Disturbing the Dark

by Wendy Hornsby

  With a roll of gaffer’s tape—duct tape—on one arm and a reel of heavy-duty extension cord on the other, I went in search of an electrical socket. The first one I found was at the near end of the rose arbor. I plugged in the cord, taped it in place, and began unreeling the cord, taping it down as I went so that no one would trip over it in the yard or on the basement steps. When I reached the bottom step, Jean-Paul already had four lights set up on adjustable stands. I plugged in the lights and an entirely new scene opened up before me. It was eerily beautiful: long shadows disappearing into the darkness beyond the lights’ reach; lacy cobwebs draping down from the ceiling fourteen feet above us; heavily carved old pieces softened under a layer of fine, gray dust.

  “Wow,” I said. “I am dying to see how this looks on film.”

  He laughed. “There are no bodies down here, are there?”

  “Just us, as far as I know.”

  “I had something a little more romantic in mind,” he said, running a finger through the dust on a table top. “Candlelight, flowers, a nice wine maybe.”

  “A beach, a naked belly, a mai tai?”

  “Either would do.” He reached out and took my hands. “But if this is what we have, this is fine.”

  “Why are my knees knocking?”

  “Because you know I’m going to ask you something important.”

  “Do I know how I’m going to answer?”

  “You do or you wouldn’t have brought me down here, alone. I saw you fast-talking Guido out of joining us.”

  “So, then, Jean-Paul, you’ve driven a long way to ask me this question. But maybe first you should tell me about the job offer. A woman wants to know if a man has good prospects before committing to him.”

  He laughed and pulled me into an embrace. “I’ve been asked to head an international trade commission. On its face that sounds a bit dull, but international trade is a deliciously dirty affair, so I think we’ll find it quite interesting.”

  “We, huh?”

  “Depends on your answer, does it not?”

  “Where would we live?”

  “I told the committee that I need to be in Los Angeles through the first of the year, time enough for you to finish the film. After that, Paris for six months. We’ll have plenty of time to figure out where to go from there.”

  “Could be interesting,” I said. “Now, I understand you have a question to ask.”

  “Yes, but my knees are knocking.”

  “Oh, Jean-Paul.” I gave him the best kiss I had. “We both know the answer. But before we make any announcements, I’d like to speak with Casey and with my mom in California.”

  “Of course, but Casey says she couldn’t be happier, and your mom says it’s about time.”

  “You spoke with them?”

  “What can I say? I’m traditional enough to want the blessing of the people you love.”

  “If you called Mom, I suppose you called your mother, too?”

  “Oh yes. She insisted on meeting you first, but she’s delighted.”

  “What’s left to do, other than the deed itself?”

  “We need to go upstairs. Your grandmother has prepared a surprise for us.”

  “She knows?”

  “Of course. My mother called her.”

  There was a small party waiting for us in the salon. All the usual suspects had gathered, the family and the nearly family, along with Gaston, and Ma Mère. Zach and Taylor were there, and Guido, of course, and Pierre and Jacqueline, though they were both on duty and could not drink more than the three glasses of wine they were allowed to consume while on duty. The event was memorable, not only because the food and drink were delicious, and everyone was so happy, but because the bomb squad from the gendarme barracks in Carentan stomped through in all their Kevlar garb when they came to remove the old ammo. They stayed for cakes and Champagne without needing any persuasion, and offered us their best wishes.

  Once the ammo was removed, I was able to go into my room to collect some clothes, though I am happy to say that certain garments spent most of the night on the floor beside the bed.

  Eventually, Jean-Paul and I fell asleep wrapped around each other like puppies in a basket. I don’t know what wakened me. I lay quiet in Jean-Paul’s arms, and listened. The old house creaked and sighed in the night as it cooled off from the day, as it always does. But there was something else beyond our heavy bedroom door that was not a part of the usual house noises. I nudged Jean-Paul. He rolled on his back to look over at the face of the clock on his nightstand. It was three-thirty.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “Listen.”

  We both sat up and listened. A low-pitched creak—almost a groan—then a thump. He slipped out of bed first and groped around on the floor for his pants while I grabbed my robe off the back of a chair and pulled it on. In bare feet, he padded around to my side of the bed, the door side, stopping to take Grand-mère’s Luger out of the drawer where I stowed it when I brought my clothes across the hall from my room. Slowly, being as quiet as he could, he turned the knob and opened the door enough to see into the hall. I was close behind him.

  The door to my room across the hall was closed, but something or someone moving around inside interrupted the sliver of light visible under the door. The strange groan became more defined, the sound of a nail being pried out of wood. Someone was pulling up the plywood that had been hastily tacked over the bare floor joists so that no one got hurt until the floor could be repaired. The original wooden planks were stacked against a wall.

