Love & Death in Burgundy

by Susan C. Shea

  Suddenly, standing up straight, he settled his guitar over his torso, planted his legs in a crouch, rolled his shoulders forward, and, with the help of his little band, launched into the approximate tune of a deliberately nasty Rolling Stones hit. Michael coughed to cover up a snort of laughter. “I’m not sure I can make it through one number.”

  “That’s what the wine is for, darling,” Katherine said. And if that weren’t enough, Penny now leapt up and stood next to him, tentatively waving the tambourine around as she struggled to find the beat.

  Emile ended with a flourish and gave a jaunty bow. There was sketchy applause, which he interpreted as a request for more, and he responded by sailing enthusiastically into the first verse of an American pop song made infamous by its white-booted singer-songwriter several decades ago. At that moment, a hand grabbed Katherine’s shoulder and squeezed. “Hey there, kids.” She jumped, and the ruby-colored wine slopped over the lip of her glass.

  J.B. and Betty Lou sank into the remaining chairs at the Goffs’s table, looking around at the crowd and beaming. Betty Lou propped her guitar case next to Michael’s and said, “When are we on?”

  Michael said not until Emile had left the stage unless they wanted to perform as a trio.

  “Can’t miss an evening of homegrown talent, right, darlin’?” J.B. said. He looked around for a nonexistent waiter. “Shoot, I gotta get up again? What’re you drinking, guys?” he said as he struggled to his feet, the Hawaiian shirt this time fire-engine red with large white flowers, possibly more noticeable than Penny’s silk dress in this crowd, especially because it was paired with hippie-era sandals.

  J.B. made his way back to the table in a few minutes, having managed, in spite of his inability to do more than point, to commandeer a plate of bread and sliced sausages, charcuterie. “So, what’s going on with old Albert’s death?” he said, popping a torn chunk of baguette into his mouth and speaking loud enough to be heard over Emile’s guitar. “Have the cops been over to see you, Kathy? I hear they’re making the rounds.”

  Katherine wished he hadn’t brought it up. She pitched her voice low. “I don’t know much. Adele says the investigator’s been back to talk to her and Sophie again, but I hate to pester her for details. She really is undone.”

  “Poor thing,” Betty Lou said. “They’d been married for a long time, I expect. Although, I have to say, he was kind of controlling, if what I saw at your party was typical.”

  “Old-fashioned,” Katherine said.

  “She have any part in his business?” J.B. asked.

  “I don’t think so. He never talked about it to us.”

  Emile ended the song to raucous applause from the Polish table and immediately plunged into another number. Michael turned back to the table. “He’s got another guitar up there and he keeps nodding at me. I either need a lot more wine, or to leave before he asks me to come up and play with him.”

  Betty Lou laughed. “Happens a lot. You say your voice is shot, or your hands are, or something. J.B., offer the guy a glass of wine and get him over to the bar and off our stage, okay?”

  “In a minute, honey.” J.B. was still probing. “Are the police checking into any Gypsies hanging around, or that nasty piece of work who runs the trash yard? Seems to me he might’ve been looking to rob the old man.”

  Katherine looked around. Jean, owner of the used-parts business, such as it was, seemed to have focused his scowling attention on Emile. “J.B., you need to keep your voice down,” she said. “He’s right over there.”

  “Hell’s bells, none of these good people speak a word of English. Believe me, I’ve tried. Try getting directions to a decent restaurant, right, honey?” Betty Lou lit a new cigarette and shrugged. “Seriously, Kathy, I expect the cops are checking out the locals. Who else could it be?”

  “You’re the one who told us he was named in a big American magazine as a rich man, J.B. Anyone could track him down here. That wouldn’t be hard, and I’m sure the people who live here would prefer it was an outsider.”

  “So you think it’s a stranger?” J.B. looked at her thoughtfully, drumming his pudgy fingers on the table. “Did you tell that to the policeman?”

