Fleur De Lies Read online

  “I’m sure they won’t penalize you for weather-related issues beyond your control.”

  “They might. I forced ’em to brush up on the life of St. Joan by makin’ ’em sit through that 1948 tearjerker movie with Ingrid Bergman. At the end of two and a half hours, Lena Eggebraaten was so worn out from cryin’, her eyes swelled shut behind her trifocals.”

  “She didn’t realize St. Joan was going to die?”

  “She didn’t realize the dang movie was gonna be so borin’. There wasn’t no special effects. Not a one. Lena takes her grandkids to see them Transformer flicks, so she was missin’ the thrill of watchin’ the screen explode in digital 3-D and Dolby surround sound.”

  The corridor started getting congested as passengers ventured out of their cabins toting raingear and umbrellas.

  KREEEOOOO! Bzzzzt … Bzzzzzt. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Rouen. A reminder to those of you who’ll be participating in our port walk this morning. Please stop by the front desk to pick up your port passes, headphones, and receivers. The tour is set to commence in fifteen minutes. Thank you.”

  I hurried back into my cabin, riffled through my shoes, jammed my feet into my least favorite pair of wedges, threw on my raincoat, stuffed my umbrella into my shoulder bag, and joined the crowd that was surging toward the lobby.

  Mayhem surrounded the front desk. Hands yanking pre-packaged earbuds out of bins. Cellophane wrappers being ripped. Port passes flying out of mailbox slots. Receivers being slapped into waiting hands. Names being yelled to the purser and her assistant over the counter. I’d intended to inquire about the status of our email request before leaving the boat, but the situation was so chaotic, I figured I’d have better luck when I got back.

  I announced my name to the assistant purser, picked up my port pass, hung a receiver around my neck, pulled a package of earbuds from the bin, snugged my hood over my head, and headed down the gangway to join the guests clustered beneath their umbrellas along the embankment. Happily, the pelting rain had dwindled to a light but steady shower, so my feet weren’t getting as wet as I thought they would. Rob stood off to the side, studying a clipboard beneath his oversized tour director’s umbrella. I hastened over to him.

  “Any word back on Krystal’s autopsy report yet?”

  He regarded me blankly, as if trying to figure out who I was.

  “Emily Miceli? I’m on the tour?”

  “Oh, sure. Emily. Sorry. Names and faces are my downfall, but I’m working on it.”

  A tour director who was bad with names and faces was a bit like an accountant who was bad with adding and subtracting, but hey, what did I know? “You’re not alone,” I sympathized. “I think a majority of people are bad with names and faces.” But fortunately, they were wise enough to enter professions where remembering names and faces wasn’t the most essential part of their work.

  “Yeah. It’s hell. No sooner do a few guests start looking familiar than they leave, and you have to start all over again with a different group.”

  “I guess that’s why you encourage us to wear our name tags.”

  “It’d be a lot more convenient if we could print guest names on baseball caps. That way we wouldn’t always be staring at people’s chests. The company gets a lot of complaints from the ladies about that.” He paused. “I’m sorry. What was your question?”

  “Krystal’s autopsy?”

  “Right. I received a call just before I left my cabin but haven’t had a chance to tell anyone other than Mr. and Mrs. Martin. She apparently died from a brain hemorrhage.”

  My mouth fell open. Uff-da. I hadn’t seen that coming.

  “The report states that the hemorrhage was so massive, she probably died instantly, so she was most likely dead even before she fell off the cliff. In fact, the police might have to amend their initial report to state that it was her sudden death that caused her fall rather than her poor choice of footwear.”

  “Oh, my God. I don’t know what to say.” Other than I was relieved foul play hadn’t been a factor in her death, and I was sorry I’d looked at Bobbi and Dawna last night with mounting suspicion.

  Krystal had died from natural causes.

  There were no killers in our midst, which meant Jackie was in the protective custody of the gang for no reason at all and would therefore be treated to the full brunt of Bernice’s tirades all day.

