Deadly Slipper

by Michelle Wan

  She nodded. Julian had told her of Géraud’s scoop at the Société Jeannette meeting.

  “All right,” she said. “I think I can do that for you.”

  •

  “Of course you realize it’s risky?” Loulou warned when Mara called him later.

  “I do, but I think it’s the only way. Certainly you can see how what I’ve just told you puts things in a different light? It could be one of them, or both.”

  “Hmm,” said the ex-cop. “I’ll talk with Boutot. He might just agree that your idea has some interesting possibilities.”

  •

  “Are you sure?” Julian adjusted his glasses and scratched his head.

  They stood in the forecourt of Les Colombes, peering at a hand-drawn map held by Alain. It was the second time Julian had spoken with the son, and he liked him no better, even though the man had obviously gone to some trouble to get the information Julian needed.

  “It’s the best Maman could do, I’m afraid,” said Alain. “She’s in a state of shock, and her memory never was very good at the best of times. I could ask her again, if you think it would help.”

  Julian considered this.

  Mara, dressed in a baggy sweatshirt despite the warm day, said, “We may as well check the spot out first. If we don’t turn up anything, maybe you could talk to her again, Alain.”

  He nodded. “Yes. That would be better. She’s still in a pretty bad way at the moment. I hadn’t realized how dependent she’s become on my father over the years. She’s frantic with anxiety. Binette and I had to restrain her physically from trying to go to Papa last evening. Speaking of which, I’d better return to the house. We’re sitting with her in turns, and Binette needs to get back to her cheesemaking.”

  He left them.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Julian grumbled as they walked down the road leading away from the château.

  “Why not?” asked Mara. This time she had left Jazz at home.

  “Well,” he scowled at the map. “This puts it in low, wet land, under pine-forest cover. If I’m not mistaken, there’s a lot of bracken, which suggests acid soil, and”—he struggled to recall his first meeting with Henri de Sauvignac—“a big pond nearby. Lady’s Slippers like semi-shade and drier, alkaline soil.” Julian directed them onto a path snaking down in the direction of the valley he had crossed the day he fell into the edze. “If Jeanne and her father-in-law knew anything about orchids, and we have to assume they did, they’d never have tried to establish the rootstock there.”

  “Watch where you’re going,” warned Mara, scrambling after him down the steep slope. “You don’t want to fall into another pit.”

  They descended to the valley floor. It was hot and windless there. The woods at noon were very quiet.

  “This should be the spot,” said Julian after another twenty minutes or so. Deciduous trees had given way to conifers and ferns. “Really,” he muttered after a few minutes of pacing the ground, “this is damned odd. You don’t suppose she’d purposely try to mislead us, do you?”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “Because, from the sound of it, she’s round the twist.” He stopped and turned back to Mara. “Or because there’s something she doesn’t want us to find. Quite honestly, I don’t know about you, but I never really bought Henri de Sauvignac’s confession.” He shook his head. “It’s too convenient, somehow. Almost as if—as if he were protecting someone.”

  Mara looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said it was Jeanne who met your sister in the woods. I asked you before if you thought it could have been her and not Henri who attacked Bedie. She sounds crazy enough to have done it, you know. What if she has a sick need to find substitutes for her dead child? Or maybe she’s driven to punish young women because of the maid who let her little boy drown.”

  It was a troubling hypothesis that called forth some of Mara’s own doubts about Jeanne de Sauvignac. She remembered the woman’s surprising strength, and the thought crossed her mind once again that behind Jeanne’s goggling appearance there was a purposeful intelligence, albeit functioning fitfully, like a faulty switch.

  “Are you saying she’s setting us up for something?”

