A Twist of Orchids (20 page)

“His condition is getting worse,” Mara went on. “He’s on his own, and he needs you, Mademoiselle Gaillard.”

The woman scowled. “He needs me? After all these years? I hope you haven’t come here to suggest I go back home like the dutiful daughter to look after him?”

“No. But you
are
his daughter. I just think it would mean a lot to him to be reunited with you. He’s suffering greatly from the loss of your mother. He was very dependent on her.”

“You’re telling me? He couldn’t move a finger without her approval.
Maman
was like that.”

Mara sensed that she was getting nowhere with Christine. Nevertheless, she pushed on gamely. “When you’re old and ailing, family is everything. In your father’s case, you’re all he has left.”

Christine said bitterly, “He should have thought of that a long time ago.”

“At least consider getting back in touch with him.”

The daughter tipped her head back to study Mara. A look of faint amusement came over her face. “You’re really worried about the old man, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. He’s not managing well on his own. He wants more than anything to stay where he is, and he can, but he needs help. He has visiting nurses, and he’s applied for home care. However, he’s had some problems lately. There have been … incidents.” Mara, raising only now what should have been her starting point, dwelled on the last word. “He claims someone—or something—has been coming into the house at night to frighten him.”

Christine regarded her blankly. “Who’d want to do that?”

“I thought you might know.”

“Me?” The surprise, which was perhaps authentic, quickly shifted to hostility. “Why should I know anything about it?”

“No reason. Just that it’s happened twice. If it continues, I intend to call the police.” She realized she was handling it badly, but at least Christine had been warned. If a warning were indeed warranted. She could not make up her mind about the woman.
She softened her tone. “It’s why I wanted to talk to you. It’s possible that he’s imagining things, or even making them up because he’s unhappy. Being back in contact with you might make all the difference.”

“I doubt that.” Christine’s face took on a surly look. “Let me tell you something. It wasn’t easy for me, growing up with them. My father was always under my mother’s thumb, and she could be a misery to live with. Oh, I know she was highly thought of, but you don’t know what she was really like. Religious, controlling, always worried about doing the proper thing, what the neighbors would think. Anything different was shameful. You hid a deformity, bullied sinfulness into line. I admit I wasn’t an easy child. For one, I had a lot of problems because of my—this.” She touched her mouth. “Kids used to tease me. There was a boy who really used to give me a hard time. I’m sure the neighbors told you about it. One day, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stuck a pair of scissors in him. That earned me a bad reputation. I was only ten,
bon sang!
No one, not that pig of a teacher Francine Boyer, not even my parents, could see that I had no other way of defending myself. My life was hell until I met someone who was able to see past my face, who encouraged me to be myself in ways my parents could never accept. I ran away to be with this person when I was fifteen. My mother was furious. She found me and dragged me back. I was a minor then, so I had no choice but to come home. One day I got some rope and told my mother that if she didn’t let me live my life as I wanted, I was going to hang myself in the garret. She told me she’d rather see me dead than have a daughter who only brought shame on her head. She even followed me up to make sure I did a good job of it. That’s when I pushed her. For God’s sake, I couldn’t even hang myself without her telling me how to do it. I wasn’t trying to kill her. I just wanted her to leave me alone, to give me some space.”

Christine broke off, breathing raggedly, as if she had just run a long-distance race.

“I’m sorry,” said Mara, feeling deeply shaken. Christine’s disclosure brought to light a side to Amélie she had not known. “I—I had no idea.”

“No, you wouldn’t have, would you?” The daughter’s eyes were bright and hard, and her voice was flooded with bitterness. She turned away to look out a window. Mara’s eyes followed her gaze. The slim woman with the hat had secured another gate and was crossing the muddy courtyard.

