A Temporary Ghost (The Georgia Lee Maxwell Series, Series 2) (12 page)

“Cuts a wide swath through the female population.”

I stated the obvious. “You don’t like him.”

“I don’t like what he does to Vivien. He plays her like a goddamn violin.”

I shrugged. “He’s her son.”

“Yeah.” Ross tilted his glass up. “Sure you won’t join me?”

He sounded forlorn. I walked in and sat on the arm of the sofa. His eyes were bloodshot, I now noticed, whether from liquor or tears I couldn’t tell. “I don’t really want a drink,” I said.

He set down his glass. “I don’t mix them as well as Pedro did, anyway.”

“Is there any word from Constable Reynaud?”

“Not a peep. Poor old Pedro.” He stretched his arms over his head, then let them fall.

“Was Pedro a nice guy?”

“Not that I ever noticed.”

“Did anybody suspect he might have killed Carey?”

“You better believe it. They went over him with a fine-tooth comb, the way they did the rest of us. Obviously, he had the best opportunity, since he was right there in the apartment. But no evidence against him turned up, and he didn’t seem to have a motive. So— poof.” He waved his hand in dismissal.

“What do you think happened this morning?”

“Why ask me? I’m only the whipping boy.” His voice was harsh.

I winced at the reference to Vivien’s slap. “Why did she hit you? Killing the messenger who brings bad news?”

“Who knows? She doesn’t. Vivien lashes out the way some people eat breakfast, as a normal part of the routine.”

The room was darkening. The last light picked out the spines of the books flanking the empty fireplace, row after row. I drooped under the weight of sadness around me.

When Ross spoke again, his tone was casual. “Don’t you think you should get out?”

I was stung. “What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re poison. You must have noticed by now. You have noticed, haven’t you?”

“I’ve noticed.”

“Why should you be caught in this horrible, toxic, disgusting—”

He hadn’t wanted Vivien to write her book in the first place, I reminded myself. I got up and said, stiffly, “If you want me to leave—”

He stood, swaying a little. He took my hand and said, “You’ve misunderstood. I was talking about what’s best for
you.
What
I
want is something else entirely.”

I looked away. “I can’t—”

“Don’t get prim.”

“I
have
to get prim. I
am
prim.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Aren’t.”

“Am.”

Absurdly, we were laughing. He took my face in his hands and kissed me, and when he let me go I put my palm against his cheek where Vivien had slapped him. He said, huskily, “All right,
be
prim.”

“I am.”

A clatter in the kitchen reminded me of Marcelle’s proximity. I pulled away. My face was burning. I said, “I’ve got to go.”

At the door, I looked back at him. He was watching me, but it was too dark to see the expression on his face.

ALEXANDER

Out of guilt and a desire for distraction, I went to look in on Blanche before taking my shower. How would Blanche feel, I berated myself, if she knew you’d been downstairs stealing kisses with her dream lover? Is that the kind of raising you had? And, for that matter, how would Vivien feel? She might scratch your eyes out.

Although I remembered Ross saying Vivien didn’t care, wouldn’t even care if he slept with Blanche. Did that mean, I did my best not to speculate, that Vivien wouldn’t care if he slept with me?

Wishing I had reached Blanche’s door before I got that far in my thinking, I tapped, and entered when I heard her faint, “Come in.”

She was in bed, in her robe. She must not have dressed all day. Her hair didn’t look as if it had been touched since morning, either. Her
Book of Betrayal
notebook lay on the corner of her dresser, and the cassette player was silent.

She barely turned her head to look at me. “Where did you go?” she asked. I thought I heard an undertone of accusation.

“I walked down to town.” When she didn’t say anything, I went on, “You’ll have to come with me next time.”

She looked away from me, out the window. The morning’s puffiness had subsided and her face looked caved in. Her hands lay listlessly folded on her stomach. “What did you do today?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Talked to my therapist.”

“About— Pedro?”

“Yes. She wants me to call her every day, now. It’ll cost a mint.”

I leaned against the dresser. “Did you work on your dialogue?”

“No.”

This was like wading through knee-deep sludge. I had told Kitty I was attached to Blanche. I was. Yet I was continually kept off balance by her reactions, as she opened up to me in one encounter and pulled away in the next. As I wondered whether to keep on, she said, “Alex is coming, you know.” The words sounded forced out by pressure on her chest.

