Disturbing the Dark

by Wendy Hornsby

  The dinner crowd on Saturday night was the usual group: Antoine, Freddy, his summer houseguest Olivia, the two grandmothers, Casey, me, and now Jean-Paul. Because it was Saturday, the village ladies did not come in to prepare the evening meal, as they did on weekdays, and so the grandmothers put together their version of a simple supper. For the first course, Grand-mère Marie made a delicious cold cucumber soup from vegetables picked that morning in the kitchen garden. The second course was my grandmother’s adaption of Venetian spaghetti alle vongole: linguine pasta tossed with olive oil and garlic, fresh garden peas and little carpet-shell clams gathered from the tidal basin beyond Anneville-sur-Mer less than two hours earlier. Instead of shaved parmesan, the dish was garnished with a pungent, aged local cheese that was a perfect foil for the garlic. Both courses, naturally, were accompanied by fresh bread and homemade sweet butter, a red vin ordinaire and Antoine’s cider. After the cheese and port were finished, a plate of Marie’s shortbreads topped with dollops of Grand-mère’s raspberry preserves was passed with the coffee.

  “Jean-Paul,” Grand-mère said, taking his arm after the meal, “your mother will think we aren’t feeding you well.”

  “My mother would only be sorry that she wasn’t here to dine with us,” he said, walking Grand-mère toward the arrangement of easy chairs grouped in front of the fireplace at the far end of the salon. I waited for her to settle into a chair before I brought her footstool over to her. I knew her knees were bothering her.

  Antoine had taken his grandmother, Marie, back to his house, where she now lived. After a little television, he would help her settle in for the night, and then probably go to bed himself. Because this was Jean-Paul’s first evening with us, not counting the short night before, he could relax as a guest, with me and Grand-mère. That left Casey, Freddy, and Olivia to clean up after the meal. The three of them kept up a lively conversation about the relative virtues of French and American universities as they cleared the table and then moved the discussion into the kitchen.

  When Jean-Paul and I were alone with Grand-mère, and after I was confident that she wasn’t overly tired, I pulled my chair closer to hers and leaned forward. She put a hand on my knee and said, “Is there something?”

  “I want to ask you about Thursday night,” I said, easing into the subject that lay heavily on my mind. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “After dinner at Gaston’s, when you and I went out and dug up those remains, I thought you found something in the earth.” I took Giles Martin’s beautiful watch from my pocket and held it out to her. “But now I think you put something in.”

  She took the watch, turned it over in her hands, popped the lid, and winced at the crude signature scratched inside. “You are so like your mother; nothing gets past you.”

  “This looks like an important family piece to me,” I said, touching the shiny gold surface. “Why did you bury it?”

  She shrugged. “I knew it would be found and returned to me. And I knew that it would show that cochon von Streicher for what he was, a thief and a rapist. Like the Hun who spawned him, he went into every home in the five villages he had command over and looted them of anything precious, including peace of mind. He said he was appropriating property for the Reich, for the war effort. But like so many of the Nazis who stole great treasures, he kept what he took for his own pleasure. This watch had made Giles Martin so proud. When that Nazi hung it on his tunic and swaggered around wearing it where everyone who knew Giles could see it, he might as well have cut off that wonderful man’s balls and hung them from his brass buttons as a symbol of the emasculation of our people.”

  Jean-Paul sat on the arm of her chair and put a tender hand on her shoulder. She reached up and covered it with her own. Looking up into his brown eyes, she said, “Did Maggie tell you what we did to the Germans?”

  “She did.”

  “I will tell you this: I slit von Streicher’s throat before I shot him through the heart with his own gun. And then I ripped Giles’s watch from his chest and left him to die.”

  “My dear lady.” Jean-Paul kissed the top of her head.

  “Did you give the watch back to Giles?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, nodding. “After D-Day, when he was able to come home, more dead than alive, I gave him his watch and the keys to his house. When he saw how von Streicher had defaced the watch, he put it in a drawer, and that’s where it stayed.”

  “Until Thursday,” I said.

