Just Pardon My French (Hetta Coffey Series, Book 8)

by Jinx Schwartz

  But first, I had to send a bunch of emails letting everyone know I was okay, as was Jenks. I also posted the same info on Facebook. I wanted to call my mother, but after I talked with Jenks, I couldn't get a signal again.

  I opened a bottle of water and turned on the computer to surf the Net for news of Paris and the rest of the world, but a photo of the Eiffel Tower suddenly took me on a mental trip back in time, to that Paris fling with Jean Luc d'Ormesson years before.

  Curiosity being my strong suit, I Googled the family name, d'Ormesson—I figured Jean Luc DooRah wouldn't get me anywhere—not really expecting to find much, but I was so wrong. Not only did I find Jean Luc, I landed on his family tree going back to the early fourteen hundreds. They even had a family coat of arms, with a dark blue background and three tiger lilies. Now head of his father's world-famous architectural firm, DooRah was all over the place. Matter of fact, at least five pages worth of hits.

  I started at the top and found a recent photo of Jean Luc looking even more debonair with the passing years—how unfair is that?—and his bio said he was married with three children.

  Moving down the line, I hit a bombshell: He and said wife were married one week after he so cavalierly shattered my soul!

  Stunned, I traded my glass of water for wine, but even a whopping gulp did little to assuage my rising fury. I literally saw red, and it wasn't wine.

  This seeing red is not good and has caused me to do great damage to others in the past.

  Since it was so early in the evening, I took a forbidden walk into town in an effort to settle my nerves. I needed someone to vent to, but it was certainly not going to be Jenks, and Rhonda, quite likely headed for a similar disaster in her own life, was not the best sounding board.

  I found a park bench and got a dial tone, much to my surprise. Jan answered immediately.

  "Hetta! I've been trying to reach you. Got your email and called your mom. Uh, are you all right?"

  "That sonofabitch was planning his wedding while screwing my brains out!"

  "What? Jenks got married?"

  "No, DooRah. Oh, forget it."

  "Who? Are you drunk?"

  "Not yet, but I think I'll go find a friendly bistro and get that way."

  "Calm down and let's start over. Hello, Hetta, where are you?"

  "On the boat on the Canal du Midi. Where are you? And what's that noise?"

  "What noise?"

  "Are you running a generator?"

  "Oh, that noise. Yeah, that must be it. Wanna talk to your dog?"

  "Put him on."

  I heard a rustling as she put the phone to Po Thang's ear. "Hi, baby. How's my furry, wurry, widdle baby doggie?"

  "Whine."

  "I miss you so much."

  "Woof."

  "Okay, put your Auntie Jan back on."

  "Woof!"

  That last woof was an eardrum banger. "Ouch! Jan, you back?"

  "Yes. Now what in holy hell has you throwing such a tele-tantrum?"

  "Nothing, really. Old history. I'll tell you all about it one of these days. I guess I'm in a snit at getting left here by myself, not that it's Jenks's fault. Damned terrorists."

  "Don't go after ISIS on your own, okay?" she teased. "Wait for me."

  "Ha. Thanks for the laugh. I really miss you guys."

  "Us too."

  After I hung up, I felt much better. Why get in a dither over something that happened twenty years ago? Talking with Po Thang and laughing with Jan reminded me of how lucky I was to have my life, and it took the edge off my anger. Temporarily, that is.

  Back on the boat, though, I was soon on my computer, irresistibly drawn to delving further into Jean Luc's life apres Hetta.

  Moth to the flame.

  Eyes drawn to a freeway pileup.

  And all of those other clichés for being dragged toward something certain to derail me.

  Cyber-delving further into Jean Luc's life, I found those posed wedding shots were by professional photogs and staged after the wedding press releases. Captioned, "Love on the Med," they were shot on the beaches of Gruissan. Most were of the bride, radiant and stunningly beautiful, although I searched for moles or crooked teeth in the grainy newspaper photos. And then the two of them, the rat dashing in full morning suit gear complete with top hat. Other shots had them flanked by an entourage of attendants and family.