“I heard.”

“Even this. And this was supposed to be mine.”

Yes, of course. The Provence trip had been Blanche’s dream. Now her brother was horning in. “Maybe he won’t stay.”

“What difference does it make? It’s spoiled, anyway.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was spoiled because of Pedro’s death or Alexander’s arrival. I wasn’t going to argue about it. I went to the door. “Time to get dressed for dinner.”

“I’m not coming down.”

I stopped, my hand on the knob.

“You aren’t? Why not?”

No answer.

“Blanche, do me a favor. I don’t want to go down any more than you do. Come on, and we’ll tough it out together. All right?”

She studied her hands. I left, closing the door behind me.

I stood in the shower a long time, hoping the hot water would ease my many pains. When I got out, the smell of Marcelle’s lamb had wafted into my bedroom, and by the time I was dressed it would’ve lured me downstairs no matter what ordeals awaited. I opened my door and heard voices below— Vivien, speaking rapidly and excitedly, and a male I didn’t recognize. Alexander must have arrived while I was in the shower.

They were in the living room, where a couple of lamps now cast a mellow glow. “There you are, Georgia Lee!” Vivien cried as I walked in. She was standing in the center of the room, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant with an emotion that looked more like dread than joy. Ross sat in his corner, the picture of disengagement. Alexander stood in front of the fireplace.

He was tall and lanky, with his mother’s dramatic looks. A lock of glossy, abundant black hair fell over his forehead, shading bright blue eyes. His face was not quite long enough to be horsy, his cheekbones were high, his mouth curled in a smile you’d immediately tag as sardonic. He was wearing tight faded jeans, scuffed boots, a waist-length denim jacket over a white T-shirt.

He looked me over appraisingly during our handshake. I debated whether to stick with innocuous chatter or jump right into the tragedy of Pedro and get it out of the way. I opted for innocuous chatter and asked him when he’d arrived in France.

“This morning. Flew into Nice and got the train to Avignon.” He continued to size me up, his blue eyes acute behind heavy lids. I could see he was a man who expected women to approve of him, but I wasn’t sure I could oblige. There was something smarmy in his slow grin, the way he stood with his hips thrust forward.

The grin got wider as he looked toward the door. “Hey! Blanchie!” he said.

It was Blanche. Not only had she shown up, she had dressed up, in a pale salmon shirt with pearl buttons and wide-legged white silk pants. Her hair was pulled back in a style similar to her mother’s that gave her face, to my eye at least, a severe beauty. She even had on gold hoop earrings. Elated at her transformation, I tried to catch her eye when she walked in, but she ignored me as she said, “Hi, Alex,” and crossed the room to present her cheek for his kiss.

Right after her arrival, dinner was served. It was a strained meal, as I’d expected it to be. Only Alexander seemed unaware of the awkward atmosphere, and he alone did justice to the lamb, eating hungrily and having seconds. He had taken off his denim jacket. His T-shirt had cut-off sleeves, perfect for exhibiting his biceps. On his sinewy wrist, a heavy gold watch gleamed. I recognized the crown insignia of a Rolex, a very fancy ornament for a man so scruffy otherwise.

Ignoring the almost total silence of Ross and Blanche, he quizzed Vivien about Pedro’s death. I still couldn’t get a fix on her manner toward him. She talked in a compulsive rush that could pass for vivacity. Although the fear never left her eyes, I saw hunger in her look as well.

The meal limped to a close, the leftover lamb congealing in its juices, the Chateauneuf-du-Pape down to the dregs. Alexander moved back from the table, stretched out his long legs, and said to me, “I hear you and Vivi are writing a best-seller.”

I could’ve guessed he’d call her “Vivi” instead of “Mom.”

“We hope so.”

“How’s it going? You pretty far along?”

I hesitated, not wanting to say we’d be a lot farther if his mother would buckle down. Vivien put in, “I don’t think it’s going as fast as Georgia Lee would like. And now, with Pedro—” she faltered. Pedro, I saw, was going to cause some delay.

Alexander leaned toward Vivien with a wicked smile. “Who’s going to play you in the movie version?”

Vivien shook her head. “Come on, Alex.” Beside me, I felt Ross stir in his chair.

