No Honor Among Thieves

by Nell Goddin

  That’s not funny, she told herself.

  Focus.

  But it was next to impossible, with their prime suspect being yanked away just when he had been developing so well. Molly had known, not even very deep down, that Stephane Burnette was too good to be true, or rather that he had looked better and better the more desperate she and Ben got to wrap the damn case up. They were stuck. On a repeating loop, the vast array of suspects trooped through her thoughts, and Molly had run out of ideas for eliminating any of them.

  Maybe they all got together and did it? A grand conspiracy, something like that Agatha Christie, which one was it?

  Oh, if only, she thought, dispirited. Well, at least I can go into the village and make some headway on the party. If the food is good enough, maybe no one will notice what I’m wearing or the dust bunnies rolling across the floor.

  Am I really getting married again? The idea filled her with glee, a deep happiness, and a sprinkling of fear. She called Frances and made a date to go dress shopping the next day. After apologies to Bobo for skipping their morning walk, Molly zipped into the village and went straight to Bedin’s seafood shop to see about oysters.

  December was the perfect month for them, Bedin assured her, and she ordered large quantities of four different kinds. Next the wine shop, where Monsieur Durocher nearly gave her a heart attack, saying it was impossible to get enough champagne at that late date, given that Christmas was practically right around the corner. Orders started in October, he said with a sniff.

  “Oh, I know, it’s my fault, I’ve been so disorganized and distracted. I’m terribly sorry,” she said, practically getting on hands and knees to beg. “But I’m getting married, and we absolutely cannot do without champagne on that day of all days!”

  She looked so pathetic that Monsieur Durocher took pity. “I would not want to be responsible for any bad luck,” he said with a small smile. “Perhaps—though I make no promises—I can find something tucked away somewhere. How many bottles are required?”

  “It’ll be…I should have brought my list…I think we’re up to fifty. Who are in a mood to celebrate.”

  “I will let you know. In the future—”

  “I know, I know. Plan ahead! Again, my sincere apologies for making this difficult. I appreciate your help very much.”

  Back on the street, Molly took a deep breath and blew it out. If all they served was champagne and oysters, who could complain? I’ll just swing by the traiteur and see about getting some fancy pâté, and Edmond can bring bread, she thought, starting to feel better about the party’s prospects.

  Walking down rue Picasso, barely looking where she was going, Molly was thinking that perhaps the annex was a better place to hold the reception. It was already clean, for one thing, and the space was big and empty enough to make setting up tables for food and drink easy enough. Plus there was space for dancing.

  “Look who it is,” sneered a man’s voice, and Molly jerked her head up.

  “Bonjour, Mr. Barstow,” she said, slowing down but not stopping. There was no one else on the street.

  “Why is it every time I leave the house, there you are?”

  “What can I say, I get around.”

  “I’ve got business to take care of,” he said. “You, on the other hand, do nothing but get into other people’s business. I’m glad I ran into you, though. You should know: I had a talk with Malcolm yesterday and he’s not gonna be hanging around you anymore. I put a stop to that, all right.”

  Molly flinched, guessing correctly that Barstow had given his son a beating. There was no answer to this, and she walked faster, passing him. But he turned and followed.

  “If you put a hand on me I will scream so loud I’ll burst your eardrums,” she said with a glare.

  “I’ll put my hands wherever I please.” He reached his beefy palm out and grabbed Molly’s arm. She saw a heavy gold ring glitter in the winter sun as she opened her mouth and let out a shriek, practically rattling the windows of nearby houses on the narrow street.

  An old woman leaned out from the second floor of a small stone house. “Leave her be! Go away!” she shouted at Barstow, who had taken his hand back to clap it over his ear.

  Molly wanted to shove him against a wall and give him a few good kicks, but she restrained herself, instead waving at the old woman leaning out of her window and taking off at a run down the street. She passed the primaire and then the mairie, and didn’t stop until she got to Pâtisserie Bujold.

