Speak Softly My Love

by Louis Shalako

  Speak softly and tell me

  Please tell me

  That you will never go.”

  Maintenon took a breath and finished it.

  Speak softly my love, for the heart can never lie.

  Speak softly to me, and lover, please don’t cry.

  Speak softly my love, speak softly—

  Speak softly, my love…for our love shall never die.

  …speak softly, softly, softly, my love.

  Speak low, speak low, speak low

  Speak softly to me my love

  Speak softly and tell me

  Please tell me, tell me

  Tell me

  Tell me, my love

  That you will never go.

  To fall in love, is to be young again

  And to count the cost

  Is to die a little bit inside.

  “…Love, Didier!” Tailler blurted it out without thinking.

  Next thing you know, they were laughing their damned fool heads off.

  ***

  “Okay. For starters, sir. Hubert and I would like to check out this Didier Godeffroy seven ways from Sunday.”

  Maintenon nodded.

  “Yes. Get to know our victim.”

  “We were thinking military service. He has no previous criminal record. First thing we checked. You never know, right? Otherwise we’re relying on Madame Godeffroy’s personal identification. There are just too many of them around for any one of them to be taken too seriously.”

  “Good point.”

  “Also, we’re going to ask about passports. Monsieur Godeffroy almost certainly travels to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Hungary at least. He’s the senior buyer, right? If he’s left the country, customs should be able to tell us all that. He might take the lady friend with him, even.”

  Maintenon nodded.

  “You’re not buying the body in the river?”

  “We’ll wait on Doctor Auger’s report. Don’t forget, we have two different spouses at least. Either one of them should be able to identify a dead husband. The trouble is that we have no other identification, not so far, for a body that is not in particularly good condition. No wedding ring, for example. I think we should proceed with caution there.” They should give away as little as possible. “We’ll have fingerprints from the body in the river. We’ll have to figure out how to get fingerprints from the households in question. Either that or Gaston e Cie. Asking for that is asking for trouble, especially as we don’t have too many facts.”

  This included the next of kin, who might be presumed to have the best odds of benefitting from the gentleman’s death. Classic homicide theory, right out of the textbooks.

  “Who else might identify the body?”

  “Good question. If the wife can’t do it, who could? Also—”

  “And he is an orphan. Getting someone from work—this Barrault character. Word would soon get out. No one knows a man like his own wife.”

  “I want to get a few gendarmes. Policewomen, even.”

  Levain caught Maintenon’s eye, the look of amusement difficult to stifle. Tailler was on a roll. Brave as hell physically, totally unsure of himself and his training one minute, now all of a sudden he was ticking off the points like a seasoned pro.

  “I want to put them in a room with twenty telephones. If Monsieur Godeffroy really is out there somewhere on a buying trip, then let’s find him.” Tailler took in oxygen, and lots of it. “I got more—I think. But basically, we need to get them a list of any place he might have stayed. The longer the list, the better, and get them started on that.”

  “That’s a lot of man-hours.” Gilles opened up his briefcase.

  The phone was ringing and Levain picked it up. He listened for a moment.

  “Hold on.” He caught Gilles’ eye.

  “So?” Maintenon shrugged elaborately. “What have we got?”

  “Dead girl. Strangled. Found on a front porch. We’re wanted.”

  “Hmn. Very well. You and I will take that one—and leave these beautiful young people to their work.”

  Gilles pulled off a shoe and turning it upside down, gave it a shake. Levain relayed the information back. They were on their way. Hanging up, he phoned dispatch to get them a vehicle, and in this case he figured a driver as well.

  “Sir?”

  “Ah, yes, of course.” Gilles put the shoe back on, mystified as there hadn’t been anything in there and yet it was like a sharp little pebble or something.

  He stood up experimentally. Whatever it was, (or had been), it was gone now.

  Andre was making quick notes and looking at the clock.

  “Andre.”

  “Yes, Gilles?”

  “Phone downstairs. It doesn’t seem like such a busy day. Tell them we need, ah, four or five warm bodies for a little project.”

  “All righty then.” Levain lifted the receiver, his finger a blur as he dialed.

  The desk sergeant didn’t seem to be giving him too much of a problem going by this end of the conversation. Tailler leaned back on the front of his desk, braced with both hands, looking studiously casual.

  Levain hung up and stood. Gilles already had his hat, and with the weather being changeable, he had his coat on as well.

  “Okay. We’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  The door closed behind them.

  Tailler looked at Hubert.

  Hubert looked at Tailler.

  “See? That’s how it’s done, Hubert.” He straightened up, and went over to stand looking out the window, arms crossed, very tall all of a sudden.

  Hubert had the impression Tailler had always wanted to command troops in battle.

  “Sure. Let’s just hope we get something…and soon.”

  ***

  Less than sixteen minutes later, heavy shoes clomped in the hallway.

  A loud knock came at the door.

  “Come in, come in.”

  Tailler and Hubert had quickly found a conference room that wasn’t being used. Using Maintenon’s name and a little fast talking, they had reserved it for at least the next forty-eight hours.

  Tailler’s mouth opened.

  The first uniformed gendarme bent his head and came in, shoulders blocking out the sight of those behind him.