  “Of course not. I haven’t a clue who it was if there was even anyone to blame. I try not to think about that.” Which wasn’t precisely true, she admitted to herself. Lately, she had caught herself looking at people as though she were fitting them for a killer’s personality. The middle-aged woman who cleaned for Adele once a week? Shifty, just because she had a limp and a lazy eye? How insulting and ridiculous, and what motive other than Albert’s probable grousing about how much he paid her? The Danish businessman who had rented a house for the summer and whom she saw prowling around the forest near Château de Bellegarde, supposedly bird-watching? What did she think he was up to other than trying to find the overly enthusiastic birds who woke her every morning at five? But she couldn’t help it. If Adele was reporting correctly, the police were inclined to believe someone had been in the château with Albert that night and might be implicated in his death. If she believed Jeannette, she had to include J.B. in that list, but that made no sense. Jeannette must have been mistaken. There was no reason for the American to be sneaking around Albert’s castle in the middle of the night.

  For an instant, she considered introducing J.B. to Pippa, if only to give the young writer someone new to question, but something stopped her. What was it about J.B. that seemed at times too intensely interested in Albert and his business and the possibility that someone had actually killed the old man? Pippa had some of the same not-quite-proper level of curiosity, but then she was a writer desperate for material. J.B., however, asked too many questions and seemed far more eager for answers than made sense for a short-term visitor, and there was something that bothered Katherine about the way he kept at it.

  “Well, here’s another thought,” he said now. “What if Bellegarde knew something about someone here in town, say another German, and was going to tell all? Collaborators or something. I heard there’s a lot of old war grudges alive and well.”

  Where had he picked that up? Katherine wondered. It would have to have been someone who spoke English—Penny, perhaps, in an effort to keep any suspicion from attaching itself to Yves? If it was her, that woman was making trouble in her clumsy attempts to protect Yves. She decided to find out, if only to suggest to Penny that it wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Michael and I are trying to mind our own business, which is hard to do since we’re—well, I’m—also trying to support Adele and Sophie. They are utterly alone up there in that big, cold place.”

  “Counting their money, I’ll bet.” J.B.’s grin was laced with something harder. Katherine didn’t understand him on that score either. Was he really going to be a good fit for Michael? Did she have to worry privately if he, too, would find a way to take advantage of her husband?

  “I really don’t know,” she said, putting as much finality into her voice as she could. J.B. was annoying her tonight and, much as she liked Betty Lou and hoped Michael was about to be recognized for his talent, she was counting the days until J.B. and his family left Reigny.

  Emile had reached the final chorus of a summer anthem of thirty years earlier and was crooning in what he intended to be the voice of the lead singer, if the star sang off-key with a rustic Burgundian accent. Katherine noticed Pippa still sitting in the corner, eyes fixed on the Don Henley wannabe, mouth open in what was either awe or horror.

  Katherine was about to suggest it was a good time to leave, but J.B. stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Well, if it wasn’t someone who snuck into town pretending to be a tourist,” he roared over the sound, “it must be one of the local lowlifes.”

  Unfortunately, Emile’s ending chord faded away just then, and J.B.’s words fell or rather blasted into a sliver of quiet. The Poles, oblivious, began their hooting and clapping, but Katherine could feel the eyes of the neighbors on them. Betty Lou barked cheerfully at J.B. to min
d his own goddamn business, and said this would be a good time for a diversion.

  Betty Lou gave her husband a look that sent him over to congratulate Emile and practically pull him off the stage. Michael and Betty Lou grabbed their guitars and climbed up the steps to a sudden shower of excited comments that papered over any collective insult J.B. had made. They put their heads together for a couple of minutes, then Michael pulled the inadequate microphone to the space between them, and the two brought their chairs in close. The audience was quiet, curious. When Betty Lou sang the opening lines of the Rolling Stones’s “Wild Horses,” Katherine was suddenly riveted. If she had ever known, she had forgotten that the woman had a glorious, husky voice, aching with passion and meaning.

