by Josh Lanyon
The Cross of Rouen was one of many, many such items.
Its provenance was sketchy. According to legend it was the cross Joan of Arc had carried into battle. It seemed unlikely to me that she would have carried anything quite so valuable into battle — especially because there should surely have been an amazing mythology about how this gem-studded gold cross had come into her possession. There was nothing. According to historical accounts, the cross had been taken from her after her capture by the Burgundians, yet it was reputed to have been the cross held up for her to see as she was being burned alive at the stake in Rouen.
So much for the history of the cross. That there had been a Cross of Rouen was inarguable. There were several photos — all black-and-white, unfortunately — of the thing in its original place of pride in Rouen Cathedral. The cathedral had been bombed twice during World War II, though it was sometime during the Nazi occupation of Rouen that the cross disappeared.
Tap, tap on the door frame.
“Yo?”
Angus sidled in, looking downcast.
I knew that look of old. “How are you settling in?” I made myself inquire.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“She’ll get over it.”
He looked more downcast than ever.
“Don’t take it personally. She’s having boyfriend problems.”
Angus brightened.
He departed, and I got back to researching the Cross of Rouen.
Generally I liked research, but I was finding it hard to concentrate — and not only because I was being interrupted every twenty minutes.
I didn’t understand Jake’s reluctance to continue with the case. Was he regretting his promise not to leave town? Was he worrying about what would happen if he didn’t grab the job in Vermont while it was available? He wasn’t alone in that. I too was worried that I might cost him this job — and for no good reason.
Was there a good-enough reason to prevent his making a new and successful start somewhere else?
I swore under my breath and reached for the phone. Jake didn’t pick up his cell. I tried the house.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered.
Heart thumping, I replaced the phone.
So…Kate was still at the house. That was the most logical explanation. And there were plenty of logical reasons for her to be at Jake’s house — not least of which was that it was technically her house too.
Face it. The problem was not Kate or the fact that Kate was at the house. The problem was my own instant and panicked reaction to hearing her voice.
The problem, as illustrated by my reaction, was that I still didn’t trust Jake. My instinctive response was…not healthy or productive. And how the hell was there any chance for us if I couldn’t trust him?
No, this wasn’t about Jake. Or at least it wasn’t just about Jake. Part of the problem — maybe most of the problem, by now — was me. My inability to accept the fact that, yeah, I might get hurt again. Might get my heart ripped out and fed to me for lunch.
These days I was on a vegetarian diet.
* * * * *
In the evening Lauren and I went to the house in Porter Ranch to swim, and when I got home, I fixed supper for Angus and myself and then spent the hours before bed researching Guilliam Truffaut.
There was a wealth of information on him. He’d been born in Paris and had worked with moderate success as an artist before the war. When the Germans occupied Paris, Truffaut had joined the French Resistance and fought with great cunning and courage to free his country from Nazi tyranny. According to several articles, he had been betrayed twice, was captured, and tortured, both times escaping through his own resourcefulness and ingenuity. After the war he had immigrated to the States, where he had married a wealthy Angeleno socialite and opened a successful art gallery. He became a well-known figure in Southern California art circles and society. He had one child, a daughter by the name of Evelyn.
That was the official bio. It made for impressive reading, I had to admit. In the sixties, near the end of his life, he’d authorized a biography called Le Coeur du Courage.
Truffaut had capitalized shamelessly on his war-hero status, but why not, if it were true?
That was the question. If it were true, what had he been doing with the Cross of Rouen in his possession?
And if it weren’t true, it was one hell of a story for Jay Stevens to make up. In fact, I couldn’t believe Stevens would or could make up such a tale. It was too fantastic too — by all accounts — outside the realm of everything Stevens knew. Every lie rested on some building block — no matter how thin — of recognizable truth.
Besides, why should Stevens lie? What would be the incentive for such a lie? He’d come by the cross somehow. He didn’t pretend that it was honestly. So why lie about where he’d stolen it?
Shocking though it might be to those who had known Truffaut as successful businessman, loving family man, patron of the arts, and former war hero…it looked to me like Stevens’s story was true.
And if it were true, it was one hell of an incentive for murder.
I drank a glass of pineapple-orange juice and considered the possibilities while Tomkins practiced his typing skills on my laptop.
“Hey, go find another mouse to play with.” I lifted him off the sofa and put him on the floor. He meowed at me. I meowed back and started Googling Evelyn Truffaut.
She wasn’t hard to find.
It turned out that Evelyn was the child of a second marriage. The first Mrs. Truffaut had died in a car accident in 1960. Truffaut had remarried that year, and little Evelyn had come along eight months later. Supposedly, she was a premature baby, but Jake wasn’t the only cynic in the secret clubhouse. Evelyn had been seven when her famous papa had gone to meet his maker — and his former pals in the Resistance.
Truffaut’s gallery had closed after his death. Evelyn had opened her own gallery and boutique — Truffauts and Trifles — in Beverly Hills.
It was by appointment only.
