Murder for Love (Molly Sutton Mysteries Book 4)

by Nell Goddin

  “Anaphylactic shock?” Molly spoke in English, having no idea how to translate that.

  “That is it,” said Nico. “I tell you, Molly—it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. Frances is always pale but after the sting, her skin was like marble. She couldn’t breathe, she was sweating…absolutely terrifying.”

  “But she’s all right? Where is she now?”

  “I insisted she come to work with me. She’s in the back room.”

  Molly ran in to see Frances lying down in a banquette, reading on her tablet.

  “Franny? What the hell?”

  “I nearly died!” Frances said brightly as she sat up. “Nico was amazing. He didn’t waste a second! And a good thing, too—the ambulance guy said that if he hadn’t called that quickly, I’d be pushing up daisies.”

  Molly was speechless. She hugged her friend and didn’t want to let go. “Do not die on me,” she murmured. “I…I’m nowhere near ready for that.”

  “Me neither,” said Frances, kissing her on the forehead. “I don’t remember much of what happened. I arranged the roses, I remember the sting—and the next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor with faces peering down at me. Scared the crap out of Nico,” she added, grinning.

  “You look like you rather enjoyed the whole thing.”

  “Well, sometimes things in Castillac can get a little same-old same-old, am I right? It’s not terrible to have a little drama that ends well. Especially if you get to see your man in action. Like a knight on a white charger, that was my Nico!”

  Molly just shook her head. “So, are you all okay now? Not supposed to be on bed rest or anything?”

  “Do I see a glint in your eye?”

  “Maybe. I’ve got a little…escapade in mind. I thought of you first, naturally.”

  “Oh, this does sound good. We’ll have to sneak out the back way—Nico’s being so sweet but a little overprotective. So what? What evil plan have you been cooking up?”

  “Not evil. But we’ll have to kill time until dark.”

  “It’s sounding better and better. Go get a kir and come back and tell me everything.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tristan Séverin was saying to Caroline, whose back was turned to him. “We’ve always gotten on so well, the two of us. Have I done something to upset you?”

  Caroline turned to face him, glaring. “Yes. You have. But for a number of very good reasons, I do not want to discuss it. Can we just get back to work, please?” She sat down in her chair, her back straight. “I’ll get over it,” she said, waving a hand in the air.

  Tristan kept looking at her quizzically. He needed a haircut and his shirt was wrinkled. “All right, Caroline,” he said softly. “But if you change your mind, I’m happy to talk about whatever it is. I want the air to be clear between us.”

  Caroline answered with a flurry of typing, her fingers flying over the keyboard so quickly that Tristan thought for a moment she was faking it, just typing gibberish. But it was not gibberish, it was the report that Tristan should have finished last week but forgotten about, and Caroline, as she often did, was taking care of it for him.

  “I’m a little at loose ends, with the children gone,” he mused, looking out at the empty playground.

  Caroline did not answer but kept clacking away at a furious pace.

  Tristan got up and spent some minutes looking at the books on the bookshelf. “It’s definitely something I did? I know things have been a little complicated around here lately, but we’ve been friends for so long, Caroline.”

  “Tristan!” shouted Caroline, raising her voice at work for the first time in her life. “Just leave it alone, will you?”

  “Hector was supposed to fix that sink in the cantine. I’m going to go check on it,” he said. He left the door open and crossed the scorching hot playground to the cantine. No lights were on and he kept it that way. He stood just inside the door, remembering Iris, how she would come out of the kitchen and greet the children as they came in, telling them about the day’s menu, teasing them about this or that.

  He remembered how she had smiled at him so shyly sometimes, her lashes lowered, like a character from a Jane Austen novel. He closed his eyes, willing her to be alive, magically there in the cantine with him.

  Every minute she looked so beautiful, so full of life. Her hair curly from the humidity of the kitchen, her cheeks rosy, always with that white apron on, tied around her slender waist. His Iris. He didn’t think he would ever get over losing her. It was beyond tragic. And now, to have to go home to his wife, with no Iris to look forward to, not ever…it was almost too much to bear.

  He heard a clanking sound from the kitchen and went in to see if Hector had for once in his life done what he was supposed to do.

  22

  They had to wait until well after ten, it stayed so light in July. Molly wore a pair of navy blue shorts and a black T-shirt, and Frances a swirling black skirt with a dark gray camisole.

  “I’m not sure you’re dressed appropriately,” said Molly.

  “I’m thinking ahead to when we get arrested for breaking and entering. It’s good to make a glamorous entrance, when you get hauled off to the station. And honestly, where’d you get the idea that navy blue and black were a smoking combination?”

  Molly rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s go. I think we should walk. We’ll be less noticeable than if we take the scooter.”

  They set off down rue des Chênes towards the school, Molly explaining to Frances what she hoped to find and the role she wanted Frances to play.

  “Does Ben know about this plan?” asked Frances.

  “Not exactly.”

  “You know we really could get arrested for this.”

  “You saying you can’t handle it?”

  “Ha! Of course not. I’m only wondering if you can handle it.”

  “We’re not going to get caught,” Molly said with confidence.

