The Prisoner of Castillac (Molly Sutton Mysteries Book 3)

by Nell Goddin

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We—I—there’s been an indication, and I don’t want to say how or why, that Valerie Boutillier might still be alive.”

  Lapin took a step back. “What? Where did you get that idea?”

  “I told you, I’m not going into details. But what if she were alive, Lapin? What if, instead of being murdered, like everyone assumes, even her family—what if instead, she’s been held prisoner all this time, right here in Castillac?” She watched his face closely.

  Lapin thought it over. “Well, I have read in the papers about cases like that. Is it unusual? I don’t know. Could it possibly be the case with Valerie? I wouldn’t want to bet on it.”

  “No one’s asking you to bet. It may be wildly unlikely, I know. But…if it’s possible, even a small percentage possible, we should check it out, right?”

  “Of course. When you put it that way.”

  “Right. So what I was thinking is that you of all people might be helpful in this situation. You’ve poked around in more attics than anyone. You see people when their defenses are down.”

  Lapin shrugged.

  Molly leaned in, next to Lapin’s ear. “Can you think of anyone in or near the village who might be capable of something like that? Of holding someone prisoner for seven years?”

  Lapin took a deep breath and the inhalation seemed to go on and on. “Not off the top of my head. Molly, I’ll give it some thought, that’s all I say. But my gut reaction to what you’re suggesting…is that if Valerie was being held at a house where I went to work, I never suspected a thing. Like you say, when I show up, people are in a state of upset. Someone important to them has just died, there’s confusing paperwork to attend to, and all the change and adjustment that happens after a death.

  “So if people act a little odd, I give ’em a pass, you understand?”

  Molly looked crestfallen.

  “Listen, I’ll give it some thought. Can’t do much more than that, right?”

  “All right, Lapin. I figured it was worth a shot. Keep thinking about it though—sometimes stuff doesn’t occur to us right off…it takes a little percolating to get there, you know?”

  Lapin nodded and they said their goodbyes.

  Molly had to drop by Pâtisserie Bujold to get breakfast for her guests, and then take it back to them before it got too late. She hurried through the rest of her marketing, filling her basket with fresh vegetables and goat cheese made by a farmer about a mile away from La Baraque.

  She was so taken up with inspecting the produce and chatting with the vendors that she did not notice a man following her, at a distance, as she went from one stall to the next. Achille Labiche was wearing overalls and he had his hands tucked under the bib. He did not appear to pay attention to anything at the market but Molly, his eyes pinned to her as he moved his hands nervously under the bib of his overalls, stroking his fingers and cracking the knuckles.

  It’s her fault, he thought over and over.

  I’m not going to let her ruin everything.

  * * *

  Lapin had let Molly go reluctantly. He found her tremendously attractive, though it must be said that he found most women so. He bought a croissant from a vendor next to Manette, and then walked the many blocks to his new shop on rue Baudelaire.

  Lapin was a junk dealer or purveyor of fine antiquities, depending on whom you talked to. And as he had told Molly and the interior of his shop proved, he was not lacking in inventory. In the front he had tables and counters heaped with jewelry and small bibelots, then farther back small furniture such as a child’s desk and several footstools jammed the aisle, and all the way back he had arranged large pieces: armoires mostly, along with some big mirrors and a grand-looking settee with gilt flourishes. The walls were covered with art ranging from Impressionist imitations to ancient portraits to a few modern pieces that people would either love or hate.

  When someone died anywhere around Castillac, Lapin was there in a flash, offering to help organize, assess, and also sell, if the heirs wished him to. He was not on the whole an unscrupulous businessman, although he did believe that by rights the owners should have some idea of the worth of their property, and if they didn’t ask specifically and Lapin really didn’t like someone, he might not be inclined to let them know that the scratched-up old chair in the attic was actually a fauteuil à la Reine, made and stamped by one of the grand eighteenth-century ébénistes—Jacob, for example—and worth a decent year’s salary. Though he had only stooped to that sort of lie by omission a few times in his career, when the heir in question had been particularly odious.

  He was good with people who were grieving, and his service gave them comfort. It helped to have someone who knew his way around during those early days after a death in the family, when there seemed to be so many unfamiliar legal and administrative tasks, all clamoring to be performed right when the family was simply trying to deal with the massive upset of losing someone they loved.

  Of course, all families weren’t so loving, and some people were missed more than others. Lapin had gotten into his line of work because he had always liked nice things, especially old ones; he had not expected to be a sort of therapist to the families, or to see the seamy underside of the proper public personae that most families managed to put forth.

  Lapin was hoping to get his first customers that day. He wasn’t in the most convenient location, but surely some would see the notices he had pasted up all over the village and in Salliac too, and be curious enough to drop by. He fussed with the counter by the front door, knowing that it would be the first thing anyone would see when they came in. There was an old ceramic bowl holding numerous rings. A platter with earrings arranged on it. A stand with five or six necklaces hanging from it, catching the sunlight quite nicely.

  Then his cell phone rang and he got distracted. He failed to continue hanging the necklaces for display and simply left the cardboard box containing them sitting on the counter beside the earrings.

