by Susan Finlay
Her parents looked at each other, then François said, “No. She wanted to go abroad. Why do you ask?”
“Where did she go to college?”
“England. Birkbeck, University of London.”
“Do you know if she was acquainted with someone named Maura Barrington? Or perhaps Maurelle Dupre or Maurelle Martin?”
“Not that I recall,” Brigitte said. “But we don’t know many of her friends’ names.”
“What about coworkers?” Bouvier asked. “Was she friendly with any of them?”
“I think she was friends with a few teachers,” François said, “but we don’t really know them. I’d send you over to the school, but as I said, they are closed up until the next semester is ready to start.”
Bouvier stood up and Roland followed. “Our condolences for you loss. Thank you for speaking with us.”
François nodded and stood up.
“If you think of anything else that may help, please call us,” Bouvier said as he handed a calling card to François.
François shook hands with Bouvier and Roland. The wife sat still and didn’t even look at them as they left. The officers returned to the 36. When Roland found an opportunity, he excused himself and went outside to call Goddard on his mobile. Bouvier could be involved in the case if he must, but Goddard would solve it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AN HOUR AFTER the victim was taken away, a group of bystanders was still gathered around the taped-off area containing the bookshop. A crowd of women and men of all ages stood gawking, huddled into small groups, occasionally pointing to the store when late arrivers appeared, and generally exchanging speculations and gossip about the victim and murder. Children on scooters and bicycles circled the crowded area, reminding Goddard of a pack of vultures. The scene reminded him of the days when whole towns or villages in France would turn out to witness an execution. Not that he blamed them. Their curiosity and need for excitement was only human nature.
He did wish he could hear more of what was being said though, perhaps give him some clues from which to kick start this investigation. Funny thing about people; they would gossip about their friends and neighbors to each other, but put them into an interview room, and most would clam up. As far as he could tell, this was a universal phenomenon.
Two boys around twelve or thirteen, twins by the look of them, started yelling, “Gendarmes, cherchimidis, gendarmes, cherchimidis.”
One of the women chased after them, yelled at them to stop, her hands outstretched and trying to grab onto their bicycles. Their mother, no doubt.
Goddard shook his head. Cherchimidis were beetle-like insects, and he’d heard that the locals called the insects ‘gendarmes’. Why, he didn’t know, but he guessed from the mother’s reaction that the chanting and nickname were somehow a slur on his profession. A red-haired elderly woman waddled forward and waved in Goddard’s direction. He sighed and moved toward the edge of the tape to where she stood.
“Pardón me for bothering you, Officer. I was wondering if you know who the victim is. We’ve been hearing stories, but you know how unreliable rumors are.” She motioned toward the other villagers.
“Sorry, I can’t tell you at this time. Pardón, Madame.” He started to move away from her.
“Is it Felicia Beaumont who was murdered?”
He halted but didn’t turn. Before he had a chance to respond, one of his officer’s called out his name. Officer Anthony Sarti was holding up something. Goddard walked briskly to him.
“What did you find?”
“It’s a baseball bat. The kind Americans use—a ‘Louisville Slugger’.”
“Louis Ville?”
“No, Louisville. It is in the US. Not important. As I was saying, it was buried in the dirt over here. We noticed that the ground had been disturbed and when we checked, we found it buried under a couple of inches of dirt.” Sarti showed Goddard the hole, and then held up the bat, already bagged and tagged, for Goddard to observe. As Goddard examined the dirty wooden bat, he noticed it was engraved with the letters ‘DRM’. It could have come that way from the manufacturer, but Goddard doubted it. Although it might not be the murder weapon, he suspected it was. He couldn’t see any other reason why someone would bury it in the ground near the shops.
“Any idea what the letters stand for?”
Sarti said, “Mademoiselle Lambert says they are Monsieur Martin’s initials. She said her employer, Delacroix, gave Dave Martin the baseball bat as a joke during his wedding reception.”
“What kind of joke is that?”
Sarti shrugged. “I don’t know. She didn’t elaborate. Do you suppose someone buried it as another joke?”
