The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  We got ready for dinner. As she set the table she said, “I’ll bet you’re thinking about going back to Florida.”

  I was in my tiny kitchen heating up the creamed spinach she’d brought to go with the chicken and bread. My face burned, and I stirred with sudden energy. I didn’t have to talk to her about how I felt. She knew without my saying anything. “Look at it this way,” I said. “In all my years in Luna Beach and Bay City, nobody ever taped my hands behind me. Nobody ever shot another person in the back of the head in my presence.”

  “That’s right.” She came to the kitchen doorway, carrying the chicken in its foil bag. She said, “If you decide not to be ordinary, extraordinary things are more likely to happen to you. Some of them may be hideous. That’s why so few people risk it.”

  Why did she have to be wise, too, on top of everything else? “What time is it? We aren’t missing the news, are we?” I said grumpily.

  In fact, we had almost finished eating before the television news came on at eight. Robbery and murder at the Musée Bellefroide took a back seat to several developments on the international scene, but when it came up they gave it a lot of play. The segment had: the obligatory family snapshot of Pierre Legrand, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and eyebrows, standing with a laughing, dark-haired woman identified by the commentator as his wife; a woodcut of Nostradamus; exterior shots of the Bellefroide, looking tranquil under its chestnut trees; a long excerpt from the press conference, featuring a perspiring Bernard Mallet; a policeman assuring everyone that the police were continuing their investigations; and, finally, me, saying, “I was afraid. It was horrible.”

  Kitty clapped me on the shoulder. “Good show, Georgia Lee. Your accent was perfect.”

  My hair had been sticking out in every direction, the bow on my blouse hanging half-untied. My eyes, which are gray and one of my decent features, had had an unattractive maniacal glint. My accent had been, in my estimation, only fair. “So that’s that,” I said, as the next story unfolded on the screen. “That and the piece in the Herald Tribune tomorrow.”

  Kitty gave me a funny look. “What do you mean, ‘that’s that’?”

  I shrugged. “I mean, that’s that. It’s over, thank heavens. Except I’m sure I’ll have to talk to the police a few more times.”

  “You mean, you’re not going to keep following the story?”

  The thought of staying with it had occurred to me, naturally. I shrugged again, feeling uncomfortable. “Who would I write it for? The Herald Tribune won’t have space for it, day after day.” I was right about that, but I knew it sounded lame. “And besides”— I was groping— “it’s unpleasant, Kitty. Pierre Legrand was killed, in cold blood. I don’t want to revel in it, to keep making hay out of somebody’s death.”

  She got up and started to clear the dishes. “I admire your delicacy, Georgia Lee.”

  What a liar. “Stop ridiculing me.”

  “No, I do. Really.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  She dumped the dishes in the kitchen and came back. “I’m saying, you didn’t kill Pierre Legrand. What good will it do anybody for you to walk away from Nostradamus’s mirror? It’s the story of a lifetime.”

  “Look. The Herald Tribune—”

  She shook her head. “You know I don’t mean doing news reports every day. That’ll be taken care of. I mean keep up with the investigation. Do it in depth, for a magazine. Or you could even do a book. You were there.”

  “Kitty, I’m not now and never have been a police reporter—”

  She put up her hands in an “I surrender” gesture. “Do what you want. I’m just saying, it’s a hell of a story.”

  She retreated into the kitchen and started rattling dishes and running water, leaving me sitting at the table rolling bread crumbs between my finger and thumb.

  Yes, dammit. It was a hell of a story. All my newspapering instincts urged me onward, and yet I’d been badly shaken. I wanted to retreat, to write about next year’s trends in panty hose, or the relative sodium content of the various mineral waters. Who was Kitty to make me feel guilty? The most dangerous thing she ever wrote about was Alpine skiing. Even though it was a good story, and I’d been there, that didn’t make me obligated to stay on it, did it? I wasn’t morally obliged, was I, to—

  The telephone rang and automatically I went to answer it, still chewing over the argument. The voice on the other end spoke in English, with a heavy French accent: “This is Georgia Lee Maxwell?”

