Murder on Vacation

by Nell Goddin

  Nathaniel saluted and went back out through the French doors. Molly sat for a while longer, trying to remember where she had smelled that scent before. It was so fleeting, so hard to hold onto. She wondered if anyone was going to tell Patty about Ashley’s lies, and whether their friendship would survive. And what about the Bilsons? Would they ever get their herd of goats? With a wry smile, she thought she would not suggest a reunion…if any of them wanted to see each other again, let them go to Provence next time. Or Australia. Someplace comfortably far from Castillac.

  The fire was burning down, but the effort it would take to go outside for more wood was daunting, and Nathaniel was probably back in his room already. Molly called Bobo and went back to bed, pulling the comforter up to her chin and getting warm that way. The orange cat came in and walked over her still body, and before long, she was once again asleep.

  35

  She was lying on her phone when it started buzzing. Very slowly and with great effort, Molly dragged herself awake, blinking her eyes hard and licking her dry lips, barely managing to answer the phone in time.

  “I’m glad to hear you’re resting,” Ben said gently.

  “I’m awake! Really,” she said, unconvincingly. She could hear the sounds of Paris traffic in the background.

  “Why do people always say that,” Ben said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. “It’s not like being asleep is a crime. Especially when Dr. Vernay has said to get as much of it as possible.”

  Molly made a grumbling noise but did not answer.

  “Okay then, I’ve had two different meetings on two different park benches,” said Ben. “The Luxembourg Gardens are quite lovely this time of year. Stark, but beautiful.”

  Molly lay back down and closed her eyes, trying to picture what Ben was describing.

  “I’m afraid we’re boxed in by brick walls every way we turn,” he continued. “As my friend warned me, he didn’t have anything helpful. He’s been working on the Ryan Tuck angle, trying to determine if he was the actual target of the murder. Piece of work, that Ryan.”

  Ben said something garbled that Molly couldn’t make out.

  “Ben? This connection is terrible. What did you just say?”

  “I said, apparently his modus operandi is to move all over the country, preying on trusting women and conning them out of their money, or at least convincing them to support him for extended lengths of time. Inevitably they figure out what he’s up to and throw him out. Or sue him. According to his sister, he regularly crawls back to their hometown and hides out while the latest brouhaha blows over. At the moment he’s living in a trailer on someone else’s property and doesn’t even have a phone. The guy seems to have figured out pretty well how to make himself untraceable.”

  “It’s a big country,” said Molly.

  “Indeed.” Ben continued to speak but the static blotted out half of his words. “The sister was going on and on about how he owes her money—xxxzzzxxpp”

  “What? Did you say Ryan owes his sister money?”

  “xxxxzzz…and he’d actually gotten a bequest, insurance money xxxzzzxxx Miranda Cunningh—xxxzzzzz—”

  Molly snapped all the way awake. “What? Say that again?”

  “Xzzzz”

  “Ben!”

  The call dropped. Frantically she called right back.

  “Sorry!” he said. “Our connection—xxzzz”

  “Did you say Miranda Cunningham was a girlfriend of Ryan Tuck’s?” Molly jumped out of bed, her heart racing.

  But the call dropped again, and the line was dead.

  In the next instant, it all came back. It was Nathaniel’s cologne that she had smelled in Pyke’s room the morning he was killed.

  I am the biggest sucker in the world, she thought. And her next thought was that she had better hustle over to her neighbor’s right away. Before she could pull herself together, a firm rap on her bedroom door.

  “Just a minute!” she called out, trying to keep her voice confident. Should she duck out the window? Calm down, Molly, she told herself. He’s not going to hurt you. But she was not calm. The lies had been thick and she had been utterly fooled. But at long last she was starting to see the truth, or something close enough.

  Frozen, she watched with dread as the door opened slowly.

  “Molls?” he said. “Oh, look at you, up and out of bed. I hope that’s a sign you’re feeling better!”

