Sin And Vengeance

by West, CJ

  “I suppose you’re the winemaking talent.”

  “Someday.”

  “Did you stop to consider that wine made in the Rhone Valley is more valuable than wine made in Westport, Massachusetts, for God’s sake? Good thing you’re not running this business yet. If I died tomorrow, you’d wind up like the Poriers, fast.”

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  “I need you here.”

  Charlie stepped closer and put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “If I go, the anarchist freak goes too.”

  “If your mother wasn’t so gracious, he’d have been gone a week ago.” Charles stepped back and eyed Randy. “Get some sleep. There’s work to do in a few hours.”

  Charlie watched his father walk halfway to the house then stepped inside the garage and lowered the door.

  Randy was back on the hood of his car just behind the scratches from the white trim. He grinned as Charlie came in. “Smooth. We get out of here, away from the chick and the dead guy. We hide the money in with the grapes and we’re home.”

  “It’s wine, not grapes, and I’ve got it figured.”

  “Impressive. You learn fast, Young Marston.”

  “Yeah. More than I can say for you. Since when do you crash into garages? I’ve seen you get through tighter spaces at a buck ten.”

  “Shit happens.”

  “At twenty miles an hour?”

  Randy shrugged impishly.

  “You’re just trying to piss off my father and your timing sucks.”

  “Hey now!”

  “Did you somehow forget about the dead guy and the roaring fire we just left? What about the fifteen million dollars in your trunk? What, your suicidal tendencies acting up again?”

  “Speaking of ungodly sums of money, what are we going to do with all those Franklins? Shame for someone to find them and start asking questions.”

  “We’re going to hide it, but I have to make a call first.”

  Charlie felt his pockets for his phone. It wasn’t there or on the seat of his car. He panicked for a second thinking he’d dropped it in the farmhouse during the scuffle, but he wasn’t wearing clothes then. He imagined the black plastic puckering and shriveling as it burned. He ducked out of the car toward Randy. “You seen my cell?”

  Randy pulled the phone from his pocket and tossed it over.

  Thank God!

  Charlie effortlessly caught the phone and flipped it open with his thumb. Two years earlier, he had planned to make his living catching balls for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Years of practice honed his coordination to the point he needed only a glimpse of an object to snare it from the air. Unfortunately, without healthy legs, his skills were worthless. He dialed Westport and a young-sounding man answered.

  “Sebastian, hey. I hope it’s not too late back there.”

  “No, just chillin’. How’s France?”

  “Good. Listen, I’m bringing home six thousand gallons of sparkling. I need three bays to age it. Do we have space in the cellar?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. I’m coming back.”

  “You bringing fancy French grapes?”

  “Nothing too fancy. I’ll be there in a week. If my father gives you any trouble, tell him you’re holding it for me.”

  “Will do, Chief. No worries… Hey, how are the chicks over there?”

  “You don’t want to know. I’ll see you next week.”

  Charlie hung up the phone and looked to the far end of the garage toward the twin black Mercedes his mother and father had leased. He walked past Randy, who was now reclining on the hood of his car pretending to be asleep, but he’d certainly listened to every word Charlie said. He walked across two open bays between Randy’s car and his father’s. In light of the accident, father’s allocation of garage bays seemed insightful. Charlie retrieved an eight-foot ladder from the back wall, turned, and carried it upstairs to the living quarters.

  He and Randy had been sharing the four rooms over the garage for the last three weeks. They could make all the noise they wanted out here. They came and went as they wished and no one from the house had ever heard them until tonight. The living area had been cleaned while they were out for the day, the trash emptied. The furniture was arranged at right angles again, the stray clothes returned to the bedrooms. Charlie carried the ladder into his room and opened it into a sturdy A. It shifted a little as he climbed until Randy arrived and half-heartedly leaned on the second step.

  The trap door popped up into the attic and Charlie found what he needed: plenty of space that no one had disturbed for years. The floor wasn’t finished, so they’d need something to form a platform on top of the joists, but this space was an ideal spot for the money until they could move it back home.

  Charlie put Randy to work hauling the money upstairs and disappeared toward the cooper’s shed. In a few minutes, he returned with an armload of oak staves.

  By four thirty, the money was stashed in the attic and the ladder was back in its place in the garage. Randy reclined on the couch, looking at Charlie through his iridescent shades. He wore them day and night, always hiding his mood and his thoughts. Charlie couldn’t remember ever getting a good look at his eyes, or his face for that matter. In the few places his skin showed beneath his glasses and above the stubble, he looked young.

  “Well, that was an exciting night,” Randy said.

  “It’s not what I had in mind when you said a wild night with a hot chick.”

  “It was wild and it was definitely hot, thanks to you.”

  “Only you could enjoy a night like this.”

  “How could you not? She was hot and she was down with it.”

  Charlie couldn’t argue. As always, Randy had delivered an exciting time. They’d had a few mishaps, mostly scuffles and car wrecks, never anything like this.

  “If freakin’ Henri would have stayed home and whacked off like he should have, we would’ve had us a good time.”

  Charlie wished he had. “Henri would’ve been better off too.”