  “Yes.”

  “The incident at the Bellefroide today. Bernard Mallet is responsible.” The person speaking, a man I thought, was in the grip of some strong emotion, his voice harshly burdened. The name Bernard Mallet was pronounced with such loathing that I shivered.

  I wish I could report that I said something cleverer than, “What are you talking about? Who are you?” but I can’t.

  “Bernard Mallet is guilty.” The words were like an incantation.

  I grabbed the pen next to the phone pad and started taking notes. “What do you mean? He was tied up with the rest of us.”

  “Pierre Legrand died because of Bernard Mallet.”

  “You’ll have to explain. Who are you?”

  “Bernard Mallet knows who we are. Ask Bernard Mallet.” I heard what sounded like a choked sob.

  “How can I ask, if I don’t know who—”

  “The Speculatori. Ask him how he betrayed us, how he betrayed the mirror of Nostradamus.”

  “The Spec what? I can’t understand you.” His accent was so heavy, he might as well have been speaking French.

  “The Speculatori!” He raised his voice and spoke slightly more distinctly.

  “Well, listen. What do—” Click. He had hung up. I hung up, too, and sat on the bed hugging my elbows.

  Kitty had come out of the kitchen in the middle of all this and was standing there with her eyebrows approaching her hairline. When I repeated the conversation she said, “Some nut case who saw you on the tube and got your number from information?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever it was seemed to believe what he was saying. He was practically crying. It didn’t sound like a joke.”

  “Bernard Mallet is the museum director, right? What about him?”

  I thought. “He’s just a bureaucrat, kind of snooty—” I remembered how he hadn’t wanted to let me in the museum. “Actually, he’s an uptight little jerk.”

  After I told her how he had tried to keep me out she said, “If he knew something was about to happen, he might not have wanted an extra person around. Maybe that’s why he got so upset.”

  “Yeah, but what about Overton? He knew Overton was coming.”

  “Well, without Overton, there would have been no excuse to unlock the storage room.”

  We looked at each other blankly. It didn’t make the slightest bit of sense. “You’re probably right. It was a crazy person who saw Mallet and me on television and worked up a fantasy,” I said at last, wishing I were convinced.

  Kitty nodded. “I’ve always heard things like that happen when there’s a sensational story.” After a pause that vibrated with disbelief she said, “I brought meringues for dessert. Marc-Antoine dropped some by the office.”

  “He’s still trying to woo you back through your sweet tooth?”

  “According to Marc-Antoine, his ability to create the perfect meringue and my ability to appreciate it are all that’s needed for a full relationship.”

  As we stuffed ourselves, I was thinking. My caller had said Bernard Mallet was guilty, and he’d said it with conviction. Had Mallet’s behavior in trying to keep me out of the Bellefroide been extreme? Or had it been, as I’d thought at the time, the pathological insistence on following protocol that was typical of any French bureaucracy? I tried to fight it, but I found myself wanting to know the answer.

  Kitty said, “Speculatori. Like speculate?”

  “Or speculum.”

  “Speculum? Isn’t that the thing the gynecol
ogist—”

  “Yes, it is. But doesn’t it have something to do with mirrors? I’d swear it does.”

  “I don’t know. You could look it up in the unabridged tomorrow.”

  “I will. I’m going to do something else, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m going to ask Bernard Mallet.”

  She smiled. I smiled. I was on the story.

  A Talk with Mallet

  Bernard Mallet and I sat facing each other across his desk. His office was small but well appointed, with Japanese prints, a wall of built-in bookcases, an Oriental rug. Behind him, windows overlooked the Bellefroide garden.

  Mallet, I surmised, had had a bad night. His skin was yellowish, and his glasses magnified the bruise-colored circles under his eyes. He looked at me from under his tumble of curls like a scared animal peering from beneath a bush.