  I had to restrain my feet from breaking out in a happy dance. Yes!

  “They can’t release the body until they run a few more labs. Unknown what’s going to happen after that. I’ve never had a guest die on me before, so this is all uncharted territory.”

  A remembered image of Krystal’s snakeskin top photo flashed in my mind. “She suffered a nosebleed on the bus yesterday. Were you aware of that?”

  “I thought everyone on the bus was aware of it. Where were you sitting that you missed it? The way she was carrying on, you’d have thought she was about to die.” He hesitated, reassessing his words. “Of course, she did die, but—”

  “Is it possible that her nosebleed was the first indication that something was going terribly wrong inside her brain?”

  Rob lifted his shoulders. “You got me. I’m not a doctor. I provided her with extra tissue. That’s about all I’m authorized to do.”

  Feeling a sudden presence at my right shoulder, I turned my head slowly.

  “What’s the purpose of all this extra crap anyway?” whined Bernice as she waved her receiver and earbuds at me. “Isn’t it bad enough that we have to schlep umbrellas because of this crappy weather?”

  I stared at her, deadpan. There was no God. There was no God.

  Rob noted the time. “Would you excuse me?” He ranged a look around the area where the guests had assembled. “I need to make a phone call to see what’s happened with our local guide. She’s running late.”

  “So, Bernice—” I ducked quickly to avoid getting my eye poked out by her umbrella. “I was under the impression you’d voted to skip the port walk.”

  “You never get it right, do you? The wusses voted to ditch the walk. I voted to take it.”

  “You’re not worried about ruining your orthotics?”

  “What orthotics? My feet are perfect … thanks to two over-priced bunionectomies and Medicare parts A, B, C, and D. So what am I supposed to do with all this junk they crammed down my throat at the front desk?”

  “This is your receiver.” I plucked the bar soap-sized gizmo from her hand and looped the attached lanyard around her neck. “When you plug your earbuds into it, you’re supposed to be able to hear whatever the person on the transmitting end is saying.”

  “Who’s gonna be on the transmitting end?”

  “The local guide, I assume.”

  She stared down at the added clutter on her chest. “It’s covering up my name tag.”

  “Why don’t we join the crowd so we can get further operating instructions?”

  “Slackers. What’s wrong with the guides in France that they can’t scream the information at us like all the other guides do?”

  We skirted the perimeter of the group until we reached what I deduced might become the front of the pack since it was closest to the stairs that linked the river promenade to the street above. Faces were obscured within hoods and beneath umbrellas, but I was able to pick out Woody and some of the men he’d been sitting with last night. Cal huddled with a few of his buddies in the opposite direction of where Woody was standing. Victor was here with Virginia, which surprised me. I thought he might be too devastated to venture off the boat today, but perhaps a long walk in the rain would help soothe his emotional upheaval. I didn’t see Bobbi or Dawna until I caught sight of their blonde hair in the middle of the group, surrounded by a phalanx of doe-eyed males.

  “Could I have your attention, please?” Rob hopped up on a bench with his yellow umbrel
la. “Our local guide is running a few minutes late, so this is a good time to introduce you to our mobile speaker system. Have you all hung your receivers around your necks?”

  Nods. Mumbles.

  “Locate the dial on top of your receiver and turn it to channel four.”

  Studied silence. Heavy breathing.

  “My receiver doesn’t have a dial,” complained an older male voice.

  “Move your thumb,” suggested another guest. “It’s underneath.”

  “Is everyone on channel four?” asked Rob.

  “What’s on the other channels?” someone called out.

  “We’re only interested in channel four. Now, plug your headphones into the port on the side of your receiver.”

  “I didn’t get any headphones,” protested a female guest.

  Rob held up the cellophane package containing our audio equipment. “Headphones, earphones. Whatever. Plug the prong into your receiver.”

  A woman standing nearby sniggered to her friend as she ripped open the pouch containing a coil of spaghetti wire that resembled string licorice. “I’m glad he explained what’s inside here. I thought it was a mid-morning snack.”