  “Is everything—”

  “That horrible Fletcher Barstow,” said Molly, her heart still racing.

  “He’s the worst! Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she gasped, still out of breath. “I’m fine. But angry. How can people treat their children so badly?”

  “Can’t we just put him in handcuffs and arrest him preemptively? He’s certain to do something illegal soon, if he hasn’t already. Let’s just ask Charlot to arrest him and get it over with.”

  “An excellent plan. Whew. I’m going to start carrying around a whistle or something.”

  “A whistle? You’re going to have to do better than that. You know, the fellow who robbed the Bissets had a pistol.”

  “I heard that. I had thought handguns weren’t legal in France but I’ve recently found out that’s not so.”

  Edmond laughed. “Well, like everything here, it’s a bit of a bureaucratic jumble. So yes, we do allow certain guns under certain circumstances. Guns for hunting are not a problem. With handguns, pistols and revolvers, it is still possible to own these legally. There are rules and limitations, however. It’s not the wild, wild west the way you Americans have it, with people waving assault rifles in the air when they go to the barber shop or to pick up some of that godawful American cheese at the corner grocery.”

  “We’re not talking about cheese, Edmond. Tell me, what kind of pistol did the robber have, if you know?”

  “Paul-Henri told me that Anna Bisset thought it might be a Luger. Her father is an accomplished marksman, I’ve heard. Was a sniper back in the war. So she might know more about guns than your average person.”

  “Lugers—I don’t know anything about guns, would they be allowed? Are there a lot of them floating around?”

  “Depends. They’re not made anymore, to my knowledge. The Nazis used them, as you might remember. If you’re of age, have training, the right certificates—”

  “Good Lord, this country loves certificates!”

  “Indeed. And we also love not getting mowed down by automatic weapons at the supermarket too.”

  “Edmond, I don’t have time to have a gun control discussion right now. Can we do that next month? I’m just…I’m wondering about something…before I rush off, listen, can you bring a ton of bread for the wedding reception? It’s a week from tomorrow. Can’t talk now, got something I need to check out.”

  She was gone with a tinkle of the bell on the door, her double espresso undrunk and not a single pastry eaten. Edmond watched her fly down the street and sighed a long, yearning sigh before drinking the espresso himself.

  On rue Lafayette, Molly knocked sharply on the green door and waited. Then she knocked again, listening for the sound of Jean Chavanne shuffling toward the door. This was probably a wild goose chase, she thought, but she had learned over the years that such chases had to be respected, because every once in a while, they paid off.

  “Monsieur Chavanne, bonjour,” she said, when he cracked open the door.

  “Madame Sutton,” he said.

  “May I come in?”

  He did not open the door any wider. “I don’t believe I have anything more to say. And you have a knack for showing up right when it is time for me to have an apéro and eat a few walnuts.”

  “Pecans.”

  “I do vary my diet.”

  “Please, Monsieur Chavanne, this won’t take long.”

  He cleared his throat noisily and opened the door. They went into the salon and sat in the same seats
as the first time Molly visited.

  “What I wanted to ask you about was—” She was looking right at Chavanne but something caught her eye and her gaze drifted above his head, where the painting of the ship had been last time. In its place was a small painting of an artichoke. It was a still life, and quite a well-executed one, with a bottle of ruby-colored wine and a bunch of wildflowers. She could see the outline of the former, larger painting by the bright wallpaper that went around the smaller painting, unfaded by the sun.

  Molly clamped her mouth shut. She squinted at the artichoke, then at Chavanne, trying to work out....

  “Would you like a drink, then?” he asked. “I’m not like some people, who like company when they drink. I prefer to drink alone. But since you’re here, and rather like gum on the bottom of my shoe I can’t seem to be rid of you, perhaps I can make you one while I’m at it?”

  “That would be lovely,” said Molly, thinking hard. “So tell me about that gun you showed me the last time I was here. Did it belong to your father? I heard…he was a soldier in World War II, correct?”

