Heart Collector

by Jacques Vandroux

  Julien looked at Sophie. He’d only recently gotten to know the young woman, who was rather guarded about her private life. They had started at Megatech on the same day. He’d never developed very strong friendships with his coworkers. But by chance he and Sophie had found themselves on the same one-week trek around Mont-Blanc, and he’d discovered a lively, funny girl. He was convinced he could trust her.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you, but promise me you’ll keep it to yourself.”

  “I promise, Juju.”

  “Okay, but if you could stop calling me Juju . . .”

  “So what’s the scoop?”

  Julien told her about his adventure the previous day. The girl he saw on the street, the incomprehensible urge to follow her, his wait in front of the cathedral, and the mysterious woman’s disappearance in the church.

  “That’s just the beginning,” he continued. “I went home and realized that it had affected me more than I thought. I dreamed about it last night.”

  “So do you think she liked you?” interrupted Sophie.

  “You joker! Let me get to the end of my dream. At first I thought someone was trying to shake me awake. So then I opened my eyes. There’s a girl in a room, she’s looking at me, but everything’s pretty blurry. Then all of a sudden, there’s a loud noise, or a strong gust of wind, or I don’t know what—a kind of biblical cloud comes over me. You know the type . . .”

  “I have yet to experience it, but I’ll do my best to put myself in your shoes.”

  “Basically, her face appears to me quite clearly, and I recognize her: the woman at the cathedral. But her features, which were calm in the afternoon, are full of distress now. A shadow comes up behind her, threatening. She tries to yell something, screaming and fighting, and then I woke up for real.”

  Sophie looked at him silently as she stirred sugar into her coffee. “Well, I can understand why that affected you.”

  “It’s not over. I looked at my alarm clock, and it was around three o’clock in the morning. I managed to get back to sleep, and I had the same dream. Again, the sensation of being called in my sleep. Then I see the room again, and there’s the girl again. But this time, she’s panicked. She’s crying, but no sound comes out. The shadow’s there, denser, like it’s solidified, bending over her. Then I wake up. The first time, I was already shaken, but the second time, you better believe I was flipping out.”

  “It’s disconcerting, to say the least. Guilt for having followed that pretty girl in the street?”

  “Geez, you’re going strong today! Fine, tell me what it means, O great psychologist?”

  Sophie looked at her watch. “The psychologist says if we don’t want to get lynched, we should think about getting back to our projects posthaste. Then again, if you ask me out tonight, I’ll be ready to give you my diagnosis.”

  Julien smiled. “Eight o’clock, Place du Tribunal, in front of the Café de la Table Ronde. I’ll let you pick the restaurant.”

  “Oh, no, if you do the asking, you have to choose the location for our feast. That’s the deal!”

  “You’re right, my dear, I am beneath contempt. Here, for your trouble, I’ll let you pay for the coffee.”

  Sophie stood up and left three euros on the table. “Very well, monseigneur! Let’s go now, or else Denis will have a nervous breakdown.”

  Chapter 6: The Autopsy

  Nadia Barka greeted Doctor Blavet’s arrival with relief. She’d witnessed a number of horrors in her career, and it took a lot to rattle her. But she’d never been able to stand the ambiance at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. She’d had to participate in autopsies several times, but seeing a corpse cut open surgically, weighed piece by piece, analyzed, and then sewn up before being returned to its loved ones always left her with an impression of the individual’s final downfall. She found it depressing.

  She understood perfectly well the importance of the procedure and knew that it was, after a fashion, the final act requested of the victim to unmask her killer, a sort of posthumous vengeance, but it always did something to her.

  Doctor Blavet broke into a huge smile when he saw her. Around sixty years old, he was one of the best forensic pathologists in France. His good humor and nearly constant smile made him far from a Frankenstein, which a jealous colleague had tried to nickname him.

  “Hello, Nadia, how’s it going?”

