by Gerald Jay
Reiner opened the front door and fumbled for the light switch.
“This is great,” she said. It was surprisingly cool inside, comfortable, but sort of musty like a wine cellar.
“It’ll do. It’s fine for a short stay.”
“Mind if I open a window?”
“Unfortunately there are no screens. If you like, later we can shut off the lights and open the windows.”
The furniture was minimal, but there were two fireplaces and the space was roomy enough even for an artist. Besides, how much furniture does one person need? Molly often thought that she could do with fewer chairs, tables, and boring junk in order to make more room for her books.
“How about something to drink?” he offered.
“Lovely.”
Molly was admiring the wildflowers and candles on the dining room table when she heard the shot from the kitchen. Before she’d time to find out what had happened, Pierre was back with two wineglasses and a bottle of champagne. He poured them each a glass.
“Amor y pesetas”—lifting his glass in a toast—“y tiempo para gastarlas.”
“I’ll drink to that—whatever it is.”
The bubbly white was cold, crisp, silky-smooth, and delicious. The gold label said Louis Roederer, Brut Premier.
“Hmm, not bad!”
“Good?”
She laughed as he refilled her glass. Molly was losing some of the edginess that she’d felt on seeing him again. There was something unpredictable about Pierre that she found intriguing, but it made her a little nervous. She asked what had been in the empty case on the wall.
“Guns, I suppose,” he replied after a pause, suggesting whatever it was he couldn’t care less.
Molly pointed her glass at the framed reproduction over the fireplace. “What about Turner? Does he interest you?”
Reiner sipped his wine and reserved comment.
“I once studied that painting in a course on nineteenth-century British art.”
“There is no nineteenth-century British art.”
How typically French, Molly thought. And he wasn’t joking either because he didn’t joke. Pierre had a casual way of making sweeping categorical statements that took her breath away. She asked him: What about Blake, Constable, George Stubbs?
He brushed them away like gnats.
“What about Angelica Kauffmann?” she demanded heatedly, burying the sudden thought that Kauffmann might have been born in Germany or Switzerland, but this was no time for full disclosure.
“Never heard of her.”
“Well, you should have. She’s not bad. But then you don’t even seem to care for Turner.”
“That’s right. Why should I? I don’t do seascapes and don’t like them.”
“What sort of art do you do?”
He looked at her as if surprised by her question, though Molly felt he was pleased that she’d asked.
“I do faces.”
“That sounds interesting.” Not having glimpsed any sign of his paints or canvases, she was genuinely curious. “I’d love to see your work, Pierre. Do you have anything that you’ve done here?”
“Have you forgotten? This is my vacation,” he reminded her, refilling her glass.
The third glass of champagne tasted even better than the first two. Molly walked over to the fireplace. “Do you know what it’s called?”
He glanced up at the small tilted ship with no sails, its masts like twigs, in a storm-tossed, white-capped, churning sea.
“I have no idea.”
“The Slave Ship.”
She told him that Turner had read an article about a slave ship on which an epidemic had broken out and the captain, who was insured against the loss of slaves at sea, but not by disease, dumped his human cargo over the side. Molly found the cruel things that people did to one another in this life almost beyond belief. “Isn’t that awful?”
“No, not really. The captain was a businessman. A smart, practical shipowner with an investment to protect. Not some idealistic Pollyanna. He wasn’t out there in the middle of the screaming ocean risking his ass for nothing. It makes perfect sense to me.”
Molly set her glass carefully on the mantelpiece. Placing her hands on her hips, she glanced down and shook her head in wonder, not knowing what to make of him.
“You’re kidding. You’ve just got to be kidding.”
Reiner could resist her no longer. The tight black dress, the red hair, the bright mocking eyes. He reached out, put his arm around her waist.
“What’s the matter? You’re shivering.”
“It’s cooler in here than I thought.” She looked up. “What was that?”
He’d heard it too. A loud, crashing sound outside, as if a large tree limb had fallen close to the house. Jumping up, Reiner went over to the dirt-streaked window and looked out.