  Chavanne put down the bottle. He placed his hands on the small marble-topped bar and bowed his head for a moment. “Do you wish to get me in trouble, is that what this is about? Why are you hounding me like this, bringing up things you know nothing about?”

  “I’m only trying to find out what happened to Bernard. Not make trouble for you. It’s only…” she looked at the painting again. “Can I see the pistol again? Would you mind?”

  Chavanne sloshed some whiskey into a glass and drank some down. “You’re annoying and intrusive, do you know that? You’re like one of those bugs you get up your trousers at the beach, they don’t bite too badly but they crawl right up your legs and you itch for days. Relentless.”

  “You don’t have the gun anymore, do you?”

  Chavanne took another drink. Molly saw his shoulders droop. “It belonged to my father. Or more precisely, it belonged to a German my father killed, and my father brought the gun home as a kind of souvenir. You understand what the word souvenir means, do you not?”

  Molly nodded. She felt tears welling up even though she had not even heard the story Chavanne was about to tell.

  “It turned out that remembering was all my father could do, once he got home. Remember what he had seen at the camps. Remember the casual violence everywhere, not only from Nazis, but Frenchmen as well.”

  “It must have been so hard.”

  “Yes. He did not get over it. He would sit in that chair—” Chavanne pointed to a tattered armchair next to the fireplace, “—and hold the Luger in his lap. From time to time, he would point it at his temple.”

  “How old were you?” Molly whispered.

  Chavanne waved her question away. “I took the gun away, finally,” he said. “I made a plan. I waited until he fell asleep in the chair one afternoon, and I plucked it out of his lap and hid it away. And then, at this advanced age, when I spend so much time sitting in this chair and waiting for my own death, I have found myself playing with the gun in the same way.”

  He poured Molly a drink and handed it to her. His eyes were red and he looked exhausted, like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a very long time.

  “I don’t understand why any of this matters,” he said. “Petit wasn’t shot. No one’s been shot, that I’ve heard. Can’t you just leave me be?”

  “I need to know where the gun is now,” Molly said quietly. “You traded it for that painting, isn’t that right?” She looked up at the artichoke over his head.

  He looked at it too, with a softer expression, nearly affectionate. “It’s as though you could pick that artichoke up and plunge it into boiling water and have it for lunch,” said Chavanne, finishing his drink and slumping down in his chair. “He deifies the vegetable with his brushwork. Quite a trick, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Who did you trade with?” Molly asked. “You’re not in any trouble, at least not as far as I’m concerned. I think the painting is beautiful and I can understand why you would want it—and also why you might have been ready to get rid of that Luger. But Jean, it’s important that you tell me who you gave that gun to. It was Fletcher Barstow, wasn’t it?”

  Jean Chavanne sank farther down into the chair and refused to answer.

  Chief Charlot was waiting at the gendarmerie when Molly pulled up.

  “I know, it’s late on Friday night,” said Molly, palms up. “But I promise…well, I can’t really promise anything, but I…I have a pretty good idea of who robbed the Bissets at least.”

  “It’s time to be home by the fire,” Charlot said, crossing her arms, resistant to getting her hopes up. “All right, get to it, don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “If Ben hadn’t said anything about the artichokes, I’d never have made the connection, or at least, the artichokes were what made the connection plain as day,” said Molly.

  “Artichokes?”

  “The collection of paintings at the Bissets. Ben told me they were crazy for artichokes—paintings of artichokes, I mean. Then there was the pistol—Anna Bisset said it looked old, possibly not even real. It got me thinking about another gun waving under my nose just the other day…”

  “Molly? Can you just lay it out in some sort of orderly fashion? You’re not making a bit of sense.”

  “Okay. Sorry, there are still some loose threads and I’m trying to work out…but Fletcher Barstow robbed the Bissets.”

  “Too bad Anna Bisset says no.”

  “No? Is she sure?”

  “She is. And she’s observant, a good witness. The robber did not look or sound like Fletcher Barstow. So—is there anything else? It’s been a long week. I’d like to get home early for a change.”

