Sensational

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  With a nod, she left them. Nathalie stared at the open door before speaking. “I can’t wait to go home.” She got back into bed. With a dramatic billow that made Simone laugh, she pulled the sheet over her head.

  “I’m sure they’ll let you go any day now.” Simone lightly tugged the sheet. “So, what was it you were going to tell me?”

  Nathalie uncovered her face and sat up. “I know this is going to sound strange, but I had a visit yesterday from a doctor no one else seems to know.”

  Simone sat back. “How can that be?”

  “I don’t know. He said he was an Insightful. He seemed to know … a lot.”

  “I mean the part about no one else knowing.”

  Nathalie ran her fingers along the edge of the sheet. “I asked the staff about him. Dr. Delacroix. They claim there’s no such doctor.”

  “It’s been a troubling few days. Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

  Nathalie opened her mouth to say no, then stopped. Am I sure? “I don’t think I was…” Her voice faded. “I thought Agnès paid me a visit, too. This was different.”

  “You thought you saw Agnès?”

  “I just said that. And I also said it was different from seeing this Dr. Delacroix.”

  It was too late. Simone’s features floated in a sea of incredulity. “Perhaps. When in relation to the—to when you thought Agnès appeared, did this doctor stop in?”

  “Not at the same time. Listen, Agnès seemed real at the time, but I know now it had to be a ghost or a dream—a dream, because I don’t believe in ghosts. The doctor came here after all of that. It doesn’t matter. You don’t believe me.”

  “No, no!” Simone put up her hands. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen. Only that you should consider the possibility that it didn’t. The duress you’ve been under, the confusion you’ve felt, the paths your thinking has taken…”

  Nathalie folded her arms. She wanted Simone to tell her she hadn’t hallucinated the visit. It was one thing for her mind to conjure up Agnès, but how could it invent a person she’d never met? “I already considered that. What I’m wondering is if Delacroix is … I don’t know. There’s supposedly an Insightful who helps other Insightfuls with how to be an Insightful.”

  Simone repeated the sentence to herself, then studied Nathalie with a raised brow. “‘Supposedly’?”

  “Well, I don’t know if he exists. I do think he was here, though.” Nathalie cringed. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Simone hesitated, as if calculating how to respond, then broke into an appeasing smile. “It could be him. It could also be that, as with Agnès, you were thinking about him. Or who he might be, if he were to show up.”

  Sometimes Nathalie appreciated Simone’s ability to reason. Sometimes, like now, she was mildly irritated with it. Especially when what Simone posited was undeniable.

  Before they could say another word, a welcome face peeked into the room.

  * * *

  “Hello, Christophe!” said Nathalie with a grin. Maybe she grinned too much; she didn’t care. “I’m more talkative today. I think we might be able to hold a conversation.”

  The three of them exchanged a few pleasantries before Simone, in charming Simone fashion, held up the newspaper. “I brought this for Nathalie. Is there anything else you’re able to share?”

  Christophe’s eyes danced between them. “I wasn’t going to mention it because I thought—”

  “That I’d be mumbling nonsense and too incoherent to discuss it?”

  “No,” said Christophe, blushing. “Well, somewhat. More so to see if you were … agreeable to discussing it.”

  “I’m still me. Impaired, albeit it much less so now, but not fragile. Never fragile.” If she reiterated that aloud frequently and to enough people, it must be true, right?

  Christophe shook his head in exaggerated fashion. “I would never call you, Nathalie the Brave, anything but.”

  Nathalie smiled. She was proud of Baudin because it meant exactly that. Brave.

  “Christophe the Police Liaison,” cut in Simone, wearing a conspiratorial expression she’d picked up from Louis, “can you tell us anything more?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Simone, who looked as if someone had just stolen Max and Lucy from her, took a step toward the door. “Ah well. I tried! I must be going now anyway. Take care, both of you.” She gave Nathalie a hug. “With any luck, my next visit to you will be at home.”

