Bennett Sisters Mystery Volumes 1-2 Read online

  The Bennett Sisters Mysteries

  1: Blackbird Fly 2: The Girl in the Empty Dress

  Lise McClendon

  Thalia Press

  Contents

  Blackbird Fly

  Acknowledgments

  The Bennett Sisters Mysteries

  Also by

  Dedication

  Book One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Book Two

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Book Three

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Book Four

  Chapter 39

  Read all the Bennett Sisters novels

  The Girl in the Empty Dress

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Police Report

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Also by Lise McClendon

  About the Author

  Also available from Thalia Press

  Blackbird Fly

  Blackbird Fly. Copyright © 2009 by Lise McClendon.

  * * *

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without written consent of the publisher, except for brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and attributed to this work. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real individuals, situations, or settings is coincidental.

  * * *

  First published in the United States by Thalia Press.

  Blackbird Fly, by Lise McClendon.

  ISBN: 978-0-9819442-7-2

  Cataloguing Data

  McClendon, Lise.

  Blackbird Fly/ Lise McClendon — 3rd U.S. Edition

  * * *

  1. Americans in France— Fiction, 2. Women — Fiction, 3. France — fiction, 4. Female Attorney — Fiction, 5. Title.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the wonderful people who helped me with this book, including my American friends in France, Sharon Tompkins, Tom Jones, Valerie Trevino, Carol Curtis, Robert Cabrerra, and Katalina Cabrerra. A special thanks and bisous to Patricia Zirotti who corrected and never laughed at my French, and Laurent Zirotti who helped me plan many trips to his home country and explained the French way effortlessly and elegantly. And to Arjan and Marije Capelle at the Hotel Edward 1er in Monpazier who wined and dined and helped fold those humongous maps. A big thank you to my contacts at the Legal Aid Society in New York City, Alan Gordon and Marie Mombrun. To Robin Taylor who helped me hash things out, and to Sherri Cornett, traveler extraordinaire — when do we leave? To Katy Munger, who thinks big and just gets me. To Kipp who always has my back and lets me daydream. Thanks for all the travel, wine tasting, and brainstorming, honey, you're the best. To Evan, Nick, Abby, Kate, Susie, Natalie, Barbara, Dean, and my darling mother, Betty.

  * * *

  I appreciate all of you so much. Merci beaucoup.

  The Bennett Sisters Mysteries

  Bennett Sisters #1

  Blackbird Fly

  * * *

  Bennett Sisters #2

  The Girl in the Empty Dress

  * * *

  Bennett Sisters #3

  Give Him the Ooh-la-la

  * * *

  Bennett Sisters #4

  The Things We Said Today

  * * *

  Bennett Sisters #5

  The Frenchman

  Also by

  Lise McClendon

  The Bluejay Shaman

  Painted Truth

  Nordic Nights

  Blue Wolf

  One O'clock Jump

  Sweet and Lowdown

  All Your Pretty Dreams

  Jump Cut

  PLAN X

  Beat Slay Love

  Dedication

  To my father. Miss you, pops.

  * * *

  John Haddaway McClendon

  1921 - 2004

  Book One

  The Death

  * * *

  He who binds to himself a joy,

  Does the winged life destroy;

  But he who kisses the joy as it flies

  Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

  William Blake

  Chapter One

  On the day Harold Strachie died New York City struggled to slough off the lingering chill of winter and he struggled with his spare tire. Twenty pounds had crept up on him, without his consent. He gulped down the usual double-double espresso to get the juices flowing. The early morning was dark and echoing, his only company garbage trucks and young people jogging, their feet slapping the sidewalk, oblivious to middle age.

  Getting fit was a bitch. Walking from the train or subway was the extent of his exercise up until now. The extra pounds made Harry feel old at 54, someone who had lost control of his own fate. He refused to let his champagne belly keep him down. He would be muscular, strong, a master of his universe. Confidence was everything.

