Sensational

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  “Right here is good.”

  Jules stepped forward and extended the pane over the head.

  “What a painting we’d make right now,” Nathalie said with a nervous titter. “Look at us. This is so absurd.”

  And tragic.

  And reminiscent of the last time a murderer ushered in a period of violence and duress.

  Was that what was happening? Because that was Nathalie’s true worry. Not the grisly head, not even the unknown memory loss that would visit her like an unwanted guest. The daunting, sustained panic of another Dark Artist. Or Jack the Ripper, who petrified London last fall and who, unlike the Dark Artist, had never been found.

  She couldn’t endure that. Not another descent into a labyrinth of curated fear.

  Jules lowered the glass. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Too much thinking, that’s all.” Her eyes flitted between Jules and Christophe before settling on the head. She gestured for Jules to lift the pane once again. Once he positioned it several centimeters above the head, she placed her fingertips on it.

  She stood in a room, hollow and dim. A candelabra sat on a table to the left, throwing light on a chessboard.

  The woman knelt, whimpering silently, for Nathalie couldn’t hear it. She wore a long purple dress and a small, light gray hat embellished with purple feathers and silver beads. Rag in her mouth, hands tied behind her back, she glared at Nathalie. At the killer.

  He crouched down and put his face near hers, close enough to feel the breath from her nostrils. Close enough to see the rouge on the woman’s cheek.

  Fierce as a rabid dog, the woman jerked her head toward him, thrashing. Nathalie saw a glimpse of something in her teeth, then the pressure of a strike. The murderer staggered back, hand to his face.

  Nathalie could only see through one eye.

  The woman spit something out, the corner of her mouth lifting into a smirk.

  The killer searched the floor for the weapon. Where was it? And what was it? There, a gleam in a shadow. Something ivory, a few centimeters long.

  A rook. From a chess set. The killer kicked it away. He grabbed the woman and shoved the rag farther down her throat.

  Nathalie gasped when she returned to the present. Her hand went to her eye, but she felt no pain. She felt nothing at all in visions; indeed, touch itself was a curious sensation, belonging to her and not, as with sight. She never experienced taste or scent, never heard anything save the killer, if he or she spoke, and had no voice of her own to speak or scream or cry.

  At her nod, Christophe placed the victim’s head back into the refrigeration unit. Nathalie watched, a gesture of respect for the woman’s rebellion, and waited until he was done before speaking.

  “Your reading about patience and something in her mouth,” she began, facing Jules. “It wasn’t just the rag. She attacked him with a chess piece.”

  Jules cocked his head. “Before he tied her up?”

  “After. I don’t know how she managed it—I didn’t see that part. She was bound and in a prone position, like the other victim. She whipped her head when he neared her face, like this.” Nathalie demonstrated the movement, feeling a rush of gratification. She hoped the victim had felt that, too, if only for a moment. “I didn’t feel the pain of the strike, but I could only see out of one eye after that.”

  “I admire her spirit,” said Jules as he tucked the pane under his arm. “Valiant.”

  Christophe led the way out of the room and raised a finger. “If the killer murdered them in the order we found them, then the attack didn’t blind him. You saw clearly in your other vision?”

  “I did.” She shared the rest of the details, finishing as they turned into the Autopsy room. It smelled of neither the living nor the dead; the permanent odor was some exaggerated, medicinal in-between, the cloying stink of chemicals layered upon death.

  The room was free of other bodies, dead and living, at the moment. It was a space of scalpels and other precision instruments, fluids, and anatomy posters on the wall. Nathalie studied the items on a side table; the indelicate postmortem saw was by far the most interesting (though she had no desire to see it in use). Dr. Nicot kept everything exceptionally neat and organized. The room was used daily to dissect and examine bodies, yet it looked untouched.

  Christophe collected the glass pane from Jules and put away the gloves.

  “Chess,” said Jules, who’d wandered over to an anatomy map. “A rook in this vision. And a line about a king for the other victim. Maybe emperor is synonymous with king, if only because it suited the, uh, display in the gallery.”