  Still, he was doing his best to be rude. He spoke with exaggerated slowness, as if he thought me deficient not only in French but in intelligence, too. He received the news that I intended to keep working on the story with a further thinning of lips already pressed together. Then I mentioned the Speculatori.

  He tensed. He said, “How do you know of them?”

  “I got a call from one of them last night.”

  He seemed to be trying to smile scornfully while I recounted the conversation, but his mouth kept twisting into some other expression. When I finished, he said, “Naturally, they wouldn’t ignore this opportunity to taunt me.”

  “Who are they?”

  He didn’t answer. Through the window I could see sun sifting through golden leaves, white stone urns trailing ivy, gravel walks, a wall with green treillage. At last he said, “You have told the police?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?” he flung out bitterly. “They will surely want to know that I have been the… the mastermind, the one responsible for the crime?”

  I was wilting under his challenge. This was a lot harder than asking for a list of the sponsors of a charity cotillion. I had marched in and repeated an accusation that Mallet was guilty of the death of Pierre Legrand. I couldn’t expect him to like it. “I wanted to see what you had to say about it first,” I said, preventing myself, with some difficulty, from begging his pardon.

  He sat back in his chair. “What do I have to say? I will not dignify such charges with any comment.”

  Well. I may be a softhearted former society columnist, but I’m not a marshmallow. “Monsieur Mallet, the call I got was unexpected, but I consider it my duty as a journalist to follow it up,” I said as sweetly as I could. “If you won’t talk with me, I’ll have to ask others.”

  Faced with that one, few people will refuse to have their say, and Mallet wasn’t one of the few. He twitched and said, “Why should I be at the mercy of those lunatics?”

  We were over the hurdle. “What lunatics?”

  “The so-called Speculatori.”

  “Who are they?”

  He gave an exasperated sigh. “A group of misfits who imagine themselves to be psychics, seers, I don’t know what. The very simple story is this: They wanted the mirror, which they devoutly believe, upon no factual basis whatsoever, to have belonged to Nostradamus and therefore to be a sacred object. I refused to give it to them, loan it to them, or sell it to them. Consequently, they detest me.”

  I wasn’t sure I’d understood. “You mean, they wanted the mirror, yet they’re accusing you—”

  “Ironic, isn’t it? They are themselves by far the most likely suspects. And, before you ask, yes, I have informed the police.”

  “But what basis would they have for saying you’re responsible?”

  “To divert suspicion from themselves, perhaps. Or to create trouble for me, which seems to be one of their major interests. I don’t know.”

  “But if they weren’t the thieves, would they think the mirror was stolen because you weren’t taking good care of it, or something?”

  His narrow face flushed. He said, vehemently, “In the Musée Bellefroide, we have silver terrines that once stood on the tables of the Russian imperial court. We have a collection of exquisitely crafted gold caskets decorated with pearls and gemstones. We have Ming vases, candelabra by Francois-Thomas Germain, Savonnerie carpets. All these precious things are under my care. All of them.”

  “I just meant—”

  “If thieves and murderers choose to attack the Bellefroide, and if they choose to steal the least interesting, the least valuable, item in the collection, how am I to be prepared for that? Do you have an answer?”

  By this time, he was red down into his collar, and the cords in his neck were sticking out. His stewardship of the Bellefroide collection must be his sore spot. I backed off. “When did the Speculatori first approach you about the mirror?”

  “The first time was a year or more ago. They continued to contact me over a period of about six months, until I told them categorically that they were wasting their time and mine, and we would have no further discussion.”

  A thought had struck me. “The mirror was kept in storage, and wasn’t displayed. You say it doesn’t have much artistic value.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, then. Why not sell it to the Speculatori? I mean, if they thought it was sacred, and really prized it—”

  I’d done it again. He drew himself up, looking terribly insulted. “Even if I had so little personal concern for the integrity of the Bellefroide collection, I would be forbidden to do such a thing by the terms of the trust that created the museum. The Bellefroide collection must be kept intact. If it is not, the museum will be dissolved.”

