“Her cane,” Auvieux said.
“She’s elderly?”
Auvieux shook his head, ready for the judge’s questions to end. “Blind,” he said.
“Are there any ruffians in the village?”
“Quoi?” Auvieux asked. His gaze was fixed on the waitress, who was coming toward them, carrying two steaming dishes on a tea towel that stretched between the two plates.
“You know,” Verlaque said, realizing he was running out of time with the farmer. “Bad boys. Ne’er-do-wells.”
Auvieux smirked. “The Pioger cousins. Hervé and Didier. They’ve both been in jail, one for theft and the other for roughing up his ex-wife. They live together in an apartment above the old hardware store.”
“Cozy.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Auvieux replied, not understanding, or not acknowledging, Verlaque’s sarcasm. “One of my friends saw it once and said it looked like a sirocco had blown through it.” Verlaque smiled, imagining that hot desert wind that in its wake left red sand on every surface.
The waitress set down the plates, warning that they were hot. Auvieux rubbed his hands together as the aroma from his osso bucco wafted into his face. “Bonne continuation, cher Monsieur le Juge!”
For dessert the two men shared a cheese plate, and then finished the meal with espresso followed by a hard-to-find Roger Groult calvados (the chef was from Normandy). Verlaque quickly paid the bill before Auvieux could argue. He hadn’t got much useful information from Auvieux, except for the names of the Pioger cousins, but he’d had a thoroughly good time. He remembered his grandfather Charles, although vastly wealthy, making a point of dining every week with his managers and mill superintendents. “You don’t learn anything from sticking to what you know,” Charles had told his grandson. “You have to get out of your comfort zone. Besides, I like my men.” Emmeline, Charles’s English wife, had done the same: she was equally at ease with her bohemian art-school friends, their wealthy Parisian neighbors, and the no-nonsense farm wives who lived near the Normandy manor house the family used on weekends and holidays. Verlaque and his brother, Sébastien, had not been raised to mingle with others who did not live as they did—in a grand house in central Paris—and Verlaque, the few times that he saw his real-estate-mogul brother, knew Sébastien would never be able to mix with anyone who did not have the same kind of hefty bank account. Verlaque had always been very aware of his family’s wealth and at university had made an effort to make friends with all different kinds of people. Rugby, he knew, had helped enormously. As had Chantal. He realized that he did have something in common with all of them—the rugby men, his old friends from law school, the cigar club, the farmer: they all loved good, real food. I guess I’m still a snob in some ways, Verlaque thought as he parked his car beside La Bastide Blanche, having taken Auvieux home. No, as much as he respected his secretary, Mme Girard, he could never be friends with her. What would they eat?
He walked across the lawn to the ancient front door, which was wide open. Given that the house was in the country, and it was a warm summer day, the open door did not entirely surprise him. But was it often left open like that? The Pioger cousins could have easily scoped out the grounds, knowing that the old worn-down house, now occupied by a rich and elderly man, was an invitation—gold-embossed—for breaking and entering. Breaking isn’t even needed, thought Verlaque as he called out “Âllo!” Anyone can just walk right in, as I’m doing now.
He stepped into the elegant entryway and curled up his nose. Something was burning. “Âllo!” he called out again.
“Shhh!” Sandrine whispered as she walked down the long hallway, holding her index finger to her mouth.
“What’s that awful smell?” Verlaque asked in a soft voice.
“I’m asking you very kindly to leave my home,” Valère Barbier said as he came out of the living room, holding up a clump of burning branches. He saw Verlaque and winked. “This is my home now, and you must all leave.” He walked across the hall and into another room, waving the burning branches above his head. “I appreciate that you may have lived here once, but, well, time goes on . . . Que sera, sera . . .”
Sandrine winced. “He’s not even trying!” she whispered.
“What is that branch?” Verlaque asked.
“Sage,” Sandrine said, leaning in toward Verlaque. “I made it.”
Valère came back into the hallway and walked out the front door, still talking to the spirits. Verlaque and Sandrine followed him and watched as he made a halfhearted attempt to sway the burning sticks around the perimeter of the house. “Holy water up next,” Sandrine said. “I bought it at the cathedral in Aix.”
“Indeed?” Verlaque asked. “Is the house haunted, then?”
Sandrine nodded.
“Don’t you think that’s just village gossip, Mlle Matton?”
Sandrine waved her index finger back and forth. “Is it village gossip that keeps M Barbier awake all night?”
“Perhaps M Barbier has worries that keep him up.” Verlaque watched as Barbier disappeared around a corner.
“What worries could he have?” Sandrine asked. “He’s a world-famous writer. Look at this house.” She gestured toward the bastide, which Verlaque had to admit looked majestic on a sunny summer day.
“Wealthy people have problems too.” He thought of his parents, stuck in their mansion a few streets from the Louvre, and never communicating. His mother had died, as she had lived: unhappy. “Perhaps even more,” he added.
Sandrine blew a bubble with her bubblegum. “Nothing’s as hard as cleaning. And loving and losing someone.”
Verlaque turned to her. “I’m sorry,” he began.
“I’m out of sage!” Valère called as he came toward them from the southeast corner of the house. “I almost burned my fingertips!”
Sandrine put her hands on her hips. “What am I going to do with you? I made four of them—don’t worry.”
“Care for a break?” Verlaque asked Valère.
“Go ahead,” Sandrine replied. Verlaque looked at Barbier to see if he cared one way or another that his cleaning woman
