The Tolling of Mercedes Bell: A Novel (30 page)

S
HE TRUDGED ALONG THE ROAD
.
Dirt caked her feet and ankles, and the remnants of sandals were just visible beneath the rough brown hooded robe. She looked down, careful not to step on any of the dead. In the distance behind her, smoke rose from a pyre and vultures circled overhead.

Her errand completed, she walked back toward the village, wondering where to search next for food. She covered her nose with her sleeve. There
was the ashen body of the little brown-haired girl she had seen the woman carry out of a building a short while earlier. The horrible blue-black buboes of the plague showed on her face.

Ahead on the right was the building with the arch over the doorway. The two men stood just outside the door, the sandy-haired one still with his arm around the other. They shared some private joke. Amidst the ravages of death they had found some source of amusement. As she approached, the sandy-haired man noticed her and spoke into his friend’s ear. She drew closer, straining to hear. He stood up straight and stared at her.

“It’ll be your turn soon, you’ll see,” he said. “You think you’ve escaped, but you walked right into it.” He laughed wickedly.

Mercedes panicked and began to run. She was hungry and tired and weak but felt desperate to separate herself from everything around her. A rat scuttled across her path. She ran as hard as she could, her heart thundering, the man’s words ringing in her ears. She dodged many impediments and ran until sweat trickled down her back.

“Whoa!” A man’s deep voice seemed to come from out of nowhere. “I don’t know where you’ve been but I know you’ve been running from something,” he said. She felt arms constrain her and lift her off the ground. She beat on the man’s chest with both fists, impuissant to make him put her down.

“B
ELLA, WAKE UP!
You’re dreaming. Honey, wake up!”

She was breathing heavily when she awoke. Jack’s arms held her tightly in the dark bedroom. She felt disoriented and frantic to free herself. She broke out of his embrace and quickly sat up in bed to regain her bearings. She looked around the room. The bathroom door was slightly ajar and let a narrow column of morning light into the room. Jack’s clothes were heaped on the floor where he’d left them. The wardrobe door was open. Her garments hung there like so
many silent witnesses. She sat up, naked and shaken and sore from rough sex. She slipped on her negligee, pulled up her legs and propped her chin on her knees. Jack gently stroked her back. She bristled and moved out of his reach.

“I don’t know what it is about Florence that disturbs your sleep so,” he said. “You were kicking furiously. Perhaps tomorrow we should move on to another city. Remind me to stay on your good side.”

She glared at him. “How can you say that after last night?”

He lay back in bed, unperturbed. She’d get over it. Her training had only just begun.

The wood floor was cool under her feet. She walked delicately to the bathroom. After splashing water on her face, she poured a glass of water and drank it all.

This is the twentieth century. The Black Plague is over, and my bright new life has begun, hasn’t it?

S
he parked the red Alfa and walked briskly through the front doors of the elegant office building where Jack had relocated his practice. The glass door with Soutane & Associates painted in gold letters opened into a swanky reception area. Melanie looked up from transcribing to greet the new arrival. Her desk faced the entrance so she could be both receptionist and secretary. Large pearl drop earrings gleamed on either side of her pleasant face.

“He’s in there,” she said, nodding in the direction of Jack’s office.

Around the corner, the bookkeeper, an Asian woman named Rose, was crunching numbers on the adding machine with consternation written all over her face. Emerson appeared in a doorway, caught a glimpse of Mercedes, and retreated as she spotted him.
Sneaky little bastard,
she thought, as she placed a tin of cookies on the corner of Melanie’s desk and patted her shoulder.

“These are for the office. Germaine and I made them last night.”

Melanie pulled off her headset and pried open the tin, releasing the fragrance of ginger and spice. She bit into a chewy cookie and
beckoned to Rose. Mercedes walked past the long row of file cabinets toward her husband’s office.

He sat dictating quickly, his paisley tie loosened in the collar of his forest-green shirt. His lean face was darkening with new beard despite the early hour, and his navy blazer was slung over one end of the couch. He sorted through the papers on his desk as he spoke, and nodded in her direction without pausing.

“Bella.”

She sat down in a guest chair across from the desk. Though tired, he was as courtly as ever. He located the document he’d been searching for and put down the microphone. His smile deepened the dark circles under his eyes.

“I have documents for you from Darrel,” she said. “Since the Franjipur trial was postponed, he thinks we should augment the witness list and get Tony to try to find those two former employees.” She plunked the file down on his desk.

“He does, does he? I’ll take a look. Sorry I had to work so late last night. I feel as though I haven’t seen you in days.”

“You haven’t. Maybe I should call Melanie and get on your calendar.”

“As soon as I finish putting this deal together,” he said, gesturing, “things should ease up. We’ll get our lives back.”

I still have my life. It hasn’t gone anywhere.

“There’s a Clive Morrissey on the line,” Melanie’s voice announced. “He’s been referred for an estate planning consultation.” Jack looked at Mercedes pleadingly and picked up the receiver. She nodded and got up, closing his door behind her.

A
FTER SUPPER,
Germaine and Mercedes lingered over their empty plates at the dining room table.

“There are ways to inform the school without broadcasting it, you know—although I suspect they’ll call both sets of parents as soon as you say what you saw.”

