by Nell Goddin
Her eyes now comically wide, Molly waited to hear what Frances was going to say.
“It’s just, you know, with two divorces under my belt already, it seems like I should just accept that marriage and I don’t go together very well. And children? I’ve honestly never really thought about it, not seriously. I know I’m verging on forty, but that nesting thing women talk about? Has never hit me.”
Molly was speechless.
“And also…I know that having children is like your dream. This may be…I don’t know…it’s just that I’m having trouble figuring out what I think about Nico’s proposal, partly because I think you’ll be really upset with me and sad about it. If I marry him and start popping out the rugrats or something.”
Molly looked out the window and saw the orange cat ambling by. She took a slow breath. “Oh, Frances. I’m not part of this equation at all. Your life with Nico…it shouldn’t be limited by anything I have or don’t have in my life. That would be nuts. Truly.” She put an arm around Frances and squeezed her.
“So you wouldn’t be mad?”
Molly managed a smile. “Of course not. Will I feel a twinge if you two have a baby? Of course. I feel twinges at every baby that crosses my path. I had a good cry over Oscar the other night because I still miss him, and I only knew him for a few weeks. Please, Frances…do what’s right for you and Nico.”
“You are a good friend, Mollster.”
“So…you’re really happy with him?”
“I’m—yes. I am. Of course I doubt it, I wonder what-does-it-all mean. I think it can’t possibly last: all the usual relationship pessimism, which I feel like I have a right to just because of my history.”
“That Texas oilman was not really suited to you,” said Molly, holding back a grin.
“Haha—Rex? He was an idiot. Fun, though. Really knew how to throw a party.”
“And husband number 2?”
“Okay, well, Duane had the soul of a poet, he really did.”
“I bet that got old.”
“In about ten minutes, yeah.”
“So…if you can…tell me what might you be saying about Nico in a few years? What’s the quality that attracts you?”
Frances spoke quietly. “He’s on my side, Molls.”
Molly and Frances looked at each for a long time without saying anything, their eyes getting a little moist.
“That’s pretty much it right there,” Molly said. “So would you stay in Castillac? Please?”
“You know I’m a nomad at heart. But yeah, you managed to find a real gem of a village. I love it here. Even though people do seem to get bumped off at an alarming rate.”
The two friends stopped to pet Bobo on their way inside. Molly stood up and stretched, a little stiff from all the walking of the last few days.
“So…” said Frances, “you don’t say much about you and Ben lately. Like, nary a word.”
Molly bustled inside. “Come on in. I’ll get you that glass of rosé if you still want it. And I found a cheese at the market you’re not going to believe…”
Frances followed, but she noticed, as anyone would have, that Molly was sometimes a lot more enthusiastic about asking questions than she was about answering them.
29
The next morning Molly threw herself into cleaning the house to a standard far higher than usual. She was no slob, and so it was not very grungy before she began. But whenever she felt a certain kind of sadness, housecleaning was what she did.
Frances with a baby. Frances a mother?
By the time the living room, kitchen, and her bedroom were sparkling, the emotion had receded and Molly felt like seeing people—any people, really, just some talking and laughing and connection. Eugenia Perry had taken off to see Château Marainte and she didn’t want to bother Finsterman. For the first time in what felt like a long time, she strolled over to see her neighbor, Madame Sabourin.
But she wasn’t home.
She called Ben and got his voicemail. She sent some emails to friends back home, asking if anyone felt like skyping, but got no answer. What’s an extrovert to do? she wondered with frustration.
Finally she had some lunch and then attacked the garden, accomplishing all kinds of cleanup chores she’s been putting off, plus edging the front border, deadheading the roses, and putting some compost around the peonies. She mowed the grass, front and back of the house.
She lay down for an hour and read a mystery on her tablet, feeling envious at the way the clues all fell into place for the heroine. And then, thinking some more about the Gault case, she shut off her tablet and got up with renewed purpose. I’ll go see Pierre, she thought. See if I can find out for sure whether he knew about his wife’s affair.
