame.”

  He huffed out the door, followed by Max and Hank, who said, “We don’t need those two in the picture.” They went to the lobby.

  “Dad, technically we shouldn’t have our noses in this, either. None of us are authorized.”

  “I’m changing that as
of now,” Olivier said.

  “You’re taking charge?” Max asked.

  “It will work as before. You and Abdel and I will work as a team.”

  “Why don’t Max and I go back to the field where Lucy was shot and see if we can pick up any information there?” Hank said.

  Olivier agreed. “If anyone asks, say you are out for a walk.”

  Anne joined them. “They are taking Lucy to a room. Anne and I told the nurse that we are her great aunts, and were given permission to stay with her.”

  “I’m going to see her,” Olivier said. “Come with me, Max.”

  They went quietly into the recovery room and peered down at the girl. She was hooked up to an IV, and was wearing an oxygen mask, which did nothing to hide her frail, child-like beauty. The tiny gold ring in her nose struck Max as a symbol of hope.

  “I’m posting a policeman at the door,” Olivier said to Anne when she entered silently. “Please telephone me when you are ready to leave.”

  Max, Hank, and Olivier walked to Olivier’s car. Juliette pulled up beside them. “Isabelle said you need me to drive you somewhere?”

  What innocence exists in people who don’t do police work, Max thought. She and Hank climbed into the little car, and Olivier mumbled something about going to meet up with Abdel. Max knew that he was desperate to have time alone to think about all that had transpired so quickly. She knew when he said he was taking over the case that he didn’t think anything that had happened was accidental. She didn’t resist being sent to do fieldwork with Hank. Maybe it would help the investigation.

  Chapter Twelve

  Olivier decided that, instead of calling Abdel, he would drive the hour south to check in with Alain and Yvette, and while in the village he would have coffee with his parents. When he knocked on the door of Chez Milne, Yvette came to the door looking efficient and sounding cheerful. “Olivier! Here you are. Bon. Alain is in the vineyard to the right of the house and up the hill. Where he always is.”