The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence (16 page)

Wise and Jason nodded in approval. The air was filling up with tension. Havilah wanted to take Wise’s walking stick and cane the three of them.

“Charlie? What has he to do with this Centennial? He’s a guest. Nonetheless, I will inquire as to whether he approves in short order. A circus?” she countered innocently.

She began texting Charles Chastain on her cell phone. Betts too began furiously texting. Everyone in the room began texting feverishly, and Havilah hated texting. All at once the tapping seemed deafening.

Lowery Jason, at the end of the table, was sputtering, moving to an apoplectic fit. “I think we should leave well enough alone. This Kit business is a nuisance.”

“A nuisance? A circus? Did you feel that way when you reviewed his nomination for the fellowship? Kit was my colleague at Astor. To hear you speak of him as if you were glad that he’s dead is offputting. I know we are all feeling some kind of way about this turn of events, but we must be more sensitive.” Havilah tried to speak in soothing tones to the brooding Lowery Jason. He had already lost a purse strings battle this morning, so he was clearly smarting and gearing up for a win on this point.

She didn’t know how much more of this churlish cabal she could take. She began pulling nervously at a curl though she knew she probably looked ridiculously childlike. It was all she could think to do with her hands, which were now itching to slap Lowery Jason for that last callous remark.

There was low-level grumbling in the room as everyone placed their cell phones back in their pockets, purses, and on the table. The board members began shifting in their seats.

“You liberals and your political correctness. Why can’t Lowery and I say what we feel about this inappropriate blather you are proposing and this other board newbie…” he pointed a plump finger at Jean-Luc Cabassol, “…just cosigned?” Donovan Betts scoffed and looked around the table at his backup chorus.

The odd Celestine Valens’ face was in its usual impassive mode.

“You
cou rouge
Republicans are so anti-intellectual.” Waving her hands casually, Sophie Fassin had suddenly sprung to life.

Havilah whipped around to face the elegant woman. Had Sophie just called him a redneck? She nearly guffawed. And she had noticed that not a one of them tied their opposition to her presenting Kit’s work to the substance of the remarks— which she found all the more odd. Instead “appropriateness” at a celebratory event for the founder was being bandied about. On one level, Havilah could see their rationale. It wasn’t about Kit. But she knew that his death was connected to this work. And after that note today, she felt one of these assholes knew more than he or she was letting on.
They all knew something
. She was sure of it as she scanned the room with narrowed eyes. What was evidently clear as well was that these board meetings were knockdown dragouts. She wasn’t looking forward to three years of this acrimony. She had enough high drama at Astor.

“As I said, I would like to deliver Kit’s remarks on Thursday.”

“This Centennial is not a time for such moroseness!” Ellis Wise tapped the table with his cane several times as if it were a gavel. Havilah would have liked to yank it out of his hands and wallop him on the knees.

Celestine Valens finally spoke up. “We discussed the program in April when we met here for the fellows’ presentations. This was before you and Jean-Luc joined the board, Havilah. I agree with Havilah, though. We can’t ignore his death. I am certain Havilah will use discretion in terms of the content of the address so that the convivial spirit will not be compromised. It is a time of celebration and simultaneously represents a moment in which we should honor one of our fellows. I move we allow Havilah to give Kit’s address on Thursday and Laurent will open the program on Wednesday.”

Havilah could scarcely contain her shock.
They had met in April?
There was nothing about that in the notes Laurent had provided her. Who, she wondered, had been here? That meant they had heard of Kit’s book project.
Shit!
Havilah was again bewildered by the opaque Valens. She was also curious about Donovan Betts’ outburst about Charles Chastain. She needed to know what Astor’s president knew and didn’t know.

Betts pointed accusingly at Fassin. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be dealing with this at all.” He hissed and threw himself deep into his chair.

Havilah couldn’t figure out what he was implying. So she waded into the fray.

“What did Sophie do that was so terrible?”

“She nominated him.” Lowery Jason whined.

“He was an excellent poet who has now been done a grave injustice by this murder and now by this board.
Vous êtes tous des assassins.
” Fassin was standing now, impassioned in her defense of herself and Kit. Her jewelry clinked as she moved her lithe fingers from Wise, Betts, and Jason.

Havilah angled her head sideways when Fassin called the motley crew “assassins.” She was wondering if Fassin meant it literally, and more to the point, how would the Frenchwoman have known?