It occurred to her that maybe she should take Frances with her, since she planned to ask some difficult questions and who knows how he might respond. He might get angry…or who knows, even violent. He was always so controlled…but what if the dam holding back all those feelings finally broke? She wasn’t sure she wanted to be in the way.
Frances is too much of a wild card. Just her presence will get everything off the subject. I’ll just be careful, and if he starts getting really upset, I’ll leave.
She put on sneakers and set off down rue des Chênes, having given Bobo some stern words about following her.
I’ve got to think through everything logically, and not make any assumptions, she told herself. So let’s see…maybe Pierre did not know what Iris was up to. Maybe he knew but did not care. Seems unlikely, and heaven knows I don’t understand that—but for some people, it just isn’t a big deal, and maybe Pierre is in that group. Maybe he was even having an affair of his own.
When she got to the cemetery, Molly glanced inside, then went through the iron gate with ‘Priez pour vos Morts’ inscribed overhead. It was around dinnertime and no one was there. Passing by the marble headstone for Joséphine Desrosiers, Molly kept going down that row and then turned up the third aisle beyond it where Iris was buried.
“Hello,” Molly said impulsively. She felt foolish talking out loud to a dead person but continued nonetheless. “First of all, I’m really sorry we didn’t have time to get to know each other. I had a feeling that night I met you that we would have been friends, maybe good friends. What happened to you…it was a terrible tragedy. I guess I don’t need to point that out to you. But I mean a tragedy for all the people connected to you and also all the people who hadn’t gotten a chance to know you yet.
“I don’t have any idea why I’m standing here giving a speech in an empty cemetery. It’s just…I guess what I want to say is…that I will do my best to find out who’s responsible. I wish you could give me a little hint. What was it like? Did you see it coming?”
Molly squatted down beside Iris’s grave. It did not have a headstone but instead a glossy flat piece of marble lying on top, almost like the cover of a book. The engraved inscription included only her name and dates, with a small flower underneath. Understated, and quite moving. Given Pierre’s obsession with stone, Molly wondered if he had chiseled the inscription himself. He had seemed so distracted at the funeral, not in a frantic way but placidly so, as though he wasn’t thinking about where he was or why but off on some daydream…but grief can look a lot of different ways, she reminded herself. Maybe he wasn’t bored or thinking about work the way he seemed, but quite the opposite—so gutted he couldn’t express it at all.
Maybe.
Molly gathered up a few pebbles from the path and put them on the edge of the gravestone, as a way to mark her visit, and to show that Iris was not forgotten.
The Gault house was on the edge of the village but on the opposite side from La Baraque, so it took some time to walk there. For once Molly did not notice the golden limestone of the old buildings, the sounds of villagers having quiet dinners, or the worn cobblestones as she walked down alleys. She walked right past the La Perla house which had a clothesline full of freshly washed underthings and didn’t even see it. I
nstead she was thinking hard about everyone related to Iris’s case, and trying to look at them from a different perspective than she had thus far managed to cultivate.
Caroline Dubois. Wild crush on Iris, obviously furious at and envious of Séverin. What’s her romantic history like? Seems wound a little tight. Could she have gotten into a tussle with Iris out of frustration, and pushed her sort of by accident?
Tristan Séverin. Seems like a decent sort, likes kids. Was seeing Iris romantically, but has an alibi. Plus he broke up with Iris, not the other way around.
Pierre.
Pierre.
Who else haven’t we considered? Iris seems to have inspired so much passion—perhaps someone else was obsessed with her, someone who kept his or her feelings secret? Or…could it have been someone more on the fringes of Iris’s life—someone who did some work at their house, for instance, or even someone just passing through? Oh boy, when I get to considering the old murdering-sociopath-just-passing-through-town, I know I’m hitting a brick wall, she thought.