  Nathalie thought about the woman’s hat in the vision. “The feathers from the hat were placed in her hair after her death. Her hair hadn’t yet been cropped. The scarf hadn’t been tied around her neck yet, either.” She swallowed. “Might the positioning of the feathers signify … a crown?”

  “As in, the most important piece in chess,” said Christophe, bobbing his head in affirmation.

  Nathalie looked up from the jar of blue liquid she’d been inspecting and turned to Christophe. “Why get rid of the queen first, then? If that’s the pattern of death, then he’s made his statement. And we have nothing else to go on. How does a chess connection help us now?”

  “It doesn’t. Not yet.” His voice had the optimism of a discovery. “But if we’re right, then this may be the start of a game—chess or otherwise—with a killer.”

  Jules leaned against the autopsy table. “And the next move is his.”

  5

  Nathalie craved friendship at the moment, anything to stay away from her own thoughts. Left alone with them, she might worry too much about the consequences of her visions or grow nauseated recalling what it felt like to hold a bleeding human head in her hands.

  She and Jules left the morgue, with Christophe promising to send for Jules should the head from the Palais des Beaux-Arts arrive.

  “I’m afraid,” Jules said, as they wound their way through the crowd outside, “I didn’t have a sweet to bring you today.”

  Nathalie smiled. Jules did a twice-weekly apprenticeship with a chocolatier and often brought her a confection from the shop, inspiring both her gratitude and a nickname. “I don’t have much of an appetite, mon bonbon, but that’s most thoughtful of you.” She kissed him on the cheek as they approached Simone and Louis on the bridge from Île de la Cité to Quai Saint-Michel.

  “Well?” asked Louis, as expectant as a child on Christmas morning.

  Nathalie and Jules told the story together, each chiming in with details. Vision and thought-reading details never ceased to fascinate their friends.

  “Two heads?” said Simone, for about the fifth time. “I can’t believe we were at both sites.”

  Louis patted the pocket that held the grim souvenir. “It’s rather thrilling.”

  “Yes, it is. But it’s also disgusting.” Simone flattened her palms on the railing. “How does one smuggle not one, but two heads onto the grounds of the Exposition?”

  Louis peered over the side of the bridge into the Seine. “What does one do with … the rest of the body? Will some unlucky bridge crossers see a headless body or two float down the river? Maybe they wouldn’t float, actually. I suppose it depends how long they’ve been dead, or where they’d float from.”

  Simone elbowed him. She did that so frequently, Nathalie often wondered if Louis had perpetually bruised ribs. “What’s next, you’ll suggest throwing a bal des victimes?”

  The anecdotal dancing balls thrown in honor of French Revolution guillotine victims involved wearing mourning clothes. Gentlemen bowed to their dance partners with a jerky head bob indicative of execution rather than the customary gesture.

  “Oh, Simone, do you think that ill of me? That would be in poor taste,” said Louis, affecting a pout. “Besides, I think you have to be related to a victim to partake.”

  “You are many, many kinds of terrible,” Simone told him, crossing her arms.

  N
athalie was amused by Louis’s gallows humor, most of the time. At the moment she wished Simone would throw him another elbow.

  Jules joined Louis in looking over the side of the bridge. “Maybe we’ll be the ones to find the body, given the talent the three of you have for being in proximity to where heads end up.”

  “It’s your turn to find something,” Louis quipped.

  Nathalie shook her head. “You’re both many kinds of terrible.”

  Jules blew her a kiss before staring at the water again. “Imagine if we could see the ghosts of every body that’s ever floated down the Seine?”

  Nathalie didn’t think about bodies in the Seine when she stood on this bridge. She had a mild aversion for this bridge, in fact. It was here that she’d stood side by side with Christophe, the two of them looking at the river, when she learned he was betrothed. That was almost two years ago, and Christophe still wasn’t married, but she still held it against the bridge. And avoided crossing it whenever possible.

  “What about the Loire,” said Louis, “with all the mass drownings in Nantes during the Revolution?”

