The church was lovely inside, obviously cared for and used for Catholic services, unlike Reigny’s sad building. The mostly twelfth-century, crusted and chipped stone exterior gave no hint of the polished stone and soaring arches that seemed to collect light and sound. The rose window sparkled in the afternoon sunlight and neat rows of straight-backed chairs were arranged to leave a long center aisle that led to a set of windows behind the altar and, above it, a half dome with faded artwork that was sepia-colored in the shadow.
Katherine and Pippa had stopped to decipher a worn stone tablet outside the church. Pippa had suggested doing it and explained she would take pictures of Katherine whenever anyone who looked the least suspicious approached the open doorway. “They’ll be in the background and I can load them onto my computer so we can look at them later.” She seemed to think this was a brilliant move and Katherine didn’t have a better idea.
There was a small but steady stream of people entering the church, many of them stopping on the steps to chat. Katherine was about to suggest they go in when Pippa said, “Don’t turn around now, but here comes the butcher. I wonder who that is with him?”
Katherine turned her head as discreetly as she could to see the man. “Someone told me M. Sabine had a brother, but he doesn’t live around here.”
“Wait,” Pippa said, whispering. “You don’t think the brother is the one she was having an affair with? He’s quite good-looking, although he’s obviously knackered. Point at the stone bit so I can shoot. Rats.” She pulled the camera away from her eye and made a face. “Both of them looked at me right at the moment I took the picture.”
“I was afraid of this. We’ve upset M. Sabine on an already unhappy day. Enough, Pippa, let’s go in.” Katherine turned for a fuller look at the stranger and sucked in her breath. It was, she thought, the man she had run into near the museum on that rainy day. He had tucked his head down behind his open umbrella and walked away quickly, but she was almost sure it was he. There was probably a simple explanation. He might have come to Avallon after the murder to tend to his grieving sibling. At that moment, as he stepped into the church, his eyes darted around and she thought he looked hard at her. Then, he was out of view.
The recorded bells began to chime. Pippa tucked her camera away and the two hurried in to take seats on the aisle near the back. There were about thirty people clustered mostly in front rows. No coffin. Perhaps, thought Katherine, they hadn’t released the body yet. Or maybe M. Sabine had made arrangements for a cremation.
The bells stopped ringing and a woman Katherine had never seen before stood up from the front row and walked forward to the lectern. Without the help of a microphone, she read something in rapid French, then nodded at the audience and walked back to her seat. Josephine Lacrois was next, her high-heeled, fur-topped boots clicking as she came up to read. Gold earrings sparkled, her lipstick was a cheery red, which stood out in this gray space, and she looked younger and more chic than she had at Katherine’s rustic lunch. She crossed herself before she began and again when she had finished, a rather showy gesture, Katherine thought. As she walked back to her seat, her smile was rich with sympathy aimed at the butcher and the man sitting in the front row of chairs.
Pippa leaned toward her and whispered, “Do you think I could take a few pictures now?”
Katherine shook her head vigorously. Honestly, Pippa sometimes had no sense at all. She assumed the widower would speak, but to her surprise a man in a bulky suit stood up, spoke in a gravelly voice with a rustic accent Katherine couldn’t decipher, gestured toward M. Sabine, and said something that let everyone know it was over.
“No priest, no hymns?” Pippa said in a low voice as the people who had been sitting silently stood up, shaking their coats into shape, pulling on gloves and beginning to head back up the center aisle. The natural light had faded, the rose window held its secrets again, but the ugly fluorescent tubes that stuck out from the pillars to break the harmony of the medieval design had not been turned on. “I say, I’d rather no one tried to do me a memorial if this was the result. Too depressing.”
“I didn’t catch much of the readings, but perhaps if we had the language, we would have found some spiritual value, or at least poetry, in what Josephine Lacrois and the other woman shared.”
“Maybe,” Pippa said, but she didn’t sound convinced.
Katherine saw Josephine cross the center aisle to grasp the widower’s hands and bestow on both men another dramatically mournful smile. Then she did something that startled Katherine. She placed her hand under the sleeve of the taller of the two and looked up at him with an expression that was so intimate it stopped Katherine in her exit. Did Josephine know M. Sabine’s brother? Was he the boyfriend from Beaune she had talked about? If so, why had she never mentioned the coincidence?
She jumped as something clattered onto the stone floor, the noise loud in the space. A few heads turned to see what caused it, and then turned away again. The sound came from a mass of golden curls only partly tucked into the collar of a rather shabby parka. “Jeannette?” she said, crossing the aisle to look down at the teenager, who was picking up a handful of coins.
“Bonjour, Katherine,” she said, standing up and pushing hair back from her face, which was pink, either from having been bent over or from a sudden moment of awkwardness at being caught at an adult event.
