by Nell Goddin
“Ah, Léo,” said Ben. “I had some business, well, not business exactly, but a task having to do with my upcoming marriage. You’ve heard I’m getting married in a matter of weeks?”
“And yet you stand there without quivering, your legs under you securely. Strange.”
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No, no,” said Léo, motioning at an empty chair. “Sit! And ask me whatever questions you’ve got at the ready.”
Ben almost protested, but Léo didn’t seem to care. He placed the white box on the table and sat. “So? Any progress at all?”
“No. We’ve got DNA swabs at the lab but so far, not a word. It’s shocking, the laziness. All while a murderer takes his ease. He’s probably enjoying a pastry and café right now too, somewhere, while we sit around twiddling our thumbs.”
“How about the housekeeper, anything come of her?”
“You mean as a suspect? Little Sarah Berteau? Oh my man, did you start drinking early today? Bernard Petit was not killed by a little bird like Sarah Berteau. That crack on his skull had to have been the work of a man, someone with strength.”
“But surely you’ve seen, at one time or another, that women can be physically strong too? Especially in a case of emotional upset.”
“Are you talking about those videos of women lifting cars when a child is trapped?”
“No, I’m speaking from having seen demonstrations of extraordinary strength from women you would not guess were capable of such feats. I mean seen with my own eyes. So for Petit— if a woman were angry enough, do you really believe that slamming that ashtray into Petit’s head would have been so difficult?”
Léo shrugged, his eyes on the white box. Ben signaled the server and ordered an espresso.
“So your list of suspects consists of men only,” said Ben, trying to draw his friend out. “Franck, no doubt. On our end, his alibi hasn’t been verified,” he added, as a bit of bait.
“Have you got anyone saying he wasn’t camping where he said he was?”
“No. But no one is verifying that he was there either. And it does seem a bit odd, going to Biarritz in the coldest December I can remember, and claiming to have slept in a tent in the dunes. I don’t even think it’s legal—there are campgrounds all around, and doubtless most of them closed at that time of year. Admit it, Léo—the alibi doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Léo sucked a long breath in through his nose. “What I smell is the best coffee in Begerac, and something interesting in that little box of yours.”
“Box?”” said Ben, smiling.
“Yes. That offering you have set at my feet, in a transparent attempt to wrest some information from me.”
“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.” Ben lifted his nose in the air and turned his head away. They were both enjoying themselves thoroughly. He reached out and began undoing the white string that tied the box together. “What do you make of the daughter, Laurine?”
“Piece of work, that one,” said Léo, eyes fixed on the box. “She’s one of those people who prefers to lie even when there’s no need to. For the sport of it.”
Ben was curious about what the lie was but did not think Léo was yet in a proper mood to tell him. “And her alibi?”
“I just told you a woman could not have committed this murder. Do you have to be so insufferably slow? Are you going to open that box or not?”
Ben reached in and brought out the pistachio tart. The crust was flaky and golden, the cream a faint green. An artful dollop of whipped cream rose into a peak, dusted with bits of nut.
“Pistachio-rum,” said Ben. “I believe it’s won Monsieur Nugent several awards, at various pâtissier contests. It’s a shame all that talent is tucked away in Castillac, so inconvenient to Bergerac.”
“Oh merde, you’d have been quite a successful torturer, you know that, Dufort? Just hand the thing over. Nothing like a case going nowhere to stir one’s appetite, yes?”
Ben pushed the tart over to the detective. He wasn’t going to say a word about the shadow on the tape, not yet. It was somewhat satisfying to hear Léo say the case was going nowhere, but Ben knew him well enough to know that he could easily be trying to misdirect.
When it came to lying, the best detectives could be as good at it as the criminals they were trying to nail.
He had put off Laurine for nearly a week, and guessed that was the limit before he risked getting fired. So after leaving Léo to devour his pistachio tart, Ben called Laurine at her hotel and asked her to dinner.
“I thought you were going to allow me to languish in this rundown hotel forever,” she said, a note of real anger in her voice.
“Ah, Laurine,” said Ben. “I’ve been working long hours on your father’s case.”
“I suppose I can find time to have dinner with you, in between being bored out of my mind and literally dying of boredom. But before that—you must come up to my room for a drink. The hotel is a shambles but it does have an excellent mini-bar, which they restock faithfully with an impressive array of overpriced delectations.”
Delectations? thought Ben. “There’s a bar in the hotel, yes? Let’s meet there at six.”
“I will not,” she said. “That’s only ten minutes from now and I can’t possibly be ready. Do I really have to remind you that you work for me, Monsieur Dufort? Am I going to have to spell every little thing out for you like this? I don’t like it. I much prefer…a higher level of play.”
Ben sighed. “What time?”
“Now.”
“You just said you weren’t ready.”
“I’m not dressed. That doesn’t mean I’m not ready for you.”
Oh boy, thought Ben.
With some trepidation, Ben knocked on the door of room 56 in the Hotel Lion D’Or. He heard the sound of ice clinking, a glass put down, and footsteps.
