French Fried

by Nancy Fairbanks

  54

  Found: The Evidence, but Not the Suspect

  Carolyn

  After lunch, Albertine, Charles de Gaulle, Martin, and I set out to entertain ourselves while we waited for word from Villon. Martin was astounded at the idea of driving around to visit more sites, but he was equally nervous about running into his research director at the conference, so he accompanied us.

  We visited the eighteenth-century Comedy Theater, a square two-story building with a nice balustrade on top and ugly windows that had been added later. In fact, according to Albertine, both inside and outside had been ruined when it closed and was purchased by soulless business interests. Later the city bought it back and began refurbishing. The Place Crillon, where it sat, had paving of squares within squares within squares. I do love the many configurations of paving in Europe. I even saw one such display of intersecting brick half circles outside a store at home, but that area was very small. I’d have taken a picture of Place Crillon, but Inspector Villon had my camera.

  We also drove by some nice city gates inset in the walls. Martin was more interested in those and thought the walls so fine that Normans must have built them. At the church of Saint Didier, we stopped and went inside to see a famous marble altarpiece called Le Portement de la Croix or Notre Dame du Spasme. The background buildings didn’t look at all like Jerusalem in the early Christian era, nor did the clothing. I’d have guessed Assisi and the Middle Ages, but the altarpiece was said to be one of the oldest works of the French Renaissance, so what did I know?

  While we were looking at a large Annunciation fresco, Albertine’s cell phone rang. It was the inspector, and whatever he said caused her to drop into a pew and shake her head. “What?” I asked. “He decided not to search her apartment?”

  “No, he checked the faxes from Lyon against our pictures and information, and they made the concierge open the apartment. The woman insisted that Catherine was there, but she wasn’t.”

  “Well, of course not. She’s at the conference.”

  “She hasn’t been seen at the palais since lunchtime and isn’t there now.”

  My heart sank. If Catherine had come home and detected our visit, she might have fled, or be out looking for us. “We’ve got to call Jason and warn him.”

  Albertine nodded. “The concierge was talking to Catherine on the telephone, telling her about the strangers she’d seen, which is to say us, when the woman saw the police drive into the courtyard.”

  “I didn’t see any cars in the courtyard.”

  “They’re not supposed to be. Anyway, she mentioned that to Catherine and then left to insist that they park on the street.”

  “And Catherine got out the back way. Is there a back way?”

  “Yes,” said Martin. “Stairs.”

  “So she’s escaped. She’s probably halfway to the border of Spain by now,” said Albertine. “How could she tell we’d been there? We didn’t take anything. We didn’t move anything.”

  “Maybe she noticed the sausage and cheese missing from her refrigerator,” Martin suggested.

  For safety’s sake, Albertine called her husband so that mine would be warned while I fretted that we’d left the gun behind where Catherine could get it. Then we all went over to the palais, seeking safety in numbers, while the police searched Avignon for Catherine.

  From inside their room, the lock of which I’d opened with an ice pick, I found that I could hear the elevator doors. I’d entered the hotel without being seen by using the door on the side street that led into the deserted breakfast area. From there I located stairs and climbed to their floor. Now all I had to do was wait. Carolyn would arrive first, after an afternoon of sightseeing or whatever she chose to do after searching my apartment. I planned to shoot her with Maurice’s pistol and hope the shot went unheard. I had prepared a surprise for the bereaved husband by pouring one of the two vials of tetrodotoxin into an open bottle of wine in their bar. Neither of them would expect to find me in their own room after they’d denounced me to the police. They’d expect me to flee the country.

  I thought of leaving a note by Carolyn’s body, but that would warn the husband. Instead, I tucked copies of Maurice’s paper and Jason Blue’s response into the pocket of his suitcase. When he discovered it, if he lived, he’d understand that his wife’s death was the price he paid for killing my husband. And if he died, so much the better. I might even get away, although going back for my car would be dangerous.

  A cab! That was the thing. I’d have a bullet left after killing Carolyn. The gun might persuade the driver to take me to the nearest border, where being a citizen of the European Union, I could cross with my driver’s license. And if the driver tried to refuse, I’d shoot him. I felt quite cheerful at my prospects. I had money; I had a Swiss bank account. Yes, the cab could take me to Switzerland. And I had a gun. At last, I would prevail and make Maurice proud of me. And if I were taken between Avignon and Switzerland, there was always the second vial.

  I would not spend the rest of my life in jail for doing what was only right. The French are so cold; they don’t understand the Italian concept of family honor and vendetta, but I was still, after all these centuries, an Italian at heart. I would have my revenge.

  Time passed slowly, but I was patient and calm. When I heard the elevator doors opening, I stood and checked my pistol. Mother of God! What had I done? The two chambers were empty. I had not reloaded after shooting the Mexican girl. And in my panic at the arrival of the police, I hadn’t thought of anything but the gun itself and the toxin. Maurice had always loaded the weapons.