  Molly wanted to avoid eye contact, as though he would see that she knew if their eyes met, but she understood it was imperative to act as naturally as possible. “Well, I am feeling better. I just wish….”

  “What? Shall I draw you a bath? Make you something to eat?”

  “You’re too kind, Nathaniel. You’ll make some lucky woman a good husband someday.” God, don’t strike me down for lying just now, she prayed. “I may have mentioned—what’s funny about this illness is how it messes with my taste buds. A lot of things just don’t taste right.”

  “Are you craving something in particular, is that it? You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  She knew he was only trying to joke with her but the remark made her want to slap him. “No, not pregnant,” she answered lightly. “But I would so love to have a box of those mini-toasts you only see in France. Have you had them? They are absolutely delicious. Especially with goat cheese, as Darcy may have mentioned.”

  Nathaniel laughed. “I pretty much tune her out when she starts going on about cheese. Okay, where can I get this magical toast?”

  “The épicerie in the village always has them. Would you really go? You don’t mind?”

  “I skipped the fancy dinner just to take care of you,” he said. “Of course I’ll go. I’m happy to. The shop is right up the street from the Café de la Place, have I got it right?”

  “That’s it. Thank you so much! I really appreciate it.”

  Nathaniel smiled and bowed awkwardly, and left the bedroom. Molly snatched up her phone and tried to call Ben again, but what he could he do, all the way in Paris?

  Calm down, Molly, she thought to herself. It will take him at least twenty minutes to get those toasts, and that’s if he jogs all the way there and back. She had a flash of Pyke, hanging in the forest, his arms dangling down. Molly shuddered.

  When Nathaniel gets to the épicerie, he’ll see that it closed hours ago, and he’ll realize I’ve sent him on a wild goose chase.

  She called Maron and left a message when he did not answer, and put on her coat. She was not quite panicked thanks to the twenty-minute window, but as she tried to gather her things and leave, she was hobbled by an inability to think clearly.

  I should take a handbag.

  Where is my phone?

  Ben did say Miranda Cunningham, didn’t he? Could the bad connection have made me hear the wrong thing?

  What else do I need?

  Molly stood in the corridor, trying to think. It didn’t matter whether she took a bag, the point was to leave and leave now.

  But no sooner had Molly finally grasped that bit of truth than she heard footsteps just outside the front door.

  “Oh, Molly,” said Nathaniel sadly, as he stepped inside. “I was getting onto the road on the way to the store, when I realized—it’s Sunday evening and everything will be closed. Isn’t that right?”

  With a classic deer-in-the-headlights expression, Molly managed a forced smile. “Oh, I suppose you’re right. Sometimes I forget I don’t live in Boston anymore, where there is almost always someplace open. Plus I’m so forgetful lately.” She watched his face. For the first time, Molly was uncomfortable in Nathaniel’s presence. Intensely so. The young man leaned in her direction, watchful, and she felt as though he wanted to flood her with his feelings, all of the emotion he held inside, a tidal wave of hurt and anguish.

  She had no plan. All she could do was stall while she tried to think of something.

  “How about we go in the living room for a while and talk? Would you mind bringing in just an armful of wo
od? It’s right around the corner of the house. Would you like a cup of hot chocolate? I think I can find a box of cocoa somewhere, and yesterday Monsieur Cherac from down the road brought me some milk from his famous Normande cows.”

  “Wonderful! If you’re up to making it?”

  “Of course.” She glanced over and saw him savagely picking at his cuticles. “Did you love hot chocolate when you were a kid?”

  “We hardly ever had it.”

  “What? Now that is close to criminal. I will always give my mother credit for doing an excellent job in the kitchen. She would go on these jags every so often—she’d cook Russian food for a month, or Thai. That was before you could get Thai food all over. What’s your favorite kind of food?”

  Nathaniel looked disconcerted by her chatter. He did not answer but got up from the stool and began to pace. “You should get back in bed. The others will be back soon,” he said.

