Heart Collector

by Jacques Vandroux

  “Come on, we’ll take you back.”

  1:30. Julien wondered if he might be dreaming. He was sitting in a wicker chair, a plate with two merguez sausages on his lap, and a glass of Côtes du Rhône wine in his hand.

  “You see,” commented Jean-Jacques Villard, “I go get some every year from a little Ardèche winegrower I discovered twenty years ago. He’s famous and very reasonably priced. As for the merguez, I buy them from Maurice, a butcher around the corner. A delicacy! Not the kind where they add spices to cover up the taste of fat and cheap cuts. Oh no, he’s a sausage master, my Maurice. You can almost believe he makes them exclusively to be eaten with my little glass of wine.”

  Seated in the shadow of an arbor at a house in Domène, Julien felt like he was living in an alternative universe. Overjoyed at the chance to see his old colleague, Jean-Jacques Villard had invited them for a barbecue. Julien had noticed Monique Villard grimace a bit when she saw her husband embrace the statuesque and charming Nadia, but Julien could tell Monique liked him. He’d understood it was in his best interest to appear charming—a relaxed atmosphere would help them steer the conversation toward the subject that interested them.

  While Madame Villard cleared the plates and went to make coffee, the retired policeman became professional once more.

  “I had a wonderful time with you, and it gave me great joy to see you again, Captain Barka. You are even more charming than I remember. But what’s the real reason that brings you here? Might I still be of use to you?”

  “I think so, Lieutenant Villard.”

  “Call me Jean-Jacques, now that I’m retired.”

  Julien once again told his story, and the hypotheses they’d just constructed at the bar. Jean-Jacques Villard cut him off in the middle of his last sentence. He looked at his two guests, then at his wife, as if to prove to her that she still lived with an important man.

  “I remember that story well. The wife who disappeared is named Magali Dupré! Well, Dupré was her maiden name. She married a certain Cabrade, Dominique Cabrade.”

  “And what do you remember?” cut in Julien, suddenly hopeful.

  “Quite a few things. But I’d very much like a little Chartreuse. Monique, can you bring us the bottle and four glasses?”

  Monique Villard normally would have rebuffed him, but she sensed the drama of the situation and certainly didn’t want to risk upsetting her husband. She ran to the living room and came back with the bottle and glasses.

  The old policeman admired the green shine of his liqueur, gave it a long sniff, and sipped. Then he resumed speaking. “Dominique Cabrade came in one summer night in 1983. I remember it well: I’d bought my Chrysler that same afternoon. His wife hadn’t come home for four days, and he had just come to report her disappearance . . . Strange.”

  “What do you mean by strange, Jean-Jacques?” asked Nadia.

  “He seemed despondent but also—how shall I put this—convinced that he’d never see her again. Whereas usually people who report disappearances cling to all they can, even denying tangible proof.”

  “But not him?”

  “No. He seemed affected, but fatalistic. Never seen a guy like that! His wife had disappeared on the first day of summer, and he assumed he wouldn’t see her again. He signed his statement, explaining to us that he trusted us completely in the investigation. But he wasn’t thinking about finding her again one day. She was gone. That was it!”

  “And?” asked Nadia.

  “Obviously this story seemed shady to me. I talked about it with Commissioner Diston, who immediately asked me to find out more about the players. Cabrade was a young surgeon, about thirty years old, with a promising future according to his boss.”

  Nadia quivered. A surgeon—a man capable of operating properly on his victims in order to extract their hearts from their chests. Villard continued.

  “I carried out a quick investigation on him. He was originally from the north and had come to Grenoble to study medicine. He was well appreciated by his colleagues and seemed to have a very active life. He’d been married for a little over a year, and the witnesses I interviewed hadn’t found anything about the couple to object to. I also looked into his wife.”

  Julien was tense as a bowstring. For the first time, he was going to hear someone talk about the mother he’d just discovered.