  She blew a kiss at Christophe as she said goodbye. As soon as he turned his back, she held up the newspaper, pointed to it, and threw Nathalie a “you’d-better-tell-me-everything” look.

  Christophe, blushing from Simone’s gesture, waited a few beats and settled into the chair. “Thank goodness you’re feeling better. I was—we were all wondering if you’d improve. When you’d improve.”

  Or if I’d end up like Aunt Brigitte.

  “You know how sometimes you’re sleeping and get ensnared in this bizarre in-between? You’re not awake, nor are you in much of a slumber.” Nathalie closed her eyes then opened them. “Sort of a half dream, where things make sense but they don’t? That’s what it’s been like.”

  “It wasn’t pleasant to observe, I can assure you,” he said, pulling at his cuffs.

  “I hope I can leave soon. I miss Stanley.”

  “Not your parents?”

  “Of course! But Stanley can’t visit me.” Not that she could remember much from her parents’ visits, other than their worry. Or Christophe’s last.

  Oh goodness. What had she said? What must she look like, after being in the hospital so many days?

  Suddenly her consolation about feeling better was overshadowed by her self-consciousness. She smoothed back her hair and sat up taller.

  Christophe reached into his coat pocket. “I’ve been carrying this to show you for when you were feeling up to it. It ran in Le Petit Journal the other day.”

  He handed her a newspaper page folded to display a single article.

  Her piece on the horological exhibit. She grinned. “That was a lovely way to pass the time, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled in return. “Was that a joke?”

  Her mind caught up: time, horological exhibit. Nathalie laughed out loud. “No, actually. I guess I’m not quite myself yet.”

  She read the article. Descriptive and factual with an undertone of muted but genuine zeal. Had Christophe perceived that as well? She thanked him for bringing it and put it inside her journal. After a several quiet moments that were neither comfortable nor awkward, Christophe looked over his shoulder. “So … I couldn’t share this with Simone, but there is something else to report about the murder.”

  “A script page, written on parchment paper. Yes?”

  “Indeed.” He wiped his knuckle over his mouth. “Not on the body, though.”

  Nathalie pressed her palms into the sheet as she leaned forward.

  “It was delivered to the morgue this morning,” he said in a whisper. “Along with the Suitor’s head.”

  23

  Nathalie envisioned that moment, more vividly than she wanted to. Untying a bundle, just another administrative task, expecting it was documents or supplies. Peeling back the wrappings to see a gaping mouth and human hair and blood.

  She was certain she’d just grown five or six shades paler.

  Or maybe her mind was deceiving her again and Christophe hadn’t said any of that.

  “A head arrived in a box. Who…” She gasped. “I hope you weren’t the one who discovered it.”

  “No. Dr. Nicot retrieved it and opened it, thinking it was some equipment he’d been expecting. It was addressed to ‘The Paris Morgue.’ I wasn’t there when he opened it, but when he ran in to tell me…” Christophe shook his head. “I’ve never seen the man so flustered. I’ve never seen him flustered at all, in fact.”

  Her skin prickled. If a physician was unsettled, it had to be even more grisly than what she’d imagined.

 
“The package was about this size,” said Christophe, indicating a rectangle with his hands taller than she’d have guessed. “Five kilograms or so. The man had la coiffure à la Titus and a silk top hat, and the white scarf at the base of the neck. The script was folded up in a leather pouch. All of this was cushioned and covered by dozens of white bow ties.”

  Nathalie sketched that in her mind, each word a line, a curve, a shadow enhancing the image. “What did the script say?”

  Christophe took a step closer. “I brought a transcription of it, in case you asked.” He reached into his coat, producing a black-and-beige marbled notebook. “Here, from my own notes.”

  Christophe opened his notebook to the right page and handed it to her. His handwriting was elegant except at the end of the words, where his final stroke was abrupt, as if he were in a hurry to get to the next word. She quickly curbed her curiosity about what else these pages might contain (Notes about her? Not just her visions, but her?), slid her finger down the center, and read.

