A Bouquet of Rue

by Wendy Hornsby

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, and events are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, companies, ­institutions, organizations, or incidents is entirely coincidental.

  The interior design and the cover design of this book are intended for and limited to the publisher’s first print edition of the book and related marketing display purposes. All other use of those designs without the publisher’s permission is prohibited.

  Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Hornsby

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-56474-824-9

  A Perseverance Press Book

  Published by John Daniel & Company

  A division of Daniel & Daniel, Publishers, Inc.

  Post Office Box 2790

  McKinleyville, California 95519

  www.danielpublishing.com/perseverance

  Distributed by SCB Distributors (800) 729-6423

  Book design by Eric Larson, Studio E Books, Santa Barbara, www.studio-e-books.com

  cover photo by Keith Ferris / iStock

  library of congress cataloging-in-publication data

  Names: Hornsby, Wendy, author.

  Title: A bouquet of rue : a Maggie Macgowen mystery / by Wendy Hornsby.

  Description: McKinleyville, California : John Daniel and Company, 2019. |

  Series: Maggie MacGowen mystery series

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018059489 | ISBN [first printed edition] 9781564746078 (softcover : acid-free paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: MacGowen, Maggie (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Women motion picture producers

  and directors—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3558.O689 B68 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018059489

  For Paul, always

  There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference!

  shakespeare, Hamlet, act 4, scene 5

  Contents

  ] One

  ] Two

  ] Three

  ] Four

  ] Five

  ] Six

  ] Seven

  ] Eight

  ] Nine

  ] Ten

  ] Eleven

  ] Twelve

  ] Thirteen

  About the Author

  ] One

  From the butcher to the baker to the café tabac, word spread through the village of Vaucresson that Monsieur Jean-Paul Bernard had moved a woman into the house he had ever so recently shared with his wife, Marian. Such a lovely woman, the deceased Marian, the butcher offered with a sad shake of his head, gone so young and so suddenly. The customer he was waiting on, a prosperous-looking matron wearing sensible yet somehow stylish shoes, shook her head in sad agreement. Poor Monsieur Bernard, oui? Left to raise their boy alone.

  The next person in line, a similarly carefully yet casually groomed young woman with a toddler by the hand, paused for a respectful moment as an expression of sorrow over either the unexpected loss of Madame Bernard or the swiftness with which Monsieur Bernard had replaced her; I couldn’t tell which. When she finished her reverie, she said, “If something happened to me, I hate to think how quickly my Hubert would be looking about for someone to replace me.”

  “More to the point, Madame,” offered the butcher’s assistant as she slapped my fat roasting hen onto the scale, “if something happened to your Hubert, how soon before you would find an excuse to call on Monsieur Bernard yourself?”

  “Oh-là-là.” The woman smiled as she offered a coquettish little shrug. “Monsieur Bernard, now there’s a catch, oui?”

  Next door, at the boulangerie, while the baker cut a wedge for me from a massive multi-grain poulaine loaf, I overheard another customer tell the baker’s wife that a friend had seen a large delivery truck in Monsieur Bernard’s driveway just the day before yesterday. Box after box the driver and his assistant had carried in. This new woman, whoever she was, was certainly wasting no time asserting herself as châtelaine of the Bernard household, was she? She’d probably already cleared away anything left to remind poor Monsieur Bernard of his wonderful wife.

  An outsider, I seemed to be invisible among the shoppers as they discussed Monsieur Bernard’s apparent change in status. That morning, after the commuters exited toward Paris, the people out loose in the village were, for the most part, older men and women and young mothers or nannies with little ones in tow. They all seemed to be familiar with each other and the shop keepers, and they all seemed to have fond memories of the late Madame ­Marian Bernard. In shop after shop, I heard echoes of the same refrain: Such a shame, such a shame, such a shame.

