Katherine had snapped at the yellow cat for getting underfoot and been harsh in commanding Gracey to get off the chaise longue. The dog had looked up at her in surprise through a frizzy mop of hair before staggering off to the corner of the threadbare Persian rug. The animals didn’t understand this dark mood, but Katherine knew it was because Michael, in his call last night, had told her he had to stay in Memphis a couple more days.
“I hate it too, sweetheart, but we’re so close to nailing this last number and J.B. needs a couple of new vocal tracks from me. He wants to lay them over the bridge.”
Whatever. Katherine’s knowledge of the structure of music was about even with Michael’s ability to see the differences among eight tubes of red paint when they went into an art supply store. What she understood too clearly was that she was on her own for more than the scheduled two weeks, what he had promised when she drove him to the train.
“Don’t let it drag out any longer, please. The dogs miss you. I miss you. And it will be Christmas soon, Michael.”
“I promise, word of honor. What do you want me to bring back from the States, Kay? Anything. You name it.”
“How about a day in Malibu, complete with mojitos and guacamole and a reason to wear sunglasses?”
He laughed. “How about a Memphis skyline refrigerator magnet and a bobblehead Elvis?”
“Don’t you dare.” But she had laughed and reminded him that she loved him before they said goodnight, well, goodnight from her since it was full daytime in Tennessee.
Now, on a quiet Sunday morning with a weak sun breaking through the clouds as she drank her café crème and nibbled at the end of yesterday’s baguette smeared with fresh-made butter from the farmers’ market, Katherine wondered what to do with her day. No more tourists to drive. After the horror of the last trip, Katherine would have been reluctant to take on a new group in any case. She was too restless to paint and couldn’t face the small washing machine that was also a clothes dryer if you didn’t mind that the clothes took hours to dry. Her plan had been to start a fresh cassoulet or perhaps a long-simmering stew flavored with a half bottle of red wine to celebrate her husband’s return, but now she’d poke around in the refrigerator for something simple and eat on the chaise while reading a Balzac novel en français, a slog but good mental exercise.
To distract herself, she thought again about the scene in the museum, wondering so many things. Why poor Mme Sabine, who had always seemed so cheerful, if more religious than most of the French people Katherine came in contact with, always adding a “Dieu vous garde”—God bless you—as she handed over wrapped packets of pâté? Why in the museum, a magical place guarded almost obsessively by an old lady who never quarreled with anyone as far as Katherine could see, and who, everyone knew, kept the doors locked at all times? Then, of course, the tactical questions: How could the killer get in, and if Mme Sabine was actually killed on that chaise, how did she get there in what must surely have been after hours?
“You, cat, you look like you know everything, so tell me, please, whiskered detective?” She put down a saucer of milk by way of apology for her earlier impoliteness and the yellow cat bent to lap it up without answering Katherine’s question.
There was a quick knock on the kitchen door and Katherine glanced at her watch. She could hardly say a visitor was interrupting her, and it might be the pregnant Marie’s mother. When she opened it, there was Pippa, too tall to come in without ducking her head, stumbling over the raised doorway, and talking nonstop.
“Oh, I say, I am glad you’re home, Katherine. May I come in? Thanks ever so. I need your help. Yes, thanks, I’d love a cup of tea if you’re having. I’ll put my anorak here, shall I?”
The young woman, pretty with her flushed cheeks, but so gawky and unaware of her surroundings, was like a tornado, Katherine thought. She tried to make a path for her guest through the dogs, who had jumped up at the first noise, thrilled to have something interesting to investigate, and the cat, who jogged underfoot and away up the stairs. Pippa plopped down on the chaise, absently reached under her to pull out the book Katherine had left open, closing it with a snap so Katherine’s place was lost, ran her fingers through her hair, and looked up.
“There’s been a development,” she announced.
“A what?”
“In the murder case, of course. Didn’t you hear the sirens?”
“Sirens?” Katherine said from the kitchen, where she was filling the teapot with leaves and hot water. “When was that?”
“Yesterday. They were on the way to L’Isle-sur-Serein. It’s related to the murder at the museum.”
“Wait, slow down,” Katherine said, parking the tray of tea things on a table she cleared by pushing piles of paper off to one side. “You’re going to have to start at the beginning.”
“Herbal?” Pippa said, disappointment in her voice. But she accepted the steaming mug without further comment, and even sipped from it while Katherine pulled the ancient armchair closer and sat.
“Now, what’s going on?” Whatever it was, Katherine admitted to herself, it was a lot better than laundry or trying to make a bad sketch morph into a good study for a painting.