  “What if the school is locked up tight? Are you planning to break windows? Is there an alarm system?”

  “You have so little faith in me.”

  “What are you hinting about?”

  “You’ll see. I…did a bit of prep work earlier today.”

  “You’ve got crowbars and lock picks stashed under a bush?”

  “I wish I knew how to pick locks. Seems like a handy skill to have.”

  “You don’t have the patience for it.”

  “I don’t disagree. Isn’t the village amazing at this hour? So peaceful. I’m still startled by how different it is, here in France.”

  “I’m still startled that I came for month-long visit and haven’t left yet.”

  Molly began humming “Isn’t it Romantic.” Frances elbowed her in the ribs.

  The two women walked for a while in silence, winding their way through Castillac, listening to the clink of dishes as villagers finished up their dinner, the murmur of television, punctuated by the occasional cry of a baby. Swallows swooped through the darkening sky and they heard the scrape of plates and murmuring conversations. It was so beautiful in its ordinariness, and Molly could hardly believe that underneath the calm, only last week, passions in the village had risen up and up and all the way to murder.

  “Here we go,” said Molly, as they turned a corner and the school came into view. “You still in?”

  “Of course I’m still in.” Frances looked the building over. “Nice-looking place. You sure no one’s going to show up for some after-hours catching up on paperwork or anything?”

  “Um, 95% sure. In the summer there’s only Tristan, Caroline, and maybe the plumber, and obviously none of them are here now. I think we’re good.”

  Modern and one-story, the school stretched almost the length of the block. The playground was an interior courtyard, nothing fancy, with the cantine on the facing side. The classrooms and office building had large windows on the street and playground sides, keeping the rooms bright during the day and not affording much privacy from either directio
n.

  Molly led Frances to a gate at the end of the block that opened onto the playground. The cantine was to the right and she glanced at it, and then walked to the school building and opened the door.

  “How did you know this would be unlocked?” said Frances suspiciously.

  “Duct tape,” said Molly, grinning and pointing at the latchbolt, which was held back with a neatly applied section of silver tape.

  “How did you—”

  “You know how serious lunch is in France, right? I just waited until Caroline and Tristan had left to eat—it was easy to spy on them through the window, and school’s out so there aren’t any teachers or students around—and strolled in and taped the door. They don’t lock up during the day, just at the end of the day when they go home. Actually, I don’t even know that for sure—I get the feeling people in Castillac mostly don’t bother locking their doors. Maybe the school is the same? I wanted to be on the safe side.”

  “I had no idea you had actual burglar skills. I bow down to you,” said Frances.

  They heard a noise and froze.

  They were just inside the door, standing in the corridor, their silhouettes easily visible from either the playground or the street. Instinctively they ducked down, though the windows went so low their backs were still visible.

  A scraping sound, metal on concrete, footsteps.

  Frances peeked out of the street-side window. “It’s just someone dragging a garbage can down the sidewalk,” she whispered. “Which is pretty sketchy behavior, actually. Maybe we should tail him.”

  Molly took a big breath and stood up straight. “Okay, let’s get this over with. I’m on the brink of having a heart attack.”

  They crept into the office. Not much light came in from the street so Molly pulled out her phone and tapped on the flashlight app so she could see what she was doing.

  “Molls, that jiggling light is going to look mighty suspicious from the street….”

  Molly gasped and shut it off. She hadn’t really thought about how exposed a position the office was in. “I was so focused on getting inside, I didn’t really think about how anyone walking by can see us.”

  “Just do this,” said Frances, moving to Tristan’s desk. She wiggled the mouse and the monitor came on, casting a soft glow over them.

  “Brilliant!” whispered Molly. “Okay—you keep watch while I rifle through his drawers.”

  Frances giggled.

  “Oh shut up,” said Molly, laughing too. She opened the long narrow drawer first. It was so filled with stuff that it didn’t slide out easily. Paper clips, pens, broken pencils, erasers, a bottle of liquid ink, ink cartridges, rubber bands, a couple of twigs, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a lipstick.

  A lipstick?

  “Well,” said Molly, holding it up. “Either Tristan likes a bit of cross-dressing, or this belonged to Iris,” she said. “Highly doubt it’s his wife’s.”

  “Hundred per cent agree. Could it be DNA-tested?”

  “No idea. But having her lipstick—is that even very damning? He could cook up an innocent story to explain it so easily. You know—‘I ran into her at the market, noticed it on the ground after she’d moved on…’”

  A row of three drawers was on the right, and Molly opened the first. It was crammed with papers and ink cartridges for a printer. She opened the second. “Definite hoarder tendencies,” Molly reported, lifting out a dirty yogurt container. “Is the coast still clear?”

  “I’ll tell you if it’s not,” said Frances, chewing on a fingernail.

  The third drawer was filled with books. Molly took out the top one, a slim book of poetry by Louis Aragon. A slip of paper poked out, and Molly opened the book to see what it was.

  “Molly!” whispered Frances. “People coming down the street!” She scrambled over to Caroline’s desk and hunched down behind it.

  Molly dropped to the floor, hoping that the glow of Tristan’s computer didn’t give her away.