Alexander went on, “No, really. Let’s do the casting. We need a sort of Ava Gardner type for you. Too bad Ava’s too old. Liz Taylor’s too old, too. And too short. Meryl Streep might do, if she dyed her hair. Or what about—”

Ross moved his chair back abruptly, and at the same moment Blanche said, “I’m tired. I’m going up.”

I thought at first Ross wasn’t even going to excuse himself, but he muttered something about a long and stressful day. When Blanche said good night, she gave me a glance I couldn’t interpret. She might have been telling me I owed her one.

Feeling deserted, wishing I’d made my excuses at the same time, I sat through an interminable cup of coffee with Vivien and Alexander. Then Alexander, too, professed to be exhausted. He stretched, exposing tufts of black armpit hair, and said to Vivien, “I guess the cycle will be OK where it is, right?”

My last swallow of coffee was in my mouth. I held it there, not even trying to choke it down, the rim of my cup resting lightly on my bottom lip.

The cycle.
I hadn’t heard any cycle. But I’d been in the shower when Alexander got here.

As Vivien assured him the cycle would be all right, I put down my cup. With an immense effort, I swallowed my coffee. I said I was going to get some air before bed and headed for the kitchen.

Marcelle was putting up the dishes. Her spirits had improved. “He’s
very
handsome, isn’t he, Madame? The son?” she whispered as I walked by.

“Gorgeous.”

Outside, in the light from the kitchen, I located the motorcycle parked next to the shed. A handkerchief was tied to the handlebars. I couldn’t see the color, or make out the design, but I didn’t have to. I knew what it was.

A MOTORCYCLE RIDE

At midnight, I was sitting on a chair next to my bedroom window, hugging my knees, staring out at the dark. I was thinking about Twinkie. When she was a kitten, I’d pick up feathers and bring them home to her. She loved them. She’d pounce on a feather, roll around with it, chew it, kick it with her hind legs. I assume she knew instinctively it was part of a bird. It wasn’t a bird, though. It was only a feather— a wrecked and mangled one after she finished with it.

I asked myself if I was on to something substantial here, or was I kicking my hind legs at trivialities? Bird or feather?

The bird argument went like this: Alexander was the solitary motorcyclist. He hadn’t, as he’d claimed with a straight face, landed in Nice this— now yesterday— morning. He’d been here, lurking in the woods at least part of the time, since the day we went to Les Baux. His motorcycle had been parked in front of the Auberge de Ventoux in Beaulieu-la-Fontaine yesterday afternoon. He was probably in this vicinity when Pedro went off the cliff. If he had no sinister motives, why sneak around and lie?

The feather argument went: You didn’t see Alexander. You saw a Yamaha motorcycle and a Bingo’s Buckaroo BBQ bandanna. Maybe he borrowed the cycle from somebody yesterday, when he got here.

Sure. Some Frenchman who happens to have a handkerchief imprinted with the name of an unmistakably American restaurant.

It’s possible. The French love American-sounding stuff. What about those “University of Harvard” sweatshirts you see?

All right, all right. I still think—

But you don’t know. That’s the point.

I didn’t know. Which made it too soon to lay my bird at the feet of Constable Reynaud, or some more enthusiastic member of the police force, and risk having it recognized as nothing but a feather after all. The best I could do was talk to Alexander and keep an eye on him. The worst I could do was let him know my suspicions.

After formulating this semblance of a game plan, I allowed myself to go to bed. When I finally fell asleep, I had nightmares. Pedro’s body was lying in the rain at the foot of the bluff. He got up and walked toward me, rain pouring from his eyes. Paralyzed with horror, I allowed him to kiss me, a soft, tender kiss that woke me in a gurgling panic. Day was breaking before I got back to sleep.

I woke late, only to discover, via Marcelle, that Constable Reynaud had phoned and summoned Vivien to sign some papers. She and Ross had driven to Beaulieu-la-Fontaine more than an hour before. “I answered the telephone when he called,” Marcelle told me. “I believe it has to do with the disposition of Monsieur Pedro’s body.”

“The disposition of his body? Already?”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what he said, Madame.”

What else had I expected? I’d known Constable Reynaud wanted to get this foreign and unwelcome case closed fast.

Blearily, I poured coffee. Marcelle said, “Would you like an omelette? I made one for Monsieur Alex. He said it was
super.
” She pronounced the word with an American accent, accompanied by the “perfect” symbol of a circle made with thumb and forefinger.