* * *
One morning, while Katherine was painting an old wooden plank to look like theater footlights and Michael was hammering some signboards to advertise the fête, Pippa called out from the gate, “May I come up for a bit?” and bounded up the steps. Twisting her hands together in what looked like ecstatic prayer, Pippa said, “I’ve got it, you know, the idea for a story? It will be set right here in Reigny, and the château will be where my murder takes place. I’m awfully excited. I’ve already written several rather smashing scenes.”
“Oh dear, are we all in it?” Katherine said, straightening up and rubbing the place at the small of her back that ached from a summer of gardening and painting.
“Well, yes and no. I mean, it’s made up, of course. No one is for real. Terribly fun. I’m writing away like a demon.”
“Aren’t you afraid Adele will be bothered to find herself in a made-up story about her husband’s death?”
Pippa laughed. “It will be in English, and one thing I have learned rather quickly is none of the French I’ve met care a drop for anything not written in French. Anyway, I shall use a pen name, and I’ve already decided what it will be. P. L. Vickers. The Vickers is my grandfather’s name. That way, no one will know a woman wrote it. Will help sales tremendously, I should think. Do you like it?”
* * *
For the next couple of months, Katherine and Michael talked around the abandoned music project and tour, but gently. It had to be stinging for him to get close once more and lose a second chance at success. When the court had made its determination that Brett was guilty of giving in to panic but not of desiring to kill Albert, and J.B. had managed to convince the same court that he didn’t think Albert had had more than a stumble, the producer had gone back to the States with his wife and son. The studio at Reigny was shut up and Katherine had no idea what had happened to the recordings. Sophie commented that plans for the new studio in Memphis were proceeding, and some big bands had already agreed to create new songs there.
Katherine wrote a short note to J.B., attempting to apologize, but was not quite sure it came off well. She had a desire to explain herself that, after several tries, she realized only sounded defensive. He was not a dirty old man, and there it was. Had there been a priest, had the little church in Reigny been a real church and not a falling-down relic, she would have gone to confession. But it wasn’t, and she couldn’t, and so she sent an abject apology in a letter and did her best to forget the most embarrassing episode since she performed a spontaneous and none-too-steady tap dance at a movie star’s party in Bel-Air years ago.
She had been agreeing to everything Michael suggested, trying to make him feel better any way she could, which included buying the best soup bones for the dogs and the chocolate “escargot pralines,” snails in any edible form being a sort of mascot for Burgundy, that were his only evidence of a sweet tooth other than American sodas. She even went with him to a tedious farm sale forty kilometers away in a dusty crossroads town even smaller than Reigny. “What on earth do you need from here?” she asked at one point as Michael ambled among tables piled high with vaguely menacing and rusting tools and pieces of equipment. He had no ready answer but hummed quietly as he picked up odd-shaped bits and pieces, even uncovering an old but serviceable pair of heavy garden shears that she had to admit were exactly what she needed for the shrubbery on the road below the garden gate.
They would be all right. She had earned her place in Reigny-sur-Canne, ironically, by standing up to Mme Pomfort, who had liked her better for it. The fête had been a success. But their days would be quiet, and dreams about larger excitements than the annual fête had to be put away.
So, she was shocked when Michael turned from the computer one evening, when she thought she had reined in her ambitions for herself and her husband, to say, “Well, I’ll be damned. Listen to this, Kay.”
J.B. had sent him a music file with the first dubbed versions of the songs they had recorded in France, asking Michael what he wanted in the way of added tracks to lay over them. He had some studio musicians standing by. He made no reference to Michael’s hysterical wife. Betty Lou had recommended someone she’d heard about who was a genius at arranging tours, and would be e-mailing him to run through a package of dates to choose from.
Michael read out loud: “‘Given the crap my son put us all through, and the good deal I have with Sophie Bellegarde’s company, I’m going to front this, Mike. I have faith that you and Betty Lou will make a go of it, with or without your fantastic new arrangement of “Raging Love.”’”
Katherine was stunned. “I didn’t know you recorded it. Are you sure?”
“Hell’s bells, Kay. I can’t say I admire J.B. personally after what happened, but as a business partner, he knows his stuff. He pushed me to go back to my old song and refresh it as a duet. I’m going for it. Before they left, J.B. told me his lawyer thinks the song rights can be worked out. I’ve changed a few of the lyrics and we’re doing it as a ballad. We’ll see, but I’m not going to roll over so easily this time. What do you think? Am I an idiot?” He grinned at her.
“Never that, my love.” She smiled and looked at the magazine in her lap, willing the tears in her eyes not to spill over. “All will be well, darling, I feel sure it will.”
* * *
From her perch in the pear tree, Jeannette saw Michael smile at Katherine, a wide smile that made him even handsomer than usual. She could hear accordion music wafting from Emile’s house next door in the cool night air of early autumn, and saw the cheese-making couple walking hand in hand toward the café. She picked a late pear, realizing as she bit into it that it was too far gone. She put it in her pocket rather than toss it. She wouldn’t want her friend Katherine to think she had been spying. As she shimmied down, she narrowly avoided stepping on the yellow cat, waiting under the tree for the humans to open the kitchen door and let it in for the night, to safety, a last meal for the day, and a soft place to sleep. It had been, Jeannette thought, yawning widely as she headed for home, the most interesting summer of her life, with her first boyfriend turning out to be so tragique. The other girls in school treated her with new respect and the boys looked at her quite differently than they had last year. And Brett had written to her to say he was sorry for frightening her. It had been a most interesting year, bien sûr, for sure.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUSAN C. SHEA is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She is on the SinC national board and blogs on 7CriminalMinds. She is also the author of the Dani O’Rourke mystery series. Susan lives in Martin County, California, and travels to France as often as she can. Visit her online at www.susancshea.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
About t
he Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LOVE & DEATH IN BURGUNDY. Copyright © 2017 by Susan C. Shea. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Cover illustration © Anne Wertheim/Weirtheim Illustration
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-11300-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-11301-6 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250113016
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: May 2017
Love & Death in Burgundy Page 23
