A Twist of Orchids (28 page)

“I don’t call it progress to have a commercial development bang in my sightline.”

“Whoa, Mara, this isn’t some strip mall we’re talking about. This is a world-class course. Golfers aren’t hoodlums. They’re good people, they dress great, the kind of folks you’d be proud to have over for dinner. But if it’s your privacy you’re worried about, tell you what. I can have a word. Maybe suggest they leave a little tree screen between you and the action.”

She nearly screamed at him. “That’s supposed to make me happy? You’re clear-cutting the entire forest, and a little tree screen is supposed to make it all right?”

“No way.” He was offended. “The trees stay. Only they’ll be thinned a bit to make way for the condos. After all, it’s the wooded setting that makes them attractive.”

“Thinned? How reassuring. And there’s another thing. Golf courses are environmentally unfriendly.”

“Who says?”

“Julian.”

“Well, there I gotta tell you, Julian is way behind the times. The Big E is very much on the radar screen for golf courses nowadays, and this one will use environmentally friendly everything: drought-and pest-resistant grass, recycled glass instead of
sand bunkers, minimal chemicals, and minimal use of water. Besides, we got our own water source. That reassure you?”

“Not at all. Anyway, it’s not just the golf course. It’s the condos. Where are you going to put them?”

“We-ell”—again he writhed a little—“that’s down the road a ways. Phase II, if I remember rightly.”

“But they’ll be going on sale in the New Year. You can get a two-bedroom condo for an early-bird price of 350,000 euros, plus time-share privileges.” She played her trump card. “It’s the Gaillards’ land, isn’t it?”

He blinked. “Not following you.”

“Donny, don’t play dumb. I think you—Montfort-Izawa—are angling to get it. Do they have some kind of agreement to buy Joseph’s land?”

He shook his head. “Look, Mara, I’m just their golf consultant. I’m not privy, so to speak, to their business plan.” He looked absolutely sincere and segued into another subject. “Speaking of which, how is old Joseph? Daisy and I were talking about him just the other night. Doing okay?”

“Very,” she said stiffly, recalling uncomfortably the old man’s self-congratulatory cackle at Julian’s debacle. “He’s found a very nice live-in caregiver. She starts on Saturday.”

“Well, that’s just great. Daisy, as you know, worries about him a lot. Overly, I think, but that’s just Daze. Underneath the spit and polish, she’s a real marshmallow. Say”—he rose—“you sure I can’t get you something? How about a nice glass of muscat?”

This time she accepted. She still had one more thing on her agenda. He bustled off into the kitchen.

“I want to talk to you about Christine Gaillard,” she said when he returned with a chilled bottle and two large goblets.

“Who?”

“You know very well who. Joseph’s daughter.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sure.” He poured and sat down again. “What about her?”

“Does Montfort-Izawa have some kind of understanding with her?”

“What do you mean?” He set the bottle directly on the glass table. No ceramic cooler this time.

“I want to know if Montfort-Izawa has entered into an agreement with Christine to buy her father’s land.”

“With Christine?” He looked taken aback. Then he shrugged and showed her a pair of upheld palms. “Can’t help you there. If I knew, I’d tell you. But I honestly don’t know. And that’s really all I got to say on the matter.” He took a gulp of wine and slid off in another direction. “By the way, did you hear that rhyming burglar hit another house?” He grinned. “You gotta credit the guy. He’s got a real sense of humor. I mean, it’s pretty damned funny when you think about it.”

Mara glared at him. “Prudence Chang doesn’t think so. You know Prudence, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t know Prudence?”

“Her house was one of the ones hit.”

He paused, mid-sip. “Shit. I didn’t know. That’s too bad.” His expression was properly regretful. “I didn’t mean to imply I condone housebreaking, don’t get me wrong. Besides, one thing leads to another. People get too confident, they tend to up the action. So far, this guy has B and E’d empty houses. There’s been no violence. But what’s to stop him from getting careless, going in where someone’s at home? No telling what might happen then.” He drained his goblet and put it down with a little chatter of glass on glass.

