The Prisoner of Castillac (Molly Sutton Mysteries Book 3)

by Nell Goddin

  After Molly had finished her marketing, she wandered in the direction of Pâtisserie Bujold, always figuring that in times of stress, an almond croissant was a whole lot better than nothing. “Bonjour Monsieur Nugent,” she said, no longer even noticing the way his eyes lingered on her. “Six croissants aux amandes, s’il te plâit.”

  He dropped the six golden crescents into a white paper bag. “Tell me,” said Molly impulsively. “What do you think has happened to Gilbert Renaud?”

  Monsieur Nugent’s eyebrows rose so far up they nearly went over the top of his head; he was unused to Molly saying anything more to him than was absolutely necessary. “I cannot say, Madame Sutton,” he said. “Perhaps he has run away. But a boy so young? His home life would have to be dire to take such dramatic action. And his mother—she may be strict, but she is not cruel. Always buys réligieuses on Sundays.”

  Molly nodded. She agreed that a mother who bought réligieuses every week did not sound like someone to run away from, even though her own experience with the woman had been awkward. She had the feeling Monsieur Nugent had been giving the case some thought. And why not? When your fellow villagers disappear at the rate they did in Castillac, who wouldn’t be looking for explanations?

  It was nine-thirty. Time to get back to La Baraque with these last croissants for her guests, and say goodbye to the De Groots and Wesley Addison, who was heading back to the States at long last. After lunch, Constance would arrive for their Saturday ritual of manic cleaning before the new guests arrived late that afternoon.

  But Molly didn’t feel like going home, not just yet. She nibbled on a croissant, for once barely tasting it, and wandered along the streets of her beloved village, thinking about Valerie and Gilbert and keeping an eye out for Dufort. She walked down the alley that privately she called Underwear Lane, and was not disappointed as the clothesline in the backyard of the La Perla house was crowded with sumptuously extravagant underthings, surely dry in an instant in the day’s bright heat.

  Will I ever meet the La Perla woman? she wondered. Or have I already?

  She finished the croissant and ducked into a takeout place for a cup of coffee to sip as she walked. The image of Gilbert Renaud kept popping into her head. Please let him simply have gotten mad about something and run away, she thought. Please don’t let anything terrible happen to that boy. I couldn’t stand it.

  Letting go of Oscar had taken much effort and a lot of tears, and Oscar was safely in Australia with his parents, happy and healthy, not in any danger. She barely knew Gilbert. A couple of short conversations, that was all. Nonetheless, she felt…not responsible for him, but connected to him somehow, the way it can be when you meet somebody and know you’re going to hit it off. What had been going on that day when she visited the Renaud farm? Had he been trying to get her alone for some reason, or had she been imagining things? Was his mother…was it possible she had done something to him?

  Was Madame Renaud just over-protective and suspicious of strangers, or something else? Something much worse?

  Lapin had been useless so far in the search for Valerie. But surely there was some chance he knew Madame Renaud; maybe he had helped with the estate when her husband died. Enough of a chance to make Molly decide that the guests could wait a little longer for their morning croissants.

  She circled back around to her scooter and secured her basket to the back, hopped on, and got to Lapin’s shop in a matter of minutes.

  The little bell tinkled as she came inside, but Lapin did not appear.

  “Lapin!” she called.

  No answer. It was perplexing that a proprietor would leave his shop unlocked and unmanned, and on a Saturday when the village was filled with people. Another reminder that she was not in Boston anymore, though she snickered at her naïveté at thinking Castillac was going to be all unicorns and rainbows without a criminal to be found.

  “Lapin!” she called again.

  Idly she looked at the jewelry on the front counter. She put on a bracelet and held out her arm to admire it. She ran her hand along the necklaces hanging on a stand.

  And then, this time, she saw it. A silver necklace with a charm. A star charm.

  Valerie’s necklace.

  Molly held her breath as she removed it from the stand. The file from the gendarmerie had been very specific: Valerie always, always wore this particular piece of jewelry. The necklace was silver with small links. The charm was also silver, the star had five points, and the points were long and narrow. About the size of a one-euro coin.

  In every detail, exactly like this one.

  “Lapin!” she called again, her voice strained. He must have picked up the necklace from someone’s house, someone local. Why else would it be in his shop? He must have gotten it from the very house where Valerie was still prisoner.

  Finally, finally a break! Once Lapin looked up in his records where the necklace came from, they’d have him. And her!

  Molly heard someone at the door and whirled around. “Lapin!” she said to the big man. “Where the hell have you been? Listen, I—”

  “Bonjour to you too,” he said, with a half-smile. “Really, Molly, there is no need to always be in a rush.”

  “Just listen, Lapin. This necklace—” she said, holding it out, “where did it come from? It’s important.”

  Lapin glanced at the necklace and shrugged. “Oh, now. I’m very good at my job, you know that, Molly. Didn’t I get the furniture for your pigeonnier for you at a good price? And just the right pieces, weren’t they, style-wise?”

  “Lapin, please,” Molly begged. “Just tell me where you got the necklace!”

