by Nell Goddin
“Lawrence always, but always, drinks Negronis,” said a large man with an even larger belly who leaned over Molly’s shoulder to join the conversation, but in French.
“Bonsoir, Lapin,” said Lawrence.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a Negroni,” said Molly, pleased that she could make out the man’s French.
“Expensive way to get a buzz on, if you ask me,” said Lapin. And indeed, it looked as though Lapin liked to get a buzz on quite frequently, if his red-rimmed eyed and bloated face were any indication. “Hey, you’re la bombe who bought the big place down the rue des Chênes?”
“La bombe?” said Molly.
“His idea of a compliment,” said Lawrence. “Molly Sutton, meet Laurent Broussard, called Lapin for reasons unknown to me.”
Molly nodded to Lapin, and tried to move on her stool to keep him from leaning on her shoulder.
“Enchanté,” said Lapin, smiling, and he moved around to get in front of Molly, at which point the focus of his bloodshot eyes drifted south and stayed on her chest.
Molly tried to cross her arms but really there was no position that would camouflage her body enough to hide the fact that her bosom was quite large and extremely perky.
Lawrence watched Molly, then thoughtfully ate a handful of peanuts. “Hey Lapin, I saw a woman in the back, a tourist, just your type.” He motioned with his head towards a small back room which was furnished with comfortable chairs for customers to drink and socialize, or play some cards or chess if they felt like it.
Lapin’s eyes did not budge from Molly’s chest. She rolled her eyes and took a sip of drink, then scowled at it. Lawrence slid off his barstool and put his arm in Lapin’s and slowly pulled him towards the back, giving Molly a wink as he did so.
“Back in a minute,” he mouthed before stepping out of sight.
Molly tried to overhear the conversation going on behind her, but the couple was speaking French too rapidly and she was only getting bits and pieces that she couldn’t knit together into any sense. She narrowed her eyes at her drink and then took a long slurp of it, hating it but wanting to be done, making herself drink it instead of ordering something else as a kind of penance. Penance for what was not clear.
She saw Lawrence winding his way back through the crowd. Already he felt like a friend, and she felt unreasonably happy to see him.
“All right,” he said, settling himself back on his stool and interrupting himself long enough to sip his Negroni. “What’s the story?”
“Which story?”
“The girls. Not real, are they?”
Molly guffawed. “Hell no, they’re not real!”
“Then why have them? You don’t enjoy the attention. So what’s the point?”
“My ex.”
“I see.” He sipped his drink and reached for some chips. “I don’t think you need to say anything more, that spells it out rather neatly.”
“The real question,” said Molly, “is why people work so hard to try to save bad marriages. In retrospect, we’d have saved a lot of time—and these—if we’d quit five years earlier.” She looked down at her buxom self and laughed again, and Lawrence Weebly laughed with her.
The two of them sat at the bar for another few hours, drinking Negronis and talking about former loves, broken relationships, and Castillac, until finally Lawrence stood and took her arm.
“All right, this has been a lovely evening of overdoing it, now let’s get you home safely to sleep it off.”
Molly stood up unsteadily. It took some time and concentration to get her feet under her. After finishing the dreadful cognac and Sprite, she had tried a Negroni, and liked it so much she had another, and now was, well, shit-faced. “I feel like singing,” she said, giggling.
“I’m sure you do. Come on outside, I’m sure Vincent is hanging around out here, you can take his taxi home.”
“I don’t need a taxchi,” said Molly.
“Taxchis are quite nice when one is blotto,” said Lawrence. He waved at Vincent who was leaning against the hood of his tiny taxi, chatting to someone. “Here we are.” He opened the door and poured Molly inside. “She lives at La Baraque,” he said to Vincent. “Just put the ride on my tab.”
“Bonne nuit, mon petit chou,” he said through the open window. “Nice meeting you. Next time, one Negroni only.”
Molly flopped her head back and laughed, even though some part of her noted that nothing was especially funny.
