Speak Softly My Love

by Louis Shalako

  If Didier ran or went to ground in a major city, they might have one hell of a time catching up again. In order to avoid arousing his suspicions, they couldn’t even freeze his bank accounts. In what was very odd, phone taps to all three households indicated he wasn’t calling them and they weren’t calling or trying to call him. It might be hard for a wife or spouse to locate him on impulse. One would think he would call home once in a while, and let them know where he was, and how he was doing.

  Their monitoring of the lines at Gaston e Cie had recorded several long and involved business conversations that left little doubt they were dealing with the real Didier.

  That was an interesting moment.

  Days had passed and the tensions mounted.

  Now it was different.

  With regular updates from their officers calling in from stations on the way, it was clear that Didier was finally heading home for Paris. He could still branch off at almost any point along the way, almost up to the last minute. The wine-producing regions of France were diverse and scattered all over. It was only when he got up in the morning, left his hotel, took a cab, made his way to the station and bought a ticket for Paris, that’s when they knew for certain he was really coming.

  More than anything they wanted Didier to come home. The timing and execution of their warrants was predicated upon the fact that Didier’s train came in at approximately ten-forty-two a.m. from points south and west.

  Once he bought that final ticket, his fate was more or less determined. One of their field officers called in hurriedly. Their quarry had actually boarded and one of them was on the train with him. As soon as the second shadow hung up, there would be two of them on the train with Didier…

  They were coming home.

  Any change in plans, even one unexpected move on his part, and his shadows would grab him and slap the cuffs on him without hesitation. They would grab him and drag him in by the scruff of the neck if that’s what it took.

  Lucinde let them in without a problem and quickly stood aside as they went to work.

  “What is this all about, gentlemen?” Her dignity was tragic, her countenance stern, although her lips trembled.

  Gilles looked her in the eye.

  “I may have a few questions for you. In the meantime, please sit down on the end of the couch and don’t move, Madame.”

  Her face white with suppressed emotions, the lady had turned and did exactly what she was told. The redoubtable Jeannine stood there, arms crossed, keeping an eye on her.

  ***

  In Molsheim, Detective Etienne Hubert stood looking around the room. They were accompanied by a detective and a sergeant from the local detachment. They would of course receive all due credit in any subsequent news conferences. Inspector Descamps hadn’t stinted them a bit of manpower. The thought that their detachment would share in any glory probably didn’t enter into it—not too much, anyways.

  The air in Zoe’s flat was stale but relatively odorless. Her houseplants were definitely getting dry when he pulled off a glove and stuck a finger into the soil. It was very quiet and all the windows were tightly shut. There were no pets. She had a little milk in the fridge. When Hubert smelled it, it was sour. There were perishable items, looking pretty limp by now, and the potatoes when he found them were spotted and beginning to smell.

  He wandered the place in his cotton gloves as the technical guys, local people, went about dusting for prints.

  He raised his voice.

  “Look for anything masculine. Anyplace where a guest, especially male, might have touched.”

  He thought about it. Fingerprints were the most damning evidence. The bathroom, the bedroom…which side would the woman sleep on?

  She would shove further in from the side they got in on, and that would put the male beside the bedside table and the telephone.

  “Check the alarm clock and the telephone.”

  The fridge, maybe. Not the stove. She had a little bar alcove at one end of the salon, mostly for show thought Hubert.

  Someone knocked at the door and the men inside Zoe’s apartment froze for a second as if stricken by the most abject guilt. With a look at Firmin, Hubert went to the door.

  It was Ada Bellerose.

  “Can I help you?”

  Her face was flaming.

  “You! You bastards. What’s going on in there?”

  Hubert shrugged.

  A uniformed sergeant appeared at his shoulder.

  “There is no need for alarm. Other than that, you can read about it in the papers, Mademoiselle.”

  Gently, ever so gently, Hubert shut the door in the young lady’s face.

  “Sir?”

