by Nell Goddin
“It’s just ridiculous!” she blurted out, before he even got inside the door. “Excuse me, bonjour Paul-Henri. I lose my manners when it comes to those Barstows! They are a blemish on our village, I tell you!”
“Calm down, please, Ninette. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“He came in not an hour ago. And you know as well as I do how that goes, Paul-Henri! The boy sidles up this aisle and down another, hands in his pockets. Flashes me a sunny smile, don’t you know, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.”
Ninette crossed her arms with a flourish and Paul-Henri waited patiently for the rest of the story.
“And then Madame Tessier came in for some mineral water. She always has to have Perrier in glass bottles, you know, never the plastic. And she—she got to talking—”
“As Madame Tessier does,” said Paul-Henri under his breath.
“And she was telling me about the Valettes and how Camille barely ever leaves the house anymore, and anyway while we were having that conversation, somehow Malcolm slipped past her and before I could get a word out, he was out the door and gone! Pockets bulging! I ran outside to give chase but he was nowhere to be seen. Like a phantom when he wants to be, that one. The rotten little thief!”
Paul-Henri took a deep breath. “Can you tell me what was stolen?”
“Of course I can’t! I just told you, he slipped out the door like an eel, and I didn’t have any chance to stop him and see what was in his pockets! He bumped right into Madame Tessier, too, like she was nothing but a piece of furniture in his way.”
“So you cannot tell me a single thing that was missing? Is it possible the boy had bulging pockets before he entered the store?”
“You know he didn’t! Whose side are you on, Paul-Henri? I guess I need to speak to Chief Charlot, then.” She glared at him. For a moment Paul-Henri thought she was on the verge of slapping him.
“Now, now, Ninette, seriously, chérie, getting this worked up isn’t good for your health. Of course we in the gendarmerie take any theft seriously, but in this instance, I’m afraid you are making more of a guess about a theft than presenting any evidence that—”
“Oh, I see. I see whose side you’re on. Just because that boy’s father is no good and the family never has a dime, you take pity on him. I’m not hard-hearted, I understand. Honestly, I do. But what about my family, Paul-Henri? What about the dimes we struggle to make ourselves—are we simply supposed to open the cash register when the Barstows come around, and let them help themselves?”
Paul-Henri was usually rather good with distraught women; he knew what soothing things to say, and how to make them believe he was on their side, which he was. But that morning, he was off his game, for some reason, and Ninette’s emotions threatened to swamp him entirely. After a few more futile attempts to calm her down, he decided the best course of action was to take his leave.
“All right then, thank you,” he said. “I’m glad you called and reported him, and I will talk to the Chief about the situation and also pay a visit to the Barstow home.” He was about to say he wanted to hear Malcolm’s side of the story, but wisely stopped himself.
Besides, it was true that Malcolm was a thief, everyone in Castillac knew that. And doubtless Ninette’s family, who owned the épicerie, suffered the most from his criminal actions.
“Adieu,” he said, turning for the door, and gratefully feeling the cold air on his face once he was free again.
Malcolm, meanwhile, was dealing with his own set of problems. He had dodged Ninette easily enough and made it to the shabby Barstow house, which they rented from a Bergerac resident who was something of a neglectful landlord. Repairs were not made in a timely fashion, or even at all, but on the other hand (luckily for the Barstows) the owner was so disorganized he did not always realize when they were late with a month’s payment.
Madame Barstow sat slumped in a chair in the kitchen, in front of the fire. Her health was poor and she spent more and more time in that chair, the housekeeping left to another day, meals not prepared, baths not taken, her eyes closed or unfocused, staring at the coals.
“Look what I got,” Malcolm said to her with a grin, pulling his hands out of his pockets. “You love these!” He held out small oval cans of tinned anchovies. “I didn’t get any lettuce but I can go find some this afternoon. You could make that salad dressing, you know, with the Parmesan and anchovy paste, the one we all love so much.”
Mrs. Barstow tried to summon a smile but it flickered briefly across her face and died. “It’s the middle of December,” she said. “There’s no good lettuce this time of year. Would you cook tonight, son? Your little brother and sister get a good meal at school, but everyone is hungry at night when it’s so dark and cold. And I just…I just don’t think I can manage it today.”
Malcolm looked at her with concern. He had seen her depressed before, even hopeless, but maybe not ever quite this bad. He suspected her mood had plummeted because his father had been let out of prison, and been home for several weeks. Madame Barstow complained terribly when he was gone, but his return—he had been to prison several times—was nevertheless never much of a boost to her spirits.
“Sure, I can cook,” said Malcolm. “I got a can of tomatoes so I can make a sauce. And a hunk of hard cheese to grate over it, I think we’ve got some noodles…”
“You’re a good boy,” murmured his mother, turning her gaze back to the fire and pulling a moth-eaten blanket up to her chin.
Malcolm watched her for another moment. “Is that idiot Alfie giving you any trouble?”
“Nah. Your father’s told him he can sleep on the sofa for a few days, that’s all.”
“He needs to move the hell on,” said Malcolm, curling his hands into fists.
“Watch your language.”
