The Third Girl (Molly Sutton Mysteries Book 1)

by Nell Goddin

  Three women. He had done nothing for them.

  He wouldn’t blame the citizens of Castillac if they began pressuring him to leave even before the gendarmerie ordered him to a different community as a matter of course.

  The first woman to disappear had been Elizabeth Martin, a young British woman, a tourist, no connection to Castillac that Dufort had ever found, beyond visiting one summer for a few days in the course of a ramble around France. All anyone knew was that Castillac was the last place she was ever seen—so the possibilities of what happened to her were practically uncountable. Wrong place, wrong time, and she was killed and never found? Or intentional disappearance, and she’s living somewhere with a new identity, having cocktails in Ibiza with no looking back?

  A million ways it could have gone. She had no family, no parents or relatives to keep the pressure on, and her case passed rather quickly into the dusty filing cabinets of unsolved files.

  The next event had hit Castillac harder. Both because a second disappearance felt not twice as bad but more like a thousand times worse, forcing the villagers to admit that the first had likely not been random, not just one of those things, and that possibly the perpetrator has not gone away, but was there, present, one of them—and because the victim, if she was a victim, was a young local woman. Her name was Valérie Boutillier. She was eighteen when she disappeared six years ago. No one, including Dufort, thought there was any chance of Valérie’s running off and never contacting home again; her life in Castillac had been happy, family dysfunction only enough to keep from being boring, and she had been accepted into a topnotch university—her dream—scheduled to enroll a month after her disappearance.

  There was absolutely no question in Dufort’s mind that someone had abducted Valérie. Whether she was still alive somewhere, being held against her will…well, the chances of that sank lower every day, and there had been an awful lot of days since she vanished.

  Dufort was back at L’Institut Degas, intent this time on following through with the Gallimard interview no matter what interruptions appeared. Marie-Claire Levy had told him where to find him and what hours he was likely to be in, and so Dufort was knocking on his office door following her suggestions exactly.

  “One moment,” said a gruff voice from inside.

  Dufort heard some thumping noises, then a chair scraping a wood floor. Professors had their offices in the old administration building, and the smell of old books and wood and plaster reminded him of the buildings of his university up north.

  Finally the door opened and a large man looked out. “May I help you?” he asked irritably.

  “Bonjour, Professor. I am sorry to bother you. I am Chief Dufort of the Castillac gendarmerie. I’m wondering if I could have a moment of your time?”

  Gallimard shrugged.

  “I was hoping to speak with you briefly. I won’t be long.” Dufort saw that Gallimard was the kind of man who expected deference from other men, and so he gave it to him. On the surface.

  Gallimard nodded and opened the door, gesturing for Dufort to come in. Inside was a wide desk covered with piles of papers and knick-knacks, and what looked like an antique desk chair that swiveled. Beside the desk was a worn sofa, and at the end of the narrow room, a round window gave the only natural light.

  Dufort wondered why there was no art on the walls, and realized that he had knocked on the door assuming the room would look a certain way. He made a note to think further about that, as he had found that his wrong assumptions could occasionally be very enlightening in unexpected ways.

  “So,” he said, playing a little disorganized, “It’s a little surprising that we have not met before, isn’t it? Let’s see now…I’m here about the business with that student. Amy. Amy Bennett?”

  “Yes,” said Gallimard, and he glowered. “Awful. She is very talented. Not that her talent has anything to do with her disappearance. At least I don’t see how it could. Anyway, what I can tell you is that she has a painting class with me on Wednesday mornings, and last Wednesday was it? So that would make it a full week? Yes, last Wednesday she did not show up. I haven’t seen her since.”

  Dufort nodded. “That Wednesday morning class—how many students are in it?”

  “Eleven.”

  “And how would you rate them, I mean to say, would you put Amy in the top of that eleven? The bottom?”

  “Top. Very top. What does that matter?”

  “I’m only…I’m looking to get an idea of who Amy was, that’s all. Anything you can add, really anything at all, would be helpful.”

  A pause got a little longer than was comfortable, but Dufort did not speak.

  “Well, I’m not sure I have much to tell you. She was quite a good student—talented, as I’ve said, and also hard working. Steady. I expected to make some introductions for her, sometime later, when she was just a little more developed, you understand. This was only the beginning of her second year. A ways to go yet. But the potential, yes, the potential was definitely there.”

  “Was?”

  “Oh, I—I didn’t mean anything by it. I say ‘was’ only because…because she’s not here anymore, you see. Like she’s on holiday or taken a term off or something, the way students do these days so often. Hard to keep track if they’re coming or going!” he added, perhaps a bit too heartily.

  “Can you tell me anything about her personal life?”

  Gallimard pursed his lips. “Not at all. She seemed to get on with her classmates. Not a girl to stir up drama, you understand. Quiet. Not interested in posing as an artist, but in being one, if you understand me. Now, if there’s not too much more? I have some papers that I absolutely have to grade this morning or my students will want to crucify me.”