“What I say is everybody needs good security.” He looked around him. “I’m thinking of wiring this place. And you ought to think about it, too. Back home we got Armed Response. Anyone so much as touches a window, the whole shebang goes up in
noise and lights, the heavy artillery comes roaring in. We take that kind of thing seriously, let me tell you. If you’re interested, I can probably get you a 30 percent discount on a damned good alarm system. Say, you want a top-up?”

It was a pointless question since she had hardly touched her wine. He was not thinking of refills or house alarms, however. Mara saw his eyes stray to her bare legs. A speculative look came over his face. It was furtive, like the shadow of something whisking around a corner.

“You know,” he said, moving slightly closer to her on the sofa. “I’m really glad we had this little talk. Gives us a chance to iron out our little differences, get to know each other better.”

She set her glass down and rose abruptly.

“No thanks, Donny. I’m on my way.”

As the French put it,
When the cat’s away, the mice will dance.

•

One down, one to go
, she thought as she drove out of Grives in the direction of Les Faux. Donny had not told her much that she did not already know or suspect. Now she was off to try her luck with Christine. Take the matter back to its source.

As she made her way cross-country, her mind shifted to Julian, and she composed another mental email:

She remembered the way they had parted—she laughing hysterically, he leaving Joseph’s house, indignant and with a sore
head. Had he gone back to Grissac simply to nurse his bruises? To be alone so he could continue beating himself up for things he could not help? To escape Madame Audebert? It really was a shame he couldn’t get on with the woman.

   >
No way, kid!
Patsy’s image rose up before her, knuckles on hips, hair fairly crackling from her head.
You can’t slide past on that one. Be honest. For months now you’ve been using old Audebert’s complaints to cover your own gripes with Julian’s mess. Heck, instead of standing up to the
femme de ménage
from hell, which you should have done, you ducked. Shame on you.
<

Mara threw a hand up.

To this, Patsy made no reply.

“Face it.” Mara turned to her dog since Patsy was no longer answering. “Julian’s passion is orchids. He lives to find his
Cypripedium.
His feelings for me are of another order. That’s how it is. I should have learned by now not to try to rush an orchid hunter or compete with a flower.” Jazz, dozing on the passenger seat, opened a bleary eye.

“It’s like we’re at a crossroad,” she went on, and saw that she had come to one literally. She braked to let a tractor bounce past.
Jazz roused himself enough to let out a sleepy
woof.

“I can’t see my way forward, and I don’t want to go sideways. So what does that leave?” The disheartening thought assailed her: could this Time Out be Julian’s way of going back, a withdrawal into an old routine that had worked for them once, Friday-night dinners at Chez Nous, weekends together but weekdays apart, each living his or her own separate life?

“Well, maybe that’s what it’s come to,” she addressed the back of Jazz’s broad head sadly. “Just you and me again, boy.”

•

Christine was working in the courtyard when Mara arrived. Alice, Mara assumed, was off with the sheep. There was no invitation to go inside this time. They stood in the angle formed by the house and the barn, and Mara got straight to the point.

“I’ve just come to tell you that I know what you’re up to, Christine. I won’t go to the police, but only on condition that you agree to two things. First, there must be no more attempts on your father’s life or his sanity. Leave him alone. If I ever see you near the house, I’ll report you. Second, end all negotiations with Montfort-Izawa. You father wants to live out his days where he is, and the land isn’t yours to sell. Not yet anyway, and not for a long time if I have anything to do with it.”

Christine, who had been thinning out a mass of lilies of the valley, stood up. She drove the pitchfork she had been using into the ground and stared at Mara. “What Montfort-Izawa? What land are you talking about? And why would I want to harm my father?” She sounded angry but also genuinely puzzled.