There was always the possibility that Iris hadn’t been pushed at all. Nagrand said he thought she had been, but he couldn’t say absolutely. But Molly wasn’t willing to call it an accident since it felt like taking the easy way out, and could mean a killer would get off free.
It was dusk. Birds were twittering and the air was soft. She got to the Gault’s driveway and walked towards the house, but when she didn’t see Pierre’s truck, she took the gravel path around to the garden. The roses were blooming in wild profusion, some of the flowers as big as bread plates, the reds deep and velvety.
Her rose obsession allowed her to identify a vigorous Étoile de Hollande climbing up a metal rose pillar. Red for love, she thought, cupping a bloom in her hands and leaning down to smell the heady aroma. The garden was starting to show signs of Iris’s absence: weeds were sprouting up in the gravel path as well as the beds, and the whole place had a somber air of neglect. Molly disliked gardens that were too neat, but this wasn’t a splendid messy abundance but instead the slow deterioration of the order Iris had designed for it. It made Molly feel suddenly and overwhelmingly sad, far more than she had in the cemetery.
She wandered along the path in the deepening darkness. How late did Pierre work, anyway? When he worked for her he had always stayed until the last ray of sun disappeared—not exactly rushing home to his beautiful wife, which Molly realized now she’d never given a thought to, but just been glad he was working so hard on her project.
Did Pierre work so much because his home life was unpleasant? Dull? Worse than dull? Or did he work because he loved it, and Iris was happy for him to do so?
So many questions. And the old cliché was true: nobody knows what goes on in a marriage except the people who are in it. And sometimes maybe not even them, she thought.
Molly couldn’t help squatting down and pulling a few weeds out of a border of santolina and lavender that were ruining the pattern. For a few moments she was absorbed in the task, her mind more or less blank.
Then she heard something. Thinking it was Pierre, she stood up and looked around. It was dark. She didn’t see lights from the truck, or anyone walking around the house. Nothing but trees swaying in the light breeze, and a rustling out in the woods that sounded like a squirrel.
Then she heard the noise again. It sounded like the sound of a hand clapping on a body, the sound of someone patting someone on the back with some vigor.
A prickle of fear ran up back of her neck. Was someone watching her from the shadows? And what on earth was he doing to make that sound?
She started walking towards the house while getting out her cell. She stopped to look around, about to call Ben, but instead kept going around the house, where she was surprised to see Pierre’s truck now parked by the back door. She must have been so absorbed in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard it pull into the driveway.
“Pierre?” she called out. There were no lights on in the house. Molly trotted up the steps to the front door and knocked but heard no sound from inside. She waited another few seconds, called again, and then hurried down the driveway and back into the village, feeling thoroughly spooked but also embarrassed since she hadn’t even seen anyone. Why was Pierre’s truck back, but no Pierre? Had he gone inside and wouldn’t answer?
For someone in his predicament, he acted…weird. Molly realized that it made her angry at him—if he was innocent, then stop acting so guilty! Innocent people don’t hide inside with the lights off not answering the door when a friend knocks!
Well, she thought, to be honest I’m not really Pierre’s friend. A client is what I am to him. But still. The insurance money, his demeanor at the funeral and the whole time since the murder, the affair…every bit of circumstantial evidence was stacked against him. Yet because of the way Iris had died, there might never be a way to prove he did it.
She walked past Lapin’s antique/junk shop, and then the lamp shop and Madame Gervais’s house on rue Baudelaire. Oh, how she missed her scooter! Tomorrow morning she would take it to the shop for sure, no more excuses.
It felt like a long, lonely walk back to La Baraque, so she decided to stop by Chez Papa just in case anyone she knew was there. From a few blocks away she could see the twinkling lights Alphonse had strung on the spindly tree outside; the sight gladdened her heart and she broke into a jog to get there as soon as she possibly could.
30
“Molly!” called Nico as she came through the open door.
The usual crowd was there: Lawrence, dressed impeccably, perched on his stool, Negroni in place. Frances sat next to him with a pile of napkins on the bar in front of her, Lapin on her other side with a beer.