  The tone of the discussion concerning Monsieur Bernard’s new companion was a bit cheerier in the café tabac. At least it was cheerier among the cadre of white-haired men leaning elbows on the zinc-topped bar while they tossed back a morning shot or two. How long had it been, the proprietor asked as he wiped the counter in front of them. Three years? At least that, maybe four, the men agreed after exchanging a series of Gallic shrugs and head wags. A long time for a young and healthy man like Jean-Paul Bernard to be alone, non? Only natural he would want the company of a woman to warm his bed at night, the proprietor offered, leaning forward as he placed his index finger alongside his nose in case his customers hadn’t understood his meaning. Clearly, they had. Indeed, yes, I thought, smiling to myself as I carried my coffee to a table near the front windows where the women seemed to congregate. Relative to Monsieur Bernard’s team of supporters at the bar, at fifty he probably seemed quite young. The man in question, I knew for a fact, was indeed a healthy and handsome specimen. Perfectly natural he would seek out female company.

  With my spirits somewhat lifted by that conversation, I drank my coffee and shamelessly eavesdropped on the conversations around me. I could tell myself that I was merely working on my less-than-perfect conversational French, but the truth was that I was simply nosy. I have made a career of being nosy. Besides, I wanted to know what was on the minds of the people who were my new neighbors in this Paris suburb. Surely there were other things to talk about than Monsieur Bernard.

  There were, I was relieved to learn. Fifteen-year-old Ophelia Fouchet had run off with her boyfriend after a school event Friday night, and no one had seen them since, according to the women at the table next to mine. No surprise, they seemed to agree; Ophelia had always been such a quiet child and then all of a sudden at fifteen the rebellion began, oui? Mon dieu, that hair, those black clothes! The parents could only blame themselves, you know, the mother rocking a sleeping baby on her lap opined in such a low voice that I caught myself leaning back to hear her. A child needs rules of course, but oh-là, there are limits, yes? Yvan Fouchet was simply too strict with his daughter, Ophelia. How could she develop the judgment necessary to manage independence under such a heavy thumb? They agreed that the parents did not approve of the boyfriend, an Arab boy she knew from the school orchestra. Who knows who his parents were? Not that Yvan would approve of any boy his daughter spent time with; she was only fifteen.

  I left them to work through the dynamics of family Fouchet, and walked three doors down to the fishmonger, hoping he had haddock and no interest in either runaway teens or Monsieur Bernard’s living arrangements. But no. The proprietor, a grizzled old gnome named Gomes, according to the gold lettering on the front window, was telling his only other customer that Monsieur Bernard picked up this new woman when he was on a diplomatic post in Los Angeles. A Hollywood film actress, he said. The only response from the customer, a comfortably round woman w
rapped in a heavy hand-knit cardigan though the late spring morning was very warm, was to point at the tank of murky green water near the window and tell him, One, please. Probably has fake tits, Monsieur Gomes posited as he slid his left hand into a long rubber glove before plunging the hand into the water. They all do, you know, film stars, he added with a wag of his bald head as if, indeed, he was an authority on the topic of Hollywood actresses and their tits. I glanced down at my chest. Nothing to brag about, maybe, but everything there was absolutely the original equipment. Indeed, the only bit of surgical enhancement I had succumbed to was a nose job I was talked into, many years ago, by the executive producer of the Dallas television network affiliate that hired me to read the evening news. I now blame youth and unfocused ambition for agreeing to the surgery, and I regret that I had it done. But done is done where nose jobs are concerned.

  As the fishmonger pulled a live, slithering eel out of the tank, the sweater-clad customer glanced my way and gave me a little noncommittal shrug that I took to connote neither agreement with him nor its opposite. She said nothing. Maybe the woman had merely turned toward me because she didn’t want to watch as Monsieur Gomes picked up a giant cleaver and hacked off the eel’s head with a single whack before he dropped the still writhing carcass into a plastic bag, and not because she wanted to engage me in the conversation. I answered with my best impression of a French noncommittal shrug, which she acknowledged with a subtle head wag.