“Oh, come on,” Mara burst out. “I know Montfort-Izawa is the consortium that’s developing the golf course adjoining my and your father’s properties. I know they need land, and you need money. I expect you and Alice are hip deep in debt. Your father is sitting on 45 hectares that become yours when he dies. How
much has Montfort-Izawa offered you for it if you can complete a sale to them in a timely manner?”

Again there was silence, but only long enough for Christine to gather breath and expel it in a hearty laugh.

“
Vous êtes folle, non?
You don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no claim on my parents’ property. I already told you,
they
broke with
me
, not the other way around. If you want it spelled out, they not only rejected what I am, they cut the final tie. They disinherited me.”

It was Mara’s turn to laugh. “Don’t bullshit me, Christine. I’m familiar enough with French law to know they couldn’t have. People can’t disinherit their children of property.”

“They can if they sell out. My parents sold their land years ago. In 1985. It’s no different from disinheriting me. I have nothing to gain from my father’s death, except maybe a few sticks of furniture he might choose to leave me, certainly not enough to pay our debts here. If you don’t believe me, ask his
notaire
, Maïtre Joffre. He handles all of my father’s business.”

•

Mara could not get an appointment to see Maïtre Joffre until the end of the week. He received her at his ancient mahogany desk in a gloomy, high-ceilinged office. He looked as dry and dusty as the files and other paraphernalia around him. However, his computer equipment was disjunctively in the twenty-first century: an ergonomic keyboard and a slim, wide-screen monitor more up-to-date than Mara’s own. She wondered if it had been forced on him by his pleasant, efficient daughter who acted as the cabinet’s secretary-cum-receptionist. The new technology could not have been his idea; he was obviously uncomfortable with it and typed with only two fingers.

“I found Christine Gaillard,” she told him.

Maïtre Joffre raised eyebrows that reminded Mara of pale,
shaggy caterpillars. The look in his eyes, however, told her that he had known all along where Christine was.

“And she told me her parents’ land was sold in 1985. She said I could check with you if I wanted confirmation.”

At first he was absolutely unwilling to discuss another client’s affairs. Probably the only reason he did not ask her to leave directly was that she was also his client.

“Just tell me if it’s true,” Mara pressed. She did not explain her reasons for asking. “Yes or no.”

In the end, he gave her a surprising piece of information. The Gaillards’ house and property had not been sold outright but
en viager
, that is, a sale in which the balance of the price, after a down payment, was computed as a monthly installment to be paid out during the seller’s lifetime. Maïtre Joffre, moving quickly from the particular to the general, became more communicative.
Viagers
, he explained, typically involved elderly property owners, often a couple in need of cash, who sold their property but retained the right of continued occupancy and usufruct. Theirs were the lives named in the contract, and the installments were receivable on a joint life and survivor basis. In such cases, the sale was deemed to be complete only upon the death of both spouses. A critical aspect of a sale
en viager
, Maïtre Joffre said with a wintry smile, was that it necessarily involved an element of risk. In short, it was a bit of a crap-shoot. Purchasers gambled that the sellers would die sooner rather than later, thus ending the installments. Sellers gambled that they would live a long time to enjoy the income from
la rente viagère
at the expense of the buyer and in the comfort of their own home. The only way a buyer could get out of his obligations or terminate the
viager
was to sell it to someone else or to include a clause, called a
rachat de la rente
, in the original sales contract. This allowed the buyer to pay a certain capital sum and force the seller out. Without such a clause, the buyer had to wait until the seller’s death.

But who had bought the Gaillards’ property
en viager
, the
notaire
would not disclose.

“I think, Madame Dunn, I have said more than enough,” he murmured with a fine pursing of the lips. He fidgeted, signaling that he wanted her to go.

Mara did some quick thinking. If not Christine, there was one other person who had an interest in the Gaillards’ land; who had admitted an involvement with Montfort-Izawa; who, if he were the purchaser, would now have an interest in Joseph’s quick demise; and who, she remembered, believed that Joseph had a weak heart.