  He’d spent the night in the City as he often did when his deals were soft. For several hours before the markets opened he would work while the office was quiet, researching trends and companies, so he was ready to pounce. But he didn’t feel too cat-like climbing the seven flights of stairs to his office, his new daily workout. He stopped on each landing to catch his breath.

  In the empty lobby, he fumbled for the light switch and swayed on his feet, woozy. Cold sweat ran into his collar. He blinked, hung up his coat, and sat down. If he’d had a picture of his family on his desk, which he didn’t, he would have picked it up. His boy — so smart and tough and, yes, awkward at 15, but he’d grow out of that and be better for it. And his darlin
g girl who looked so much like him with dark curls and mournful eyes. He wished he’d stolen into her bedroom this morning and ruffled her sweet hair.

  A horrible squeeze of his chest made him grab his shirt. He gasped, waiting. As the tightness eased, he saw his daughter again, ten years from now, in makeup and mini-skirts and all her innocence lost, and he felt the pain again, harder.

  Black spots floated before his eyes. He sat back in his chair, trying to relax. Christ, this wasn’t good. He shouldn’t have had that espresso. If this was heartburn he’d be buying antacids.

  The squeezing lessened. He’d get an appointment with his doctor for later in the week. He could already see the smirk on the doctor’s face when he told him to stop being such a nervous nelly. A moment of calm. The office quiet was soothing. He took a light breath and blew it out.

  Harry clicked on his computer. As the reports streamed in he clicked through prices, checking analysis. The sweat on his forehead began to dry. Just another day, he thought. Then, the last, the worst — the pain seized him again, and the black spots grew and merged into one.

  Chapter Two

  When something shatters, when whatever you’re attached to ends, definitely, the moment rises up like it’s been hanging there for years, a lead balloon waiting to drop with a heavy thud into your life. All that living leading to this exact moment in time. Where has fate been hiding? Doesn’t matter. Here it is. Here it is, by God.

  Merle stared at the phone, heavy, institutional beige. She’d arrived at the Legal Aid offices in Harlem a few minutes before. She was still wearing her boots. She hadn’t touched her coffee.

  He was dead. Harry. Husband. Deceased.

  She felt the air move around her, solemnly, gently, as if she was a pile of ash a strong breath might blow away. Outside her office voices filtered in, the chatting of colleagues, the insistent tone of an angry client evicted from her apartment. The sounds grounded her, the endless litany of troubles to be untangled, emotions to be soothed, hands to be held. Just the name Legal Aid — aid was so basic, so important in this hard world — made her warm.

  Here she was necessary. Here she did good in the world.

  Her little world, so ordered and sane. Her nest, every twig in place. The selfless lawyer, fighting for the homeless and disenfranchised. The charity work on her days off, boring or annoying at times but always fulfilling in the end. Tomorrow there was another luncheon, a benefit for African orphans organized by her sister. Francie was so excited about the celebrities, a baseball player, a talk show host, that she had lined up.

  No luncheon now. Merle knew she should make a list of what tomorrow would look like but the murmur of the office captivated her, the buzzing like a hive, as if she’d never really listened before, never felt the ordinary blessing of her colleagues and their routine.

  “Merle?” One of the law fellows stood in front of her with a quizzical look on her face.

  The receiver was still in Merle’s hand, making a noise. Laura took the phone and replaced it on the cradle. Merle swallowed, frowned, and stood up.

  “I have to go.”

  “Oh,” Laura said, fluttering the way young people did. When had she started thinking of new graduates that way? “Your appointments? Mrs. Elliot is waiting, then — ” She stopped, seeing Merle’s face. “Sorry. I don’t need to tell you that.”

  “I’m sure you can handle them, ” Merle said, putting her coat back on. It was still damp with morning rain. “I have an emergency. I must go.”

  “Oh,” Laura said again. “Can I help?”

  Not unless you can bring a man back from the dead.