Pippa described the drama, the detective’s instincts that drove her to follow the sirens, the discovery that turned out to be only peculiar and not tragic, the clue she had found on the road, and the clue she had deduced from what they didn’t find. She ended on a note of triumph. “We’re making progress, wouldn’t you say?”
Katherine wouldn’t say that at all. A bunch of objects found or unfound that Pippa had presented like a box of Legos ready to be fitted together neatly into what?
“I spent all last evening making notes and trying out ideas,” Pippa said by way of explanation. “We know Madame Roussel and the killer had to be in the museum at the same time, right, since she lives below stairs, or rather behind them? So the old dear, who we know keeps the doors locked at all times, must have some idea who did it, mustn’t she? Or at least who could have done it.”
“I’m sure if she had any ideas, she told the police right away. They may already have arrested someone for all we know.”
“Oh.” Pippa looked as if she hadn’t considered that. “Well, perhaps you could call them and find out?”
“Hardly. Think about it, Pippa. The police would have no reason to confide in me and I’m not bold enough to try them, to tell the truth. Why do you think you need to try and solve this anyway?”
The young woman didn’t answer right away, but sipped her tea and stared at the painting Katherine had hung on the wall opposite, a half-finished one in which Jeannette, posed in eighteenth-century costume, leaned on a stone wall and gazed at a vineyard on a distant hill. Katherine had put it there so she could see what wasn’t working yet in the composition.
When the Englishwoman finally spoke, she sounded much less sure of herself. “Maybe I’m being stupid. I suppose part of it is feeling isolated most of the time, not understanding things. This is something that began right in front of me and is still happening that way too. I feel more involved in things. And I’d like to be of use. No one should die that way, being left on view for strangers to find.”
Katherine heard the wistfulness in Pippa’s voice and looked at her, seeing another side of her neighbor. Sometimes she forgot that the writer was young, single, living alone in a strange country with only her dream of being a writer to sustain her. Katherine didn’t know that she would have had the courage to do the same, although she realized she had made a dramatic jump. It was less daunting since she had Michael and more years of experience than Pippa had.
“I agree that we all want to help her and her husband, who must be deep in grief. If you think the cross you found could belong to his wife, I think you should give it to the gendarmes in Avallon right away. We can’t know what if anything it means, but they can make sense of it. Do you want me to go with you to translate?”
Pippa said, “I think I can manage that much at least. I met one of them who speaks English and I even have his card.”
“Good. Now, about the wig, isn’t it likely it’s in the river, torn off by the current or a branch from a bush near the bank? The murderer can hardly have been so stupid as to hang on to it, and why would he, assuming it’s a he, of course?”
“Yes, but it’s missing and that bothers me. The gendarmes would surely have searched hard for anything else while they were in Serein.”
“The museum has been searched from top to bottom for clues, I bet,” Katherine said. “Maybe they did find it. Why not ask your policeman?”
Pippa blushed. “Not my policeman. His name is Philippe, a coincidence.”
Katherine studied the woman, wondering if Pippa’s tenaciousness about the cross and the wig might be inspired, at least in part, by the chance to see a policeman named Philippe. “Right. I think a trip to Avallon is called for. Let me know how it turns out.”
“Actually, I had planned to go in yesterday. I want to observe the butcher. You know it’s most likely the husband in cases like this.” She looked so sure of herself, but Katherine thought the writer was on the wrong track.
“It’ll be closed today, his charcuterie, I mean. It’s Sunday. Given the tragedy, I’d be surprised if it’s open on Tuesday. Monday everything’s closed, remember.”
“Oh, I say, I hadn’t thought of that. Tuesday, then, for my visit to the shop.” Pippa gathered her things, came close to tripping over Fideaux, whose small size in comparison to Gracey sometimes fooled people into thinking there was only one dog in the house. She backed out of the kitchen door, promising to let Katherine know what happened.
The weather was improving, the wind gone for now and the sun strong enough to warm the patio. Katherine decided to move an easel outside and paint, if only to take her mind off murder and Michael’s absence. At times like this, her motivation was weak. There was no upcoming exhibition to be preparing for, even though she had sold a few large oil paintings at the gallery six months ago in Vézelay. She wasn’t being shown in any other galleries, and the August weekend in which locals and visitors toured artists’ studios had not brought even one potential art patron to her house even though she and Michael had put out hand-painted signs at the crossroads, and she had worn her most dramatic clothing, treasures uncovered at the outdoor flea markets, the vide-greniers, that every village in the Yonne département of Burgundy held once a season.
Emile’s dog, which had been quiet for at least an hour, started barking, and, unless Katherine’s ears were playing tricks on her, he was coming closer. She glanced at the driveway gate, which was closed, good thing, she thought. Then, a neon-red ski cap bobbed at the gate.
