by Mary Bowers
Nettie came to attention and said, “Naturally not.”
“Good. I wouldn’t trust him either. If they’re not back by three a.m., we’ll call in the gendarmes. I’m sure they have a Sex Crimes Unit.” She turned to the desk clerk and said, “Room 101, please.”
From broadly ignoring them, the night clerk snapped to attention and handed over their key cards.
Chapter 4
“Your room is bigger than ours,” Nettie commented as Audrey opened the door. “Not much, but a little. The floorplan’s different. The bathroom is smaller,” she said, after taking a peek.
“Oh? It’s an old hotel. I imagine all the rooms are different, and they probably didn’t have in-the-room baths back in the day, so they had to shove them in any way they could. One thing I do love about old buildings is that you can open the windows and get some fresh air. Aren’t the window boxes a nice touch? Those geraniums are real, not silk. Have a seat.” She walked across, opened the window, then paused, watching, as a breeze ruffled the petals of the living flowers. Then she sighed and hoisted the backless seat that was sitting below the window and carried it back across the room with her.
There was only one other chair in the room: a small wooden one at a narrow desk, and Nettie sat there.
Nettie was just about to ask Audrey how she liked the tour so far when Audrey abruptly said, “What’s with the bun and the granny glasses? Nobody wears their hair like that anymore, not even little old ladies.” She leaned in closer, almost sniffing, then settled upright again and said, “You’re about my age, aren’t you? I always go by the jawline droops, and yours are about as droopy as mine. I’d never dream of wearing my hair like that.”
“Dear me,” Nettie said, very controlled and quiet. “You are direct, aren’t you. You enjoy getting a rise out of people. Does it ever backfire?”
“Doesn’t bother me if it does.”
“How nice for you. How easy it would be to just take off the filters and say whatever you really mean. Not many people can get away with it. I was just telling my niece that your offense is a form of defense. I shall have to revise my thinking about you.”
Audrey’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a disguise, isn’t it? Who are you, really? I can tell you’re a tricky little thing; not what you appear to be at all. Are those glasses even real? They look like something that would come with a Halloween costume.”
“They are for reading,” Nettie said calmly.
“Are you reading now? I think you put a bun on your head when you want to lull people into thinking you’re kind of dim. Or at least harmless. Does that thing come off?”
Nettie settled herself, steadily gazing into Audrey’s clear blue eyes. Then she lifted both hands behind her head and slowly pulled out hairpins. She removed the hairpiece and held it out to Audrey. “Rather a good match to my real hair, don’t you think?” When Audrey didn’t take it, she set it on the desk behind her and ran her fingers through her medium-length, graying hair, fluffing it out. Then she took off the little peep-over glasses and set them beside the hairpiece. She looked at least ten years younger.
“That’s better,” Audrey said. “We don’t need filters here. So, Nettie Tucker, what’s your game?”
“Game?”
“Why are you doing the dim old lady thing?”
“Perhaps I’ve just become complacent. It takes energy to change your look, and for a long time after my husband’s death, I just didn’t have it.”
“But you were even younger then. How long has it been?”
After a significant pause, Nettie said, “About ten years.”
“You’ve been walking around like that for ten years? Why did you ever try to look like a harmless old lady in the first place?”
“I sometimes assisted my husband in his work.”
“What kind of work?”
After a pause, Nettie asked, “Are you really psychic?”
“Oh, you’re thinking your answer to me now? Stop it. I’m not a mind reader.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She took a moment to regroup and decide how much to say. Finally, she said, “He was a private detective. He had his own agency, and worked out of our home. There were special occasions when I could be helpful. People will tell things to a sympathetic, older lady when they think they’re never going to see her again. When Randy died, I took over the agency. I finished up the work he had pending, and every now and then, one of his old colleagues will come to me with a special assignment that demands my particular skills.”
“Are you using your particular skills on this trip for any reason?”
