The next week was consumed with speculation and rumor, delivered to Katherine by Emile in tortured gossip that was invariably false, or by Mme Pomfort and Mme Robilier, who wanted to relive the day in concert during their visits to Katherine’s house. As they sat on the patio sipping lemonade and fanning themselves against the midsummer heat, the two women replayed their heroic actions on that fateful day when they and their neighbor Katherine rescued la pauvre petite Jeannette from the clutches of an evildoer and his dangerous son. As results of the investigation and the court’s decision to treat the case as something a good deal less than murder were reported in the papers and via the supermarché clerk’s daily delivery of gossip, the clucking became louder. Reigny’s judge and jury, Mme Pomfort, had a little of Mme Defarge in her and would have voted for the guillotine. Mme Robilier was more generous, saying more than once to Katherine that the poor boy had such a dreadful father it was no wonder his judgment had slipped.
“Slipped?” Mme Pomfort said in shock when Madame ventured that opinion one day. “Pushed a distinguished aristocrat and leader of society down the stairs? Surely, my dear friend, that is not precisely what you meant?”
Mme Robilier assured her in a soothing voice that it was indeed not what she meant, not at all, and that Mme Pomfort had been brilliant in giving the gendarmes her account of the events. Once Reigny’s acknowledged queen bee had been properly soothed, the women settled back into their companionable rehashing of That Day.
Pippa also came to sit under the pear tree, announcing to Katherine that she had gotten several wonderful ideas for her stories from the events. “I was wrong about the murder, of course, but that hardly matters, does it?” She beamed at Katherine, who privately thought that it mattered a great deal. But she forgave Pippa’s declaration as being the kind of comment a mystery writer might be likely to make.
“I missed the most important clues,” Katherine said to Pippa as she sipped her café crème. “I almost recognized that little thing Jeannette was carrying around, and the girl told me herself, more than once, that she had seen J.B. late that night at Château de Bellegarde. I didn’t take her seriously.”
Pippa admitted she hadn’t quite given up on the idea of a genuine murder at the old castle. “Perhaps I shall have to write something spectacular, eh, a real murder with blood and gore?” she said thoughtfully. “I’m really quite chuffed, you know?”
A visibly upset Betty Lou, on one of her frequent stops at the Goffs’s house, confirmed what Brett had admitted. She had known nothing until the day it all came to a head. Her son confessed to her that he had noticed the key to a gun closet sitting in the lock during a group tour. Instructed by his parents to visit Château de Bellegarde as a summer history lesson of sorts, it had been easy for him to slip back up the stone steps and take the smallest pistol, a little pile of empty brass percussion caps, and the key, figuring that when the owners found the key missing, they would think the theft could have happened at any time. It was for fun, a way to pass the long summer without his friends around. Betty Lou’s voice had hardened at Brett’s idea of fun. But the gun had turned out to be old and rusty, not worth keeping, and Brett had brought it back while he and Jeannette were skateboarding one day and tossed it into the shrubbery while the girl was coasting down the driveway. Then came the terrible night that he had tried to replace the bullets and wound up knocking Albert down the stone stairwell.
After Albert’s death, when Brett came looking for Jeannette at the quarry to get the last percussion cap back and stumbled on the scene with the police, he realized that the alternative to confessing was the possibility of his father going to prison. “I would have had a heart attack if I’d been there,” Betty Lou said, her voice gravelly. “But I’m proud of him for telling the truth.”
“If you’d seen all of us making fools of ourselves, you would have attacked us instead,” Katherine said.
“J.B. was devastated for Brett of course, but he was just signing a big deal with Albert. He wasn’t thinking straight.” Betty Lou lit a cigarette with shaking hands and inhaled deeply. “He decided to toss the key Brett still had on the property. If it was found, there’d be no way of saying how it got there, you know? How was he supposed to know the girl would be skulking around at two in the morning?”
“Didn’t he think to call an ambulance or something?” Katherine tried to keep her voice neutral, but it had been bothering her once the story emerged.
“He wasn’t sure what had really happened. Brett was upset, and it didn’t sound like that hard a fall, he told me. He could have been stunned, could have woken up a half hour later. J.B. told me he decided to go over first thing to find out.” Betty Lou’s voice wobbled.