If they did, Goddard didn’t think it was funny at all. “Have you confirmed it belongs to Monsieur Martin?”
“Not yet. But I don’t know of any other Americans in the area and the initials fit. Durand went to his house to speak with him. The Martins live in one of the troglos. Did you know that?”
“I did not. And Monsieur Delacroix?”
“Beaubrun went to get him at Café Charbonneau.”
Goddard nodded. As Officer Vargas approached, Sarti placed the bagged bat in the evidence case they’d brought to the scene and returned to his search for more clues.
“Sir, I have that list of locals and visitors you asked for who have connections with Paris,” Officer Vargas said. “I’m afraid the list is considerably longer than we expected.”
Goddard took the paper and scanned the names: Luc Olivier, Coralie Charbonneau, Simone Charbonneau, Paul Lepage, Jeannette Devlin, Fabienne Laurent, René Lamont, Jonas Lefèvre, Jean-Pierre Wickliff, Camille Wickliff, Edmund Hermel, and Josephine Hermel. Now that’s interesting--no Martins. A few of the names Goddard recognized. He sighed again. This case was becoming more complicated by the minute.
“I’ll need to interview all of these people over the next few days,” he said.
“Who do you want first, sir?”
“I’d like to start with Luc Olivier, Alain Delacroix, and Maurelle Martin, as I told you earlier. But bring them in one at a time. I’m heading back to the Gendarmerie now.” As Vargas started to move, Goddard remembered something his wife had mentioned, and added, “There’s another local I want to speak to. I believe his name is Bruno Houdan.”
“You mean the vagrant who hangs out in Belvidere?”
“Yes. He splits his time between Belvidere and Reynier. If I remember right, someone told me has a brother here in Reynier.”
Vargas nodded. “I’ll start with the brother, then. He might know where we can find Bruno. Do you think he might be the killer?”
“I have no idea. But if not, he may have seen something. It won’t hurt to talk to him.”
“I’ll look for Olivier right away. And then I’ll track down Bruno Houdan.”
Something was bothering Goddard as he walked toward the car park. Too many coincidences. Maurelle Martin knew she was a suspect in the first murder. The only way it would make sense for her to kill someone with a bat belonging to her husband in the shop where she worked was if she was a complete idiot, which she did not seem to be, or she wanted to make it look like a set-up, or she wanted to implicate her husband for some reason, or . . . . Did her mind run in such complex double and triple-bluffs? The husband, Dave Martin, was a former cop. He would know all about crimes, cover-ups, and how to make a murder look like a set-up. And now he writes mystery novels, Goddard had been told. Certainly his mind could conceive such twisted plots.
As he got into his car, Goddard pulled out his mobile from his pocket and called Officer Vargas. “Please bring Dave Martin to the Gendarmerie for questioning, too.” After he hung up, he looked through his phone calls. Officer Roland had tried to reach him. He dialed Roland’s number, but he didn’t get an answer.
MAURELLE NUDGED HER way into the crowd gathered on rue de Rennes, trying to see what they were looking at, but she couldn’t get close enough. Seeing Lillian, she edged over to her and said,
“What’s going on?”
“There’s been another murder.”
Maurelle gasped. “What? Who?”
“I heard that Isabelle found Felicia Beaumont dead in the back of the bookshop. It’s horrible.”
Maurelle’s stomach lurched. “Are you sure?”
“I saw the gendarmes cart away a body. Everyone’s calling it a murder.”
“Oh, God! Why would someone kill Felicia, and why in the bookshop?”
Lillian said, “I don’t know. It’s so scary. Two murders in two days. Who will be next? That’s what everyone is afraid of.”
Maurelle looked around at the crowd for a moment, then turned her attention back to talk to Lillian, only to find her gone. Her heart pounded as she turned and started weaving her way through the crowd again, this time noticing that people abruptly stopped their conversations and stared at her the way they had done when she’d first arrived in Reynier. Obviously, they already knew the gendarmes considered her a murder suspect. She pulled up the collar of her light jacket and turned her head away from the crowd the way she’d often done when she was in hiding. Though she felt sorry for Isabelle and could imagine how badly she must have been scared, she had to thank God she hadn’t been the bookshop employee who’d found the body. If she had been, the gendarmes would undoubtedly have carted her off to jail immediately.