  “Magali Dupré was twenty-five at the time of her disappearance. She was pregnant and close to giving birth. But it wasn’t her husband who told me that. She had studied engineering and obtained a doctorate at the Center for Nuclear Studies in Grenoble. I easily collected information on her. Everyone seemed to love her, and she overflowed with life. But exactly one year before disappearing, she started to change, to become more distant. Six months later, she stopped working on her dissertation for medical reasons.”

  “How do you remember all that, Jean-Jacques?” asked Nadia, impressed by her ex-colleague’s memory.

  “My nickname of Rain Man is well earned,” he replied, smiling. “And this story affected me. I continued to investigate, and I met her parents, Pierre and Nicole Dupré. They were teachers and adored Magali, their only daughter. They adored their daughter as much as they hated their son-in-law. They didn’t understand how she could let herself be seduced by this doctor, and especially how she could marry him. They were convinced this man was behind their Magali’s disappearance.”

  “What was Cabrade like—physically, I mean?”

  “Good-looking guy. Blond, a bit like Robert Redford.”

  “I understand how she could’ve fallen for him,” commented Nadia.

  “Yes, but if you’d seen him when he came to the station, you wouldn’t have fallen for him. Distant, almost unsettling.”

  “How far did you push the inquiry?”

  “Not very far. We put out a few missing persons reports, asked around the neighborhood, but nothing turned up. I should say that at the time, we had a lot going on trying to break up gangs of drug traffickers and pimps.”

  “Did you see Cabrade again?” asked Nadia.

  “I never crossed paths with Cabrade again. But for years Pierre Dupré came to see me regularly to ask if I had any news. Little by little he was convinced his daughter had been killed by her husband. I saw him again from time to time until 2005, the year his wife died.”

  “Do you know if he’s still in the area?” asked Julien, full of hope.

  “He was in a retirement home, over by Sassenage, or Fontaine. If he’s still alive, I imagine he’s still there.”

  “And Cabrade?” asked Nadia.

  “That bird flew the coop. Six months after she died, he left the Grenoble hospital. He went to practice abroad. When they looked him up for further investigation, he was impossible to find. Vaporized!”

  “And no one tried to find out more?” Nadia said, incredulous.

  “No, unfortunately. Magali Dupré wasn’t important enough, and her disappearance had been eclipsed by front-page courtroom news.”

  “What are your thoughts, Jean-Jacques?”

  The man hesitated, then started in. “I’m not on the payroll anymore, so I can go there. I’m convinced she didn’t just disappear on her own. Either she was abducted—except who would kidnap a woman about to give birth—or her husband made her disappear. That investigation was botched. In fact, aside from the inquiries I was able to make, it didn’t happen.”

  A long silence followed the policeman’s last words. Julien looked at him. His face was flooded with great sadness. Only the chirping of sun-drenched insects could be heard in the garden.

  Nadia got up from her chair. “Thank you, Jean-Jacques, your testimony was very precious.”

  “You’re welcome, Captain. But how can it help you?”

  “It would seem that Cabrade has returned.”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “The murders o
ver the past few days,” she added.

  They thanked him, leaving him dazed, and went back to Grenoble.

  Chapter 42: Gruesome Discovery

  “All right, goddammit, what are you finding for me in this shit show?”

  Captain Stéphane Rivera was in a state of apoplectic distemper. Within a few minutes he’d gone from intense excitement to black rage. Where had that fucking killer flown off to? He’d called for reinforcements to search the house. They’d go over it with a fine-tooth comb from cellar to roof, and they’d find what it was hiding.

  “Captain, come look!”

  Rivera headed for the kitchen. A man, planted in front of an open refrigerator, was holding a jar.

  “Are you inventorying his pantry?” asked Rivera, annoyed.

  “Sort of, Captain, but look closer.”

  The officer forgot his bad mood for a moment and carefully examined the contents of the jar. “My God, but that’s . . .”