“No. My niece and I are touring Paris for the first time. We’ve been taking annual trips together for some time now, and we decided to make this a special one. When Twyla found out that an old school chum was taking this tour, it seemed like a natural.”
“Lauren,” Audrey said. “Twyla mentioned they’d been to high school together. Are they close?”
“Not really, at least they haven’t been in many years. They were sitting side-by-side at dinner tonight and Lauren hardly said a word to her. I would have been curious about that if my niece hadn’t been so caught up in the wonders of Jack Bartlett that nobody else seemed to exist for her.” She stopped and regathered her dignity. “Twyla seemed to have a vague idea that I could comfort Lauren, or at least give her advice. Since I’m a detective.” She waited for Audrey to laugh, but she didn’t. “My husband’s work often called for him to gather evidence in divorce cases.”
“Thus the disguise, so when you lurk in corners and eavesdrop, nobody will care because you’re hard of hearing, a little confused, and most of all, harmless. So Lauren wants evidence for a divorce? On a tour of Paris?”
“No, no, no, my dear, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I’m not working while I’m on this trip. Simply a vacation, nothing more.” She reached up to push the granny glasses up her nose and was annoyed when they weren’t there. “If Lauren should want to cry on my shoulder, of course, I shall comfort her as best I am able.”
“Of course,” Audrey said with a wry twist to her lips.
Nettie harrumphed in a ladylike manner and went on. “I haven’t spoken to Lauren directly yet, and Twyla gets carried away sometimes. Perhaps things are not as desperate as Twyla seems to believe.”
The wry twist deepened, the eyes watching her sparkled.
“Naturally,” Nettie went on, “I was flattered that Lauren remembered me at all. As to any marital problems, I certainly wouldn’t pry, and I have no direct way of knowing anything about it.”
She stopped, feeling off-balance. It wasn’t like her to speak with that little-old-lady cadence, (at least not when she wasn’t working), and it wasn’t like her to go on and on this way. Audrey was pulling a trick she was more used to using herself: gazing intently and remaining silent while the other person babbles. It was most unsettling.
Meanwhile, Audrey seemed to be enjoying herself. She said, “You don’t think that scene between Grayson and Daisy meant anything?”
“It’s possible,” Nettie allowed. “One can’t really be sure.”
With a guffaw, Audrey said, “Oh, come on, it was obvious.” Then she abruptly turned thoughtful. “It kind of makes you wonder about Hannah, doesn’t it?”
“Hannah?”
“Really, Nettie – and you say you’re a detective? Hannah and Daisy could be twins. Some men have a ‘type,’ and Grayson had an affair with Daisy, so Hannah’s got to be his type, too. They’re also both just younger versions of Lauren, which is really sad, when you think about it. Hey wait a minute, I think I’ve got something there. He obviously just dumped Daisy. Maybe she knew Hannah was next in the batting lineup, so she came on the tour to get in their way and make everybody sweat. You know, White Bear Lake is very near Minneapolis.”
“Where Grayson Pimm’s company has an office,” Nettie finished for her. “Yes, dear, I noticed that too. They probably all work for the same company. And Daisy remained inc
ognito by using the name Marguerite, so Grayson wouldn’t spot her on the passenger list. The little minx.”
“Don’t dear me, and stop playing the old lady. ‘The little minx?’ Really? I think these days we call that a ‘ho. How old are you, anyway?”
Nettie gave a slight ruffle and said, “I’m 65.”
“Bingo. I’m 64, and I’m no little old lady, at least I don’t feel like one. One years’ difference only matters in Kindergarten, so give it up. It gives you a sneaky advantage with most people, but not with me.”
Nettie settled herself and asked, “Why are you so rude, Audrey?”
“I’m not. That’s just the way I am. I gotta be me. Besides, I’m still jet-lagged.”
“No, you’re not,” Nettie said. Oddly, she was enjoying herself. Here was a worthy sparring partner. “If you were always like this, your friend Kat wouldn’t be telling you to stop it. When did you and Kat arrive in Paris?”
“Yesterday.”
