Dead and Ganache

by Colette London

  Viewing it was more challenging than I’d expected. I felt antsy and preoccupied, distracted by thoughts of everything that had gone on recently. Fabrice’s animosity bothered me; so did Nathalie’s seeming sudden annoyance with me. I wished I could have talked things over with my mentor’s daughter, but with her fiancé lurking around behind her, that had been impossible.

  I wished I could have located Hélène’s lost family portrait, too. No wonder she’d been so consumed with finding it. I would have wanted all the images I could have of my departed husband, too, I thought as I stared distractedly at the video coverage that Capucine and her crew had captured for me. Travis and I looked natural together on film, but our appearance had been (unsurprisingly) cut short by the drone cam’s crash.

  Mindlessly, I scrolled backward through time, viewing more footage. I saw Lucas smile and dance, hamming it up. I saw shots of the Breton countryside, images of the château and its gardens, film of the churning ocean and its rocky shore. It was clear that Capucine and her crew had done their homework before coming to Brittany, because they’d captured all the most perfect local color to serve as background for Lucas’s music videos.

  The next chunk of footage looked darker. Night filming. I realized with a start that I’d reached the segments they’d taken days earlier, before Monsieur’s death. I slammed shut my laptop’s lid and looked away, not wanting to see it.

  Travis noticed. “Are you all right?”

  His voice sounded kind. Too kind. I teared up. “Uh-huh.”

  My financial advisor wasn’t buying it. He heard my scratchy voice and knew I was upset. “Hayden, tell me what’s wrong.”

  I hate waiting, I considered saying. Or, let’s do something!

  “Do you really think Hélène was looking for that family photo?” I asked him instead, hoping to distract myself. “The framed photo on the front desk that Nathalie mentioned to me? Madame Vetault didn’t seem thrilled when I pointed it out to her.”

  “We can’t expect ‘thrilled’ from a widow. She’s struggling right now.”

  That was putting it mildly. “I was hoping she’d be happy.” I frowned, knowing I was purposely delaying viewing the footage from the night of the Fest-Noz. Hello, procrastination, my old friend. “Nathalie didn’t mention any other family portraits.”

  “We can’t be sure that’s really what’s bothering Hélène,” Travis pointed out. He’d started pacing again. “It might be that the family portrait is only the latest item she’s thought of.”

  “It’s weird that she’s so obsessed with finding things,” I mused, then shrugged. “I guess that’s grief for you, though.”

  Both of us believed that Hélène truly missed Philippe.

  I glanced down at my laptop. I ought to view that film.

  “On the other hand,” I said, “maybe we’re missing the obvious explanation. Maybe there’s another family portrait somewhere.” I set aside my laptop. “Let’s go look for it.”

  Travis shut me down with a glance. “We’re not leaving this room. Not until we hear from Mélanie that it’s all clear.”

  “But that might take days! We can’t just hide in here.”

  “We can, we will, and we are,” my keeper insisted. His gaze wandered to my laptop. “Putting off writing some reports?”

  His know-it-all tone got my dander up. “No,” I huffed with undeniable self-righteousness. “I would never do such a thing.”

  Travis suppressed a grin. “Not anymore, you mean.”

  “Exactly.” Gritting my teeth, I made a show of whipping open my laptop again. I pointed to my screen. “See? No problem.”

  My maneuver worked—to a point. My helpful financial advisor quit nagging me about my procrastination tendencies. The only trouble was, now I was faced with Capucine’s Fest-Noz footage.

  If Danny had been there, he would have told me to look for the chocolatiers we’d talked about earlier—the ones I’d planned to interview in person but hadn’t after my market meeting with Mélanie had taken a turn for the criminal regarding Mathieu.

  My muscle-bound pal had a point about opportunity being almost as important as motive when it came to murder. Someone had had access to that chocolate chipper that night. Someone had cornered my mentor and stabbed him with it. If Capucine and her crew had accidentally captured any of that with their drone cam . . .

  On the verge of viewing it, I hesitated. Surely, given the circumstances, Capucine would have searched her footage for anything useful, or the police would have commandeered it and done the same. But if what policière Mélanie had told me was as complete as she’d sworn it was, no one had thought of that.

