Michael interrupted her. “Burgundy? The Burgundy in France?” Louise replied with an eye roll. He continued, ignoring her. “Okay, what does Burgundy – in France – have to do with the death of a banker in Monte Carlo?”
“You tell me.”
“Look,” Michael said. “You know the FBI doesn’t have the same access to international Intel the CIA does. But we are very interested in this case, if for no other reason than how it ties to Almasi’s banks in the U.S. I am not sure what your dad expects you to uncover in this investigation. But I imagine it’s banking related.”
“So, if you could tell me one thing on a need-to-know basis, what would it be?”
“All I can tell you is what you don’t need to know. We have looked extensively into Almasi’s banks in the U.S. and found nothing nefarious. Also, Almasi’s wife Julia, her attorney Marc Bronson, Almasi’s chief of security Jordan Coen, and Almasi’s brothers are all clean and cleared of the murder. The Monte Carlo police are another issue. Coen made efforts to give the police the key to the saferoom. Not only did the police refuse to use the key, they arrested Coen.”
“So, it’s possible that someone with the Monégasque police were involved in a cover-up?”
“Let’s just say that the Prince of Monaco wanted this resolved immediately and any loose ends were tidied up.”
“So, Mayer was the perfect scapegoat, who ‘acted alone.’”
“Correct. Any attempt to expand the case beyond involuntary manslaughter by Mayer was thwarted by the authorities. His best chance now is to serve out whatever sentence they hand to him and stay alive.”
“Okay, that corroborates my initial investigation in Monaco. For the next month or so, I’ll be working undercover in Burgundy.” Louise stopped and took a breath.
“Is there something else?” Michael asked, sensing that this meeting was not the only reason she had made the trip.
“You can’t tell my father I asked.”
“Asked what?”
“Is there anything I should know about my mother’s past?”
“Mary? Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”
“Never mind.”
Louise watched her mom move around the kitchen with a master chef’s ease.
“How long will you be here, Lulu?” Mary asked.
“I head back tomorrow.”
“Back to where?”
“Burgundy, France.”
George Moscow interrupted the conversation. “My two favorite girls, together again.” He tried to give Louise a hug, but she turned away. The unconditional love from the first man in her life had instilled in her a remarkable self-confidence. He had been a tough man to live up to, but he had always played fair, up until he broke her trust with the BCCI case. Now that she was getting a sense of how dangerous the Almasi case could become, she was becoming guarded. “Louise, may I speak to you in my office?”
She followed George into his den. But, like a kid in the principal’s office, she sat in front of his desk with her arms folded head down. George remained standing in a position of dominance behind the desk.
“Louise, I’m not letting you leave until we hash this out.”
“You can’t keep me here.” Louise got up and took a step toward the door. George moved quickly and caught her by the arm. She turned reluctantly and faced him.
He lifted her chin with a finger. “I’ll never understand where you got your temper.”
“It’s not in my nature to stand by quietly in the face of obvious corruption and injustice, the way you can.”
“You believe I’m corrupt and unjust?” His voice rose a bit above normal conversation volume.
Sensing his uncharacteristic change in tone, Louise backed down. “No, of course not. I’m just not like you. If I see something wrong, I have to speak out. You are able to keep secrets. Where did that come from? Your father? Because he wrote about politics for The New York Times?” Tears of frustration began to flood her eyes.
“No, because I became a New York detective.” Softening the situation, George wrapped her in his familiar bear hug that she didn’t resist.” We are not that different. Your determination is what got you where you are. My determination is very similar. I have goals and dreams just like you do. Mine require a different set of skills than yours do. Like I said before, your anger is your superpower. You work better under pressure. I work better in a pressure cooker.”
“Your lid is squeezed on so tight, but you never explode.”
“Your mother is my release valve.” Louise laughed then cried and hugged her dad. “I’m sorry about putting you in that position with BCCI,” George said. “But I’m so proud of how well you handled it.”