“And what else did you do yesterday?”
After a stubborn pause, Audrey said, “We went to the catacombs. Kat had it pre-booked. My, my, I guess you really are a detective.” Her stare was more like a warning, but after having her bun outed, Nettie wasn’t feeling merciful.
“And what did you pick up in the catacombs?”
There was a long, tense silence.
Giving way, Nettie gently said, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sure, this kind of thing happens to me all the time,” she said in a bitter rush.
Nettie nodded perceptively. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know. A young voice. It doesn’t talk all the time. Just when I think I’ve lost it, it’s back. And it came to me last night. In a dream.”
“A nightmare?”
Audrey’s eyes had glazed, and she seemed to be staring through Nettie’s throat. “No, not a nightmare, really. I wasn’t afraid of her.”
“Of her?”
Audrey lifted her eyes to Nettie’s. “It’s a lady. A young woman.”
“Ah. Marie Antoinette, no doubt.”
Audrey shut down immediately, and Nettie leaned forward and put her hand on the other woman’s arm. “I’m sorry. You must get a lot of that. I’m not a doubter, nor am I a believer.”
“Everybody says that.”
“But I’m old, remember? You and I, we’ve lived long enough to learn a thing or two. When you’re young, you see a logical world around you and think everything is so simple. You can’t understand why the old folks don’t agree with you and keep coming up with arbitrary rules. You believe that if you keep a clear head, everything is going to be easy to figure out. I’m not young anymore, no matter what you say. Not young enough to think that life can be lived by a set of simple, logical rules, anyway. Things always turn out to be more complicated than you think. Some things that make sense on paper just don’t work in real life. That psychics should exist isn’t logical. It breaks the rules. Frankly, I’ve never run across a psychic before, but I’m old enough not to make the mistake of dismissing one out of hand.”
Almost inaudibly, Audrey said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“My dear, from what I’ve seen of you, you need to talk about it. And after all, I’m just a dim old lady that you’ll never see again after this tour. What does it matter what you say to me?”
Audrey quirked a tiny smile, then began to regard her hopefully, so Nettie added, “You can trust me. Whatever you say won’t leave this room. If you’d like to talk about the ghost from the catacombs, I’d be fascinated to hear about her.”
With a little pause and a shrug, Audrey began, “It’s a young woman, like I said, a lady. She was singing, down in the catacombs, and I stopped walking and turned my head. She realized that I could hear her and she began to follow me, talking, asking me questions, singing, right inside my head, until I finally covered my ears but that only closed her up inside with me. She knew; she knew she could reach me, and she wanted somebody to hear her. I couldn’t wait to get to the end of the tunnel and get back to the above-ground world, but as I climbed, she rose up with me. She talks, but I can’t understand her; I don’t speak French. I know what she’s saying, though. I can tell somehow, you know? It’s . . . Jeanne. Her name is Jeanne.” Then she shrugged and her eyes moved strangely. She whispered, “Maybe.”
“What does Jeanne want?”
Audrey cocked her head, listening in the quiet room.
“Is she here?” Nettie asked in a low voice.
“She likes you.”
“Oh? Oh, yes. How nice. Does she have something to tell me? Is that why she’s here?”
Audrey listened, unresponsive. Then she muttered one word: “Terrible.”
“What’s terrible?”
Audrey worked her hands, sending them in jerky circles. “Terrible. Maybe terror.”
“The Terror? The French Revolution?” Back to Marie Antoinette, Nettie thought, but she kept it to herself this time. There are no rules, she told herself firmly.
“Vibrations. It’s bad. Bad things happened to her. Not the Revolution. Before. Bad things happen always. She knows this vibration. She felt it in the last days, before the . . . .” she worked her hands erratically. “Before things changed.”
“Things changed? When she died?”
Looking very helpless now, Audrey said, “Maybe. I don’t know. Something changed.” Then, abruptly, and in a very firm voice, she straightened up and said, “Yes. Before everything changed. Before she died.”