“Probably a deer. They’re all over this place in the early evening. Hunting for food, I imagine.”
“Which reminds me,” Molly said, giving him an easy champagne smile, “what’s for dinner? I’ve worked up an appetite.”
“Good. Come on.”
Dinner, he promised, would be a revelation. Simple, delectable, and a meal that she would never forget. The main course a local favorite, omelette aux cèpes, which he could throw together in no time. The secret, he revealed, was in the mushrooms. Admiring them as he took each one from the basket and cleaned it, deftly cutting the heads from the stems and slicing them into thin strips. Then when the oil in the pan was hot, he tossed in the mushrooms and, as soon as they took on a light golden hue, lowered the flame and covered the pan. Molly was impressed. It was obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing.
“Now they have to cook very slowly for a while. That’s another secret. Would you like a salad?”
“Okay, but let me help. I’m to salads what Verdi is to opera.”
He handed her the endives, the grater, the Roquefort. “It’s all yours. I’m going out to get some wood for the fireplace. Like some music?”
He turned on the radio, revving up the volume so that the pulsing rock beat filled every corner of the kitchen.
“Je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime,
Oh! Ma tendre blessure—”
As Reiner slipped out of the house, the back door closed on Johnny Hallyday, muting the old heartthrob’s yearning, lovesick voice. The light from the kitchen windows spilled onto the woodpile in the backyard. Reiner had thought there was an ax nearby, but all he could find was a heavy shovel. When he lifted it up, an army of ants underneath the blade—hundreds of them—went scurrying for their lives in all directions.
Hidden in the tall grass at the front of the house, Duboit rubbed his leg where he’d injured it tripping over the fallen tree limb. It was scraped but not bleeding—at least not very much. The music from inside the house sounded like they were having a good time. One of Johnny’s golden oldies from the seventies. He hadn’t heard it in years. Why the hell was he here anyhow watching her getting it on with lover boy when the case was over? The only one who didn’t seem to know it was the patron. Duboit wondered what the real reason was that he was so interested in this young woman. Maybe he had the hots for her himself. His boss liked them young and tender. When they looked like that, how could you blame him?
These days the patron had him working more hours than even the uniforms had to put in. His kids had begged him to take them fishing on the river this weekend, and the best he could do for them was a maybe. Of course Babette didn’t like it either. If not for Monsieur Mustache—the old hard-ass—he’d be home in bed with her right now, getting his balls rubbed.
The very thought of his adoring chouchoute sent flutters of delight rippling over his hairy back, his aching thighs, and he was thinking of getting the hell out of there when Reiner came up from behind and smashed him over the head with the shovel, a crushing blow. Duboit rolled over onto his stomach, his legs thrashing about in the grass as he tried helplessly to get up, the toes of his shoes stitchi
ng the ground. Reiner hit him again and again in rapid succession, and only ceased hitting him when his arms grew weary and he noticed that the meddler had stopped moving.
Rummaging through his pockets, Reiner quickly found his identification. A cop, just as he thought. He grabbed the stiff’s legs and dragged him back to the woodpile, where he was less likely to be seen, and then hid the bloody shovel under some bushes. Nobody was paying Reiner for this one. It was simply another freebie to cover his ass, but he’d no intention of making a habit of it. Reiner had to admit that there was a certain pleasure in this kind of killing—the rather crude, intimate physicality of it was so different from the cool, calculated, somewhat distant way he’d usually handled these matters before coming here. He hoped that it wasn’t becoming addictive. You start to give away what you’ve been selling and it’s hard for customers to tell the difference between a successful businessman and a psychopath.
Mazarelle spotted Bernard’s car parked on the shoulder of the road a short distance beyond the turnoff to L’Ermitage. He pulled up behind it and got out. The car was empty. On the backseat he found Bernard’s mobile and put in a hurried call to Bandu. He didn’t like talking to an answering machine but briefly described where he was, told Bandu to come as soon as he got his message and bring along as many of their men as he could get hold of at that hour. The guy they were after was the German serial killer Dieter Koenig. He was armed and dangerous. Very! Watch your step, he warned him, and clicked off. The inspector felt about as confident that Bandu would get his message as if he’d thrown it into the sea in a bottle.
