The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  Pelleter looked up without seeing his friend. His gaze shifted to the floor; he shook his head and pulled himself to his feet.

  The long uneventful afternoon had unsettled the chief inspector, eradicating any sense of progress from the morning. Pelleter now felt certain that Passemier was within his grasp if only he could remember the correct detail, but he had been through his notebook no less than ten times without stumbling upon the answer.

  Letreau gave orders to be followed in his absence. “The warden’s wife will be bringing Soldaux and the warden dinner. She can stay with them while they eat. But then she must go. Don’t let her give you any trouble.”

  Letreau clapped his hands on Pelleter’s shoulders and kneaded them like a coach with a prizefighter. Pelleter shrugged away, wincing from the pain of his injury.

  But the chief of police didn’t see, already at the door, turning to check whether Pelleter was following him.

  Pelleter said to the desk officer, “When my man calls, tell him to hold his position. I’ll be there soon.”

  Outside the sun had already fallen out of sight but the sky had not yet started to darken. There was an easiness about Letreau as he guided them towards his home. It was the relaxed confidence of a man of authority in control of his domain, something that had been missing in the chief of police since their initial trip to the baker’s days before. For Pelleter, on his walk home after work, he always felt the crush of responsibility, the city and its inhabitants too large to fathom, his job to keep out the barbarians by building a gate out of toothpicks. But here, the normal order of business was petty theft and vandalism, and Letreau currently had most of the regular perpetrators conducting a search for a suspect on his behalf.

  A girl—or was she a young woman—collided with Letreau in the doorway of his house.

  “Whoa there,” Letreau said, wrapping his arms around her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  The girl ducked her head, crossed her wrists over her chest, and leaned shoulder-first into Letreau, allowing herself to be embraced. “I’ve just come to borrow some salt, Uncle.”

  Letreau waddled in place, rotating them in the doorway so that his back was to the open house and the girl was on the street side. He looked at Pelleter over the girl’s head, his eyes gleaming, and asked her, “You don’t want to stay for dinner? We’ve got an important guest from the city.”

  The girl realized that she was being watched by a stranger, and she pulled herself away, straightening her frock with one hand, a teacup held in the other. She slid her hair behind first one ear and then the other with an unconscious turn of her fingers. “We’ve already started cooking at home,” the young woman said, for Pelleter saw that she was a young woman. “But thank you, Uncle.”

  Letreau pressed his smile between closed lips, and nodded once. “Yes, of course.”

  The young woman smiled at Pelleter, then her uncle, and darted off, grabbing at her skirt with her free hand.

  “My wife’s sister’s daughter,” Letreau said, stepping into his house.

  Pelleter watched the young woman hurry along the street for a moment. She went to a house several doors down and pushed her way inside. The sight of her made him think of Clotilde Rosenkrantz, and then in turn of Passemier. Why was he so preoccupied? Why couldn’t he feel some of the closure that Letreau clearly felt? If the man was to be found, he would be found.

  The chief inspector followed Letreau into the house. The smell of cooking filled the space, chicken and rosemary.

  Letreau had gone back to the kitchen, and Pelleter followed.

  “Oh, good you’re home,” his wife said, lifting a roasting pan out of a coal stove with two leather potholders. “Everything is ready. You can sit down.”

  A gnarled old woman with no teeth blinked and smiled at Pelleter, tasting her lips.

  “My mother-in-law,” Letreau said by way of an introduction. “She’s deaf.”

  “Would you get her seated?” Madame Letreau said. “She insists on helping, but she’s always just in the way. Alice was just here.”

  “I saw her on the way out.”

  The name came back to him, and Pelleter realized that he had met the girl on one of his previous visits, only she had been a child then, and Letreau had doted on her. Nothing else had appeared to change.

  “Inspector Pelleter, you’ve decided to have a real meal finally.”

  “Madame Letreau. Through no fault of your husband, I assure you.”

  The table was a small round butcher block in an ill-lit corner of the kitchen. There were four wicker chairs, the wicker in two of them broken through in places—Madame Letreau made sure to arrange them so that she and her husband took those chairs. There was just space for the four of them to have the roast chicken, boiled beets and potatoes that reminded Pelleter once again of how many days this business had kept him from home.

  “So you’ve arrested the warden and one of the guards,” Madame Letreau said, still on her feet, making sure her mother was settled with her precut meal.

  Letreau looked put out that his wife had already heard his news, but he regathered himself, chewing heartily a purplish mass of beets and potatoes. “Yes. It seems thanks to Inspector Pelleter that things aren’t a complete mess.”

  Madame Letreau’s mother stared across the table at the chief inspector with a blank smile.

  “That’s certainly good news,” Madame Letreau said without looking up, and then, “Eat!”, gesturing to her mother, who frowned, shifted back and forth on her seat, and shrugged her shoulders. “Eat!” Madame Letreau took her own seat, and in a moment, the old woman leaned forward to take her fork in her hand.

  “We still have no idea who murdered all of those men,” Inspector Pelleter said, troubled by Letreau’s good spirits.