  “Is everyone plugged in?”

  Murmurs. Head bobbing.

  “Now, insert your earphones into your ears in a comfortable position.”

  I stuck a bud in each ear and winced. Hard plastic. Odd shape. Uncomfortable fit. This should go over well. I sidled a glance at Bernice who was so entangled in audio wire, she looked like the poster child for self-strangulation. As I helped her sort through the jumble of cords, Rob’s voice suddenly erupted inside my head. “TESTING … ONE, TWO—”

  YOW!

  I hit my volume control and dialed it back to a level that wouldn’t cause my brain to explode.

  “Are we supposed to be hearing something?” Woody called out.

  Rob’s breath hissed softly in my ears. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Why can’t I hear anything?” asked Woody.

  “I hear a philharmonic orchestra,” enthused a nearby guest.

  “Ride of the Valkyries?” asked her friend.

  “You hear it, too?”

  “It’s my cell phone.”

  Cal sprinted over to his dad. “Have you turned your volume up?”

  “How do I do that?”

  Cal made the adjustment.

  “Testing … one, two, three,” said Rob.

  “YOW!” cried Woody.

  “Do these receivers put us at risk of being electrocuted?” a woman fretted.

  “Only if you’re struck by lightning while you’re wearing one,” teased Rob.

  “Is that a yes or a no?” she huffed.

  “Sorry,” Rob apologized. “To clarify, you cannot be electrocuted by your receivers. You can stand waist deep in water, and nothing, I repeat, nothing will happen other than you’ll get really wet.”

  “Why do they look like garage door openers?” questioned a man in the back. “Will they actually open garage doors?”

  “What about reproductive health?” asked one of Woody’s cohorts. “Can wearing one of these things decrease our sperm count?”

  “Uhhhh …”

  “Is medical research going to find out years from now that these receivers cause cancer?” queried a man near the front.

  “How come these things don’t have touchscreens?”

  “Can we take photos with them?”

  I smiled broadly, tickled I wasn’t the one having to field their questions.

  “My receiver’s a dud,” bellowed Bernice.

  “Are you tuned in to channel four?” asked Rob.

  “Yup.”

  “Is your volume turned up?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you can’t hear my voice?”

  “Not through your stupid earphones, I can’t.”

  I looked over her equipment, finding the problem immediately. “Okay, Bernice. Here’s the thing. In order to hear anything through your earphones, you actually have to insert them in your ears.”

  She pushed her features into a scowl. “Go ahead, genius.” She shoved her hair out of the way and angled her ear toward me. “Make my day.”

  I shifted my gaze from her earphones to her ear. Oops. I cupped my hands around my mouth and called out to Rob, “Is there a way to insert earbuds around hearing aids?”

  “Uhhhh …”

  “Do these things carry the ESPN sports channel?” asked a man standing by Woody. “I want to find out how the Cubbies did against the Brewers.”

  “Your receivers aren’t broadband radios,” barked Rob. “They can’t open garage doors. They won’t take pictures. They will allow you to hear what our local guide is saying, and that’s all they’ll do. If you’re unable to insert your earphones comfortably into your ears”—he bobbed his head as if considering the options—“then stand close enough to our guide so you’ll be able to hear her without them. Any questions?”

  “What’ll I do if my receiver short circuits my pacemaker?”

  Oh, God.

  I heard a splat, splat, splat of footsteps rushing in our direction and turned to see a woman with a canary-yellow umbrella scurry past me toward Rob.

  “And here she is now,” Rob announced in a voice that was thick with relief. “Our local guide. Come on up here so people can have a look at you.”

  She hopped onto the bench beside Rob and tilted her umbrella back, favoring us with a wave and a bright smile.

  Oh my God! Madeleine Saint-Sauveur!

  eleven

  “In 1348, the city of Rouen suffered the worst outbreak of bubonic plague in its history.”

  Madeleine’s voice crackled in my ears as we gathered around her in a courtyard surrounded by ancient two- and three-story buildings.

