by Nell Goddin
“Sure,” said Patty. “You coming, Ash?”
“I desperately need to go to a beauty store,” said Ashley.
“Really,” murmured Darcy.
Ashley threw her a sour glance but did not bite.
“I’ll go with you,” Darcy said to Molly, as though agreeing to punishment. “Ira’s been about as much fun as a root canal lately, so it’ll be better than nothing.”
“Bless you for your enthusiasm!” said Molly, laughing.
Ira went back to the cottage while Ashley convinced Patty to drop her off in Périgueux on the way to Montignac.
“I really like walking in the rain, but maybe it’s a little too chilly,” said Molly, leading Darcy to the Citroën. “Sorry to ask this again, my brain’s been feeling fuzzy lately. Have you been to France before? A French market in particular?”
“No on both counts. When I was maybe sixteen? My father dangled a European trip in front of me, trying to get me to break up with my boyfriend. Didn’t work.”
“Ah. Likely made you hold on to him tighter?”
“Yup. And the guy was a total dirtbag,” said Darcy, smiling at the memory. They drove in silence to the edge of the village, where Molly slowed down to look for a parking spot.
“So, when did you get interested in cheese?” Molly stopped and neatly backed the car into a space barely big enough. The drizzling had stopped, and she and Darcy walked toward the Place with their coat hoods down.
“When I was born,” said Darcy. “It was a joke in my family, how I’d sometimes have only cheese for dinner.”
“Well then, France is definitely the place for you.”
“The cheese has been amazing,” agreed Darcy. “After Ira and I got together, we started looking around for a different kind of life. We wanted to get out of the city and live more, uh, wholesome, you know? Get some goats and make cheese, was what we decided on. I have about fifteen kinds I want to try.” Molly glanced over and saw that the young woman was smiling an authentic smile and for the first time since arriving in Castillac, actually looked happy. And then, before Molly could ask what sorts of cheese she had in mind, Darcy’s face fell. “Look,” she said, pointing at a mother pushing a baby carriage.
Molly’s expression dropped right along with her guest’s, though she made an effort to hide it. Her deepest desire was to have a child, and she was acutely aware that at her age, she was running out of time. She knew the mother and stopped to coo over the baby and ask how he was doing. Darcy just stood and stared with her fists clenched at her sides.
“The main market is another few blocks,” Molly told her as the mother and baby went in the opposite direction. “Most likely Lela Vidal will be there, and maybe I can show you a few other unusual cheeses that the traveling cheesemonger occasionally has. Until I moved here, I had no idea that cheeses could be seasonal.” She could sense a change in Darcy’s mood—not difficult since the other woman was glowering and walking with her fists still balled, as if she were hoping for an excuse to hit someone.
“Is something wrong?”
“That baby. I think I told you that I hoped to conceive at La Baraque?”
“You did mention it, yes.”
“Well, Ira’s not…he’s…we haven’t been getting along. He knows what I want but….”
Molly nodded, unable to find a single appropriate thing to say.
“You know,” said Darcy, her face brightening for a moment, “it wouldn’t be hard at all to steal a baby. I could have grabbed that kid out of that carriage and made a break for it. That woman would’ve been so shocked I’d practically be in Paris before she managed to call the cops.”
Molly’s mouth opened and closed again.
Darcy nodded. “You think I’m joking? Haha, Molly! You want a kid too, right? You gonna try and tell me you’ve never thought of it? Never thought of just going up to some woman looking all smug with her new baby and just grabbing it and heading for the hills?”
Again Molly opened her mouth but no sound came out. Was she kidding? She had to be kidding…right?
“Show me the cheese,” Darcy said next. Molly walked slowly to the corner of the Place where Vidal usually set up. Darcy was exhausting, and she was suddenly out of energy.
“So, I’ll leave you to it,” said Molly. “I’ve got some friends here I’d like to talk to, and then I’ll be making a stop at Pâtisserie Bujold before I’m ready to head back. You have a working phone? Can we be in touch by text?”
