A Temporary Ghost (The Georgia Lee Maxwell Series, Series 2) (20 page)

The lobby of the Auberge de Ventoux was sweetly shabby, not even slightly tarted up for tourists. Lace curtains hung at the windows, and the furniture consisted of a couple of mismatched armchairs. In a corner stood an old-fashioned wooden phone booth with a hand-lettered sign, “Hors de service,” hanging on the doorknob. The sign looked fly-specked enough to indicate the phone hadn’t worked for some time. Brochures about Avignon and Mount Ventoux were scattered on the registration counter, where a lamp with a green glass shade gave off a dim glow. The place was deserted, and a couple of taps on the bell brought no response.

“They’re having dinner, like all civilized people,” I said. The setback almost made me weep.

“So should we.” Ross banged the bell again.

A door at the end of the counter opened, and a shrunken-looking man with a pinched face and gray hair stuck his head out. He was chewing.

I told him I wanted a room for the night, and with the air of doing me an immense favor, he emerged, napkin in hand, and allowed me to register. When the formalities were barely complete, he shoved a key at me and disappeared again.

“Never disturb a Frenchman at mealtime,” said Ross. He put my suitcase and typewriter behind the counter. “Let’s go eat.”

“Don’t you have to be back at Mas Rose?”

He took my elbow. “Let’s go.”

We found a pizzeria, Chez Françoise et Albert, around the corner. Most of Beaulieu-la-Fontaine seemed to be there. We waited for a table, watching a muscular man, whom I took to be Albert, shoveling pizzas into and out of a wood-fired brick oven while a woman with bleached hair, surely Françoise, took orders and served wine and beer to the customers at Formica tables. It smelled so good my knees were weak by the time we sat down. When Ross and I had split a pitcher of red wine and eaten pizzas Napolitaine I felt better than I had all day.

The crowd had thinned out by the time we finished. We lingered over the wine. “I wish you weren’t leaving like this,” Ross said.

“I have to.”

“But—did Vivien do something? Say something?”

I looked directly at him. He was more attractive to me at that moment than he’d ever been. “I believe she’s lying about the murder.”

He didn’t blink, or look away. “So you believe I’m lying, too.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I couldn’t give away what Blanche had told me. “I have reason to think so.”

Two women in rain slickers came in and were greeted warmly by Françoise. The three of them acted like friends. I wished I were any one of the three.

“The police believed us. Why don’t you?” said Ross.

“The story has had a couple of years to decay since it was told to the police. And you’ve had a couple of years to believe you’re invincible.”

He laughed. The women glanced over at the sound. “I may be guilty of lying, but I’m sure as hell not guilty of thinking I’m invincible,” he said.

“So you did lie?”

He stared into his nearly empty glass. “It was very cold, starting to snow,” he said. “I’d planned to stay home and work, but I got a call from Vivien. She was hysterical. She and Carey had had a terrible argument. I told her to come over, but she said she couldn’t. She had somewhere else to go.”

“She didn’t say where?”

“She said where.” He didn’t answer the unspoken question. “I was bothered by the call. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work, so I went out.”

He drained his glass and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know if I can describe the state I was in— the misery. Vivien and I were having an affair. She had completely screwed up her life for me. On top of that, Carey had been my benefactor, and this was how I’d repaid him. Blanche had some kind of crush on me and was desperately unhappy. All of it was coming to a head, and I didn’t know if I could stand it. I put on my parka, and I went out, and I walked.”

“Walked where?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t care if I froze to death, and, believe me I almost did. I walked along those crummy, frozen streets, wading through the snow. I kept it up for several hours, until I thought I’d punished myself enough, and then I went home.”

“Nobody saw you?”

He shrugged. “Plenty of people saw me, and I saw plenty of people, but everybody was bundled to the eyeballs.”

“So then what happened?”

“When I got home, the phone was ringing. Vivien was babbling about Carey having been murdered, and she sounded, Christ, like the cops were about to take her in. I didn’t know what had happened, or what the story was, and I didn’t even think about it beforehand. I said, ‘It’s all right, Vivien. Go ahead and tell them you were with me.’ And she did.”

“You worked out the details afterward?”

“There weren’t many details to work out. We kept it simple and stuck to it. At the time, I had a crusading attitude. Protecting Vivien was the most important thing in the world.” He stopped talking. He looked very sad. “Let’s go,” he said.