Mazarelle limped up the steep dirt road as quickly as he could, trying to keep down the noise of his heavy breathing. The roar in his ears sounded like the steady pulse of a pile driver repeating the name Koenig, Koenig. It was Dieter Koenig who was the Café Valon stranger, Koenig the killer who’d gone next door to murder Mademoiselle Reece’s parents and their friends. And now she was inside there alone with a homicidal maniac. Where the hell was Bernard, who was supposed to be on duty protecting her?
At the top of the hill, he noticed lights coming from within the house. A few shutters at the back were open now. He made his way cautiously to the rear of the house and could see Molly moving about in the lit kitchen and hear the music. Sensing something behind him, he wheeled around. Was that someone in back of the woodpile watching him?
“Bernard?” he called in a smoker’s whisper. “Bernard?”
Keeping away from the light, Mazarelle rushed across, hoping to find out from the young cop what was going on inside. But it wasn’t Bernard at all. Only what was left of him. The poor bastard stared up at his boss accusingly through sightless eyes, his head, his face covered with blood. The inspector searched frantically to find a pulse in his neck, but there was nothing.
“Bernard!” His voice trembled—a choked, aching, broken staccato sound. He took Doobie in his arms. Wiping the ants, the blood from his face, he closed Duboit’s eyes and brushed the wet, bloody hair from his forehead.
“Bernard!” he gasped. Poor Doobie had had no idea what he’d been up against. Mazarelle blamed himself for that. If only he’d been able to reach him in time.
Reiner came back with an armful of logs and soon had a fire going. Turning off the radio, he complimented Molly as she put the finishing touches on her work, sprinkling the two salads with a flurry of dried parsley. She mentioned that he needed a new calendar. There was a problem with the one he had hanging behind the door advertising the local branch of Crédit Agricole—its safe deposit boxes and ATM machine open twenty-four hours a day.
Reiner seemed puzzled.
“It’s last year’s.”
“Hmm … You’re right. Blame the rental company.” First it was the missing guns and now this. She was, he thought, a little too observant for her own good. He lifted the cover on the pan. “They look almost ready.”
“They smell wonderful.” There was a loud scratching noise coming from upstairs. It was the third time that she’d heard it. “What is that?”
“Owls.”
“Really?”
“They have a nest up on the roof in the cupola. If you like I’ll show it to you after dinner.”
“Yes, I’d like to see that. Incidentally, in addition to your owls, do you happen to have a bathroom?”
“On the first floor. Turn right at the top of the stairs. But don’t be long. We’re getting close.”
As she went up the stairs, she paused at the high landing and looked down. The angle was like a Hitchcock scene, she thought, watching Pierre expertly cracking each egg and, parting the shell with one hand, dropping its sunburst yolk and viscous white into a blue bowl. He was so intent on what he was doing it might have been brain surgery. She enjoyed the serious look on his face, even though it was only eggs.
Molly put on the bathroom light and shut the door. The old-fashioned bathroom had a tub with clawed feet, a toilet with a water tank on the wall that depended on gravity to work, and toilet paper that required a case-hardened backside. It felt to her like sandpaper. There was no soap anywhere, nothing in the medicine chest except a bent bobby pin.
Before going back downstairs, she walked over to the window at the end of the hallway. The big house next door was dark, but seeing its pointed tower outlined against the early evening sky, Molly suddenly realized that it had to be L’Ermitage. And so very close! Her legs shook and she leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. She hadn’t fully grasped how near Pierre had been to her parents on that terrifying night. She walked back down the long, empty hallway and for the first time noticed that all the doors were closed. It had the feeling of an off-season hotel but to Molly’s alcohol-drenched imagination it might have been Bluebeard’s castle. If asked what was behind each door, would Pierre call them private places not to be violated by others? Anxiously, she opened the nearest door—half expecting a bloody torture chamber or the bodies of his murdered wives—and turned on the light.
