by Ann Benson
“I cannot predict your reaction—only that you are sure to have one.”
“Speak,” I said. “Do not tease me.”
“Very well. You will not be allowed to continue looking into the disappearances of children.”
The predicted reaction took the form of unhappy knots in my belly. My donkey would remain stabled, I would not venture forth again but instead stay in the abbey and resume my duties in lieu of Sister Élène taking them over, which I will admit brought me some small relief. Still, I was acutely disappointed. My voice went up a notch as I protested. “Eminence, you granted me that privilege on good grounds. I am sorely distressed that you would change your mind so quickly.”
He rose and smiled broadly. “There is quite a good explanation. Duke Jean has authorized a larger investigation to be made and has appointed someone to oversee it.”
Again, he had surprised me. “But this is wonderful,” I said happily. “Who has been named?”
He hesitated for the duration of one breath. “The Duke has appointed someone whom he thinks will be a capable investigator.”
So many of the men who might be called to such a task were known to me because of my previous service; perhaps I could influence the work in some way. “Who?” I pressed him.
“Let us leave it at that for the moment. I have much yet to accomplish today. I simply wanted to let you know that you did not need to prepare for any kind of journey. We shall speak of it tomorrow and then conspire further.”
“Eminence, how positively cruel—you condemn me to conjecture for the remainder of this day and then to a night of sleepless flailing.”
He began to look annoyed. “You are a thorn, Sister, on the rose of my life.”
I was equally annoyed, and with greater justification. “Forgive me, dear Brother. But what would a rose be without its thorns?”
“What would it be indeed . . . ah, well, one might describe it as the epitome of perfection.”
“But, alas, how bland and uninspiring.”
“One could use a bit less inspiration sometimes.”
“Inspiration is never to be overlooked, Eminence. T’would be a grave sin to do so, as worthy of your ire as any other sin.”
“Yes . . . well . . . perhaps it would.” Then, with quiet concern, he said, “You truly will not sleep?”
“Not one second.”
He sighed. “I would not be the cause of that. Very well, then. But I must swear you to keep it a confidence.”
“I swear.”
“Duke Jean has appointed me to delve further into these matters.”
All of his difficult qualities, his sanctimonious rigidity, his stubborn intractability, the aloof temperament that he so often employed to set himself apart from those around him would now permeate the course of the discoveries.
On the other hand, my influence was assured.
I put the task of overseeing the removal of dried mud from the stone floor of the sanctuary in the capable hands of Sister Élène after all; the woman seemed genuinely grateful, which I failed to comprehend. Mixed in with the brown mud were the inevitable bits of excrement that found their way into the soil everywhere from horses and cattle and goats, all of which wandered daily through every village street. In this chore I did not mind being replaced. Novices under her supervision would gather the dried ordure and remove it to the garden, where it would be distributed under the watchful eye of Frère Demien, who would all the while be praising God for His great bounty in delivering copious amounts of merde into his stewardship. We wasted nothing, lest our Creator be displeased.
A new summons from Jean de Malestroit came as the young sisters were leaving the sanctuary with their brooms and pans.
“I am ready to begin,” he told me when I arrived.
“So soon?”
“As you know, Sister, I am most frugal with my hours. And yours, I daresay. Now, I would like you to repeat to me the stories you were told in Bourgneuf, with as much detail as you can recall,” he said. “It will help me to determine the proper path for moving forward.”
The shadows would shorten and then lengthen again before we finished. We could not foresee how many more days would belong to this as well.
Some three years before, a woman by the name of Catherine Thierry gave her brother to a certain transplanted Parisian, one Henriet Griart, so that the child might be admitted to the chapel at Machecoul. The boy was never seen again and did not become a member of the chapel, that his sister ever heard, nor was there offered any explanation of what might have happened to him.
And then there was the angelic-looking Guillaume Delit, Guibelet’s son, who used to help the chef roast the meat for Lord de Rais. The master chef himself, Jean of the Château at Briand, told this child’s mother that it was not a good idea for the child to be helping thus because small children were being caught and killed in the area around Nantes. The mother complained later to the chef’s wife that two men came to call upon her not long after her initial inquiries and spoke quite roughly to her, telling her that she had better not complain at all, that it would do her no good, nor would it do her son any good.
The son of Jean Jenvret was a schoolchild of only nine, who frequented the area around l’Hôtel de la Suze in Nantes. His family lived in the parish of Saint-Croix in Nantes but had close relations in Bourgneuf. Two years earlier, his sister told me, some eight days before the feast of Saint John the Baptist, the Jenvret child disappeared without a word.
And in the parish of Notre Dame in Nantes, the son of Jeanne Degrepie was lost, just around Saint John’s day, so it took place only a few days later than the loss in Saint-Croix. His mother speaks of a woman named Perrine Martin, who supposedly was seen leading the child away and was later seen with him again on the road to Machecoul. No one has an opinion on why this Perrine might have been taking the child to Machecoul.