  “Yes, Captain, a heart, or what’s left of it. We may have before us the remains of Camille Saint-Forge.”

  Rivera took the jar in his hands and looked at the piece of flesh covered in tooth marks. “We’re really dealing with a sick fuck,” he muttered, going pale. He returned the jar and went up to the second floor. Two men were looking carefully at a bedroom with faded curtains.

  “It’s the only room that was inhabited recently, Captain. The window is broken, and there’s blood on the shards of glass. We have enough to analyze the DNA.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Yes, actually. Georges found a stack of documents on the desk. We’ll have them examined, but this one caught our attention. It looks like a copy of the cover from an old manuscript.”

  Rivera looked at the sheet. He moved closer to the window, whose shutters had been opened and read over the page.

  “The Great Book of Fra Bartolomeo. What the hell is this thing? We’ve got ourselves a weirdo. You give a copy of these pages to Saroyan as soon as we get back to Grenoble.”

  As he went back downstairs, Rivera started to develop a sense of the killer’s personality. Or at least of the mental complexity of the man he was supposed to track. He crossed the foyer and saw Magnusson coming toward him, white as a sheet.

  “What’s happening now, Karl?”

  “Come downstairs with me. What I want to show you defies all description.”

  He realized his colleague wouldn’t say another word. He followed him down the narrow concrete staircase and arrived in a long hallway. On his right, a door opened onto a well-lit room. Rivera went in, took three steps, and stopped cold. It took him several seconds to recognize what was in front of him.

  “That bastard set up his own operating room!”

  Next to the table, a box filled with pouches containing scalpels, spreaders, and other instruments he didn’t even know existed. The table was impeccably clean, and the instruments reflected the light from the faceted lamp. On the floor, brown stains.

  “The blood of his victims, no doubt!” commented Magnusson.

  “Il diavolo,” murmured Rivera in his native language. “Come on, let’s get out of here and let the specialists analyze this room. We need to avoid getting prints on anything.”

  He went back upstairs with the other officers, more shaken than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t just dealing with a murderer, but a pervert, a lunatic who took apart his victims in order to eat their hearts! He’d never been confronted with this type of criminal.

  Before he realized it, his thoughts had drifted toward Nadia Barka. Barka and the Déramaux case! He’d mocked her pretty well, but at the present moment, he felt ashamed. How would he have reacted if he’d been faced with that tortured corpse unprepared? One thought led to another until he came to Lombard’s testimony. Could what he had taken for a schizophrenic delusion a few hours earlier now make sense? When faced with a criminal who devours his victims, why not pay attention to a man who receives messages from the great beyond? Barka had taken him seriously, and she’d clearly been right. He’d contact Lombard as soon as he was back in Grenoble. He noticed his men watching him, waiting for instructions. He grew serious.

  “Gentlemen, we’re looking at a sicko, an extremely dangerous sicko. He’s on the loose now, but probably not far from here. This house needs to give up its secrets—it’s the forensic team’s turn now. Magnusson, Vivain, and Jaouen, you’ll stay with that team. Everyone else come back with me. It’s 2:13 p.m. Meeting at three thirty in the briefing room.”

  Chapter 43: The Final Hour

  Sartenas had abandoned his car in a supermarket parking lot. Then he’d taken a bus and was now wandering the city center. His eyes no longer saw anything. He walked like a zombie, unconscious of the world around him.

  “Is everything all right, monsieur?” asked a voice behind him.

  He turned, surprised, and met the inquisitive gaze of a municipal police officer. He responded automatically. “Everything’s fine, thank you. I’m just a little tired.”

  The officer moved away. That scare reawakened his senses. He mustn’t appear suspect. He’d already had extraordinary luck in escaping the police. It had been a matter of a few minutes. He’d gone down to the village in the car to do some shopping. As he was heading back up to his house, he’d noticed vehicles parked at the end of his street—that was peculiar. Each property had its own garage. Then he’d spotted men moving discreetly toward his house. He’d already survived an identical misadventure in Florida, so his instinct had taken over. He’d passed by his house without slowing down and then drove toward Grenoble.