  “Unimportant,” Letreau said, sticking a hunk of chicken in his mouth. “The only crime committed as far as I’m concerned was improper disposal of human remains, and we have people in custody for that and will soon have the last man as well. And with a cold murder solved as a bonus. If Fournier or whoever’s in charge out at the prison now feels they have murders to solve, those are on their hands.”

  Pelleter saw how it was going to be. He heard Madame Rosenkrantz saying it didn’t matter if they ever found out who had killed her father. That it wouldn’t change anything.

  “Didn’t Mahossier tell you that he knew who had killed the prisoners?” Madame Letreau said.

  “It’s never clear what Mahossier has told you,” Pelleter said, curt.

  “I must not understand,” Madame Letreau said.

  The four of them fell to eating. Much of the old woman’s meal fell back on her plate. Letreau’s good mood had been tempered, and Pelleter’s troubled mood had grown.

  “You’re going to return home tonight?” Madame Letreau said after the silence became awkward.

  “Or tomorrow.”

  “Oh?” Letreau said, setting his hand down on the table and looking at Pelleter in surprise.

  Pelleter didn’t elaborate, but took another bite of the chicken. The food was excellent and he told Madame Letreau.

  “Who is he?” Madame Letreau’s mother leaned over and asked her daughter in a loud voice.

  “A policeman from the city,” Madame Letreau shouted.

  Letreau smiled, but it was clear he was uncomfortable and embarrassed by his mother-in-law. “So you may stay until tomorrow. I’m glad to have you. I can’t thank you enough for this.”

  Pelleter drank his wine. “There’s something I’m missing.”

  “I always feel like that,” Letreau said.

  Pelleter tried to hide a scowl with another bite of food.

  They were quiet again. The old woman was still fixed on the chief inspector, who suddenly remembered the bruise on his face. His hand went up to it self-consciously.

  The old woman nodded, and her smile deepened, her lips falling further into her mouth.

  “Do you think we’ll find this man?” Letreau
asked, as he had before at the station, but it was only to say something, to fill the silence.

  “He’ll be found. It’s only a question of when.”

  “I don’t really believe he’s in town anymore,” Letreau said.

  “Is he dangerous?” Madame Letreau said.

  “Well...” Letreau started, and then looked at Pelleter, seeing his face.

  “Yes,” the chief inspector said. He was ready to go, but dinner was not yet over. They were each only halfway through their meal, each on their first glass of wine. But this was beginning to feel like a poor use of time. Letreau thought Passemier was gone. He was probably right, but somehow Pelleter was not entirely convinced.

  There were noises out on the street, distant shouts, and the sound of a dog barking.

  The two policemen shifted in their seats, and the silence at the table changed in tone, from awkwardness to expectancy. The old woman was unaware of the sounds coming from the street, and she sat with the same complacent smile.

  Letreau pushed back from the table as the shouting grew louder. “Damn it,” he said, throwing his napkin onto the table.

  The old woman looked up at him, still smiling. Madame Letreau continued to eat as though nothing was happening.

  Pelleter knew that he was not leaving that night.

  The sound grew louder. Letreau had opened the front door. His voice joined the shouting.

  Pelleter stood up, and left the kitchen without saying anything to either of the women.

  There was a young police officer standing outside the front door talking with Letreau. Behind him were several of the rough-looking youths who had answered the call for the search party earlier that afternoon.

  A dog was barking, but wasn’t visible. The dusk was heavy.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the young officer said.

  “No, it’s absolutely right.”

  “It’s really not necessary.”

  “No, no, I insist,” Letreau said, stepping back. He saw Pelleter there. “They’re searching this block now, house by house, and they want to search mine as per my orders to skip nobody. It’s only right.”

  The officer stood in the doorway looking at the two senior officers, unsure of how to proceed.

  “Come on,” Letreau said.

  The officer stepped in, and two of the young men with rifles hurried in from the street behind him. They fanned out in what had clearly become a practiced maneuver over the course of the day, one man heading directly for the stairs, another heading for the kitchen and the back of the house, while the police officer stood at the front door.

  The officer wiped his hands along his pants legs. “I’m really sorry, sir.”

  “No, it’s quite right.” But now that the men were in his house, his jaw was set, his teeth clenched, his shoulders tensed. “I haven’t been upstairs myself yet. What better place to hide than here.”

  There was laughing in the street. Banging on a door. The dog was still barking. Someone yelled, “Shut up.”

  The sound of the man upstairs could be heard through the ceiling. Doors banged.

  “Sorry, mesdames,” the man in the kitchen could be heard to say.

  Letreau was stick-straight.

  Pelleter felt the invasion too. Their awkward dinner had been their space, and now these strangers had come in and taken it away from them. He saw the house as a police officer now, not as a guest. The living room was small with three men standing in it. The arms of the chairs and loveseat were worn thin, showing the wood beneath the fabric. The framed photographs on the walls were askew, both in relation to each other and to the floor. A water stain browned and bulged the paint in one corner.

  The man came from the back of the house. There was still banging upstairs.

  “You’ve had no luck?” Letreau said, although this was apparent.

  “No, sir.”

  “Okay, then.”

  The man came down from upstairs, taking the stairs so fast as to be almost falling down them.