Luckily I knew someone with both the commanding presence and the impeccable credentials to get me past the strictest security.
I picked up the phone, dialed the number I knew by heart. A woman answered.
“Lauren,” I said, “can I speak to my mother?”
* * * * *
It was a jolt to realize I’d totally forgotten that I’d agreed to see Mel on Saturday. It had so completely slipped my mind that I didn’t remember until he showed up at the bookstore to pick me up for a day of swimming and sunning at the Porter Ranch house.
I was listening to Ella Fitzgerald and finishing the last pages of A Deed of Dreadful Note when Natalie knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
She stepped inside. “Do you have a date?”
“A date? No.” As I tried to decipher her expression, realization hit me. “Shit. Is today Saturday? Is Mel downstairs?”
She nodded.
I swore again and put the laptop aside.
“Do you want me to tell him you’re not feeling well?”
“What? No, of course not.” I considered it hopefully for a second and then said more firmly, “Of course not. Send him up.”
She vanished, and a few minutes later Mel was inside the apartment we used to share and checking things out with the keen interest of someone visiting a museum.
“Holy moly. Does this place bring back the memories.”
I pulled a T-shirt over my head and called from the bedroom, “I’ll be right there. I lost track of time.”
“You’ve still got the grape leaf stenciling I did in the kitchen.”
“Uh…yeah.”
“And this is the Tabriz carpet we bought at the flea market when we first moved in.”
I stared at myself in the mirror over the dresser. My cheeks were flushed, and my hair was standing up in spikes. “You brought this on yourself,” I told my reflection.
“Did you say something?”
“I’m ta
lking to the cat.”
“I thought you didn’t like cats.”
“I don’t.”
“I recognize this. This is that half-moon table from your grandmother’s ranch.”
I stepped inside the bathroom to get my swim trunks, and when I stepped out again, Mel was standing in the doorway of the bedroom that had once been ours. He was smiling meaningfully at me — a smile I remembered as well as he remembered the table.
“You haven’t kissed me hello.”
I remedied that — probably with more efficiency than enthusiasm, although he didn’t complain.
“You look great.” He cupped my face between both his hands. I’d forgotten how much that irked me. “About one hundred percent better than you did last week. You’ve got a healthy flush in your cheeks. You don’t look as gaunt. Your eyes don’t have that haunted look.”
Sure. Now they looked hunted. In fact, I probably had the same expression Tomkins did when Natalie tried to kiss his nose.
“You’re starting to look like your old self. I admit I was worried that first day. You looked so frail.”
“We should probably get going.” I smiled politely and freed my face.
“Are we in a hurry?”
“Uh…yes. I’m supposed to be back here in time for…supper at my — Lisa’s.”
He looked crestfallen, and I felt a flash of guilt at the lie. “I thought we were spending the day together?”
“We are. Mostly.”
“I thought we’d have dinner. I had it all planned. Made the reservations and everything. I was going to take you out to the Tam for dinner.”
The Tam O’Shanter Inn on Los Feliz Boulevard was where Mel and I had celebrated each anniversary after we had moved in together.
“You always loved the trout,” he added.
I said lamely, “I didn’t realize.”
“Well, I mean, you could call Lisa, right? Tell her you have other plans? Surely she wouldn’t mind if she knew we were going out?”
“The thing is…I still get really tired. I don’t have a lot of stamina yet.”
“It’s just dinner. You have to eat.”
“So everyone keeps telling me. How about I see how I’m feeling at the end of the day? If I’m up to it, I’d love to go to dinner.”
He was a good sport about it, waiting patiently while I grabbed towels and suntan lotion and fretted over other things I might need.
“I’ve got a cooler full of drinks and snacks,” Mel said as we went downstairs.
I bade good-bye to Natalie, who called, “Now don’t overdo it, Adrien.”
For once it didn’t annoy me.
* * * * *
The house in Porter Ranch was a two-story pseudo-Tudor affair of cream-colored stucco and artfully placed black half timbers. It possessed steeply pitched roofs and a quantity of pretty windows. There was a cobblestoned driveway and large front and backyards that were meant to emulate English-cottage gardens. A deadly-looking black, wrought-iron fence — suitable for displaying decapitated heads — framed the tiled swimming pool. When I was growing up, my friends and I called the place Somewhereshire.
Mel parked in the circular front drive, and we went inside to change. Even though I’d been out to swim with Natalie a couple times, this was the first time in two years I’d felt compelled to explore the house. Because this place too was full of memories for Mel, and he was curious, I found myself wandering the empty rooms in his wake.
“Looks different without the furniture, doesn’t it?” he commented.
I agreed. It hadn’t occurred to me before what a beautiful house it was. Seeing it utterly empty was like seeing it for the first time. Seeing the possibilities of it unfettered by memories.
The kitchen had blue granite countertops and glossy barn-wood floors. The hardwood floors were in the dining room too, which offered a spectacular view of the large garden and wild mountains behind the house. The other rooms had plush ecru carpet and fresh white paint over the decorative moldings. A gorgeous set of Palladian windows looked over the front garden.
