by Susan Finlay
Paul said, “The crepes weren’t the only thing burned today.”
She swung around and stared at him, then let her shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, Paul. You’re right. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”
MAURELLE PULLED OPEN the glass door and entered the Gendarmerie, with Alain and Fabienne following on her heels.
“May I help you?” a man at the front desk asked.
“Yes, I’m here to see Captain Goddard.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“I don’t—I don’t think so. I’m Maurelle Martin. I need to talk to him. It’s important.”
“One moment. Please have a seat in the waiting area.”
He stepped away, presumably conferring with Captain Goddard, giving Maurelle a chance to look around the office. Her gaze stopped on a woman sitting in the waiting area. Fabienne must have seen her at the same time because she let out a loud gasp.
“Oh dear! She’s here,” Fabienne whispered, her hand over her chest. “That’s Eloise. I shouldn’t have come here.”
Maurelle held her breath. What was the proper etiquette in a situation such as this? She looked at Alain, who nodded at her. Alain then patted Fabienne’s shoulder and walked over to Eloise. After introducing himself, he motioned to Maurelle and Fabienne to join them.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Madame Martin. I’m Maurelle.” The minute the words were out of her mouth she worried she’d make a mistake. Maybe she should have called her Maman like Dave had suggested one day when he was telling her about his parents.
“I know. I recognized you from the wedding photo Dave sent. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Eloise held out her hand, and Maurelle shook it; Maurelle didn’t exactly get a sense of ‘welcome to the family’, especially when Eloise had emphasized the word ‘finally’. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t used the term Maman.
Eloise turned her attention from Maurelle to Fabienne, who was standing nervously to one side and somewhat further back.
A sideways glance at Fabienne told Maurelle that the elder woman was going to be stubborn in spite of her earlier promise to try to work things out with her daughter. Her lips were squeezed tight and her arms were folded across her ample waist, her handbag dangling down from her forearm. Of course, Eloise hadn’t said a word to Fabienne, either, making the tension and chill in the room increase dramatically.
A voice then said, “Madame Martin, Captain Goddard will see you now.”
Maurelle turned in the direction of the voice. The desk officer was standing three feet away. She sighed, and gave a backwards glance at Alain, Fabienne, and Eloise, who were all watching her. She turned back toward the gendarme, almost thankful for the quick escape, hoping as she followed him through an open doorway and down a long hall, that Eloise and Fabienne would not begin fighting right here in the station. They stopped in front of a closed door. It was not the same room where Captain Goddard had interrogated her a few days ago. Nervous, she glanced around. On the wall next to the door was a sign with the captain’s name on it. His personal office. Was that a good sign or a bad sign?
The officer pulled the door open and motioned for her to enter. She took a deep breath and avoided looking at him as she passed by and walked into the room. She barely heard the door click shut behind her because she was focused on the three pairs of eyes that stared back at her. Captain Goddard was sitting behind his desk, facing the doorway, with Dave and his father seated across from him, both twisting around to watch her entrance.
“Have a seat,” the captain said, pointing to the empty chair on Dave’s left.
Maurelle struggled to keep her face blank so they wouldn’t see her fear as she walked in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IN CAPTAIN GODDARD’S office Maurelle sat down, trying to avoid looking directly at any of the three men in the room. Instead, she glanced around the room for something to momentarily take her mind off the proceedings, anything that might distract, calm her nerves, and buy her time. Her attention fixed on a group of framed pictures. Two were lovely watercolor paintings—one of the Eiffel Tower and one of the French Riviera. The item that caught her eye and held it, though, was a framed poster of a mass of skulls tangled up in a bed of bone fragments. The bottom of the poster read: Catacombs of Paris, Montparnasse. She would have recognized the scene without the title because she had visited the tomb museum when she was in Paris eleven months ago. The Catacombs, a network of tunnels and caves that runs for more than three-hundred kilometers under the city, was a popular tourist attraction. The day before she’d left Paris, she’d walked down the one-hundred-thirty steps of a spiral staircase on a tour of the famous tomb. Throughout the visit, she’d felt chilled, not only physically because of the coolness of the underground chamber but also emotionally as she took in the sight of floor to ceiling piles of human remains. Though it had been interesting to see, it was not something she cared to see again. The poster hanging in the captain’s office not only seemed out of place with the water color scenes, but spoke as a bizarre kind of warning to anyone breaking the law.
Dave’s knee brushed up against Maurelle’s leg and she turned momentarily to look at him, thinking he was trying to get her attention. Only he wasn’t looking at her but straight ahead at Captain Goddard. Her eyes involuntarily moved to the captain who was looking at Dave and his father as if communicating nonverbally. What had they been talking about before she arrived?
Captain Goddard cleared his throat—another nonverbal signal? He looked at Maurelle and said, “Your husband told me you were missing. Were you by chance being held captive?”
She looked at him, unsure if he was being ironic, and then squirmed in her chair. “I—uh—no. I needed some time alone to think.” How much had Dave told him?
“Why don’t you start from the beginning, Madame Martin? Why did you leave your home and stay away for two nights?”
