by S. Cedric
“What are you talking about?”
Blanca motioned to Vauvert to step over to his computer. He sat down at his desk and moved the mouse. The screen lit up.
“I put it on your schedule,” he said. “Attempted rape. For God knows what reason, you got the case. The girl’s name is Jeanne Bonnet. She’s twenty-four. She’s accusing her doctor.”
He had been right.
“The doctor is Arnaud Levy, isn’t it?”
“Do you know him?”
“No,” he said.
He was furious. Virginie had not wasted any time. And her damned boyfriend had an arm as long as his reputation suggested. This was not the first time the state attorney had smoothed things over for important people.”
“Can’t anyone else handle it?”
Benjamin Blanca looked surprised. He had not expected this response from Vauvert.
“Well, our squad is on duty this week, so one of us has to take it, and since the state attorney mentioned you, I thought you should have it. I could take it if you’d like.”
“No, that’s okay,” Vauvert said. “Someone is trying to pull one over on us here, and I shouldn’t get you involved. It’s got nothing to do with you. Knowing those pencil pushers, I suppose they’ve already scheduled her for questioning without asking us, right?”
“Eleven tomorrow morning,” Blanca said. “Unless you want to change that.”
“That’s fine.”
He pulled out his cell phone and added the appointment, swearing that Virginie would get an earful, as would her rotten boyfriend.
“Give me some good news, at least. Is there any progress on the Loisel case?”
“A team is still out combing the area, but with all the recent snow, it’s slow going. In any case, none of the hospitals in the region have admitted any unidentified victims. And the call for witnesses hasn’t come up with anything. The only thing we know is that the guy spent his day visiting a factory in Saint-Gaudens, and he never arrived back home. We went over his whole itinerary, stopping at every house and questioning people for miles around. Nobody saw anything that day.”
“How was his business doing?” Vauvert asked. “Did someone check on that?”
“The guys in finance didn’t find anything suspicious. Loisel has five factories, and his business is booming. His disappearance won’t affect his employees. The revenues are still coming in, and the board of directors has taken over until he shows up. Well, if he shows up.”
The detective set his empty coffee cup on his desk and then added, “We’re monitoring his accounts, but nothing’s happened in the last two weeks. There hasn’t been any ransom demand, either. I think something bad happened to him.”
“Does his disappearance benefit anyone?”
“No one. If he’s dead, most of his money will go to charity. Loisel has no known enemies and no close family. Well, in a way.”
Vauvert raised an eyebrow.
“What do you mean, in a way?”
“Well, I don’t really know. When I was typing up the reports, I came across some interesting information. Did you know that he had been married and that he had a baby boy about ten years ago?”
That was something new.
It was even very important.
“And in the last two weeks, nobody has talked to his ex-wife?” Vauvert asked, raising his voice. “How’s that possible? Where’s she live?”
Blanca shook his head.
“Now? It’ll be hard to question them. She’s in the Terre-Cabade Cemetery with his son. They’re both dead.”
“What happened?”
“A simple story. Ten years ago, Pierre Loisel’s wife insisted on driving home from a party after a few too many drinks. She had their kid with her. He was just a few months old. It looks like he was sleeping in the car seat in the back. She drove off the road, and they ended up in the canal. The car went down. Neither of them survived.”
Vauvert remembered hearing the news. He had not made the connection with the missing man. He scratched his chin.
“What was his wife’s name?”
“Amandine Beaumont. They had been married for less than two years.”
“Did she have any family? Are her parents still alive?”
“Let’s see. The Beaumonts live in a small town fifteen miles away,” the detective said, reading the information on his screen. “They are both retired. Amandine was their only daughter.”
He looked up at the inspector and added, “I don’t know if that will help. In any case, nobody has questioned them about their son-in-law yet. I don’t think they stayed in touch with him, but perhaps they did.”
“It has to be done,” Vauvert said. “You never know. I’ll go see them in person.”
He stopped. He had almost added, “And then I’ll know.”
He thought about Virginie. He thought about his dreams. He kept seeing the flames, like a song he could not get out of his head.
“Is something bothering you?” Blanca asked.
“No. I was wondering what time it is,” the giant lied, returning to the hallway. “Send their address to my cell phone. I’ll take a car.”
“Are you going alone?”
“Yep. I think it’s best that way.”
23
Paris
“I’ve got something,” Detective Alazard sang out when she saw Eva go by.
Eva stopped in the doorway. The brightness in the room dazzled her. Her own workspace was always half-lit, but Perrine’s office had a big window and several ceiling lights that sent down a constant flow of white.
“Already?”
“Yes. The wood painting.”
The young woman stood up, looking like an excited teenager. On the wall behind her, a giant Hello Kitty poster contrasted with the frightening image on the computer screen. It was a red-and-black devil with horns and flames.
“The Last Judgment. The chief was right. The fragment found with the baby did come from a religious object. I examined it, and I did some digging. I bet it’s from a panel.”