I went upstairs and checked out the master bedroom with its built-in bookshelves and fireplace. There was a sunken marble tub in the adjoining bath.
“Why haven’t they sold it yet?”
“It’s haunted.”
Mel looked at me and laughed.
We wandered back downstairs, and I headed for the room at the back of the house that looked over the pool. If I lived here, this would be the room I chose for my office. I stared out the window at the pool, sparkling in the bright summer sunlight.
Mel slipped his arms around me.
“How’s your dad?” I asked.
“Better each day.” He said, suddenly serious, “You’re going to think this is crazy, but this is the first time it’s occurred to me my parents are…mortal. I never thought about it. And it kind of brings my own feelings of mortality home. Kind of a punch in the gut.”
I studied him curiously.
I’d had plenty of time to get used to my own mortality, so Mel’s epiphany struck me as…belated, at best. The truth was, his was probably the normal mind-set. Most people probably took it for granted they would outlive —
“You have a funny expression,” he observed.
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
His smile was uncertain. “What’s up? You look like you saw the ghost you mentioned earlier.”
“It’s nothing.”
Nothing but the realization that I might have to deal with outliving people I loved. Something I’d always comfortably assumed wouldn’t be a problem for me.
Something I didn’t want to think about.
Maybe Mel saw the trouble in my face, or maybe he had been waiting for me to shut up long enough to make his move. He reached for me, and we tumbled awkwardly to the plush carpet in the spacious, empty room.
I wasn’t prepared, and so it hurt quite a bit as my torso twisted, and I reached to brace myself. I was focused on that, on not damaging myself — and not yelling my pain — when it occurred to me that if I didn’t want things to progress, I needed to speak up. Mel was kissing me with unexpected passion. I could feel his erection, and to my surprise, my body was responding eagerly, which was a relief. You never knew, did you? But everything seemed to be in working order.
Except that we were working for something I didn’t want. Or at least my brain didn’t. My body had other ideas. One idea in particular.
I tore my mouth away from his, gulped. “I don’t think —”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “This happens naturally.”
He reached for the hem of my T-shirt and pulled it up.
“Wait,” I said, but I was too late.
He froze at the sight of my carved-up chest.
“Oh my God,” he said. It was horrified and heartfelt. I felt his erection wilt against my thigh.
“Sorry.” I yanked my shirt back into place. “I should have warned you.”
Mel drew back, sitting cross-legged on the carpet, staring at me.
“Oh my God,” he said again.
“Well, what did you think? That it was a flesh wound?” I heard the sharpness in my voice and tried to modulate my tone — his disquiet was genuine, but so was my hurt and embarrassment. “It was open heart surgery.”
“I know.” He looked ashamed. “I wasn’t expecting…”
“You saw your dad after his surgery, right?”
“Right. I mean…right.”
What the hell did he mean? I straightened my T-shirt, which didn’t require further straightening, annoyed that my fingers were shaking. There was probably a bit of frustration in there too. A month was a long time when you were used to having it.
“I’m sorry,” Mel said quickly. “It’s not…it doesn’t mean I don’t still want you. You’re still…”
“Beautiful?” I mocked.
He pulled himself together — it took visible effort — and reached for me again.
“Come on,
Adrien. That’s not fair. It was a jolt, that’s all. I’d forgotten.”
He eased me back, and I let him kiss me. I needed it now. Needed to feel desirable again, to feel that I was still wanted. My ego required stroking, a little TLC.
He was sweet and contrite and reassuring. I tried to relax into it, but it was taking more effort than was conducive to pleasure. And I could feel Mel’s tension like a wire stringing him together. His erection was still a no-show, and my own wasn’t any perkier.
Eventually I pushed him back. “Stop.”
He let himself be pushed away, sitting back on his heels. I stared at him. The simple truth was, I didn’t want him. I wanted Jake. I wanted Jake at that instant like some wild thing wailing for the moon. I wanted him so much, I could have cried. I wanted him now, and I wanted it to be three years ago when I had loved him without fear, when I hadn’t realized he could hurt me enough to cripple me, destroy me.
Mel looked back at me with, I’m sure, his own fair share of confusion.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m going to…hurt you. Are you sure your heart’s strong enough for this?”
“No,” I said bitterly.
I was speaking philosophically, but he lost color.
“Bad joke,” I said. “It’s a major turn-off for you, isn’t it? It would be for anyone.”
“No. Of course not. I’m afraid of…doing you harm.” He swallowed. “Terrified, actually.”
“Yeah.” I dredged up a smile. “It’s okay. Bad timing. Let’s leave it.”
He nodded with alacrity and jumped to his feet. “Yes. Look, why don’t we swim, and I can…can get used to it.”
If a sound escaped me now, it would be something close to a howl, so I clenched my jaw tightly, so tightly, I’m surprised my teeth didn’t go out of alignment.
I nodded.
Mel waited for me to speak. I made a herculean effort to say calmly, “Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll join you out at the pool.”
“Okay.”