  Nestled in the box, on top, was a silver chain with a star charm attached to it. The metal was tarnished and there was no identifying tag. A silver necklace with a star charm…to Lapin it meant nothing. The chain was real silver, but it was not valuable beyond that. It was just another trinket to toss in a box and hope someone would buy someday.

  To Valerie’s family and friends, however, the necklace would mean everything. It might mean, finally, a piece of evidence, a lead, something to hang onto after seven long years.

  28

  La li la, la li lo.

  She could tell it was spring. She could smell it. She spent so much time in the dark that her senses other than sight had sharpened, and as she lay on the filthy mattress Valerie imagined she could smell the leaves of the trees unfurling, could smell the frogs hatching out in the pond, the bulbs cracking open underground and sending up fat green shoots—the flowers, of course: she could smell them opening as June approached and even the nights were no longer chilly.

  La li la.

  She had counted so carefully at first, as though knowing how many days she had been held captive would help her, keep her connected to her old life in some way. But about three years in, she had become despondent and stopped walking back and forth in the bunker, stopped counting the days, and just lay facedown on the mattress, not eating. She had no idea how long that phase had lasted because she wasn’t counting anything anymore.

  She wasn’t feeling anything anymore.

  Valerie was waiting to die, and the prospect of death, of delivery from the endless incarceration in the bunker—death was the only thing she had to look forward to.

  But Labiche had gotten upset. He couldn’t bear it when she wouldn’t eat. And so he made some unusual effort in the kitchen, even finding a cookbook in a secondhand bookshop and making her recipes from it. He had no talent as a chef but he did have fresh milk and butter, pork and beef from his own farm, and fresh vegetables from the market in Castillac, when he managed to gather up enough
courage to go to it.

  And even though Valerie felt angry and hopeless enough to want to die, that spirit deep inside—or maybe just her nose and her taste buds—wouldn’t release her that easily. Labiche would come with a bowl of cream of sorrel soup, or beef stew redolent of rosemary and thyme and Burgundy, and she would sit up and eat ravenously, wiping the bowl with crusty bread. Sometimes he brought her little egg custards with a dusting of nutmeg. And he seemed so pleased to see her eating that at first she had allowed a little spark of hope to ignite.

  Maybe he does care about me, and wants me to be happy. Maybe eventually he will finally let me go.

  The sparks of hope were really the worst thing. Because whenever one lit up, and then extinguished, it was so much worse after. It was like waking up with a giant’s foot firmly on your chest, a weight there was no squirming out from under, caught, held, so squashed you could barely breathe.

  * * *

  Achille had not been to the Saturday market in Castillac for many months, perhaps even a year. Lately of course he had other interests over at the Salliac market, interests that had to be put on the back burner for now, until he could take care of the immediate—and possibly dire—problem here in Castillac.

  He was uncomfortable in the village. The market was far too crowded, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that people there were laughing at him behind his back because of what had happened to his mother.

  She had been odd, he knew that. There had been times when the oddness went too far and his father had called for help and his mother had been taken to the hospital. Seven or eight times that happened. That’s what the hospital was for, wasn’t it? Achille didn’t understand why people had to gossip so. He could sense them staring and then looking away if he turned to look at them. He could hear them whispering.

  It was a hateful village full of hateful people, and he wouldn’t have come at all except he had a pretty good idea that Molly Sutton would be there.

  And he was not mistaken.

  He had parked his tractor way down at the far edge of the village because the streets were too narrow and crowded to get much closer. He passed Lapin Broussard on the street, giving him an awkward wave and then looking away. Lapin had come to the farm after his parents died, and taken away some of the old clutter lying around that Labiche hadn’t wanted. Gave him a good price on it too.

  But he didn’t like seeing Lapin because he reminded Achille of those unfortunate days after his parents’ deaths. His father had taken good care of him—so good, in fact, that Achille had not been entirely sure he would be able to manage on his own. He knew how to take care of his herd, and his hog, but himself? That he had to learn, and it took some time.

  Lapin was like the grim reaper, thought Achille, putting as much distance between them as possible. Always coming around the minute the funeral is over. And maybe that’s kind of a sign, thinking about the grim reaper. A sign that he should do to that woman what he had already considered.

  He was not a murderer. He would never be able to see himself that way no matter what.

  But the thing was…Molly Sutton was nosing around where she didn’t belong. He had been in a state of high anxiety ever since her visit, expecting to hear the shriek of sirens any second—and who can live like that?

  In some moments, he was certain she knew. Certain she had seen the bunker and realized what was inside. Certain she was going to tell on him, and he would spend the rest of his life in prison.

  He knew he would never, ever be able to make them understand.

  It was easy to find her. In the central part of the market where the stalls were jammed up together and the crowd was thickest, there was the American woman, putting her hands in her tangled red hair as she laughed with the man selling leeks. Achille stood frozen, watching her.

  If he could get her on a side street with no one around, he could come up behind her and snap her neck right quick. Then walk back to his tractor and go home. No more worry about the sirens. Free to get on with his various plans.

