“Quite the shock,” Graham imagined. “What happened?”
“She was screaming the place down!” Mrs. Taylor informed him. “Completely lost her mind. Tearing around the hallways, yelling for her brother, for her parents, kept saying, ‘Not again, not again.’ I really didn’t know what to make of it. We got her back into her room, and one of the staff is sitting with her now.”
With a heavy sigh, Graham made a note of the room number and headed upstairs. Harding joined him after checking the Inn’s register.
“Once we’ve calmed Eleanor down,” Harding told him as they climbed the stairs, “we’ve got Juliette, the victim’s first wife, his new sister-in-law as it were, to deal with.” She shook her head in wonderment.
“Oh,” Graham said, simply. Would this day ever end?
Janice did the knocking. Eleanor’s room was three doors down from the Jouberts' own suite, but apparently she had slept through alarms, nearby police visits, and the reports of tragedy on her phone. She had essentially received this avalanche of news and sympathy in the seconds after waking up with a ferocious hangover.
“Police?” Eleanor appeared to cling to the doorframe.
“May we come in, Ms. Ross?” Harding asked her gently. Graham was relieved to see that the emotional maelstrom described by Mrs. Taylor had passed for the moment.
Eleanor opened the door wide to let them in. Polly, one of the breakfast waitresses, who had been sitting with Eleanor, now slipped quietly past her, looking greatly relieved.
“Inspector,” she acknowledged as she passed into the hotel corridor.
“Polly,” he responded with a nod.
When she had gone, Harding and Graham went into Eleanor’s room and cast a better look at their victim’s sister.
“I’m just... This is all just too much right now,” she said, on the edge of tears. Eleanor Ross looked pretty awful, Graham saw, bleary-eyed and fair hair askew, the very picture of a hung over woman in her late twenties who didn’t party very often and was suffering the consequences.
“It’s a very difficult time, Ms. Ross. We don’t want to make things any harder.”
“Do you know what happened to him?” she said, slumping down onto the bed. She’d thrown on some jeans and a t-shirt, but she still looked thoroughly crumpled.
“He fell,” Graham said, trying to find the gentlest explanation, “from one of the battlements at the castle. We really aren’t certain yet as to the circumstances.”
“Fell?” she repeated. “George?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Eleanor pursed her lips, holding back her emotions rather better than she had an hour earlier. “Did he… Did he jump?”
Harding handled this. “There’s no evidence of that.”
“An accident, then?” she tried next. “Maybe he slipped and…”
“We really can’t say that, either,” Harding told her.
Now Eleanor looked at them both, fixing them with eyes that were dulled of all sparkle. “Pushed?” she brought herself to say. “Someone pushed George off the…”
“Again,” Graham interrupted, his hands raised to stymie this train of thought before it could proceed, “we have no evidence. No one saw the incident occur. I was there but found him after he had fallen.”
“You did?” Eleanor said, latching onto this fact. “Did he say anything?”
Graham shook his head. “I’m afraid not. His injuries were very serious.”
“But he was alive?” It seemed particularly important that Eleanor understand these details, though Harding couldn’t help finding her curiosity a little strange. Even slightly morbid. But Janice also knew that there is no guidebook for grief.
“He had no pulse,” Graham related, “and he wasn’t breathing. Like I say, he’d fallen from a considerable height and was badly injured. There was nothing anyone could have done,” Graham assured her.
Eleanor sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumped, pinching the bridge of her nose as if fighting both the grief of the moment and a savage headache. “Poor boy,” she said, more than once, closing her eyes. “Poor, poor boy. He overcame so much... Did so well for himself. He practically raised his daughter alone, you know, with Juliette off doing her own thing,” she said, her feelings about her sister-in-law immediately apparent. “He was a hero too, you know. Saved some French kids from drowning.”
Then the questions returned. It seemed that Eleanor simply had to understand this tragedy before she could begin to accept it. “What time did he fall?”
Graham checked his notebook, “It’s difficult to say precisely.” He felt it important to add, “But I found him shortly after eight-thirty this morning.”
She considered this, looked at her watch. “I think I know what happened.”
Harding and Graham exchanged a glance, both of them desperate for some movement in this fraught and awkward case. “Go on, Ms. Ross,” Graham told her.
She sat up straight and took a deep breath. “You know that this was George’s second marriage, right?”
“Yes,” Harding acknowledged. “He was married to Marie’s sister.”
“And how do you think,” Eleanor said testily, “that his druggy, ne'er-do-well ex-wife felt about that?”
Graham’s eyebrow raised. “Well, you know her better than we do, Ms. Ross.”
“She overreacts to things,” Eleanor explained. “She can be as cool as a cucumber for ages, then she suddenly goes off the deep end for no reason. I mean, neither of the Joubert daughters are particularly stable, but Juliette was always someone about whom you wonder… you know, not if something bad is going to happen, but when. Constantly treading on eggshells, George was, both before and after their divorce.”
Harding handled the question. “And you believe she might have had something to do with George’s death?”
The word, death, incontrovertible and so shockingly final, stabbed at Eleanor. She took a moment to collect her emotions once more. Harding reproached herself. Perhaps next time she’d choose a euphemism. Demise might have been better, she reasoned. Or even just accident.