Malcolm laughed. Then he wrapped his scarf tight around his neck and went back outside, guessing correctly that one gendarme or another would be paying the house a visit, and it would be prudent to be elsewhere for the moment. He was careful not to steal too much from any one place at a time and counted on the low value of the thefts to make dealing with him a low priority.
Which might have been a better strategy in a city, where the gendarmes had plenty of other things to concern themselves with. In Castillac, that morning in December, Paul-Henri had absolutely nothing else to do but focus on him and the accusations of Ninette; besides which he felt the need to polish up his reputation with the Chief by making an arrest, which always warmed the Chief’s chilly heart.
6
It was perhaps not completely above board, Ben recognized that, but nevertheless, he had delved into his files and come up with the cell number for Bernard Petit’s son, Franck, and immediately given him a call. No doubt his friend Léo Lagasse would not approve of Ben’s talking to the family of his new murder case, but any murder within a hundred kilometers, Ben and Molly considered fair game.
He waited for Franck in an out-of-the-way café on the edge of Bergerac, a somewhat dreary place the gourmand Lagasse wouldn’t be caught dead in. No point asking for trouble, after all. Ben had called Franck months earlier, when he was trying to figure out who was stealing from his father, and remembered him as being good natured, which had surprised Ben after the sourness of his father.
You never knew how it would go, with children—they often zigged where their parents zagged: the children of alcoholics turning out to be teetotalers, and the children of really annoying people managing, some way or another, to be rather charming.
“Bonjour, Monsieur, are you Ben Dufort?” said a young man, looking with an open, friendly expression at Ben as he stood up from a table inside the café.
“I am,” said Ben, shaking the other man’s hand. “It’s good to meet you. I’m glad you could get to Bergerac so quickly. I’m so sorry about your father. Of course death is almost always a shock, but in a case like this…” he cut himself off before rambling any more. “At any rate, my condolences.”
�
��Thank you,” said Franck. “And please, let’s be frank, not to joke on my own name. My father was…a difficult man. I don’t know how long you knew him, but in a way, even though his murder is shocking—it is not an enormous surprise.”
“Really?” said Ben. “Are you saying…you believe he had enemies?”
“Does that astonish you?” Franck laughed in disbelief.
Ben thought before he spoke. “Actually, yes, it does. I’m not saying he was an easy man. But the degree…the savagery of his death…that’s not something that happens to people who are simply…annoying. Or to say it another way: it is one thing to have enemies, and another to have enemies that will actually kill you.”
Franck’s mouth tightened and then relaxed when he saw the server coming over. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” he said, smiling at her. “I’d like a black coffee. And if you have pastry, pick something out for me, would you mind?”
The server, a small young woman with too many teeth, looked as though nothing would make her happier than to select Franck’s pastry. Ben ordered coffee as well, and a croissant, though he knew it would not be as good as the ones from Pâtisserie Bujold in Castillac.
“I appreciate your forthrightness,” said Ben. “And I will follow your lead. I called because, as you know, my partner and I have a successful private investigation business. Quite successful, I should say. And we would like to offer our services to you, if at any point you would like more support than the gendarmerie of Bergerac.”
Franck nodded. “Do you have any reason to think the Bergerac force isn’t up to snuff?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Ben. “At least not publicly,” he added with a small smile.
Franck nodded and smiled back, then craned his head to see what the server was up to.
“Maybe you’d like to tell me about some of these enemies your father had?” asked Ben.
Franck leaned back in his chair and again glanced over at the server who blushed and looked away. He was not an especially good-looking man, but Ben noted that he had a kind of magnetism that people, including himself, responded to.
“I don’t think…about hiring you—not at this point,” said Franck, with another smile. “Let’s see what the local detectives can manage. You must understand, it’s not that I don’t want to see my father’s murderer caught. Anyone capable of such an act…of course they should be arrested and the full weight of justice applied. But I am on a student’s budget, you understand, Monsieur Dufort….”
“Understood,” said Ben, hiding his frustration, and Franck grinned at him.
Ben thought the man smiled an awful lot for someone whose father had just been murdered. It could simply be his habit. Or an unwillingness to splash his own feelings all over the place, to someone he’d just met. Certainly comprehensible.
They chatted about football, about the weather, and about Franck’s mother, who was currently in India and had no plans to return.
“Will the funeral be here in Bergerac?” Ben asked.
“Funeral? Oh, I don’t think there’s going to be any funeral,” said Franck. “Though I suppose I should talk to my sister about it.”
Ben cocked his head, wondering.
“As I’ve said—no one liked him,” Franck said. “I mean—no one. He was a miserable, complaining sort of man who got pleasure out of making other people uncomfortable. So why go to the trouble and expense of putting on a show of sending him off, when everyone who knew him is probably glad he’s dead? And I’ll freely add, Monsieur Dufort—that includes me. I know that sounds terrible. Well, I am exaggerating. It’s not that I’m glad, more…relieved, I suppose? My life is elsewhere now, I’m studying to be a chemist. I hadn’t seen my father in over a year and had no plans to come to Bergerac. And believe me, he wasn’t rushing off to visit me in Bordeaux, either. We just weren’t a close family. It happens.”