“What are you doing here?”
“I knew her. Maybe only a bit, but I am sorry that she is dead.” Jeannette looked as though she was ready to defend her position.
“That’s thoughtful of you, chérie,” Katherine said, wondering if behind that innocent explanation and the suspiciously cherubic expression there might be some other motive, perhaps a wish to entertain her after-school friends with an account of the event. “Do you want to ride back to Reigny with me? I have only a couple of short errands to do first.”
“Yes, thank you,” the girl said. “I will visit my friend Amelie at her parents’ store while you shop.” In front of Katherine, a couple of people had stopped to talk to the widower and his friend. Glancing their way as she and Katherine edged past, a puzzled look swept over Jeannette’s face. She did a quick double take.
“Oh, Mme Goff,” a voice trilled behind Katherine. She turned to see Josephine headed her way. “How kind of you to come. I’m sure the family will be pleased. There was a good attendance, don’t you think? I’m sure it would have been even more, as I told M. Sabine, had it been on a weekend day or perhaps at lunch when the shopkeepers were free.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Josephine, who is the man with M. Sabine? I don’t think I know him.”
“I didn’t know myself until recently, but he is the brother.”
“Of Madame?”
“No, M. Sabine’s brother, half brother, actually. Such a coincidence, isn’t it? I know him in Beaune, where he lives, but he has a different last name and she never introduced me to him so I never connected them. You can imagine how shocked I was when I saw him here, but he has explained it all to me. And he is so worried about his brother’s health, of course.”
“Yes, both of them look distressed,” Katherine said, but she was distracted. She needed time to process what Josephine had told her. It seemed there were connections among the four—the victim, Josephine, the charcuterie owner, and this new man, the half brother. What did it mean, if anything? Eager to leave the cold church and collect Pippa, Katherine added a few words about the late, lamented Mme Sabine and eased away. That explained why she had seen the man around Avallon recently. He must have come to help his brother. Another bit of information for Pippa’s “little gray cells” worksheet.
She looked around and saw Pippa and Jeannette in a dark side chapel at the rear of the church, their heads together. Katherine walked over to them. “I’m headed back to the main street. Are you two coming?”
Jeannette gave Pippa a conspiratorial look that Katherine couldn’t decipher, then reached over and kissed Katherine, bobbed her head in Pippa’s direction, and promised to be waiting at the car in a half hour before pulling up her collar and taking off.
“What was that about?” Katherine asked as they passed through the massive wooden door with its iron scrollwork.
Pippa said, “I’m not sure,” and tripped over the uneven stones, making a choking sound. Katherine looked at her, then at where she was staring. The captain who had accused Pippa of being romantically interested in M. Sabine and Philippe’s partner were leaning on a police car parked across the street, watching the people leaving the church. They had seen Pippa, and the woman gendarme had her hand in front of her mouth as she leaned into the older policeman to tell him something. He looked hard at Pippa, who had turned away from the street and was fumbling with her camera, head down.
“Let’s get out of here,” Pippa said in a panicky voice, “they’re looking at me. Quickly, please.”
“Absolutely not. Walk slowly, chat with me, do not look so guilty, for heaven’s sake. Let’s check out this stone plaque again. We’ll wait until most people have left and then stroll to the car. Right now, you look like you’re waiting to be handcuffed.”
The tablet was as mysterious as before, Gothic-looking script so smooth it was not readable in some places and, where she could make out a few letters, still meaningless to Katherine. The pamphlet she had paid a half euro for said nothing about it, although other descriptions suggested that being part of the original wall meant it dated from 1170, which was so long ago that Katherine couldn’t quite conceive of it.
They carried out their charade for such a long time that the butcher and his brother left, accompanied by the man who had spoken and Josephine Lacrois. Josephine snatched back her hand from the brother’s arm when she saw the police standing across the street and busied herself looking in her handbag. As they moved off, she leaned in to whisper something to the Sabine brother. He swiveled his head toward Katherine and Pippa huddled near the church wall. Almost handsome, Katherine thought, and definitely the man with the umbrella. His face was mottled red, though, and his eyes were puffy from the emotion of the memorial service. The butcher was sagging, pale and visibly exhausted. The three mourners stood on the steps as Katherine steered Pippa to the sidewalk, while pretending to be engrossed in the former priests’ house that abutted the church. The gendarmerie captain pushed himself off the car’s side panel and crossed the street, not toward Pippa, but toward the widower and his party. As she and Katherine reached the comparative safety of the corner, Katherine said, “See, they’re not interested in us. I can’t wait until this is over and they’ve arrested someone.”
“As long as it’s not me,” Pippa said.
