A Temporary Ghost (The Georgia Lee Maxwell Series, Series 2) (11 page)

I sat on the edge of the bed. “She’d fired him? When?”

“Before we left for France. But he was so upset about it, she let him come with us after all, as a farewell present.”

“Why did she fire him?”

Blanche had lain down again, her hand tucked under her cheek. “Money,” she said, her voice trailing off in a sigh. She lay so still I thought she’d gone back to sleep. Then I saw a tear slide from the corner of her eye. “Poor Pedro,” she said.

“Did you like him a lot?”

She shook her head. “Not a lot. But he was
there,
you know?”

I knew. In a world as damaged by upheaval as hers had been, continuity is rare and precious. Pedro had been there. Now he was gone.

I sat beside her as she cried quietly. So Pedro had been fired. This had to be the context of the scene Marcelle had overheard. Yet Marcelle had said Vivien, not Pedro, had been distraught. Apparently, Pedro had gained the upper hand.

Pedro had been Carey’s ally. I had never understood why Vivien kept him on after Carey was killed. The two of them didn’t like each other. Housekeepers couldn’t be that hard to find.

Blackmail is a tacky business, which wasn’t out of line with my concept of Pedro.
Do you think they’ll blame her for this, too?
Why not? If Pedro had been blackmailing Vivien, he was now out of her way. The obvious loomed: Pedro didn’t necessarily jump or fall. He might’ve been pushed.

It was a disturbing theory and worthless on the open market, since as far as I knew there was no evidence to support it.

Blanche stirred. I patted her shoulder. I wondered, why, when I’d told her about Pedro, Vivien had called her son’s name.
Oh, Alex. Alex.

Blanche sat up and blotted her eyes. She said, “You aren’t going to leave us now, are you, Georgia Lee? You’ll stay, won’t you?”

A WALK TO THE VILLAGE

The rain had stopped by the time they took Pedro’s body away, and sun glistened on the wet leaves and grass. As the doors of the black hearse-cum-ambulance slammed shut, Constable Reynaud, who had come up from Beaulieu-la-Fontaine to oversee matters and interview us, sketched a farewell wave. His relief at escaping was almost comically obvious. A rotund man with an extravagant moustache, he would surely have been more at home playing
boules
than dealing with a dead body and a houseful of neurotic Americans.

I had helped translate at the interviews. Vivien had made an astonishing recovery, presenting a stainless image of the concerned employer. Ross seemed deeply disturbed, which I attributed more to Vivien’s behavior than to Pedro’s death. Blanche, still in her robe, was predictably monosyllabic.

The story boiled down to this: Nobody saw anything, and nobody heard anything. Our rooms were upstairs, Pedro’s on the ground floor, Marcelle’s on the other side of the house. If Pedro had gotten a notion to drink half a bottle of bourbon and stagger out during the night to have a cigar, his fall was unfortunate, but hardly extraordinary. Constable Reynaud’s attitude, which he didn’t bother to hide, was that this accident— he used the word “accident”— could be best dealt with by disposing of the matter as rapidly as possible. Monsieur Ruiz walked at the edge of the bluff to smoke his cigars? Monsieur Ruiz occasionally took a drink of bourbon? It was, therefore, highly likely, in the opinion of Constable Reynaud, that Monsieur Ruiz had stumbled in the dark, after an overindulgence. The formalities need not be drawn out too long. How would the body be disposed of, once they were complete?

The matter of Pedro seemed all but closed. I didn’t feel justified in opening the question of foul play without more to go on, and I was pretty sure Constable Reynaud wouldn’t thank me if I did. I caught him on his way out, though, for another question: “Can you tell me the rules about camping around here?” I asked.

He blew a puff of air through his moustache. “Camping?”

“Yes. I think someone— a motorcyclist— has been camping down that way” —I pointed in the general direction— “in a grove beyond the top of that hill.”

He considered. “There are campgrounds for those who wish to camp.”

“Yes. So—”

“However, if a person has permission from the owner of the land, I suppose there is no problem.”

I doubted the motorcyclist had permission from the owner of the land, whoever that might be, and I didn’t imagine Constable Reynaud thought he had. His answer was another way of avoiding unpleasantness. I gave him a surly “Thank you,” he gave me a polite nod, and he was on his way.