  Then Michael joined in, singing a tender harmony and playing so sweetly that Katherine found she was swallowing around a lump in her throat. Oh yes, he was good. Oh yes, he deserved a chance. Her vision blurred with tears she would not shed. Screw the Leopards if they tried to stop him this time.

  The people in the café must have felt the same. There was a collective holding of breath, an intense kind of listening. The bartender stopped pouring wine, the Poles stopped drinking, and Emile looked as though he might faint from awe. When the music ended, there was an instant in which time stopped, and then wild applause, whistles, and people banging beer bottles and stomping their feet.

  Betty Lou elbowed Michael and winked. Michael looked around, a slow smile breaking across his face, his color mounting. Katherine realized that to him this had been an audition.

  They did one more song, then quit, over loud requests of “Encore, encore!” Katherine, getting ready to leave with Michael, who was still being congratulated at every table he passed by, noticed that Penny was flushed and self-conscious, apparently deep in conversation with Emile while sneaking peeks at Yves every few seconds. He was looking around with alcohol-glazed eyes, having run out of things to chat about to the young man with the big ears and his wife.

  Katherine darted over to Penny. “I know you met Betty Lou at my lunch. The man with her is J.B., her husband and manager. Have you met him already?”

  “Oh, is that who it is?”

  Penny wasn’t a good actress. So she had bumped into him somewhere and had unloaded her anyone-but-Yves theory. For all her jumping around onstage as Emile’s new tambourine player, she seemed unhappy. Another lovers’ quarrel to be made up later? In any case, Penny wasn’t in a confiding mood.

  “Did you see that Pippa is here? Over in the corner, by herself. She might like company.”

  Penny cast a careless look around but didn’t seem interested.

  “Come by for coffee tomorrow?” Katherine said, unhappy at Penny’s coolness.

  “If I’m in Reigny,” Penny said, nodding and turning back to her musical mentor of the moment.

  “Darling, you were out-of-this-world wonderful, you and Betty Lou,” Katherine said to Michael. “And now I want to go home.” She had caught up with him at the bar. “Penny’s mad at me for not taking Yves’s part in this police business, plus she’s making a fool of herself trying to get Yves’s attention and he’s getting drunk and who knows what he’ll say or sing. J.B. is upsetting everyone by talking about Albert’s death like that. Look at Mme Pomfort. She’s about ready to hit him with her bag.”

  “I doubt she understands half of it.”

  “That’s not the point. He’s loud and—”

  “And you don’t like him.” He tilted his head and gazed at her, his expression neutral.

  “It’s not that,” she said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I’ve been working so hard to fit in, to be accepted, you know? And I feel like I have to apologize for him every time he opens his mouth.”

  “Baby, you take on the weight of the world and there’s no reason to. If someone has to ride herd on him, it’s Betty Lou. So, you liked our arrangements? Didn’t I tell you she has a helluva voice?”

  “Yes, you did, and yes, I liked—no, loved—it tonight. I’m so proud of you.” She squeezed his arm and his answering smile traveled into his eyes.

  “Let me find the men’s room. Be right back,” he said.

  In light of everything J.B. and Betty Lou had done for him, Michael wasn’t about to criticize the producer, especially if the idea of a recording was becoming more likely. But, said a little voice in her head, what if Jeannette was telling the truth? What if J.B. had been at the château later than the police realized? No use thinking about it now, she decided. Instead, she went over to Pippa’s table, tucked into a far corner.

  “I’m soaking up atmosphere,” the young woman said. “This is wonderful research.” She giggled. “Not so much that peculiar Frenchman’s playing, actually. He’s rather awful, don’t you think?” Her hands fluttered in front of her face. “But he may be a friend.… I’m so sorry if I…”

  “No, I agree. Emile wants to have a big spotlight in the fête, and I think this performance is supposed to nail our support.”

  “Will it? I mean, does one have to accept every bloke who comes along?”