Eva smiled. The new recruit took her job seriously.
Eva tried to ignore the poster. She asked, “What kind of panel, Perrine?”
“Well, in medieval churches, there were Bible illustrations above the altar. They were called altarpieces. The church’s protective saint was placed in the center, and on either side there were sacred scenes.”
“Like a history book?”
“Exactly. These paintings helped worshippers understand the passages in the Bible, because hardly anyone knew how to read. They served more or less the same educational role as stained-glass windows.
“So it’s an altarpiece.”
Eva looked at the image on the screen. The devil’s pitchfork had impaled the bodies of the damned.
“This one is particularly frightening.”
Alazard nodded, still excited by her finding, bouncing a little in her varnished shoes.
“During the Middle Ages, religion could be terrifying. The Church thought it had to frighten people into believing in God. The Revelation of Saint John was a common motif. At the time, the idea of purgatory had not yet been introduced. So on the day of the Last Judgment, you went to either heaven or hell. There was nothing between good and evil.”
“The good would be saved, and those with evil souls would be devoured by the beast,” Eva said. “That’s enough to keep anyone in line. And do babies figure in any of that?”
“Innocent souls,” Alazard said. “Perhaps Constantin killed his baby so he would not be tarnished by sin? That’s just a guess. Some psychotics use that reasoning. But, really, I don’t know.”
“Let’s not get lost in conjecture, okay?”
“Sorry,” Alazard answered, blushing.
Eva gave her a maternal smile.
“All we know is that the baby was killed, perhaps in some religious rite, and that the father was punished like a witch in the Middle Ages.”
“An exorcism. I would bet my
life on it.”
The red flames of exorcism.
“An exorcism,” Eva repeated, feeling uncomfortable. “Was that kind of ritual only done on witches?”
“Witches, sorcerers, heretics, and basically anyone accused of renouncing God and being bound to the devil,” Alazard said.
She twisted a strand of her short, dark hair.
“You know, the list of crimes they were accused of is as long as my arm. People really thought they ate human flesh and did sacrifices.”
Human sacrifices, Eva thought.
The unbearable image of that tiny body on the autopsy table came to mind, and she closed her eyes behind her glasses.
“What else did these witches do?”
“Anything that people at that time feared. They were accused of spreading the plague, destroying crops, and killing livestock. It was said that they derived some of their power from supernatural incantations and that the devil used their tongues to speak through them.”
Eva opened her eyes.
“Their tongues?”
Alazard nodded.
“Yep. That’s why their tongues were cut out, and their lips were sewn together—so they couldn’t open their mouths, even when they were dead, to recite their spells. Reducing them to silence would neutralize their diabolical power.”
“We are looking for an exorcist, then,” Eva said.
She focused on Alazard’s computer screen zooming in on the image of the Last Judgment, a dark red grimacing devil with black teeth spewing out eternal flames.
So, who were they up against? Devil-worshipping child killers? Or God-loving fanatics? Was there that much difference between the two?
That look. The look you have when you’re having those dreams.
24
Nobody was home at the Beaumonts.
They had a large fenced-in property just outside the town. All around, there were snow-covered fields under a dark-gray sky. The road was a straight asphalt line heading toward Toulouse in one direction and Paris in the other. A road to Eva, who was so close, yet unattainable.
Vauvert rang the bell again.
There was still no sign of life in the house.
He stuck his head between the bars of the gate. The warm air from his nose vaporized in the air with each breath. Something was off here. He had a strange sensation running down his back. It felt like a warning.
There was the road, dusk approaching, and a sensation of déjà-vu.
I dreamed about this place, he realized. I’m sure of that.
But why?
The house was square, rising up at the end of a snow-covered driveway. There were tire tracks. A vehicle had been here recently. It probably belonged to the Beaumonts. In any case, the shutters were closed. He also observed that there was no smoke coming from the chimney.
In other circumstances, he would have left, filled out some forms, and called the Beaumonts into the station another day. That is what anybody else would have done.
He would have done that, too, if it weren’t for the big black car parked in the back, as if someone had tried to hide it.
It was a Chevrolet.
He had read the Beaumont file before he had come. He knew they did not own a car like that. They had an old Peugeot, which was nowhere to be seen.
“Who do you belong to?” he asked under his breath.
The gate was not locked and opened easily.
If someone were here, he would know soon enough.
He made his way through the thick snow, examining the Chevrolet’s tire tracks. It had a powerful engine and Parisian license plates.
He memorized the numbers.
Then his entire attention turned to the large window. He thought he saw movement behind the shutters.
“Is someone there?” he asked as he approached the door. “Mr. Beaumont?”
He knocked.
“Police. Is anyone there?”
Silence.
Movement.
This time, he was sure.
“Is someone there?” he called out.
His right hand went to his Smith & Wesson. With his left hand, he turned the doorknob.
The door opened.
“Police. Show yourself.”
The house was dark.
The stench hit him immediately. It was almost palpable. He knew the smell all to well.