  I heard two voices coming down the hall. A man and a woman. With no bullets, I couldn’t overcome them both. Carolyn alone I might have managed, but both of them? It would not be possible. I would be caught and imprisoned. Panic-stricken, I ran into the bathroom and locked the door. They were in the room now, only feet from me. I dragged the second vial from my handbag and poured the liquid down my throat, thinking that the result would be immediate, but I felt nothing. Too slow. Too slow.

  I watched the doorknob turning futilely. She said, “I can’t get into the bathroom, Jason,” and she rattled the knob.

  Looking desperately around the little room, from which I could not escape, I saw the hair dryer hanging beside the sink, its long cord dangling against the wall. My eyes swept from the dryer to the tub with its white-on-white flowered curtain and saw my last hope. Sweeping the dryer from its cradle, I stepped into the tub and turned the water on full force with my free hand, then pushed in the lever that would divert the flow to the showerhead.

  “Jason, did you leave the water running?” she called.

  I stood under the heavy spray until I was soaked, which took only seconds, and then I pressed the switch on the hair dryer and let the current sear through my body like the burning flash of lightning. “Maurice,” I thought in the last moment of consciousness. “I tried.”

  55

  French Fried

  Carolyn

  Jason flipped the light switch, dropped his briefcase on the bed, and took off his coat while I tried to get into the bathroom, only to discover that the door was locked. “I can’t get into the bathroom, Jason,” I said over my shoulder and rattled the knob. What in the world was wrong with it? And I could hear water running inside. I tried the knob again and asked Jason if he’d left the shower on. He hadn’t. Then the lights went out while I was banging on the door. I thought I’d heard something inside, but I couldn’t be sure what it was.

  “Jason, we’d better call the desk. I don’t understand this at all. Could we have caught one of the maids taking a shower in our bath, and now she’s afraid to come out?”

  “That doesn’t explain the power outage.” He called downstairs and was told that he could expect the return of electricity shortly. Having reported that to me, he came over and put his ear to the door, where he could hear only the sound of the water bursting from the showerhead. “Considering how slowly the tub drains, we’d bett
er get someone up here to open the door and turn the water off,” he decided.

  He called downstairs again and explained the situation to Bridget. In the time it must have taken to climb the stairs, because the elevators were no longer working, a breathless young woman in a maid’s uniform arrived with a key, opened the door, reached behind the shower curtain to turn off the water—and screamed.

  “Floor’s probably flooded,” Jason guessed from his wicker chair. The girl stumbled out of the bathroom, stammering in French. “Do you speak English?” he asked calmly. “Perhaps you should get a mop.” To our amazement, she ran out of the room with no indication that she’d be back.

  Frowning, Jason went to investigate and remarked that the floor was dry, but she’d forgotten to turn off the water. I had come to the doorway in time to see him reach in. “What the hell?” he said, and he too backed away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s someone in there,” he answered, and after that he did turn off the water.

  In the dim light from the frosted window, I pulled back the other side of the curtain to see for myself, and caught sight of a woman, doubled over, face down, her clothes and hair soaking, and, of all things, a hair dryer in her hand. I looked back to see that it was attached to the wall unit from which it had hung.

  “Don’t touch her,” said Jason. “If the hair dryer was going when she stepped into the water, she’s been electrocuted. You could be, too.”

  “There’s no electricity,” I pointed out, reaching down to touch her neck in search of a pulse.

  “Don’t touch her!” Jason pulled me roughly away. “The current could come back any minute. Don’t even touch the curtain.”

  “Jason.” My voice trembled. “I think it might be Catherine.”

  “What the hell would Catherine be doing in our shower with a hair dryer in her hand?” he snapped. “She’s supposed to be on the run.”

  “Maybe she came back to kill us. What if she’s only unconscious?”

  “Well, she can’t kill us with the hair dryer, and I don’t see any other weapons around.”

  “Let’s lock her in and call Inspector Villon.” I was so frightened my teeth were chattering. When Jason noticed, he led me out of the bathroom and locked the door. “Maybe she was trying to kill herself,” I speculated. “Why else would she carry a hair dryer into the shower?”

  “Hell of a way to do it,” he muttered. “You’re saying she French fried herself?”

  He led me to the rattan love seat and sat me down. My mouth had dropped open at his question. French fried? That was an insensitive way to describe Catherine’s death. If she was dead. I kept expecting her to burst out of the bathroom. And I don’t suppose she deserved any sensitivity from us.

  Jason was on the phone again telling Bridget that we had a woman, possibly dead, in our shower. “Call Inspector François Villon of the local police,” he ordered. “Tell him to get over here. My wife thinks it’s the woman he’s looking for.” He put the phone down and rubbed his forehead. “What I need is a stiff drink,” he muttered and went to the bar, where he found the half bottle of wine we’d shared before dinner last night. “Want some?” He poured wine into one glass and was lifting it to his lips when I dove across the room. The wine spattered on both of us, the glass fell to the floor, and Jason looked at me askance.

  “What if she poisoned it?”

  “Well, we’ll never know now.” He didn’t sound as if he believed I might have saved his life. Before he could pick up the bottle again, I grabbed it, ran over to the balcony, and poured the remaining wine over the cement wall. “That was a very good red,” be complained, “and I paid a lot for it.”

