Fleur De Lies(120)

            “That wasn’t me!” raged Woody. “I didn’t kill your grampa. I wasn’t anywhere near Normandy on D-Day. If you wanna kill the real owner of this ring, you’re way too late, son. He died years ago, and the reason I know that is because I’m the one who buried him.”

            Patrice narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “My grandmother wore a brooch with the same fleur-de-lis design. She told me stories of Pierre Lefevre and his signature jewelry. If you are not Pierre Lefevre, how is it that you wear a ring that Pierre Lefevre never removed from his finger?”

            Woody gnawed on his lower lip, his cheeks and nose turning scarlet. “It’s a little hard to explain,” he choked out.

            I didn’t condone what Woody had done, but neither did I condone his having to face any more public humiliation than what he’d be facing when he returned home. “I don’t know how you dispose of personal property here in France,” I spoke up, “but back home we have something called an estate sale, where possessions that people have held dear can be purchased by perfect strangers. Isn’t that right, Mr. Jolly?”

            Woody coughed self-consciously and bobbed his head.

            “They’re listed in the newspaper every week,” I continued. “Some folks are so addicted to them, they’ll attend two or three a day.”

            Patrice shook his head, disbelieving. “You are Pierre Lefevre. The traitor of D-Day.”

            “Honest, son, I’m Woodrow Jolly the Third, newly retired funeral director of Jolly Funeral Home, born and bred in the good old US of A, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

            Doubt filled Patrice’s eyes. “It is not possible.”

            “Show of hands,” announced Osmond. “How many people think the old guy is who he says he is?”

            “No voting!” I cried.

            “If you are not Pierre Lefevre,” rasped Patrice, his vocal cords straining against his throat, “then I have—” He gasped for breath as the magnitude of what he’d done played out on his face in anguished waves. Horror. Fear. Regret. Fusing into a primal need to run.

            Hemmed in on three sides, he bolted around the end of the bar.

            “Do not follow him behind there!” I warned as Dick Stolee made to give chase.

            “Move away from the bar,” ordered Patrice as he assumed a central position behind the counter, barricading himself behind a stack of cocktail napkins and bowl of nuts. He stared at us. We stared at him. Nobody moved.

            “Did you mean that as a threat?” asked Tilly.

            “Oui, madame.”

            “Move away from the bar or else … what?” questioned Dick Teig.

            Patrice dropped his voice to a menacing pitch. “You should move away for your own good.”

            He made googly eyes at us. We made googly eyes back.

            Nana raised her hand.

            “Oui, madame?” Patrice nodded, giving her the floor.

            “I don’t wanna slam your escape plan or nuthin’, but you don’t got no leverage. If you was plannin’ to make threats, you shoulda taken a hostage.”

            “Nana!” I chided.

            “I’ll be his hoshtage,” volunteered Irv, “if he lets me camp out behind the bar with him.”

            As if recognizing the wisdom of Nana’s words, Patrice snatched up an industrial-size corkscrew and pressed it to his throat. “If you do not move away, I will drive this corkscrew into my throat, and for the rest of your lives, all of you will have my blood on your hands.”