Laurine opened the door wide and posed with one hand on her hip and one flung up in the air, hip cocked. She was dressed all right, but in a thin negligee that revealed far more than Ben wanted to see. Well, this was a mistake, he thought. I never should have agreed to meet here.
“Bonsoir, Laurine,” said Ben, trying not to react.
“Oh, now,” she pouted. “You make me feel so unappreciated! And I spent most of my morning shopping, trying to find just the right thing to please you.”
“Laurine, pleasing me is not the point. We have work to do.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, please, you really can be the most insufferable man. All right,” she said, going to the minibar and taking out several small bottles. “Why don’t we get the tiresome work out of the way, and then we can enjoy other pursuits?”
Ben did not answer but sat down in the single chair. The room was not large and the only other place to sit was the bed.
“I’ve been thinking….” said Laurine.
Uh oh, thought Ben.
“…about my family, my father. Reminiscing, as it were, as I while away the hours, neglected, in this dreary hotel. You know you haven’t been to see me in days.”
“I was following up on some of the things you told me. I have a number of questions you can help me with. First: your father had a dog in the last few years? Can you tell me anything about that? When it died, the circumstances of its death, that kind of thing?”
Laurine stared at him. “No. Is that some sort of trick question? I have been out of that house and living in Paris for years, Benjamin, have I been unclear about that? Estranged from my father. I have no idea whether he had a dog, fifteen cats, or a flock of parakeets. Nor do I care.”
“I just wondered whether you might have heard something about it. There is a rumor…well, never mind, let’s move on. Could you tell me more about your father’s business? What did he import, exactly?”
“It’s nothing but questions from you!”
“I’m an investigator. You hired me but you don’t seem to want me to do the job.”
Laurine walked around behind Ben and p
ut her hands on his shoulders.
“Just so you understand my situation—Molly and I are engaged. We’re getting married in a few weeks.”
She jerked her hands back as though she had touched a hot stove. “Well, excuse me,” she said. “Not that I see that a little piece of paper matters, overall.”
With some effort Ben did not roll his eyes. She walked back around, sat on the bed, and crossed her legs. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“I do not. Now, tell me how your father made his money. I got the impression from him that financial success meant quite a lot to him. He was successful? Was he exclusively in the import business or were there other things he was involved in?”
Laurine sat up very straight and raked her dark hair back from her face with her fingernails. She ran her tongue over her upper lip and appeared to be considering the question.
“Well, it’s funny, but I don’t believe I can answer that. You’d think I’d know, wouldn’t you? But at all those horrendous family dinners, all four of us at the table, I don’t remember him saying a single word about what he had done all day. Nor do I remember my mother saying anything about it either. Sometimes we seemed to be flush, and we were allowed to buy expensive clothing and lots of toys, and other times…not so much.”
“Do you think he was involved in something illegal?”
“It would explain why we were never told anything. But still, you’d expect some sort of cover story, wouldn’t you?”
Ben paused, deciding whether to be straight with her. “I’m sorry, that doesn’t quite make sense, Laurine. Children know what their parents do. You must have had to fill out forms with your father’s occupation, it must have come up in school at various points, or with your schoolmates. I can’t believe that it is only at this moment you’ve realized there was this large gap in your knowledge.”
Laurine threw her head back and laughed. “I’m exaggerating, silly,” she said. “Of course this isn’t the very first minute I’ve wondered about it. That began way back, in primaire probably.” She looked down, and Ben thought he saw a genuine expression of hurt flash across her face.
“He pretended to have top posts in various companies. Something to do with electronics, then some sort of farming equipment. But the truth was—all his energy went into shady deals with shady characters. They would come by the house sometimes, and Maman would get terrifically upset. I mean—they were gangsters, Ben. I have no idea what my father was doing with them, but whatever it was produced quite a lot of money.”
“Gangsters?” He was thinking about Léo telling him that some Greeks had done in Petit. Lagasse might know more than he was letting on. If the murder was some kind of hit, it was probably going to be extremely hard for Dufort/Sutton Investigations to solve it; they just didn’t have that kind of reach or resources. “Do you think it’s possible some of these business associates….”
“Possible, of course it’s possible. They’re rather a back-stabbing bunch.”
Ben looked up at the ceiling and noticed a cobweb hanging in the corner. “Allow me to shift subjects. We have not been able to verify your brother’s alibi.”
Laurine grinned. “What did I tell you? He presents himself to the world as this…this academic, this scientist…all responsible and serious. But that’s not the whole story. I’m quite pleased reality is already beginning to emerge.”
“At the same time,” said Ben, and just to toy with her a little, added, “your own alibi…”
“Didn’t Albertine tell you we were combing the thrift shops that entire day? In Paris?”
“Indeed. But she could not produce a single receipt for this activity. Can you? Did you search the entire day and not find a single thing to buy?”
“It’s hardly up to me to provide receipts for every moment of my life. Does her word count for nothing? And why in the world are you subjecting me to all of this questioning? I told you last week that Franck killed our father. Can’t you speed things up a little bit?”
Ben shrugged, rather enjoying seeing her being off balance.