  “Record-keeping, I’m afraid…it is not my strength. If I get a genuine antique, I keep documentation, of course. Provenance makes profit, you understand? But a little trinket like that? Sorry, my dear. I couldn’t tell you where that little thing came from if my life depended on it.”

  41

  The boy hadn’t said a word when Achille brought him a jug of milk and a blanket. A cement floor is cold even in May. But the boy had not said thank you or bonjour or anything at all, but just looked at him without expression.

  Achille thought about the little frog he had kept in his room when he was a child, and how it had clung to the stick he had put in the jar and stared at him with its big eyes. In only a day the frog’s color had gotten dusky and dull and even a child could see it was doing poorly.

  Achille had let the frog go, even though it had taken all his will to do it. But the boy?

  He knows about Valerie. And he will tell.

  Achille had no doubt that the boy would tell, and no delusion that anything he could say or do would induce the boy to keep quiet. He was a talker, anyone could see that, even though once he was chained up, he had barely said a word.

  Achille imagined that Gilbert had many friends, that he enjoyed playing and joking with them during récréation, that he could even talk to adults and strangers without fear.

  He’s not like me. He would tell.

  Achille had been so distressed he had forgotten to eat anything. His belly ached. He kept imagining a whole flock of official cars turning into his driveway with sirens whooping and blaring, men jumping out with drawn weapons. Himself being led away. Away from his girls and Bourbon and the farm.

  He paced around the dark kitchen, his thoughts jumbled and darting.

  He would tell. She’s my Valerie. Aimée is waiting for her cannelé. Cannelé, cannelé, cannelé, he thought, the words giving a beat to his pacing.

  His mother’s sagging shoulders in the green dress with little sprigs of flowers on it.

  Finally Achille went outside and walked to the tool room of the barn. He picked up a length of rope and a hunting knife of his father’s, a short and sharp knife his father had used to skin boars, a process that had sickened Achille.

  His mouth was flooding with saliva.

  A man must do what needs to be done.

  * * *

  As much as she w
anted to stay at Lapin’s shop and interrogate him to within an inch of his life, it was Saturday—Changeover Day—and Molly had too much to do that couldn’t be put off any longer. She had guests to say goodbye to, cleaning to do, new guests to greet. She called Ben but got no answer. Reluctantly she told Lapin she’d be back when she could and sped off to La Baraque with the slightly wilted croissants strapped to the back of the scooter.

  Molly drove right through the yard and through the meadow to the door of the pigeonnier. Bobo thought this was the most interesting thing she had seen in ages and bounded along beside her.

  “Bonjour, Herman and Anika!” Molly called out, unhooking the strap that held the bag of croissants on the back of the scooter. She was wondering just how quickly she could get things at La Baraque sorted and return to Lapin. “I have one last breakfast for you before you go!”

  Silence.

  She looked at her phone to check the time, then cocked her head, listening. Had they left already? Were they still in bed? Molly thought this must be the most successful honeymoon of all time; sightings of the couple had been as rare as ivory-billed woodpeckers.

  “Hello?” she called. How does one say good morning in Dutch? “Welkom!” she called. No, she thought, that’s not it….

  She knocked on the door, waited another moment, and then lifted the latch. Someone was crying.

  “Oh! Excuse me,” she said softly, seeing Anika sitting on the edge of the sofa, her face buried in a handkerchief. “What is wrong?”

  Anika cried harder. Molly stood just inside the door, feeling awkward. She had barely exchanged two words with this woman and had thought that the couple was having the most ecstatic time hidden away from the world in the magical pigeonnier.

  Guess not.

  “Anika? Is there something I can do? What’s happened?”

  “Herman….” she said, her voice breaking.

  I figured as much, thought Molly.

  “Is he upstairs?” she asked gently.

  “No,” said Anika. “He…he went into the village by himself this morning. He’s been gone for hours. I’ve got us all packed and ready to go, and he’s just disappeared.”

  “That’s why you’re upset? Don’t you think he’s probably just having a last look around?”

  Anika burst into tears.

  Molly knew she was the first one to see monsters in every closet, but this time she was pretty sure Anika was massively overreacting. “Look, I brought some croissants. You can make coffee in the coffeemaker if you haven’t already, and by the time you finish eating, I bet Herman will be back. You’ve got another hour before I’ll need to get in here to get ready for the new guests.”

  She put several croissants on a plate in the tiny kitchen, mumbled a few comforting words, and headed into the house to see about Wesley Addison.

  Speaking of monsters in closets, there had been a moment when Molly had wondered if Wesley Addison had shoved his poor wife over the cliff at Beynac and then managed to do in Valerie Boutillier while he was at it. She blamed those suspicions on a lack of coffee, however, and thankfully they had not taken root.

  When she came in through the terrace door, she found Addison standing in the living room with his packed bag beside him.

  “Oh!” said Molly, always surprised to find someone in her house. “Bonjour! I’m sorry I’m late, I got delayed in the village—” She got a flash of Valerie’s necklace then, and had to put on a fake expression to hide her agitation.

  “Miss Sutton!” boomed Wesley.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, running a hand over her face. “I’m terribly distracted this morning. What were you saying?”