Katherine looked over at her and saw tears dripping down her face. The singer took a packet of tissues from her bag and, after blowing her nose and scrubbing at her eyes, said, “Sorry. I cry a lot these days. Sometimes, I’m not sure who I’m crying for. The poor old man for sure, and his wife, who must hate us all. And for Brett, of course, my baby, who keeps making bad decisions. For J.B., who knows he did so many things wrong.” Her voice trailed off.
* * *
Jeannette, Katherine found out during one of their painting and modeling sessions, had seen a great deal. She had seen Brett throw the gun into the shrubbery. She meant to come back for it, but then Monsieur had died and there were gendarmes everywhere. She had found the little key that Brett’s father tossed late in the night. Jeannette explained that Mr. Holliday was not a good thrower and the key had landed right next to the paved driveway. Then, when Katherine told her the old man hadn’t been shot, she felt better, comprenez? Katherine understood, surely?
Katherine did understand, sort of. “He was her first boyfriend,” she said to Michael, when he admitted that the whole affair was like a jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces.
“So Brett’s not going to be tried for murder?” said Michael, despondent over the loss of a manager and a career comeback that hadn’t even begun.
“No, apparently he’ll get off with a stern lecture and the forfeiture of his visa for some time, which will break Jeannette’s heart. J.B. lost his visa too. Betty Lou says the court was harder on him because he was setting a poor example for his son.”
“I still don’t understand why J.B was going after the girl when you found him.”
“Oh, darling, because Jeannette finally told Brett about seeing his father throw the key in the weeds, and Brett told his father.” She paused for breath. “And then Brett realized he needed to get the bullet thing back and ask her to keep it a secret so it couldn’t be traced to him.…”
Michael stuck a fresh cigarillo in his mouth and rolled it around with his teeth. Katherine looked at him, trying to measure how much she had confused him. He picked up his guitar and, after playing a few quiet chords, looked up and said, “And J.B. wanted the key so badly at that point?”
“Betty Lou says J.B. thought getting the key back and persuading Jeannette not to say anything might keep Brett out of trouble. It got out of hand when I misunderstood what was going on. I’m still embarrassed.”
“You saw what you saw, Kay, and you did the only thing you could. I’m proud of you, baby, and that’s the truth.” He looked up at her and her heart swelled. Michael wasn’t big on compliments.
She took a deep breath. “That makes me feel a little better, although I’m afraid J.B. will always remember Reigny as that place where he got falsely accused by some hysterical woman.”
“He’ll be fine, although I’m not surprised he will be even less welcome in France than his son. He’s a tough character. You have to be in his business. And anyway, he’s no saint, leaving Albert’s body there for his wife to find. I don’t much like that. Come here, woman.” And he stopped playing long enough to ditch the cigarillo and kiss her full on the lips when she walked over to him.
She was fairly sure she had explained it correctly. Adele wasn’t close to forgiving “that American hoodlum,” but she had been relieved to find out no Gypsies had broken in and murdered her husband. Sophie was all business about the contract with J.B., which she intended to sign now that the company belonged to her. After all, J.B. hadn’t killed her father. According to Adele, whose tone of voice betrayed some disapproval, Sophie was turning out to be a businesswoman first and foremost, a little like her father. Katherine privately thought Sophie was rather coldhearted, but maybe she took after her father that way too.
Brett was gone from the scene. Jeannette was torn between the agony of lost love and anticipation of the amazing story of herself as heroine that she could tell when school began.
In such quiet moments as Katherine had now that she was so completely part of Reigny-sur-Canne’s social life, she scolded herself for being blind to the truth of everyone’s behavior. She confessed as much to Penny as they sat under the pear tree, sipping Chablis Grand Cru that Penny had brought, left over from her dinner. “Why save it for something special when nothing around here ever is?”
Katherine, the glass at her lips, paused to consider the vaguely insulting edge to the comment, then drank. Penny, she told herself, didn’t mean it quite that way. She nibbled at the squat peaches and goat cheese rounds she had bought at a good price in yesterday’s market in Avallon. “Aren’t the peaches delicious? I wish I’d had them at my vernissage. Did I tell you I sold a painting that day, and the gallery has sold another since?”
“I’ll be able to say I knew the great artist Katherine Goff when,” Penny said, and raised her glass in a toast to her neighbor.
“I had to race through the finishing touches on my shepherdess painting for the show. I think I’ll go back and see the paintings in the wonderful light they have in that gallery. Do you want to come with me? We could go shopping for antique linens. I know a wonderful store tucked away in an alley. The proprietress won’t yield on price, but it’s too good not to try, and sometimes I find a little something that has a blemish or a tear in the lace and she’ll discount it for me.”