  “Oh no, a dinner like that goes on for hours. You wouldn’t believe all the courses,” said Molly, wanting him to be at ease and also praying they came back far earlier than she dared hope. “So, it’s a little chilly in here, don’t you think? You wouldn’t mind getting the wood?”

  Nathaniel went distractedly through the French doors, and Molly pulled out her cell and opened her contacts, looking for the number at the station where possibly Paul-Henri would be on duty. But before she could find it, Nathaniel was back, and looking at her strangely. Was he distrustful? Angry? Molly tried to read his expression but could not. He was obviously distressed. And on top of that, his actions seemed dangerously unpredictable.

  Molly watched as he knelt by the woodstove and jammed in a fresh log, then another one. Quietly she stirred the milk while it heated, then whisked in heaping spoonfuls of cocoa and sugar while Nathaniel put more logs in the stove and fiddled with the air intake. When the cocoa was hot, Molly filled two mugs and brought them over.

  “Here you are,” she said. “I’m just going to…sit down for a moment. There.”

  “You shouldn’t be up. I told you that you should be resting.” He stood up, turning his back to her and looking out of the window into the darkness. For a long moment he said nothing, and then his words came in a rush. “I just want you to understand. You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know how much I want to help, how much I want to fix it.”

  Molly stayed silent.

  “And Miranda…she’s so much like you. When I went to meet her that day, I was totally bowled over by the resemblance. And it wasn’t just the sickness, either. She had a kind of…of serenity, I guess, that reminded me of you. I was very drawn to her because of that. Serenity—” he laughed harshly, “—I don’t have a lot of that in my life. Not since….”

  Molly held her breath. She followed his lead—bowing her head as though too fatigued to hold it up. Finally she lifted her eyes just enough to meet his in the reflection in the window. “Yes,” she said faintly. “You take such good care of me.”

  Nathaniel kept his back turned. He has to do that to maintain the fantasy, Molly thought. If he looks right at me, he can’t pretend, it falls apart….

  “If you would please talk to me, Nathaniel,” she said, hoping to hit on something his mother might have said to him. “Tell me about your life. I don’t have the strength to have a real conversation, but I would very much like to hear about you.”

  Without looking at her face, he turned and handed her a blanket. She tucked it around herself and settled back into the chair, looking as weak and frail as she could, and at the same time, somehow maternal. Molly allowed herself a small moan, imagining herself wracked with pain from a terrible cancer.

  “I kept coming back to visit with Miranda, even after the administrative problem had long since been dealt with. She was very beautiful, you know. There can be a beauty in illness. I want you to know that.”

  “Thank you, my dear,” Molly murmured.

  “Some days she was too sick to see me, and I hated being turned away like that. The nurse told me not to take it personally, but that’s a pretty tall order when being with someone is that important to you. When it’s your whole life, really.”

  “You love Miranda.”

  “Yes! That’s the most important thing about all of this. That’s what I want you especially to understand. It’s all out of love for her.” He flashed Molly a quick smile then looked away again. “On her better days, I would sneak out of my cubicle and sit with her for hours. She talked and talked. I heard the whole story of her life, about how it was before she got sick.” He turned suddenly and glowered at Molly. “She told me about Ryan Tuck,” he said, the words dripping with contempt.

  When he said Ryan’s name, Molly felt a deadly chill course through her body despite the roaring woodstove. She didn’t dare say a word.

  “Ryan Tuck was all fun and games—with her money—until the cancer diagnosis. Then he took off. Can you even believe it? Your girlfriend gets desperately sick with something that can kill her, and you pick that moment to bail on her? And the crazy thing, the really crazy thing?” Nathaniel’s chin dropped to his chest. Molly heard a gurgling, choking sound as he tried to stop himself from breaking down.

  “She still missed him?” Molly said softly.

  “Yes. She still missed him. I could not believe it. I told her she was worth a hundred Ryan Tucks, that she was way too good for the likes of him. But you know, that did not give her any comfort at all. It was better if we talked about something else.”