“’Allo, ’allo, Katherine.” It was her neighbor, being pulled along by his watchdog, which had stretched the leather leash to its absolute maximum and had its gaze fixed on Katherine. “I would come in to say a proper hello,” Emile shouted over the dog’s noise, “but Napoleon would want to play with your animals.”
I’ll bet he would, Katherine thought, as in rip off their limbs one at a time. “I understand. He’s quite a handful, isn’t he?”
“He is really friendly, you should come see.”
Now or never, Katherine decided, and she walked slowly the length of the driveway, Napoleon becoming more agitated the closer she got. “Emile, I have to say, he doesn’t look pleased to see me, and he most certainly doesn’t look like he wants to be friends.”
“But no, he is only gruff when he is protecting my house. Look, his tail is wagging.”
And in truth it was, frantically. Safe on her side of the metal fence, Katherine permitted herself a soothing greeting but kept her hands in her pockets. Napoleon looked intently at her, his deep brown eyes assessing her, whether as a target or a new friend Katherine wasn’t sure. At least he had stopped barking and was only whining now. “I haven’t seen a dog other than ours this big since Albert’s big one—Michael used to call him ‘the German dog’—died. Do you let him come in on these cold nights?”
Emile looked sheepish. “Well, sometimes, even though the man who sold him to me insists these dogs want to be outside all the time. There’s an old blanket in the kitchen next to the wall heater, and he sleeps there. But,” he added, “if a thief comes, voilà, Napoleon is next to the door, growling, I can assure you.”
“And barking,” Katherine said, making a small face to hint that barking was, in Napoleon’s case, not to be encouraged further.
Emile hastily changed the subject. “Where is Michael? Is he on tour yet?”
Katherine described Michael’s recording work in Memphis and the hopes for an American tour in the spring. Emile grinned and bobbed his head the whole time, even throwing his free arm in the air in a fist at one point.
“I said so the day he arrived. Here, I said, is a famous musician come to stay with us in Reigny. What an honor for us. I think next year, there will be time for him to play with me at the fête. It was too busy this year, but we shall plan and rehearse, yes?”
Katherine laughed. “This has been a wonderful surprise, although Michael has been writing songs for the past few years. Fingers crossed, Emile, that the album is a hit and the tour goes well. Then you may say a country rock star lives next door.” She didn’t respond to his suggestion that he and Michael play together. She knew Michael would never agree to it. He was laid-back in most things, but where music was concerned, she knew he’d resist playing with someone who had no musical talent and a weakness for accordions and amplified guitar chords.
Emile would have talked longer, but Napoleon noticed a long-eared rabbit move in the field across the way and began barking and yanking on the leash. Emile barely had time to wave and wish her a good day before he was loping along behind his hound.
Katherine went back to the easel she had set up, rubbed her chilly hands, and began the painting by mixing two reds and a drop of black on her palette, which was already thick with dried oils. She squared her shoulders and faced a canvas on which she had sketched a dancing trio of women. She raised her brush at the same moment a familiar voice called out.
“Katherine, bonjour, can I come up?”
Katherine decided that painting was not in her immediate future and called, “D’accord,” loud enough to be heard at the bottom of the garden. Remembering that Jeannette was on a mission to improve her English, she amended it to “Yes, please come up.”
The teenager bounded into view, came over to her favorite adult, and kissed her enthusiastically on both cheeks and then a third time, the signal of special affection. She smiled, something she did so rarely these days that it delighted Katherine, and put a small paper bag on the table. “Un croissant. It was the last one they had in the basket. I got it before the Englishwoman could. She was probably angry.” If Jeannette was sorry, it didn’t show.
“Thank you, thank you. Yesterday’s baguette was stale.”
Jeannette darted a glance at Katherine, and grinned. “This is—how do you say—stale too, then, because I bought it yesterday.”
Katherine laughed. “I will enjoy it anyway. Did you pass Emile and his guard dog?”
“Silly thing. It sounds so mean, but all it wanted was to lick my hand. I think it might have wanted the roll, but I told it absolutely not.”
“Really? You have a way with animals, I guess. Would you like some coffee with cream?” It was hard to stick with English when some of the French food names were so international, but if Jeannette wanted to visit America, a dream she had confided to Katherine only recently, she would have to learn. If she went to New York, L.A., or other cosmopolitan cities, they might call it café crème too, but she’d best be ready for more conventional American terminology.
Jeannette settled in for a visit and Katherine decided she would sketch the girl’s face quickly and add it to the canvas later. By now, she could have painted it from memory, but then she would have missed the expressions that passed over the teenager’s features, a glossary of emotions that came and went with a measure of high drama.