Ben nodded. He felt a pang just then of wanting his own family, and had a flash of spending a snowy night in the living room at La Baraque with Molly and his own little son or daughter, watching the snow come down, all of them happy just being together.
He rubbed his eyes and looked to see if the server was coming with their orders. “Is it the same with your sister, would you say?” he asked.
“Oh sure. Laurine got out of town as fast as possible. Left home when she was sixteen and never looked back.”
“And your mother? Are you close to her?”
Franck laughed. It was a melodious laugh, and infectious, and Ben found himself joining in though he had no idea what was funny. “Alaina, for the most part, had other irons in the fire besides being a parent. She was much younger than our father, had two babies in quick succession, and then saw she had made a big mistake. Who knows how he ever convinced her to marry him in the first place? He was terrible to her. Not the most attentive mother, it is true. But she did try, in her way. She wasn’t the worst mother, not by a long shot.” Franck said.
It was refreshing to hear someone speak of his inadequate parents without any self-pity. Franck certainly seemed to have landed on his feet, somehow.
“Would you say Laurine will be glad to hear of your father’s death? Have you spoken with her?”
“I have not, and I’ll let her speak for herself. Perhaps it sounds cold-blooded of me, but in my opinion he had a pretty good death, all things considered. He was seventy-two years old, so he had a pretty good run. He was alive, and then he was not. He probably didn’t even know what hit him. Far better than getting some lingering, painful illness, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I see your point.”
“Murder is gruesome, no question about it. It will make a showstopper of a story to tell at dinner parties—or it would, if the resolution were at all interesting. But the murderer will probably turn out to be someone dreary, one of my father’s shady business associates getting revenge for being cut out of a deal, or stiffed, or something like that. My father did not exactly have a reputation for scrupulousness in his business dealings, shall we say.”
“And that would not be a satisfactory ending to the story?”
Franck was about to answer but paused and looked at Ben. “You think I’m horrible. Tell me, what were your parents like? Or are they still alive?”
“My mother died eight years ago. My father moved to Toulouse to live with his brother after that.”
“Leaving you behind?”
“It wasn’t like that. I mean, yes, technically, I stayed in Castillac and he moved away, but it was the best thing for him. No rancor between us.”
“And how often do you see him?”
Not very often, thought Ben. “We talk on the phone. He has a bit of dementia, and so…we tend to have the same conversation over and over.”
“That’s difficult,” said Franck, with an expression of concern.
“Here you are,” said the server, plunking down their coffees and taking two plates from her tray. “I thought you might like an almond croissant. They’re a specialty of the house,” she said shyly to Franck, who thanked her sincerely.
I just cannot make up my mind about this man, Ben was thinking. Is he the most decent and forthcoming person on earth? He seems to be. Yet something doesn’t quite…is it just that I can’t quite believe the son of Bernard Petit could be trustworthy? He watched Franck bite into his almond croissant and then give the server a wink. She giggled and skipped back behind the counter.
“Well,” said Ben, figuring he’d give it one last try. “If at any point you are unsatisfied with the job the Bergerac cops are doing, please give me a call. My partner, Molly Sutton, is a very talented detective—she really has a knack for thinking about situations in unexpected ways.”
“You care for her,” Franck said, nodding.
Ben was startled. Was it that obvious? That unprofessional? “Uh, we are engaged to be married later in the month. She’s that good,” Ben said with a smile, trying to salvage the moment, but afraid he might have just torpedoed their chances of g
etting hired with that one awkward sentence. “Well, it was very pleasant meeting you. You’ve got my number if you change your mind.”
After Ben had left, Franck sat with a private sort of smile on his face, and waited for the server to approach, which she immediately did.
7
Ben had already been seated and taken a moment, while alone, to appreciate the snowy whiteness of the tablecloth, the complex arrangement of spotlessly shiny tableware, and the promising bustle he could hear going on behind the door to the kitchen. Wanting to stay on Léo Lagasse’s good side, Ben had called in a favor and gotten a much-coveted reservation at La Grenouille, the only Michelin two-star restaurant in the area.
It was true that the end of November was not, generally, a crowded time at the restaurant—too long before Christmas for the tourists—but nevertheless, the wait for a reservation was still over a month long. Ben had only eaten there once before, many years earlier. Wishing to impress a woman he was serious about, he had surprised her with dinner at La Grenouille; she had seemed glad enough at the time, and eaten heartily…but dumped him in a matter of weeks. Remembering that night and its aftermath, he told himself that any superstitious conclusions about the restaurant’s powers were patently ridiculous.
He didn’t believe in superstition, obviously, as he was an intelligent and educated man. But nonetheless, a bit of a cloud hung over him as he waited for Léo to appear.
The plan was for Ben to stay in touch with Franck while Molly contacted Laurine. Between the two of them—if there was not a quick arrest—they hoped one or the other would want Dufort/Sutton Investigations to bring their father’s murderer to justice. It wasn’t that they were in dire need of funds, at least at that particular moment; the gîte business was doing so well, they had a bit of a cushion. But reputation was paramount, and what would people think if a local man was murdered and Dufort/Sutton Investigations had no part in uncovering the culprit?
