The 13th Fellow: A Mystery in Provence (20 page)

Sophie moved off her chair and began going through cabinets to assemble her drink-making wares. Neely stared Havilah down and then pointed the gun first at her head, then her chest. His handsome face turned stern, followed by loops of cackles, ending in a pleasant smile. He even lowered the gun. He seemed to revert to his happy go-lucky self. She understood that she would have to contain her impromptu editorializing no matter how deplorable she found Ansell and Sophie.

But Ansell Neely wanted to talk; he needed his motives clearly understood and his actions justified. He had not set out to be a murderer. It was like a switch had flipped once he realized his actions had caused the murder. There was no turning back for him. It seemed he needed Havilah to understand that he was not mad but purposeful. Kit’s death was accidental, theirs would be intentional because her and Améline’s incessant meddling necessitated a coverup. Their prying and poking around would have helped the police connect the dots to him and Sophie.
The coverup is often worse than the crime, isn’t that how the cliché goes?
She thought shaking her head as she continued to listen to Neely drone on.

He laid out his plan without the slightest irony. “Don’t be dull,” he said after a beat. Sophie handed him a shaken martini. After taking a sip, he continued, “Lowery Knowlton and my family are in the process of closing out access to certain documents. It will be finalized by the end of the summer. It’s done all the time. This,” he pointed to Havilah and Améline, “would never have to happen again.”

Havilah thought of how the helpful Mr. Allen would feel having to inform researchers that they could no longer access various documents in the Knowlton collection.

“What is the Friedrich angle? I see the Knowlton one and even Sophie’s,” she queried.

“Think about that photo you received from Laurent last evening in the lobby, Havilah. I spoke with Laurent before he headed over to Les Roches Blanches. I was coming down the Académie steps when he had stopped by his office to pick up the parcel. He said he was delivering Kit’s mail to you. All I had to do was access our foundation’s permission requests online to see what Kit had ordered this time. I paid you a visit later that night. Now go over those photographs in your head. Can you see young Georges-Guillaume’s face?”

Havilah did as he instructed. The boy was tall and brown with light eyes. She did the math. Ansell read the doubt in her face.

“Your father is Friedrich’s son?” she asked Sophie in bewilderment as the Parisian handed Ansell his martini. He gave Havilah the thumbs up and clicked his tongue for her right answer.

“My father was so obsessed with his homeland that he shunned us.” Fassin’s voice quivered.

“You! He shunned you! That’s what you really want to say,” Améline added acidly.

Améline evidently could not stop herself from verbally flogging Sophie. No matter the slaps. The French woman had in point of fact slapped her cheeks a Bloody Mary red and called her “salaupe” more times than Havilah cared to count.

“My great-greatuncle doted on the boy; sent him to France to be educated and all that. Knowlton met him as a child in Africa, when he was working on the documentary bio-pic,
A Man on A Mission
. Havilah, you see, the stakes were too high. My uncle is a Nobel Peace Prize winner. He had left his wife back in Europe for years. He was a minister, for heaven’s sake. Everyone assumed he had been chaste; that he would have never, given some of his more paternalistic ideas about Africa and Africans, taken one as a
petite épouse
. An illegitimate mixed-race child would trouble too many waters and muddy up the family name, the Friedrich Foundation and all of its philanthrophies, not too mention that hospital he set up in Gabon. Money and reputations lost like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“I consulted with the family. We had a big sit down. They simply refused to believe the old boy had gone native, that he liked to dabble in the paints. And far worse that he had pimped out his own son to Knowlton, who from the look of those photographs belonged to the Men Loving Boys Association or something on that sordid order. Sorry, dear, I know we are speaking of your father and all. If only Kit had listened,” he harrumphed. “The man had a wooden head and a tin ear.”

Havilah glared hotly at her captors. “So Améline is here because Kit gave her copies of his work the night you killed him.”