“Ira is obsessed with the internet,” Darcy answered, “so yeah, my phone’s all set. Just don’t spend all morning gabbing.”
Molly hurried away, thinking that Darcy Bilson had won the Rudest Guest award, hands down, covering the entire time La Baraque had been open.
“Maron, it’s Dufort.”
“Bonjour,” said Maron warily.
“Just wanted to check in. I was planning to let you know that Molly and I are going into business together, doing detective work, but it turns out she’s got Lyme disease. I’m not sure how long she’s going to be out of commission.”
“Sorry to hear that,” said Maron, and he meant it, although at the same time he couldn’t help feeling that with Molly out of the picture, he had a better chance of solving the Tuck mystery himself. A few good cases under his belt and that Paris posting might be his yet.
“We plan to be private investigators. We’ll be based in, but of course not limit our work to the village. Or the département, for that matter. I expect we’ll be working with you from time to time. I look forward to it.”
“As do I,” said Maron. That he did not mean. His interim appointment as chief had finally been made a full appointment, though he still depended on Dufort for help…and resented it.
“Anyway, I’ve asked Molly to socialize with her guests as much as she is able, but the last time I saw her, she could barely get out of bed. So this go ’round I’m not sure she’s going to be as much help as she usually is. How are things on your end? Do you have any leads on possibilities other than the guests at La Baraque?”
“No. If it had happened at a different time of year, then maybe we could consider other tourists. But you know how it is in Castillac in February. Nobody’s out much on these cold, gray days. There are barely any tourists at all.”
“Only takes one.”
“Sure.”
“Things with Paul-Henri going okay?”
Maron started to complain about him but caught himself. “Yes. No problems. Look, if there’s nothing else? I’ve got another call coming in—”
“Yep, talk to you later.”
Maron pushed the blinking button on his phone. “Allô, Chief Maron speaking.”
“Bonjour, Chief. This is Charles Brantley, at the American embassy in Paris.”
Maron could tell from the man’s tone that he was going to say something Maron did not want to hear. His intuition turned out to be entirely correct.
16
1991
Darcy pulled on the black jeans her mother deplored, the ones with the slashed right leg held together with safety pins. She was short and had to roll the legs up. That sort of spoiled the look, but Darcy was unwilling to spend any time hemming them. How she did up her face was more important. She spent a solid half hour with powder, shadow and eyeliner, just to get the goth effect the way she wanted it: her face so pale it nearly glowed, her eyes dark, sunken caverns. She grinned at her reflection and noted with approval that thanks to the makeup, her teeth looked grayish-yellow.
After putting on boots and grabbing her knapsack, she strode to the front door of her family’s large Colonial, making no effort to sneak out.
“What do you think you’re doing?” her mother said, appearing out of the shadows as Darcy knew she would.
“I’m meeting somebody. See ya.”
“Change out of those pants this minute.”
“Nope.”
Her mother opened her mouth but said nothing. She had been trying to control her wayward t
eenage daughter for several years, and was acutely aware that she was failing. “Shall I call your father?” she said finally.
“Don’t care,” said Darcy, and slammed the door behind her. She got on her expensive racing bike and rode down the driveway, through the development, and out toward the shopping center where her friends were waiting.
“Darce,” said a lanky boy dressed in black jeans, who had a line of six silver hoops running along the edge of his ear. “What’s going on?”
Darcy dropped her bike, letting it clatter on its side, and shrugged. “Nothing,” she said. “Like always.”
A few of their gang were farther down the sidewalk, in front of a sub shop; the two wandered in their direction. “Hey Darcy,” said another girl, who was wearing a long skirt that would barely stay on after she had cut it to ribbons. “Another boring night to get through. I think we should…do something.”
Darcy looked at her skeptically.
“I mean…what if we hold up the sub shop?”