“I think the board should put Celestine’s motions to a vote,” Laurent interrupted, evidently hoping to calm the already flared tempers.

“I second the motion,” Jean-Luc Cabassol jumped in.

The motion passed narrowly: 4-3. Havilah Gaie didn’t feel like that was such a good omen. She now knew at least that whoever was at that April meeting had heard something about Kit’s project. She knew as well who had nominated Kit and that nearly half the board dearly hated Fassin for it.

XIX

The meeting was adjourned 30 minutes ahead of time. Donovan Betts stormed out of the room, shaking the fragile paintings on the library’s wall. Havilah thought she should stop calling Celestine Valens odd. Celestine said goodbye warmly, just as Sophie Fassin approached her.

“I met your colleague in New York at an event at the New York Public Library. He presented a fabulous talk. His delivery was moving. He received a standing ovation.
J’ai fait mon choix. J’ai pas de regrets.
”

Sophie Fassin smiled up at Havilah as she extended a hand. Havilah snickered inwardly thinking it was quite dramatic for the Parisian to conclude by citing a French chanson by the leftist artist and hero of the 1968 French student movement, Serge Reggiani. Fassin was Gallic through and through.

Havilah took her small, café au lait hand. “Thank you. For Kit.”

She watched the delicate Fassin sashay off, slightly perfuming the room with Issey Miyake’s Summer. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ellis Wise and Lowery Jason tucked over in a corner, glowering in her direction. She wondered if one of them had sent her the note. She walked over to the huddled duo. She was also curious as to where the other musketeer had gone.

“That was quite a to-do, gentlemen,” she said sweetly.

“Yes, it was,” Wise followed up. She could see he wanted to add “thanks to you.” But he was supposed to be a gentleman after all.

“Lowery, I was hoping to ask you a question since I’m now presenting Kit’s remarks. I need some clarification.”

The treasurer started noticeably when she reminded him about those remarks.

“What may I help you with? I gather this niggling detail is about my late uncle.”

“It is. Did he have any children?” Havilah waited to see if Lowery Jason would attempt to strangle her.

Jason turned ashen. Wise’s mouth fell open and stayed that way for a good minute of silence.

“Another one of Kit’s theories, I’m afraid,” Wise finally chimed in, tapping his cane against the library’s wood floors; the cane made a repeated light and annoying rapping sound.

“No, he did not. My uncle made sure to avoid all predicaments that would have produced offspring.”

Voilà
! she thought. Jason knew his uncle was gay. “Thank you. I will need to amend Kit’s notes then.”

* * *

When she had slinked off quietly from the seething Jason and Wise, Laurent whispered into her ear: “Welcome to the other side of academe.”

She was still watching with great curiosity as Ellis Wise pulled out his cell phone to begin texting. It was fascinating to study his balancing act with the cane and phone. He appeared more nimble than he let on.

“Perhaps it’s the corporate involvement. They really don’t get us. Are the meetings always so explosive?”

“We only meet three times a year. Once a year they can get pretty heated. They really are a good bunch though.”

That’s highly debatable,
she thought. “Yes,” she tried to sound amenable to the idea that this board wasn’t filled with a clique of murderous bastards, “The tone reminds me of faculty meetings in the Warren Institute. Kit used to always say that we were a family no matter how downright brutal the meetings would become. By the way, I didn’t know there was an April board meeting.”

“That is our farewell meeting for members rotating off. But listen,” he said, “Don’t worry about any of this. They’ll be having cocktails tonight at Les Roches Blanches at 6 p.m. It’s a tradition. You’ll have to join in.”

“Was Kit the thirteenth fellow?”

“Yes. Sophie was absolutely correct. No matter how they may feel now. He was too prestigious a nominee to ignore or deny a fellowship. It was a laurel for the Félibrige Foundation. And they were all eagerly on board then.” He shifted from one hip to the other.

“Really?”
Eagerly?
“I see. Is Thursday’s exhibit already up?”

“It’s closed to the public until Thursday. But I can make a call. Would you like to see it?”

“In about 30 minutes, if possible.” Havilah smiled and touched Laurent’s hand to let him know she appreciated his making that call.

Her cell phone began to ring. She excused herself just as Jean-Luc Cabassol approached Laurent. Stepping into the hallway, she waved to Cabassol. She had to take this call.