“Exactly. We didn’t want any posthumous publications. And we couldn’t be sure what Kit had told her. And it was clear from that night at the dinner that she wanted to talk to you about Kit. A little too pushy for my taste. But here’s the good part, Havilah,” Neely was enraptured with his plan. “Since you two don’t like one another, and particularly since you were not going to give her that job at Astor, you two had a nasty fight and a tumble into the Port Miou
calanque
after you went there to meet her when she didn’t show up for drinks this evening. Améline is a spiteful, ambitious shrew. So you see she killed Kit as well for reneging.” Neely clapped his hands and took a bow at his genius.

“No one will believe that about me,” Améline yelled. She was now gnawing at the rope.

“Dear Améline, you so underestimate what people think you are capable of. You did call Havilah this evening after you didn’t show up at Bar de la Marine to confirm a new place and time to meet.” He was delighting in the ingenuity of the set-up.

Havilah thought Ansell Neely had a good point. Améline did have a questionable reputation. The call from Améline’s cell phone to hers would be easy enough to track. Moreover Neely didn’t have to come up with the motive. The police would do that. Motives didn’t have to make perfect sense; crimes of passion are rarely logical and generally imperfect. All Neely had to do was point the police in the right direction, which he had done. And all Havilah could do was hold out hope for an opening, a miracle, or Thierry Gasquet and the rest of the French cavalry.

“Let’s move on, dear, to Port Miou. It will be dark very soon,” Ansell instructed his nautically adept errant lover, as he sipped from the chilled glass.

Havilah peeked at her watch again.
9:00
.

XXV

Sophie moored the boat by the steps that descended into the Port Miou inlet. Port Miou was the first of the rocky, water-filled inlets known as
calanques
. It was always busy, filled as it was year-round with up to 500 small boats, yachts, and revelers. It was also the longest of the sheltered inlets.

When they arrived, music from different directions was playing loudly, and there was already a lively group on one boat while another party was jumping into the water off the rocks.
A nice distraction
. Havilah understood the plan quite well. It would be difficult to differentiate between shrieks of pain and squeals of delight with such festivities in full swing.

“Don’t look so forlorn, Havilah.” Neely suggested as consolation, “How about a bit of Cassis trivia?” he jovially suggested. “What head of state painted at the Félibrige and stayed at our favorite hotel in Cassis?”

Neither Améline or Havilah answered in clear defiance. But then Havilah thought the better of it. She might as well entertain Neely as a way of stalling.

“Winston Churchill.”

“Correct answer, Havilah.”

“Can Améline and I have a lifeline?” she asked, to humor him.

“You are such a good sport.” Neely laughed a bit too loudly as he quickly downed the last of the martini.

Sophie looked on in boredom. Havilah imagined she was awaiting the opportunity to unleash her mean streak. They all sat in silence for what seemed an interminably long time.

He’s waiting for complete nightfall
, she thought.
For more cover
.

Neely ordered them out of the boat. Havilah recalled sitting up last evening watching the clock and nightfall, anticipating 9:40 p.m. It was close to that time now. There was still enough light for Neely to watch her and Améline drown after their
accidental
tumble into the water. The four of them ascended the stone stairs and snaked along Port Miou’s craggy cliffs.

Améline stumbled over one of the rocky areas of the ramparts. Her designer heels were not intended for hiking. She cursed at both her captors, who looked at her mockingly. Havilah was plotting.

“I wonder how believable your lame ass motive will be with my hands bound, jackass,” Améline shouted. She squealed as she twisted an ankle and fell on her bottom.

The heels were difficult enough to manage, but having her wrists bound further compromised her ability to balance. Havilah helped to pull her up.

* * *

Ignoring the difficult Améline, Neely surmised, would be his best course of action. He wasn’t ready yet to kick her in the backside and into the inlet— though his foot had been itching. He was tired of her mouth. He couldn’t wait to see the back of her. He laughed aloud shamefully, as that would be exactly what he saw when she went flying off the cliff into the water. Sophie stopped and looked at him contemptuously. He did give a passing thought to undoing her bound wrists, as she was holding up the procession with her dawdling. He found this slow dragging more of a nuisance than her mouth; he again took heart in the fact that he would soon be unburdening himself of it. He untied Améline’s wrists and pushed her forward with Havilah.

* * *

Ansell began waving the gun and complaining about Améline’s sense of fashion appropriateness as if she knew she would be scaling a cliff this evening.