  She always insisted that, apart from her close colleagues, her official title be used and a professional tone be observed, just like for her male colleagues. But she made an exception for Henri Blavet. He had always regarded her with benevolence devoid of condescension. He also appreciated her unwavering determination and effectiveness in a male-dominated profession. He’d supported her when, several years earlier, Commissioner Carpot (who had since been transferred to the Paris region) had tried to get her to take the blame for a failure that absolutely wasn’t her fault. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

  “To be quite frank, Doctor,” she said, “not terribly well. It still gets me when I see a murdered woman.”

  “Yes, I know, since Laure Déramaux’s killing.”

  Silence settled between the two of them. Captain Barka clenched her fists and forced herself to breathe slowly. The doctor spoke again. “I’m afraid we’ve once again stumbled onto a complicated case.”

  The police officer flinched, as though from an electric shock. “But she didn’t have any apparent wounds.”

  “No apparent wounds, you are correct, but when I undressed her, that assumption went out the window. Come, let’s go sit in my office.”

  They walked down a long hallway with venerable white walls that hadn’t been repainted for quite some time. Undoubtedly a result of the hospitals’ budgets melting like snow in the sun! The room was small but well furnished. Two comfortable chairs faced the doctor’s desk. Captain Barka sat down, nervously crossing her legs. Action and danger had never scared her, and she’d captured more than one criminal who was amused to be up against a woman. Well—amused to start with! But over the last three years, she sometimes felt boiling within her a hatred that terrified her. Ever since she’d had to investigate the death of Laure Déramaux, a young woman, twenty-three years old, found slain in a Vercors forest.

  She found herself faced with a glass of fruit juice, which the doctor had just proffered. She smiled at him, pulled herself together, and regained her professionalism.

  “I’m listening, Doctor Blavet.”

  “Good, I’ll send you my official report tomorrow, but I can already give you the main outline. The victim is a Caucasian woman, in good health, between twenty-five and thirty years old, likely closer to thirty. As you’ve noted, there was no trace of a blow or wound on the body when you found it in the baptistery.”

  “Yes, she had a surprised look before I finally closed her eyes. You’ll be able to see it in the photos taken by the forensic team.”

  “When my assistants undressed her and laid her on the autopsy table, I immediately noticed a large wound on her side. Difficult to miss. The body had been cut open and then sewn up again, undoubtedly during the crime.”

  The policewoman said nothing more, anxious to hear the rest of the story. But she forced herself not to show it.

  “The fellow who killed her has a serious problem. When I continued with the autopsy, I saw that her heart was no longer in her rib cage.”

  Nadia let him go on.

  “He made an incision just under eight inches long at the abdomen, spread open the two sides, then utilized a very sharp instrument to reach the heart. He barely nicked a few other organs on the way, proof of undeniable skill. This was clearly not the first time the murderer was engaging this type of activity.”

  “Do you think he’s a doctor?”

  “A doctor, or a veterinarian, or perhaps someone who very closely studied an anatomy textbook and practiced extensive
ly on animals.”

  A question burned on Captain Barka’s lips. She asked it. “Was she alive when he did that? Did she suffer?”

  “No, she was dead. The blood remained in the organs. If she had been alive, she would have lost all her blood.”

  “And why did she look so surprised?”

  “I ordered some blood work. There were traces of a powerful soporific that we haven’t had time to analyze yet. You’ll have the results tomorrow.”

  “Was she raped?”

  “No, no evidence of sexual assault or seminal fluid. This isn’t one of those rape murders.”

  The doctor had finished his summary. His shoulders slumped imperceptibly. “I’m describing this to you as though I’m reading a scientific report, but despite all my years doing this work, I’m not impervious to this sort of situation. And whoever did it is one hell of a scumbag.”

  His perpetual smile no longer graced his lips. His face had gone hard as stone. “I will do everything I can to help you catch him. Because the killer is a sick man, albeit a methodical one. If he’s acting on impulses, he’s managing to control them, and nothing says he won’t do it again. Well, I’ll leave it to your psychologist.”