Jeannette had been a twelve-year-old, otherworldly creature of beauty and innocence—if you discounted her magpie-like habit of stealing teaspoons—when Katherine first started drawing her, with golden hair as beautiful as any Renaissance angel’s. This last year had been tough on her emotionally, not only because of last summer’s scare, but because she had hit her midteens and had been obliged by peer dictates to take on the bored, silent postures of her school friends. Katherine had a hunch it was more of an act than a personality change, and that it was necessary in order to be accepted. Since being accepted was her own keenest desire, Katherine was in no position to quibble with the girl’s newfound sulkiness. Only with Katherine, pregnant Marie, and for some reason old Mme Pomfort was she the same girl Katherine had begun to mentor.
“So, how are things in school?”
“Comme si … as usual, I think. Marie-Françoise told me she has had the sex with her boyfriend. She said it was nothing special, but he wants to do it again.”
“I’ll bet. Did they use a condom?”
Jeannette looked shocked. “I would not know. That is too private.”
“Well, it won’t be private for long if she swells up like a balloon.”
“A baby? No, that is for old people like Marie and Raoul. Did you know they will have me to take care of the baby sometimes? They will pay me. I am saving for a moto … What is the word?”
“A motorbike? Aren’t you a bit young for that?”
Jeannette made a face, then shrugged. “I will not be young by the time I have saved the euros. Zut, even a used bike is very expensive.”
Thank heaven for that, Katherine thought. “You don’t have a boyfriend yet, I hope, not if boys in your class want sex.”
“No. Lucien, her boyfriend, is older. He will finish with school this year. The boys in my class are all stupide, like little boys always hanging around and making the comments.”
“Ah.” Just wait, Katherine thought, busy with her oil sketch. “Did I see you with some of them at the bus stop last week?”
“Mmmm,” the girl said by way of choosing not to answer, retreating into silence and picking at a withered hollyhock stem. “Did you know the gendarmes spoke to everyone who came to the musée for weeks and weeks, trying to find out what happened and why the butcher’s wife was murdered?”
“Yes, I expect they would. That means they talked to you again, I’ll bet. I hope you weren’t harassed by them.”
“What means, I mean, what is the word?”
“Did they push you hard to say something you didn’t think is true, or make you feel scared?”
Jeannette laughed. “Scared of les flics? Jamais, never. My papa told me never to say anything except if they ask it. They didn’t ask me much except if I knew how to work the locks, which I don’t because Madame always does that, except on the little door to the poubelle, but that’s not even a whole door, and no one even sees it from the street.”
Katherine was having a devil of a time catching Jeannette’s smile. The girl lifted her head and cocked it in a certain way that made her smile an entire body pose. But she moved so swiftly that Katherine couldn’t capture it and she knew if she asked Jeannette to pose, it would be artificial. She gave up for the moment, put her brush down, and sat on a metal chair that held on to the cold and damp too well.
“Are you still working for Madame Roussel? How is she? The poor woman was distraught the last time I saw her.”
“She is fussy, as usual, and won’t go upstairs to the room where it happened. She did not want me to go, but it is a mess after les gendarmes so I told her I will have to clean it up and straighten the mannequins’ clothing next time I am there. She has asked me to do other days until things are normal again.”
“I expect she’s happy to have you there to help.”
“Oh yes. I am to go tomorrow, in fact, because the musée is closed until the new year. She wants me to give the rooms and the frames in the hallways a polishing and to clean out some old boxes that need to go into recycling. Of course, Madame Josée helps too, but I like the extra work because I can make more money.”
“For the motorbike.”
“Mais non, for Christmas presents for my brothers and Papa. My sister is not coming home. It is too far from where she works and she has little time off.” Jeannette stuck out her lower lip, which only made her look more charming. “I have not seen Angelique for three Christmases. Papa doesn’t care and the little ones hardly remember her, but she is my only sister.”
“I’ve forgotten where she lives, but perhaps you can visit her next summer.”
“Mais non. She is married and her husband does not like visitors, she told me. Anyway, it is too far. She lives in a village near Lille.”
“That is far away. Why there?”
“He drives a truck for a company there, so that is where they had to go.”
Katherine massaged the muscles in her back, which had begun to tighten, working out here. “Well, ma petite, I must clean up and do my chores too. I will be in Avallon tomorrow to see the dentist. Would you like a ride home after you’ve finished school and done your work at Madame’s?”
Jeannette’s eyes lit up. The public bus that made the circuit from village to village in a big loop took forever, Katherine knew. They agreed on a time and place and Katherine accepted the girl’s goodbye kisses and waved her away down the garden steps. The gate squealed when Jeannette closed it and Katherine reminded herself to oil it. But perhaps she’d leave that for Michael, who had been having a vacation while she labored here alone. Yes, she would leave it for him.