The Château Murder (Molly Sutton Mysteries Book 5)

by Nell Goddin

  Hubert and the funeral director had arranged things competently. The paperwork was in order and the grave was neatly dug exactly where Marcel had asked for it. A gust of wind blew everyone’s hair in their faces and a cloud drifted over the sun.

  “First I would like to give a blessing to the three of you,” the priest said, walking closer to the family.

  “That will not be necessary,” said Antionette, shrinking back. “Boys, the casket is inside the chapel. All three of us will carry it, and Hubert, perhaps you will help?”

  “Of course, Madame,” he said, seeming to come awake.

  Alexandre was out of place, but he was a not a man to bother about that. He stood next to Georgina, throwing admiring glances her way until she reached over and pinched his arm and told him to knock it off.

  The priest waited under the tree while they went inside the musty chapel. Marcel had been quite slender, and the casket was not too heavy.

  “Maman, you really needn’t—” said Luc, trying to wave her off.

  “Yes, I want to, I must,” she said, gasping with effort as the edge of the casket dug into her shoulder. It was too heavy for her and she started to buckle, but the others saw what was happening and lifted it up. Hubert was behind her and managed to keep the casket high enough that it rested on her shoulder but did not put much weight on it.

  “Ready? Back up and then turn for the door,” said Percival, the usual leader when people needed to be managed.

  Back outside, with Marcel on their shoulders, everyone was immersed in Marcel de Fleuray’s final moments above ground. Everyone except Alexandre and the priest felt a little breathless, knowing the moment wouldn’t be forgotten.

  The journey to the gravesite was short and managed without difficulty. They placed the casket on the ground next to the grave and the priest began intoning prayers. The others stared at the casket, their hands folded.

  As the priest kept going, talking on and on about God and faith and rebirth, and then Heaven, one by one the Fleurays began to look out at the view, following the progress of a hawk swooping into the sky, then a blue car meandering down a country road far in the distance. Hubert was the only one thinking about Marcel. His eyes were moist as he remembered the joy they had felt together tromping through the forest in the early mornings.

  For her part, Georgina was thinking about how her job was probably hanging by a thread now that the Baron was being planted. He’d been the one to bring her to this dark Château, and the Baroness couldn’t stand her, so she figured she’d get tossed out any second, maybe even before she had a chance to change out of her black dress.

  Which she had been clubbing in, on a quick trip to Bordeaux four years earlier, not that she would admit that to Luc. The dress had seemed like the perfect thing to wear to the funeral—it was black, anyway—but who would’ve guessed the day would turn so hot? Georgina was sweltering. She was fleetingly sad for the Baron. He had been good to her, and she admired him for his devotion to his beautiful sister.

  They heard the loud sound of an engine, and the priest raised his voice. Then the sound was impossible to ignore, and everyone turned to see a late-model sports car flying up the drive and turning with a spray of white gravel into the parking area.

  A tall, very thin woman climbed out, dressed in something filmy and black, almost as though she were wearing a storm cloud. Her head swathed in a scarf, sunglasses on.

  “It’s Esmé Ridding,” said Luc, amazed.

  The actress moved across the parking lot with quick grace, her limbs sinuous, as all the mourners watched. Antoinette was expressionless and pale. Luc’s eyes were wide but he quickly put on a knowing smirk. Hubert was confused. The priest continued to read from his prayer book.

  Esmé stood next to Percival for a moment, with her head bowed, as though she had merely slipped unobtrusively into a pew at the back of the church instead of crashed a funeral with only five attendees. Luc wanted to reach out and touch the ethereal fabric of her dress, but restrained himself.

  When the priest said, “We commit his body to the earth, for we are dust and unto dust we shall return,” Esmé let out a little moan. Antoinette jerked her head up and stared. Percival moved his weight from one foot to the other, trying to decide whether to take Esmé’s arm and lead her away, or let her be.