  “I was saying that perhaps the next time I visit you might put a small refrigerator in the room? I do enjoy a cold beverage and it would have been quite convenient.”

  Molly smiled and nodded, having no intention of buying any small refrigerators.

  “The taxi should be arriving at any moment, if he is a punctual sort,” said Mr. Addison.

  Molly walked out the front door with him, saying all the right things about how glad she was he had come and how much pleasure it would give her to see him in the future. Christophe appeared at the same moment as Constance, and Mr. Addison was bundled into the taxi and gone.

  “A nutter, that one,” said Constance, waving energetically as the taxi turned onto rue des Chênes.

  “For sure,” said Molly. “But a good heart. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I do hope he comes back. Now then, are you ready? The De Groots haven’t left yet. Possibly trouble in paradise, I’m not sure. But while we wait we can at least attack the haunted room, and you can tell me the latest.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call it the haunted room,” said Constance. “It’s not a good idea to joke about stuff like that, Molls.”

  They gathered up the vacuum cleaner and the rest of the cleaning supplies and headed up the worn wooden stairs. She didn’t think even the juiciest bit of gossip would distract her enough to get through the cleaning without losing her mind. After the haunted room, they still had the pigeonnier ahead of them, the new guests were due to arrive at four, and all she could think of was how on earth was she going to figure out where that necklace had come from?

  42

  Molly and Constance did get through the cleaning, although not quite as thoroughly as Molly usually insisted on. Thomas had called Constance, there had been meetings, there had been kissing and abject apologies and grand promises made, but Molly had listened with only half an ear. She kept leaning the mop against a wall and calling Dufort, thinking about the necklace, about Valerie, about stupid Lapin who could have instantly led them straight to her if he hadn’t been so lazy and sloppy with his record-keeping.

  Herman De Groot had shown up and all was bliss again with the honeymooners, and blessedly, they were picked up on time. Molly and Constance cleaned the pigeonnier in short order, Constance biked off to meet Thomas, and the new guests, a South African family, were installed in the cottage. Fastest Changeover Day in history, Molly thought gratefully. She yelled at Bobo to stay and ran to the scooter. Before taking off, she tried Ben one more time. Still no answer.

  Molly was a fast driver but usually not reckless, but on the short trip to Lapin’s shop she nearly hit an old woman, nicked a car that was parked a little ways into the street, and ran a red light (after looking both ways). Quickly she parked outside the shop and banged on the door, then opened it and shouted for Lapin.

  “Molly,” he said, lumbering out from behind a tower of new boxes. “Calm yourself, and tell me what’s so important about that necklace?” He gestured to a small bowl on the counter where she had put it carefully before she left.

  Molly looked down at the necklace and then back at Lapin. “This necklace….” She paused, unsure how much to tell him. “Look, you probably already know this since there seem to be few secrets in Castillac, the way people talk. Dufort and I have been looking for Valerie Boutillier.”

  Lapin widened his eyes like a cartoon character.

  Molly shook her head with a half-smile. “See, I figured you probably already knew. So listen, this necklace? It was hers. Valerie’s. No, I’m not joking. You’ve got the key to her disappearance right here, Lapin. You’ve got to have records somewhere? You must make inventory lists when you take care of people’s estates or whatever it is you do, you freaking vulture?”

  Lapin smirked. “No need to get nasty, la bombe.” He rubbed his chin with one hand and then shrugged. “I know I should keep better records. It’s a failing, I admit that. I’m not a dot-your-i’s-and-cross-your-t’s kind of guy. More of an artist, really. Or at least an appreciator of art.”

  “This is not about who you are! You’re saying you have nothing? No notes, nothing at all we can check? Obviously you got this necklace from somebody around here, right? Do you at least have a list of the places you’ve been, of who has hired you?”

  “Um, yes, that I do have,” he said, moving past her and
turning sideways to get down the aisle jammed with antique toys. “Hold on, I’ll get the notebook….”

  Molly started to follow but the crowded back of the shop made her feel claustrophobic and she decided to stay put. She opened her hand and looked at the necklace again. The silver was tarnished. She wondered why Valerie had worn it so religiously that everyone remembered it? What did the necklace mean to her?

  Come on, Lapin! she urged silently.

  She heard something crash to the floor and Lapin muttering. He came back to the front of the shop down the other aisle, which was no less jammed.

  “Well,” he said, “not sure it will help, but I do have this. When I get a job, I write down the name and address because I might have to send an invoice or a check. So while I’m quite sure I never wrote down anything about that particular necklace, I can say that most likely it came from one of the names in here. Sometimes I might pick something up at a vide-grenier or flea market, if it catches my eye—but in all honesty, that necklace has no value. I only have it in the shop so that a young girl might be able to get something she’d think was fancy. It’s nothing special.”

  “Oh, but it is,” said Molly. “If we have any luck at all, it’s going to lead us back to Valerie Boutillier at long, long last. Please tell me you have the names organized at least by year?”

  “I’m not entirely incompetent,” said Lapin, holding the notebook out. “Where should we start? Seven years ago?”

  “Yes. Obviously earlier won’t be any use. And I suppose you could have gotten the necklace at any point since then. Now open that notebook and let’s have a look.”