The odor of decomposing flesh.
He kept one foot on the threshold as he tried to fight back the nausea. He recognized the buzzing sound. It was a cloud of flies.
He pointed his gun in front of him and shouted, “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
A pale shape appeared at the end of the hallway. It had long hair and wore a white fur coat. It was a woman, standing motionless in the cloud of flies. Her eyes shone in the dark.
“Don’t shoot,” she said. “Please.”
“Get out of there,” he shouted, taking a step back. “Good God, get out of there now.”
The woman obeyed. As she stepped into the hallway, the fur swayed around her body. She came into the light, where Vauvert could see her. She was around forty years old, and she was beautiful. A bright red silk scarf covered the lower part of her face.
She showed no traces of fear.
The inspector had picked up a slight accent when she had spoken. She could be foreign. Or simply a snob. Her scarf fluttered in the wind from the still-open door, and now Vauvert spotted the deep wounds that she was trying to conceal. This woman was seriously injured.
“Step out of the house,” he ordered, backing away from the threshold himself. “Show me your face.”
“It is not a pretty sight, I fear,” the woman said, pulling the fur around her to ward off the chill.
“I want to see it,” he said.
“If you insist, then.”
Calmly, she undid the red scarf and revealed her face. Two horrible gashes ran across her cheeks, one from the corner of her mouth to her ear, and the other passing under her eye and exposing her cheekbone.
Somewhere in a field, a group of birds flew into the dusk with shrill cries.
Vauvert was petrified at the sight of the gaping flesh and the line of bone showing under the moist wound. Only in traffic accidents and knife fights had he seen such injuries.
“Are you satisfied now?”
The woman smiled, and the gaps in her cheeks widened obscenely.
“Jesus, what happened to you?”
She did not answer and just kept smiling. Vauvert did not understand what the wounds meant, where they had come from, and how she was able to walk around as if nothing had happened to her. Worse, he did not like that smile. And he did not like what he saw in her eyes. It was beyond sadness. It was a cold threat. There was no fear of consequences in those eyes. And they were focused entirely on him.
“You are not Mrs. Beaumont,” he said, still pointing his gun at her.
“True.”
Three flies flew out of her sleeve and circled her before going back into the house to feast with the others.
“Who are you, then? What are you doing here?”
She smiled again, the slashes also grinning. There was still that sadness and the cold threat deep in her eyes.
“I came to see the Beaumonts. I arrived too late.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, although his senses were screaming that he knew very well what she meant. The characteristic smell of carrion could only mean one thing.
She shrugged.
“It was too late,” she said again, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Give me your name,” Vauvert insisted. “And tell me what happened here.”
She looked at him for a few more moments. She seemed to be thinking. Then she answered, but he did not understand what she was saying. It was a foreign language.
“Nefesh kedosha shel hahoshech, ata she be kolcha metzaveh, adon kol hadevarim alei adamot, shmah koli.”
“What?”
The woman continued to speak.
Her voice had changed. It was deeper, authoritarian and dangerous. It was as if she were speaking to someone else, as if she were asking for something, insisting. As she went on, she raised a hand in his direction and made signs in the air.
“Cherev lohetet shamesh monim, ez boeret metschuka artzit, nachash mistareah al adama noshemet, ele hadevarim.”
Stop that, he wanted to say. Shut up.
But then he realized that he had not opened his mouth.
He could not talk.
“Nefesh kedosha shel hahashech, zara tamim, betula lo mehulelet, ele hadevarim,” the woman said. With her right hand, she slowly drew a circle. “Lev mukaf nachash, zel al nishmati, pkyiat zera almavet, ele hadevarim.”
Vauvert tried to move. Impossible. The hand holding his gun was paralyzed. There was nothing he could do about it. Then, against his will, his fingers opened. The weapon fell to the ground and disappeared in the snow. Then his arm dropped to his side, inert.
He tightened his muscles. He prayed to be able to move them, but his body would not react.
A primal terror, unlike anything he had ever experienced before, took over.
The woman continued to smile, reciting the strange words in her hypnotic litany.
She moved toward him with the confident gait of a predator.
“Zel al nishmati, shmah koli ve-protz betochi.”
The power emanating from her was terrible and blinding. It warped the light around her, as if she were moving a little too quickly or just a little too slowly, and even the air didn’t know how to interpret her movements. Everything became blurry. Her smile, her seeping wounds. A surrealistic painting.
“Nefesh kedosha shel hahoshech, shmah koli, zrom letochi.”
When she finally stopped her incantation, she was standing in front of him. He could see nothing but her eyes, which were filled with that sadness and danger, and the dead smile in the terribly disfigured face.
She bent down to pick up the gun from the snow.
No, no, he begged mentally.
The woman pressed the gun against his head. All she had to do was pull the trigger, and his brain would splatter over ten yards.
The woman lifted her left hand.
Slowly, she caressed his cheek, playing with his two-day-old shadow. Vauvert felt sweat beading on his skin, despite the cold.