  Dufort looked into Gallimard’s face. He was perhaps in his early fifties, and his face betrayed a bit of rough living—too much alcohol, too many cigarettes, the bloat of too much of everything. His belly was round and his cardigan, buttoned twice, was strained to the point that Dufort guessed the buttons might not last the day.

  “I understand, forgive me,” he answered. “May I contact you again, if you do not mind, if anything comes up that I think you may be able to help us with?”

  “Of course,” said Gallimard, moving towards the door. Dufort definitely felt he was being rushed out. “I thought these days the police didn’t investigate missing persons except for children?”

  “That’s correct,” said Dufort. “I wouldn’t call this an official investigation. Just trying to help out, when one of our community is in trouble. Possibly in trouble, I mean to say.”

  “Yes, of course. I expect she’ll turn up. Young people—they get all sort of crazy ideas in their heads, you know. I had a student last year run off to Alaska, of all places. Got obsessed with some kind of animal, I don’t remember, a marmot perhaps? And nothing would do but going to Alaska to see it. I believe he did get some rather good sculptures out of it!” Gallimard laughed, and for the first time Dufort could see his charm, a kind of knowing affability that drew you in, made you feel as though you were as cultured and urbane as he was, and that he really liked you very much.

  Charm can be quite problematic, Dufort was thinking on his walk back to the village. It lulls people into thinking things are true that might not be true. It’s almost like a spell, like magic, isn’t it.

  * * *

  Molly couldn’t stand it a minute longer. She put on her grubbiest clothes, took a mug of coffee, and headed out to the overgrown garden with delusional plans for getting rid of the vines in the front border by mid-morning. It was the chilliest morning yet and she had to go back in for a sweater, but quickly warmed up once she got going, digging down to get the roots and then flinging what she could tear out into a pile behind her.

  In some ways she liked this sort of gardening job best: it was mindless, it was physically demanding, and the detail work of trying to get up every last bit of root was detail that she could accomplish on auto-pilot. Maybe it would seem as t
hough all kinds of anxious thoughts would come crowding into the empty space, but actually, they did not. During the weeding of vines, Molly’s mind stayed blissfully empty, with no thought of the Bennetts, or of the stories Lawrence had told her the night before of the other two women of Castillac who disappeared and were never found. Nothing in her head but the look of unfamiliar dirt, the feel of the tough vines as she wrapped them around her hands to yank them, and maybe the odd curse under her breath when a root snapped off, leaving a hunk deeper down that would regrow if she didn’t dig for it.

  As the sun got higher, the day warmed up. The orange cat appeared and rubbed against Molly’s leg, but she deigned to pet it.

  “You think I’m that gullible?” she said to the cat. “My finger still hurts from the last time.” The orange cat cried and rubbed against her leg again.

  So many fantastic French rose varieties, Molly was thinking. Adore the damasks. Must have La Ville de Bruxelles, that deep pink gets me every time. And Duchesse du Brabant with the amazing fragrance. And Chapeau de Napoleon, can’t do without that one, or De Meaux, and Fantin Latour. I better have constant bookings to pay for my rose habit, she thought, looking around, jarred by the clash between her vision of the garden, all abundant with cabbagey blooms and heavenly scents, and the prickly overgrown reality.

  It was nearing lunchtime. Molly glanced over to the cottage but saw no sign of life. She wondered if the Bennetts could sleep at all—or maybe they’re asleep all the time, with the help of some mighty tranquilizers? That’s probably what I do in their shoes, she thought. Drug myself into a stupor and pray that when I snapped out of it, everything would be okay again. How else to manage the helplessness and creeping gray horror of not even knowing what has happened, and nothing to do but wait and hope?

  They probably aren’t eating either, she thought. She nodded to herself and jumped up, left her tools sitting in the weeds, and went inside with the idea of making the Bennetts a decent lunch. She could do that at least, even if she never found the right words to say.

  Shopping for food had become one of Molly’s main pursuits in France. Back in the States she had dragged herself to the supermarket once a week, and at least during the short summer to some farmer’s markets, not convenient but with good produce, but mostly she had considered grocery shopping to be just another chore to be gotten through. In Castillac, it was a mixture of social occasion, culture, and art. Not to mention the logical complexity of working out what to get where in which season: one cheesemonger for fresh cheese and another for cheese of other regions. The man who sold organic fruit who only came on Tuesdays. The seafood truck set up in the place on Wednesday evening. And on and on.

  As the days passed and Molly chatted with various villagers, she got to know them a little and added bits and pieces to her knowledge of where to get the best of everything, and the result, at least for the moment, was that her larder was stuffed to bursting with a wide array of delicious ingredients. Surely she would be able to make something to please and fortify the Bennetts with so much bounty to work with.

  She stood with the refrigerator door open, staring at wrapped parcels of meat and cheese, at lettuces, and a bottle of cream. If I were facing tragedy, she thought, what would I most want to eat?

  At first she considered fancy, extravagant dishes, but then decided they were more appropriate for facing the guillotine than grieving. And while the Bennetts may feel rather as though they are facing the guillotine, maybe truffles and foie gras isn’t the best gustatory direction to take. Something more comforting was called for.

