French Fried

Having escaped from the hospital and failed to contact Carolyn at the hotel, I headed toward the palais. Lately Carolyn’s complaints had involved Mercedes, and she’d been right. The girl did have designs on me, but that didn’t mean I was guilty of anything.

It seemed to me that Carolyn might have returned to the banquet from, say, the ladies’ room, heard that I’d left for the hospital with Mercedes, and taken her place at our table, leaving me to the mess for which she blamed me. It just wasn’t possible that she’d actually shot Mercedes. Was it? No. I felt better by the time I arrived at the Grand Tinel.

Dessert was being served; Jacques Laurent was on the podium at the far end of the hall speaking in French, while a translator gave a shortened version in English; and people were looking at me strangely. Only then did I remember that Mercedes had bled all over me. No wonder they were staring. The apparition at the feast had just walked in.

Closer to the table, I saw the Guillots, but not Carolyn. So much for optimistic logic. I’d rather my wife had been there and angry than missing and unaccounted for. Albertine glared and refused to answer when I asked if she’d seen Carolyn. Several people asked how the “Mexican girl” was, and I replied that the bullet had been removed, and she was recovering at the Centre Hospitalier d’Avignon.

“I imagine the gunman was targeting me,” I replied. “This is, after all, attempt number four.” I needed to say that to absolve my wife, but just saying it gave me chills. Was attempt number five being planned? Or had the person—perhaps, as Carolyn thought, a terrorist—caught and killed her, after failing with me? I left. In the square, where the musicians were still playing, the strollers were leaving because of the chill and the threatening sky. From there I ran to the hotel and finally burst into our room. The door was unlocked, a very bad sign.

But after all my anxiety, my wife lay fast asleep in bed. I could see her by the light coming through the window from the street below. She had simply left the banquet without telling me, come back, and—I couldn’t believe it. Without even turning on a light, I growled, “Where have you been, Carolyn?”

She sat straight up, groggily, and stared at me. “Where have I been? Well, I went to the banquet, all dressed up to please you, although you didn’t say one single nice thing to me.” Her voice was slurred. Was she drunk?

“And there you were with Mercedes, her arms around your neck, your hands on her waist, right there in the banquet hall in front of everyone. How do you think I felt? Catherine saw it and said if it were her, she wouldn’t put up with a husband who couldn’t even carry on an affair with discretion, who threw his sexual forays in her face—her exact words. I was so humiliated. I was so hurt, and on the verge of weeping and embarrassing myself even more. So I left.”

“My ankle is broken. I fell in an alley while I was trying to get away from all those people who felt sorry for me. I’d still have been on that hill, in agony and freezing to death, if Martin hadn’t come along, called an ambulance, and carried me down to the square. He came looking for me. Tell me, Jason, when did you realize I was gone? When the banquet was over?”

By now Carolyn was back in bed, crying, still wearing the black dress. And I felt terrible. “You—you don’t know what happened after—I guess after you left. Someone shot Mercedes.”

“Weren’t you lucky, and shouldn’t you be comforting her? She may have saved your life.” My wife didn’t sound as if she cared.

“You have to let me tell you the rest. There was an inspector there who seemed to think that you shot her. I told him that was ridiculous. Of course you didn’t.” Then I couldn’t help asking, “Did you?”

“No, Jason, I didn’t.” She went, in just a second, from sarcastic to furious. “Even if you don’t love me anymore, you ought to know that I wouldn’t shoot anyone, even Mercedes.”

“But, Carolyn, I do love you. I was never interested in her. She’s a student, for Pete’s sake. I can’t help it if she— she had a thing for me, which she evidently did, but I told her to forget it.”

“She’s fine. She’s probably given up on me. God knows, I hope so. What we have to do is figure out how to convince the police that you didn’t—”

“I doubt that you’re the person to do that, Jason. You aren’t convinced yourself. As for me, I was grilled by some square-faced inspector while I was drugged with more painkillers. I told him to take a sample from my hands for gunshot residue and then leave me alone. Since I haven’t held a gun since New Orleans, he’ll have to give up the stupid idea that I shot her. Let me guess? Did she tell him that?” Before I could stammer out an answer, Carolyn said, “I’m going back to bed. Sitting up makes my ankle hurt. I need to get some sleep so I can start walking tomorrow.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Jason, and I’ll never forgive you for not thinking I looked pretty in my new dress, and shoes—well, the shoes were a mistake, and don’t you dare say ‘I told you so,’ but the hairstyle was pretty. You’re really mean and stodgy.”

With that she flopped down on the pillow and ordered me to put the sheet and blanket over her. I had to wonder if I’d ever be forgiven. How had our comfortable marriage come to this? We’d been so happy. I sighed and went into the bathroom. When I returned, my wife was deeply asleep, and she didn’t move so much as a finger or change the rhythm of her breathing when I climbed into the other bed. At least, she was breathing. The stalker hadn’t killed her.