  How had the police managed to find him? It was a mystery, but it didn’t matter. One point, however, perturbed him terribly—the heart was still at his house. He had nothing left to resist Magali’s attacks until tomorrow night, the day of the solstice! He forced his way through groups of high school students, who were chatting and eating ice cream and churros, enjoying their free time between classes. Despondent, he sat down on a bench in the Place Victor-Hugo. He noticed he was the target of glances from a group of students who had gone for this bench at the same time he did. He stood up to leave it to them—he absolutely did not want to be noticed. He went up the Boulevard Agutte Sembat, walked along the Isère riverfront, then crossed the river. A few minutes later, he found a bench in a much less traveled place. He settled in. He took some time to calm down, to let his logical mind regain the upper hand.

  He’d been identified. How? Likely because of his vehicle. A wanted poster with his photo would most certainly be released, which would make him a hunted man. He had to react before that happened. First question: Where to hide? A name came to mind immediately—Arsène! His friend would be able to help him out for two or three days, enough time to perfect his healing and turn things around. After he was rid of the curse Magali had cast on him, he’d be able to take control of the situation again. He’d leave Grenoble for good, and his money would allow him to remake a life abroad. He knew many countries, and not necessarily in exotic locations, where a bank account offshore was more valuable than a passport from the Republic of France.

  But that was for later. Arsène absolutely had to help him. The heart was still at his house! He needed it to keep himself together until the solstice. There was only one solution—find another. He needed Arsène, his advice, his knowledge of Fra Bartolomeo’s writings, and his logistical support. He’d be able to thank him financially; he’d support his work extensively. When he thought about the heart now out of reach, he felt nervous tremors throughout his body. He was in withdrawal! He looked around him, worried. No, Magali wasn’t there. She never came to him outside, he knew that. For twenty-nine years she came to torment him only at night. The very first year after her death, she’d embarked on her revenge. She would arrive the first of June and vanish on the twenty-first—always the same dates. And year after year she’d tried to break him, to push him to suicide.
But he’d resisted. And thanks to Fra Bartolomeo’s science and Arsène’s wisdom, he’d send her straight back to the land of the dead.

  Lost in his delusions, Dominique Sartenas slipped into the mind of Dominique Cabrade, thirty years earlier. Magali had disappeared. He’d made everything ready at their home so that she could give birth under the best conditions. He’d prepared the child’s bedroom. He’d even spent nights developing the education he’d give his son. He’d separate him from his mother within the first hour: she was too weak and prone to falling into the snares of temptation. He was a doctor and knew men’s weaknesses, starting with his own! His son would be pure—he’d be his mentor. His son would be his redemption! But his wife had circumvented his vigilance. She’d managed, by what sorcery he didn’t know, to open the window shutter in her room, on the second floor. Yet he had barricaded it. Then she’d jumped, despite her condition. Then she’d left. It had been a good fifteen minutes before he noticed. They lived in a house in town, and she could be anywhere. He’d then called some of his acquaintances. They’d crisscrossed the city. Sartenas was now Cabrade, looking for his wife.

  At one o’clock in the morning, the streets were almost deserted. He knew she wouldn’t take refuge with the police. He’d done his work well enough—the word of a respected doctor was worth more than that of a depressive woman running away as her labor pains began. He found two men to help him. They had seen her from afar. But why had she fled? Suddenly, the truth jumped out at him—terrible! She wanted to steal his son from him. She wanted to keep him for herself, or worse, kill him so that he couldn’t have him! A black fury took him over. The two men with him didn’t understand what was going on, but they were willing to blindly obey his orders. He called to her, but she didn’t answer. He was still ready to forgive her, but she would have to give him back his son. The boy was his! She was just the carrier. He would have to put her on the right path again, and then he’d be able to forgive her . . . maybe.