  I recognized one of the men. I'd met him in a bistro Jean Luc took me to one night. After Jean Luc disappeared, I'd gone back to that dive and actually found DooRah's friend. His buddy denied knowing anything about Jean Luc's whereabouts, the lying sack of crap. Here he was, barely a week later, smiling for the camera at the wedding. My potential victim list grew by one.

  Another article took up half a page in the society section of Paris Match, with gaga wording about "the wedding of the year." Pictures galore showed Jean Luc DooRah fawning over his tall, willowy bride, who was draped in a jillion miles of designer silk, lace and what I hoped were fake diamonds. And speaking of that, one showed her perfectly manicured finger barely able to hold up a rock the size of Gibraltar.

  Part of my career over the years has involved research, and now I put all those skills to the bad. Deeper and deeper I dug, torturing myself with Luc's perfect life, wife, kids, achievements, and then, poof, there was nothing for the past five years.

  This was very upsetting. If he was dead, I wasn't going to have the pleasure of killing him.

  Then I found him on Facebook.

  La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid.

  Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

  Rhonda banged on the hull around ten the next morning, waking me from the huddle I'd collapsed into on the narrow settee by my computer.

  I slid the door open and saw she had a big smile on her face as she waggled her phone at me. "Rousel called! He's fine, but has to stay in Paris for a few more days. I guess the attacks affected the family business."

  "Probably a family wedding," I grumped under my breath.

  "Huh?"

  "Never mind. Want to go for a walk? I need major caffeine to clear the cobwebs."

  "You do look a little…fuzzy. I'll go get a sweater and we'll find a nice brasserie."

  I brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my frightful hair, pulled on a lightweight jacket, stuffed some money in one pocket and started to leave, then turned back and slipped my pistol into the other. I noticed as I stepped onto the quay that a lot more people were going about their daily business again, so I didn't feel guilty ignoring Jenks's warning to stay on board.

  Besides, I was packing, because a gal just cannot be too careful.

  Stiff from hunching over my laptop in that ridiculous snoop session into the wee hours researching every aspect of Luc's life, I was pissed off at myself for engaging in such immature doings. What am I, anyhow, some kind of psychopath?

  "Don't answer that, you might be called as witnesses," I said to Siegfried and Odette, those panhandling swans who'd paddled up looking for a handout.

  An avid reader of mysteries, I imagined a scenario where the object of my murderous obsession was actually bumped off, and the police somehow tracked me down via my Internet searches into Jean Luc's website and Facebook page. The French prosecutor, declaring with a snippy, obviously anti-American sneer, "I put it to the jury,"—I guess they use juries?—"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And this woman," (pointing an indignant, bony finger at me) "had twenty years, TWENTY YEARS! to plot her revenge." He used the French version, revanche, and followed it with a dramatic, "J'accuse!"

  Rhonda walked up just in time to save me from an imaginary trudge to the guillotine. She reminded me we'd planned a foray into town anyway, for her to pick up a WiFi hotspot like the one I'd rented so she'd have Internet on her boat. Up until now she'd relied on Internet cafés, but when I told her about the lack of those on the canal heading east towards Toulouse, we contacted Hippocket WiFi and had one sent overnight to a Castelnaudary pickup point.

  As we a
te a leisurely lunch at a café near the square, we both kept our cell phones on the table in case our men called, and I patted my gun every so often in anticipation of spotting a wild-eyed terrorist. Since neither called nor jumped out of the bushes, we drowned our disappointment with an extra carafe of excellent house wine.

  After weaving a mite and giggling our way back to the quay, we stopped short when we saw a shiny, black. stretch limo at the curb and a fairly large group of people gathered near our boats. I picked up the pace, unrealistically hoping Jenks was back.

  When we broke through the crowd though, I let out a loud whoop and told Rhonda, "Now we're gonna have some fun!"

  Perched fetchingly on my deck, long limbs crossed to show lots of leg through a split in her pencil skirt, beret atop coiffed blonde hair, sat Jan. Wearing a tight fitting, low cut top in typical French stripes and a red cravat tied around her swan-like neck, she had her arm around Po Thang, who also wore French stripes, red cravat, and a beret with ear holes.

  Thinking her someone famous, a little girl was asking Jan for her autograph.

