Blackbird Fly (15 page)

Arnaud had called the hotel for Merle and received
the news she had been arrested, true enough to get him to race his
Benz over the roads to Malcouziac. Merle heard him shouting at
Redier outside the interview room. The calmer voice of Montrose
intruded and finally Arnaud was allowed to see her.

He kissed her on both cheeks. His color was high, and
he spit out his words. “What the hell is going on in this little
ville
? They are crazy, all of them! I wouldn’t be surprised
if the mayor was behind all this, that idiot!”

Merle felt confused, and a little frightened by what
was going on, but she didn’t need to get as riled up as Rancard.
Stay calm
. “What are they going to do with me? Have they
told you?”

“
It is all a terrible mistake. I
will call the Embassy for you. There is an American consul in
Nice.”

“
What can they do?” Nice was far
away.

“
Make sure your rights are not
violated by these peasants.” He gestured wildly then sighed. “I
will help you too, Madame. Whatever I can do, although of course I
am not a criminal lawyer. Capitan Montrose, he is from Bergerac,
from the courts. He will take over the investigation. In France we
do not let the crazy gendarmes do investigation. They are too close
to the population.”

“
He seems reasonable,” she
said.

“
The Capitan will do you well.” He
stood up suddenly. “I must talk to him.”

“
Am I being charged with
something?”

“
Not yet. Do you have with you all
the documents about the house?”

“
In my backpack. They have it out
there.”

She thought of Tristan in Paris again. His father
dead and his mother in the Bastille. Merle hadn’t spoken to any of
them since she left the U.S. Now she would have to call. She didn’t
want Stasia to come, to get excited about all this. They didn’t
need an international incident.

She put her head down on the table and felt the sun
from the tiny window on her neck as if saying:
See— France can
be gentle and lovely
.

No need to go back to the ‘burbs. No need to go home
at all.

Chapter 16

Merle sat on the tumbledown wall looking out over the
vineyards. A bird flew to one of the stakes, perched there,
singing. It made her forget about her headache for a moment. High
on the tops of the hills, where the old forest still grew tall,
wind tugged at the treetops. The sky was so blue it made her eyes
hurt.

Harry never wanted to go to France. He lived for
work. He would have missed out on great opportunities to make
money, his most compelling desire. That single-mindedness defined
him. She saw now, in a flash, that he could never have cared as
much for her as he did about his money. Maybe he loved Courtney.
Maybe he was incapable of that sort of love.

He did love Tristan. They had him in common. She
would see her son tomorrow, either here or in Paris. Arnaud had
been arguing her case relentlessly for the last twenty-four hours.
For an estate lawyer he did like to argue. She smiled, thinking of
him waving his arms in front of the stony-faced inspector. They
would smoke Gauloises and decide her fate.

They had kept her overnight at the tiny gendarmerie,
giving her a cot with fresh sheets and a cold dinner of chicken and
salad and a glass of wine. She hadn’t slept well. The wine took the
edge off her tension but she woke again at midnight, smelling their
cigarettes outside the room. They talked on and on. The French have
a great capacity for debate.

Early this morning she was served coffee and a
croissant. An hour later, the inspector released her. Arnaud
Rancard was not there. The inspector told her slowly: do not leave
the village.
Absolutement
, he said gravely. Then handed her
a note.

‘
Meet me at the house at 11:00.
A.R.’

Now, on the wall, Merle checked her watch but it
wasn’t there. She had left the hotel at ten, after a shower and
change of clothes. Who had ransacked her room? How had her watch
gotten on the arm of Justine LaBelle?

Strange that they didn’t even know who Sister
Evangeline was. She must have been at the Shrine when it happened.
Maybe she was even the guilty party, although Merle didn’t think
so. A nun? Well, was she really a nun? Either way she didn’t come
off as an evil person. Could someone have merely frightened Justine
by the edge of the cliff, causing her to lose her balance?