  “Oh, Marcel!” Esmé cried out, her voice breaking. She stepped away from Percival and towards the casket, and then fell to her knees and threw her arms over the mahogany box, pounding the top with both manicured fists.

  The priest stopped reading.

  “What in hell do you think you’re doing?” cried Georgina. “Get up offa there!”

  Antoinette said nothing. She seemed to shrink a bit, as though her suit suddenly became almost too big for her. Alexandre looked on with open amusement.

  “Marcel!” cried Esmé, lifting her head and showing them her stunning face, with mascara running theatrically onto her dewy cheeks.

  “Come on now,” said Hubert, as though only just realizing what was going on. He moved quickly to her and pulled her up to standing.

  “You don’t belong here, don’t you realize that?” shouted Georgina. “This is a family event, you hussy! Get lost!” To Georgina, the appearance of this woman was an insult to the Fleuray family, and she still felt a great deal of loyalty to Doriane, who had been so good to her.

  “Hush now,” Hubert muttered. He took Esmé by the arm and walked her back to her car. She stumbled in her strappy heels but Hubert did not let her fall, talking to her along the way like an animal that needed reassuring. He got her in the sports-car and leaned over and spoke in her ear, but by then the priest had continued the service and no one could hear what he was saying.

  “Is she bawling because he didn’t give her the emerald, or because he did? That’s what I’d like to know,” muttered Luc to Percival.

  “Shut up,” said his brother, and then it was time for them to lower their father’s casket into the grave, and then for Hubert to start shoveling the dirt on top. When the first shovelful thumped on the casket, Antoinette began to cry, and then Georgina cried too, partly because she was afraid of having no job.

  Luc and Percival watched the dirt fall on top of the father they barely knew, and then it was as though a page was turned and they entered back into their individual lives, the funeral over. Percival considered whether his travel arrangements could be improved, and Luc thought simultaneously about a story he was researching about a fashion house and a suit he had to pick up from the tailor’s.

  Antoinette felt alone in her grief, and noticed to herself that it was Marcel whom she might have gone to for comfort, Marcel who might have enjoyed the spectacle of his mistress prostrating herself on his coffin. She understood that others would expect the appearance of Esmé Ridding to be painful for her, but it was not. At least not in the ways that anyone thought it was.

  While the Fleurays were standing under the tree next to the chapel, a teenager named Malcolm Barstow ran silently across the drawbridge and into the courtyard. He had been waiting since dawn, keeping a lookout from a copse of bushes at the top of the drive, guessing that the funeral of the Baron would take place that day and he might have his chance.

  Malcolm was clever, and thus far had never been caught or even close to it, as he carried out his various criminal activities when he was supposed to be in school. He had worn a pair of rope-soled espadrilles, which weren’t great for speed but were quiet, so that as he streaked across the drawbridge no one at the gravesite turned in his direction even though he would have been in plain view if they had.

  La Sfortuna. What thief in the entire département didn’t dream of it?

  Malcolm slowed down once inside the courtyard, uncertain whether the Château was empty. It could be teeming with servants for all he knew, never having visited a Château on a social basis. But he was young and friendly-looking, and always ready with an easy excuse that he was a delivery boy for the local épicerie, even though the ide
a of a regular job gave him the willies.

  He saw by the pattern in the gravel which was the most-used door, and avoided that one. Quickly he went past the central part of the building to the north wing and tried a door, but it was locked. Malcolm got a tingle then, as he often did when on a job and hit an obstruction. It made the whole operation that much better, since overcoming obstructions was at least half the point of the enterprise. He went quickly to the next door, which opened with a creak, and he found himself in the Baron’s salon.

  Malcolm closed the door behind him and stood for a moment, assessing the room. Gun rack. Antique desk, console, bookshelves. No television. Could really be a room from a hundred years ago, he thought, looking for anything electronic and finding nothing. Of course La Sfortuna was the goal, but he understood that the chance of finding it was as likely as being struck by lightning; he could always make the trip worthwhile by picking up a few laptops and tablets to resell.