  Achille moved around behind her, giving her plenty of room because Mon Dieu he certainly did not want her to spot him and talk to him. That would be completely unacceptable. He stood behind a stone pillar that held up the porch of an old building, and he waited.

  The woman sure was a talker, thought Achille. He watched her joking and smiling with each vendor in turn, filling her basket with lettuce, potatoes, mushrooms. He watched her spend a long time with Raoul, the pig farmer, talking with her hands in the air until a line had formed behind her. Maybe someone pointed that out because she whirled around to look behind her, and her hand flew to her mouth and she stepped aside. Achille could hear her apologizing. Her accent grated on his ears.

  He moved around the pillar so she would not see him.

  She walked on to the next stall and then the next, taking an eternity to finish.

  Achille was not a man with an appetite for food. His mother had been a terrible cook and his father had done all the work in the kitchen as well as run the farm. The food had been healthy but very plain, barely more than a sprinkle of salt for flavoring, and as a result Achille had never cared much about what he ate. The temptations of the market—the piles of croissants, the bundles of just-picked asparagus, the truffles and cookies and duck—made no impression on him.

  He loved to feed Valerie, but for himself, he stuck to boiled meat and boiled vegetables, maybe with a bit of butter but never any sauce, or herbs, or even pepper.

  She was getting to the end of the row of stalls now. Achille’s fingers worked under the bib of his overalls; he clasped his hands together and then pulled them apart, stroking his fingers one by one. He was excited. He thought that snapping her pale neck might bring a certain satisfaction.

  With a wave Molly said goodbye to the last vendor. She kept scanning the crowd as though looking for someone in particular. She began to walk and then turned around abruptly, searching—and saw Achille. Their eyes met. Achille could not hold her gaze and he looked down at his feet and then moved behind a large group of people who were speaking English too loudly.

  He waited just a few seconds, mastering his fear. Then he stepped around the crowd and Sutton came back into view. She was taking a side street away from the Place, a narrow little street that would be perfect for what Achille had in mind.

  Quickly he trotted to catch up with her, taking his hands out from under the bib of his overalls, and feeling a tingle in the back of his neck.

  29

  Molly had hoped to see Gilbert selling his wild greens. The more she thought about him, the more she worried that something was really wrong and he had needed her help the other day. But she didn’t see how she could go back to the Renaud farm—his mother had been quite clear that she wasn’t welcome, and Molly feared showing up again might make whatever was going on worse.

  She walked briskly down the narrow street and then onto the wider rue Saterne. Stragglers were still headed to the market and she was glad she’d gotten there relatively early. All that was left on her morning list of chores was a visit to Patisserie Bujold, and then back to the scooter and home again.

  Achille watched her enter the pastry shop, and waited.

  There was a line at Patisserie Bujold and they were out of réligieuses, which was probably a blessing, thought Molly, because if she didn’t start to curb her pastry consumption she was going to have to buy a new wardrobe. She got croissants for the De Groots and Wesley Addison, hoping they didn’t mind how late she would be getting back, and left the shop with a wave to Monsieur Nugent who was too taken up with customers to pay her his usual unwelcome attention. On the street she found herself in a crowd of tourists, something you didn’t see every day in Castillac.

  “Excuse me,” said a woman in strangely accented French, “can you tell us where the market is?”

  “I’m headed back in that direction right now,” said Molly, smiling. “Follow me!” And she led the group of six or seven middle-aged women back
down rue Saterne and then along the narrow street to the Place, chattering the entire way about her favorite places to visit nearby.

  Achille watched her go. There was no way to get her alone now and he felt frustration boiling up inside.

  I should have acted. I had the chance, and I let it slip away. What is wrong with me? Why am I always so paralyzed?

  Achille took off for his tractor, glowering at anyone he passed on the street. Out of habit he looked all around as he walked, never wanting the unpleasant situation of being sneaked up on. He glanced in all the alleys and side streets as he went by.

  Down one such alley he saw an old man kneeling on the cobblestones. Erwan Caradec was known to the villagers of Castillac—he was homeless and an alcoholic, and the villagers fed him and looked out for him, sometimes giving him a place to sleep in a garage or hayloft. That morning Erwan had had the great good fortune to find a bottle of brandy in a brown paper bag, just sitting on the sidewalk, and he had indulged in so many gulps that he was now more or less lost to the world.

  In several strides Achille was upon him. Erwan smelled ripe and the smell twisted into Achille’s mind—the smell of filth, of illness, of madness. It enraged him and he reached his strong hands down and took the man’s face in his palms and wrenched it so hard he thought the head might come right off.

  Erwan gasped, and fell back on the street. He was still, and his skin drained of color so completely there was no doubt he was dead. Achille looked down at the crumpled body, and then he put his hands under the bib of his overalls and walked back to the tractor. He did not look back and he did not, even a little, regret what he had done.

  30

  Molly stayed up late Sunday night, reading through the Boutillier file for the fourth or fifth time, and when Bobo began barking on Monday morning she was still fast asleep, and it took some minutes for her to claw her way to consciousness and remember who and where she was.