“She certainly didn’t like the idea of George marrying Marie. Even though it was her who left him. I’m not certain, of course, but if I were investigating, I’d want to have a serious word with her.” Eleanor told them, some aggression now creeping into her tone.
“Ms. Ross,” Graham said sternly, “I urge you not to make a bad situation worse.”
“No, no.” Eleanor said as she stood. “I understand. I’m not a violent person, mister, erm…”
“Detective Inspector Graham,” he reminded her.
“Right. Juliette has nothing to fear from me.” Then she added, “Perhaps from the law, but not from me.”
Sergeant Harding didn’t care for Eleanor’s attitude, either. She tried to regard her kindly, but there was now an air of revenge about her, as if she had decided for herself what kind of disaster had befallen her brother and who had caused it.
Harding noticed that Eleanor’s fists were balled tightly and touched Graham’s shoulder to get his attention.
“If you’d rather,” Graham said to the grieving sister, his tone even, “take a break, gather your thoughts, and get something to eat…
“You need my help,” Eleanor insisted, “I know the people involved. Juliette, her meddling parents. Even that Marie. None of them are in their right minds, you know.”
Graham could see that Eleanor was quickly cycling through the emotions of grief, jealousy, and anger. All were interspaced with moments of calm and lucidity, a common reaction to unbearable news.
“Is that so?”
“Juliette’s nasty, spiteful. And Marie’s crazy!” Eleanor said, suddenly rising and stomping around the room. “Certifiable,” she underlined. “She’s depressed one day and on cloud nine the next. She treated George like a leper, then like a saint, then like someone she couldn’t stand, then,” she said, spittle flying as she raged, “like someone she couldn’t live wit
hout.”
“Please, Ms. Ross,” Graham tried.
“You’ve got to listen. They all drove him to it. Or they did it themselves. That family is poisonous.” Barely pausing for breath, Eleanor now seemed content to let her every thought tumble out, as though her brother’s death had broken a dam and unleashed a torrent. Which, of course, it had….
“And it’s not just this, the two weddings, the weird relationships with the sisters. It’s the old stuff. With our parents. Back in France.” Now she paused for a second, but neither police officer seemed to acknowledge her point. “You must have heard about that,” she whined. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”
Graham was caught between two competing needs. He had to try to keep Eleanor calm. At the same time, he was desperate for the effusive, unwittingly helpful Eleanor to simply keep talking.
“The accident at the farmhouse, you mean?” Graham said, motioning for Eleanor to sit back down on the bed. He’d have given anything to beam them all to the station, but this wasn’t the time.
Eleanor ignored his gesture and paced the room. “That’s one word for it,” she said. “It’s always been incredibly hard for me to believe that my father would have done something like that.”
“And the Jouberts?” Harding prompted. With witnesses like this, the young sergeant was learning, it was often sufficient just to toss in the occasional encouraging prompt, rather than more direct questions that would only break up the flow of the testimony. She thought of it as adding a squirt of lubricant, so that the mechanisms would keep turning smoothly. So it was with Eleanor.
“He’s a prig with a chip on his shoulder, despite his affectations,” she told them. “And she’s this weird, controlling, mother-hen figure,” she added with a curious, distorted flapping-wings gesture.
Graham was noting this down with speed and precision. “But they never displayed any open hostility toward George?”
Another angry shrug. “Only on a daily basis,” Eleanor grumbled. “You know how some parents are. ‘Zer’s not a man in ze world who’s good enough for my leetle girl,’ all of that nonsense. Him, especially. As though his daughters were the finest catches in all of France.”
Eleanor sat now, palm to her forehead. Neither Harding nor Graham saw any theater in it. The woman was clearly suffering, and the pounding Champagne headache could not, they judged, have been helping her state of mind.
“I’ll fetch you some water,” Harding offered. “Maybe some painkillers.”
Janice fished out a tablet from a stash in her bag and brought a glass of water from the hotel room bathroom to Eleanor who, with this kindness, seemed to drop down a couple of gears, her shoulders sagging. She was exhausted, Graham could see, and now she simply needed time, both to process this tragedy and to shake off the effects of the alcohol. “Yeah,” she said, her tone low. “Thanks.”
“We’ll speak with Juliette and perhaps check in with you later,” Graham said gently. “If there’s anything you need….”
The two officers made to go, but Graham felt a hand on his arm. Eleanor looked up at him with the saddest eyes imaginable. “Look… I’m sorry. It’s all too much.”
“I do understand,” Graham said with sincerity. “Believe me.”
“Whatever happened, I know that George didn’t kill himself,” she said, face furrowed and eyes beginning to tear over. “He wouldn’t. Not him. He knew what it would do to… you know… the people left behind.”
Graham nodded. “We’ll do everything we can.” Eleanor returned to staring at the floor, holding her aching temples, while Graham and Harding took their leave, closing the door quietly behind them.
The two officers collected themselves outside Juliette’s room. Graham readied a new page in his notebook, but they resisted the temptation to indulge in a discussion of the situation in such a public place.
“And now,” he said with a funny smile, “for something completely different.”