  “History has given the catastrophe many names: the Great Plague, the Great Pestilence, the Black Death. By the time it had run its course in Rouen, three-quarters of the city’s population lay dead, which presented a gruesome problem for the living: With parish cemeteries having run out of burial space, where could so many bodies be interred?”

  A large rectangle of grass occupied the center of the square, and in the middle of this, nearly camouflaged within the leafy canopy of a dozen hardwoods, rose a crucifix that was both tall and painfully slender.

  “The task of burying the victims fell upon parish priests who understood they needed to dispose of the bodies quickly to prevent more disease from spreading. So they decided to do so in a most unfortunate manner.” Madeleine made a sweeping gesture that included the entire courtyard. “They buried them in a mass grave. Here. At Aitre de St. Maclou.”

  Gasps, followed by uneasy silence. Eyes slowly drifted to the pavers beneath our feet. “You mean, we’re standing on them?” asked Woody.

  Madeleine nodded. “Oui, monsieur.”

  Woody shook his head. “Damn. That’s just wrong.”

  “By the time another plague struck two hundred years later, the cemetery could no longer provide in-ground burial, so facilities were expanded above ground to the buildings around us. Three of the galleries were completed in 1533, and for nearly two centuries, they were used to store the bones of Rouen’s dead, stacking them from floor to ceiling on every floor and in the attic space. To this day, few people walking along Rue de Martainville, with its upscale artisan shops and sidewalk cafés, realize that the antiquated wooden doors at number 186 are the unlikely entrance to the site of an ancient charnel house.”

  “Us folks in the profession never say charnel house,” Woody spoke up, an air of authority in his voice. “We call it an ossuary, a place that holds the bones of the dead.”

  “How come I’ve never heard that word before?” asked Bobbi Benedict.

  Virginia Martin regarded her without mirt
h. “Perhaps you should expand your friendships to include people who can use words longer than one syllable.”

  Unh-oh. Truce over.

  “So if an ossuary holds bones,” said the woman who’d been going to eat her earbuds as a morning snack, “what’s the purpose of a mausoleum?”

  “A mausoleum is a grander structure,” offered one of Woody’s buddies. “It’s a free-standing monument that encloses the body of the deceased. Like the Taj Mahal.”

  “I thought a crypt enclosed the body of the deceased,” argued another woman.

  “It does,” said Woody. “There’s a lot of terminology connected with—”

  “But if a crypt encloses the dead body, what does a vault do?” asked a man wearing a wide-brimmed bucket hat.

  “I think a vault is the same thing as a tomb,” said the woman standing next to him.

  “So if the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum,” questioned a man who was standing near Bernice, “what does that make the pyramids? Mausoleums, vaults, crypts, or tombs?”

  “It makes them overrated tourist attractions,” crabbed Bernice. “Like this place.”

  Dawna folded her arms across her chest and stomped her booted feet on the ground to ward off the chilly moistness in the air. “I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I’m gonna be cremated when I die. And I don’t want to end up in any musty old mausoleum for all eternity, so I’m gonna have my ashes scattered in a place that’s near and dear to my heart.”

  Bernice smiled dourly. “Where? The cosmetic aisle at Wal-Mart?”

  Dawna sucked in her breath, looking almost too horrified to form words. “The National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia, which just happens to be the world headquarters for the National Rifle Association. I’m gonna spend eternity with the folks who’re gonna defend my freedoms against the excesses of a tyrannical government.”

  “Dream on,” mocked Bernice. “If your ashes get scattered on the floor of some fancy museum, you’ll be spending eternity at the bottom of an industrial strength vacuum cleaner bag in a landfill on the outskirts of DC.”

  “You’ll need documentation to have your cremains transported legally,” asserted Woody. Unzipping the side pocket of his jacket, he removed a small leather case. “My card,” he said as he handed her his business card. “Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions, although I can say with absolute certainty that cremation should be your choice of last resort.” He waved the case in the air. “Anyone else want one?”