  Captain Barka stood up. Her decision was clear, irrevocable. It would be war between her and the killer. She wouldn’t let such a dangerous creature escape a second time.

  Chapter 7: Adieu, Magali!

  The sun was setting behind the Vercors Mountains. It still shone brightly, but the air was starting to cool. Barely. The man closed the shutters. The summer solstice was approaching, and he dreaded nightfall—that night, years or centuries before, which had wounded him in a way he’d never recovered from.

  But now at last he’d discovered how to rid himself of the nightmare that pursued him relentlessly. Oh, how powerful he’d felt the previous night! Powerful and temporarily delivered from the sickness that had been devouring him for so long, always at the same time of year, before that cursed summer solstice! Now when the fever took him, and he felt the darkness, the pain, seep into him, he knew how to make it fade away. He opened his clenched fist and blew sharply on the palm of his hand, pleased. Adieu, Magali!

  He knew his torture would come to an end, he was sure of it. The one who had initiated him could not be mistaken.

  For years, he had tried all sorts of drugs and treatments. But those only knocked him out, rendering him unable to react and quashing the energy that had carried him through his whole career. It was always there, lurking in the shadows, ready to seize him as soon as that fatal date arrived! It then disappeared and returned, year after year, tirelessly, leaving him no respite, growing stronger. He suffered so much he felt like he was going to die, but he could not entertain the thought of death, which he knew would have offered him the reprieve he longed for. He was incapable of committing suicide.

  Finally, he’d found it! He’d found it, without ever engaging those incompetents who call themselves psychiatrists and claim the right to treat the souls of their fellow men. He’d found a way to definitively lift the curse and rediscover peace.

  It was only a matter of days, he knew it.

  He smiled lovingly at the mass of reddish flesh enclosed in the jar he’d just taken out of the refrigerator. He would allow himself a fresh morsel of this lifesaving heart later in the evening.

  Chapter 8: A Cozy Restaurant

  Julien had stopped dreaming about the mysterious woman at the cathedral, but he couldn’t manage to shake the profound malaise the nightmare had given him. He had to move on. He looked at his watch. It was almost eight o’clock.

  The Place Saint-André—or Place du Tribunal, as the locals called it in honor of the old sixteenth-century courthouse bordering it—was packed. Every student in Grenoble seemed to be there that evening, either to celebrate the end of exams or to keep their spirits up while taking them. Julien smiled inwardly. He had frequented these bars only a decade or so ago. He looked at each, knew them all. They were part of his routine back then. He’d even had a fling with an Austrian student, a waitress in her spare time. It all seemed both very recent and increasingly distant. Fine, I’m getting older, he said to himself with an amused inner pout.

  The atmosphere was relaxed, the temperature was growing pleasant, and a sudden levity came over him. Life was beautiful, open before him. He wasn’t about to ruin such a promising evening because of a stranger he’d only glimpsed the day before.

  He moved closer to the Café de la Table Ronde, which prided itself on being the oldest café in Grenoble and the second oldest café in France, after Le Procope in Paris. Ah, yes, the eternal rivalry between Paris and the provinces. Julien, having lived in both cities, had decided not to weigh in when discussions on this highly controversial topic came up.

  He looked around as he waited for Sophie. She was generally punctual. Indeed, he spotted her at a distance waving to him as she came out of the Jardin de Ville. He was happy to see her.

  The Sophie he consorted with on the job was a sportswoman extraordinaire. Always dressed in jeans or capris and addicted to polar fleece, she clearly spent more time at Au Vieux Campeur than at Zara or Esprit. During their trek around Mont-Blanc, she’d led the group with prowess, verve, and good humor that had impressed him.

  But the Sophie he saw coming toward him had nothing in common with the one he knew, at least as far as clothes went. Wearing a little summer dress that suited her perfectly, highlighting the shapes she typically contrived to keep hidden, she walked with surprising ease on a pair of stilettos. She even wore subtle makeup, which made her appear otherworldly.