Penny laughed, but there was something in her voice that made Katherine look closely at her. “Wish I could, but I’ll be packing and closing up the house.”
“But why?” Katherine cried out in surprise. “The fête weekend is almost here, and this is the perfect season. It’s not yet cold and the wind isn’t blowing. We need you to sing with Yves also. Don’t forget your duet.”
Penny made a loud noise of disgust. “I can’t forget fast enough. Really, he is so juvenile. And frankly, other than you and Michael, there’s no one here of any interest. I’m thinking I may sell the mill house and get a pied-à-terre in Paris. Or perhaps in Rome, where it’s warmer. You could come visit.”
Her decision didn’t make any sense until a week later when Sophie showed up with a lemon tart and a satisfied smile. Her mother was feeling much better and was considering hiring someone to conduct tours of the Château de Bellegarde again. There were so many tourists at this time of year, and one did not wish to disappoint them, you know?
Would Sophie escort people through? “Oh no,” she said. She had too much to do at the Paris office. “But I will be here for the fête, and Yves and I have decided to sing some folk music. He’s teaching me now. ‘The Man of Constant Sorrow’ is triste, so sad, isn’t it? That’s what I came to tell you, in part. We would love it if Michael could hear us rehearse and perhaps accompany us at the performance.”
“I didn’t know you sang,” Katherine said. I didn’t know you and Yves … she thought, but the moment sped by as the woman chatted on. Her color had improved drastically and she was wearing, wonder of wonders, a charming little sundress, très chic and definitely not from the flea market piles Katherine scouted for her own clothing.
When Yves stopped by next, obviously to gauge his reception now that he had changed singing partners, Katherine asked him the question that had been bothering her so long. “When Albert died, you were supposedly in Paris. But Emile was sure he saw you in Chablis. You two have lived for a long time in the same town. I sincerely doubt he would confuse you with a stranger.”
Yves pushed his hair off his forehead and looked at her, his eyes bright and challenging. “Ah, so you are our Miss Marple, then?”
“Hardly. That’s Pippa’s territory. I got everything wrong and will never live down my horror at accusing the man who was going to become Michael’s mentor of pedophilia. But tell me.”
“You must tell no one, understand, my dear Katherine? No one.”
She nodded, curious. Since it wasn’t murder, there could be no harm in a small secret.
“There is a doctor there, a specialist, I needed to confer with.”
“You’re not sick, are you?” Katherine said with a small gasp. He certainly looked the picture of health.
To her amazement, his face bloomed red and he mumbled into his lap, “I wanted to reverse a decision I made many years ago. In case, you know…”
“In case what?”
“What if I want to become a father, tu comprends?”
Katherine threw herself back in her rattan chair. Of all the speculations she had made, this had not been on the list, would not have been for a million-dollar bet. She was, for once, genuinely speechless and could only look at the local rake with an open mouth. Finally, she gathered her wits. “And?”
“I go for the surgery next month. But,” Yves said, reaching to tap her hand, “you will tell no one, d’accord?”
“D’accord,” was all she could say, and she kept her face serious until he had driven off and she could begin laughing so hard tears sprang to her eyes.
* * *
One morning, while Katherine was painting an old wooden plank to look like theater footlights and Michael was hammering some signboards to advertise the fête, Pippa called out from the gate, “May I come up for a bit?” and bounded up the steps. Twisting her hands together in what looked like ecstatic prayer, Pippa said, “I’ve got it, you know, the idea for a story? It will be set right here in Reigny, and the château will be where my murder takes place. I’m awfully excited. I’ve already written several rather smashing scenes.”
“Oh dear, are we all in it?” Katherine said, straightening up and rubbing the place at the small of her back that ached from a summer of gardening and painting.
“Well, yes and no. I mean, it’s made up, of course. No one is for real. Terribly fun. I’m writing away like a demon.”
“Aren’t you afraid Adele will be bothered to find herself in a made-up story about her husband’s death?”
Pippa laughed. “It will be in English, and one thing I have learned rather quickly is none of the French I’ve met care a drop for anything not written in French. Anyway, I shall use a pen name, and I’ve already decided what it will be. P. L. Vickers. The Vickers is my grandfather’s name. That way, no one will know a woman wrote it. Will help sales tremendously, I should think. Do you like it?”