This simple statement is what Louise had craved to hear, without knowing it. All through the trial and her exile to paradise, her father had kept the face of a by-the-book, world-weary detective. She realized at that moment that his attitude was designed to ultimately protect her and allow her to understand how to survive it on her own. There were a million things to say but she could only manage, “You’ve never spoken to me this way before. Thank you.”
George tenderly kissed her on the top of the head and playfully squeezed her taut biceps. “You’re so buff. Have you been working out?”
Louise giggled. “That tickles!”
“Louise! George!”
They walked out to find Mary setting the table. “What are you two conniving?”
“Just business.”
“Business in Burgundy, France?” Mary pouted, strangely emphasizing the words Burgundy and France. Unlike George, Mary couldn’t hide her feelings. The harder she tried, the more transparent she became.
Louise was becoming an expert on adjusting conversations. “Aren’t you happy I’m back so soon, Mom?” she chirped.
“No. I mean yes.” Mary was stumbling as if gathering her thoughts. “Maybe. I mean, of course. It’s just that, maybe you shouldn’t go to Burgundy. Stay here with me.” Mary took a bottle of red wine from the rack under the stairs. “I have plenty of pinot noir here.”
George took the bottle from Mary and uncorked it. He looked at the label, raising an eyebrow at the vintage. “Let’s allow this beauty to breathe for a moment, shall we?” George poured the wine into a decanter.
“Mom, that’s the expensive bottle that Michael gave you.”
“Oops. We better invite him over to share it with us,”
Mary said.
“I’ll give him a call.” George went to his office leaving the two women alone.
Mary followed her husband to the hallway and waited until she heard his office door close. She turned and looked Louise straight in the eyes. “I do not want you going to Burgundy, France.”
Those two words again, practically spit at her. Louise detected a change in her mother, as if she had become an instant stranger. She decided to press the issue.
“Mother, this is exactly why I came back so soon. You mentioned Burgundy, and now I’m going there. What aren’t you telling me?”
Mary’s reply chilled her. “There are some mysteries even you can’t solve.”
“Like what?” Louise countered. “Does Dad know?”
Mary gave her a look of defiance that Louise had never seen before. “There is nothing to know,” she said in a tone of resignation. Louise was reeling. In her whole life, she’d never known her mother to capitulate to any anger or pettiness. She was Louise’s mainstay and like the yarest ship on the sea. She had always been agile, responsive, and true to her course.
“Mom, if this is upsetting you so much, you have to tell me what it is all about.”
“Michael is on his way,” George announced, returning to the kitchen. He immediately realized he had walked in on something. “What’s wrong?”
Mary’s look silenced Louise. “Just girl stuff,” Louise lied.
“Say no more.” George turned on his heel and walked out. “Just be ready for guy stuff when Michael gets here.” Both women waited until they
knew he was out of earshot.
“Mom, you have to talk to me,” Louise insisted.
Mary busied herself in the kitchen. “Just forget it.”
“You can’t keep this to yourself.” Louise shocked Mary by grabbing her by the shoulders. “How long have you been hiding whatever this is?” Mary broke her daughter’s grip and would not be swayed. Louise shot back, “Mother, if there’s something you need to tell me, I expect you to do so before I go back to France.”
Mary’s eyes widened seeing the look on Louise’s face, knowing all too well what it meant. She had dealt with it since her daughter was two years old. Then, in the midst of the standoff, there was a knock at the door.
“It’s open!” Mary shouted, a bit too eagerly.
Michael delivered himself inside like a customized teddy bear. He was dancing, half from the cold, and half from greeting them with a magician’s hands, as if to say, Ta dah, I’m here! But his charm was lost on the two women.
“Did I come at a bad time?” he asked, reversing the mood.
“Perfect timing!” Mary said, overemphatically. “Come in, give me your coat. We decanted your wonderful pinot noir.”
George joined in, remarking on how quickly their guest had arrived. “That was fast,” he said shaking Michael’s hand.