“Vincent,” she said, and laughed again.
He reached over the seat and patted her knee. “No worry, I’ll get you home safe,” he said. He took a look in the rear-view mirror and grinned at her, and pulled away from the curb and down the rue des Chênes, on the way to La Baraque.
* * *
Benjamin Dufort stood up when his officers came into his office, both of them carrying takeout coffee. “Bonjour Perrault, Maron. Thank you for coming in on a Saturday. At some point I will find a way to make up your day off.”
“Chief, that’s not our concern right now,” said Perrault. Maron nodded.
“Well, I thank you. All right, let’s get to it. As you know, Amy Bennett was last seen on Wednesday afternoon. That was nearly three days ago. I’m going to fill you in on what I’ve learned, which is next to nothing, and then I’d like to hear from you.” Dufort reached his arms up over his head and stretched from side to side, then twisted one way and then the other. His officers were patient, used to the way Dufort stretched while he paused to think.
“I spoke to Jack Draper, head of Degas. I’ll leave my personal judgment aside for the moment, and say only that he was not much help. On the surface, he made all the right remarks about how the school will do anything to help find Amy, but just under the surface, he hinted that she was possibly unstable, might be having an affair with a teacher—in short, that if anything has happened to her, it’s her own damn fault.
“Let me say this: it’s a common reaction, blaming the victim. It happens in the press, in the village, even in the court. Perhaps it’s simply a human reaction and there’s nothing anyone can do to put a stop to it. It can be subtle, but it is always poisonous, and we in the gendarmerie need to be vigilant against it. Whatever bad decisions a victim makes leading up to a crime being committed, he or she did not make the choice to be victim to assault, or abduction, or rape, or anything else. And that is where the fault lies—with the person making that choice. Stupidity is not equivalent to criminality, or anywhere close.”
He looked up to see Thérèse's eyes open wide and Maron looking a little grim. “I’m sorry, I did not mean for that to take quite the tone of lecturing that it ended with. I am not accusing the two of you of this bias any more than I accuse myself. You understand?”
Perrault and Maron nodded.
“That’s it for Draper, for the moment. I plan to go back to Degas today and see if I can have a word with Monsieur Gallimard, one of her teachers. Also, I called the Bennetts. They did not express worry in words, but of course a phone call such as that stirs up quite a lot of anxiety. I expect to hear from them soon, if they have no luck contacting their daughter. Now, let me hear from you. Perrault?”
Thérèse sat up straight and scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. “I made the calls, Chief. Bergerac airport, Bordeaux airport, all the car rental agencies within seventy kilometers, same with hospitals. I got zero. Nobody has seen her, talked to her, nothing. So, I thought I would see if I could turn up any information in the village. I went around to the restaurants and bars—” she put up her hand to deflect the criticism she felt coming—“I know, it was premature without a photo or even a description. It was just casual conversation.”
“Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves,” said Dufort. “Of course when any young woman goes missing, the first thought is abduction and subsequent sex crime. We would be looking for anyone who might have crossed paths with Amy after the time she was last seen.
“But I don’t want the previous unsolved ca
ses to make us jump to any conclusions. There could be other motives leading to Amy’s disappearance.”
“Like what?” asked Thérèse, and then wanted to kick herself for asking a dumb question.
“Jealousy, for one,” said Dufort. “By all accounts, she was the top dog at Degas. An ambitious but less-talented classmate could want her out of the way.”
“There’s always love triangles,” said Maron quietly.
“Yes, something in that line, as well,” agreed Dufort. “Draper wanted to steer me in that direction at any rate.” He paused, noting that he resisted going where Draper was pointing, only because it was Draper doing the pointing.
“I know I keep harping on it, but remember we’re essentially doing this investigation off the books and not as gendarmes. We need to cut things a bit close to make sure I don’t get sanctioned, you understand?”
The officers nodded and took sips of their coffee in unison. Perrault grinned, happy to have something besides traffic violations to work on, and Maron, inscrutable as always, kept his feelings buried deep and out of sight.