  The fishmonger’s wife came in from the back lugging a bucket of crushed ice to shovel over the fish in the display case. Monsieur Gomes watched her dispassionately as he wrapped the bagged eel in pink butcher paper. As he handed it to the customer, and to no one in particular, he offered that poor Bernard seemed to have lost his compass since his wife died. First, he brings that damn Arab into his house, and now an actress; they’re all whores, you know, actresses.

  The actress remark didn’t bother me because it was nothing more than ignorant gossip. But the “damn Arab” remark raised my hackles, suggestive of something dark in the heart of Monsieur Gomes. His wife must have seen something in my expression that I had not intended to reveal because while eyeing me she shot an elbow into her husband’s ribs. When he looked up in surprise, she said, “You talk too much nonsense, Gus.”

  “What nonsense?” he countered, rubbing his side. “You’ll see. Monsieur Bernard will come to his senses soon enough and throw them both out.”

  It was Monday. On Sunday, during lunch at a local brasserie and later waiting in line at the movie theater, the discussions I overheard largely had to do with summer vacation plans and the high school principal’s sudden leave of absence. Was he sick? Would he be back in the fall? I wondered what the community topic du jour would be on Tuesday, by which time, surely, the principal’s situation would no longer be a mystery, young Ophelia would be home again, and speculation about the private living arrangements of Monsieur Bernard would have run its course. And they would all be discussing something else.

  I bought the haddock I came for, said, “Merci, Madame,” to the fishmonger’s wife who served me, and left.

  A light spring rain began to fall as I drove into the garage of the home in that Paris suburb that I now shared with poor, apparently compass-less Monsieur Jean-Paul Bernard, whom I intended to marry as soon as I had established French residency. While I was out shopping, Ari—Doctor Ari Massarani, the damn Arab the fishmonger referred to—had kindly broken down the moving boxes that I had unpacked earlier that morning, bundled them with twine, and stowed them next to the recycling bin outside the back door. He was running a vacuum over the living room rug when I entered the kitchen. I set the shopping bags on the counter and looked around the doorway into the next room, giving Ari a wave when I caught his eye. A refugee from the ruins of Aleppo, he suffered from PTSD and I didn’t want to startle him. He waved back and continued with his task of sucking up the bits of packing material my moving-in inevitably trailed. As I set about putting away groceries, I went through a mental inventory of what was left to unpack.

  Three weeks earlier, still at home in Los Angeles when I filled the boxes that were now stacked in various parts of Jean-Paul’s house in this Paris suburb, it had seemed to me that I was only taking a few essentials. Into the boxes went clothes, some family photos, books I intended to read one day, various film project notes, a few mementoes from my now-twenty-year-old daughter’s life so far, legal documents and other records, a few domestic things like a favorite chopping knife and a set of non-metric measuring cups and spoons, my pillows, a disassembled and much-scarred work stool crafted by my late father, and not a whole lot more. It wasn’t very much considering that I was starting over—new job, new spouse, new home—on a far continent. At least, it didn’t seem like much when it all went into boxes and was carted away for shipment overseas. But on Saturday, apparently under the watchful eye of the neighbors, when the boxes came off the truck parked in Jean-Paul’s driveway it seemed that their number had multiplied in transit. And now the issue was where to stow everything.

  For the record, it was not I who cleared away the intimate possessions of the late Marian Bernard. The widower, Jean-Paul, and his eighteen-year-old son, Dominic, had taken care of that task before they welcomed me, Maggie MacGowen, into their home. Though I had never met Marian, I had great respect for her, just as Jean-Paul had for my late husband, Mike Flint. But if Jean-Paul and I were going to establish a life together, I fully intended to be the châtelaine, the woman of the house, wherever that house might be and no matter whose ghosts lurked in the shadows, so long as Jean-Paul was with me.