  A little thrill ran through Detective Hubert.

  “Yes?”

  “I think we’ve got something.”

  Following the voice, he went into the bathroom, a small but attractive little room up under the back eaves.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “It looks like a man’s shaving kit.”

  Hubert grinned.

  He gave the sergeant a look.

  “Okay, men. We’re looking for fingerprints, strands of hair, dead whiskers in the brush, and fibres from the man’s coat. Mud from his shoes. Male personal hygiene items, cigarettes, pipes, a gross of condoms, you name it. Leave no stone unturned.”

  “What about the rug?” The grinning young gendarme, crowding in for a look, had a point, thought Hubert.

  “Pull it up when we’re done and look for money—stuff like that. Right?” He gave the sergeant a quick look.

  The grizzled veteran nodded.

  “You heard the man.”

  Firmin gave Sergeant Paquet a wink, receiving a blank look in return. Hubert was so wound up, it was like the poor guy just couldn’t stand still.

  ***

  Didier Godeffroy, every inch the picture of the perfect businessman, la parfait négociant, stepped off the train into the shrill babble of the platform crowd, and was immediately confronted.

  A perfect cliff of a man in big shoes, grey trousers and a long black raincoat stepped directly in front of him. A wide-brimmed fedora shadowed his eyes from the hot glare above. A sturdy woman with a face like a potato was at his side. Her hair was in a tight bun and her cap hung half sideways, pinned on a precarious angle. Their eyes bored into his as others crowded him from behind.

  “Didier Godeffroy?”

  “Yes?”

  The woman held up a shiny official badge while the man-ape stood there watching his reaction carefully, arms held loosely at his sides.

  “There’s not going to be any trouble here, is there sir?” The deep rumbling voice matched the man.

  “No, no, of course not.” Didier stared in apparent confusion at the badge. “Who are you people? What is this about, please?”

  The lady officer spoke.

  “If you would come with us, sir, we would just like to ask you a few questions.”

  People eddied and swirled around the three, Didier with his baggage at his feet and the other two oblivious to all around them. Their focus was entirely on him.

  His eyes flickered left and right. He became aware that he was under scrutiny from certain other rather cold-looking ladies and gentlemen. They stood off to each side, cold in the sense of being watchful, motionless and emotionless, rather than from the temperature. He tore his eyes away.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Leave the bags, sir. Please, sir, just turn around and put your hands on your head.”

  Didier’s jaws dropped as the big officer spoke and the female stepped slightly off to one side, pulling her coat back and it was obvious that she had her hand on the butt of a weapon.

  “Whoa.” He gulped. “Okay, okay—no problem.”

  He raised his hands, nice and slow and then he was quickly spun around by the clamp of a hand on his collar bone area. An iron grip took hold of his right wrist as the emotions ran through him. For a moment there it looked like, it sure f
elt like, he would bolt. The steel ring snapped on his wrist.

  He sagged at the knees and then fought for composure, his posture straightening in spite of all odds. He took a long, hard breath, his darting, shocked eyes seeking something above the level of their heads.

  “Ah…”

  “Keep that left hand up there.” The lady was the total professional.

  There was the momentary gleam of a wedding ring.

  He gave her the look of a frightened rabbit confronted by the fox. His eyes were everywhere, the heart-rate shooting skywards and the adrenalin making his knees knock.

  His body gave one massive twitch, but he remained in some semblance of control over himself.

  The opportunity passed, and he never would have made it anyway.

  There was nowhere to run. There were trains before and behind his narrow platform. All avenues were blocked by officers in bulky shoes, ill-fitting trousers, and shapeless jackets and coats. The cuff was on his right wrist. His left wrist was seized and brought down.

  His hand was yanked into position and then he was secured.

  “Who do you people think you are—”

  “Look on the bright side, Monsieur Godeffroy. You won’t have to carry your own bags. You won’t even have to tip us.”