  “Sir. Reporting as ordered for unspecified duties…”

  “Yes, yes, come in. How many are there?”

  Two policewomen and this big one. Tailler gave him another look

  “All right.” He handed them each a thin file folder. “We’ve grabbed a room. We’re getting some additional phones rigged. What’s going to happen, is that you’re going to be calling the numbers on the list and asking a few simple questions. If there’s no number listed, go through the telephone exchange—and if you get a number, write it down. If you get a hit, you tell them to hold on—better yet, hang up. Then you come running and find one of us.”

  Hubert was still pounding away at the typewriter.

  He came to the end of the document in question. Sitting up straighter, he cranked it up and out of the machine.

  He looked around.

  “You.”

  The big male cop responded.

  “Me?”

  “Anyone. Get over here and copy these documents. We need it quick, because we want to get you guys started.”

  He got out of his chair and the bulky fellow, fingers like sausages he had, quickly took his place.

  “How many copies, sir?”

  “Make it six—no, eight. You can only do a couple of carbons at a time.” Hubert pulled out a drawer and showed him the paper and thin carbon sheets.

  “Yes, sir.” He peered down at the page, inserted fresh sheets, and then began pecking away.

  Hubert looked at Tailler. “Any other ideas?”

  “Yeah. Take the ladies down the hall, show them where they’ll be working. While you’re doing that, I will write up, ah, some quick little briefing notes. They need to know exactly what they’re working on.”
r />   Hubert nodded. He had an idea. Nipping to his desk, he quickly sorted through his materials.

  “Here.” He picked the first one he made eye contact with. “Take these down to the photo lab and tell them we need six or seven more copies of each—the file number is right there. Tell them to bring it up to Room Three-Sixteen.”

  He looked over at the officer typing, and raised his voice.

  “You hear that? Room Three-Sixteen.”

  A hand came up in acknowledgement.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hubert nodded at Tailler.

  “Okay, we’re off—”

  “And?”

  Hubert cracked a quick grin.

  “Keep up the good work, Emile—we’re doing okay here. We’ll get some more people when they can spare them.” And no sooner, in other words.

  The look he received in return was kind of hard to pin down. There might have been some demur, in there.

  “The great thing about being cops, is that we’re never going to run out of work.” Their acolytes chuckled at the unexpected response, the tone spot-on.

  Sad, but true.

  Poor old Tailler was just a bit out of his depth but struggling manfully to stay afloat.

  That look pretty much said it all.

  ***

  It was a very good thing that Hubert had put some thought into briefing their untried, untested, impromptu little team.

  Barely a half an hour later, they were all hard at work.

  “What? Oh, Monsieur Godeffroy. We’ve been trying to reach you all day.” Looking very white around the eyes, the policewoman on the end of their long table turned and beckoned furiously.

  Hubert was momentarily riveted to the spot, then galvanized into a kind of twitch. Here was their big chance. This was the unexpected rearing its ugly head. Always when you least expected it.

  Sacre merde, he had no idea of what to do.

  “Holy.” The hoarse whisper cut through everything as he threw his pen at the back of Tailler’s head and that conversation was quickly cut to a bare and shocked silence.

  Tailler stared at him, rubbing the sore spot. Hubert pointed at the policewoman on the other end of the table.

  “…and how are you today, Monsieur Godeffroy?”

  The room was a babble of talk, with three of them and Tailler going one minute, and dead quiet the next. All eyes and all ears were frozen in place.

  The policewoman, turning back to the conversation, appeared to be listening. She’d gotten a hit and the switchboard had put her right through.

  “Ah, yes, Monsieur. We were just wondering if your refrigerator was running—” Almost choking on it, she managed an insane giggle.

  You could have heard a pin drop in the room, and then with a sudden wince, she pulled the thing away from her ear and quickly put her finger on the button.

  She turned to Hubert.

  “Where was that, exactly?”

  She nodded, pencil in hand.

  “It’s some little village. Just north of Chalons sur Champagne. Hotel d’Esprit. What do we do now, sir?”

  “That was good thinking, Jeannine. Outstanding! I thought my heart was going to stop dead. Just dead, there.” He had to ask. “What did he say? Did he say anything?”

  “Well.” She rolled her eyes. “He has an extensive vocabulary, sir.”

  They all looked at him and then laughed when he laughed.

  “I don’t believe it.” Tailler was right—

  Hubert was finding it very hard to accept that they had located their missing husband.

  Just like that, right out of the blue.

  Tailler was the first to hang up the phone. Dubiously, having barely gotten started into the work, the other two reluctantly cut it off with a click. They could always call back and try again.

  “Okay, we need a minute to think about this one.” Hubert rose and with a look at Emile, headed for the door.

  Tailler got up out of his chair.

  “All right, people. Hmn. What I want you to do, ah…now, is to call around. We know where he is. So, let’s find a map somewhere and narrow these lists down. He’s been gone for a few days now. He’s using his own name. He must have been staying somewhere. There are hundreds of vineyards, vintners, dozens of fine chateaux in the vicinity. It’s also wine country, Gaston e Cie is a big company and this guy is well-known up there.”