“You see,” Christine went on, “by the time I was in my teens, I understood my own sexuality better than most people do in their lifetimes. That’s what my parents couldn’t handle. I was their hidden daughter, not because I had a harelip, but because, as they put it, I was unnatural.
I went with other women.
So now do you get it? They preferred to let everyone think I ran after men, even that I’d had an illegitimate kid, because it was easier for them, particularly her, that way. That’s what I can’t forgive them for: they couldn’t be honest. They made me out to be a slut, when all I wanted was my right to
be.
Oh, I know that kind of thing was hard for them to deal with back then, living in a rural backwater. But times change. Not them. She never accepted me for what I am, and he won’t either. And I’ll tell you something else, Madame Nose-in-Other-People’s-Business. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. My parents broke with me, not the other way around. So now I just want to be left alone. My father doesn’t want me back, except maybe as a skivvy. As for the neighbors”—her scarred mouth twisted—“they’ve never approved of me, and I’m sure they all continue to think the worst.”

“The worst?” Mara echoed as the door swung open and the other woman stepped into the kitchen. She pulled off her hat, revealing her fey shepherdess’s face, finely etched with laugh lines.
Her expression as she took Mara in was avid and mischievous.
What fun
, it seemed to say.
A visitor.

Christine nearly shouted, “Oh come on. You’re not that dense. I’m sure they told you, and I can see it’s what you’re thinking. I pushed my mother down some stairs before. Who’s to say I didn’t try it again?”

Mara rose to the challenge in Christine’s voice. “And did you?”

Christine laughed harshly as she reached out to draw the other woman to her with a gesture that was both proud and possessive. “You don’t give up, do you? For what it’s worth, I have a witness who’ll swear that at the time my mother fell, I was here with her. My unshakable alibi. Isn’t that so,
chérie?
Meet my friend, my lover, Alice. We’ve been together seventeen years, and I don’t intend to let anything, certainly not my father, come between us.”

Alice stepped forward, tucking a strand of fly-away hair behind her ear and extending a slender, somewhat grubby hand. “Alice Lescuras.
Enchantée.
” Her voice was slightly mocking.

“Mara Dunn,” Mara responded faintly and took the hand.

Alice tightened her grip and pulled Mara toward her, laughing as she did so. “What Christine says is true, you know.” Her face was almost in Mara’s face. “We were here together.”

Mara tried to draw back, but Alice held her with surprising strength. Up close her long-boned body projected an almost feverish energy. Her mouth widened in a malicious grin.

“Her unshakable alibi,” she crowed triumphantly. “Beat that if you can!”

Mara returned home to find Julian in an even bleaker mood than when she had left him. He was sprawled on an ebony and bronze art deco sofa, the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in her front room. One of last year’s acquisitions, the sofa was shaped like a boat and was the only thing big enough for him to sprawl on. However, its contours, as everyone who sat on it discovered, were unsuited to the human body. Not surprisingly, she had not been able to offload it on anyone. It sat in her living room, looking interesting and taking up space.

“Christine’s gay,” she said.

He gazed at her dully. She wondered if he was having another of his Thumpers. But no, he didn’t have that bruised look around the eyes that usually went with his headaches.

She pulled off her jacket. “That’s what drove her and her parents apart. For Amélie and Joseph, for their generation, living in a closed rural community, having a lesbian daughter wasn’t something either of them could handle.” Forty years on, judging from the mayor’s smirk, she thought it still might be a problem for some.

Julian made no reply.

“So they covered it up and let the neighbors think Christine was the local Lolita. I think only Suzanne Portier knew the truth, but she never talked about it. Christine hated her parents, especially her mother, for forcing her to stay in the closet.”

She had to shove his legs over in order to sit down.

“She lives with a woman named Alice Lescuras on a sheep farm. I’m sure they’re barely scratching out an existence. In fact, that’s probably the only thing Christine has ever had in common with her parents: an unprofitable propensity for raising sheep.”

He frowned. “You’re saying they’re hard up and could do with money?”

“Well, yes.”

“So I suppose the verdict is Christine pushed her mother down the stairs and is now trying to do away with her father so she can pay her bills?”

Mara reddened. “I’m
not
saying that. I mean, it’s a pretty monstrous accusation.”

He sat up and regarded her with surprise. “You didn’t seem to think so a few hours ago. ‘Let her know we’re on to her,’ you said. What changed your mind?”

She crossed her arms and leaned back against the hard sofa cushions. “The problem is, I liked her. Them.” She saw again the homey interior of the kitchen, full of warmth and color. Christine’s side of the story had awakened her sympathy. The two women were struggling to make a life for themselves against a lot of lingering, unspoken prejudice. “I mean, you said yourself Amélie’s death was an accident. And so far Joseph has come to no real harm.”