While he blathered on, Havilah saw her chance. She pushed Améline first off the cliff into the dark water. They had not yet reached the highest point on the cliff where massive rocks jutted out from the shoreline and water, so Améline’s fall would not be mortal. All she needed to do was tread water to one of the anchored boats. Havilah attempted to jump in after her but Sophie latched onto her arm. She reached around and whisked Sophie in with her. Améline went down screaming. Several revelers followed suit, yelping and laughing, obviously intoxicated. Ansell Neely began yelling, trying to get Havilah and Améline back up the stairs. He looked as if he was tempted to fire into the water, but in this dimming light he might have hit Sophie who was zealously clinging to Havilah.
Thank goodness for small favors,
Havilah thought when she glanced over at the caterwauling Sophie.

“Swim, Améline!” Havilah yelled over Sophie’s theatrics. “Get to the nearest boat.”

Havilah hoped the woman could swim. She hadn’t had time to ask. The nearest boat was no more than twenty feet away. It was a large sailboat. The occupants were French and looked and sounded young. They had lit the boat’s deck with candles. It would have been romantic except that they were boisterously passing around bottles of liquor and blasting American hip hop.

“It’s fucking cold,” Améline answered, slapping ineffectually at the water.

The water was cold. Havilah didn’t understand how divers just jumped in from the sides as soon as the weather warmed. Even at the hottest point in the summer, the Mediterranean was fresh to the point of very cool. Améline glided over to the boat and climbed the attached ladder, her high heels occasionally slipping off the rungs. Someone greeted her enthusiastically once she reached the top.

Sophie was now clawing and pulling at Havilah, both of them treading water. Havilah was hoping to tire her out, but her clothes and sneakers were already heavy from the water. She was tiring herself. Havilah took one good swing at Sophie’s determined face. Then she remembered that slap, and she head-butted her to the nose. Sophie promptly let go, blood gushing from her nostrils. She could hear Améline, who was now on the party sailboat, whooping.

“Hit that bitch again, Havilah!”

“Call the damn police!” Havilah yelled back.
Did Améline have a drink in her hand
?

“
Au secours
,” Havilah screamed out. But Sophie, sufficiently recovered from the blow to her face and the shock of her bloodied nose, was screaming over her. Her screams were indecipherable from Havilah’s urgent pleas, which were all drowned out by Ludacris’s
My Chick Bad
. The boaters were laughing and pointing at the women as if they thought they were playing some weird game of black woman drowning. These people were clearly high out of their minds. Finally, Améline tossed out a ring buoy while someone held her drink. She was so petite and weighed down by her wet clothes that she nearly fell in with the buoy, which only had the effect of inciting gleeful cheers. Havilah, who had dislodged herself from Sophie’s death grip, dog-paddled ever so slowly to the buoy, until at last she made it to the party boat.

* * *

Ansell Neely glided swiftly down the stone steps and jumped back on the
Errant Lover
. He called to Sophie, who seemed more determined to stop Havilah than to save herself from capture. A dozen or so police with flashlights were starting to emerge from various points at Port Miou. Some were atop the steps that Havilah and Améline had been forced to climb, while others stood on the limestone bridge that connected one side of the inlet to the other. A helicopter was flying over the inlet, flooding the calanque with bright lights.

“Sophie!” he called again, to no avail. His voice was hoarse from repeatedly calling for her.

He turned over the engine and headed out of the inlet towards the sea. An inflatable high horse-powered speed boat followed him out towards Port Pin, the second of the eight watery inlets, while the helicopter hovered above giving the officers on the boat light to keep Neely in their sights.

* * *

An officer jumped into Port Miou and rescued Sophie Fassin from drowning. She was waterlogged and fatigued from fighting and treading water. Havilah and Améline were shivering from the cold water as the warm breeze passed through their wet garments. Someone made them both
pastis
to generate some heat, and gave them blankets. Havilah usually hated the licorice-smelling drink, but it did warm her insides on the way down her throat. While they waited for the police to retrieve them from the boat, she watched the irrepressible Améline drink and dance with the sailboat revelers. She was celebrating her death-defying escape, while Havilah wondered where Thierry Gasquet was.