Merle checked her backpack again. Everything she
owned of importance was in there, except her passport. They had
confiscated it. She had tried to call the American Embassy this
morning about it, but hadn’t gotten through. She’d catalogued the
contents of her backpack in a notebook. The documents about the
house were there, the photographs, the mementos from the deposit
box. They had rifled through it all then put it back except for the
passport.

The stones of the wall were uncomfortable. She stood
up and stared at the house. So silent, closed, absent. Was Sister
Evangeline inside? What life had gone on there? She closed her eyes
and imagined all the shutters painted — Sky blue? Grass green?
Apple red? — and open to the breeze. The glass washed, the air
changed. It would be a revival, a resurrection. Would anyone ever
do it?

She hadn’t called Stasia yet. One more day and she
might have some answers. Let it ride, Harry would say. Commit
yourself, then let it ride. All you have to do is hang on.

Could it be the ride of my life, thanks to you, Harry
Strachie?

He was dead, gone, buried. But he remained a force, a
consciousness, a way to look at life. Not her way, but she had
learned from him. To trust her instincts, to not be so rigid, to
play the occasional hunch. She couldn’t deny the years they’d had.
As much as she wanted to erase them from memory.

What would he say now — what the hell do you want
that old wreck of a house for? She sighed. He didn’t care about
houses, but he thought she did. Was he wrong?

The tires of the Benz squealed on the cobblestones as
it turned the corner and came to a stop in front of the house.
Arnaud wore the same clothes as yesterday, except for a clean
shirt. He looked tired but immaculate, as always.

He kissed her on both cheeks. “How did they treat
you? Okay?”

“
I’m fine. How did you get them to
release me?”

The old woman from across the street (Arnaud said her
name was Madame Suchet) appeared on her stoop with her broom. She
wore a scarf and high heels, watching and listening as she took
tiny strokes with her broom.

“
Through logic, of course,” Arnaud
said as he opened his trunk. “Why would you, an American, come over
here and murder an old woman? You are a lawyer yourself, one who
helps poor people find housing in the United States. An officer of
the court, a good citizen, an exceptional citizen. Not a greedy
person but one who works for the state just like he does. Several
times you spoke about wanting to find housing for Madame LaBelle.
That is not someone who has villainy in their heart.”

He pulled a pair of long-handled bolt cutters out of
his trunk. “And now, the house is yours.”

“
Wait,” Merle said as he walked to
the door and wedged the tool through the crack in the shutters.
“Have you discussed this with the inspector?”

“
Oh, yes. It makes the most sense of
any alternative. He wants you to stay in the village, yes? Then
return the house to you. And so — ” He positioned the cutters
around the padlock and with a grunt pulled them together. A second
try, with a grimace on his close-shaven face, and a clunk as the
lock fell to the doorstep. Madame Suchet dropped her broom and
disappeared into her house, presumably to call the gendarme.
“
Voila!
”

“
Did the inspector look at the
papers?”

“
Oh, yes, he looks over them all,
and agrees that the house belongs to you. You pay the taxes all
these years. That is evidence. The taxes are accepted because the
state recognizes you — your husband — as the owner of the house.
The inspector speaks to the mayor who has nothing to say. There is
no argument, unless you are an insane gendarme who has your head up
your arse.”

He set down the bolt cutters and pulled on the door
shutters. The rusty hinges creaked. The left one refused to move.
The open one revealed the front door with its multi-paned window
and pretty, carved wood with faint traces of blue paint.

“
And now, madame?” Arnaud said.
“Your French home.”

Merle stared at the door. “You have a key?”

“
You did not bring it?”

She unzipped her backpack and found the big skeleton
key loosely taped to the letterhead .

“
This is not for the door, madame.”
He handed it back. “One moment.” He went back to his trunk,
throwing in the bolt cutters and returning with a small tool kit.
“We will change the locks anyway.” He stuck a small screwdriver
into the lock, twisted it around, and gave the door his shoulder.
On the third push Merle could see it was about to go and offered
her own shoulder. They tumbled into the dark, moldy
room.