  Which seemed, I had to admit, a good enough reason to hold on to the mirror.

  Mallet stirred restlessly. He was obviously sick of me, and I felt the same about him. “Just one more thing,” I said, and watched his eyes roll upward. “Could you tell me how to contact the Speculatori? Give me the name of the person you dealt with?”

  He stared for a moment in apparent disbelief before bursting out, “Surely you’re asking too much, Madame! It isn’t enough that I answer your questions about people who have cursed me, accused me baselessly. Now you want me to furnish their names and addresses, so you can go to them for more false accusations!”

  Fine, fine. I moved to go. If he wouldn’t tell me specifics, I’d find out about the Speculatori somewhere else. As I was about to get up, he took off his glasses and pressed his hands to his eyes. His fingernails were raggedly chewed, and his hands were as small as a child’s. Abruptly and unexpectedly, I felt sorry for him. “Never mind,” he said in a tired voice. “Ask my secretary. She will give you their names, addresses, whatever you want.”

  Intentionally or not, he’d managed to leave me feeling ashamed of myself. I thanked him hurriedly and headed for the door. He didn’t get up to usher me out. When I had my hand on the knob he said, “I presume you feel it is necessary to do this?”

  I wondered if I really did. Where had last night’s resolve gone? “Yes,” I said.

  “It could be dangerous. You’ve thought of that? Those people yesterday— they killed senselessly.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said. It would have sounded more convincing if my voice hadn’t cracked. I left him staring down at his desk, his eyes red.

  Chantal

  Mallet’s secretary gave me a contact for the Speculatori: Bruno Blanc, with an address on the Rue Jacob. I left the museum and wandered across the street to the Ranelagh Garden. Small children, carefully tended by mothers, nannies, or au pairs, shrieked and played, rode the shaggy ponies being led over fallen leaves on the wide paths, or waited a turn at the old-fashioned merry-go-round. It all seemed normal, healthy, vibrant, and completely strange. That I should be here at all, walking through autumn leaves in a Paris park, was strange. I had wanted to expand my world. I hadn’t wanted to have it wrenched wide open so that murder, anonymous accusations, and warnings of danger could flood in, too.

&
nbsp; Feeling unsettled, I sat down on a slatted bench of dark green wood. My story had run in the Herald Tribune that morning— front page, below the fold. Seeing the words in print had helped compartmentalize the experience in a way, and distance me from it. At least I’d gotten something out of it I could be proud of.

  I guessed I should try to call Bruno Blanc, of the Speculatori, but I didn’t feel ready. The secretary hadn’t given me his number anyway, only an address. I thought I’d go there first, see what the place was like.

  Idly, I watched the playing children. They were adorable, in their brown high-topped shoes and knitted caps. Maybe I should’ve had a couple of my own, stayed married to Lonnie Boyette, made the best of it. Or, if things had been different with Ray… .

  I said, “Ha!” angrily, got up, and went to look for a phone booth so I could call Kitty and see what was happening at the office.

  When I got her, she said, “Whoops. You just missed Jack. He had something to tell you.”

  I hung on while she went down the hall to Worldwide Wire Service to get him. Jack had lived in Paris twenty years. As Worldwide’s bureau chief, he heard everything. Because he had a certain sloppy, nicotine-scented charm, I had made it my business to find out his marital status, which was: married. I suspected there had been something between him and Kitty at one time, though. He had finagled the office for her at a rent so cheap that it must have been done in the heat of passion.

  He came on and said, “Nice piece in the Herald Tribune this morning.”

  I felt a rush of pleasure, coupled with a need to belittle myself. “Thanks. I’m glad you liked it. I don’t think it’ll win any Pulitzers, though.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed. I kicked myself for not leaving well enough alone as he continued. “I was looking for you. Chantal Legrand, the widow of the murdered guard, has agreed to come out of seclusion and meet with the press. I thought you’d want to go.”