Until the Hollidays had come up with their scheme to record with Michael, he had been a creature of daily habits, perhaps as a way of exerting some control over a life led among people with whom he couldn’t hold a decent conversation. The dogs got a long walk every evening at twilight, uphill to the pétanque court, which was a sandy rectangle laid out under a canopy of old trees and protected by a wire fence, nothing fancy, but kept raked and level by Emile so no one could claim a bad roll of the ball. Then, down past the dirt road entrance to the quarry. After a little sniffing in the overgrown and weedy land there, the threesome continued to the river with its pebbled shore, more like a stream since Penny’s retaining wall and pool had been built. Once in a while, there was a man or a boy slouched on a plastic chair or squatting on the gravel, tending a fishing pole. The dogs would check out abandoned plastic bottles and candy wrappers for a couple of minutes before turning away in disinterest, humans being so predictably messy. Then, Michael would follow them, their leashes no longer straining, past the dun-colored café building perched right up against the pavement, its handful of parking spots mostly empty at dinnertime, before heading back up the hill to their garden gate.
Katherine usually took the time to clean up the kitchen, but this evening, she told her husband she would join him. She wanted his reaction to the visits of the day and his advice on what she should do. She might not take his advice, which tended to be lacking in nuance, but she needed to think about the effect Albert’s death was having on the people she knew in Reigny-sur-Canne before she could decide what her role was in bringing peace to the community.
“I never heard so much stupid talk,” Michael said when she finished telling him about Sophie’s aborted visit, Penny’s aggressive defense of Yves, and the policeman’s opaqueness. “What’s gotten into everyone? The man fell down the steps and had a heart attack or broke his neck, whatever the coroner decides, period. Why you all have to turn it into something mysterious, I don’t understand.”
“That’s not fair. I’m not doing that. You should say that to Penny, or Emile, or particularly Pippa, who’s probably busy writing an entire fiction about it without knowing a single thing. I’m only trying to calm everyone down.”
“Why do you have to do anything?” He picked up a fallen branch and tossed it down the path to the delight of the dogs, who galloped ahead of them, snuffling.
“But what if he didn’t fall? What about the gun?”
“What about it? You said he wasn’t shot with it. Maybe Adele’s right, and someone was going to steal it, but old Albert heard him, came out to investigate, and fell while chasing the thief.”
Katherine thought about this for a minute. “Yes, that could be what happened. But then, who was he chasing? The women think Gypsies, all except Mme Pomfort, who has decided it was a Nazi enemy of Albert’s, or maybe she meant someone who hated Nazis. I’m not quite clear. Anyway, the policeman obviously doesn’t agree with the Gypsy theory.”
“Albert was at least twenty years too young to be a Nazi, much less have Nazi enemies.”
“I’ve been thinking. He was close to ninety, Adele told me. He sold guns once, remember.”
“To anyone who’d buy them, with the approval of the French government, if I understood him, and he told me he got out of that business a long time ago. Unless you think he was goose-stepping around with a gun and live ammunition when he was Brett’s age, he’s too young to be blamed for all the shit that happened around here.”
“Mme Pomfort says some teenagers were. But not him, I’m sure. What if it was a Gypsy and you’re right that Albert was chasing him when he fell? If they find the Gypsy, is that murder?”
“You just told me the police don’t believe that’s likely. Everyone piles on about Gypsies whenever there’s trouble,” he said, rolling a cigarillo around in his mouth with enough force to make Katherine wonder if it would end up in tatters, “but I’ve never even seen Roma or Spanish Gypsies here, have you? And the French ones, what do you call them—gens de voyages?—you’d know if they were camping nearby. Jeannette’s father is the sticky-fingered one around here.”
They were at the riverbank by the time Michael had finished his rant. Not that he was wrong, but some topics agitated him so much that Katherine tried to avoid them. Injustice for Gypsies was one of them. She picked up a small rock and tossed it in, a habit from childhood. As the ripples spread, she was distracted by how she would paint them glistening in the sluggishly moving water, and by the urge to do a painting set right on this bank at the end of the day, perhaps with golden sunlight slanting in among the trees. And a girl sitting at the water’s edge in a long skirt, dabbling her fingers in it. Jeannette would model, of course. She’d catch up with the girl in the morning and set a time for a modeling session.
“I think Penny suspects Yves. Listen, Michael. When Penny told Emile and me that Yves was in Paris, Emile said that couldn’t be true because he’d seen him in Chablis. What if Emile was right?”
“Emile is hardly the most observant guy in the world. But even if Yves wasn’t in Paris, it doesn’t mean he was at the castle. He might have another girlfriend.”
Katherine gasped. “Does he?”
“I don’t know, but the man’s always looking to be the center of attention. Maybe he found someone who gives him more than Penny or that sad-looking daughter of Albert’s.”
“Penny doesn’t give him much more than attention,” Katherine said with a small laugh. “I think she’s still dangling the promise of sex.”
Michael snorted. “That only works for young kids. If she really is holding out, that makes my idea even more likely. Let’s let the cops figure this out, if it’s anything other than the most likely reason for Albert’s death. You’ll only get burned if you try to influence the investigation.” To soften his words, he put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in for a kiss on the cheek. “Maybe you and that writer should get together and solve a pretend mystery.”
She laughed. “Poor girl, she doesn’t get any respect around here, does she? I think I will invite her over for tea. No,” she said when Michael raised an eyebrow, “not to figure out whodunit about Albert, but to talk with another Reigny outcast and see how she handles it. Although, I think she doesn’t handle it at all, simply doesn’t care as much as I do.”
“There’s a lesson for you, Kay. Sometimes you care too much.”
“Michael, darling,” she said, staring at the water and changing the topic to one that was pressing on her even more than the drama in Reigny. “If J.B. is able to get a tour set up for the new album, you will go, won’t you? I mean, you really wouldn’t let the opportunity slip past?”
“First off, he’s a big talker. So far, we don’t have ten songs I think anyone would pay to hear us sing. And let’s be real. Betty Lou might have a fan base of old hippies who’d come out for her, but me? I’m an unknown, I sing ballads, I’m no Mick Jagger, ready to prance around in tight pants.”
She grinned lasciviously, but said, “No one would expect that. James Taylor’s no Jagger either, and you’re as good as he is.”
“Maybe, but people have been listening to Taylor for a few decades. It would be ‘Michael who?’ and I don’t relish sitting in front of a bunch of empty chairs.” He called the dogs abruptly and started walking. Katherine had to trot to keep up with him.
“J.B. says a lot of people will remember the early days of the Crazy Leopards, and he said he found some old photos you’re in. Plus, the songs you wrote are famous.”
“Kay, you’re forgetting that part of the deal that gave us the stake to move here was my signing a paper saying I wouldn’t perform either song.”
“But J.B. says he’ll get a lawyer to fix that. Didn’t he say something about it being easy to challenge?”
“J.B. is a wheeler-dealer. He’d say anything to get what he wants.”
“He wants you to make some money, for heaven’s sake. And you know we need it. I’m afraid to think about what happens to us when the settlement money is gone. This is our chance—your chance, Michael.”
“I know we could use the money. I agreed to work on an album, didn’t I? J.B. can promote it any way he wants.” His voice tightened. “Maybe if there’s some interest, well, we’ll see about a trip to the States. Wait ’til we have something worth putting out there, though.”
Katherine had to be content with that. He hadn’t said no. She was daydreaming of repairs to her little studio as she climbed into bed.