  Holding the Luger down beside his leg, Jean-Paul slipped out into the hall with me close on his heels. He gestured for me to go left when he went right so that we flanked my bedroom door, me on the hinge side, he next to the opening. On a signal, I reached over, turned the knob, and pushed the door open. Whoever was in the room began to scramble. Jean-Paul rushed in, hit the light switch and then all hell seemed to break loose. Wooden floor planks flew past the open door and Jean-Paul cried out when something must have hit him. I ducked low and slipped inside. Jean-Paul was on the floor with blood on his head as I opened the armoire and grabbed the tire iron, still sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement and swung at it.

  Something hard gave inside whoever I hit. He went down with a thud that shook the flimsy plywood underfoot. Jean-Paul was on his feet, Luger still in his hand, so I knew he was all right. I went over to the moaning pile of clothes lying crookedly over re-exposed floor joists. I nudged the man with the tire iron and he rolled onto his back and looked up at me. Tears rolled down his lined face.

  Jean-Paul was beside me. There was a gash on the point of his temple that was already swelling and turning blue. I asked if he was okay, but it was the man on the floor who answered.

  “You broke my arm.”

  He had to be at least eighty, too old to be doing second-story work. And he must have been awfully desperate to be out prowling in the middle of the night. One of his arms, encased in a beautifully tailored, if threadbare, jacket, bent sharply about midway between his wrist and elbow. I should have felt bad about that—he was a very old man—but I didn’t.

  I wrapped an arm around Jean-Paul’s naked middle and centered the end of the plastic-shrouded tire iron on the man’s chest as if he were a big-game trophy.

  I said, “Jean-Paul, meet ‘Count’ Otto von Streicher.”

  22

  The arrest on Tuesday morning was a very quiet affair. When Pierre drove into the compound with a warrant from the court, ­Antoine had just returned from the village bakery with the croissants he picked up at dawn every morning for all three of the family houses as well as for the workers at the fromagerie. I had not been able to go back to sleep after Pierre came in and hauled Erika’s brother, Otto von Streicher, off to the village lockup. I suspected that this member of the von Streicher family would not get off with a slap on the wrist and a plane ticket home.

  Zach and Taylor found me in the
kitchen during that hour after dawn when they came in from a morning run with Casey and David. I was making coffee, proud to have mastered Grand-mère’s cafetière. When I went out to collect our croissants from Antoine, my interns ran upstairs to get their laptops so they could show me some of the footage they had taken the day before. They were very excited about it.

  Pierre looked like hell when he got out of his car that Tuesday morning. He couldn’t have had much sleep the night before. Jacqueline was with him, back in uniform after two nights at the student camp. She seemed nervous, and I found that curious.

  Antoine stopped to talk with them in front of Freddy’s house, holding the three muslin bags of warm croissants over his arm. I walked over to save Antoine the few steps to Grand-mère’s door, and to see how Pierre was. Though the morning was cool, he already had sweat rings under the arms of his freshly pressed uniform shirt. I asked if he wanted to come in for coffee. I told him that Zach and Taylor were going to show me the footage they shot of the burial of the German remains at La Cambe Cemetery on Monday. He said no at first, but Jacqueline put her hand on his arm and told him that he should go ahead, that she would keep an eye on things. When Pierre hesitated, she took one of the croissant bags from Antoine and gave it to him.

  “Eat something, Pierre,” she ordered. “”Have some coffee. I’ll be right here. Go.”

  The interns had set up two laptops on the kitchen table. One had footage of the burial at La Cambe, the other a burial ceremony at the American military cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer for a recently deceased American veteran of the D-Day landings. The juxtaposition showed the stark contrast between the two events. The former was brief and colorless, and witnessed only by the men who delivered the remains and the men who laid them all in a single grave in the section for unidentified German soldiers, and covered them over. At the latter, hundreds of tourists visiting the perfectly manicured American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach joined the family for the burial. There was an honor guard escort, a twenty-one-gun ­salute, a bugler to play “Taps,” and a small military band that played the national anthem at the close.

  Pierre seemed distracted, drinking his coffee, picking at his croissant. He commented that even the sky looked dark during the burial at La Cambe.

  I told Zach and Taylor how impressed I was by their work. There was a place in the film for the La Cambe footage, and they would certainly have a line in the credits. “You need to get your union cards, kids,” I told them. “It’s time for someone to pay you for your work.”

  They bounced off upstairs for showers, excited about shooting in the basement later in the morning.