  My whoop caught Po Thang's attention and he lunged, almost yanking Jan butt-first onto the quay. He broke loose from her hold and charged us, but suddenly remembered his manners and stopped short of a full-on doggie tackle. I fell to my knees and burrowed my face in his neck fur—which smelled suspiciously of Chanel No. 5—and bawled like a baby while he whined and wiggled.

  Jan, who'd regained her composure and tugged her skirt down—a disappointment to many of the men in the crowd, judging by their complaintive moans—yelled, "When you two get over that love fest, Hetta, we gotta get to figgerin' how to get a bigger boat." She waved her arms around, pointing to at least six large suitcases stacked all over the decks. "Just what the heck kinda cruise is this anyhow?"

  As she stepped off the boat, aided by eager hands, I pushed Po Thang away and rushed to hug her. "How on earth? How did you…oh, hell, who cares? You can explain later. I've never been so glad to see two living beings in my entire life."

  Po Thang had managed to insert himself between us, taking turns to woof at her, then me, frustrated at not being the center of attention. I was introducing Rhonda to Jan and swiping tears from my cheeks when my blurry peripheral vision picked up two blobs of white.

  "Ohhhh, noooo," I hollered, lunging for Po Thang's collar but pulling back only a handful of red silk cravat. Successfully evading my second attempt to tackle him, he executed a perfect swan dive into the canal, landing not two feet from Siegfried and Odette. He paddled toward them to play. They hissed, stretched their necks, and attacked.

  Po Thang, suddenly realizing that maybe not everything in the water is friendly, reversed and splashed towards us as fast as his dog paddle allowed, but the powerful Siegfried overtook him, launched his full weight onto Po Thang's head, and pushed him under. Balancing himself with his wings, it became obvious the big male fully intended to drown my dog.

  Heart pounding, I was shedding my sweater and shoes, preparing to jump into the fray, when Jan reminded me I can't swim worth a damn in fresh water. Calling the canal's water "fresh" was a stretch, but, luckily, a whistle-blowing policeman arrived, causing Siegfried to swim away. Po Thang popped to the surface, whining and yipping pitifully, and headed for the quay faster than I'd ever seen him swim. The swans weren't really giving chase, just making a lot of threatening noise by hissing, honking, and flapping their huge wings.

  My poor pup reached the quay's edge, where several by-standers helped us haul him out by his soggy fur. He was shaking, howling in fear, and had a couple of bleeding beak bites on one ear.

  And he now smelled like Canal No. 5.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jan broke out a couple of my best bottles of wine and offered glasses to those who helped rescue Po Thang from the canal, and those dastardly swans.

  As I rinsed him down with a water hose and toweled him off, the swans retreated, so Po Thang's bluster was sufficiently recovered for him to scowl and growl at his foe, but he made no attempt to get even.

  "I know how you feel, baby," I cooed. "They picked on you, the mean old bullies, and you just wanted to play. Just keep in mind, they're French, However, in their defense, you scared them." Little by little, his quivering subsided and he seemed to relax, but just in case he lost his little doggie mind and set out to avenge his dissed honor, I'd buckled him into his float jacket—thankfully, Jan remembered to bring it—and I had a firm grip on his leash. After the wine, and therefore our crowd, disappeared, we moved Po Thang into the boat's miniscule shower/toilet area, where I gave him a hot water shampoo to remove the canal stink.

  While Po Thang napped in the warm late afternoon sun, Jan and I finally grabbed a glass of wine for ourselves and sat on deck with him. Clinking glasses with her, I asked, "Okay, now you can tell me how in the holy hell you two got here so fast?"

  "For one thing, when you called last night we were already in the air, heading this way. I would've gotten here sooner, but we had to go shopping in Toulouse. We were whisked out of Mexico with barely the clothes on our backs."

  "Aha. But what I really want to know is, how the heck you got to France, and why."

  "Ya want the good news or the bad news?"

  "Hit me with the bad."

  "Okay, Jenks is on the way to Dubai, but he couldn't tell you on the phone or in an email. Security stuff."

  "Well, crap. When's he coming back?"

  "Dunno, but he and the Trob decided you needed a keeper, since you are here on a semi-official work permit and could do great harm to Baxter Brothers' reputation if left to your own designs. So, as luck would have it, they sent me!"