  A long moment passed in silence. Molly stayed still in the armchair, straining to hear Christophe’s taxi in the driveway bringing the other guests home.

  “I think the stove could take another log,” she said, fearing what he might be thinking about and wanting to keep him busy.

  “Anything I can do for you, Mom,” said Nathaniel. “You know I’ll do anything.”

  Molly froze. He did not appear to have heard the slip of the tongue. Maybe I have a chance, she thought.

  “But you fixed it, didn’t you?” she said, making her voice reedy and thin.

  “Well, I tried. I tried! Tuck is a little sneak and after he ran off no one could find him. But I did! Or at least, I found that a Ryan Tuck had signed up for a week’s vacation here at La Baraque. You have that little chat area on your website, for guests to leave comments and questions? For weeks I could find no internet presence at all. I did some massive searches, I used every trick in the book to try and find him, and ended up at your website. I was pretty proud of myself for that.”

  “Only the person leaving that message was Jim Pyke. And it wasn’t until the gendarme informed everyone that the man who came to La Baraque wasn’t really Ryan Tuck….”

  “How was I supposed to know?” he said mournfully. “I was only trying to avenge Miranda’s death. She…I won’t say she died of a broken heart, because the cancer killed her sure enough. But she died with a broken heart, I can say that much. And Ryan Tuck—he pretty much gave her a big shove right into the grave, abandoning her like he did.”

  “You stood up for her.”

  “Who else did she have on her side? Nobody. Not one other person ever came to the hospital, and she was there for six whole weeks.”

  “I’m so sorry, Nathaniel,” Molly said carefully. She sneaked a peek at her phone to see the time. The others might not be back for another hour. Ben was probably still on the TGV, or even spending another night in Paris.

  Molly decided to take the biggest risk of her young investigative career. “Shall I call the gendarme?” she asked, as simply as though she were asking whether he wanted ketchup on his hamburger.

  “Might as well,” Nathaniel said, his voice cracking. The young man lowered his lanky body onto the arm of the chair where Molly sat, put his arms around her, and sobbed into her neck.

  Epilogue

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Lawrence was saying to Molly over the din at Chez Papa. “You’re saying the guy actually thought you were his dead mother? How in hell did you
pull that one off?”

  “It wasn’t exactly like that. I mean, if you had pointed at me and asked him point blank, is this your mother? I’m fairly sure he’d have said no, how dare you—that’s Molly. It was more like…Nathaniel lived in a kind of murky emotional place where the edges and boundaries got blurry sometimes. Does that make any sense?”

  “Not really,” chimed in Ben, taking a sip from a large glass of red wine and then setting it back on the bar. “He did call you Mom, right?”

  “Yes, but…look, he was talking to his mother through me, in a way. I helped him feel close to her again, almost as though she wasn’t entirely gone. I know, it seems crazy. It is crazy. But to me anyway, it does make a kind of sense. His dreams of what he wished to happen occasionally got a little confused with what was actually happening.”

  “And he was never the boyfriend of this Miranda Cunningham at all?” asked Lawrence.

  “Correct,” said Ben. “He worked at the hospital, and nurses have given testimony that he did visit her a great deal. But Miranda was desperately ill. Dying, actually. Hardly in any shape to be starting a relationship, even if she had wanted to.”

  “And he came all the way to France to get revenge on her behalf. Now that’s what I call chivalry,” said Lawrence.

  “I think it got mixed up in his head with saving his mother somehow,” said Molly.

  “We were so focused on Jim Pyke being the intended victim,” Ben said to Lawrence, “but poor Monsieur Beech killed him thinking he was Ryan Tuck.”

  “Everything was about Tuck, in the end. One of the guests, Ashley Gander, had been with Tuck a couple of years ago. They had a tempestuous relationship apparently, and split up, but Ashley recently broke up with someone else and got curious about what Tuck was up to. She found him in the comments section of my website too, same as Nathaniel had. So she booked a reservation, and then talked her old friend Patty into coming to hide the fact that she was stalking him.”