  I had to look. But my heart was racing, and so was my mind. I definitely didn’t want to see my beloved Monsieur stabbed to death in front of my eyes. I exhaled, then grabbed my phone.

  A double-check of my messages confirmed it. Capucine hadn’t edited any of the footage. She’d been focused on getting as much as she could before her crew’s time in Brittany had run out.

  Okay, then. I screwed up my courage and ran the footage.

  From the drone cam’s perspective, I saw Saint-Malo and the Fest-Noz as I never had. The walled city looked majestic and moody, minimally illuminated by those hanging light strings and full of fête-goers. The small camera swooped over trees and down among them, soared above the old rooftops and along the winding cobblestone streets. To my surprise, no one seemed to notice its presence. The camera hadn’t been very big, but it had made an audible sound. Most likely, the live Breton bagad band and the raucous crowd had drowned out any telltale noises from above.

  I estimated only a few minutes had gone by since Travis and I had sequestered ourselves in my château room, but it felt like ages to me. On the footage, I glimpsed police cars and emergency vehicles surrounding Philippe Vetault’s fallen body. I felt a mournful lump rise in my throat. I swallowed hard and then moved the footage slider to the left, rewinding quickly in time.

  I wound up at an earlier point in the Fest-Noz, after the vendors had set up their stalls and after most of the residents had arrived for the celebration, but before Monsieur’s death. It was still dark out—spookily so, given what I knew would happen.

  I searched the film for people who looked threatening, for one of my suspects, for anyone who might have wanted to hurt my mentor. No one appeared to be doing anything malicious. I even saw myself, wandering amongst the stalls, small and unknowing.

  A chill passed through me. I wished I’d known somehow what was going to happen—wished fervently I could have prevented it. As it was, all I could do was keep searching the footage while Travis strode beyond the chair where I was curled up to do so.

  At the edge of the frame, a furtive movement caught my eye. I backed up, then zoomed in. On the digital footage, I caught sight of another stall—a chocolatier’s stall. It wasn’t La Maison des Petits Bonheurs’, but there was someone familiar there, lurking just at the edge of the nearest light string.

  I recognized Fabrice Poyet, wearing a wool overcoat and leather gloves, eyeing the crowd as he edged closer to the stall. With one quick movement, he snatched something from the chocolatier’s worktable, then tucked it beneath his open coat.

  The chocolate chipper. I knew that’s what it had been.

  I had the luxury of rewinding. I backed up and confirmed it. I moved on, unable to breathe as I watched Fabrice move stealthily through the crowd. He skirted the edge of the fête, keeping away from most of the lights, but it was definitely him.

  I felt queasy. I realized my finger was hovering over the stop button. I curled it away and made myself keep on watching.

  Quickly enough, it had happened. Fabrice didn’t attack my mentor on camera, but he came close enough. The Parisian film crew’s footage plainly showed Monsieur Poyet tracking down Philippe, having a confrontation with him, then pushing him down. Hard.

  The last image I saw of my beloved Monsieur was as Philippe stumbled, wide-eyed and outraged. An instant later,
Fabrice bore down on Philippe from behind. Just before he struck, the drone cam moved lazily away. Its faraway operator couldn’t have known until later what horrible images it had captured that night.

  A tear trickled onto my cheek. I understood that I was crying, but I felt strangely numb, too. I finally knew what had happened to Philippe Vetault, and thanks to Hélène, Charlotte Moreau, and Mélanie Flamant, I thought I knew why.

  But while I was doing this, my mentor’s murderer might be getting away. I closed my laptop and shoved it under the bed.

  “All done?” Travis heard me. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

  My financial advisor turned, presumably to congratulate me on conquering my antireport-writing procrastination. Instead, he saw my petrified expression and frowned.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” His gaze skittered to the underside of my room’s four-poster bed, where I hoped to keep my proof of Fabrice Poyet’s guilt secure until I reached Mélanie.

  I was already dialing my phone, hoping I wasn’t too late.

  The phone rang and rang. No luck. I swore under my breath.