“Ah. Sweet reason riseth like the morning sun.”

“No need to be sarcastic. Anyway, if Christine really wanted to bump her father off, why hasn’t she done it? Why just be content with terrorizing him? It’s more like someone is simply trying to give Joseph a good scare.”

The thought rested with Julian. He tugged at his beard. “Maybe that’s the intention.”

She stared at him. “You mean frighten him to death?” It was a clean, cunning way to kill. And hadn’t there been mention of Joseph having a weak heart? The heart was, after all, a muscle.

Julian shook his head. “Your mind is on murder. I’m saying, perhaps all Christine wants to do is gain control of things. She doesn’t have to do away with Joseph, just have him legally declared incompetent. Then she can make a case for taking over his affairs.”

It was a powerful idea, not quite as nasty as murder, but Mara was very sorry to follow out its implications.
Oh, Christine
, she thought. “Well, if that’s her game, let’s hope my visit warned her off. I told her pretty clearly that I’d call the gendarmes if these nighttime apparitions continued. If she’s smart, she’ll realize she can’t get away with it.” She paused uneasily. “Although Alice might be another matter.”

“Alice? I thought you said you liked her.”

“I do. I like them both. But that one bothers me, Julian. There’s something wild about her. And a little crazy. I definitely got the impression she’s the moving force behind the two. And then—” She paused, reluctant to make the admission. “Oh, I may as well tell you. At one point, Christine said that in case I thought she had killed her mother, Alice would alibi her for the time Amélie died.”

“Good God, Mara, you didn’t accuse her of pushing her mother down the Two Sisters’ stairs?”

“Of course not. What do you take me for? Christine just came out with it. But then Alice virtually dared me to make something of it if I could. She was laughing at me, Julian. It was almost as if she were baiting me, as if she wanted the challenge.”

She shifted around to face him more directly. “Having met Christine, I’m not so sure she’s the murdering kind. Oh, I know she had a go at her mother when she was young, but she was acting out of childish anger and frustration. However, I wouldn’t put it past Alice to have done some more recent shoving.”

Julian gave her a long look. “You won’t be able to prove a thing, you know. If Alice can alibi Christine, then Christine can
alibi Alice. That’s probably what Alice was really telling you. And it makes Christine equally complicit.”

“I suppose,” she admitted unhappily. She went on, “What I don’t understand is, if they wanted to kill Amélie, why they would choose such a public spot as the Two Sisters?”

He offered no answer.

Mara chewed a lip. “Okay. Let’s say Christine and Alice are in desperate need of money. They stand to lose their farm, everything they’ve worked for. They decide to ask Amélie and Joseph for a loan. It’s up to Alice to do the asking because Christine has cut all ties with her parents. So Alice arranges to meet Amélie at the restaurant since she knows the Gaillards do their marketing in Beaumont. But Amélie is no fool. She knows what Alice is after and has no intention of giving them a solitary
centime.
She leaves Joseph in the gents, goes to Two Sisters, intercepts Alice on the porch, and says no straight off. That would have been very much Amélie’s way. Maybe Alice didn’t set out to commit murder, but when Amélie turned her down flat, Alice saw red or simply saw an opportunity. As Loulou would say,
paf!
”

Julian could put it off no longer. The following day he went to Lokum. He had sent flowers and a card, of course, but had delayed this moment for as long as he could. The time Betul and Osman needed to bury their son and grieve, he told himself, the time he needed to gather the courage to face them. He was prepared for a poor welcome, but not for the heat of Osman’s anger that hit him like a palpable force as soon as he set foot in the shop.

“I don’t talk to you!” roared the big Turk.

“I’m sorry about your son,” Julian said. “I want you to know I tried. I’ll never forgive myself that I failed to find him in time.”

“Ha.” Osman’s chest swelled as if to block Julian from stepping further into his domain. “What try? Too late. Is finish for my boy. And I tell you something, Mister Worry-about-Orchids. I continue to import salep. For memory of Kazim, I make Elan big success. Orchids be damned!”