Harding remained deadpan.
“Monty Python?” Graham asked, incredulous. “Please don’t tell me seventies comedy completely passed you by.”
“Not my thing, sir,” Harding replied.
Graham tutted quietly. “My dear sergeant. You simply haven’t lived.” He wrote a few words in his notebook.
“Now for Juliette.”
“Juliette, sir.”
He raised his hand to knock, but his phone buzzed. “Hang on. This might be Tomlinson again.”
But it was Graham’s contact in the French police. Their conversation was a little longer this time, and Graham’s face was a picture of intense curiosity. “Thank you, Monsieur,” he said, “Most interesting.”
Graham took Harding a few doors down the hallway and spoke quietly to her. “Remember the business with George’s parents, over in France?”
Harding nodded. “Did ‘Poirot’ have something else for us?”
“No kidding,” Graham replied. “Guess – I’m serious, just guess – who owned the farm right next door to the one where the Ross parents were found dead?”
Harding blinked. “No way.”
“Way,” Graham assured her.
“The Jouberts?” she asked. “How about that?”
“How, indeed,” Graham replied. “That must be how George and the two sisters first met.”
Harding brought out her tablet and with the information Graham gave her, produced a map of the farms. “Right next door. You’d actually have to walk or drive through their property,” Harding noted, tracing the map with her fingertip, “to get to the main road. The two families must have been very close.”
“Especially as the Ross clan were there most every summer, so Poirot said.”
Harding chewed this over. “What did he say about the evidence?”
“That’s where things get murky,” Graham replied. “Ross senior’s fingerprints were on the gun. Once the murder-suicide theory became the dominant idea, they didn’t really look for any other explanation. Interviewed everyone in the area, apparently, then called it what they called it and closed the book.”
“But your Poirot doesn’t buy the theory?” Harding speculated.
“He’s on the fence. Said it just didn’t smell right. Bereaved families say this kind of thing as a matter of course, but it seems they truly were a happy couple, adored George and his little sister Eleanor, loved the French countryside, were financially stable, all the rest of it.”
“There was one more thing,” Graham added. “The esteemed Monsieur Joubert has a checkered past.”
“Oh?”
“He was involved in some kind of incident with a former business associate.”
“Interesting.”
“He was implicated but never charged in the stabbing of said business associate.”
Harding made a note. “Sounds like Antoine has a temper. Hope it doesn’t run in families, or this is going to be another bloody awkward interview.”
Graham nodded, pulled himself up tall as he often did when approaching a potentially awkward situation, and knocked on the door. Harding was reminded of those animals that try to make themselves look large and fierce in the face of a predator.
In this case, their foe was Juliette Paquet, formerly Ross, née Joubert. She appeared at the door, an almost mirror image of her sister – the same long, dark, straight hair, the blue eyes. “Who are you?” she asked, none too politely, her accent very thick.
“Gorey Police, ma’am,” Graham said, producing his ID. “We’d like to speak with you about the death of…”
“I was going for coffee,” she said, and she made to push past them.
“Please wait,” Graham said. “This won’t take long.”
“I need coffee,” she repeated. She didn’t meet their eyes. It was, Harding felt, like arguing with a truculent teenager, one who simply couldn’t believe they were grounded again.
“May I suggest room service?” Harding tried.
Now Juliette stared at Harding as though meeting a new adversary
for the first time. She turned on her heel and waved them in with little more than a grunt, taking a seat by the window, her posture sagging and her shoulders hunched. The curtains were closed. Graham saw that she had been working steadily through a pack of high-tar French cigarettes. The room had the visibility of a house whose kitchen was on fire, the smoke acrid and pungent.
“I wonder,” Graham began, “if we might open a window.
Juliette gave them another noncommittal shrug, a gesture that Harding found intensely and unmistakably French. Graham popped open all the windows, though he stopped short of drawing back the curtains. A great welter of sunlight would have been entirely incongruous to Juliette’s obviously jet-black mood and probably her entire existence.
Juliette’s room was markedly smaller than both Graham’s and the more comfortable suite Juliette’s parents occupied. She sat in the only chair. The two officers stood. They found themselves being unselfconsciously ignored by Juliette, who merely lit up another cigarette and puffed on it disdainfully.
“We’d like to extend our condolences,” Harding began. “This must be a very difficult day.”
“What do you want to know?” Juliette interrupted rudely. “What do you think I can tell you?” She puffed out smoke as though from some hidden, internal source, the acrid fumes curling around her nose and ears.
Graham adopted a slightly sterner tone. “What time did you leave the wedding party last night?”
That shrug again. Graham analyzed it, absorbing the details.
“Late,” she said. “Maybe three. There was music and champagne. Why would anyone want to leave?”
“And where were you,” Graham asked next, “at around eight thirty this morning?”
Juliette blew out another great cloud of grey-purple smoke and slightly inclined her head toward the room’s bed, which was unmade. “I was asleep.”
Graham made a note. “How did you hear about the tragedy at the castle?” Graham asked.
This brought Juliette to a halt. She stubbed out the rest of her cigarette and turned to Graham. “Tragedy?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
The Case of the Fallen Hero (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 8