  Disappointed, Molly had left Fletcher behind for the moment and jumped ahead to Malcolm. She’d gotten no word from Ninette about the money he’d stolen, and she realized she had probably fallen for a lie.

  And not a very good one, either.

  “Sorry, Chantal. I’ve gotten a little ahead of myself here. Just wondering—did you or Léo ever ask Fletcher about his whereabouts the night Petit was murdered?”

  “It’s not my case. Not my question to ask.”

  “Right. Yeah. Well…” Molly was embarrassed at having asked for a meeting. She had to slow down and get her head on straight, that was clear. “Sorry,” she mumbled, and fled, thinking so hard about Malcolm and that wad of cash that she nearly ran into a parking sign.

  38

  Ben welcomed Molly at the door of La Baraque. She smelled dinner on the stove. “You’ve done it again, chérie, though I must say I don’t see how.”

  “Embarrassed myself, that’s what I’ve done,” she said, throwing off her coat and going to stand in front of the woodstove. “I should never have gone to see Chantal, I wasn’t ready. She asked some straightforward questions, I started answering them…and my whole theory fell apart like a saggy balloon. I hope she forgives me for wasting her time.” Molly was glum. “Pour me a kir, will you? Or six.”

  “What happened? From your text I thought you were minutes from an arrest.”

  “So did I. I just…just got a little carried away, and leapt over a few gaps. I thought I had Fletcher Barstow nailed for the Bisset robbery, but apparently that’s totally wrong.”

  “Uh, what does the robbery have to do with our case?”

  “Something. I don’t know what yet. I want Fletcher to be guilty of both. I just…can’t seem to prove it.”

  “You want him to go back to prison. That’s not the same as having—”

  “I know,” said Molly quickly. “He did get Chavanne’s Luger, I know that much. And I’d bet anything the same gun was used to rob the Bissets. And—that cash from the cottage? I bet that’s Petit’s money.”

  Ben handed Molly a kir. “Okay, talk some of this through. How did Chavanne get together with Barstow, anyway? I wouldn’t think he would frequent the kind of places I’d expect Fletcher Barstow to be hangin
g out in.”

  “There’s a café not far from Chavanne’s house. I spent some time in there the day I met Claude Blanchon and we were hiding from the cold. Apparently, according to Chavanne, the place has been in business since the 30s. During the war, the black market thrived there—and still today, in the back room, there’s a market for illegal goods. Have you never heard of this?”

  “Bergerac wasn’t my district,” said Ben. “Sort of in the back of my mind, I remember—well, it doesn’t matter. Point is, that’s where Chavanne went to get rid of the Luger? Why bother, after all these years?”

  “He told me—his words—‘the temptation to blow my brains out was getting stronger and stronger, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to keep resisting it.’”

  “Why not just do it then? Not that I wish him ill.”

  “He’s Catholic. Well, not a believing Catholic, according to him. But still, I guess he didn’t want to risk it.”

  They sat on the sofa, heads in hands, trying to think, to see some angle they’d missed so far.

  “We’ve got a gun but no idea who used it. The murder wasn’t a shooting. It looks like the robbery and the murder had nothing to do with each other, yet…”

  Ben put his arm around her shoulders. “You think they are.”

  “I know it.”

  “You sure it’s not just that you want Barstow put away again?”

  “Oh, I want that so bad I can taste it. I can’t bear the way he treats Malcolm, not to mention accosting me every time he sees me on the street. Castillac can do without him quite nicely. But. That money came from somewhere, Ben. And I would bet a hundred euros it came from Bernard Petit’s house.”

  “I’ve learned not to bet with you, chérie. Let’s eat, and follow the French rule of not talking shop while at the table.”

  Molly wasn’t sure she could manage it, but once she was seated and digging into Ben’s famous beef stew with secret spices, she could at least do a creditable job of pretending to think of other things, though Fletcher Barstow and Jean Chavanne were swirling through her mind all the way through to dessert.