Marcelle was in the yard smoking like mad, her pretty, dimpled face the color of pastry dough. “Oh, Madame, what is going on?” she burst out when she saw me.

“I wish I knew.”

“I heard them quarreling that time, you know. Monsieur Pedro and Madame Howard.” She lowered her voice. “I told Constable Reynaud.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he would make a note of it, but I’m not sure he did.”

Par for the course. Marcelle took a long drag on her cigarette. “I’m afraid. Really afraid,” she said.

I was torn. I couldn’t in good conscience reassure her, but I didn’t see any point in adding to her fear. I took the sneaky way out. “Constable Reynaud thinks it was an accident.”

“Yes. So he does.” She brightened.

“He believes it will be cleared up soon.”

“Yes.” She threw her cigarette down, ground it out, and reached for the pack in her apron pocket. “Do you think they will go back to New York now?” she asked in a hopeful tone.

I wondered myself. “To tell you the truth, I doubt it.”

“Oh.” Her face fell at the bad news. “Madame?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think anyone will want to eat lunch?”

For my part, I wasn’t hungry. Neither did I feel like hanging around Mas Rose waiting for the next disaster to strike. I decided to walk the couple of miles down the hill to Beaulieu-la-Fontaine. Not only did I want to get away, I wanted a telephone where I could unburden myself to Kitty without the risk of being overheard. I went to get my hat.

Against all odds it was a lovely walk, the hot sun condensing moisture from the road, the air fragrant and fresh. My discovery of Pedro’s body might have happened in another dimension— a wet, gray, cool dimension where tragedy was common and tears the order of the day. Trying to distance myself from it, I strode out energetically.

In about forty-five minutes Beaulieu-la-Fontaine came into view, the church with the curlicued wrought iron belfry at the top of the hill and the tile roofs below. Woods gave way to vineyards, interspersed with a gas station and a few raw-looking new villas with flat, bare yards. On the outskirts of town I passed older houses, their lush vegetable gardens surrounded by chicken wire. A German shepherd patrolling one of them gave every indication of wanting to tear my throat open if only he could get at me. It was barely midafternoon, and most places were still shuttered with wooden panels of turquoise, pale blue, dark green.

In the village I wandered down the shady main street, past a bank, the two-story city hall, a couple of grocery stores closed until later, their outside vegetable bins covered with netting. In the center of town was the lichen-covered fountain, its sculpted dolphins seeming to rear out of a bright-green sea, I stood beside it, listening to the splashing water, letting its sound fill my consciousness.

Across the street several drinkers sat at sidewalk tables in front of a café, the Relais de la Fontaine. Next to the café was the post office, and in front of the post office was what I was looking for— a phone booth. I glanced both ways before crossing the street, a totally unnecessary precaution.

I reached Kitty at the office. “I’m amazed you’re not still at lunch,” I said. Four p.m. was her usual hour of return.

“I had a date with—” she named a famous French rock star— “but he had a breakdown a couple of days ago and was carted off to some rehabilitation center, so he had to cancel.”

“Detox, probably.”

“So they’re saying. I wonder how this will affect my story about what a straight and upstanding guy he is.”

“Better change the lead.”

“Guess so. What’s happening down there? Everything OK?”

The floodgates opened. I went on at length about what was happening, emphasizing that everything was not at all OK. When I stopped to draw breath, she said, “So you think this Pedro could have been murdered?”

“It’s possible. He was at odds with Vivien. And some guy on a motorcycle has been hanging out in the woods near the house. There are so many undercurrents, Kitty.”

“Maybe you should come home. First letters—”

“Yeah. I haven’t gotten any more.”

“Now somebody dies. It’s scary.”

“Yes. It is.”

“So are you going to give it up?”

“I haven’t decided. I’ve spent a lot of the money—”

“Georgia Lee—”

“—but it isn’t that. I’ve gotten sort of attached to the daughter.” To my chagrin, it was true. Poor Blanche, with her blank verse
Book of Betrayal
and her troubadour music, Blanche whom I’d saved— maybe I’d saved— at Les Baux, had touched me with her request that I stay. “I feel responsible for her, in a way,” I went on.

“Responsible! The girl has a mother!”

“She sure does. That’s a big part of her problem, if you ask me.”

Kitty’s silence meant disapproval. I changed the subject. “How’s Twinkie?”

“She’s fine. A laugh a minute. You should see her playing with the tassels on my bedroom curtains.”