“Just between us, I am calling this a murder investigation. Perrault, I know it’s your first. What we need to try to do is put ourselves in the mind of a person who would want to take this girl and hurt her. Of course we need to look for evidence and see if we can painstakingly account for her movements. We need to interview anyone we think might shed light on the case. But all that work will come to nothing if we do not use our imaginations to good effect.”
“Yes, Chief,” said Perrault, beaming.
7
1983
The little boy stood on his tiptoes to look inside the window. The glass was fogged up with condensation because Aline, the cleaning lady, was washing some curtains in the big metal sink and using gallons of boiling water. Billows of steam rose up from the sink, obscuring her face. But it was not Aline’s face that Laurent was looking at. He was watching her body, specifically her breasts, which were generous and on the verge of spilling out of her work-dress as she bent to her washing.
He was five. His mother was long dead, and he yearned to have Aline’s attention for more than a few minutes. Longed for her to stop working and stroke his hair and comfort him, to take him on her lap and allow him to rest his head on her bosom. To tell him she would take him away from Monsieur Broussard, his father, who was so cruel to them both.
As he watched he felt some relief. Even though it was cold outside, seeing the steam tricked him into feeling warmer. He rubbed a little corner of the window and could see more clearly Aline’s rosy skin, could almost smell her earthy fragrance.
But then he heard heavy footsteps, and the boy startled, and scampered around the side of the house. He couldn’t let his father see him hanging around Aline, or he would get rid of her, like he’d gotten rid of all the others. And after getting rid of her, he would beat Laurent, snarling at him, and the boy would have to stay home from school until the bruises subsided.
Little Laurent slipped into the big garage stuffed with old furniture and knickknacks, and hid inside an armoire, shivering against the cold.
8
2005
The Saturday market at Castillac was typical of markets all over France, with farmers setting up stalls for their flowers, vegetables, meats, seafood, and cheese, alongside purveyors of mostly cheap clothing, used books, homemade jams, spices, and other odds and ends. At a few folding tables, collectors of mushrooms, nuts, and various wild greens sat with small bundles for sale, and occasionally salespeople of things as disparate as air conditioners, mattresses, and cookware set up shop as well. The market went from early in the morning until noon, when everything was packed up and the scene deserted because everyone in the entire village was having lunch.
It was the first Saturday market since Molly had moved to Castillac, and she was not going to miss it no matter how dreadful her hangover. Damn those Negronis! She smiled about the night before as she dug around in the kitchen trying to concoct a remedy for her slamming headache. Surely she was too old to be getting drunk with strangers, but it had sure been fun, and she only hoped that Lawrence Weebly would turn out to be as entertaining and friendly during the sober light of day as he had been last night.
Glass of tomato juice, loaded up with hot sauce? Seemed like it might help, or at least distract her mouth from the dire cottony feeling that was making her so nauseated. She chugged it, popped a few aspirin, and went out to the terrace to sit at the rusty table and think things over and drink one last cup of coffee before heading into the village.
But the sun was shining right in that very spot and her head throbbed and her eyes burned. She gave up and went inside, grabbed a hat and sunglasses, and set off down the rue des Chênes, market basket in hand, thinking that she would be looking just like a Frenchwoman, what with walking to the market with a basket, except that she suspected most Frenchwomen weren’t showing up with hangovers as prodigious as this one. Most of them seemed so controlled in their pleasures, or, “controlled” wasn’t it, maybe…moderate. So perhaps one small éclair on Sunday, instead of stuffing them in at every opportunity. Ahem. And perhaps one Negroni, not two plus that horrid Cognac and Sprite.
Well, she thought, I may live in France, but I’ll always be an American. Long live immoderation! And then she winced, as having even a thought with an exclamation point made her head hurt.