  They heard talking. Someone began to sing. It felt as though it took forever for them to go past. Molly held her breath, imagining sirens and then Maron slapping handcuffs on her.

  Ben shaking his head, not amused. Maybe even furious.

  But slowly the sound of footsteps got fainter. Whoever it was stopped singing.

  “Just hurry up, will you?” said Frances. “Aren’t you finding anything?”

  “Not so far,” whispered Molly. “His desk is a mess!”

  She stood up, crouching into the light of the computer, and looked at the slip of paper. “Well, now,” she said.

  “What? What is it?”

  “A love poem. With Iris’s name in it.”

  “Excellent, Inspector! Do you need more time? All’s clear for the moment….”

  “Just want to check to make sure it’s his handwriting. An impossible chicken-scratch, let me tell you.” Molly flipped through more papers until she found some hand-written notes in the margin. Yep, looks like his handwriting all right. Okay, we can go as soon as I go through these last drawers.” Pause. “Shut up, Franny.”

  “I’m getting jumpy. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  Molly considered for a moment and decided that the poem was enough. It did mention Iris’s name, after all, and it was amorous enough that no one could mistake it as being simply about friendship. Carefully she closed the drawers all the way, though some papers still stuck out of the top of the bottom one. She slid the poem into the pocket of her shorts and joined Frances at the door.

  Once they got to the playground, they ran. The fear of being seen, even arrested, caught up with them and all they wanted was to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. About five blocks later, they stopped, panting, and Molly took out the poem so they could read it under a streetlight.

  “Eh, my French still isn’t quite there. To put it mildly,” said Frances, giving up quickly.

  “Huh,” said Molly, still studying it. The poem consisted of three stanzas of rather short lines. It did not rhyme. The handwriting was childish and messy, but legible.

  And the poem was, if Molly’s French was at all reliable, very erotic. Graphic in its description of what the writer wanted to do with Iris physically. Love was mentioned. The writer seemed on the point of being completely overwhelmed by the depth of his feelings for her.

  On the one hand, the poem was fairly hilarious in its raw frankness. And on the other, well, Molly could see the appeal in being desired so fiercely. Who wouldn’t?

  23

  “It’s sort of a lust poem, if there’s such a thing. But still pretty romantic in a way, don’t you think?” said Molly to Ben as they had breakfast at the Café de la Place. Ben’s hair was still damp from the shower after his morning run, but the exercise had apparently not done much to relax him.

  “I don’t care how you characterize it, that doesn’t change the fact that you stole something from that office,” said Ben. Molly waited for him to smile but he did not. “I thought you said you had made something of a career out of watching American crime shows. Didn’t you learn that evidence gained through illegal means is ruined? Inadmissible?”

  Molly was chastened but did not want to admit it. “Listen. If I hadn’t gotten my mitts on this poem, we still wouldn’t know that Iris’s lover was 99% for sure Tristan Séverin. All right, point taken, we can’t hand it over to Maron and get it booked into evidence. But we can still use it as leverage. Pretty powerful leverage, if you ask me. I bet you anything Séverin folds like a cheap accordion when you show him this poem.”

  “Maybe.” Ben glowered at his coffee, his arms folded across his chest. “Then there’s the issue of breaking and entering.”

  “We didn’t break anything! Although in retrospect we probably should have worn gloves.”

  Ben did not smile. “I want you to understand, Molly. We cannot be partners if you’re going to continue breaking the law.”

  “Do you mean…partners in detective work? Or any kind of partners?
”

  “I meant the investigation. But….”

  She saw, suddenly and too late, that her illegal snooping had crossed a line, and that he felt her action to be not only illegal, but disrespectful to him. Instead of continuing to defend herself, Molly let loose a flood of heartfelt apologies, promising that the next time she had a big idea for collecting evidence, she would run it by him first.

  “I don’t savor the prospect of visiting you in prison,” he said, and finally with relief Molly saw a faint twinkle in his eye.

  “Do you think Maron would really have arrested us, if Franny and I’d been caught? I’m not justifying, just curious.”

  “Yes, I do. And I think he’d have enjoyed it immensely.” Ben leaned back in his chair, lost in thought. “And the new gendarme, Monsour? He’s just itching to put someone in jail. It’s a particular type that gets attracted to law enforcement—they savor the authoritarian part of it. Can spot it in Monsour a mile away.”

  “Ew.”

  Ben shrugged, and Molly couldn’t help smiling at how supremely Gallic he seemed in the moment.

  “So, here’s a question…” continued Molly. “Why do you think Caroline lied to me?”

  “She was adamant about Séverin not having any affairs?”

  “Absolutely. Said she would definitely know, too.”

  Ben shrugged. “Who knows. Maybe nothing more than loyalty to her boss.”

  Molly sat in silence, eating her croissant. Then she erupted in laughter, startling the people at the next table. “I’m just…the poem! It’s so raunchy!”

  Ben smiled. “It’s certainly not what I’d have expected Séverin to write. I’ve always thought of him as…an innocent, really. We need someone to look at his computer. I’ll go talk to Maron after breakfast, make sure he’s taking the school computer in and seeing what else might be on there. His emails might be a mother lode.”