“Bonsoir à tous!” she said, trying to sound jolly. The brisk walk had dissipated some of the creepy feeling but she was still a little rattled. “Looks like a full house tonight. What’s the occasion?”
“Don’t know of any,” said Nico.
“Every table in the back room is filled,” said Lawrence. “Here, take my stool. I’d say let’s move to a table but there aren’t any left.”
“I would never steal your throne,” said Molly, grinning. “Nico?”
“On it,” said Nico, picking up the bottle of crème de cassis for Molly’s kir.
She looked around at the crowd and immediately perked up, seeing Caroline Dubois sitting at a table with another woman Molly hadn’t seen before. And farther down the bar, she thought she saw the handyman from the school, though she wasn’t absolutely positive it was him.
“Hey Lapin,” she whispered. “The guy down at the other end of the bar. No, the other end. Do you know him?”
“That’s Hector Peletier,” said Lapin in a loud voice.
“Shh!” hissed Molly. “You didn’t have to announce it to the world!”
Lapin shrugged and drank his beer. “I must say, Molly, summer is my favorite season now that you’ve moved to Castillac.” He ran his eyes up and down her body and waggled his eyebrows.
“Oh, shut up, Lapin,” said Molly, glad that at least she had changed out of the tight camisole she had been wearing earlier, into a loose shirt with no sleeves. “So—and please keep your voice down—what do you know about him?”
“Eh, what do you want to know? He’s a little younger than me so I wasn’t in school with him. He’s got a lot of brothers and sisters. One of them got in some trouble for selling marijuana a few years ago.”
“Who are his friends? Do you know what he does with himself when he’s off work?”
“You’d have to ask him,” said Lapin. “I like it better when you talk about me,” he said under his breath.
Turning to Frances, Molly said “What’s up?”and gave her friend a light poke to get her attention.
“Oh, mon Dieu. Deadline. I need to deliver a jingle in two days and I’m nowhere. Something’s really messing with my mojo. Every time I think I’ve got a good idea, it fizzles up in smoke.”
“Have another drink,” offered Lapi
n.
“I only drink lemonade when I’m working,” she said, without looking up, continuing to doodle on a napkin. Nico reached under the bar for the lemons and started making it for her.
“Want to come over and use my piano?” asked Molly.
“Yeah, sure. But I can’t even get to the stage in the process where I need the piano. I need to have at least the germ of an idea first…”
Molly wanted to ask whether she had decided to marry Nico, but of course that would have to wait until they were alone together. Now that Frances and Nico had gotten serious, Molly saw a lot less of her friend, and there was something quite different about her. Maybe…might it be…happiness?
“Lawrence, you’re awfully quiet.”
“Yes. Well. Just between you and me, my dear…lately I’ve been in rather a slough of despond.”
“Oh my. What’s it about?”
“Oh…I was going to say I don’t know, but in fact, I do. It’s my birthday coming up. I usually don’t give birthdays much of a thought, really. You know—or maybe you’re not quite old enough—at a certain point, they all start to run together, and I swear I have to do the math to figure out how old I am. So I’m a bit surprised it’s hitting me so hard.”
“So how decrepit are you?”
“On the 4th of August I’ll be fifty-seven years old. Fifty seven!”
“One foot in the grave,” said Lapin merrily.
“Shall we have a party?” asked Molly. “Maybe if we embrace it, it won’t sting so much?”
Lawrence’s expression softened. “A party would be lovely, dearest Molly.”
“Disco theme,” piped up Frances.
“Perfect! I bet I can get a glitter-ball from somewhere. And we can get all the music online. Donna Summer, the Bee Gees….”
Lawrence was laughing. “I might have a white suit tucked away somewhere, though it’s more of a loose linen suit, not like Travolta’s…”
“No, loose linen won’t do. Frances will get you outfitted, right?” Frances nodded. “She used to do costumes for all the shows, back in the day. She’s genius at it.”