The lanky boy laughed. “What are you gonna do, threaten to fart in the store?”
“Shut up, Ken,” said Darcy. “I think Ellie might have a good idea for once. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m starving. And my parents refuse to give me any money, after what happened last month.”
The others nodded solemnly, not wanting to think about all the trouble they’d gotten into for starting a fire in an abandoned garage.
“Just let me do the talking. Come on,” said Darcy. She strode into the sub shop, her eyebrows making a deep V, and she snarled to the clean-cut boy behind the counter. “Make us three Italian subs with extra cheese and extra hot peppers, and—”
“I don’t really like hot pepp—”
“Shut up, Ellie,” snapped Darcy.
“Sure thing,” the boy sang out, and got to work on the sandwiches.
The three teenage goths nervously waited. Ken kept flexing his arms and Ellie bit her fingernails.
“Get ready to look threatening,” Darcy whispered to Ken. “If he won’t give us the subs, you’re gonna have to use some muscle,”
“Um, Darce? That’s not really my—”
“Here ya go!” said the boy, pushing the three subs onto the counter where they could reach them. He stepped to the cash register and began to ring up the order, but Darcy grabbed all three subs and ran out the door. Ken and Ellie yelped and followed her.
“But—” said the boy behind the counter, who had never had this happen before and could not quite believe it.
“You were awesome,” said Ellie, her eyes shining, as they sat down in the scruffy woods behind the shopping center to enjoy their haul.
Darcy could barely take a bite. She walked around the others, watching them, licking her lips, high on the thrill of breaking the law. Maybe she had, at long last, found something she was good at.
17
Ben knocked, then stuck his head in and called for Molly, in a hurry to tell her his news.
“Well, bonjour, Ben!” she said, from a chair next to the woodstove. “I’m glad to see you. Please excuse my not getting up.”
“No, no, please stay where you are,” said Ben, swooping down to kiss her cheeks, then her mouth. “I hope it’s all right that I showed up without any notice. I’ve just had the most extraordinary phone call from Maron.”
“Do tell,” said Molly, pulling her blanket up to her chin.
“It’s freezing in here. Let me get some wood and jack this fire up a bit first.”
“Sure, leave me dangling!”
Ben was out and back from the woodpile quickly, the orange cat weaving through his legs when he came in. He squatted down by the stove, using a poker to get the logs adjusted the way he wanted them. Then he shut the door, opening the intake. “There you go. You want anything? Can I make you some tea or something?”
“Ben! Quit being a nurse and tell me!”
He sat on the sofa and grinned at her. “It was already an interesting case, right? But now a bit more so. Maron got a call from the American embassy in Paris this morning. Turns out that the family of Ryan Tuck claims that Ryan Tuck is alive and well…and not in France.”
Molly stared, digesting the information. “Well, it’s not that unusual a name. They must have contacted the wrong one.”
“The embassy didn’t pick random names from the phone book, Molly. The passport has contact information on it. Tuck’s sister, apparently.”
“Oh.”
“She says she saw Tuck a couple of days ago, in Cincinnati…Ohio? Anyway, she’s no fan of her brother—said he’s a jerk and something of a con man, and who is at the moment lying low to hide from some woman he’s ripped off. He hasn’t been using the internet because he’s worried the woman’s hired someone to tail him.”
“So, a real prince.”
“Yep. But not our prince.”
“Wow. I’m…struggling a little here. So Ryan…was somebody else, impersonating Ryan Tuck? Identity theft?”
“Apparently so.”
“And does the embassy have any idea who our guy really was?”
“No. It’s going to take some collaboration between the embassies and international law enforcement. If the guy has DNA on file, or even a police record somewhere, it should be easy enough. But if not….”
“We might never know.”
“That’s right.”
“And we may never know why he pretended to be Tuck, or why he came to Castillac….” Molly laughed bitterly. “He told me he had chosen La Baraque because it seemed so serene. He wanted to start his first novel here, and he liked that it was simple yet luxurious.”