Walking with him under the dripping umbrella I said, “You haven’t said where Vivien was that night.”

“She told me she sat several hours in a hotel bar in midtown, keeping an appointment with somebody who never showed up.”

“Alexander?”

“Alexander.”

I was desolate. Ross and Vivien were held together by bonds their lives depended on. Neither would ever be free of the other. “Why did you say it, you fool?”

“Love,” he said, and the word stung, and I wished I hadn’t asked.

AUBERGE DE VENTOUX

The hotel lobby was still deserted. Ross picked up my bags and followed me upstairs. I didn’t object. We both knew I wasn’t going to turn him away at the door.

My room was on the third floor, down a dimly lit hall with nondescript carpeting. The room smelled ever-so-slightly of bug spray, but seemed clean enough. On the wall were two framed posters: wildflowers of Provence, and herbs of Provence. There was a white chest of drawers, a bed with an iron headboard, a cane-seated chair. I crossed to the window and pushed open the shutters to let in wet, cool air. In a moment I felt Ross behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders. “I wish none of this had happened,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“Now, everything is worse than before.”

“Yes.”

Yet many complications had been swept away. I was infinitely relieved not to have to write Vivien’s book. I turned to Ross gladly, and he said, “I’d given up.”

I hadn’t been with anyone for a long time, had been only vaguely conscious of how strong my needs were. I gave in, let go, feverishly eager to be carried along and released. Our excitement was heightened by the circumstances, so precarious in every way.

When the first flood of emotion and connection had passed, Ross murmured, “What happened to your knees?”

I could barely remember, and was in no mood to explain. “Fell.”

“Fell where?”

“Never mind.”

“Fell—”

And so it went, until at last I said, “Don’t you have to go?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to tell Vivien?”

“She’s got Alex and her settlement. I don’t have to tell her anything.”

I was too sleepy to worry about it. I tottered out of bed to lock the door behind him. He kissed me a last time and said, “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” Neither of us mentioned meeting again.

Tomorrow, I’d leave Beaulieu-la-Fontaine. Tonight, I was in a room where the door could be locked. I fell back into bed and into a profound stupor.

The next morning I woke, not languorous and satiated, but at the first light of dawn, my nerves jangling. Carried away as I’d been by my encounter with Ross, I hadn’t really digested the story he’d told.

Vivien had a date to meet Alexander the night of Carey’s murder, so Alexander was indeed in New York that night. Pedro had found out somehow, I imagined; perhaps overheard a phone call. Once it was clear Vivien was lying to the police, Pedro had been in an excellent position to make demands. Maybe Vivien had complained to Alexander about Pedro’s threats, and he’d looked after that problem for her, too.

Not only was my mind racing, my body felt like an enormous bruise. My acrobatics with Ross surely had to share the blame with yesterday’s attack. I pulled myself to a sitting position, contemplating my clothing lying in a pile on the floor.

Sinking back, I yawned once or twice. The next thing I knew sun was streaming through the window, and I’d added a crick in my neck to my other complaints.

It was after nine o’clock. The rain was over, the sky brilliant once again. I smoothed out my garments, put them on, and went down to have breakfast before I went looking for Missy.

I had to revise that plan almost immediately. Missy was at the desk paying her bill to the grumpy proprietor, three handsome red leather suitcases and a matching weekend case beside her. She wore her white straw hat and a white linen pantsuit and looked as though she were decked out to sip a long cool drink on the veranda of some tropical hotel. The relaxed image was belied, though, by her pinched nostrils, tight mouth, and aura of cold fury. I said, “Missy! Are you leaving?”

A crease between the blue eyes told me she didn’t know who I was at first. Our meeting yesterday was no doubt obscured by a beery haze. Recognition dawned, though. “Well, hey, Rita. What are you doing here?”

I glanced at Mr. Personality behind the desk, lowered my voice, and said, “I checked in last night. Had a fight with my boyfriend.”

“Oh, Sugar! Not you, too!”

Since I’d chosen this story to gain the maximum possible sympathy from her, I wasn’t surprised at her reaction. “I’m afraid so.”

“Come on out and tell me about it while I wait for my ride. I’ve hired a car. I’m getting out of this dump.” She looked at the proprietor, pointed at the bags, and jerked her head toward the door. As he came resignedly out from behind the counter to carry them for her, I had an inkling of how he’d gotten the way he was.