They had parked nearer to the police station than the church, although the two were close to each other. Avallon was a small town for all that it had everything Katherine needed most days. After the police station, she could easily stop at the bookstore and go down a block and around the corner to reach the maître chocolatier’s shop, whose window now featured brightly dyed miniature fruits and vegetables sculpted out of marzipan. She would get a small box of them as a treat for Jeannette and her brothers.
For a moment, the two stood on the sidewalk near the gendarmerie, calming themselves. Pippa had told Katherine everything about Philippe’s visit and the gendarmes finding the wig on the short trip to Avallon, and Katherine was as worried as Pippa. Someone was not only trying to derail them with warnings, but was trying to frame Pippa.
It wasn’t credible that Pippa had any role in the crime, of course. A few times, Katherine had snuck a peek at her companion as they sped toward the town. Yes, she looked a bit scattered, and her explanations, especially in translation, were apt to raise a few eyebrows. Yes, she probably annoyed the gendarmes with her complete lack of French and her lack of a solid French history that they could verify with the mayor or the sheriff. Her face had an unfortunate tendency to telegraph what might read as guilt, although Katherine knew it was only a version of her normal self-deprecating, apologetic personality. The police were doubtless getting pressure from the mayor and their own higher-ups to close this case, which had been dribbling on for almost two weeks. Pinning it on a foreigner, someone not even from Avallon, would be a relief.
“Listen, Pippa, you have to be more assertive, and look people in the eye and say again and again that you didn’t see Mme Sabine during the times in question, that you don’t know her husband, and that you will have to call the embassy if the police don’t stop harassing you.”
Pippa looked at her with the same liquid expression the cows in Reigny did.
“No, that won’t do. Head up, posture straight, pretend you are already a celebrity author coming to accept a prize, or something. Right now, you look like a victim.”
“I am a victim—,” Pippa began, but Katherine interrupted her.
“No, you’re a resident who was minding her own business until you were put in a compromising position—as we all were—by coming across the tragic sight of a dead woman. Someone’s trying to trick the police, and you need to let them know you expect them to get to the bottom of it soon.” Katherine hoped her voice carried enough backbone to support the younger woman.
She needn’t have bothered. Philippe wasn’t in. The chief investigating officer was, they already knew, at the church. There was, the gendarme on duty at the window explained, no one available to see them. No, he had no idea where Madame’s car was but since the incident had happened over the weekend and the experts who would do the detailed search for the evidence didn’t work Sundays, and today was only Monday … He looked up at them through the window and shrugged. There was nothing to do but leave Pippa’s name and promise to come back the next day. It was getting dark and Katherine wanted very much to be home.
This time, Jeannette was where she was supposed to be. Katherine shared her disappointment that the sweater she had hoped to get for Michael was already sold. “Probably best. The last time I saw him in a sweater, he was valiantly trying to get down a beginner ski slope in Aspen. I think sweaters bring back memories of his first and only time on the slopes.”
Pippa sat staring out the window and chewing her thumbnail.
Jeannette was silent too, probably stumbling over too many unfamiliar vocabulary words in Katherine’s story. It was almost dark when Katherine dropped both passengers off and entered her warm house, where music she recognized as a song from the new album was playing.
“How was it?” Michael said from behind his computer screen.
“Short, cold, and I could barely understand the speakers,” Katherine said, shedding her coat and hat and swiveling back to the kitchen for her five o’clock wine. “You didn’t miss anything except that I think I’ve come across the butcher’s brother before and didn’t realize it.”
“Ummm,” Michael said, a long-standing clue that his mind was otherwise occupied. He was staring at the screen and listening to the music coming from his computer, head cocked, his old stopwatch in his hand. “Damn, there it is.” He pressed the button on the watch. Rising, he came over to make a mark on the sheet music propped up on the stand that had resumed its place of honor in the middle of the cramped living room the same day he got home from Memphis.
“Problem?”
“I hear an extra note coming from a backup guitar. It’s filling what should be a silent beat.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t. I have to email J.B. It’s not hard for the engineer doing the mix to wipe it out.”
“If it’s that noticeable to you professionals, maybe they already have.”
“Ummm,” he said, back at his computer.
She wasn’t upset, but it did annoy her the tiniest bit to be dismissed so quickly. After all, she did have ears. She did listen to music. She was her husband’s staunchest supporter. Was this the new version of Michael, focused on something apart from their life together, paying her less attention? She got up and went to the kitchen, where a newly opened bottle of five-euro pinot beckoned, as did the need to introduce the carrots and potatoes to the plump chicken breasts so they could all cook gently in chicken stock, a bit of the wine, and a handful of tarragon she had dried from her jungle of an herb garden.