  “Was I wrong to do that, Maggie?”

  “That isn’t for me to say, Grand-mère. But I think you may have helped to find a killer.”

  “The killer of that child?” she asked, brow furrowed.

  “We found the watch in Solange’s tent. I suspect she saw us digging around that night, went in after us, and found the watch. It’s possible that someone else was out there, also.”

  “You were worried that we weren’t alone.”

  “I didn’t see anything, really,” I said. “I was just spooked.”

  Jean-Paul cleared his throat. “Madame Martin, you returned the watch to Giles, but what happened to everything else that von ­Streicher stole?”

  “Ah, yes.” She sighed deeply and gazed off across the room. “There was so much brought into this house for his pleasure. Furniture and jewelry, old clocks—von Streicher seemed to like clocks ­especially—a few paintings, treasures even from the church reliquary. We had no great châteaux around here, and no fine museums for him to loot. There was nothing of great value to be found, except to the people from whom possessions were taken. After we dispatched the Germans, Henri and I hid von Streicher’s hoard in the basement, walled it in to keep it safe for the rightful owners. The intention was to return what we could when our people came back after the war. And we did. Or we tried.”

  “Tried?” I said.

  “People came back very changed, if they came back at all,” she said. “Thousands did not return. If I remember, something like four hundred towns and villages were destroyed by the Allied bombings over Normandy during the Libération. Whole families were wiped out. It was a horror.”

  I went over to the sideboard and poured each of us a small glass of claret. Grand-mère smiled gamely, let her hand linger on mine when I reached a glass toward her. After a sip, she continued.

  “We had suffered tremendously under the Germans,” she said. “But at the end of the war, when we learned about the death camps in the east, when we saw what the Germans had done to so many millions of people, our deprivations, even the people we lost, were diminished in comparison. What the Nazis stole from the Jews was life itself. And from us?” She stroked the watch glimmering on the arm of her chair. “Things that had seemed important to us, after we saw—” She held out the watch. “Many of us felt shame for having cared so much for such as this. We survived. So many hadn’t.”

  “Are you saying that people didn’t want their things returned?” I asked.

  “Of course they did.”

  “How did you find the owners?” I asked.

  “Through the church, because the priest knew everyone, and their circumstances. Sometimes he brought people here for furnishings when they had nothing. Did it matter that they were not the original owners? We thought not.”

  “Everything was claimed, then?” I asked.

  “There are still a few things.” Grand-mère pointed down, toward the floor under her big chair. “Most of what is left is old pieces that are too large for modern homes.”

  “Who knows it’s there?” I asked.

  “At one time, everyone in the region. After the Nazis were gone, what was here was not a secret. People came and looked to claim what was theirs or to help identify the owners. But, after a while, they stopped coming, so Henri locked the door to the basement, and what was left is still there.”

  Casey came through from the kitchen, rolling down her sleeves. “What are you three whispering about?”

  “Probably you
,” Grand-mère said with an impish grin. “How is your love life, dear?”

  “Hah!” Casey said with a wide smile. “I just finished washing dishes and you guys are out here dirtying more glasses. Unfair. Mom, Jean-Paul, it’s your turn tomorrow. You just wait.”

  “I thought we’d go out for dinner tomorrow,” Jean-Paul said.

  “We’ll be eating party leftovers.” Grand-mère set her empty glass aside and rose from her chair. “If you children will excuse me, I ­believe it’s time for bed.”

  I took her arm and walked with her upstairs.

  “Do you know what you need to know now, Maggie?” she asked as she opened her bedroom door.

  “Parts,” I said. “There are still some missing bits. I should talk to Pierre. I thought I would corner him tomorrow.”

  “No, dear. Tomorrow should be such a happy day. Pierre will be busy with family.” She pulled out her mobile and looked at the time. “He has evening duty on Saturdays. He will be at the gendarmerie until midnight, unless he’s out arresting drunken tourists. Now would be a better time.”