“He was in one of the new rooms?”
Molly nodded. “Yeah. You know, that reminds me…Tuck—or whoever he was—told Patty that he had come to France because he had done something bad back in the States. Apparently he didn't give her any details, though. It’s a little unsettling. An imposter, and I fell for his line completely.”
“I’ve been trying to remind you that there is likely a murderer in your house, too, but somehow that doesn’t seem to penetrate,” Ben muttered.
“It’s…it’s hard not to wonder whether everything about him was a lie.”
Ben struggled to keep his expression free of gloat.
“You think I got sucked in by some sort of con man,” said Molly.
“I didn’t say that. I didn’t even think it. Look, con men are successful because they’re good at making people feel a certain way. And you were just being warm and friendly because that’s who you are. It’s not like you gave him the password to your bank account or anything.”
Molly stared at a piece of bark on the rug, trying and failing to make her memories of Ryan fit with these new facts.
“Right?” added Ben.
“Right. But I trusted him. He threw sticks for Bobo, and I let that…I thought, a guy who throws sticks for a dog when no one is looking—that’s sort of the definition of a decent person, you know?”
“Of course you feel betrayed. But people are complicated, Molly, as well you know. He—whoever he really was—could have had a soft spot for dogs and be up to no good in other areas.”
“I would be happier with myself if I hadn’t been such a patsy,” she said, slumping down in the chair.
“A patsy? Never,” said Ben, laughing. “And anyway, he’s dead now. It’s his killer we need to focus on.”
Ben and Molly both looked at the flickering flames through the glass door of the woodstove, thinking. Molly rubbed her face and blinked her eyes, feeling as though her thoughts were slow to form. “I guess I’m ready for another nap, amazing as that sounds. Going to set a record for the week for hours spent unconscious.”
“Do you have any rooms available?”
“Two more in the addition. Why?”
Ben put his arm around her while they walked back to her bedroom. “Because I’d like to move in for a little while. Please think about it and don’t say no right away. You’re in no shape t
o be alone—” Seeing her face, he changed course. “Okay, listen, just let me stay in the addition so I can do some work while you get back on your feet. I can hang around under the guise of looking after you while you’re not well, and at the same time I’ll be observing the guests and maybe asking a few nonchalant questions if I get an opening. It’s a rare thing that we have a limited pool of suspects, and they’re all staying in the same place like this.”
He pulled back the covers and Molly climbed in, fully dressed.
“All right,” she said, feeling nothing but relief that he was going to come stay. As she closed her eyes, a sort of slideshow of images of Ryan rolled by: Ryan laughing, Ryan stuffing his face with gougères, Ryan in the corner with Darcy, making her throw her head back with laughter.
Was it all a lie? And whatever he was running from—is that why he was killed?
She had no idea how long she had slept. But the moment Molly’s eyes opened, she was determined to get out of bed and do something. A murder had taken place, practically in her yard. No way was she was going to nap straight through the investigation and not be part of it.
After putting on a heavy sweater and some slippers that could be worn outside, she decided to check on the guests. She figured the more she could get them one at a time, away from the others, the more she might hear something worth pursuing.
The weather wasn’t half bad. Gray as usual, but with a bit of warmth in the air. So it was not surprising that no one answered at the pigeonnier or the cottage. Molly threw a stick for Bobo on the way back to the house. She entered through the back to see if Nathaniel was in. She nodded approvingly at the decoration in the corridor—the sconces she had found at Lapin’s shop were just right, and the pale blue of the walls looked luminous in the overcast light coming in through the old leaded window.
She knocked gently, not expecting an answer, and getting none. Everyone is probably doing what they came to France to do, she thought—out seeing the sights and eating good food, tramping on day hikes, shopping. She knocked one last time, a bit harder. The latch gave, opening the door a crack. Molly considered for half a second, and stepped inside.