  “Hayden?” Travis looked surprised and worried. “Tell me.”

  Quickly, I did. To his credit, Travis took the news in apparent stride, with no time wasted on arguing or naysaying. He didn’t bother trying to tell me I was overreacting or demand to see Capucine’s film footage for himself. He believed me.

  Would anyone else? Another gendarme? I didn’t know.

  It was an all-too-real possibility that, given the Poyet family’s wealth and influence in France, Fabrice would not face criminal charges. Not unless the evidence against him was sound.

  “Fabrice must have known that Capucine’s drone cam might have captured footage of him at the Fest-Noz,” I told Travis. “He might not have realized it until he saw it buzzing around the market, but once he had a chance to destroy it, he did.”

  I bet he had stomped on the fallen drone cam, just as I’d supposed he would at the time. Too bad I’d dismissed the idea.

  “At least he tried.” Travis looked concerned. Full of focus. Supersmart. Thank goodness. “He must not have known the video crew would have a cloud-based backup on the Internet.”

  Silently, I gave thanks for technology. But none of it would do us any good if Fabrice escaped. He’d been packing to leave earlier. Obviously, he hadn’t been sticking around Saint-Malo for Monsieur’s memorial service. He intended to miss it, despite Nathalie’s disappointment and disapproval.

  I thought I knew what he’d been waiting for. It involved Hélène Vetault . . . and the mysterious item she’d been searching for.

  “It’s not a family portrait that Hélène’s misplaced,” I told Travis on a surge of inspiration. “I translated her French wrong.” I leaped from my cozy chair and hurried to my room’s petit antique desk. As quickly as I could, I sorted through the information there, bypassing booklets about Breton attractions to grab the one I wanted: a glossy brochure about château Vetault and its history. “Hélène meant ‘family painting,’ as in, a painting that belongs to her family, not a family portrait.”

  I flipped open the brochure and pointed to the second page.

  Travis looked at the image I’d indicated. “That’s Hélène and Philippe at the château, standing at the B&B’s front desk.”

  “Right. And what’s that hanging on the wall behind them?”

  Travis squinted. “If I don’t miss my guess, that’s a Caravaggio. It’s not a large painting, but if it’s real—”

  “It has to be real.” My mind raced with the possibilities. “Charlotte Moreau was telling the truth. Fabrice Poyet wanted to set up an art auction with her. For this.” I stabbed my finger on the image of the painting. “But first he had to find it.”

  “Which was why Hélène was in a tizzy all the time,” Travis surmised. “Not only was she drunk and distraught, she was under threat from her future son-in-law. He wanted that painting.”

  I nodded. But my financial advisor wasn’t finished yet.

  “But that brochure is years old,” he estimated. “Look at the details. This was taken when the château became a B&B.”

  “Right. Which was when Hélène became châtelaine—when she redecorated the whole place in preparation for opening it to the public. See the lamps? The knickknacks? The curtains? I saw a bunch of that stuff up in the attic, on one of Madame Vetault’s house tours. I know I did!” I paced. “I bet that’s where the painting was stashed, too—forgotten until Nathalie and Fabrice went with Philippe to look for Grand-Mère’s wedding dress.”

  When Nathalie had shared that story, I’d envisioned my mentor retrieving a lacy white gown and tenderly giving it to his daughter. What I’d missed had been Fabrice nearby, eyeing the valuable Caravaggio that Hélène had unknowingly stashed. To Nathalie and Philippe, the painting would have been just another family heirloom, as dark and depressing as the others. But to Sorbonne-educated Fabrice Poyet, it would have been a gold mine.

  I couldn’t believe I’d finally run into a long-lost-art story—and it had turned out to be much too real for my liking.

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” Travis said. “If your mentor was as generous as you’re always saying, why wouldn’t he have just given the painting to Fabrice and be done with it? Philippe obviously wasn’t interested in having the artwork on display.”

  I guessed my financial advisor could be as cynical as Danny. “I said Monsieur was generous, not that he was an idiot. It’s not the same thing, you know.” I made a face, then paced some more. “Plus, art is subjective. Just because Philippe didn’t want to display that Caravaggio doesn’t mean he wanted Fabrice to have it. Maybe he didn’t like Fabrice.” It would be a reasonable position. “Maybe he wanted better for Nathalie.”