  He squatted down and looked on the underside of the desk and the console table, having found that people taped interesting things there more often than you’d guess. The leather sofa went down so close to the floor that he couldn’t see under it, but he swept his hand underneath as far as he could reach. Nothing.

  The boy hopped back to his feet and looked around at the various stuffed heads on the wall. The deer…was there something a bit funny about the mouth? Maybe something in the cavity? He went on tiptoe but it was too high up. A wooden folding chair leaned against the paneled wall and he set it up and carefully climbed up, barely able to reach into the deer’s mouth. His fingers moved about, feeling the animal’s teeth, but the light must have been playing tricks because he could feel no box, no jewel.

  One of the reasons Malcolm had never been caught was that he had neat habits, and he folded the chair back up and put it exactly where he had found it before moving on to the bookshelves. Philosophy, economics, poetry…then he spied a thin book titled Sportsmen’s Essays, and took it down. The book was so short that the second he opened it, the two envelopes that were inside fell to the floor. He bent to pick them up, grinning as he always did when he found something that was hidden.

  18

  On Monday morning, after his walk through the village, Maron sat at his desk glaring at the coroner’s report. Marcel de Fleuray, dead from loss of blood after receiving a shotgun blast to the face. No drugs, .017% alcohol level, no chance of suicide or other compounding factors to the cause of death. He had been in good shape, with a strong heart, healthy liver, and impressive muscle tone for a man in his late fifties.

  That was more or less it. Florian Nagrand padded the report with a lot of data from the autopsy, but Maron suspected he had done it only for show, painstakingly measuring this and that, when they both knew it was all beside the point. The man had been killed with his own shotgun, and an extremely nice one at that, and been unlucky enough that a pellet hit him at the only spot that could have made the shot fatal.

  Perhaps, thought Maron…perhaps the shooting hadn’t meant to be fatal? Maron stewed over that idea for awhile. But if it had been an accident, why wouldn’t it have been reported? And who accidentally discharges a shotgun in someone’s face, at close range, inside the house? No one innocent, that was plain enough.

  Of the people who were at the Château that night, he could eliminate no one. Nor had he uncovered any particular motive that pointed to any of them. For all he knew, an entirely different person—a stranger, a business associate, a random psycho—could have entered the Château, snatched up the Baron’s gun and blasted him, and then continued on his way. And so, as usual, where he was on the case was…nowhere. He had interviewed the wife, the gamekeeper, and the housekeeper, and was no closer to any leads than when he started.

  Except for one small detail. Georgina had claimed that a sports-car drove away from the Château late the night of the murder. No one in the family owned such a car. Maron had not forgotten about this little tidbit but had not told Paul-Henri, instead guarding it like a dog with a treasured bit of gristle, unwilling at first to investigate it further because it represented the only hope he had and he feared having it come to nothing. He had skipped the Gala this year without Dufort there to urge him to go, and so had not seen Esmé Ridding make her entrance. But in his morning stroll around the village, several people related the story to him, as well as some admiring talk about the white sports-car she drove.

  It was time to move on the lead. He made some calls to a gendarme in Paris that he had been friendly with at the police academy, and was able, after several more calls, to procure a phone number for Esmé Ridding.

  He did not expect that she would agree to come to the station in Castillac for a chat. He thought for sure she would say work commitments made that impossible, the filming schedule with her current movie was grueling, on and on with a million excuses—and he was already looking forward to the prospect of traveling to Paris to interview her. But to his surprise, she agreed immediately. The next morning, Maron was to collect her at the Castillac train station, and she told him she would be more than happy to answer any questions he might have for her, and hoped very much that she would be useful to the investigation.

  Esmé Ridding, he thought, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. Could she have killed the Baron? Maybe she wanted him to leave his wife, and he refused. Maybe she begged him to give her La Sfortuna, and he refused.