A schoolboy from Saint-Donatien parish near Nantes, a beautiful child from the family named Fougere, was lost not quite two years past in the month of August. No trace of him was ever found, nor any word said of anyone having seen him.
And in the very next month of September, in Roche-Bernard, the ten-year-old son of Perrone Loessart was entrusted to a man with the odd appellation of Poitou, who promised the mother that her quick-learning son would continue to go to school. Later, this boy was seen in this Poitou’s company on the road to Machecoul, as was the son of Jean Jenvret with the woman Perrine.
A gentleman from Port-Launay speaks of knowing a family called Bernard whose son set out for Machecoul one day in the company of another boy of similar age, both to seek alms, it having been said that great generosity could be found there. The hope of charity must have been strong to entice two twelve-year-olds to make such a journey—one must cross the Loire at Nantes and then continue many more kilometers. The other boy with whom he traveled waited for him at the arranged spot for three hours and then was forced to return alone to Port-Launay. So claims the mother of the lost child, who says that she complained very bitterly about the disappearance of her son to priest and magistrate alike.
In Saint-Cyr-en-Rais, a village adjoining Bourgneuf, the son of Micheau and Guillemette Bouer went begging at Machecoul on Low Sunday of last year. When the child did not return, his father made immediate inquiries in various places as to the boy’s whereabouts, having heard that other children were also missing and fearing that the same fate might have befallen his own son. But then, the following day, a large man dressed in a black cloak came to call on the distressed mother while the father was out making further inquiries. She did not know the man, but when asked where her children were, she replied that they had gone begging at Machecoul, whereupon the stranger left her alone and was not seen again.
Ysabeau Hamelin, who had lived a year in the borough of Fresnay, having come the year before from Pouance, sent two of her sons, aged fifteen and seven, to Machecoul with money to buy bread. When they did not return, she thought at first that they might have been robbe
d and left for dead. But no evidence of foul play could be found on the route when she and others in her family searched it. The day after, two men came to see her for the purpose of inquiring about her children. She was frightened and did not mention their disappearance to them. As they were leaving, she overheard one man say to the other that two of the children were from that house, so she had great suspicions that they knew what had happened to her sons.
Just before Christmas last, Jeanette Drouet, the wife of Eustache, sent her sons of eleven and seven to Machecoul to seek alms. She said that several people told of seeing her sons in the next few days but that they never returned home again, and when she and her husband went there to make inquiries, they could learn nothing at all.
Our supper lay untouched before us. A fine slab of lamb, much anticipated after six long weeks of meatlessness, lay cold and gelatinous on the platter. Neither one of us could have stomached one bite.
“Has nothing been resolved of any of these disappearances?” his Eminence asked soberly.
“No. None has come to any conclusion.”
“No remains? Clothing left behind?”
“Nothing.”
He sat straight up in his high-backed chair, obscuring my view of the beautifully embroidered cushion, which I admired greatly. He patted his hands on his knees and said, “It seems impossible.”
“Indeed. Or, at the very least, unlikely.”
“Well, then . . .” he mused, “we shall have to see that the truth is discovered. It would be sensible for me to begin my deeper inquiries at Machecoul, I think.”
“Yes, Eminence.”
He spoke decisively. “We shall go there three days hence.”
It was too long a wait. “Eminence, more will be lost if we delay this further.”
“Guillemette, there are important things I must do first—”
“Children, Eminence—what could be more important than the souls of little ones?”
He blanched with guilt. “Very well, I shall wait on my other obligations. On the morrow, then.”
I nodded. My influence was most certainly assured.
We saw to Vespers as we always do, and then Jean de Malestroit gave me leave to retire. I went to the abbey stable, where I found my little donkey placidly chewing a shaft of straw. Her jaw worked rhythmically from side to side as the yellow grass grew shorter and shorter, disappearing finally into her toothy mouth. I bent over and picked up a few fresh shoots and held them out to her. She took them gently from my outstretched hand with her worn teeth and chewed as I patted her neck affectionately.
“You are a very understanding beast, mademoiselle,” I cooed. Why does one speak to an animal as if it were a small child? She shook her head to banish a bothersome fly and sprayed me with small bits of spittle. I wiped my face with my sleeve.
“And effusive as well,” I added. “But I don’t mind. You will listen to me without complaint, as few two-legged beasts will do. Which reason occasions this visit, my small friend. I would like your opinion on a matter of some concern to me.”
Almost as if she understood, she raised and lowered her head, nodding assent.
“Good. Then let me ask you this: Why is it that when these children disappear, it always happens in Lord de Rais’s realm? And why is it that his servants seem always to be present?”
She went nervous on me suddenly, and brayed.
“That is exactly how I feel myself,” I said. I placed my forehead on hers and just stood there as a tear slid down my cheek.
chapter 10
It was one of those moments when I wished I’d paid more attention in high school. We all thought statistics was just a big waste of time back then, one of those things we’d never use except maybe on a trip to Vegas, the sin city that Minnesotans would never visit because it was known to beat the wholesome out of you.