  "That shows you how much they know. What's the good news?"

  She slapped my arm. "Very funny. Anyhow, Jenks said we could get a bigger boat, what with the three of us on board this two-person tub, so that's what we gotta do, and fast, by the looks of it."

  "Okay, so we upgrade. Then what?"

  "Whatever we want, I guess." She surveyed the picturesque waterfront. "Looks pretty all right here, if you ask me. Maybe once we get the new boat we'll just come back. But Jenks says we gotta go to where the car is stored to get that boat."

  "Argens. That's where the Fiat's stashed."

  "How far away is it?"

  I went inside and pulled out a spread sheet I'd made of the trip Jenks and I planned from Castelnaudary to Argens. Now that I knew the ropes, I'd plotted daily distances and number of locks we were comfortable with. I ran my finger down the list and threw numbers at Jan. She's good at adding in her head, so as soon as I gave her the last number she said, "That's only fifty miles. Piece of cake."

  "There's a word the French get touchy about."

  "Oh, yeah, the Marie Antoinette thing?"

  "She never said it."

  "Really? Anyhow, fifty miles isn't very far."

  "Divide by five."

  "Ten."

  "That's ten hours actual running time, not accounting for waits at the locks. Guess how many locks."

  "Uh, a bunch?"

  "Forty-eight."

  "That sounds like a lotta work."

  "You have no idea. However, by my calculation, it is doable in two really exhausting days. If we don't have long waits while other boats clear the locks."

  "So it looks like we're stuck with this boat for two more nights?"

  "I guess we could ditch the boat altogether and go on a road trip, but then we'd need a bigger car. That Fiat 500 barely holds my two suitcases in the backseat."

  "Nah, I want to do the canal."

  "Good choice. If we leave early tomorrow, we'll get you a room in Carcassonne tomorrow night. That's only twenty-three miles and twenty-five locks away."

  "Only?"

  "Think of all the free exercise, Chica."

  I sipped my wine, contemplated the situation, then broke into an overly dramatic imitation of Edith Piaf's "La Vie on Rose." Several passersby smiled and nodded approval. I raised my glass to Jan. "Here's to
being stuck in the South of France with a ticket to ride, mon ami."

  Jan raised hers in return. "Vive la France!"

  Rhonda walked up to the boat as Jan and I were giggling about something and smiled. "You two are having way too much fun."

  "Hey, come aboard. Want some wine?"

  "Mais oui, although I had to take a quick nap to get over the lunch wine and all the excitement." She gave Po Thang a sympathetic pat, but he merely grunted in his sleep. "I had no idea swans could be so vicious."

  Jan and I chorused, "They're French."

  She laughed.

  "They were, after all, only defending their territory. Po Thang has a habit of taking up with other species whether they want a new buddy or not. His last non-canine BFF was a dolphin, but she was friendly. He got quite an education in the unpredictability of the French today. Speaking of, have you heard from Rousel?"

  She lost her smile. "Yes. Looks like he'll be away at least five more days. Thank goodness you three are here. I don't know what I'd do without you."

  Jan and I exchanged a look. We were planning an early morning departure. "Wanna go on a boat ride?" I asked. I told her our plan to go as far as Carcassonne the next day and get Jan a hotel room, then on to Argens to pick up the bigger boat. She looked crestfallen.

  "You can go with us, Rhonda. I'll spring for a room for you, as well. We can use the help with the lines."

  "Oh, I would love to go with you, but I promised Rousel I'd stay here."

  Jan cocked her head. "Why? He ain't here, is he?"

  "Well, no, but he doesn’t like me, er, not being where he tells me to be. He'll call to check."

  I mentally checked another warning sign on my vast list of rat habits, and Jan's eyes widened. "Uh, hello? Cell phone? How the hell will he know where you are?"

  "But what if he returns unexpectedly?"

  Jan rolled her eyes and I knew she was going to say something rude, like, How old are you, anyhow? So I interrupted.

  "I've got an idea. You take the boat ride with us tomorrow and you can drive our car back here for us the next day. You'll only be gone one night, and that way we'll have wheels right here in Castelnaudary if we want to use them."