“Oh I hate this!” Germaine exclaimed. “Judy has everything. You should see her clothes and how the boys gape at her. She didn’t have to steal that wallet and plant it in Amy’s backpack.”

“People misbehave for lots of reasons. Look at the Harrow kids. Their parents are loaded, the children have ten of everything they could possibly want, and they act like little monsters.”

Germaine’s expression was glum. “Why is it on
me
then? I didn’t do anything!”

“It’s on you because you
know
and because you’re an honest person. If you don’t come forward, an innocent girl will be wrongly blamed and Judy may very well get away with it, which will only invite a repeat performance.”

“But it’ll make me into a tattletale.”

“How will you feel a month from now if you keep silent and Amy can’t prove her innocence? You have a lot of power in this situation. Better use it wisely.”

Germaine pondered her mother’s words and looked around. Their house was rich with Jack’s furnishings and those Mercedes had inherited from Elizabeth. The chandelier from his apartment hung over the walnut table where they sat; his African tapestry covered the wall nearby. One of Elizabeth’s Persian carpets filled the living room. Antique floor lamps on either end of the leather couch gave the living room a warm glow. A long wall was lined with dark wood bookcases, filled with their combined libraries. Outside, the statue of Athena stood watch in the brick courtyard.

Just then the metal gates clanged and familiar footsteps approached the front door. As soon as Jack had one foot over the threshold he smiled. The aromas of Mercedes’s cooking enveloped
him. Germaine bounded over to greet him. He bent over to receive her kiss on his cheek and gave her a fatherly hug.

“You grew an inch today. Did you save me some dinner or did it all go down that hollow leg of yours?”

Mercedes helped him out of his coat, and he kissed her. Soon he was at the table with them, digging into large helpings of shepherd’s pie and spinach salad. He ate unhurriedly and closed his eyes to take in the flavors.

“Bella,” he murmured. She and Germaine looked knowingly at each other. Food was one of the currencies of love they had always spent freely.

After answering Jack’s questions about school, and carefully omitting the crime she’d witnessed, Germaine left the table. Soon the sound of water running in the tub could be heard over Thelonious Monk on the jazz station. Mercedes poured two glasses of wine and brought them to the table.

“So, how is Emerson working out?” she asked.

Jack finished chewing. “He’s catching on quickly. We’re getting a lot of referrals right now. I’m trying to peel off as much of the work as I can so I can concentrate on client development. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Of course it is,” she said with concern. “I just always feel that Emerson has an agenda and no one knows what it is, that’s all. Darrel certainly didn’t seem all that sorry to see him go.”

He looked at her darkly. “I have some accounts to settle, okay? I needed help and I hired Emerson. The business that stands still is dead in the water. That’s how it works. We have to start planning for Germaine’s college, among other things. We have to plan for the future or it will come at us like a shark attack.”

“You don’t have to talk to me that way,” she bristled. “I’m only expressing my concern.”

She went into her daughter’s room and stayed with her while she got ready for sleep. Although uneasy, Germaine had resolved to report what she’d seen at school. She chewed her bottom lip and turned onto her side, apprehensive about the fallout that would come from her peers. None of her mother’s reassurances assuaged her misgivings. She was still wide awake when Mercedes said good night.

In the large walk-in closet of the master bedroom she pulled off her clothes, brooding over some of Jack’s remarks. She slipped on a nightgown and turned with a start to see him standing there watching her every move. No smile softened his expression when they made eye contact.

“What is it?” she asked.

He said nothing.

She tried again. “How was your day?”

“Not bad.”

He was in his pajamas leaning against the doorway, his shirt tossed into the pile for the laundry, his suit pants hung carefully from the cuffs. His clothes surrounded them. There were rows of Jack’s suits, shirts of every hue, racks of ties, stacks of sweaters, shelves of shoes, and more shoes on the carpeted floor. The intimate room smelled faintly of his cologne, shoe polish, wood, and wool.

“Do you like your new life?” he asked. “Have you forgotten your life before?” He seemed to be getting at something, but she didn’t feel like engaging in a guessing game.

“Of course I do—most of it, anyway. But I’ll never forget my life before you came along, nor do I want to.” She glowered at him. “Is something the matter? A shark attack on the horizon?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.”

“I’d like to be the judge of that.”

He said nothing.

She persisted. “You said you had accounts to settle. What accounts?”

He looked at her steadily and kept his own countenance. He touched her shoulders and ran his hands down the front of her satin nightgown, then lifted its hem.

She reached down inside his pajama bottoms, which soon lay around his ankles.

“You’re evading my question,” she said, roused by his erection and their tension.

He seized her by the thighs, picked her up effortlessly, and slammed her back against the wall. She clung to him in the face of ferocious desire, digging her fingertips into his shoulders. He thrust against her as hard as he pleased, not caring how much noise they made or whether her back would be bruised by the assault. She gasped at the force of him, but her body responded with hunger just the same. He let her down the minute he was finished, humored by her stunned expression.

“It’s time for bed, Mrs. Soutane,” he announced, pulling up his pajama bottoms. He grinned as he watched her straighten her gown. “Don’t forget what side your bread is buttered on.”