Dave turned his body, half facing her. She searched his face for a clue as to what she should do, but he was using his blank ‘cop’ expression, the one she’d seen many times, including when he’d tried to pry information out of her when he’d first discovered she was hiding out in the cave all those months ago.
She was on her own. Maurelle took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. This was not the company nor the surroundings she wanted when she talked to Dave. “All right. I’ll tell you everything. But I want to start out by saying I have never killed anyone. I couldn’t do anything so horrible.”
The captain nodded, encouraging her to continue.
“Dave confessed to me that he’d gone to England last week and not to the U.S. like he had previously told me. He said he’d heard from someone that a neighbor of Jared Raybourne had come forward with new information about the case. The neighbor claimed to have seen me at the Raybourne house on the night of the murder. Dave told me he went there to find out details because he was worried on my behalf.”
The captain’s elbows were planted on his desk, his hands steepled together near his chest.
“When he told me this, he grilled me the way a detective would. I got angry and defensive. I was angry because he had lied to me about going to the U.S. I felt defensive. He was implying that I had lied to him about what really happened.” She sighed out loud, pausing to wipe away tears running down her face. She steeled herself and continued. “The sad part is that I did lie. I didn’t lie about being innocent. But I was there that night.” She looked directly at Dave. “I’m so sorry. I should have told you everything, right from the beginning.”
Dave raised an eyebrow, but otherwise his face was a mask.
“It was on a Thursday night. You need to know what led up to that night. I had been renting a room from a divorced woman. She was an advertising executive with a large company, but was having financial difficulties and I needed a place to live. Her sister was a friend and colleague of mine at the school where I worked. The woman, Elizabeth Raybourne, had a sixteen-year-old son, Jared. He was a pupil at the
school, but I didn’t know him. After I moved into Elizabeth’s guest room, I discovered Jared was having problems in two of his classes—at least that’s what he told me. Jared asked me to tutor him at home, and I agreed. Soon after I began, I realized he’d developed a crush on me.”
Goddard interrupted. “Did you talk to the mother about that?”
Maurelle nodded. “I talked to Jared, too, and told him I would be his friend and tutor but nothing more. After a couple weeks passed, I told Jared and Elizabeth that I could no longer tutor him.”
“Why was that?” Captain Goddard asked.
“He was writing me love notes on paper and in email. Then I began noticing small groups of students in the halls, whispering together and watching me as I walked along the school’s corridors. That’s when I discovered rumors about me were floating around the school.”
“Go on.”
“I saw a sign in a building advertising a flat for rent. It was near a bus line that could take me to work, so I leased the flat and moved out of the Raybournes’ house. I paid an extra two months’ rent to Elizabeth. I hadn’t signed a lease with her, but I felt sorry to leave her without a tenant when I knew she needed the money.”
“Moving out didn’t solve the problem with the boy?”
“No, it didn’t. If anything, it got worse. He started calling me and professing his love. He sent emails, telling his friends that we were in love and that we were going to run away together. When I talked to his mother and told her what he was doing, she promised she would talk to him.”
“Did she?”
Maurelle nodded again and pushed hair out of her eyes. “I know she did, because he was angry that I’d gone to her. He started following me. Around that time, I got called into the Headmaster’s office and was told that I was being placed on leave of absence and that a hearing with the school’s governing board would follow. The next day, a neighbor, a pupil named Brittany Stevas, told me that Jared was suspended from school. Soon after that I made the mistake of deciding to talk to Jared myself and try to convince him to confess that he’d made up everything.”
She turned to Dave. Both he and his father had angled their chairs slightly toward her without her noticing until now.
“I was afraid to tell you that I’d actually gone to the house. I’d called Jared earlier that day and asked if I could stop by and talk. He agreed and said he would be home all evening.”
She closed her eyes, letting the memory of that evening come flooding back as though it happened yesterday, and she proceeded to tell the trio about the horrible events that had changed her life.
Had anyone seen her enter the Raybournes’ house? It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she doubted it. On Thursday evenings this short block, a cul-de-sac, was mostly deserted. Standing in the doorway, she was uncertain whether she should stay and call the police. Should she report the murder even though it could ruin her own life? Or should she go home, lock her door, and wait to hear about it on the news tomorrow?
Never in her wildest imagination could she have imagined herself in this predicament. She hadn’t done anything wrong, but if anyone knew she’d been here at the murder scene, because of the rumors and circumstances, she would be the prime suspect and likely blamed for his murder and sent to prison.
Why had she been so foolish as to come back here? She should have spoken to Jared or his mother over the telephone, or at least made sure they would both be present. As it was, she was here now and there was nothing to be done about it. But what should she do?
Earlier this evening, at nine P.M., she had travelled back to Willoughby Crescent house number 11, the Raybourne residence. She had pressed the doorbell and waited. Nobody came. She knocked on the door, but there was still no answer. She peeked through the front window. The house was dark except for shadows created by the moonlight that shone through slits in the open window blinds. Thinking that she’d made a wasted trip, she was about to leave when she decided to try the door. To her surprise, it opened. That was odd. No one left their front door unlocked in London. Tentatively, she pushed the door inward and stepped into the hall, calling out, but no one answered. Familiar with the house, she maneuvered her way around without difficulty.