I remembered the tassels. Exquisite small ones made of braided white silk. “She hasn’t hurt them, has she?”

“No, no.”

“Really?”

“Well—”

“Come on, Kitty. Tell me.”

“She did unravel a couple, but it’s no big deal.”

“Oh, no!”

“Honestly, it’s no problem. The man who did the drapes is pretty sure he can get more.”

“Kitty, I’m so sorry—”

When we hung up, I continued my walk through town. I missed Twinkie, and Kitty, and my own tassel-free apartment. I passed the elementary school, another café, a newsstand, a hardware store with a bouquet of wooden pitchforks displayed on the sidewalk. At the end of the street, where the main road came in, was a modest-looking hotel, the Auberge de Ventoux, whose major charm came from the rose tree heavy with yellow blooms rambling along the wrought iron fence in front.

Parked in front of the hotel, sandwiched between two cars, was a black Yamaha motorcycle with a red bandanna knotted around its handlebars. Even before I was close enough to look, I knew there was white lariat-style printing on the handkerchief’s border, and that it would read, “Bingo’s Buckaroo BBQ.”

I watched for a long while, but nobody claimed the motorcycle. At last I started back to Mas Rose.

THE WHIPPING BOY

The nervous energy that had propelled me down to Beaulieu-la-Fontaine ebbed on the uphill return, and a suffocating melancholy moved in. If I’d needed another reminder of the fragility of human life and human enterprise, and I wasn’t at all sure I had, Pedro’s death had presented it to me. Leaden with intimations of mortality, I made slow progress.

When I reached Mas Rose, I found a semblance of order restored. Marcelle was in the kitchen bathing a leg of lamb in olive oil, garlic, and thyme. She looked glum, though, her mouth pursed so tightly her dimples showed. She greeted me with, “Another guest is coming to stay. Arriving tonight for dinner.”

“Another guest?” It was an odd time for entertaining.

“I think that’s what they were trying to tell me. When Madame Howard couldn’t make me understand she called Mademoiselle Blanche.”

“Did Blanche say who it was?”

“Her brother, I believe.”

I hadn’t heard a word about this. “Alexander McBride?”

Marcelle nodded, spooning liquid over the meat as she talked. “That’s it. Yes, the telephone rang, and there was a lot of excitement. ‘Alex! Alex!’ Madame Howard called out. She was crying. Afterward, she tried to talk to me with gestures, but I didn’t understand. Then Mademoiselle Blanche told me.”

I remembered Vivien bending over the stair rail.
Oh, Alex. Alex.
“How strange,” I said.

“Yes! She asked me to prepare a bedroom, too. Unless someone packs up Monsieur Pedro’s things, the only room left is the small one in the attic, and no one ever sleeps up there!” Marcelle spooned fiercely. “It isn’t for me to pack Monsieur Pedro’s things, is it?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then this Alexander will sleep in the attic!” She put down her spoon. “Nothing like this has happened to me before. I do my work, that’s fine. But this—”

I heard her out, mouthed something about how difficult it all was for everybody, and went to find out more about Alexander’s arrival.

Ross was alone in the living room, sitting in a shadowy corner, a drink in his hand. When I looked in he raised his glass. “Join me. I’ve inherited the mantle of bartender. What can I get you?”

“Nothing, thanks. I’m going up to take a shower. I understand Vivien’s son is coming?”

“Alexander the great? Yes, we have that to look forward to.”

“Isn’t it unexpected?”

“To you and me, certainly. I think Vivien may have had an inkling and not wanted to broach the subject. She’s gotten a couple of letters from him.”

“Where is he?”

“Avignon, he said. Thought he’d buzz by in time for dinner and move in bag and baggage. As a person with no major responsibilities, he finds it easy to get away and impose.”

“Did Vivien tell him about Pedro?”

“Sure. No reason why that should slow him down.”

Ross was obviously in the grip of bilious jealousy. I leaned against the doorframe and said, “What does Alexander do in San Francisco, anyway?”

“I’ve never quite known. For a while he was a barker for a sex show in North Beach, I remember. He carried equipment for a rock band. He hands out leaflets on street corners, or waits tables, or clerks in stores that sell Golden Gate Bridge key chains. Occasionally he takes a class somewhere, but he’s twenty-five and has never been within shouting distance of a degree.”

“Is he gay or straight?”