  I helped her turn down her bed and kissed her good night. When I went back downstairs Freddy was just closing the door after Olivia. He poured himself a glass of claret and took a seat next to Jean-Paul and Casey.

  “How is Olivia?” I asked, joining them. “She seemed subdued at dinner.”

  “The Solange tragedy has been a shock, of course,” Freddy said. “But Olivia’s okay, I think. She doesn’t talk about it. But then, I doubt I’m the one she’d confide in.”

  “Is all well chez Freddy?” I asked.

  “Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Olivia does what she does, and I have my stuff, and sometimes we pass in the hallway. That’s about it.”

  “Roommates,” Casey said.

  “Housemates,” he corrected. “Anyway, as soon as I finish this drink, I’m going home to bed. Quite a day, huh?”

  I caught Jean-Paul’s eye. “If Freddy will lend us his car, would you like to take a little drive?”

  He hesitated, obviously keeping questions to himself for the ­moment, but said, “If you wish.”

  Freddy reached into his pocket for his keys, which he handed to Jean-Paul.

  “Another favor, Freddy?” I said. When he turned to me, I asked if he wasn’t too tired, would he please keep Casey company until we got back? I thought we wouldn’t be gone for more than an hour.

  “I need a baby-sitter?” she said with a puzzled half smile.

  “No. I just don’t want to leave you and Grand-mère alone tonight.”

  Freddy turned to her. “Feel like watching a movie?”

  She said, “Sure.” And headed off with her uncle toward the small salon where the television was.

  “Where are we going?” Jean-Paul asked as I locked the front door behind us.

  “To talk to Pierre Dauvin at the gendarmerie.”

  I was edgy during the short drive, watching the cars on the road around us. When nothing unusual happened, I was a little bit surprised.

  Pierre took us into his office, a utilitarian space just big enough for his desk, a row of filing cabinets, and two guest chairs.

  “You’re worried about your friend Guido?” he asked as he showed us to seats.

  “Yes,” I said. “But that isn’t why we’re here. This time, anyway.”

  I gave him the access code for the security cameras at the student camp, explained what it was, and asked him to go to the Cloud site and scroll from just after midnight Friday morning, focusing on 00:38 and 02:04 hours. He pulled up the site and frowned as he watched Solange go into her tent, noticed the amorphous figure at the end of the alley not long after. And then saw Solange, changed into jeans, emerge again less than two hours later.

  Jean-Paul had gone around behind the desk to watch the images on the computer monitor over Pierre’s shoulder. The second time ­Solange appeared, Jean-Paul asked him to freeze the image. He pointed out that she was carrying something long and slender.

  Pierre looked from Jean-Paul to me. “You know what she’s ­carrying?”

  Jean-Paul nodded to me, my question to answer. I said, “We don’t know anything. Except, we found a bucket of tools in her tent that belong to the university, the sort of tools archeologists use. Did you see them when you searched the tent?”

  He nodded. “We examined them.”

  “We returned the tools to Solange’s professor, Olivia Boulez,” I said. “She said that a tool called a mattock is missing.”

  With a swipe of his finger, Pierre moved the active screen on his monitor off to one side, went to Google and brought up images of various versions of mattocks. While scrolling through the images, he asked me, “Did you see such a tool when you discovered her body?”

  “No, I didn’t. If the tool was there, it was under her. I certainly did not move her.”

  He took a pad of paper from his top desk drawer and jotted a note. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. We also found my great-grandfather’s pocket watch in the tent.”

  “Where?” There was a challenge in his voice. Obviously, he’d missed it.

  “In the girl’s laundry bag, along with some dirty shorts very similar to the ones she was wearing when she went into her tent around midnight.”

  “And how do you suppose your great-grandfather’s watch came to be in her laundry bag?”

  “You know that my grandmother and I dug up some of the ­remains Thursday night,” I said. When he nodded, I said, “Grand-mère put the watch into the ground among the bones. I wonder if Solange saw us, waited until we left, dug where we had, and found the watch. Remember, I told you someone had been digging at that place before us.”

