Pascal stared at the photographs. “He must have been very short for Madame to mention it.”
“You don’t think it’s possible she just dyed her hair blond when she got to America?” Merle said.
“It is not the same woman,” he said. The sisters stared at the photographs. Annie shook her head. Albert shrugged.
“Where do you suppose the real Marie-Emilie ended up?” Pascal said.
Annie followed his gaze. “In the pissoir?”
A man comes to the countryside in France, as Pascal told the story, because his wife has a free house, because he cannot make a living, for a variety of reasons. His wife is not as pretty or young as the young girls who talk to him on the street. So he takes one as his lover, makes her pregnant. And dumps her at the convent, Annie added.
But his dark, gypsy wife wants a child, Merle said. So she fetches the girl at the convent, cares for her, and the girl gives them the child.
“So far only morally repugnant,” Pascal said, “But the American decides he likes blondes better, permanently. He finds one, somewhere. He kills his wife, burying her in the backyard, takes the boy and the new blonde off to America, where no one has met Marie-Emilie. They pretend the blonde is the old wife. Marie-Emilie, the gypsy, becomes Emilie, the blonde.”
“They didn’t believe in divorce back then?” Annie asked, sipping wine as they spun it out. “And who was this blonde?”
“Divorce was complicated then,” Pascal said. “France is a Catholic country. But the bones will tell the real story. For now, I only have my hunches.”
He would try to get information about Marie-Emilie into the system. He knew a man in forensics in Paris.
“The blonde was definitely not Dominique — because she was Justine. Right?” Annie shook her head. “Would you like to come for dinner tomorrow, Pascal? At eight. Earlier if there’s a riot.”
“The national police have arrived. No more riots,” he promised.
Merle followed him to the door. “Has Gerard been arrested for the fire?”
“I’ll tell you about it at dinner.”
“And Odile too?”
He tasted of salt, cigarettes, and coffee. “Later.”
But Pascal didn't show for dinner. They were eating custard Annie made in the afternoon, creme sans caramel, she called it, when a policeman in camouflage came to the door with a note. His eyes flicked around the room as if searching for arsonists.
“Is it from Pascal?” Tristan asked. “Read it out loud.”
Merle took a sip of wine. “Cher Merle. I am sorry to miss your fine dinner. There is pressing business regarding Anthony Simms. Gerard Langois — yes he is arrested — named Simms his accomplice in the fraud of the cases of wine you saw at the winery, which were bottles filled with ordinary vin du table. Simms's work was in the news recently — selling so-called 20-year whiskey which is, in reality, crapola. His stalking of you brings to mind the wine you said was in your cave. If you were not joking, this could be a dangerous time for it. It would be prudent to move the bottles out of the house. Perhaps Albert has space in his cave. Pascal.”
“You have a stalker?” Annie frowned.
“He came to the winery tour twice, and took an unwelcome interest.” Merle looked at Tristan. “Did you ever see him, the Englishman with the funny hair?”
He looked up from his second helping of custard. “You mean Tony?” The sisters exchanged a look. “I told you. He came by the house when you were gone. Didn’t I?”
“No. What did he say?”
“He heard we were selling the house. Wanted to take a look around.”
“And did you — did he look around?”
“I didn’t think it would hurt.” Tristan squirmed. “What?! He was just a guy.”
Merle tried to calm herself. “Did you show him the wine cave, Tris?”
“You told me not to. So I didn’t.” He set down his spoon. “He did ask if there was a basement.”
“And you told him —?”
“That we had one.”
Annie stood up. “I’ll go ask Albert.”
“No! I don’t want to put him danger. The wine is safest right where it is. Someone might see us moving it.”
“Someone like Anthony Simms?”
“Exactly. So far only we three know where the wine is. We’ll just be on our guards.”
“Plus Pascal apparently. Can you tell the gendarme about this stalker? Or the inspector?” Annie asked. Merle bit her lip. That time had passed. “At least tell Pascal.”
Tristan jumped up. “I’ll go get him.”
He came home at midnight, slightly drunk, without having found Pascal. He had found some boys from the fencing club though, and let them buy him a beer or two.