As her thoughts turned briefly to the bookshop, she wondered how long it would be before Alain would be able to re-open it and how the murder would impact business. Maigret’s Chachette had only been open for a few months, as it was. She hoped he wouldn’t have to close it down permanently because she would be out of a job and Reynier residents would lose what little link they had to the literary world. When she’d first arrived in Reynier a year ago, she had to walk to Belvidere to buy a book. She shook herself. Here I am thinking about myself instead or poor Felicia Beaumont.
Turning and walking briskly, she left the crowd. When she reached Fabienne’s house, she charged inside worried, still upset, and now winded, expecting Fabienne or perhaps Dave, but she found no one was home. Fabienne was likely at Jeannette’s house or at the café. Maurelle rushed up the stairs and hurled herself onto the bed she’d slept on the night before. Closing her eyes, she took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself down, but she kept picturing Maigret’s Chachette, the gendarmes, and the stares from the locals. After several minutes, quieting somewhat, her mind drifted back to before Reynier had a bookshop, back to the day she’d gone into another bookshop, where she’d encountered other similar suspicious stares.
After a week of living in Reynier, Maurelle had realized that as one of the few outsiders in a small, non-touristy close-knit town, she had drawn too much attention to herself by her mere presence.
She’d sighed heavily, shoved away her sleeping-bag cover, and sat up. Reaching for her flashlight, she turned it on and glanced at the time on her watch. Bollocks, I should have been up hours ago instead of lying around feeling sorry for myself. She sat up, pulled out a stale croissant from her bag, and ate it, washing it down with the leftover oolong tea from yesterday. With her meager meal finished, she dressed and thought about where to go. She could go further south, or perhaps east. Maybe even into another country. Her knowledge of German was too rough, but she could probably get by all right with her Spanish if she wanted to travel all the way to Spain. Then, again, she might travel to France’s Provence region, or the Pyrenees. She decided to shop for a travel guidebook this morning and figure out a plan from there.
She made her familiar trek to the nearby market town of Belvidere, arriving there thirty minutes later. Wanting to steer clear of town centre, she walked along the deserted back alleys. Fortunately, she had already discovered that many of the shops had back entrances coming off these alleys. From the alley, she entered the bookshop and headed toward the front where she knew the non-fiction books were shelved. Slipping quietly past the shopkeeper who was waiting on a customer, she navigated around several stacks of antique books. When she reached the likely area, she began scanning the titles and was thoroughly occupied with her search until a ringing mobile jarred her attention.
A man, having answered the phone, was speaking loudly and appeared to be telling his life story to the caller. Irritated, and not finding what she wanted, she moved over to the next aisle where she finally found the travel section. As she began thumbing through one of the books, she overheard whispering. A group of three middle-aged women appeared to be staring at her.
“She has the manners of a gypsy,” one of them said. “Didn’t even acknowledge the shopkeeper.”
Who were they talking about?
The women glared in her direction again.
Oh, bloody hell. They were talking about her. She had broken one of France’s unwritten social laws by not acknowledging the shopkeeper on her way into the shop. Unnerved, she could think of only one thing to do—pay for her book and get out of the shop as quickly as possible before drawing any more notice.
At the shop’s entrance, cheeks burning with embarrassment at her own daftness, she clutched her purchased book in one hand while she stuffed her change into her bumbag with her free hand and then reached for the door handle. Before she had a chance to grasp it, the door abruptly swung wide open, nearly smacking into her. She barely withdrew her hand in time and deftly stepped aside, out of the path of the man who was shoving his way in—and who failed to apologize to her. And they call me rude, she thought, shaking her head in disbelief. As soon as the way was clear, she dashed outside.