  SUITOR, wearing a top hat and formal dress, enters throne room and halts. He cries out, then catches himself.

  KING, QUEEN, and JESTER have been beheaded. KING and QUEEN are on the throne, heads in laps. JESTER is on the floor in front of them.

  KING, killed while eating grapes.

  QUEEN, while holding a bird in a cage.

  JESTER, while playing solitaire.

  SUITOR (whispers): Jester spoke the truth.

  PRINCESS (off stage): What’s that, love? My darling brother thought it would be funny to put chrysanthemums instead of roses in my hair.

  YOUNG PRINCE (off stage): They suit you better!

  The bird in the cage chirps.

  SUITOR (in a daze): But who would do this? Who could do this?

  To the side, the edge of a cloak appears from behind a curtain, then disappears.

  SUITOR looks around, as if he’s heard something.

  PRINCESS runs into the room holding flowers, and screams.

  Nathalie read it through a second time. Her mouth had caught up to her brain today, but reading wasn’t yet seamless. “Repulsive and repugnant, just for the sake of being so. This is all a tease. It doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “Except who his next prey is likely to be,” Christophe murmured.

  She thumbed the edge of the notebook. “A Princess we can’t help any more than we could help the Suitor.”

  “We hope to get to him before that.” Christophe took in a deep breath and let it out. “We’re surveying buildings above and near laundries, and we have four or five leads about ‘suspicious men’ carrying valises, though given the number of visitors in the city right now, there’s not much weight to assign that. An anonymous source cited a ‘volatile’ actor—aren’t many of them so?—who should be investigated. Both university scholars and theater professionals say they’ve never seen or heard of this script, so we believe it’s the creative, unpublished work of the killer. Oh, and as a result of Jules’s vision, we’ve been interviewing descendants of the Sanson family.”

  Nathalie always thought it strange that one family would have generations of executioners spanning decades, from the Revolution of 1789 until the 1840s. What must those holiday gatherings and dinner conversations have been like? “I’m assuming nothing came of it, or we wouldn’t be reading about another murder.”

  “They’re a proud family and were insulted, as one might expect,” Christophe said, shrugging. “Somewhat understanding once we presented, insofar as we were able, the reasons for the inquiry. There’s nothing to suggest any of them are involved. Monsieur Patenaude was able to assist us for several of the interviews and confirmed it.”

  Nathalie’s heart warmed at the sound of M. Patenaude’s name. All she recalled of his visit was that his glasses had been very thick. She was pleased to hear that his gift had been there when he reached for it during those interviews.

  “The Deiblers also spoke to us and, in fact, offered to consult. Monsieur Patenaude engaged with them as well.”

  The heirs to the Sanson throne enjoyed their own renown for being at the helm of Le Rasoir National in recent decades. Was that who had pulled the rope on the guillotine when she’d watched the murderer Pranzini’s execution two years ago? “It’s not every day a father-and-son execution team can share their intimate knowledge of the guillotine with a murder investigation.” She closed the notebook. “Then what about Jules’s vision?”

  “It’s possible that Monsieur Patenaude was mistaken. After all, he … as you know, things have changed for him.”

  Nathalie frowned. The glee she’d felt on M. Patenaude’s behalf was punctured with disappointment.

  “However,” Christophe said, his tone optimistic, “we, too, came away from the interviews secure in the conclusion that none of them are suspects. We’re pursuing three other theories at the moment: One is that Le Rasoir was making a false claim and isn’t really the descendant of an executioner. The second is that he’s a distant branch on the Sanson family tree, say the grandson of a third cousin or some such. Or an illegitimate one, which would be even harder to unearth. Third, he may be talking about some other executioner, in France or elsewhere.”

  “It’s wide open, then. We’re not much further along.” Nathalie handed the notebook back to him, her arms feeling weak. The rest of her felt weak as well. Catching Le Rasoir seemed to be an impossible task, and she had done so little to help. “What will make it into the newspaper?”