“Great, just great,” Merle said, tucking him into bed.
“At least he has friends here,” Annie said. “Is he going back to Blackwood?”
His eyes were shut and his mouth open, asleep and snoring. Was anyone going home? She had no fricking clue what happened next. She threw her arm around Annie’s neck.
“No plans tonight. I’m going zen on you, sister.”
Yves and Suzette closed up their house and drove away without a word. It was market day but camaraderie was absent. The farmers who sold at market were friends of the grape-growers, brothers, cousins, uncles, wives, sisters, and aunts. Whispers of the arrests were everywhere.
In the garden Annie put a fresh tablecloth on the patio table and they ate lunch al fresco, trying to keep their eyes off the crime scene tape, the strips of barren dirt through the lawn where the water line had gone, and the fading roses dropping their last petals. Merle closed her eyes, holding the wine on her tongue to taste all the flavors of France in the essence of grape.
Tristan went inside with the plates. “Somebody’s at the door.”
It was a policeman, one Merle had never seen before, young and spruce and serious under his cap. Behind him were Josephine Azamar and Albert. The policeman held a small white box like Chinese take-out.
Albert stepped closer. “These are the ashes of Dominique Redier.”
Merle held her breath, staring at the box. She hoped the policeman wasn’t going to hand it to her. Albert said, “We thought, Josephine thought, that you might be agreeable to burying the ashes in the garden.”
They buried her at the foot of the elegant, espaliered pear tree. After Tristan patted down the soil with the back of the shovel, Albert pulled a cross on a chain from his pocket and recited some Latin. Annie and Merle bowed their heads while the gendarme fingered his cap. They shook hands then Annie saw them out.
Merle stood with Tristan by the tiny grave, thinking about meeting Justine up at the Shrine of Lucrezia. Did she see Harry in that face? Or Tristan — her grandson? Should she tell him? She hadn’t even told him about Sophie yet.
“Hey, don’t worry, Dominique or Justine or whoever you are,” he said quietly. “We’ll water your garden. You just rest now.”
They went to dinner at Les Saveurs that night, a last splurge before Annie flew home. The meal was exquisite, grilled lamb, truffle omelet again for Merle who couldn’t get enough of it, and for the newly adventurous Tristan, who once proclaimed anything but pepperoni pizza ‘weird,’ a rabbit dish that tasted ‘just like chicken.’ In the morning Annie drove her rental car to Bergerac to the train station.
Merle and Tristan spent the rest of the day rearranging furniture. She put up a lace curtain in her bedroom. They moved the single bed up the stairs into the finished loft and put wallpaper on the shelves of the old armoire.
She had trouble sleeping that night without Annie. The lawyer’s words careened her head. When would they arrest her? Where was her passport? Where was Anthony Simms — had he been arrested? The moonlight shone on her bed again, just like it had months before. Now it seemed like the natural glow of France, just something that was there. No longer soothing, now it seemed cold and calculating like looking for its chance to illuminate the inevitable.
“Mom, wake up. Mom!”
She bolted upright. “What?”
“Something’s going on at Albert’s. Look.”
“What time is it?”
They pushed up the garden window and leaned out into the night. Tristan said it was past three. Lights blazed at Albert’s, then, suddenly the house went dark again. Tristan whispered, “I thought I heard glass breaking.”
“Get some clothes on.”
Hastily dressed they went out the back door, through the gate, and down the alley. Merle had a strange urge to hold Tristan’s hand but instead held his sleeve at the elbow. The night was still and lit only by stars. They knocked on Albert’s door. The shutters were closed so it was impossible to tell what was going on inside. Tristan pounded on the door shutters and called the old man’s name.
No answer. On her cell phone she dialed the emergency number, 1-8. Where did it go? She tried in broken French, to describe a break-in, an old man alone, Malcouziac. She read his address off his door. The operator, an efficient woman who seemed to understand, said the message would be forwarded to the local police.
Tristan ran back from the corner. “I saw somebody — in the backyard.”