Much to her astonishment, it was almost bare. She tried the next room. There was hardly anything in that one either. Both of them spartan rooms with uncovered mattresses and pillows, but it was obvious that Pierre was using the second one because his sunglasses and shoulder bag were on the bureau. Molly opened the top drawer. It was empty. In fact all the drawers were empty. Not knowing what to make of it, she hesitated for a second and then—like any Eve or Pandora—opened his bag.
There was a black shirt, a parka, some papers, a black baseball cap with a sapphire-blue griffin on the front, and something heavy and bulky wrapped in a chamois cloth. Opening it, she found his black Ruger. Alarmed, Molly hurriedly wrapped up the gun and put it back. Next to it was Pierre’s French passport. The unsmiling picture made him look older but it was the directness of his gaze that was unmistakably Pierre. The bag also held three more passports from Germany, Spain, and Poland. Though the names were all different—Klaus Reiner, Max Kämpe, and Zbigniew Wilozinski—the pictures, except for the hair and Wilozinski’s beard, were all, astonishingly, Pierre.
Molly knew in an instant that she was in over her head. Trapped and defenseless in this isolated house with an armed and possibly dangerous man who was no vacationing artist from Alsace. Who was this Pierre Barmeyer? Whatever reason he might have for owning a gun, what innocent explanation could there possibly be for all these forged passports? Why hadn’t she been smart enough to come here in her own car? And why didn’t she have a usable cell phone with her instead of a useless tape recorder? Quickly she threw the passports back in his bag, closed it, and turned to see Pierre standing in the doorway.
“So there you are. What are you doing in here?”
How long had he been there? Molly felt as if all the champagne in her blood had turned to water.
“Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
“Is dinner ready?” Switching off the light, she closed the door, slipped past him, and, eager to go downstairs, headed for the staircase. “I’m starved.”
> “Hold on—as long as I’m up here, let me show you the nest.”
“Now?” She’d be damned if she would. The thought of crawling around on the roof in the dark with Pierre Barmeyer, or whatever his name was, no longer seemed quite so appealing to Molly.
“What about dinner?”
“It can wait. I turned off the flame on the mushrooms.”
Reiner had everything ready, the eggs beaten to a froth, the mushrooms golden brown—half of them covered in the pan and half mixed with minced garlic and placed on two plates, but just one had the pulverized death cap buried beneath the cèpes. Only the guest of honor was missing and, lo and behold, where should he find her but upstairs, snooping into his personal things. He felt angry enough to entertain a more hands-on exit for mademoiselle.
“Come on. This way,” he said, urging her toward a doorway at the other end of the hall. He held open the door for her. “It’ll only take a minute. I think you’ll like it. Go on up,” he invited, turning on the upstairs light.
Molly eyed the narrow, steep staircase that appeared to lead to an attic. There was a landing at the top of the stairs and a large window. With Pierre behind her, how could she back out now? Molly started up the creaky steps. At the landing, Pierre pushed past her and threw the window wide open.
“Look at that, Molly.”
The window gave onto a breathtaking view, overlooking the low-pitched, red-tile roof that extended across the entire house. To Molly the roof seemed almost as long as a tennis court.
“Here,” Pierre said, taking her arm. “Just step out onto the roof. I’ll help you.”
“You go. I’ll watch.”
He appeared to be annoyed at her change of heart.
“No.” Molly shook her head emphatically. “I don’t think so.”
“I thought you wanted to see the baby owls. Isn’t that what you said?”
Molly glanced out the window and hesitated. That was what she’d said, all right, and what he’d promised to show her. The fact that he’d left his gun downstairs was a definite plus. Perhaps there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the different passports and gun in his bag. And, after all, he had saved her life. But there was no way she was going to go out on that roof with him. She’d lost her taste for ornithology.