  Four months of executions during which people who didn’t support the Revolution were sent to watery graves in “the national bathtub.” Nathalie was glad she wasn’t alive during that dark period of French history.

  Simone inserted herself between the young men. “Instead of pondering ghosts and bodies, headless and otherwise, why don’t we do something more palatable, like go to Café Maxime’s? And then maybe back to the Palais des Beaux-Arts?”

  Nathalie lifted her satchel. “I have to write my article, but I can do it in between sips of coffee and exchanging theories about the murders. I need the company. Jules, I know you have to go to work soon, but can you come with us for a while?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “Monsieur Lyons has hats that need to be counted, sorted, and ‘sold with as much charm as is suitable,’ and if I don’t leave now, I’ll be tardy.”

  Simone turned around, pressing her back against the railing. “Before you go … would the two of you like to be my guests at the club tomorrow night at eight o’clock?” She clasped her hands, her tone full of expectant glee. “It’s for that new show I’ve been talking about, the one we’re debuting next week. They want to put on a few advance performances before the paying public arrives, invited guests only.”

  Nathalie and Jules thanked her, assuring her they’d be there. Jules stepped away from the railing and came to Nathalie’s side. “I’ll come by around seven, yes?”

  “I’ll be wearing my ‘I’m Proud of My Best Friend the Entertainer’ dress,” said Nathalie. Jules kissed her on the hand and bid them all farewell.

  * * *

  After an hour at the café discussing the possibilities, both about the murderer and what sort of reading Jules might have, the three of them returned to the Exposition. Nathalie was doing her best to put everything out of her mind, and no one was better company at such a time than Simone and Louis.

  The grounds were as busy as ever, horse-drawn carriages trotting across the pavement and ladies with hats and fans in every direction. The daily noontime cannon shots went off, spooking Nathalie (she really did not think such pomp was necessary to announce a midday repast). The Palais des Beaux-Arts was open, but the section with the sculptures was closed off. The second floor was roped off as well, and with no guard in place, they slipped past the closure and stole along the walls of the painting gallery. Two policemen stood near the infamous pedestal along with the unfortunate guard to whom Nathalie had handed a human head not so long ago. The blood had been cleaned up, and one of the men was taking notes. The victim wasn’t there; no doubt the head was en route to the morgue.

  “What are you doing up there?” one of the policemen shouted at them. “That gallery is closed!”

  Louis feigned innocence on their behalf, and they exited in haste.

  From there, they went through the galleries that were open, leisurely taking in the American and French paintings. (Simone’s favorite was The Morning After the Ball, which showed a young woman reading the society pages in bed, whereas the garden scene of Joan of Arc captivated Nathalie most.) As they passed by the Café des Beaux-Arts, Nathalie saw a blue booklet at an empty table.

  “Ah, look what someone left behind,” she said. “I already have one. Would either of you like a Guide Bleu du Petit Journal et du Figaro?”

  Simone held out her hand, and Nathalie gave her the book. “It’s du Figaro et du Petit Journal.”

  “I know,” said Nathalie. “But Le Figaro is the competition. And while we’re talking about newspapers, I must be going. Time to turn in my article.”

  She said goodbye to them and wished Simone bonne chance in the show tomorrow night.

  Nathalie stepped back outside, circumventing the fountain—she really couldn’t bring herself to look at it right now—as she left the grounds to make her way to Le Petit Journal.

  Now she was alone with her thoughts again.

  * * *

  The Exposition had increased the pace of life all over the city, including in the newsroom. Even in the days of the Dark Artist, she’d never seen it so hectic. The hum of activity today told her that word had already gotten out about the victim in Galerie Rapp. Christophe said the death of the fountain victim would be kept out of the newspaper. Was it a secret they were all keeping, or did only M. Patenaude know?

  Several colleagues greeted her—fortunately her days of having to adopt the disguise of an errand boy were long gone—as she made her way upstairs to M. Patenaude’s office. She waved to an intently focused Arianne, M. Patenaude’s clerk and the only other woman employed by the newspaper, before knocking on the slightly open door.