“Oh, hell,” she muttered, following him to the mouth of the alley. Her heart pounded in her chest. Tristan was at Albert’s gate, pounding. “The police should be here soon.”
“Damn it, Albert! Open up!” He rattled the wooden gate. “Hey, old man!” To his mother he said, “I was going to go over the wall but it might have that broken glass on top like ours.”
“Let’s go back to the front and wait for the cops.”
On Albert’s street, after they knocked on his door again, lights went on across the street, a man’s head came out the upstairs window, scolding. “Taisez-vous! Nous dormons!”
“Pardon, monsieur,” Merle called. “Peut-être un cambrioleur.” A burglar, perhaps.
The man disappeared then opened his door with a younger version of himself. The two joined them in the street. The boy looked familiar — was he one of the tabac gang? His name was Henri, his father was Louis.
“Vous êtes les Americaines,” Louis said, nodding, as if he knew all about them. “Les flics, they are very slow in the night,” Louis said in heavily-accent English. Merle was happy for the company, especially after the two boys ran off to check the alley again. In a moment there was a shout from the cross street. She looked at Louis, with his baggy eyes and disheveled hair.
“Come, madame.” They jogged to the corner. The street was empty. They walked around the houses to the alley, also deserted. “Where did they go?”
“Let’s check his gate again.”
Louis was ahead a few steps. He turned. “Is this your jardin?”
Merle stared at her open gate. She had locked it, she was sure. Did Josephine Azamar open it? In the middle of the night? She pushed it wider, looking around the yard. The yellow light from the kitchen windows spilled onto the ground, framing the dark box of the pissoir. “Tristan?”
“Madame!” Louis yelled. “C’est Pére Albert!”
She spun around. Albert’s gate was ajar too. Louis had opened his back door and was bending over a prone figure.
“Albert!” He had a gash in his head. “Get me a cloth.” Louis stood over them, fixated at the sight of the priest, unconscious. She pushed him aside, grabbing a cloth at the sink, wetting it, then holding it to the wound. “Can you hear me? Albert! Louis, call the police again!”
The sound of a motorcycle engine announced the gendarme. He roared up the alley and jumped from his bike. Jean-Pierre Redier wore his street clothes, unless leather pants was a night uniform. “Call an ambulance!” Merle yelled. Oh, what was the word? “Les services d’urgences! Vite!”
The gendarme took a long moment looking around the kitchen, then pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number. “Breathe, Albert,” she whispered. His chest was rising. He was alive.
Louis spoke to Jean-Pierre. They looked out the door to the alley. The gendarme stepped outside. Louis said, “There is someone in your house, madame.” Merle stretched on her knees, keeping one hand under Albert’s head. Was it Tristan? “The ambulance is here soon. He is okay? Ah, here are the boys. They come from the street.”
Merle’s stomach dropped. “Tristan! Someone’s in the house!”
Chapter 37
The gate hung open. Henri peered over Tristan’s shoulder into their garden. He heard the panic in his mother’s voice. “What?”
“Quelqu’un, voila! Un homme!” Henri pointed into their windows, lit up in the dark night. A man’s back was silhouetted.
“Mom?”
“I’ve got Albert. He’s okay! The house, Tris!”
“Oh, shit,” the boy said. Jean-Pierre was at the gate now, looking into the garden. He pushed the boys aside and strode toward the kitchen door. “It’s that son of a bitch.” The one I let in the house. “Come on,” Tristan told Henri. “Around the front!”
They ran hard down the cobblestones. Skidding around the corner, they saw the man come out the front door, kicking out the shutters. “Wait!” Tristan called but he saw them and turned to the wall. Jumping the short section, he disappeared over the side.
The vineyards swallowed him up. The boys watched as he crashed about in the dark. Henri had a foot on the wall, ready to follow, when Tristan saw him slip through a gap in the wall farther down, and disappear into the streets. “This way!”
The streets were dark, shadowy, with alleys and walk-ways and lots of corners to turn down. The village was a maze at night, with look-alike shuttered houses. “Where did he go?” Henri looked familiar, with his flop of black hair and big honking nose. “Où est-il?”