  The lady gendarme waved off a porter as he came along, recognizing Monsieur Godeffroy perhaps and not seeing that there was some action here he might not want to be involved in.

  It all clicked in and he sought their hard eyes in confirmation—he knew cops when he saw them. The old fellow, all dressed in blue and with the regulation cap, stood there gaping, hands clasping the handle of the cart. Another impatient traveler plucked at his elbow and dragged him rather unwillingly off. Clouds of steam and gaggles of tired travelers straggled past in the light breeze.

  “I want to speak to my lawyer.”

  “You’ll have all the time in the world, sir.”

  The big male gendarme leaned across in front of the prisoner, turned his head and gave Jeannine a quick and admiring glance.

  The arresting officers, taking an elbow each, his arms cuffed behind him, frog-marched an ashen-faced Didier Godeffroy down the platform, through the concourse and out into the bright, marvelous autumn day.

  It really was perfect weather for September.

  ***

  With one prisoner in custody, the woman calling herself Monique and the one calling herself Lucinde had been ordered not to leave town. They were under non-stop surveillance by teams of officers working in shifts.

  On their own, Hubert and Tailler never would have been able to pull it off, but with Maintenon and Inspectors Delorme and David pulling for them, they had gotten all the resources they needed.

  Monsieur Godeffroy had been allowed to call his lawyer. He had been booked and processed and was sitting in a holding cell.

  Their teams in Lyon and Molsheim had, essentially, twenty-four hours to get the goods and return to Paris, although the public prosecutor was good for one twenty-four hour extension. After that, they would have to go to the judge and show cause for holding Monsieur Godeffroy any longer.

  The team from Molsheim having returned triumphant, Maintenon had pulled more strings.

  They had taken over the biggest conference room they could find, luckily on their own floor this time. All the desks and tables had been pushed together in two lines, tables in one, all about the same height, and the desks in the other line. Each subject and each aspect of the case got their own big table as detectives wandered up and down, organizing everything they had. Tailler had a big blackboard with a time-line on it, and references to railway schedules, salient events, eye-witness reports and ticket stubs seized so far…it was all coming together beautifully.

  They had their exhibits lined up, neatly tagged, bagged, labeled and identified. When the team from Lyon came bounding down the hallway with their boxes and materials, they were rapidly redirected by Firmin to the appropriate room.

  Tailler had taken to calling it a think tank.

  Gilles and Levain were off on a case of their own, but after a noisy greeting, the small group settled down. There were just Hubert, Firmin, and Tailler. The gendarmes had been sent back, with some effusive thanks, to whatever duties they had originally been pulled from.

  Now it was just a case of making sense of what they had.

  Tailler stood awed for a moment as Firmin and Hubert hunched over the phone, and mumbled away at their one and only clear desk in the corner.

  With fingerprints, hairs, shaving kits, bloodstains, bodies, time-tables, railroad and the killer’s as well, it had become fairly overwhelming.

  “Oh, boy.”

  This was going to take some doing—he knew what must have happened, what could have happened, what might have happened. Now they just needed to prove it.

  First things first.

  Fingerprints.

  ***

  It was time for les enfants terrible to spell it out.

  “Are you ready to tell me what happened yet, Emile?”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  Hubert nodded firmly.

  Sure. Why not.

  Hubert began.

  “Well, sir. We have Didier Godeffroy’s fingerprints all over, all three domiciles. We have hairs from his head, most likely, according to preliminary analysis. It’s difficult to see where else they might have come from. We’ve asked around and there are no other interesting males in any of the women’s lives. We have Didier’s whiskers from the razors. What’s interesting, is that with the decedent from the river, the look-alike, we can’t find his prints anywhere in any of the premises.”

  Reports stated the unidentified victim’s whiskers, were in general thicker and perhaps a bit darker than the real Didier’s. This part did sort of throw doubt on all other evidence regarding whiskers, as it was simply not possible to be conclusive. All their experts agreed on that.