She peeked into the kitchen, in the front of the house near the garage. Empty. Nothing seemed out of place, though concerned that a burglar may have gotten in, she walked up the stairs and stopped at the doorway to the bedroom that she had once rented from Elizabeth Raybourne. She flipped on the light switch as she entered. The room looked empty—no photos, no trinkets—only the bed and armoire, exactly the way she’d left it. She pulled the armoire door open and found it too was empty. Maurelle suddenly felt sad for Elizabeth, knowing she needed the rent from this room, apparently still unoccupied.
She proceeded down the creaky wooden hall to Jared’s room and pushed open the slightly ajar door with her shoulder. A small desk lamp inside was lit. The bedcovers had been pulled back unevenly and were partly on the floor. Jared probably hadn’t made his bed in days. She remembered Elizabeth frequently yelling at him about not making his bed and cleaning his room. His room still looked like the aftermath of a hurricane. He knew better, but Maurelle always suspected he was actually trying to irritate his mum. Since Jared had known Maurelle was coming over to talk, she walked toward his desk on the far side of his room past the bed to see if he’d left a note. Had something come up?
As she side-stepped his chair, she caught a glimpse of a bare foot on the floor, next to the bed. Turning slightly, she recoiled and placed her hand over her mouth, stifling a scream. Jared was lying face-up on the floor, between the desk and the bed, his arms and legs scattered at random angles and his eyes wide open. Blood covered his neck and chest from what appeared to be a stab wound and was pooled on the floor next to him. Some of the blood was splattered on the side of the bed. She shivered and backed up, wanting to turn around and run. She forced herself to step toward him so that she could check his pulse, but she stopped, believing from the amount of blood that he was dead. The body and blood was just too much for her to bear—she could hardly keep her stomach from retching. She turned and fled from the room. As she rushed down the stairs, she rooted in her handbag for her mobile phone, pulled it out, and tried to control her shaking hands to punch in the emergency number for the police.
Near the kitchen she paused, wondering who would do this to Jared. He was troubled, and he wasn’t particularly liked, but he had no enemies that she knew of. Suddenly a thought chilled her to the bone. What if the attacker was still here, in the house? She listened but heard nothing other than the humming of the refrigerator. Worried that the assailant might still be here, she decided to leave quietly and call the police from outside. As she was leaving another thought hit her. With the rumors flying around school, how would it look to the police if she was the person who found him stabbed?
She shivered and felt like the weight of the world was pressing on her shoulders. Scared for herself, she placed her mobile phone back in her handbag and walked to the front door. Standing in the open doorway, she hesitated. Had anyone seen her enter the Raybournes’ house? It was hard to tell in the darkness, but she doubted it. Her mind waffled over what she should do.
After several minutes perhaps—she couldn’t be sure how long she waited—she walked out the front door, carefully pulling the door closed behind her. As an afterthought, she took off her jacket and wiped the inside and outside doorknobs with it and then proceeded down the street toward the East Finchley Tube Station, carefully staying in the shadows as much as possible. Once she was back in her flat, shaking uncontrollably, she threw herself onto her bed and wept.
After she finished her story, Captain Goddard asked, “So you don’t know if the boy was still alive?”
Tears filled her eyes, and she wasn’t sure she could speak. “I—I don’t know. That’s the thing that haunts me more than anything else. What if he was still alive and I didn’t help him? I let my fear for my own safe
ty keep me from doing the right thing. I’m not a murderer, but—” She stared at Dave. “But sometimes I think maybe I am.”
Dave leaned over and hugged her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and let the tears flow. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I should have told you.”
A couple minutes later, she dabbed her eyes with a tissue the captain had given her. Dave sat back upright in his chair.
“What happened after you left?” Captain Goddard asked. Maurelle returned to her past, relating the events after the murder.
She had barely slept that night. The next morning, she paced in her living room, still debating whether or not to call the police. She hadn’t checked Elizabeth’s bedroom. What if she’d been stabbed, too? What if she was lying in pain?
Thinking she might find something about the murder on the telly, she picked up the TV remote but immediately set it back down. She repeated that process three more times and couldn’t get herself to push the button, for fear of what she might see. Instead, she grabbed her handbag and left the flat. Two hours later, she returned with a bag of groceries for the next week. She’d spent much of that two hours walking around her current neighborhood, thinking and trying to figure out what she should do. With still no plan, she’d gone to the store as a distraction.
At the entrance to her building, an elderly neighbor, Mr. Bentley, greeted her and then said, “Coppers were here this morning, asking about you.”
She stopped, pasting a polite smile on her face, then innocently asked, “Oh? What did they want to know?” She tried to act nonchalantly, while holding tightly to her shopping bag.
“They asked if I’d seen you yesterday evening between six and eleven o’clock. Said it was something to do with a murder investigation. They wouldn’t tell me much.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Well, nothing really. I didn’t see you yesterday since I didn’t get back from the pub until midnight. Those coppers were going door-to-door this morning. They left already. Most people weren’t home.”