“Je sais pas,” the boy mumbled.
“Hey.” Tristan poked a finger at him. Henri took a step back. “You helped those Bordeaux punks at the fencing tournament. You held me down.” The boy turned his palms up and looked sideways. “It was you. Okay, you and me. Come on.”
Henri took a step backwards.
“So you’re chicken without your friends?” Tristan put up his fists. “Come on, asshole. Give me your best shot. You baby. That’s right. Bébé.”
The boy raised his fists then. “There you go. Let’s see what you’ve got.” The sound of footsteps, running on the cobbles. A man dashed across, half a block away. “There he is!” The fists dropped, the fight forgotten.
The chase went down one street and up another, as if the man was lost. It was dark but to Tristan it looked like Tony, the man his mother said was creepy. He ran funny, like he had a bad leg. At an alley he skidded to a stop and turned in.
Henri got there before Tristan, who wasn’t used to running on cobblestones. “Voila!” Henri pointed down the alley, a dead-end stopping at an iron gate. They had him trapped. They slowed to a walk, advancing on him.
“Get away from me. This is mine,” Anthony mumbled, cradling two wine bottles in his arms. “Leave me alone, you filthy delinquents.”
“Hey, Tony,” Tristan said. “Bonsoir, my man. Having a fun evening?”
Surprise then relief flooded his face. “Mr. Strachie. How nice to see you. I thought you were the police. Or a nasty little frog.” They each took an arm. “Watch the wine, please! Thanks much but I’ll be off now. Hey! Take your hands off me!”
The boys were as big as Simms, and younger and stronger, and had little trouble marching him back to the gendarme. His running commentary turned increasing vile, with slurs against both Americans and French. He struggled to free himself from their grasp but protecting the bottles kept him busy. When they reached the street where Albert’s house sat, they saw the lights of the ambulance. In the flashing red his mother and the gendarme and Henri’s father were visible.
“Regardez,” Henri said. “Le gendarme et l’Inspecteur.”
“Keep moving, creep. Mom!” The grownups looked up. The gendarme and the other cop started towards them. “We got him!”
Simm
s gave a last, grunting effort and twisted out of Tristan’s grasp. Henri kept hold of his left arm and they jumped around on the street, barely keeping their footing. Everyone was yelling, trying to catch Simms. Suddenly Henri had one of the bottles of wine in his hand.
“No, no, you little bastard! That is mine. I’ll not be cheated again.” Anthony grabbed at the bottle, a spastic lunge. Holding the wine over his head Henri laughed at him, taunting. Anthony’s eyes were wide with panic. His toupee slipped, revealing a bald scalp. “Now, young man, let’s not do anything rash. Give me the bottle, there’s a nice boy. Donnez-moi le bouteille!” Pascal and the Inspector moved cautiously behind him, closing off the escape routes. “Damn it, you little shit. Give it to me.”
Tristan tried to grab him but he jumped aside. Henri moved the bottle higher, turning it to hang on to its neck, like he was going to throw it on the ground. Anthony cried out, “You have no right! My father paid for that wine and it belongs to me.” The Englishman sniveled, hugging the other bottle to his chest. “Give it to me, you dirty swine.” He took a step toward Henri.
A chorus of ‘No!!’ rose as the boy smashed the bottle over Anthony’s head.
He stood, stunned, red wine dripping down his bald head, his face, like blood. Green glass scattered on his shoulders, then he slumped to the ground.
Someone threw a bucket of cold water over Anthony Simms. He woke up in handcuffs, lying on his side on the street. Everyone on the block was now awake, standing outside in their bedclothes or hanging out windows. Merle held Albert’s hand as he lay on the stretcher. He was conscious now, having come to just before the ambulance arrived.
The emergency crew pushed her gently away and rolled Albert inside the vehicle. She winced as they slammed the doors. The sight of his jovial face so unsmiling was wrenching. Pascal put his arm around her shoulders. “He’ll be all right. He is tough.” He squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry. I haven’t been working on my list.”
Blackbird Fly Page 27