  She ended up making the simplest of dishes, a soupe Parmentier. Leeks, potatoes, and a splash of cream. There were some chives in the kitchen garden, there just had to be, and during the half hour she poked around in the rank overgrowth looking for them, the soup was done. The chives had been right by the back door after all, and so once the bread was sliced, lunch was ready. On a tray Molly put a thick slice of some country pâté on a plate with a small knife, and the bowls of hot soup, along with rough country napkins and a bottle of Pécharmant from the Sallière vineyard down the road. Then she cut a few black-eyed susans and put them in an old glass medicine bottle and squeezed that onto the tray as well.

  And now—to face them.

  She walked over to the cottage, her heart beating too quickly. Putting the tray on the ground, she took a deep breath and rapped firmly on the door, then picked the tray up against.

  Silence.

  “Hello?” she called. “I’ve brought you some lunch!”

  Silence.

  The orange cat cried somewhere close by, but Molly could hear no sound of anything else living. She knocked one more time, waited, and then placed the tray where the door would not knock into it, even though the cat would certainly make off with the pâté the minute her back was turned.

  She sat on the terrace at the rusty table and ate a bowl of the soup, but did not taste it or even register what she was doing.

  I’m not sure why I feel like it’s my own daughter who is missing, she thought. Well, it’s not quite that. But I’m somehow much more wrapped up in the Bennett’s problems than I have any reason—or right—to be. Maybe it’s that I was a student in France, when I was Amy’s age. I’m ridiculously nostalgic about it, and it seems like it ought to be a golden time for her, not…not this.

  If they had not managed to leave without her noticing, the Bennetts were in the cottage, fifty yards away, but to Molly it felt emotionally as though they had set up in her living room, and their unmanageable feelings were running wild throughout Molly’s house, and no bowl of soup was going to be able to keep them at bay.

  15

  1963

  Seven-year-old Anton Gallimard tore through the salon of his expansive house waving a sheet of paper over his head.

  “Do not run in this house!” his father shouted. “Go back!”

  Anton held up his paper. “Papa, I want to show you—”

  “Go back!”

  The boy’s head drooped. He turned and walked out of the room and back down the corridor, lined with paintings and etchings in gilt frames, many of great value. He sighed and turned back around, taking another look at his drawing. It was good, wasn’t it? He had thought so, but now he was not sure. Maybe he shouldn’t show it to Papa after all.

  “Anton!” his father’s voice boomed.

  Slowly the boy made his way down the corridor, the sheet of paper flapping against his legs. He didn’t want to show it now. He knew it was dreadful and his father was only going to scream at him. The joy he had felt while the pencil was moving across the paper had evaporated. Meekly he approached his father and held it out.

  A short pause. Anton could feel something happening in his brain, a clashing disturbance, and he put his hands over his ears before his father had even spoken.

  “What sort of puerile scrawling have you given me?” his father sneered. He tore the paper in two, balled up the pieces, and threw them at Anton. “What is the matter with you?”

  Young Anton had no answer.

  16

  2005

  “Just remember,” Dufort said to Perrault and Maron as they gathered in his office before the scheduled press conference. “The press can be very helpful to us. I don’t want you to mind any of the rest of it—just ignore the criticism and the speculations. We need them to get the word out about Amy, to publicize her photos, and then we cross our fingers that someone comes forward with some information we can use.”

  “I’ve made a press kit,” said Thérèse. “Some photos and a short write-up they can take with them.”

  “Good work,” said Dufort.

  “I’ll bet there’ll be bloggers, or citizen reporters, some like to call themselves. Any official way we can shut them down?” asked Maron with an edge of a sneer.

  “We don’t want to shut anyone down,” said Dufort. “The more publicity Amy gets, the more it helps our investigation. We want her face to be recognizable. We want to ge
t people thinking, remembering—you know how it can be, sometimes the little bit, the detail no one thinks about at first—sometimes that’s the thing that unravels the whole case.

  “So if some villagers or tourists or people from neighboring towns want to write about Amy online, I’m all for it. Bon, are we ready?”

  Maron and Perrault nodded, and the whole of the Castillac gendarme force walked outside to the front steps of the station. There was not exactly a crowd waiting for them, only a woman from the regional paper and a handful of villagers.

  “You did reach the TV station?” Dufort asked Maron.

  “I did. They said they would send someone.” He shrugged.

  “Thank you for coming,” Dufort said to the lone reporter. “As you no doubt are aware, a student from L’Institut Degas is missing. Her name is Amy Bennett, and she has not been seen since a week ago Tuesday night.”

  “Was she abducted by the same person who took Valérie?” asked the reporter.

  “We are concentrating on Amy for the moment,” answered Dufort with an inward sigh. He knew the subject of Valérie was going to come up, that was inevitable. But he did not expect it would be the very first question, right out of the gate.

  It felt ridiculous, the three of them standing there, facing no cameras and no reporters save a single middle-aged woman. For something like this to work, you need bodies. Interested bodies. You need some buzz. The villagers had already moved on, and Dufort decided to cut this pathetic press conference short.