  “I’m afraid to ask why Madame Martin did what you say she did, so I will leave that for later,” he said. “Now, Sherlock Holmes, why don’t you tell me what you think happened that night?”

  I shrugged, got another nod from Jean-Paul, and told Pierre what I thought. “I wonder if Grand-mère and I interrupted Solange’s first attempt to dig in the area where the skull was found. Then she lay in wait in the carrot field, watching us. When we were gone, she dug where we had, found the watch, a lot of brass buttons probably, and bones. She went back to her tent, hid the watch, changed into fresh, perhaps warmer, clothes, picked up a better digging tool than she’d had with her originally, and went back out to dig again. Did that figure captured by the security camera watch her? Follow her? Have nothing at all to do with Solange? I leave that to you. But sometime later, and I think not very much later, someone bashed in her head with a tool shaped like this.” Again, with thumbs and index fingers I made a triangle about the size of the hole I had seen in Solange’s head. “And it killed her.”

  “Do you enjoy playing at detective?” Pierre asked, flipping his pen onto the note pad, clearly miffed.

  “You know what I do for a living, Pierre,” I said. “I’m not always playing.”

  “We aren’t in Hollywood, madame. I would appreciate if you left the investigation to the police nationale.”

  “Bon, d’accord,” I said, doing my best imitation of a French dismissive shrug. I rose from my chair. “If you have any interest at all in the young woman’s dirty clothes, do have your people come and collect them before the ladies do the Monday laundry.”

  Pierre dropped his face into his hands and shook his head as if exasperated. He took a hand away to glance at Jean-Paul. “My sympathy, monsieur.”

  Jean-Paul’s mobile chirped. He pulled it out, looked at the screen, opened the text, glanced at it, and then handed the mobile to Pierre.

  “What is this?”

  “I sent the image captured at 00:38 to a friend at D.G.S.E. to see if it could be enhanced.”

  “You think this was a terrorist attack?” Pierre huffed with some heat.

  “Of course not. But I have a friend who is assigned there and I knew he had the technical capability to enhance the image. Anyway, here is his report.”

  Pierre read a
loud: “Person of unknown gender or coloring, stands between five-and-a-half and six feet tall, average build. Posture indicates European origin.”

  “Sorry,” Jean-Paul said. “That’s all he could determine. But it does eliminate some, yes?”

  Pierre gave the mobile back. He nailed first me, then Jean-Paul with a narrow-eyed glare. “Anything else?”

  “Not at the moment,” I said.

  “Bon. Merci bien, madame et monsieur.” He rose from his chair, opened his office door and gestured for us to pass through it. “Et passez une bonne nuit.”

  “À demain,” I said, until tomorrow. He did not seem very thrilled at the prospect.

  As we walked back to Freddy’s car, I said, “You didn’t say anything about the car that nearly ran us off the road this afternoon.”

  “No,” Jean-Paul said, taking my hand. “I also didn’t mention that when we drove out of the compound gate this evening, the same car was parked across the road, no more than ten meters away.”

  14

  Neither of us could settle down enough to sleep. Part of the frisson in the room came from the physical pleasure of being in the same bed again, spent and naked, after nearly a month apart, and at the same time feeling sad that tomorrow he would have to leave again. For how long this time? There was no answer.

  “You aren’t sleeping,” he said, stroking my back. “Want to go down and check all the water taps again?”

  “No. I’d rather go for a run.”

  He glanced over my shoulder at the bedside clock. “How about I read you a story?”

  “Not a scary one,” I said. “No ogres under the bridge, all right? I hate monsters hiding under things, especially when I can’t sleep.”

  “No promises,” he said, disentangling himself from the sheets as he got up from the bed. “I haven’t read this book yet.”

  He opened the armoire and pulled out Solange’s notebook. “I would like to take a look at this, and there might not be another chance before I have to leave.”

  “All right.” I got up and pulled on the first pajama bottoms and T-shirt I found, both parts his. “But downstairs, okay? There’s a bottle of Antoine’s oldest brandy in the sideboard. I think it’s time we opened it.”