  “In little Reigny, Pippa darling, there aren’t enough candidates to turn anyone down. And it’ll be fun, you’ll see.” Saying good night to Pippa, she turned toward the door. “Uh oh,” she muttered to herself. “The evening’s not quite over.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Jeannette was leaning against the wall near the door. Brett Holliday stood next to her. Jeannette looked miserable and Brett wore the same unreadable expression he always did. Katherine felt guilty for her sharp words to the girl. She made her way toward them, thinking she would try to make it right, but she had barely reached them when J.B.’s voice rang in her ear.

  “Well, well, the younger generation has decided to join us. Want a beer, boy? And you, young lady? You probably grew up drinking vino. I read somewhere”—he turned to Katherine with another wink—“French babies are weaned on the stuff.”

  Before Katherine could argue, he said, “Just kidding. A soda for the young lady, coming up.”

  Jeannette refused to meet Katherine’s gaze, looking down and picking at her nail polish, pink with sparkles tonight, and Katherine couldn’t say anything about her anonymous note with Brett standing there. “Jeannette, I’m thinking of starting the painting of a nymph by a stream, the one where you’d wear that puffy skirt. I’ll pay you, of course,” she added quickly, unwilling to get tangled in Jean’s argument again. When Jeannette looked up, it was at someone else approaching their little group, her father, and his first words made it clear he was in a foul mood.

  “Madame,” he said, slurring his words, “I said you leave my girl alone, non?” Of course, he spoke in French, which, along with the volume of his words, meant everyone in the café could hear him now that there was no music. “You think you can ignore a father’s protecting his daughter?”

  Brett looked startled and his cheeks got pink. Katherine noticed but was caught up in her own embarrassment at being called out here, with Mme Pomfort and the rest of Reigny as witnesses.

  Jean would have said more except that J.B. rejoined the group, holding a couple of bottles in one beefy hand. Katherine realized he had no idea what Jean was saying, but could certainly pick up the tone.

  “What’s this now?” he said, thrusting the bottles at his son and Jeannette. “Let’s watch our manners, fella.” He put his hand on Jean’s arm, a mistake. Jean turned around and attempted to punch J.B. in the stomach. Between his off-balance movement and J.B.’s ample padding, it had no practical effect. But it drew every eye to them and caused the Polish contingent to jump up and crowd over to the space by the door, eager to see whatever might happen next.

  Mme Pomfort and her friend rose from their seats in unison and hurried past the troublemakers and out the door with their chins high in the air. Katherine flinched at Mme Pomfort’s meaningful look in her direction. There, the town’s social judge seemed to say, you see why we can’t possibly accept you as one of us? You insist on including that f
amily in your circle of acquaintances.

  To her surprise, J.B. didn’t seem angry at Jean’s attack. Instead, he roared with laughter, patted Jean on the back a few times, and turned to the bridge construction crew. “Nothing to see here, boys.” They looked confused for a minute. “Drinks all around, on me,” J.B. shouted to the bartender-farmer, whose English improved on the spot. With lots of hand-waving and calling back and forth in several languages, the room settled down and good cheer returned. Penny and Yves took the stage and began their a cappella version of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” which was good enough to claim the audience’s attention.

  J.B. turned back to the group by the door, which now included Jean, who held on to a fresh glass of something that caught and refracted the light. Brett spoke for the first time. “Dad, I’m ready to go. Are you and Mom finished?”

  “Son, the evening is just getting started. Am I right, sweetheart?” he said, talking directly to Jeannette and putting one finger on her forearm. She pushed her curls away from her face and glanced uncertainly at him and then down again.

  “Mister,” J.B. said, turning to Jean with a big smile, “you have one lovely young lady here, a real knockout.”

  Jean, who wasn’t sure enough of his limited vocabulary to know what the word meant but worried it had something to do with their previous scuffle, said, “Non, non, monsieur. Un malentendu, seulement.”

  J.B. rode over his words. “Yes, indeed, a heartbreaker, right, Brett? I know the type.” He turned to Katherine with a chuckle. “Fell for a few of these oh-so-innocent little girls myself back in the day, before my Betty Lou.”