Blackbird Fly (36 page)

“
I certainly hope so,” Merle said.
“Is Tristan back?”

They trooped downstairs into the garden. The gate was
ajar. Merle stepped out into the alley, but Pascal took her arm.
“Wait. I will get them.”

Annie crossed her arms. “Pascal is very protective.
Does he work for the government?”

Merle frowned. “I just found out.”

Annie put her arms around her. “Oh, honey. It’s
obvious he’s crazy about you.”

“
That’s why he used my — my loyalty,
my trust, and my upstairs windows,” she said, pressing her face
into her sister’s shoulder.

“
Maybe that was just the way it had
to be. He had to find a place to look at the vineyards, and you
were the lucky prize in the box of Cracker Jack.”

“
Like the Junior Birdman
ring?”

“
That’s why those punks are making
bird imitations. Everyone can spot a Junior Birdman.”

Merle began to laugh, holding onto her sister,
hiccupping and laughing. They didn’t notice Tristan and Valerie
were back.

“
Mom? You okay?”

They broke apart, wiping their eyes. “Um, yeah.
Fine.” Pascal and Albert came through the gate.

“
Where’s the key?” Pascal asked.
Tristan handed it over and he locked the gate.

“
I’ll take it back.” Merle put it
back on the chain around her neck. “Did you get your shutters
latched, Albert?”

“
They called, my sister’s daughter,
very worried about Valerie, and what can I tell them? I am just an
old man. And there are hoodlums running in the streets.”

A frightened look made him look old. Annie took his
arm. “You can stay here tonight. Safety in numbers.” She guided him
inside toward the cognac and the music Tristan and Valerie were
playing. Pascal stood half facing the gate as if ready to bolt.

Merle crossed her arms. “What do you do in your cop
line of work?”

“
Anti-fraud,” he said quickly.
“Wine. Of course.”

“
Wine fraud? Like what?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the
purple sky. “Misrepresentation. Labeling fraud. Wine is big
business in France.”

“
Like somebody says it’s a ’79 when
it’s really a ’99?”

“
Or one of the big Burgundy
producers uses grapes from Chile in his bottles. A big scandal.” He
looked at her seriously from under his eyebrows. “I have been
watching the Langois vineyard.”

“
And what do you see?”

“
Some things. Trucks.”

“
Odile Langois was at the clinic
today with a cut on her hand from a wine bottle. Broken while
shipping, she told the doctor. They must have shipped those bottles
on the same night as the big fire. Is that helpful?”

He swallowed. “Merle, I—“

“
I understand. It was convenient. My
house, my roof, my view. It’s all right.”

“
You hate me.”

She walked to him, feeling the air warm. “I don’t
hate you, Pascal,” she whispered.

He softened into her, his big hands around her waist.
He kissed her hard then took her face in his hands. “I tried not to
like you, to just do the job. I tried, I struggled. But I
failed.”

“
I will have to serve you more
Château Pétrus for fooling me.”

“
More? I like you even
better.”

He pushed her behind the pissoir, out of the light
from the house, up against the wall. She bumped her head on the
stone. “Sorry, sorry.” He unbuttoned her blouse, kissed her breasts
in a rush, ran his hands down her hips then came back to her mouth.
He pressed himself against her, wedging her leg between his. They
were in that position, her pinned to the wall willingly when the
quiet was broken. Screeching of tires, crashing of glass then
shouts: “
Arretez!
” Women, screaming.

“
Mon Dieu
.” He rested his
forehead on her shoulder. “I have to go.”

“
Is there fraud on the streets
tonight?”

He let his hands take a last ride down her body.
“Tomorrow,
cherie
.”

Chapter 36

Next door Yves was sweeping up glass from the street
when Merle and Annie came outside. It was early, before seven, but
they had a long day ahead. Merle had sent Tristan with a note to
the Inspector that she was seeing her lawyer today in Bordeaux.
Yves stooped to scoop up shards into a dust pan.