“I was on the road when you called,” Michael offered. “You forget that we live in an age where mobile phones mean mobility.” He was trying to lighten the heavy mood he had walked in on.
In the meantime, Mary had put four red wineglasses on the counter and George poured. The four of them raised their glasses.
“What’s the occasion?” Michael asked.
“Louise is home,” Mary said airily. “May she never leave.” They all clinked and drank.
“Delicious wine,” Louise said. “Thank you, Michael.”
“Pinot noir,” Mary said.
“From Burgundy,” Louise said.
“In France,” Mary countered.
Michael and George watched in silence the tense back-and-forth between Louise and Mary.
Then Michael took it upon himself to break the tension. “Louise and I were just talking about Burgun…”
George put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “Girl stuff,” he said shutting it down.
Suddenly the niceties of the visit were steered back by Mary. “Will you join us for dinner, Michael?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Louise said the first thing that came to her mind, like an eager child. “I’ll set the table.”
“I’ll help,” Michael added, his voice cracking like a teenager.
Mary took a big gulp of the pinot noir. “We might need to open another bottle.”
George eyed her warily, but dutifully went to the wine rack. “Why not?” He added hopefully, “It’s a special occasion.”
They sat down to dinner, and fifteen minutes into the meal, Mary was on her third glass of wine. The mood became awkward. Mary was definitely over-serving herself and, combined with her earlier uncharacteristic tone, was increasingly unrecognizable. A sudden memory came to Louise of seeing her mother in a similar state only one other time. When she was sixteen and buying her first car, Mary had accompanied her to the dealership where a salesman tried to sucker Louise into a bad deal. Mary knew from experience what the salesman was up to and Louise sat wide-eyed as Mary berated the man.
“You should be ashamed. Let’s go, Louise.” Then Mary rose and walked straight out the door followed by Louise, with the manager, talking fast in a futile effort to work something out. Louise recalled the shock of seeing her mother in a different light, and how she had learned her greatest lesson in business that day: Walk away. Was Mary trying to tell her to do the same in regard to Burgundy?
“Delicious dinner,” Michael said.
“Thanks,” Mary replied. “Again.”
“So, Louise,” Michael said, trying to get the conversation going. “You leave tomorrow for France?”
“Yes,” Mary said, draining the rest of her wineglass, then tipsily mumbling, “To Burgundy, France.”
Michael tried to normalize the odd statement. “Oh, right, you mentioned that. How’s the weather there this time of year?”
Louise’s reply was even more mundane. “It shouldn’t be too cold. Even though it’s winter, Europe benefits from the warm air off the Atlantic.”
“Right,” Michael agreed. “The North Atlantic drift.”
Something about the phrase “North Atlantic Drift” revived Mary back into the conversation. “Michael, why don’t you join Louise on her trip to Burgundy? She could use male protection.”
“Mom! Male protection? What is this, the 1950s?”
“I would love to be Louise’s bodyguard, Mary,” Michael said. “But who would protect me from Louise?”
After a moment, Mary suddenly started laughing and went into an uncontrollable and wine-fueled fit of the giggles. The rest of the table joined in, instantly breaking the latest strange interlude.
“Oh, Michael, you are the dearest thing.” As Mary’s laughter waned, her face reddened, and tears welled in her eyes. “Who wants dessert?” Mary got up from the table and took her dish to the sink. The three sitting at table looked at each other with relief. No one pushed Mary any further and they enjoyed dessert over pleasant conversation.
After Michael said goodbye and George had gone to bed, Louise filled a glass of water and went to join her mom in front of the fire. After her earlier state, Louise was ready to back down from insisting that Mary tell her what had happened in Burgundy.
“Aren’t you going to bed, Mom?”
Mary sat on the sofa glowering in front of the fireplace, the light from which seemed to animate her features. She was sixty years old, but with her short, wavy, dishwater brown hair framing her face she could have been sixteen.