  “Did you see his face?” Randy grabbed his neck with both hands and choked himself. “Man, I thought he was going to rip my head off.”

  “He was. What happened to five years of karate?”

  “Dude, I was drunk, naked, and the guy slammed me. After that, I was meat. Good thing you whacked him.”

  “That knock-out punch dropped him like a rock,” Charlie said, a little too proudly.

  “Yeah, for five seconds. It still took both of us to ram him into the wall. All that fertilizer he’s been sniffing turned him into some kind of mutant. Good thing we cooked him or we’d be watching out our windows for the next twenty years.”

  The fertilizer comment reminded Charlie that he and Henri were both farmers.

  “Where’d you learn that sawdust trick?” Randy asked.

  “I had to learn something useful in four years of chemistry.”

  “That was awesome. I’ve never seen anything torch like that. One second nothing, the next, the whole place is raging twenty feet high.”

  “Don’t try it at home, especially not my home.”

  “We’ve got to do that again. Damn that was sweet.”

  “Go to bed, man. We’ve got to figure a way out of here tomorrow. Deirdre’s going to crack.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it figured. Tell the old man you want to make wine. That’s all he wants from you. Be a good lad. Carry on the family tradition and all. You’re totally caving, but if it gets us out of here, it’s cool.”

  Randy closed his eyes and lay back.

  Charlie wished he could be so free. With no job, no family, and no worries, Randy raced through life with a fistful of cash, tearing up everything around him. His lifestyle had seemed unsustainable to Charlie from that first night they met over drinks in New Bedford. Even then, Charlie sensed Randy was dangerous. Perhaps he was exactly what Charlie needed: a freewheeling escape.

  More and more, Charlie wondered why they’d spent s
o much time together. They had little in common except the pursuit of a good time. Charlie was growing tired of the sophomoric stunts, but it was clear that Randy never would. He wished there was a simple way for them to part company, but after tonight, he couldn’t risk telling him to shove off. He’d have to be more subtle.

  He watched Randy lay back, obviously proud of the adventure that made them both ooze adrenalin and sprout a few premature gray hairs. Randy reveled in the sheer terror of a night that could have been their undoing.

  Charlie wished he’d never invited him to France.

  Chapter Five

  Deirdre’s car eased into its usual space at three am without the benefit of headlights. She slipped inside, up the stairs, and traded her red dress for a Syracuse sweat suit and thick wool socks. Her house remained dark and fortunately her inlaws next door did, too. Back downstairs, she settled into Henri’s favorite chair with a fresh box of tissues at her side. She began the long wait for sunrise with a homemade quilt over her lap. Each time her thoughts quieted to the edge of sleep, the consequences of her late night romp flicked on like a bright light in her mind, jolting her awake. She sat transfixed by a murky blackness that hung throughout Henri’s childhood home.

  Henri was in a different house now, engulfed by a ravenous fire Deirdre could only equate to the fury of Hell itself. The hungry flames that had burst from the windows and stretched to the sky had taken root somewhere in the wooden house where her husband lay. She imagined his clothes flaring up; his flesh being scorched, incinerated, and falling away to ash.

  She wondered if the gendarmes would ask her to identify his remains and if she could handle seeing him in that condition knowing what she’d done.

  How absurd for Henri to be taken from his family this way. He’d scarcely had a harsh word with anyone in the seven years she’d known him. He’d lived a peaceful existence dominated by obligation to his animals and his family. If she hadn’t led him there, he’d never have gotten himself into such a situation. She couldn’t imagine how he’d found her or why he’d been suspicious, but there was nothing she could do now. The flames were lapping at his sides, consuming him. If not for her, he’d be rising to tend the herd. But Henri wasn’t there and he wasn’t coming back. All her tears and the ache in her chest felt inadequate to the grief that would come. She huddled in the chair waiting for the pain. Like a skier innately sensing the severity of a broken leg, she felt eerily well, but she was scared to move. The pain was coming. Deirdre had killed a young man and devastated a family. The consequences rushed toward her with the sunrise.

  Such a good man.

  A reverent man, Henri attended church on Sunday whether Deirdre accompanied him or not, but far beyond that, Henri believed. Faith permeated his life. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d interrupted his prayers while they were in bed together. And when he had a big decision to make, he prayed for guidance and he listened. If anyone deserved to dwell in Heaven, it was Henri. Deirdre imagined his spirit rising skyward, untouched by the flames, his soul rising to meet the Lord.

  Strangely, something about his ascension troubled her. She sat horrified with guilt at her own self-centeredness, but she couldn’t escape the fear that was building inside her as she pictured Henri rising toward Heaven.

  Her heart rate increased as the idea took shape, slowly at first, then quickening, pounding until she could hear the pulse in her ears. Every muscle tensed with surging adrenalin, every nerve was shocked to full alert. Her eyes beamed wide open as if to slice through the darkness and see his spirit before her. The thought in its fullness was terrifying. There was nowhere to hide from Henri now.

  What could he see? How much did he know?

  Even earthbound, Henri understood the farmhouse scene. He screamed when he saw her. Not the cry of a husband rescuing his wife. Betrayed, he condemned her and asked God to do the same.