  When we were alone, Pierre thanked me for putting him onto an important line of inquiry for the Solange Betz murder case. Before I could ask him what it was, his phone chirped.

  “It’s time,” he said, putting the phone away. On his way out of the kitchen, he said, “I need this to be my last murder investigation.”

  I admit I was a little slow that Tuesday morning, not enough sleep, not enough coffee. But even I understood that when Pierre said “It’s time” that something having to do with the murder of ­Solange was about to go down. I followed him out and stood beside him on Grand-mère’s front steps.

  Jacqueline knocked on Freddy’s door. Freddy answered, spoke briefly with Jacqueline and then stepped back inside, leaving the door ajar. Olivia appeared in the doorway, dressed for work in khaki shorts and a long-sleeved blue chambray shirt. Jacqueline motioned for her to come outside. Standing on the gravel in front of Freddy’s house, reading from a signed court order, Jacqueline informed Olivia that she would be charged with the willful murder of Solange Betz. Olivia nodded when she was asked if she understood the charge, followed instructions to turn around with her hands behind her back, and did not speak or struggle when Jacqueline slapped handcuffs on her slender wrists.

  Olivia was placed in the backseat of Pierre’s official blue-and-white Renault Mégane. She was looking down toward her lap when Jacqueline drove her away.

  Pierre stood watching them go, not moving even after they were gone. Freddy had watched the arrest from his open front door. He came outside and walked across the gravel to join us.

  Freddy wrapped an arm around Pierre’s shoulders. “I know that was difficult, old friend.”

  Pierre looked over at me. “You’re not surprised?”

  “I’m not. I’m sorry, but I’m not surprised.”

  “It was what you said about the work she was having her graduate students do that planted the germ,” he said. “I got in touch with her university. Olivia had applied for a summer research grant and put in for seven students to work with her. But the grant was denied late in the process. Instead of cancelling, she went out and got hired by this company that places archeologists with builders. She lucked into Freddy because of all the students that are on the estate all summer. Hers could just get folded in.”

  “But why did she kill Solange?” I asked.

  “Desperation?” Pierre said. “Solange was unhappy about the work Olivia was having her students perform. She called her tutor or mentor or whatever, and complained. That got Olivia into difficulty. But the thing is, Olivia was already in trouble at the university, and that’s why she had lost her grant. She hadn’t published enough or published recently enough, or whatever she’s supposed to be doing. Her position was in jeopardy. I believe she was afraid of what Solange was telling people about her. Olivia waited for an opportunity to speak with Solange alone. They must have argued, and Solange lost.”

  “Then Olivia washed the mattock she used, and hid it in the basement,” I said. “The mattock that was checked out to Solange.”

  He nodded. “The key for the potting shed she used to store her tools was on the same ring as the keys for the basement.”

  “How ironic,” I said. “If Olivia hadn’t mentioned that Solange’s mattock was missing, I wouldn’t know what a mattock is, and I would never have suspected its significance when Antoine picked it up.”

  “Fortunately for us, she was an amateur in the business of murder.” He canted his head and gave me a little upside down French smile. “When she comes out of prison she will be looking for a new career. Please, Madame Sherlock Holmes, do not offer to tutor her in the art of criminal investigation.”

  Jean-Paul came outside just then, carrying a coffee mug. He looked a little sleepy still, and I adored him.

  “You missed the morning’s drama,” I said.

  “That’s perfectly fine with me.” He kissed the back of my neck. Then he yawned. “I’ve had all the drama I need for a while.”

  A motorcycle sped past on the village road.

  “A blue Kawasaki,” Freddy said. “German registration. That’s the third time this morning I’ve heard it pass. He was around yesterday, too.”

  “Merde.” Pierre pulled out his phone and called for an alert to go out. Blue Kawasaki headed north away from the village. Stop and question, please.

  “Tell me we’ve seen the last of the treasure hunters,” I said.

  He shrugged, just a twitch of one shoulder. “I wish I could.”

  fin

  About the Author

  Edgar Award–winner Wendy Hornsby is the author of eleven previous mysteries, nine of them featuring documentary filmmaker Maggie MacGowen. She is a retired professor of history and lives in California. She welcomes visitors and e-mail at www.wendyhornsby.com.

  Mysteries by Wendy Hornsby

  The Maggie MacGowen Mystery Series

  Telling Lies

  Midnight Baby

  Bad Intent

  77th Street Requiem

  A Hard Light

  In the Guise of Mercy

  The Paramour’s Daughter

  The Hanging

  The Color of Light

  Disturbing the Dark

  Other Mysteries

  No Harm

  Half a Mind

  Nine Sons [stories & essays]

  nbsp;

  Wendy Hornsby, Disturbing the Dark