  “Nice place you got, Chief,” the man said, cigarette bobbing between his lips.

  Letreau said nothing as the man passed by him and outside. Something was said, and there was a fresh burst of laughter as though the group were out drinking instead of searching for a fugitive.

  The officer, embarrassed at the lack of control he had over his men, many of whom were his age or older, tried to smile and said, “Good night, sir,” and then turned and left.

  The group moved off down the block in the direction of Alice’s house. Letreau stood by the open door, his body still rigid, probably also thinking that his niece would soon be visited by the same invasion, but he held his ground, no doubt reminding himself of equity, and how he would rather this intrusion than the fugitive on the run.

  Letreau closed the door, and when he spoke his voice was pinched. “They’re certainly being thorough,” he said. He started for the kitchen, stopped at the bottom of the steps as though he were considering going upstairs to check for any damage or missing belongings, but instead he continued on to the kitchen where his wife and mother-in-law were still eating the dinner they had prepared.

  At the table, Letreau sat upright, staring straight ahead, attacking his food. His breathing was shallow. Any jocularity from before was gone. The two women did not react. When Madame Letreau was finished eating, she stood with her plate and her mother’s and began to clean up. Pelleter wondered how typical a dinner this was for the household, as he chewed his food on the side of his face opposite the bruise.

  It was a chill April night that made any hope for spring seem rash and ill founded. The cold was made more oppressive by the memory of the beautiful day.

  Pelleter found Lambert beside the railroad tracks with his arms crossed, his hands shoved into his armpits, the collar of his overcoat bunched up around the bottom of his hairline. Another officer, whom Pelleter recognized as Arnaud, stood unfazed by the weather beside the city policeman.

  The chief inspector knew that his friend was exaggerating his discomfort for effect.

  “You misplaced your bag, I see,” Lambert said.

  “I’m not going home tonight.”

  “Why does that not surprise me?”

  “I’ve got to go out to the prison one more time to see Mahossier. Mahossier...” Pelleter trailed off and looked at Arnaud, who was gazing down the tracks, vague white lines of reflected moonlight. He was either not paying attention to the chief inspector’s conversation or trying to show that he wasn’t. “The official investigation is over here. They’re going to finish their search for Passemier, put his name and description out on the wire, and ignore the murders. The warden was right about one thing. Nobody cares about a bunch of prisoners getting killed.”

  “So why do you have to see Mahossier?”

  “Something he said...And he started this whole thing.” Pelleter looked down the track for the train. “I hate that man.”

  Lambert let out a long breath. “God, it’s cold.”

  “It’s not too bad,” Arnaud said.

  “Are you going to be all right out here for the night?” Pelleter said.

  “A night standing out in the country in the cold was exactly what I was hoping for,” Lambert said.

  “How have you been working it?”

  “When the train’s coming, Arnaud goes to the other side of the track, we watch the length of the train, walk along it, and then watch it until the train pulls out. Not that we’re going to be able to see anything in the dark.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You don’t expect there’s anything to be seen?”

  “No.”

  “He’s already gone?”

  Pelleter took a moment before he answered. “No, I don’t think he’s gone yet.”

  Lambert knew the chief inspector well enough to remain silent after that comment, to allow his boss to think. The three men stood in the cold, not as though they were waiting for something, but as though standing itself was their purpose, and
that they could stand forever.

  At last the rails bean to sing, the high-pitched hum of the approaching train, and the pinprick star beyond where the tracks were visible appeared. Arnaud moved up the slight rise to the tracks, crossed over the metal rails, and then fell away up to mid-thigh on the other side.

  The train sounded its whistle.

  The light grew brighter, and more of the engine began to take form in the moonlight, the black plume of smoke rising from the smokestack blotting out the night sky above. The train wheels could be heard themselves now, clacking.

  Pelleter pointed, and Lambert went ahead without any other command, jogging down the track so that he would be where the train would stop, near the freight cars.

  Pelleter looked around at the darkness surrounding the nearest brush and buildings, but nothing moved.

  The train slowed, the clack of the wheels changing rhythm to a labored chug.

  Pelleter realized that he had awaited the train with the warden on it only that morning, and he had to consciously remind himself that he had not yet been in Verargent a week.

  The train came to a stop.

  Pelleter stepped right up alongside the engine, the sooty smoke making the air hot. Lambert jogged the length of the train towards him, and Pelleter watched behind his officer to see if anything moved in the shadows.

  Several men got off of the train, talking loudly to one another.

  Lambert was shaking his head before he even reached Pelleter.

  Pelleter saw nothing either. He looked at the men arriving, and recognized two of them as reporters from the city. So they had finally decided that the incidents at Verargent were something they should get some first-hand information on. He was surprised it had taken them this long, but perhaps the arrest of the warden of a national prison was the first real news. He was glad that they were not yet on the job, that they were idly joking with one another rather than looking around, and so he avoided having to refuse any interviews right now. It would not be as easy tomorrow.

  “Nothing, Chief,” Lambert said. “This guy’s gone. You sure we need to stick around until tomorrow?”

  Pelleter nodded.