  What would he do now?

  The air in the room thickened in spite of the sunlight brightening the fringes of the curtains. The watchful furniture surrounded her, any chair ready to welcome the apparition of its former master. Deirdre could feel him there with her. She expected him to materialize and judge her for what she’d done; to return and punish her for her inexplicable sin.

  Silent minutes passed.

  He did not.

  She imagined a heavenly perspective where past, present, and future blended together in an otherworldly video of sorts. Motives, thoughts, and dreams were now tangible, unveiled at his convenience. Her entire life lay open like a home movie that caught every instant both public and private, every deed, every thought. Her most tender and treacherous moments revealed. All forty-one years of her life were at his disposal. How differently she might have lived had she considered.

  Who among us could stand such scrutiny?

  Henri could.

  A handsome young man came to mind and Deirdre wondered if Henri was seeing him too. The man-sized frame was lean, soon to be covered with the bulk of manhood. The memory of his bushy hair brought back the waning days of high school and his shocked expression when he learned of their mistake. The image of the doctor’s sour face came next. She could feel the pain in her abdomen; hear her mother’s voice. She heard her mother’s sobbing for her child, now barren. But mother was gone, the tears were her own. The pregnancy and the abortion had taken three loving souls from her. News of the pregnancy sent Michael scampering away. The botched abortion stole her one chance at bearing a child. The resulting infertility doomed her marriage and set Henri on a path that ended his life.

  Would Henri understand what she’d done?

  Would he haunt her forever or reach down to comfort her?

  Would he have married her if he’d known?

  No. Henri wanted children from the very beginning. When they were first married, he rarely missed an opportunity to try and produce an heir. The tenderness and attention day after day were magical. Time slipped by until it was too late to share her secret. Some part of her had been glad when he finally gave up. They never discussed it, but she wondered now if he’d blamed himself for their infertility.

  She wondered if he would have divorced her if she’d told him the truth. She couldn’t be sure. The decision would have torn him apart. He knew the truth now. He knew she’d lied, but he also knew she loved him.

  Such a good man.

  She’d prove her devotion in time.

  Henri’s contorted face appeared in that doorway again with a rage she’d never seen before that night. The peaceful giant had exploded in anger at the two men. Surely he would have pummeled them both to death had he not been blinded by hatred. A brutal pummeling is what the three of them deserved.

  She opened her eyes and glared through the window to escape her memories of the farmhouse scene. The outbuildings were slowly taking shape. The blue sky seeped through the blackness, steadily revealing the simple world of the Deudons. Henri had been the linchpin that held together the work of generations and preserved the livelihood for those to come. His disappearance was about to plunge the Deudon family into chaos.

  She looked around the house that Henri’s father and grandfather built fifty years earlier. It was hers now, filled with Deudon heirlooms like the quilt across her lap. Her only connection to these people had burned to ash. She wondered if she could stay here and who would help her if she did. There was only one reasonable answer: Henri’s brother Philippe. He had two young sons and he yearned to leave his factory job and return to the farm.

  If Philippe returned with his family, there would be no place for Deirdre. She’d never discussed anything like this with Henri, but she knew he’d want the farm to live on. She wondered what else he’d ask if he could speak now.

  He’d want to know why she had betrayed him.

  She dabbed her eyes and forced them out the window again, picturing Henri walking among the cows as he was the day they met. She could hear the birds stirring and the cows mooing in the barn. Normally, Henri was tending to the
m by now. She would have given anything to hear him calling to the cows outside. If she had borne him a son, he would be. She could feel him prodding her now, pushing her to go outside and feed the herd. They needed hay or grain or whatever he fed them. She wondered if it was cruel to let them go hungry, but doing his work this early would look suspicious. Better to stay inside and let the cows wait. She needed help, but she couldn’t ask for it so soon.

  “Sorry Henri, I can’t do it yet,” she said, her words barely a breath.

  Deirdre got up from her chair, her hands a jumble of nervous energy as she moved to the window. She couldn’t sleep and she couldn’t do Henri’s chores. She noticed the phone on the side table mocking her. She needed to report Henri missing before they found him, but just looking at the phone made her heart flutter.

  She’d have to tell the gendarmes he’d gone out, but she didn’t know when. The inlaws watched everything from next door. They’d know when Henri left and they’d know Deirdre wasn’t home then. Worse, if the gendarmes asked, they’d be glad to tell. She’d have to admit she was out. She wondered if anyone saw her leave the bar. This wasn’t a Syracuse nightspot filled with a hundred drunken college kids. These farmers and mechanics were her neighbors. They’d know her and they’d know when she left. But would they remember the long-haired guy with the sunglasses? Probably they would. Damn! She wished she’d met him somewhere farther from home. How could she explain him? An old friend? She barely knew him. Did the gendarmes care if she was fooling around? Probably not, this was France after all. It was different now that Henri was dead. She guessed these things had a way of being linked. This could be the first murder they worked in ten years, maybe twenty. They were bound to be excited by the case.

  The Internet ad!

  Her breath caught in her throat as she imagined the gendarmes reading it. The New York police would find it, but were the gendarmes that sophisticated?