  “Who knows,” muttered Julian. He resumed his pacing. “Anyway, I don’t see anything here that faintly resembles an orchid. Dammit, the habitat’s all wrong. Still, I suppose we ought to make a thorough search.” He sought a landmark and selected a tall pine tree standing in a small clearing. “We’ll take this as our point of reference. You remember how we squared off the ground when we were looking for the Neottia? Well, this time we’ll do it a little differently, and we’ll have to cut it finer. We’re no longer looking for an extensive colony of plants but possibly a single plant. You know what it looks like—dark-pink slipper, two long, spiraled petals springing out from the sides, blackish-purple sepals, fifty to sixty centimeters high. In case it’s past its flowering, keep your eye out for anything with three to five broad oval leaves, deeply veined, coming out of a single stem.”

  He indicated two imaginary lines extending due east and west of the pine. “These will be our guide lines. We’ll start out back to back at the tree. I’ll go north twenty paces, you go south the same amount. Be sure to look to either side of you as you go. When you’ve done your twenty, go five to your right, then right again, and return twenty paces, which should bring you back to the pine but in your case five paces farther west along your guide line. I’ll be five paces farther east. Then we repeat the procedure, each time ending up five paces farther away from the pine. After four repetitions, we’ll have each walked a twenty-by-twenty square. If we haven’t found anything, we’ll meet back at the pine, set the guide lines running north and south, and pace to east and west. At the end, together we’ll have walked a forty-by-forty square. It’s slow going, but it’s the only way to handle the search in such heavily overgrown terrain. Are you with me?”

  Mara said she was.

  “Good,” said Julian. “And—er—Mara, if anything happens, remember I’ll never be very far away.”

  She glanced uneasily at him. “What can happen?”

  “Oh, if you should get lost or something,” he said casually.

  Yes, she thought. Or something.

  They set off.

  After two turns, Mara lost sight and sound of Julian entirely. She went carefully, poking at the undergrowth with a stick and stopping from time to time to listen to the forest. The profound silence made her nervous. After her fourth turn, she followed her line back to the pine tree. Julian was waiting for her.

  “No luck?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “A nice crop of cèpes, but I’m not very interested in mushrooms at the moment.”

  They reset the guide lines along a north-south axis and resumed their pacing, Julian going west and Mara east. Her way was frequently barred by tangled undergrowth that she had to beat aside with her stick. At one point, through the trees she saw the glint of water. The pond Julian had mentioned. She completed her square without seeing anything of interest and again followed her line back to the tree. This time Julian was not there. She sat down on a log to wait. Time passed, but he still did not appear. She, who had been on the alert for something to happen at any moment, was frankly puzzled. Had he found something, or was he at that very moment moving up silently behind her? The thought made her glance uneasily over her shoulder. A cuckoo called. It was the first birdsong she had heard since they had been in the forest.

  “Hello, Mara.”

  The voice behind her made her jump.

  “Oh,” she said, turning, a lead weight sitting on her heart. “It’s you. I was wondering if you’d show up.”

  “Could you doubt it?”

  “I suppose you’ve decided to join the hunt?”

  “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

  “Who’s with your mother, then?”

  Alain smiled. “Drugged to the eyeballs. I doubt she’ll kn
ow I’ve gone. Have you found your orchid?”

  “I haven’t. I don’t know about Julian. We’ve been pacing off the area in opposite directions. He should be meeting me back here any minute.”

  Alain shook his head. “He won’t be coming.”

  Mara frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean he’s hors de combat. Out cold.”

  Mara stood up, giving a nervous tug at her sweatshirt.

  “In any case,” Alain assured her, “for what we are about to do, we don’t need him.”

  Mara felt herself go clammy. “What are we about to do, Alain?” she asked quietly.

  “I think you know,” he said, moving close enough so that she could see a flicker of excitement burning in his dark-blue eyes. He was breathing hard. “Cache-cache. You run, I chase. You see, I’m giving you a fair chance.”

  “Like the game you used to play with Vrac? You’re not a child anymore, Alain.”

  He smiled. “I know. I’ve learned to reverse the roles.”

  “Is that”—Mara stepped back—“how it happened with my sister? She ran, and you hunted her down like an animal?”

  “Does it surprise you?”

  Mara took a deep breath. “No. I knew it had to be one of you. I admit, you did everything to make me believe it was Julian. Very plausible. But you made one small mistake.”