  “Maybe he wanted to sell it himself, once he saw Fabrice’s interest in it,” Travis hypothesized. “Maybe that’s why he made that appointment with Madame Moreau at her antiques store.”

  It all fit. “But while we’ve been talking, Fabrice could be getting away.” I grabbed my phone to call Mélanie again.

  Travis did the same. Neither of us was successful. Oh no.

  I bit my lip, then looked out the window. “It’s possible Mélanie is busy booking Mathieu Camara and hasn’t noticed us calling. I couldn’t blame her if she’s taking extra time to press charges against the man who brutally attacked her.”

  My financial advisor nodded. “I’m not sure we can wait.”

  That was more like it. I brightened, despite the circumstances. It always makes me feel better to take action.

  If I could remember that pearl of wisdom when tempted to procrastinate on something, I’d really have my problem licked.

  “We’ve got one more ace up our sleeve.” I told Travis about my earlier encounter with the housekeeper, Jeannette Farges. “She wouldn’t have said anything, ordinarily. She’s been so scared—scared of Fabrice. But Jeannette changed her mind today.”

  Funnily enough, the reason for that had been my rude send-off to Fabrice Poyet, after he’d ordered me to leave Nathalie alone. Adieu. Remember how I’d remarked it was bad-mannered? As a Frenchwoman, the housekeeper had recognized as much—and she’d been impressed by that. She’d admired my unknowing strength.

  In carefully worded French, Jeannette had explained that I’d been the only one whom she’d ever seen standing up to Fabrice and his bullying. She’d thought that I might be able to help her, if anyone could—and that’s why she’d followed me down the hall. That’s why she’d sneaked us both into that unused château room and confessed that she’d seen Fabrice on the night of Monsieur’s murder. He’d threatened the housekeeper with dismissal (or worse) if she told anyone he’d arrived early “as a surprise for his fiancée.” It hadn’t been until later—when Fabrice had pretended to arrive on Travis’s delayed train—that Jeannette had realized the consequences of what she’d seen.

  Specifically, Fabrice Poyet, skulking around the château, trying to secur
e the painting for himself by any means possible.

  That was why Jeannette had been so skittish around Fabrice, flinging towels at him and looking scared. It was why she’d been startled on the terrace during her cigarette break—not because of the film crew’s drone cam, but because Fabrice had shown up.

  “The painting must have been moved,” I guessed, “sometime between when Fabrice first saw it and when he killed Monsieur. He could have gotten away, but he needed the painting first.”

  “It’s too valuable to ship,” Travis agreed. “No one is going to mail a painting worth tens of millions of euros. Even though it’s small, it would be difficult to transfer covertly, without prompting too many awkward questions.” My financial advisor thought about it some more. “I don’t think Fabrice was meeting with Charlotte Moreau to set up an auction. I think he wanted to find out if Philippe had done so—if he’d realized the value of the artwork yet. It sounds as though he hadn’t.”

  “Because Fabrice killed him before he could. That must be why Fabrice chose the night of the Fest-Noz, before Monsieur could keep his appointment with Madame Moreau.” I felt nauseated just thinking about the horrible events that had led to my mentor’s death. “But if Jeannette Farges testifies that she saw Fabrice here, a whole day before he claimed to have arrived—”

  “Combined with that video footage of Fabrice stalking Philippe,” Travis went on, “and Clotilde Renouf’s statement—”

  “Then we’ve got him,” I finished. “But only if we can get Mélanie Flamant here before Fabrice gets away.” I fretted, walking to the window to look outside. It was getting darker. Autumn evenings were made for elusion. “Jeannette promised to go straight to the police in Saint-Malo—not even finishing her shift first—but if she loses her nerve, we’re in trouble.”

  Remember how I mentioned that I didn’t tell Danny everything I’d learned from the policière during our phone call? One of the things I neglected to discuss was the statement that jam maker Clotilde Renouf had given to Mélanie before she died.