We stepped out into the bright morning. Droplets of water stood in the yellow roses on the fence. Something was happening downtown, I saw. As if they’d bloomed overnight, bright awnings of red, yellow, and blue lined the street. People with shopping baskets streamed by us, and strains of bouncy music from a loudspeaker filled the air.

I remembered the cute local market I’d expected when Ross took me to the Hypermarché. “It must be market day,” I said.

Missy wasn’t interested. “I hope my car can get through.” She turned to me. “Now, tell me exactly what happened.”

I wasn’t about to. I said, “Did your— friend ever show up yesterday?”

“He did not. And that boy is in a lot of trouble, Rita.”

“You’re going to fire him from his job?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. He’ll never set foot in Bingo’s again. But that isn’t the half of it.”

“No more motorcycles and trips to France?” Alexander probably wouldn’t care. Now Vivien could buy them for him.

“They don’t allow motorcycles where
he’s
going.”

I was sure I’d heard her correctly. A black car had emerged from the confusion down the street and was moving toward us. I prayed it wasn’t the one she’d hired. “Do you mean jail?” I gasped.

She noticed a speck of something on her white sleeve and spent an agonizing moment scratching at it with her fingernail. “He’s had it. That bastard is as big a fake as the so-called Rolex he wears.”

“The Rolex?”

“Rolex, my ass. Excuse my French. A piece of cheap crap. Don’t you think the Rolex people will love to get their hands on his operation?”

The black car pulled up in front of us. The driver, a cheerful-looking man with a cap pushed to the back of his head got out and said to Missy, “Madame Blake?”

She nodded. “That’s me. Here are the bags.”

As he loaded them in the trunk she patted me on the shoulder. “Rita, I hope you get everything worked out. It was great talking to you.”

“Missy— Missy—”

She stepped into the car, slammed the door, waved, and in a maximum of five seconds was around the corner and gone.

MARKET DAY

I had rarely regretted parting from another person as I regretted parting from Missy. She obviously knew everything there was to know about Alexander’s “business,” which I surmised had to do with the manufacture, or sale, or both, of counterfeit Rolex watches. Churning with frustration, I stood by the drooping roses and stared after her. Why hadn’t I grabbed her sleeve and prevented her from getting in the car until she’d told me everything? I cursed my Southern manners and vowed to practice being rude.

I had an example before me in the person of the hotel proprietor, who reluctantly told me the market lasted until twelve-thirty, the bus for Carpentras left at one in the afternoon, and breakfast was served through an arched doorway off the lobby. The dining room had rickety white wicker furniture, wallpaper with orange flowers, and tall windows overlooking a backyard herb garden. I joined a scattering of my fellow guests— traveling salesman types, a tanned couple speaking some Scandinavian language— and had café-au-lait and croissants served by a teenage girl who was, unlike her employer, cheerful and eager to please.

Spoons tinkled, and the muted Scandinavian conversation rolled on. I’d be leaving at one o’clock. I’d better call Kitty and let her know. Far from being pleased, I felt crummy and sad. Nothing had worked out right, I thought morosely. No book, no real love affair, no happy ending. If I got the cops interested in Alexander, justice might be served, but even that idea left me feeling down.

Oh, hell. At least I’d be seeing Twinkie soon. I slurped down my final swallow and wandered out to the lobby to call Kitty, only to be reminded by the yellowing “Hors de service” sign that the pay phone was out of order.

To place the call through the hotel switchboard would be more expensive and would involve interaction with the proprietor. Instead, I’d go to my usual communications center, the pay phone outside the post office.

Within half a block I’d been caught up in the market-going throng. Market day was obviously a big occasion for the citizens of Beaulieu-la-Fontaine, and they were out in force with their baskets, babies, dogs, and wares. Tables were spread with crockery, jewelry, tennis shoes. Rack after rack of dresses hung in the shade of the awnings, and lace curtains lay in unsorted heaps. In the food line there was bread, cheese, olive oil, piles of gleaming fruits and vegetables— eggplants, red peppers, melons, and cherries. Glass cases displayed hams, sausages, and iced fish. Six or eight kinds of olives, from plump green to shriveled black, shone in a line of bins. A van was set up to sell brooms, balls of string, corkscrews, electrical wire, fly swatters, and who knows what else. Although theoretically the street wasn’t closed, cars inched along and the shoppers spilled into it with no danger of being run over.