“I told you how Bernard beat Franck,” Laurine continued. “I told you how Franck used to talk to me about revenge, that he used to go on and on about all the ways he was going to make Bernard pay for his treatment of us.”
“And you think that makes your brother automatically guilty? Excuse me, Laurine, but these things don’t work that way. Most people find other ways besides violence to deal with the terrible things that happen to them. Your father beat you as well, did he not? Should I also suspect you of the killing?”
“He was far easier on me,” she said, standing up and pointing at his glass. “You haven’t had even one sip of your drink. I’m beginning to think you were raised in a barn, Monsieur Dufort.”
Dutifully, Ben sipped the scotch she had poured for him. He kept his eyes either on her face or out the window, anywhere but on her sleek body as she moved around the room in the filmy negligee.
“ If you are sticking to your belief that your brother is the murderer, give me something else to go on, something recent. Something in the realm of fact, not fantasy.”
“You accuse me of fantasy?” said Laurine, cutting her eyes at him. “Only about a certain flic, I assure you.”
Ben stood up. “We should meet at another time. I’ve just remembered there’s someone I need to see across town, and I don’t want to miss the rendezvous. My apologies—” and he was out the door and trotting down the stairs before Laurine had a chance to stop him.
25
Paul-Henri had been keeping an eye out for Malcolm Barstow for days. Finally, just as he was rounding the corner on his way back to the gendarmerie Friday night, he saw the boy leaning against a stone wall smoking a cigarette.
“Aha!” Paul-Henri said under his breath, hurrying over. “Young man!”
Malcolm looked over at the officer lazily. “Oui? What’s got your knickers in a tangle?” He sucked on the cigarette and blew out a plume of smoke.
“You see the pictures on the packet,” said Paul-Henri. “Black lungs, people suffering. Why would you take up such a disgusting habit, especially when you can’t spare the money?”
“A friend gave them to me,” said Malcolm. “None of your business what I do anyway.”
“It is when you are breaking the law, Malcolm. How old are you?”
Malcolm blinked. He’d never heard of anyone getting into trouble for smoking cigarettes, not once. “You kidding me?”
“I am not. I’m going to have to take you into the station.”
“For smoking a cigarette?”
Paul-Henri reached out to grab the boy by the arm, but then held his hand in the air. “Perhaps we could make a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” Malcolm glowered at him.
“Stop stealing from the épicerie. No, do not enter the épicerie, for any reason, at any time.”
“Aw, come on. Sometimes Ma needs something and it’s way closer than any other—”
“You should have considered that before you started robbing them blind.”
“I never did.”
Paul-Henri rolled his eyes dramatically. “I would suggest you make an effort to get a paying job. Novel idea, I know.”
“I have a paying job, it so happens.”
“Really?” said Paul-Henri, skeptical.
“Molly Sutton hired me. I’m doing a job for her, and if it goes well, who knows what else she’ll pay me to do.”
Paul-Henri rolled his eyes. As usual, Molly Sutton getting involved in things that were none of her business. “Understand this, young sir. I will be watching. My eyes are everywhere. And if you so much as step one little toe into that—”
“Okay, okay,” said Malcolm, relieved that he was not the very first person in all of Castillac to be arrested on a tobacco charge.
Paul-Henri gave a short nod and continued down the street, pleased to have at least one minor thing crossed off his list, hoping that peace would reign at the épicerie goi
ng forward, and Ninette would stop chasing him down the street whenever he passed by.
Madame Anna Bisset, formerly of Bordeaux, lived in a farmhouse on the edge of the village, on route de Fallon. She and her husband had never been farmers, but bought the house to retire in, having made a tidy sum from smart investments. They spent a great deal of money fixing up the place, and were only just settling in to enjoy it—all the plumbing and electrical work was done, the new roof in place, the yard landscaped. And at long last even the decorating was finished, except that Monsieur Bisset had his eye on some paintings of artichokes he thought would be the perfect addition to the collection in the salon, but was still in negotiation with the artist.
He was asleep that Saturday evening, having had one too many glasses of a local red at dinner. Madame Bisset was washing up, a bit resentfully, and listening to the radio.
They did not lock their doors unless they went out of town…hardly anyone in Castillac did.
The man parked just inside the driveway. He walked on the grass instead of the gravel, arriving almost silently on the front steps. The handle of the door was recently oiled and did not squeak. The man entered the house. Pausing for a moment in the foyer, he pulled his fedora down, made sure a scarf covered his face except for his eyes, and strolled into the empty salon. He cocked his head and listened, then walked toward the sound of running water.
“Jules, I don’t see why—aaiee!” Madame Bisset dropped a sponge as hands went to her mouth. “What are you doing in here? Who are you?”
“Give me the money,” the man said. His tone was easygoing and not especially menacing, as though he was asking her for a drink of water.
“What money?” She wiped her hands on her apron, trying to decide whether to scream or try to reason with the man.
The man smiled. “Where do you keep it? In a desk? A safe?” He reached into the pocket of his hunting jacket and pulled out a pistol. To Madame Bisset, whose father had been an avid hunter and who had been around guns her whole life, the pistol looked old and dull, and she wondered if it even worked.