“I hear you’ve rankled a few brows, Havilah.” Charles Chastain jumped right in.

“Did you receive my text?” she responded coolly.

She didn’t like Charles Chastain having eyes and ears in the Félibrige board meetings. She found it highly inappropriate and slightly suspicious.

“Yours and a few others. Its not even 3 A.M. here and my cell phone was making quite a racket.”

“Charles, what did you know about Kit’s work? Surely Donovan Betts told you something, since he seems to heartily disapprove of it.”

Charles dawdled with about three “Wells” before he answered. “Donovan Betts? The Texan? Well, I gather he knew no more about it than anyone else did,” he concluded plainly. “I’d heard some things. But since Kit’s dead, I hadn’t given it much more thought. In fact, I thought that book was closed. At least that’s what you led me to believe in your earlier email. And yet, here you are raising the specter of Kit with this address on Thursday I’m told. I hope it won’t be damaging to the university.”

“Kit was murdered. He didn’t just die. If you wanted to know what he was writing why didn’t you ask him?”

“I did. But he gave me some claptrap about writing poetry.”

“Charles, he
was
writing poetry. Prose poetry.”

“Now don’t you start with that either, Havilah. It was the subject of the poetry. I had had too many… I’m the president of Astor. I needed to know, so…” He drifted off.

“So what? Charles?” she hissed into the cell phone.

It was early there but she couldn’t imagine that the president had conked out in fatigue. If so, she was determined to will him awake.

“I can only guess who warned you?” Her voice continued at full tilt even as she tried to cover her mouth.

He plodded to the answer again. “Even the chairman of Astor’s board had heard Kit had been talking to agents. He said he heard Kit could get a six-figure advance on the book. What kind of poetry commands that price?”

“The book would have been that kind of poetry.”

“Ellis Wise is also on Astor’s board. He told me to do something about it or there would be hell to pay.”

“Ellis Wise!”

She nearly jumped out of her skin. She had not expected the rail thin, cane-sporting Ellis Wise to assume the role of Don Corleone. She hadn’t known he was on Astor’s board. But then again she had never paid attention to who was.

“Havilah, Wise helps raise a lot of money for the university. And no one, as you can well imagine, wants to be accused of trying to curb academic freedom. But I needed to know so that I could…” He didn’t complete his last words.

“So you could do what? This is the second time you’ve mentioned doing something about Kit.” She was tapping her foot like a school marm chastising a wayward student.

“What difference does it make now? Kit’s dead. Stop stirring the pot.”

Her guess was he figured he didn’t have to answer to her. His attitude was clearly,
I’m the president, dammit.

All she heard was “Stop.” Kit was
their
colleague. Wasn’t he the one who said Kit was valued and respected at one of those faculty assemblies when Kit received some laurel or another?
Treacherous.
And then she remembered that he had voted for George W. Bush. Twice.

“I’ll take your counsel under consideration.” She shut down the call on Astor University’s president. Because that’s what tenure allowed one to do.

* * *

Charles Chastain sat up bolt right. He arranged his nightshirt and the morning hard-on in his pajama bottoms. He then reached for his spectacles. He got up from his bed and slow walked towards his study on the other side of Chambéry where he could also make a cup of tea.

He growled loudly, “Fucking tenure.”

XX

Versailles, France, Tuesday, June 22
^nd

The aspiring prime minister paced the terrace that led to the gardens of the palace of Versailles. He looked out over the expansive gardens. He had only paid a visit to the palace once in his life as a teenager on a field trip to the great heritage sites in France. The gardens though were free and he took full advantage of this amenity when he needed to reflect. He had always admired the statue of the bewigged Sun King, Louis XIV, as it sat triumphantly in front of the gates to the palace. He had always looked up to Great Men as models of matchless ambition, creativity, and vision. He studied assiduously the roads they trod to greatness. What they did changed the course of history. Louis de Bourbon and his right hands Cardinal Mazarin and Jean-Louis Colbert transformed France, particularly the city of Paris, into a haven for civilized society, a refuge for the arts, a gastronomic mecca for gourmands. That is what Georges-Guillaume Damas wanted to do for Gabon in Africa. What and who stood in his way were his past and a petty, spoiled woman whose father happened to be his mentor and the president of Gabon.