“
Is everything all right at your
house?” Merle asked.

“
No damage. But Suzette is
frightened. She wants to return to Paris.” He dumped the glass in a
garbage can.

“
Look at the flower pots,” Annie
said, pointing to geraniums wilting on the cobblestones, pottery
smashed.

“
Un policier
from the Police
Nationale just came by here, in riot clothes, the vest and helmet
and stick, like in Paris.” Yves seemed more excited than upset. “I
asked him who is doing this. And he says it is farmers, can you
believe it? And they caught the one who set the fire. He owns a
winery near here with his sister. They were both arrested in the
night. They found empty gasoline cans hidden in their
chai.”

Château Gagillac? Where else were sister and brother
in business together? Merle hated to think of Odile in jail. They
walked the three blocks to the lot where Annie had parked her
rental car. Tristan met them ten minutes later. Broken glass
littered the streets but there was very little other damage. It
would probably be over when they got back, especially now that the
national police had arrived.

Tristan wedged into the backseat with a picnic
basket. He curled up and went back to sleep as they climbed the
hills and dropped into the valley of the Dordogne River. Merle
drove, letting her sister read her guidebooks and look at the
vineyards along the river bottoms and the beautiful bridges.

Bordeaux loomed ahead, with all the joys of
civilization, graffiti, traffic, and parking. It took an hour to
find the building after buying a map as big as the Peugeot. They
split up at the door to the lawyer’s building. “Go do some
shopping,” Merle said. “I’ll be back at the car in an hour.”

The office was simple, with scratched wood floors and
worn furniture. The girl behind the counter looked sixteen and wore
thick black eye makeup on her pale face. Merle had to repeat
herself to be understood. In a few minutes Monsieur Lalouche came
into the reception and shook her hand.

He was short, dark-haired, and younger than she
expected, thirty or thirty-five. He dressed well, in a black shirt
and tie, gray slacks. “You prefer English?”

“
Thank you. Yes.” She sat in his
office, another worn chair in ancient leather. He sat on the edge
of his desk and put on trendy eyeglasses. “Have you talked to the
Inspector in charge of the case, Captain Montrose?” she
asked.

He hadn’t. In fact all the things she had requested
he do before her appointment hadn’t been done. He was smooth and
apologetic; he had a big trial coming up. But she had wasted her
time. “Why didn’t you call and tell me not to come?”

“
Because there is one thing we
should discuss.” He sat down in his chair. “The new political
climate of the area. Because of the recent violence there is more
pressure from above to maintain order. Montrose is incompetent.
There is little chance he can make a case against you without
witnesses. And has he found any?”

“
He says not.”

“
But still the pressure is building.
He will have to produce a warrant against someone soon or lose his
job.”

She squinted. “And that someone will be me?”

A Gallic shrug. “I spoke to someone I know in the
courts in Bergerac. One murder of an old
putain
isn’t too
much to get excited about. But now, with arson and riots, things
must stop. The provincial government will not allow disorder. There
is too much at stake with the tourist monies.”

“
What are you saying?”

“
I will try to get your passport
back, Madame. And when I do, I suggest you leave the country as
soon as possible.”

They returned home in late afternoon, hot and tired.
At a small bistro, the one opposite the locksmith on the derelict
block, they ate an early dinner. Merle felt strange, cramped,
having left the village and returned. She wished she’d never seen
Lalouche. As they walked home Annie peeked into the abandoned
townhouses, talking about renovating this one, remodeling that one,
but Merle watched passersby, suspicious of every look. Were they
all Redier’s? Had they all decided to sacrifice her for the public
good? She needed her passport, and she needed it now. But how could
she run out on Justine? She was Harry’s mother. No one cared about
her, not even the police. But maybe it was time. There were no more
secrets. She knew who Harry’s real parents were, and what his
father had done. That was plenty.