  Though why any man would refuse Esmé Ridding anything, Maron could not understand.

  Molly slept late on Monday morning. The cottage and pigeonnier were empty and she had no guests to take care of, and nothing in particular on her calendar for the day…not that she even looked at a calendar anymore, except to keep track of bookings. Which for the next few months were few and far between. It took Bobo’s increasing insistence on breakfast to get Molly up and in the kitchen making coffee. The day was chilly and La Baraque was about five degrees colder than was comfortable, even wearing a thick sweater and her very American sweatpants.

  After feeding Bobo some table scraps, she rested her elbows on the counter and sighed. With a pang of anxiety, she remembered that the Baroness was expecting her to come to the Château and search for that emerald. Molly glugged down some coffee and took a quick shower, trying to simply put one foot in front of the other and not let worry about money ruin the day. Frances was right, she did need to bring up the subject of payment—but the idea made her so uncomfortable. Maybe she needed some official-looking cards, with Molly Sutton, Private Investigator and her cell number.

  Oh, that was ridiculous. She’d just gotten lucky a few times on some easy cases, it’s not like she had any actual credentials and would be able to get real jobs. Antoinette probably thought Molly was just being helpful, for the fun of it.

  Which actually, she was happy to do. More than happy. If her bank account were healthier she wouldn’t have dreamed of asking for a fee. Well, she would feel the situation out as she went along. If she got to know the Baroness better, she might be able to tell whether payment made any sense or not. She had used the word “hire,” after all. In any event, Molly had to find the emerald before she could expect any kind of reward. So she gave Bobo a good scratch behind the ears, checked the mirror to make sure she was presentable, and took off for Château Marainte.

  It was chilly riding the scooter, especially on either side of town where there was no traffic and she could go fast. The wind made her ears cold and she wished she’d put on a hat. Once again she admired the Chateau’s driveway as it curved around the side of the hill, lines of plane trees on either side, and parked in the parking lot, hoping Antoinette would offer her a second cup of coffee and maybe even a little something to nibble on.

  As she walked over the drawbridge, Molly glanced up at the towers on the Château side, looking at the archer’s slits and imagining what it must have been like to wait inside, your bow drawn, waiting for enemies to broach the top of the hill. Despite the clear October da
y, the blue sky, the quiet…again the place felt threatening in some way, and she was confused about whether she was simply feeling how it must have been to live there centuries ago, or noticing something in the present—a tension, a jittery vibe underneath the calm. The place was so forbidding with its gray stone rising so high, and crenellations along the top where more archers had hidden. And probably soldiers ready to dump boiling oil on anyone who made it into the courtyard, she thought with a shudder. The courtyard was empty and most of the leaves on the white-barked birches had dropped.

  Molly walked to the door she had entered on her previous visit and gave it a sound rap. “Bonjour, Madame!” she called, hoping it wasn’t rude to call the Baroness Madame. She wondered if she should have called first but realized she did not have Antoinette’s number.

  She heard barking from inside, and then the door opened and Antoinette smiled and gestured for Molly to come in as Grizou leapt and spun around. “Bonjour, Molly,” she said, and Molly noticed again that her accent was posh but could not put her finger on exactly why it sounded that way. Maybe it was not her voice but her manner as a whole, which was most definitely aristocratic, even stately, though Molly did not detect even a hint of snobbishness. The Baroness’s clothing, as always, was lovely and expensive-looking.

  “Do you mind walking with me while I do my morning chores? I’m afraid I had trouble sleeping last night and then overslept in the morning. The goats are probably thinking I’ve abandoned them.”

  “Sure!” said Molly. “I know yesterday must have been very difficult for you,” she added, watching Antoinette carefully.

  “Funerals are…well, both horrible and wonderful, in a way. The feelings are so concentrated, so pure. Do you know what I mean?”