“You go on ahead,” Mary said. “I’ll just be a minute.”
Louise remained standing, the only sound was a clock, ticking as if time and memory were moving backward. Mary looked up at her daughter and sensed that now was the right moment for some truth-telling.
“Your father doesn’t know,” Mary began. “I was a freshman in college.”
Louise steadied her breathing and sat on the sofa next to Mary. She had to relax her eyes consciously, so they would not bulge while she listened.
“I had big plans,” Mary continued. “I was going to school to be a simultaneous translator for UNESCO. Remember Louise? Just like Audrey Hepburn in the movie Charade with Cary Grant.” She laughed. “I guess I also wanted to meet my Cary Grant.” Mary looked directly at Louise and her momentary lightness turned back to a dark glare. “If I hadn’t had such big ambitions, it never would have happened.”
Louise held her breath, what the hell was she talking about? But she remained silent, afraid that if she spoke Mary would stop talking. Mary’s face was suddenly ashen like granite, the fire reflecting off her now stony features.
“It all went terribly wrong!” her mother managed to finally say. “I was so smug, with my French major and translator internship in Dijon.” She paused to take a breath. “But those people were monsters!”
“Who were monsters, mom, who?” Louise managed to say.
Now Mary was babbling almost incoherently. “What they did to those girls! It was a miracle I escaped. I tried to tell someone, anyone, but I also thought no one would believe me…” Suddenly the memories were crushing her, and she brought her fists to her eyes as if to smother her thoughts. She shook from inaudible sobs that squeaked out in chirps.
Louise held her mom, reversing roles in applying soothing embrace and security. “Everything is going to be okay.”
Mary’s tears flowed freely now. Her anguish had been released. She took comfort in her daughter’s arms and rocked like a child who felt warm and safe. Allowing herself a purging sigh, Mary started speaking softly and told Louise the whole story of that long-ago summer. The daughter finally understood why her moth
er associated the region with danger and dread, adding yet another layer to an increasingly complex – and now personal – series of investigations. And it all seemed to be waiting for Louise in Burgundy. In France.
S E V E N T E E N
January 4, 2002
The overnight flight had Louise in Paris and resuming her adventure by 7 a.m., albeit with the time change, on the following day. She sped off in a rental car from Charles de Gaulle Airport – she’d driven so much in the last month she was feeling her inner Parisian driver return – and headed toward Burgundy. Forty minutes into the drive she saw a sign for the fabled Forest of Fontainebleau and its prehistoric cave drawings. She had always been intrigued by the spooky tales of the ancient forest. Also, when she was in college during a summer program in the south of France, she had had to choose between an excursion to the prehistoric cave writings of Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc and a trip to Basque Country in the Pyrénées Mountains. She had chosen the latter, but after hearing about the prehistoric drawings from her classmates, she had regretted missing the caves. So, in a sudden sense of adventure and self-inflicted dépaysement,12 she took the opportunity to rectify a bit of her past and drove into the woods of giant elms and pines.
She arrived at the famous artists’ village of Barbizon and drove down the long Grand Rue, which wound for about a mile past ancient stone houses where Jean-François Millet and Théodore Rousseau used to drink and paint. Most of the historic buildings were now converted into art galleries, inns and cafés. She stopped at a café where she found a brochure about the town and the surrounding forest. The owner of the café drew her a map and she headed out to explore the trails. She parked where the café owner had indicated and read the brochure. The Forest of Fontainebleau was sixty-five square miles of woodlands with mysterious gorges and rock formations, several of which she could see from the side of the road. According to the brochure, the geological past of the forest remained a mystery. Until the 1830s it was known only as one enormous white spot on the map of France. No one had attempted to enter the ancient Forest of Heather. Even criminals who had escaped the royal prisons were deterred by legends of mysterious inhabitants who haunted the forest. According to lore, the Black Hunter – accompanied by a pack of vicious dogs – guarded the forest, frightening away visitors, leaving the flora and fauna untouched.
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