“And she sensed the same vibrations around you? That must be why she followed you. Is she trying to warn you about something? Danger . . . death?”
Frightening Nettie, she suddenly barked laughter. “We’re all going to die, right? Death is all around us. Money. Revenge. Love. Hate. Him and her and her, and they all fall down. Of course, Jeanne lives in a catacomb,” she added a little wildly. Then she became very still. Suddenly zeroing in on Nettie’s eyes, she said, “That man Henry.”
“What about him.”
“Death. He walks within it. It’s like a fog around him; sometimes I can barely see him. I want you to get to know him. I want to know more about him.”
“Why me?”
“He likes you. When he’s looking at you, things begin to clear around him. The color changes; it lightens and then it fades. He’s standing on the edge. You could pull him out of the fog.”
“He’s barely said a word to me.”
“He looks at you.”
“Maybe he’s impressed by my bun too.”
Audrey didn’t rise to it. Instead, pensively, she said, “Any other time, it’s so dark around him.”
“After what he said at the group meeting, I think we all know why. Is this what you see in whatever it is – his ‘aura’?”
“Don’t!”
“Pardon me, dear,” Nettie said steadily. “I don’t think I deserve to be snapped at. I don’t know much about you yet, but by now you must realize that I don’t mean to be offensive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I want to know, and you don’t scare me. Your anger isn’t very angry, really. You’re just a bit rattled because the rules keep changing on you. It’s not because you’re psychic, you know. It happens to all of us.”
Audrey held back a moment then let it out in a rush, as if she’d been holding it in for a long time. “I never wanted this. Nothing is better in life than just being normal, you know? Most people don’t understand that. They all want to be ravishingly beautiful, or brilliant, or a superstar athlete. They don’t stop to consider the problems that exceptional people have, just because they are exceptional. Beautiful people attract stalkers. Athletes are only good at their sport for so long, and then what? And everybody thinks geniuses are weird. I have this thing that I was born with, and I’d get rid of it if I could and just be normal. Normal life is balanced, safe. I had a good job, and I still do good work, volunteering. I have a man in my life. Nice and ordinary and organiz
ed, but then there’s also this stuff.”
“And people make fun of you.”
“Not everybody. My friends don’t, anyway. But you wanted to know why I act like this? It’s because I’m so freakin’ sick of it! I want people to notice me because I’m fun, or have a great personality, or even for my nursing skills, not because I’m psychic. That’s like having blue eyes – you’re born with it. It’s not an achievement. So either people treat me like a freak or they act like I’m a goddess. They want me to solve all their problems for them. Either way, I hate it. I just want to be normal. My friends think it’s cool, and I think that bothers me even more than the ridicule. I’ve got the skin of a rhino; I can handle ridicule. But you saw how Kat bragged about me at the meeting. People love knowing somebody who’s special. Maybe some people enjoy being special, but I don’t. And things like this keep happening,” she said, waving a hand erratically in the air.
“Jeanne?”
“I don’t know what to do for her,” she said, her voice rising. “I know she’s there, but I don’t know what she wants.”
“Just relax and the answer will come. You’re fighting it. Maybe she just wants human contact. Maybe she’s trying to warn you about something. Whatever it is, it’ll a become clear if you give it time.”
“You think so?” Audrey asked, as if Nettie were the expert. She thought about it a moment, as if listening. “You’re right. It’s in her voice. She doesn’t sing anymore. She sounds worried. It’s like she’s warning me.”
Nettie was out of her depth, but she was fascinated. “Are you ever able to use this thing of yours in a positive way?”
“Well, yeah, I suppose so. Okay, I have. I know it.”
“Then it’s a gift. You have it for a reason. I have a friend who says everything happens for a reason, and sometimes I think she’s right. Here we are, you with your gifts, and me with the techniques I learned from my husband. I even brought along my clever disguise.” She picked up the hairpiece, twinkled at Audrey, then set it down again. “Let’s see what we can do with all these tools of ours.”