  She peeked in and saw him scrutinizing a paper, glasses at the tip of his nose. His Insightful gift was the ability to discern truth in speech and writing; in exchange, his eyesight suffered temporarily, and he had glasses with a variety of thicknesses to accommodate this drawback. Today, they were something just beyond moderate.

  When he gave no sign of acknowledgment, she knocked louder.

  He looked up with a start. “Oh! Good morning, Nathalie.” M. Patenaude’s initial smile faltered with realization. “You’re early with the morgue report. I suppose that means you’ve already … observed what’s there?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” she said. Everything she’d seen so far today raced through her brain. How could this be real? “And I was also at the Palais des Beaux-Arts this morning.”

  M. Patenaude put his elbows on the desk. “Were you there when—”

  “Yes, and I unexpectedly got a very good look.” She sat in the chair across from him, knuckles tapping the polished wooden arms as she paused to gather her thoughts. The further away she got from the beheadings, the less tangible they felt. More absurd. More shocking. Like something on stage rather than the Exposition grounds.

  As she found the words to communicate her gruesome visions, M. Patenaude settled into his chair. His gift had waned considerably in recent months, and she felt sorry for him. Although he could still distinguish between honesty and dishonesty, his ability was beginning to fade. It was something that happened to some but not all Insightfuls, much the way some people developed conditions of the skin or eyes or teeth and others did not. No warning, no apparent incident to cause the shift. His power simply wasn’t there when he reached for it as reliably as it once had been. M. Patenaude was in his late forties and posited that age contributed to the change, because that had been known to happen. His wife, whom Nathalie had never met, was also an Insightful. Her gift was a superior sense of direction, such that she could examine a map once and know how to get around, unable to get lost. As far as Nathalie knew, Mme. Patenaude’s ability remained intact.

  When Nathalie had discovered her own gift, he’d shared his experiences as an Insightful (albeit, like Papa and Aunt Brigitte and most Insightfuls older than her, he was one by choice).
Few knew of his power—several friends, a handful of city officials, and Le Petit Journal’s publisher. He’d once described the ability to hear and read truth as akin to musical, with untruth being off-key. “Silence more and more,” he’d said with moist eyes, when he’d shared the news with her and Papa over lunch one day.

  She wondered if Papa’s gift would ever fade. Or Aunt Brigitte’s, as distorted and harrowing as it had become. Or her own. This ability she’d both loved and loathed at times but had ultimately treasured because it was an essential piece of her identity, inseparable from her and how she saw the world. It was good to be young and not have to worry about that for some time. Her forties were a long time off.

  M. Patenaude, fidgety as always, chewed his lip as Nathalie concluded her recollection of the day’s events. “This is an unspeakable tragedy for the families of the victims. My guess is that both of these victims were tourists, if only because they’d be less likely to be missed, particularly if they were alone.”

  “Which means this is a predicament for the Exposition,” Nathalie concluded.

  “That it is.” M. Patenaude reached into the pocket of his coat, draped over the back of his chair, and removed a cigarette case. He offered Nathalie one—something he’d done since her eighteenth birthday earlier this year, as if turning eighteen would suddenly inspire her to smoke—and struck a match for his own. “There’s no choice but to run the Palais des Beaux-Arts story, but we’ll hold on to the Fontaine de Coutan one for now.”

  “Unless the body shows up in public.”

  M. Patenaude drew in some smoke, then slowly released it. “Calamitous. Weeks into the Exposition. Let’s hope this was a pair of bizarre, isolated incidents that can be dismissed as such. Otherwise, we’ll have the whole world wondering if Jack the Ripper has crossed the Channel and altered his methods.”

  The thought twisted her insides like a pair of wringing hands. “What if he did?”

  M. Patenaude waved his hand, leaving behind a worm-shaped trail of smoke. “Let’s not take that path for the moment. Right now, I want to make sure people aren’t scared away from the city. I’ll be interested to see how Monsieur Barr has his reporters at Le Figaro de la Tour handle it.”