The three sat silently for several minutes, the only sound the subtle hiss and pop of the fire, and an occasionalplopas embers tumbled.
“So, you live here all alone?” Cady ventured.
“See anybody else here?” demanded Fabrice.
“Not in this room, I don’t. But it seems big enough for a dozen people to live here without seeing one another.”
“Huh,” was his only reply.
“Monsieur Clement—,” she said, trying again.
He cut her off.“Tutoie-moi,”which meant to call him the informalturather thanvous. “My name is Fabrice; I don’t like that formalmerde.”
“Okay, thank you, Fabrice,” she said. “I wanted to explain why I was trespassing. I... it’s sort of a long story, but I have this rabbit—”
“You mean you two aren’t together?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What, you met out there, in my courtyard? Both of you, trespassing in the same place, on the same night?”
Cady opened her mouth to reply, but wasn’t sure what to say.
Jean-Paul intervened. “We met in Paris. Marie-Claude Martin introduced us. She is a director of a museum in Paris. She’s the wife of Loïc Clement. Remember him?”
Fabrice frowned and poured himself more bourbon. He appeared frail and not in the best of health; Cady hoped the whiskey wouldn’t do him any harm.
“I can’t keep you all straight,” he groused. “Too many Clements in this world. Which one told you I hurt my ankle?”
“My mother heard it from the cashier at the village grocery. Told her you’ve had Andres’s son, Johnny, running errands for you.”
“He was, but he ripped me off.C’est un sale type.”
Cady wasn’t sure of the precise meaning of that last phrase, but assumed it was not a favorable assessment of young Johnny’s character.
“Have you seen the doctor?” Jean-Paul asked.
“It’s not broken. I just need to stay off it for a while, which would be easier if I didn’t have to go out in the rain to confront trespassers in the middle of the night.”
“Now that, I’ll grant you,” said Jean-Paul. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have it looked at. Why don’t I call Dr. Miller?”
“This whiskey helps more than anything the doctor could do,” Fabrice said as he stood, placing his crutch under his arm. “But for now, I’m tired. See yourselves out.”
“Monsieur Clement,” Cady said quickly. “I was hoping to ask—”
Fabrice continued shuffling toward an interior door, closing it behind him without so much as abonne nuit.
“Darn it.” Deflated, Cady sat back and downed the rest of her bourbon.
Jean-Paul chuckled at her reaction. “I warned you he was a difficult sort. Tell you the truth, this is the longest conversation I’ve had with him in years. You okay to drive after the drink?”
“Yes. I didn’t pour myself much. I don’t suppose we could snoop a little before we go...?”
“What is ‘snoop’?”
“Um... look at things that are none of our business. Like trespassing.”
Jean-Paul gave her a look from the corner of his eye.