  “Everything except the details of the investigation—we’re not going to mention the Sansons or Deiblers, needless to say. The body will go on display in the morgue. Both … sections.” He tucked the notebook into his jacket. “Gabrielle traced his path to a theater, seemingly in the fifteenth arrondissement—this time inside, possibly with a companion. The walking pattern suggests someone alongside him. Until after the theater, whereupon they parted ways. The man went into an establishment of some sort, seemingly alone.”

  “That would be some coincidence, for both victims to be milling about a theater in the vicinity of the Exposition.”

  “Correct. So, we’ve positioned some officers in that area and the investigation team will be asking questions there, making lists of all actors, playwrights—everyone involved in theater,” said Christophe.

  “All over Paris? That must amount to hundreds of people.”

  “Better than thousands, non?” Christophe’s gaze drifted to the flowers. “Jules was called in but hasn’t yet arrived.”

  He knew the flowers were from Jules without looking at the card. Was that a guess or did he know from a previous visit?

  She pressed her lips together. Gabrielle had helped, Jules would be helping. “Do you need me?”

  “No,” he said abruptly. Too abruptly.

  A lump swelled in Nathalie’s throat. She swallowed it down immediately.

  “I didn’t mean it that way. We always need you,” he said, his voice much softer. “But we need you to be well. Healthy. Of sound mind and body. Take care of yourself for a while longer. Please?”

  His words warmed her heart, a daisy smiling at the sun. She couldn’t say no to that. “I will.”

  Christophe stood, announcing he had to go soon. As the conversation finished up, he pointed to the nightstand. “Ah, I suppose I don’t have to sign your guest register today.”

  “Not unless you want to practice your signature.” Her eyes darted to the register. Too bad the doctor hadn’t signed it.

  A thought inserted itself into her mind. Simone didn’t believe her because she’d discredited herself by mentioning Agnès. Perhaps Christophe would, if she framed it differently.

  “You’ve interacted with a multitude of Insightfuls. A far greater number than I have. Do you know of one directly connected to Dr. Henard? An apprentice who might have had more intimate knowledge of his work than anyone else? Or a mind reader or thief who stole his secrets?” Yet as she said it, the latter suppositions felt false. Dr. Delacroix didn’t seem insid
ious. But what did she know?

  Christophe’s eyes creased in thought. “I’m afraid not. Why?”

  A flutter went through her chest. He’d either doubt her or believe her. Smile with distant politeness or knit his brows in concern. “I had a … strange conversation the other day with a doctor no one here has ever heard of. I’m starting to think he wasn’t a doctor at all, but rather this mysterious Insightful I once heard about who helps other Insightfuls. I’m not sure how he helps them—I mean us—specifically.” She waited for his reaction. Inscrutable thus far, so skilled was he at listening with a passive face. “I can’t say if he’s real or some sort of Insightful legend. I just … I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  Christophe’s expression changed at last. He didn’t look at her as though she were mad, he didn’t dismiss her idea or tell her she had to be mistaken. His eyes glistened with compassion, and kindness tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t have the answers for you. I wish I did. I think you should ask as many questions as you have to in order to gain peace of mind.”

  She grinned at him. How was it that he almost always knew what to say and how to say it?

  24

  Nathalie was released from the hospital the following day. The chill had abandoned her completely. Her thoughts and speech, now that they were properly assembled, hadn’t stepped out of line. Her memory sharpened once again, and last of all, her ability to read returned to normal. The doctor strongly encouraged her not to put herself in a “precarious situation” by using her Insightful power. When she scoffed at this, he urged her to rest as long as she was “reasonably able” with a meaningful look at Maman and Papa.

  As she gathered her journal, guest register, and flowers, she noticed something on the floor near the wall. She stooped to pick it up.

  A brass button.

  She was almost certain Dr. Delacroix had been wearing one.

  Almost.

  Or was that Christophe? Or Jules or Louis?

  Her memory wasn’t that gracious to her, such that she knew for sure, but she took the button anyway.