  “I see.”

  “Okay. This is where it gets fun, Inspector. I have to admit, it took me a while to figure it out.”

  Hubert raised his hand like a schoolboy.

  “I give Emile full credit for that—this is all his idea, Inspector.”

  Gilles snorted gently, as Levain grinned and Firmin gave Hubert a blank stare. The young detective coloured slightly and shut up.

  Tailler looked shy for a moment, but then plunged on.

  “Okay. The lady in the Rive Gauche—her prints are all over the Paris residence of Didier Godeffroy. And the hotel room—and nowhere else. Yet they were on the ticket stub, although the ladies of a certain class still favour gloves, and the weather was cool that day. They were on the letter.” He cleared his throat. “So—she had gloves with her. She came in wearing a spring and fall jacket. I noticed it at the time. The stations are cold inside, and she would have bought the ticket and stuck the stub in her purse. She might have been wearing gloves—or, more usually people just toss them.”

  Train stations and the sidewalks around them were littered with just such cancelled stubs.

  Gilles pursed his lips and even Firmin looked impressed.

  “Go on, my dear boy. Go on.”

  Tailler stammered and cleared his throat.

  “What’s interesting is that the prints from the body in the Rive Gauche don’t match any of the prints in the Zoe passport. But all the passports are a mess of mostly unidentifiable smudges. When we look further, we can match up prints from Zoe’s house, to fragmentary prints on the Zoe passport. Did I get that right?”

  He was pretty sure he had. He glanced through his notes, but that was what it said. He tried again.

  “Now, eliminating the maid and the cook and one or two prints that clearly don’t belong to anybody—I’m a bit unsure there, but surely Monique, and even Lucinde, couldn’t have been that isolated. The most perfect servant will miss the odd print when cleaning, waxing and dusty. But they can linger for quite a while—”

  Gilles coughed and he broke off.

 
“…getting right to the point, sir, is that the prints of the lady calling herself Monique appear in the Paris household and the Lyons household.” His eyes went far away. “What’s interesting is that the servants haven’t been seen in a while. The theory is that they’ve been let go and any documents are missing somehow…”

  With none of them talking under advice of counsel, it would take some time to find them.

  Levain nodded, a quick little jerk of the head.

  “And the fingerprints of the lady calling herself Lucinde are found in the house in Lyon as well as the house in Molsheim. It’s a regular fucking shell game going on here, sir.”

  Gilles exhaled in a kind of admiration.

  “The body in the park really did get up and walk away. In the absence of other leads, other reports, it’s the only sensible explanation. Following Didier’s movements, and we have hotel confirmations going back quite a ways, there are a couple of big gaps. There are two big, beautiful windows of opportunity, one for the Rive Gauche killing. Also. He was out of the house for the alleged body you found, Inspector. The time frame is perfect. We have officers interviewing station attendants all up and down the line, and we expect to get their reports. It would be nice to know exactly when he left town. So far we’ve turned up nothing. Part of the problem is that he was actually fairly well-known. He ditched most of his own ticket stubs—a sensible precaution. Honestly, he would have had a handful, and that’s just from his regular job. People are saying that they saw him come and go—can’t remember when, but he was a regular customer. Maybe we’ll get lucky there.”

  Tailler tailed off. The truth was, he still had questions.

  “So.”

  “So, ah, sir. The theory is that the look-alike gentleman was blackmailing Didier.” He cleared his throat. “That’s probably where the idea originally came from—he remarked upon the resemblance. Obviously, he had a real thing for blonde women of a certain height and build.”

  Hubert spoke.

  “The blackmailer may have actually contacted the wife—Monique. That would precipitate events. He didn’t have to tell her anything, in fact he probably didn’t. But she took the call. The guy got pushy and called there—and she picked up. It’s all she had to do. It would put a hell of a lot of pressure on Didier. It would show that the blackmailer meant business—or else.”