In the evening Merle carried the trash to the can in
the alley. An old woman stood in the alley nearby, sweeping up
shards of glass. She wore a gray skirt and blue blouse, with a red
and orange scarf on her head. Pumps even though she was cleaning.
She bent down to pick up the dust pan, then met Merle’s gaze.

Merle smiled, holding open the lid of her can. Was
this the woman pointing at them at the café? “
Beaucoup de verre,
oui?
” Lots of glass.

Her earlobes hung with rhinestone clusters below the
colorful scarf covering her steely gray hair. She looked brightly
past Merle, into the garden.

“
Voulez-vous entrez
?” Would
you like to come in? She stood still as a statue for a moment, then
stepped into the garden. Immediately she walked to the new bush,
the Reine de Violette rose, cupping a mauve blossom in her hand.
“
Vous?
You planted it?” Merle asked.

She nodded, her eyes filling as she began to mumble
in French. She was upset, rambling. Merle couldn’t understand her.
“
Lentement, madame,
” she pleaded: slowly. But the woman sat
down on the low terrace wall and let the story spill out of her.
She sputtered, her face animated, joyful, sad, reminiscing,
angry.

Annie stepped out. “Who’s this?”

“
That woman on the plaza. I can’t
understand her. I think she’s using
patois
. Get
Albert.”

Merle held the woman’s gnarled hand. She kept up her
tale like she’d been waiting her whole life to tell the story. What
was she saying — the house? Dominique?

Pascal came through the kitchen door. Seconds later
Albert arrived through the garden gate with Annie.

Pascal looked like he’d been up all night, hair
greasy and clothes sweated through with stains now dried. “I can’t
understand her.” He sat down next to the woman and asked her name.
“Josephine Azamar,” she whispered then launched again into her
story.

Albert whispered to Annie as she talked. Finally
Pascal touched the woman’s knee, making her stop. “She is the aunt
of someone named Marie-Emilie. Madame Azamar owned this house,
inherited from her mother, and lived here during the war. Then she
went to live with her husband’s family. Her husband has died, so
she moved back to the village. She says she gave the house to
Marie-Emilie when she married the American.”

“
Weston.” Merle turned to the woman.
“Madame Sabatini?”

“
C’est moi
,” the woman
whispered, eyes wide.

“
Lorenzo Sabatini was her first
husband," Merle said. "He died in the war or right
after.”

Josephine said something then jumped up, scurrying
out the gate. “She’s coming back,” Pascal said.

“
Did she say anything about
Dominique?”

“
She says Dominque was the
American's … mistress. He flaunted her, took her places with him.
Shocked the village.” He looked at each of them, ending on Merle.
“She had his child. Did you know?”

Merle nodded.

“
He turned the village against her
relatives. They had to move away.”

“
But the mayor, and the gendarme?
They are —“

“
It was the Chevalier relatives who
moved away. Marie-Emilie’s relatives. The Redier family closed
ranks, burying the scandal. She says Weston came to her later to
borrow money to go to America.”

“
Did she say anything more about the
child?”

“
No. How did you find
her?”

“
She was sweeping in the alley. She
had the grocer point me out. I think she’s had a key to the gate
all these years too. She planted that little rose bush, after
Justine was killed. The whole village must have known she was
Dominique.”

Josephine rushed back through the gate, pausing to
catch her breath. She thrust a small black-and-white photograph
into Merle’s hands. The background was the garden, and the back
wall of the house with a climbing rose blooming by their heads. The
kitchen window was in the picture. Weston was a handsome man, with
wavy dark hair, bushy eyebrows and a mustache like Clark Gable. A
brunette woman stood next to him.

“
Qui est la?
” she asked the
Josephine. Who is that?

“
Marie-Emilie,” she
answered.

She stared at the photo, the dark hair. Marie-Emilie
was blonde. “I’ll be right back.”

In the front room Merle pulled out the stack of
photographs from the cupboard.The old photograph, from the safe
deposit box, showed Weston and Marie-Emilie in front of a brick
house. A very blonde Marie-Emilie.