Outside, she had frozen, finding herself unexpectedly in the wrong place, right on Belvidere’s bustling market square. It was a typical town centre—a large tarmac lined with restaurants, cafés, bistros, and assorted shops, with the obligatory fountain at the centre of it all. The square was filled with people, many of whom sat at café tables under umbrellas, lingering over shady lunches, while others strolled along the sidewalks, window browsing. Still others gathered about the tarmac, chatting or taking photos. Her eyes widened as she tried to figure out what had happened. It rapidly dawned on Maurelle that in her haste, she had gone out the front door, instead of the inconspicuous back door by which she’d entered.
Moaning inwardly, she glanced around the busy scene. She should probably go back in and then slip out the back way, but the thought of those women glaring at her again was too much. She breathed in deeply, let the breath out slowly and then, with her chin up, steadfastly began weaving her way through the crowd as casually as possible. As she shuffled through the crowded square, calmed by not drawing attention, she struggled to let go of her embarrassment in the store.
When she was far enough away from the crowd, she let a sigh of relief escape as she scurried past the picturesque medieval cottages toward the long, narrow footbridge that crossed the peaceful Trizay River. With a quick glance behind her to assure she was not being noticed or followed, she scuttled across the bridge and ducked into the wooded grove on the opposite side. From there she traipsed through the minor woods, coming out finally onto an unmade road used primarily by the local farmers. Being lonely and isolated, with only an occasional tractor rumbling along its bumpy surface, this was her preferred route for traveling the six-kilometers between Belvidere and Reynier. The busy main motorway that followed the river, connecting each of the small towns and villages along the valley, would have been more direct. But she had become far too wary.
As she had hiked along the dirt road, her mind had wandered back to the morning’s events in the bookshop. Why had their stares and whispering bothered her so much? Those women obviously hadn’t connected her with a news broadcast. In all likelihood they hadn’t even seen a report. And she wouldn’t ever see those busybodies again. So what happened? Why was she rattled by what they thought of her?
As if in answer, a memory from a month-and-a-half-ago popped into her mind. She’d entered the common room at the academy in England the way she’d done every day since she’d begun teaching t
here. Her fellow teachers, some of whom she thought of as friends, had been sitting in small groups at tables, heads bent together in lively conversation as they ate lunch. Suddenly they had all turned and stared at her—and immediately stopped talking. The women gawked and some shook their heads, men ogled her as if they were seeing her for the first time, and then after an incredibly awkward moment, everyone resumed their conversations but in hushed tones. At first she’d told herself it meant nothing. But after a couple of weeks of the same, not only amongst teachers but also with pupils, she realized it spelled the beginning of disaster for her. The next day, the Headmaster had called her into his office, and the rest of her nightmare around Jared’s rumors and then his murder followed in rapid succession.
Back in the present again, Maurelle shuddered and pushed the memories and those awful stares from her mind. Shouldn’t she be accustomed to gossip and innuendos by now? Shouldn’t she be able to let it all slide off? She sighed. Probably, but how does one suddenly stop caring about one’s reputation?
She opened her eyes and sat up on the bed, again trying to calm herself and her churning stomach, unsure whether it was morning sickness or anxiety over the recent murders. For the first time since officially moving to Reynier, Maurelle wondered if she would ever be accepted by the locals, and if she would ever be anything more than a suspicious outsider.
THE DOOR TO the general store slammed as another group of children piled inside and began wandering up and down the aisles, obviously in search of something. This was the third group this morning. Coralie stepped out from behind the checkout counter and approached them.
“Hello Philippe, Andre, Juliette. What can I help you find?” She had a good idea what they wanted—it was the same things the other children wanted: caving gear. A few days ago, all the children and teenagers wanted to do was play video games in their homes. If their parents forced them outside, they would go to the river and fish or float downstream in canoes or on rubber tubes. Now that a body was found in one of the caves, suddenly they all wanted to go exploring. What were their parents thinking, letting their children in the caves right now? Coralie had called a few parents earlier in the day, sure that they would be horrified. Only they weren’t. So she sold the equipment, kept her mouth shut, and took the money.