  “Oh?”

  “You said that Julian would have been shaken to see me because I was the spitting image of a woman he’d killed.”

  “And what was wrong with that?”

  “I told you Bedie and I were twins, Alain. But I never showed you her photograph and I never said we were identical. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the significance of this until just the other day, and even then I couldn’t be sure if it was just an assumption on your part, or if it meant only that you’d seen my sister in the garret, or if it was really you and not your father who had met her in the forest.”

  He laughed harshly. “And do you have your answer?”

  “Yes,” said Mara, watching him closely. “I think I do. There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. Why didn’t you finish Bedie off at the time? In some ways it would have been better for her if you had.”

  Alain shrugged. “Vrac caught me at it. The stupid fool took her back to the château, slung over his shoulder like a gutted sheep. You can imagine the state Papa was in.”

  “But he did nothing?”

  “How could he? There was the precious family name to protect and Maman to deal with. She’d already lost one son, you know, because of him. If he hadn’t been rolling that fat slut of a nursemaid in the grass, we wouldn’t have played the game that day. Patrice wouldn’t have gone down to the pond. He was always very good at hiding, you see, and he thought he could fool me by crouching in the reeds. But he didn’t think about his footprints in the mud. After all, he was only seven. I was ten. All I had to do was track him down.”

  Mara stared at him speechlessly. At last she asked in a faint voice, “How exactly did your brother drown, Alain?”

  He looked at her inquiringly. “Patrice?” His gaze shifted momentarily. “The rules of the game. And the water in that pond is very deep. But we were talking about your sister. I told Papa I’d swear it was Vrac who had attacked her. If she died—and at the time I didn’t think she’d last out the hour—it would have been the word of an idiot against mine. They didn’t have the means of DNA testing in those days. No one would have believed him over me. That stopped Papa cold.”

  “Of course,” agreed Mara acidly. “Vrac is also your father’s son.”

  “His by-blow!” Alain sneered. “In the end, Papa and I struck a deal. I stayed away, paid their upkeep, and he kept silent. Voilà, all nicely arranged and the family name untarnished.”

  “Except that you were free to go on murdering women,” Mara cried. “Because I’m sure that’s what happened. In Africa and here. Women went missing every time you returned on home leave, didn’t they? The periodic cycle. Surely your father saw the connection. And yet he protected you—goes on protecting you.”

  “Of course. I am the last of the de Sauvignacs. Besides, what proof had he? Women go missing all the time. I don’t have a monopoly on evil.”

  “On the contrary. You are a monster. You know, when I was in that garret, I thought the deadbolt lock was put on the door to keep my sister in. But I’m not so sure now. She was a vegetable. She couldn’t have escaped. I’ll bet it was there to keep you out.”

  “You’re very good at this,” said Alain, a note of mocking admiration in his voice. “But enough teasers. We must move on to the principal course, which is where the main enjoyment is to be had. Shall I give you a minute’s head start? Don’t worry. I won’t rape you. One has to be careful about evidence nowadays. Or perhaps two minutes? You’ll have to run for your life. Literally. I know these woods like the back of my hand.”

  Mara held her ground. “I’m not running, Alain.” She turned away. With a sudden movement, she whirled around, clutching her stick with both hands and using the momentum of her body to smash it with all her strength across his face. He reeled from the blow. Then she ran, screaming.

  He was on her in seconds, throwing her to the ground, was now on top of her, gripping her wrists, while she fought against him with all her strength. When he felt the hardness below her breasts, he yanked her sweatshirt up, revealing a small tape recorder strapped to her torso and a tracking device clipped to her belt. He hesitated, taking in the significance of these things, just long enough for her to drive her knee up as hard as she could into his groin. With a roar of pain he rolled off.

  “Putain!” he howled. “Filthy whore!”