  I had just finished putting away the groceries when Ari came through on his way to the laundry room to stow the vacuum cleaner in its cupboard. He was tall, dark, and lean, about my age—mid-forties. He had an easy manner with people, as befits a pediatrician, and a quiet outward cheerfulness that did not quite cover the deep sadness he bore.

  “Your fish,” I said, patting the long pink bundle on the counter as he passed behind me.

  “Merci, Maggie. Old Gomes had haddock today?”

  “He did.”

  “Excellent.”

  On his way back through, Ari stopped and picked up his fish. “So, you’re finding your way around all right?”

  “I’m beginning to,” I said. “I still feel invisible. Everyone seems to know each other.”

  “They’ll know you soon enough,” he said, chuckling. “Trust me on that. And they’ll know all your business.”

  “Apparently they already do. This morning I learned that Jean-Paul has taken up with a surgically enhanced young Hollywood film star with loose morals. I hope they aren’t disappointed to learn that I’m just a drab middle-aged documentary filmmaker.”

  “Hardly drab,” he said with a gallant little bow. “You heard this, perhaps, from Monsieur Gomes?”

  “The same. He seems to be a man of strong opinions.”

  “And one who certainly has no hesitation about sharing them. If he is not more careful, one day someone may thrust that big cleaver he wields straight into his skull.”

  I wasn’t sure whether this was offered in jest. I looked into Ari’s face, but I found him difficult to read. I often did. As preparation for my move-in, Jean-Paul had explained to me why this very cultured and accomplished man was living in the small guest house in a corner of the backyard behind the lap pool and was taking care of mundane household chores like vacuuming and dusting and mowing the patch of lawn. Ari, too, was a widower, and more. Tragically, two years ago he had lost his wife and both children during the shelling of Aleppo, just hours before the family was to be evacuated. Because of Jean-Paul’s advocacy, Ari was now in a safe and quiet place, but he was a long way from recovering from his loss.

  After some hesitation, I asked, “Has Monsieur Gomes ever said anything to offend you?”

  “That he intends as offense?” He shrugged, an acquired Gallic gesture that, along with a particular frown, connoted he knew that the w
orld was a very strange place, indeed. “Yes, of course. Generally, he tries his best to; that is his way. Chances are that he knew perfectly well who you were when he said whatever he said this morning.”

  I had to laugh at myself because of course the old bastard probably had said what he said for my benefit. “So,” I asked, “why do we shop there?”

  “Because Gomes has the best fish in town. I can go to the supermarket or wait for the Thursday farmers’ market, but tonight I want something very special for my guests. So, what can I do but turn to Monsieur Gomes? I thank you, Maggie, for saving me the errand and braving the fishmonger for me.”

  “Any time,” I said. “I mean that, Ari. Any time you want something from Gomes, I’ll be happy to fetch it.”

  “Thank you, but no. I don’t want a buffer. Instead of avoiding the beast, I think I might invite him to dinner next time he says something particularly rude. You and Jean-Paul will join us, of course.”

  I laughed. “You’re a peacemaker, Doctor Massarani.”

  “Maybe I was once, but no longer.” Though we usually spoke with each other in French because we both needed the practice, he switched to impeccable English to say, “What I am is a work in progress. Every day, I struggle against the demons of my anger.”

  Then he took a breath, tossed the fish into the air, caught it, and said, with a smile, “Inviting Gomes to dinner is something Jean-Paul would do. He says that when people sit down to eat together, civilization and the needs of the belly replace anger with peace. At least for the duration of the meal. And that is progress, yes?”

  “Sounds like something Jean-Paul would say.” I said.

  “Good advice, I think. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have soup to start,” he said. “Dinner then, chez moi, at seven, yes?”

  “Oh dear,” I said, feigning horror. “Have I done something to rouse the demons of your anger?”

  He laughed. “Decidedly not. We will dine as friends. Seven o’clock then?”