  “In short? We just keep going?”

  “Exactly. Er. As best you can. Things will change in five minutes or five hours. That’s just the way it is in homicide—” He loosened his tie. “I’ll, uh, be back with you as quick as I can. But use your heads. We want to find this man, and maybe we have. Or maybe we haven’t. And so far—so far, we have no idea of what’s really going on here.”

  He patted Jeannine on the shoulder, and followed his partner, who would have presumably headed for their regular squad-room.

  “Sir.”

  He stopped.

  “Yes?”

  “What if we need to go to the bathroom?”

  “Then find one of those too.” He cleared his throat. “Okay. You get a break every two hours, five or ten minutes, no more. You are not goofing off. One at a time. You are under my authority and Detective Etienne Hubert as well. Don’t let anyone take you away from this duty. You guys are mine, okay? Tell them to come and see me first, n’est pas?”

  Three sober and serious faces looked at him and nodded.

  “Yes, sir.” At this stage of the game they were just parrots, really, two of them anyways.

  The two dumb ones.

  Jeannine had just saved their asses.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oh. Sorry.” Hubert almost rammed the door into the back of Inspector Maintenon.

  Maintenon turned and looked at him inquiringly.

  “You guys are back pretty quick.”

  Levain spoke up.

  “Not much to it. Whole thing solved in five minutes. By the time we got there, a witness had coughed up a name. They saw the whole thing.” Uniformed gendarmes went straight to the fellow’s front door, where he was apparently waiting for them to arrive.

  He had surrendered peacefully enough. He was still being processed and would quickly become another statistic.

  “Well, that’s handy.”

  Tailler was standing there, chewing his lip as Gilles took his hat off and hung up the jacket again, moving at a measured pace and clearly with his thoughts elsewhere.

  Finally he turned.

  “So. How are we doing?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Tailler nodded firmly. “We got a hit, Gilles—Inspector. We never would have expected it, but Jeannine, one of the lady cops, actually spoke to the guy.”

  “Oh, really.”

  Tailler stood there with this lost expression, not quite wringing his hands, but clearly a little stunned by the development. After all they had put into it.

  Hubert quickly explained how Jeannine had handled it, to an approving nod from Levain.

  “Okay.” Maintenon went to his desk and sat. “So. What do we do now?”

  Tailler nodded. He licked his lips and tried to think it through.

  Gilles leaned back, put his hands behind his head. His eyes closed. Hubert thought he’d better help his friend.

  “He was located in Chalons de Champagne. We have our people calling around, sort of backtracking. We’re trying to get confirmation of his movements—cities, hotels, wine producers, that sort of thing.”

  Gilles gave Tailler a nod. In the background, Hubert waved a piece of paper. It looked like LeBref or somebody had taken a message.

  “According to the Army, Didier has never done military service.”

  He got nothing but a blank look from Emile in return.

  Hmn. Maybe it wasn’t that important after all.

  “Sir. We think maybe it’s time. Time to ask Monique to identify the body—if that’s all right with you?”

  Gilles nodded, without opening his eyes. They all saw it.


  “So in other words, play dumb? We know nothing until someone tells us otherwise…?”

  Maintenon nodded again.

  “Hmn.”

  A wise policy.

  “Ah…yes, sir.”

  “We have one or two other questions we’ve been meaning to ask her. Also, we might get a few more people sent up over the course of the day. For our little phone project. Then we have this itinerary from Monique to check out.” That one went back a month or a bit more. “Oh, and Didier has never done military service.”

  Hubert looked at Tailler with a raised eyebrow.

  “I think that’s about it.”

  Gilles nodded.

  “Very well.” He sat up and opened his eyes, blinking and then giving them a quick rub with long fingertips.

  Maintenon looked at the clock and then he looked at the coffeepot. There was never going to be enough time in the day. He looked at Hubert, still standing there as Tailler dropped down into his desk chair in anticipation, one way or another.

  “Very well, gentlemen. Carry on.” His eyes fell.

  Gilles lifted the cover of a dusty buff file folder. He took out the first page and began to read.

  Tailler opened up one of several notebooks lying on his desk.

  He was looking for her phone number.

  “Monique, Monique…Monique.”

  ***

  They were playing their cards very close to their chests.

  Hubert had been the one who called Monique Godeffroy. She sounded cold, and distant on the phone. He told her very carefully that they needed to speak to her and asked if she had any major appointments for the day.

  When she said that she didn’t, he arranged for the two of them to go around straight away. How in the hell he had become second banana was a good question, but Tailler was the one with all the ideas today.

  When she answered the door, their initial impression of the woman was confirmed. Monique would spend forty-five minutes in front of the mirror every morning, regular as clockwork, every day, no matter what happened. It would have killed her not to. It was like she had just spent forty francs, not on her shoes but on the feet themselves.

  Tailler’s own feet, encased in those hard leather clod-hoppers all day long, pounding hard pavement as often as not, could, on occasion, be a bit gruesome. Her toes looked like little candies to his suddenly depraved eyes—he had no idea of what was happening to him lately, and there were times when the bizarre juxtaposition of psycho-sexual elements was just too much.