  He was still gaping when she kissed him on the cheek.

  “So, Julien, cat got your tongue? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He recovered. “You’re just magnificent!” He was rather pleased to see her blush slightly under her usual tan.

  “Nice of you to say so, thanks. Since you’re taking me to some awesome restaurant, I had to match the decor. So where are we going? Kebabs or Chinese?”

  “If only I’d known! So sorry, but I picked something else.”

  “What?”

  “A nice little place right nearby—intimate, warm, good food, and friendly service.”

  “You memorized their website? I trust you completely. Take me.” She grabbed his arm and asked, “Which way?”

  “Toward the cathedral.”

  She saw him flinch and immediately understood what had just crossed his mind.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, smiling at him. “I’m not going to evaporate, at least not before dinner’s over.”

  Julien had reserved a table in a corner of the tiny room, which was already mostly full. Aged walls and exposed beams blended well with the more modern design of the tables. The two friends settled in and ordered two margaritas while they studied the menu.

  “All right, the restaurant is worthy of the effort I put in for you!” Sophie admitted to her companion.

  “I would have had to choose a restaurant that was truly beyond my current budget to be worthy of you.”

  Sophie smiled. “I was sure you were better at compliments than at reading a National Land Survey map. Much better, even!”

  They reminisced about their vacation and the one-mile detour the group had had to take when a storm came dangerously close to them.

  “I think that story is going to haunt me my whole life. And it’s your fault, too!” she said.

  “And why is that?”

  “Trusting the map to a guy who grew up in Paris—that’s risky business!”

  “I’d like to point out that I was doing my studies there while you were doing yours here.”

  “Yes, but darling, you used to gambol with cows and dahus in your native mountains.”

  “Fine, you win, it was partly my responsibility. And to celebrate that, I’m going to have seared scallops on a be
d of fresh spinach. I’ve just discovered you need to win the Goncourt Prize for French Literature to open a restaurant.”

  “Same for me, with a small glass of Sancerre. Will you drink a little tonight?”

  “A little? Why a little? We can start right in by ordering a bottle!”

  Chapter 9: Initial Briefing

  Commissioner Mazure stood in front of the board. Eight people, seated behind the tables arranged in a circle around the room, were waiting for him to speak. He lifted a cup of hot coffee to his lips, grimaced at the invariably poor quality of the beverage supplied by the administration’s distributor, and dove in.

  “Captain Barka distributed the file on the baptistery crime to you two hours ago. I have no doubt you read it through, but I’m going to ask her to give us a quick summary of the situation. Nadia, your turn.”

  Captain Barka stood up, ran a hand over her hair to smooth it, and got right to it. “Yesterday morning, at seven o’clock, the body of a still-unidentified woman was found in Grenoble’s Old Diocese Museum, in the baptistery in the basement, underneath the cathedral square. The body was laid out directly on the paving stones, without any apparent wounds. Doctor Blavet conducted the autopsy as soon as possible. And that’s when things took a different turn. The murderer removed the victim’s heart, then sewed her back up before redressing her. According to the doctor, the killer did not do this while she was alive. He killed her first, perhaps by poisoning. The time of death was estimated to be three or four o’clock in the morning, which is to say three or four hours before the corpse was discovered by the security guard.”

  A hand went up. Captain Barka ceded the floor to Lieutenant Étienne Fortin, a burly fellow whose hair was never combed, who often worked in tandem with her, and whose tenacity for the work she appreciated.

  “Do we have any idea how the body came to be in the baptistery? Was the crime committed at the scene?”

  “No. The crime was committed elsewhere. The forensic team found nothing at the scene. Not a drop of blood. As for how the body got into the museum, that remains a mystery for the moment. There are only two entrances to the site. According to Boisregard, the curator, those doors are wired to an alarm and anyone moving through them would have been detected.”