What were the statistical chances in a city like Los Angeles, where Caucasians were technically a minority group, that thirteen missing boys would all be white, blond, light-eyed, slim, and angelic-looking?
“Well, I guess we have an anomaly on our hands,” Fred Vuska said.
I was quiet for a moment, then said, “I think what we have on our hands, Fred, is a serial abductor.”
The brief silence inspired by my declaration was pregnant with political considerations and worries about budgetary implications. With transportation security details eating up most of the overtime budget, a manpower crunch deepened by a hiring freeze, Fred was in the same bind as just about every municipal supervisor in L.A.
“Now, don’t go jumping to conclusions,” he said eventually.
His about-face didn’t surprise me; anytime you say serial in connection with a group of crimes, the expenses just multiply, sometimes exponentially. But his reticence was annoying, put mildly. “I don’t know what else to think. There’s a definite pattern, a huge pattern, one you just wouldn’t expect to see, especially here. If the grabs were random, there’d be Hispanic and African-American kids in the mix. You saw it too, or you wouldn’t have given me Donnolly’s cases. Now all of a sudden you don’t seem to like it.”
For a moment, Fred looked troubled. Then he said, “It’s not for me to like or dislike, Dunbar, it’s for me to manage. And right now management is a tough business.”
“I know that. But this stuff isn’t always a matter of convenience.”
“It never is.”
He thrummed his fingers on his desk while apparently weighing his options. The option he chose was not one I liked much.
“You got pictures of all of them?”
He was stretching out the “convince me” curve.
“Yeah, in the files.”
“Let’s take a look at them all together.”
It would take a little time to organize it. “Give me about half an hour.”
“You can have all day. I got some stuff to take care of now and I won’t be back until around four-thirty.”
“I’ll be out of here by then.”
“Okay, we’ll do it tomorrow.”
He picked up his reading glasses and slipped them on, then picked up some papers from his desk and pretended to read them. It was my invitation to depart, which I did, with an unspoken expletive hanging on my tongue.
It cost me another lunch, this time out of my own pocket, but I was glad that Errol Erkinnen could find time to fit me in again. I only gave him an hour’s notice.
Doc’s eyes widened as much as anyone else’s would have when I told him why I’d come to see him. Saying serial takes the game to a whole new level. His response was intense, enough so to make me feel a little uncomfortable. His intrigue was palpable; he was Halley, discovering the comet: the big career event you dream of but rarely get.
“A serial abductor, Detective. Very interesting. Tell me why you’re thinking this way.”
“Similarities in a string of victims in unsolved cases. Before now they haven’t been tied together, except maybe loosely. The case I came to see you about the other day—Nathan Leeds—he’s the most recent, but they go back a while—years, really. So I have to assume that if I’m correct, we have someone who’s been active for a good long time and continues to be a threat. I got assigned Terry Donnolly’s last two cases because Fred Vuska thought there were similarities, and then when I put out the word that I was looking for a pattern”—I dropped a stack of the copied faxes on his desk—“this is what I got back. A slew of similar dead-end cases from guys who don’t know where to go with them.”
He picked up the stack as if he were going to guess its weight. “How many?”
“Ten more. So altogether there are thirteen missing boys, all around the same age—preadolescent—all white, all slim and sweet-looking. One case was officially solved, but the perp has been screaming innocent since day one. He admits to another rap but won’t admit to this one. I’m inclined to believe him.”
“Why’s that?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. But he doesn’t exhibit any of the
physical or psychological signs of lying. And my gut just tells me that he’s not.”
“Hmm.” He stood up and started pacing around with half a sandwich in one hand. “Striking similarities in the victims—that is a good indicator.” His voice took on a droning, trancelike quality and he began lecturing. “It’s a common phenomenon, this pattern of victims. Ted Bundy’s choices were all very similar, at least the ones we know about—a lot of people think he may have killed twice as many women as he’s acknowledged. There’s always been speculation that he patterned on a young woman from Seattle, who he was engaged to for a short time. She was attractive, intelligent, from a solid, well-respected family—a really good catch for someone like Bundy. He was born out of wedlock, you know.”
“Yeah, so I read once.”
“His whole life was like one desperate quest for legitimacy. So when his fiancée broke it off, he was crushed. He once confided to an acquaintance that he thought her family had pressured her. Not surprisingly, the killings started around that time. She had long dark hair, parted in the middle.”
As had most of his victims. “So he was killing her over and over again.”
“Symbolically, yes.”
“I don’t remember that time too well, I was pretty young,” I said, “but one of my aunts told me that a lot of women changed their hairstyles.”
“They did. I was in college then and really starting to focus my attentions on psychology. So I was just as riveted by it as anyone. I think the Bundy case happening when it did had a lot to do with me deciding on forensics. Anyway, the thing that scared everyone was that he kept escaping from jail and moving around—started in Seattle and then moved to Colorado, then Utah, and finally to Florida. A girl couldn’t count on being a New Englander to save her.” He smiled, with a touch of sadness. “But you can never count on anything to save you, really. Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“But these kids don’t appear to have been randomly chosen, that’s the whole point.”