  “Look in the waste basket,” I retorted. I’d just spotted a small vial. “That’s one of the vials we found behind the rice in her pantry. Why would she bring it here if she didn’t mean to poison us?”

  My husband swore and called downstairs again, asking them to send up two bottles of wine that had not been opened, two clean wineglasses, and a corkscrew. What a good idea, I thought while we were waiting for the wine. There were two small bottles of whiskey in the bar, but they had screw tops, and we didn’t dare try those. However, once the sealed wine arrived, I was certainly happy to join Jason in a drink. In fact, we’d finished off the first bottle by the time the inspector arrived, and I was feeling much more relaxed. Nothing had been heard from the bathroom.

  We explained to the inspector what had happened, and he actually kicked the door open. I thought that only happened on television. Then he pushed back the shower curtain and pulled on the cord of the hair dryer until it appeared over the side of the tub, a hand still clutching it. “So this is the woman who tried to kill you?” Inspector Villon asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “I can’t see her face, and people look different from any perspective when they’re all wet.”

  “Did you electrocute her?” he asked, as unpleasant as ever.

  “That does it,” said my husband angrily, as he opened the second bottle. “You’ve harassed my wife one too many times. We’re the victims here, not the woman in the tub. If she’s dead—”

  “She’s dead,” the inspector assured us. “Looks like she was electrocuted.”

  “If she’s dead,” Jason continued, pouring wine into both goblets, “she killed herself by walking into the shower holding a running hair dryer. Don’t blame my wife. And don’t blame Carolyn for Mercedes being shot. Have you checked the gun in Catherine’s apartment to see if it—”

  “There was no gun,” said the inspector. “We checked under the silverware holder, where we were told to look, and there was no—”

  “That’s not your handbag over there on the floor, is it, Carolyn?” my husband asked.

  Of course it wasn’t. Mine was on the bed.

  “Why don’t you look in there,” Jason said to the inspector. “Maybe she brought the gun along. She brought a couple of vials of something with her.”

  “That’s another thing we didn’t find,” said the inspector.

  “Well, one’s in the wastebasket, and there’s another over there on the bathroom floor. You’ll want to test those for tetrodotoxin. It’s highly poisonous, and she was synthesizing it.”

  “Maybe you’re the person with the gun and the poison,” said the inspector. “You or your wife.”

  “We haven’t touched any of those things, and we’re not going to. If you’re not willing to look at the evidence, I’ll call the consulate in Lyon and make a complaint. In fact, I’ll do it anyway. I damn near got run over by a car, and my wife has been injured twice, not to mention being accused of trying to kill two different women.” Jason picked up the phone.

  “Calm down, Professor,” said the inspector. “We intend to investigate.” He waved another officer over to the handbag, and the man, having pulled on gloves, opened it and found a gun.

  “Is it a target pistol?” I asked. “If it is, it’s probably the same gun her husband killed himself with. By the way, Jason, the article that Catherine thought killed her husband was one you wrote. Pierre looked it up for me.”

  “I wrote?” Jason looked astonished. “I don’t recall writing—”

  “Well, it was fifteen years ago, a letter to the editor of JACS.”

  “Oh.” Jason thought about it and looked upset.

  Scowling ferociously, the inspector asked, “You are responsible for the death of the deceased’s husband?”

  “Of course he isn’t,” I retorted. “Maurice Bellamee, according to other members of the department, was subject to serious depression. He was already depressed before Jason pointed out the errors in his work. Scientists are always finding problems in each other’s work and writing letters and papers about the errors, and the scientists who made the mistakes just write a retraction; they don’t kill themselves.”

  Jason smiled at me and poured me more wine. “Why don’t you just pack up the evidence and take the body away, Inspector.”

&n
bsp; “There are fingerprints to gather, and—”

  “So do it. Call us when you’ve discovered that my wife solved your crime for you and that the criminal killed herself. Probably knew she was caught and didn’t want to go to jail.”

  “There are no bullets in this gun,” said the officer who had opened the handbag.

  “Well, that explains it,” I said. “She collected things to kill us when the concierge said the police were in the courtyard, but she forgot to put in bullets. An understandable mistake. Then she walked over here and got into our room somehow so she could wait for our return and shoot us, or me. Perhaps she thought I’d come back first and she’d shoot me and then get Jason with the poisoned wine.”

  “What poisoned wine?” asked the inspector.

  “The bottle’s in the wastebasket by the desk. My wife knocked the glass out of my hand and poured the wine over the concrete wall so I couldn’t have a drink. Perhaps you should send someone down to get a sample before the puddle dries up.”

  Inspector Villon shook his head with dismay. Obviously this was all too complicated for him. I almost felt sorry for him, and thought of offering him a glass of wine, but really, he needed all his wits about him to figure out the whole Machiavellian plot that Catherine had concocted against us.

  Epilogue

  Jason

  Carolyn and I took our bottle and glasses to the lounge to watch television while the inspector tried to make sense of the evidence in our room. The news was not good. Rioting had spread across the country, embassies were warning their nationals to stay away from the affected areas, and those included, of course, Lyon and Paris, through which we had to pass to fly home.