The street was crowded with market-day traffic, and cars were parked almost all the way to La Baraque. Molly held one hand on her stomach and thought about cheese and éclairs, about fresh sausages and mushrooms, and all the other gems she was sure to find. She gently rubbed back and forth, trying to soothe her unhappy belly.
Stalls were set up in the center of the Place and all around its perimeter, as well as going down some side streets. Molly walked around, gaping, letting all the chatter sweep over her, not trying to understand conversations but just looking and walking slowly so as not to upset her head any further. She was grateful that no one was putting on a hard sell, and she could walk along and check things out without having to fend off overeager vendors.
Perhaps a vegetable plate for dinner, she thought, something healthful and not taxing to the system. She spied a middle-aged woman manning a vegetable stand and went over.
“Bonjour Madame,” said Molly.
“Bonjour Madame!” said the woman, beaming at her. She was rather round, wearing a grubby apron, and her eyes twinkled with good humor.
“I think for dinner I have some vegetables only this night,” said Molly, bravely.
“Only vegetables? I love them, I grow them, as you see. But Madame, they are best cooked in meat broth, or in a nice butter sauce alongside a steak. Have you had potatoes cooked in duck fat?”
“No, Madame.” Molly grinned, because she could understand what the woman said. Though she still struggled to speak, at least understanding was coming back—an amazing feeling, like having closets inside her brain opened up and finding treasure inside.
“Well, Molly, you cannot come to live in the Dordogne and not have potatoes cooked in duck fat at least once. Of course, once you try it, you will want it every week! Or every night!” The woman gestured to a basket of gnarled potatoes flecked with dirt.
Molly felt her face flushing. It was just weird how everyone seemed to know her name, that she was the woman who had just moved to Castillac, before she had a chance to tell them.
“I need…I wonder,” she began, and then gained steam as her determination grew, “Everyone knows my name and how I am come to Castillac to live. How is this?”
The woman laughed. “We talk,” she said, shrugging. And then she leaned over a basket of peppers and took Molly by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek. “I am Manette,” she said, “Bienvenue to Castillac! I am only sorry you have come right when we are in the grip of a crime wave.”
“Crime wave?”
“Well, my next-door neighbor had his wheelbarrow stolen right out of his front
yard. Who ever heard of something like that in Castillac? And also Robert tells me that someone went into his garden and took all of his artichokes, right at the peak of ripening. This sort of thing is unheard of here! And on top of all that, there is that girl missing from the art school.”
“I heard about that,” said Molly. “Are you worried there is…bad?”
The woman rubbed her hands on her apron. “Who can say,” she said. “People say oh, young girls run off all the time and it turns out they’ve stolen their best friend’s boyfriend or something like that. But me, I think this is nothing but stories from the movies. Wishful thinking, you see? In real life, I think when girls disappear, it’s not a joke with a happy ending. It’s usually because someone made them disappear, and they don’t come back.”
Molly’s eyes widened. It was one of those bang! moments when she realized her thinking had been totally wrong, and the woman was exactly right—when she heard about the missing girl, she had supplied any number of reasons to explain her absence, and it was absolutely true that the reasons came from movies and novels more than real life.
“I see,” she said. “And…I think you are right.”
The two women stood looking into each other’s eyes for a long moment, sharing sympathy for the missing girl, and also a flash of fear for themselves and the other women in the village, for if the art student had been taken by someone, and if she was still missing and maybe not coming back, and no one had been caught, then weren’t all the rest of them in some danger as well?
All of that was in the look the women exchanged. Then Manette brightened, gestured to the peppers and said, “They are at their peak right now, Molly. Just the right amount of rain, so the flavor is exquisite, if I do say so.”
“I’ll take three,” said Molly, thinking with relief of dinner instead of violence. “And can you show me a person for sausages?”
Manette smiled. “That will make a nice supper,” she said. “Go to Raoul over on the far side of the Place. Politically he is crazy as a loon, but he has great talent for raising pigs and making sausage. They are treated like princes, those pigs, which is funny because Raoul is so far to the left he makes Mitterand look like a royalist.”