* * *
For the next couple of months, Katherine and Michael talked around the abandoned music project and tour, but gently. It had to be stinging for him to get close once more and lose a second chance at success. When the court had made its determination that Brett was guilty of giving in to panic but not of desiring to kill Albert, and J.B. had managed to convince the same court that he didn’t think Albert had had more than a stumble, the producer had gone back to the States with his wife and son. The studio at Reigny was shut up and Katherine had no idea what had happened to the recordings. Sophie commented that plans for the new studio in Memphis were proceeding, and some big bands had already agreed to create new songs there.
Katherine wrote a short note to J.B., attempting to apologize, but was not quite sure it came off well. She had a desire to explain herself that, after several tries, she realized only sounded defensive. He was not a dirty old man, and there it was. Had there been a priest, had the little church in Reigny been a real church and not a falling-down relic, she would have gone to confession. But it wasn’t, and she couldn’t, and so she sent an abject apology in a letter and did her best to forget the most embarrassing episode since she performed a spontaneous and none-too-steady tap dance at a movie star’s party in Bel-Air years ago.
She had been agreeing to everything Michael suggested, trying to make him feel better any way she could, which included buying the best soup bones for the dogs and the chocolate “escargot pralines,” snails in any edible form being a sort of mascot for Burgundy, that were his only evidence of a sweet tooth other than American sodas. She even went with him to a tedious farm sale forty kilometers away in a dusty crossroads town even smaller than Reigny. “What on earth do you need from here?” she asked at one point as Michael ambled among tables piled high with vaguely menacing and rusting tools and pieces of equipment. He had no ready answer but hummed quietly as he picked up odd-shaped bits and pieces, even uncovering an old but serviceable pair of heavy garden shears that she had to admit were exactly what she needed for the shrubbery on the road below the garden gate.
They would be all right. She had earned her place in Reigny-sur-Canne, ironically, by standing up to Mme Pomfort, who had liked her better for it. The fête had been a success. But their days would be quiet, and dreams about larger excitements than the annual fête had to be put away.
So, she was shocked when Michael turned from the computer one evening, when she thought she had reined in her ambitions for herself and her husband, to say, “Well, I’ll be damned. Listen to this, Kay.”
J.B. had sent him a music file with the first dubbed versions of the songs they had recorded in France, asking Michael what he wanted in the way of added tracks to lay over them. He had some studio musicians standing by. He made no reference to Michael’s hysterical wife. Betty Lou had recommended someone she’d heard about who was a genius at arranging tours, and would be e-mailing him to run through a package of dates to choose from.
Michael read out loud: “‘Given the crap my son put us all through, and the good deal I have with Sophie Bellegarde’s company, I’m going to front this, Mike. I have faith that you and Betty Lou will make a go of it, with or without your fantastic new arrangement of “Raging Love.”’”
Katherine was stunned. “I didn’t know you recorded it. Are you sure?”
“Hell’s bells, Kay. I can’t say I admire J.B. personally after what happened, but as a business partner, he knows his stuff. He pushed me to go back to my old song and refresh it as a duet. I’m going for it. Before they left, J.B. told me his lawyer thinks the song rights can be worked out. I’ve changed a few of the lyrics and we’re doing it as a ballad. We’ll see, but I’m not going to roll over so easily this time. What do you think? Am I an idiot?” He grinned at her.
“Never that, my love.” She smiled and looked at the magazine in her lap, willing the tears in her eyes not to spill over. “All will be well, darling, I feel sure it will.”
* * *
From her perch in the pear tree, Jeannette saw Michael smile at Katherine, a wide smile that made him even handsomer than usual. She could hear accordion music wafting from Emile’s house next door in the cool night air of early autumn, and saw the cheese-making couple walking hand in hand toward the café. She picked a late pear, realizing as she bit into it that it was too far gone. She put it in her pocket rather than toss it. She wouldn’t want her friend Katherine to think she had been spying. As she shimmied down, she narrowly avoided stepping on the yellow cat, waiting under the tree for the humans to open the kitchen door and let it in for the night, to safety, a last meal for the day, and a soft place to sleep. It had been, Jeannette thought, yawning widely as she headed for home, the most interesting summer of her life, with her first boyfriend turning out to be so tragique. The other girls in school treated her with new respect and the boys looked at her quite differently than they had last year. And Brett had written to her to say he was sorry for frightening her. It had been a most interesting year, bien sûr, for sure.