Arnaud paused to brush his shirt clean as he looked
around the room. Merle stood blinking, letting her eyes adjust. The
front room was large, with a head-high mantel over a blackened
fireplace complete with iron tools and a large pot. The air was
dank and foul. A large table with thick legs, scarred with knife
wounds, dominated the room.

The lawyer ran a fingertip across the windowsill on
the side wall. “Not much of a housekeeper, was she?”

Merle took small breaths through her mouth. “Have the
police been here?”

“
Yesterday. There was so little, the
inspector said, he wasn’t sure she even lived here.”

“
So it’s all right to move in? It
seems — disrespectful.”

“
He took her things, what little
there was. Some clothes, some food.”

“
What about Sister
Evangeline?”

“
She was renting a room over the
bistro. But now she has gone, I hear. Her self-proclaimed duty was
to help Madame LaBelle. When the woman died, her responsibilities
ended. So she told the owner of the bistro.”

Arnaud disappeared into another room. Merle walked to
the side of the large room, near a side window. There were stains
on the wooden ceiling as if water had come through the roof. Spider
webs and dust everywhere. The smell of mouse droppings and mildew.
A staircase rose from the far corner into the dark. She looked up
the stairs and saw a door at the top was closed.

“
Mon Dieu, quel
boue
.”

Arnaud stood in the back room holding his nose,
staring at burlap sacks of grain piled in the corner. Corners of
them had been gnawed by rodents, with corn and wheat spilling onto
the floor. The smell of rot hung thickly. The floor in this room
was different, stone versus the dark-stained wood of the front.
Arnaud opened the back door, letting in fresh air.

She stepped back into the parlor. On either side of
the room sat a moth-eaten armchair and a tall, battered cabinet
nearly six feet wide. Dozens of jars of ancient preserves in shades
of gray, covered with dust, on the open shelves. She kicked the
chair. Squeaks of vermin confirmed her fears.

“
Merle! Come quick!”

Arnaud stood outside the back door in a flower garden
bursting with blossoms. Lavender grew in a fragrant hedge, its
purple spikes held over the gray leaves. Delphiniums, daisies,
hollyhocks grew six feet high, blue, pink, white. On one wall red
climbing roses, next to a framed grapevine with tiny grapes hanging
in clusters. Arnaud pointed to the house. A pear tree had been
trained onto a metal frame, flat against the stone house. Miniature
green pears hung from the branches.

“
And more, look,” Arnaud said. On
the other sidewall, lavender wisteria had been trained to grow
along the top. By the back gate, clematis bloomed white and purple
in intertwining vines, covering the arch. A small stone building
with a mossy tile roof was covered with a red clematis and pots of
geraniums stood on either side of its door.

The garden was bursting with flowers. Under an acacia
tree in a corner was a hammock. There was a graveled seating area,
with two iron chairs and a small table. On the table was a potted
yellow marigold.

“
Wow,” Merle said. “Wow.”

“
This jardin — it is like the
Luxembourg Gardens!” Arnaud said, spinning to see it all. “These
grapes will give you wine. Your own French wine, madame. Not much,
maybe one glass, but your very own.”

Merle looked around, seeing the old woman’s work.
“But — it’s her garden. Justine’s.”

“
She was only the
gardener.”

Some of the rose bushes were ancient, and the trunk
of the grapevine was as big as her arm. He was putting on his
jacket. “I’m sorry, madame. I must drive to Cahors again. The widow
with too many children awaits me.”

“
You’ll be back?”

“
My work is done here. Ah, the name
of the criminal lawyer.” He pulled a slip of paper from his inside
pocket. “Antoine Lalouche, in Bordeaux. Excellent man. Give him a
call.” He passed her the paper with his phone number on it. “It has
been my pleasure, madame.”

“
I can’t thank you enough. You — you
saved me, not to mention my — my house.”

He gave her a little bow. “That is what I wanted to
hear — my house. Congratulations. A lovely one it is.”