  She scrambled up, but he seized her leg. She fought him, kicking, clawing, screaming, as he dragged her to him. His hands were on her throat, squeezing. She felt her eyes bulge, thought her brain would burst. Her tongue was thrusting from her mouth when Alain released her abruptly. She was now in danger of being trampled under the heavy feet of two desperately struggling men. Her vision cleared in time to see Julian land Alain a mighty clout in the face that sent a pinwheel spray of scarlet spinning through the air.

  Then the area was all at once busy with running uniforms as gendarmes surged out of the trees. Commissaire Boutot appeared from a different direction. Two agents fought Alain to the ground and handcuffed him. Last but not least, Loulou came trotting up, puffing with exertion.

  “What took you so bloody long?” Mara tried to yell at them, but the best she could manage was a broken croak.

  TWENTY-THREE

  June came on the Dordogne, with sunshine and tourists. The spring flowers had finished, except for a remnant poppy here and there, showing scarlet among the young wheat. Many of the orchids had reached the end of their blooming, but roses and honeysuckle garlanded every wall.

  They were gathered at Chez Nous, eleven end to end. Mado and Paul had pushed the tables together to form a banqueting board running the length of the bistro. The windows stood open to catch the cool night breeze. Julian, with bruised face and a splinted ankle—he had sprained it badly in his struggle with Alain—and Mara, her neck in a brace, sat at one end; Loulou and Gaston at the other. In between were Prudence, Gaston’s wife, Géraud, and Iris. Julian had included Géraud only because of Iris, who had given him his lead on the mystery Cypripedium.

  Next to Mara lounged a large, long-legged body in a green pants suit—Patsy Reicher, arrived the day before from Manhattan. Her broad face with its topping of iodine hair turned from side to side as she followed the story told piecemeal by everyone. Places were set for Paul and Mado, but they occupied them only in between sallies to the kitchen. They were assisted by Bernard Léon, Julian’s erstwhile bulldozer, who performed the tasks of underwaiter with surprising aptitude. Jazz moved down the company, thrusting his head hopefully into everyone’s lap.

  At this point in the meal they were eating scallops in cream sauce, accompanied by a chilled dry Bergerac.

 
; “You see,” Loulou addressed the gathering at large as he waved a forkful of scallop, its bright-orange comma of roe attached, in the air, “Henri de Sauvignac was not just protecting the family name. He was trying to make up to his wife for the loss of one son by salvaging the other.”

  “Guilt and atonement,” murmured Patsy, ignoring her food.

  Mara said, “The irony of it is that I think Alain killed his own brother. I think he hunted him down at the pond and pushed him in. Or held his face underwater.”

  “Mon dieu,” shuddered Gaston’s wife.

  “They’ve moved Jeanne to hospital, you know,” Iris said. “They say the poor woman may never recover.”

  Loulou wagged his head. “Nevertheless, both she and her husband will be charged as accessories after the fact, although in her case there will probably be a plea of reduced responsibility. The evidence Mara got on tape makes a strong case against Alain, despite his story that it was a casual sexual fling that went wrong.”

  “Lying bastard,” muttered Mara to no one in particular. “I can’t believe I trusted him.”

  “But it wasn’t just Mara’s sister,” Mado called from her end of the table. She was slightly flushed with all the rushing back and forth from the kitchen, which perhaps accounted for the inner glow that lit her face. “What about those other women?”

  Loulou raised a hand. “Denies any involvement with them. However, the lads have established that Alain was in France at the time of Hanneke Tenhagen’s murder. And Valérie Rules and Mariette Charlebois’s disappearances both coincided with later visits home. By the way, they plan to drag the pond in the forest. Who knows what they’ll find?”

  “Mon dieu,” repeated Gaston’s wife, clutching her throat.

  “And while we’re on the subject, reports are coming in from Abidjan, Dakar, Yaoundé, and Douala. Seems there’s quite a trail of missing and dead women everywhere our Monsieur Alain was known to have worked.”

  “I had a mass murderer at my party,” murmured Prudence wonderingly. “How can someone so sick look so good? I mean, he was a damned sexy man. Incroyable!”