  * * *

  Of her four sisters, the one she wanted at the hospital was Annie. It was sad, really, that Stasia was her second choice because she was so strong and capable. A magazine editor these days — not the lawyer she’d trained to be but no one blamed her for that — and damn good at it. An organizer, a do-everything gal. She and Merle lived close together in Connecticut but they were so different. Merle and Annie, her oldest sister, shared an intangible something. In this emergency Merle never thought of Francie or Elise; they were younger and if she had to say so, a bit shallow, despite going to Whitman Law like their older sisters. Someday they would lean on Merle, the middle child. They would need her like she needed Annie. But Annie lived too far, in western Pennsylvania. You had to be practical.

  Stasia came, promptly, and held Merle until she didn’t want to be held. Dried her tears, called everyone. She made the lists that stubbornly jumbled up in Merle’s head. She was so efficient.

  In the end Stasia arranged the funeral, wrote the obituary, talked to everyone for Merle. Arranged flowers, watered flowers, threw away flowers. Arranged meals, heated up meals, threw away meals. And so, when it was time, two weeks later, for the visit to Harry’s lawyers to hear his will, there was no question which sister went with Merle.

  * * *

  Deep rugs, old oak, leather-bound tales of mishaps and bad decisions and the appalling nature of life: The Law Office. With eyes closed Merle caught the smell of the time crumbling, the fruitlessness of human endeavor, of — mortality. Well, it was on her mind.

  In the law you could change lives, you could make a difference. You learned the rules then you bent them. But justice was a slippery devil. Hard to quantify, impossible to hang on to. She concentrated on the endless rows of dusty books, not justice, searching the shelves for the earliest court records. New York District Court, 1878. Harry’s lawyers, and his father’s before him, were a very old, very white-shoe firm, not unlike Byrne & Loveless, firm of her misguided youth.

  Harry. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, now that he was gone. Trying to remember little things, it was hard. She hadn’t really noticed him recently, besides his dry-cleaning and a cocktail party or two. She stared at his suits in his closet, lined up the oxfords he would never wear. He wasn’t in the best of shape, never had been, with that paunch and double chin. He hadn’t told her but apparently he had a plan to get healthy by exercising, or at least climbing stairs.

  Genius, that Harry.

  She gripped the arms of the chair, trying hard to picture him the first time they met — the day she made partner at Byrne & Loveless, at the bar after the party after the celebration. She tried to remember the feeling of being valued, loved, feted. All she could remember was barfing in the women’s room. And Harry taking her home.

  When he told the story he was the gallant knight, swinging the limp princess over his shoulder. She may have knocked into him coming out of the restroom. Yes, that was it. Almost fell down and he saved her from cracking her head.

  Out of the blue, the question boomed inside her head: What-what. What? What?! It was back, like a disease never quite cured. She hadn’t heard it for weeks, that little voice that plagued her. These last weeks everybody knew what was what: Harry’s dead, that’s what. Shut up. She looked out the window and silenced it.

  Stasia sighed and looked at her watch. The lawyers were keeping them waiting. At the funeral Stasia had surprised everyone by sobbing, loudly. Strange, since she never cared that much for Harry. She thought he didn’t love Merle enough, and told her so one famous Christmas in front of a roaring fire before she knew about the baby on the way. Maybe that’s why she cried at the funeral.

  Merle’s cell phone vibrated in her slacks pocket. Tristan’s school calling. She went into the hallway. Trouble. The Headmaster (unbelievably they still called him that) would put the boy on the bus, if she agreed. She sighed, closed the phone. Back in the office she shook her head at Stasia: not now.

  Harry’s ancient lawyer, who he’d called The Geezer, was shouting in the hallway. The door opened and he shuffled in with a younger man who introduced himself as Troy Lester, a partner. The old man, eighty-five minimum, Landon McGuinness the Third wore neatly-pressed gray flannel almost as ancient as he was.

  His thick glasses perched on a beak no doubt less prominent when his cheeks had flesh. The younger partner, Les
ter, was close to their age but bald on top like the geezer. He was obviously the old man’s right-hand everything.