A Bouquet of Rue

by Wendy Hornsby

  We pulled out of the school lot and headed toward the café. I said, “Do you think Delisle is moving on Guido awfully fast?”

  “Shamelessly so.” I checked to see if he was kidding. He was. Maybe. “Guido is a big boy, Maggie, and this isn’t his first pony ride.”

  “That’s the problem. I’ve seen him fall into and out of affairs too many times over the years not to be wary. I don’t know that I have the energy for another go around.”

  “Are you worried that if things go badly with our detective he’ll set off an international scandal?”

  “No,” I said. “Just a local one. But isn’t that enough?”

  We caught up to Delisle and Guido at the first traffic signal. Just as the light turned, Delisle put her foot on the gas of that little blue car and with gumballs flashing and her claxon siren piercing the air she shot across the intersection. I was looking for a ball of fire and black smoke when a text from Guide beeped: “She says follow.”

  I relayed the message to Jean-Paul as I texted back, “What’s up?”

  “Dunno. Only word I understood was cadaver. What’s ‘aytan’?”

  Cadaver is one of those words that sounds the same in both French and English, but “aytan” rang no bells. I spelled that word for Jean-Paul as we made a sharp turn onto boulevard de la République. He said, “Pronounce it for me.” When I did, he said, “Étang. It means pond. Looks like we’re headed for a pond in the haras.”

  My stomach knotted. I said, “Cadaver and pond, not a good combination, is it?”

  He covered my hand with his. “Not good at all.”

  ] Seven

  Traffic moved out of our way as we sped down boulevard de la République following the flashing lights of Delisle’s car. Two more blue-and-whites, lights and sirens, joined the queue as we crossed an intersection against the signal. Onlookers surged out of houses and shops sitting snug against the road to watch the parade go by. Behind the narrow strip of buildings there was yet another expanse of dense green woods. A cross street, no more than a narrow gap in the greenery, opened on the right. Delisle saw the turn late but took it, tires squealing. Jean-Paul followed and so did our tail. We passed through a tunnel of tall iron fences and hedges that ran along side yards, into the woods, and suddenly out onto a broad, flat meadow. To the right, well-groomed soccer pitches. To the left two ponds, one larger, one smaller, and both rank with green algae. At first, that’s what I smelled, the particular stench of stagnant water on a warm day. And then I opened the car door and knew what we would find.

  There were two blue-and-whites already parked on the grass near the smaller pond, trunks open as uniformed officers pulled out stakes and tarps to erect a barrier, police protocol to screen a crime scene from prying eyes. And there were plenty of prying eyes. One of the cars in our train stopped near the edge of the meadow to keep the rapidly growing number of onlookers from venturing near.

  Delisle’s car had barely stopped before she was out and fast-walking across the grass toward the pond. Guido was out just as quickly, but instead of following her he went around to her trunk and began pulling out video cameras and extra battery packs. We pulled in close beside them, with the last police car coming in on our left flank.

  “What happened?” I asked Guido as I closed the car door behind me.

  “Here.” He handed me a little JVC-4K, a high-definition video camera that, with the mic and recorder attached weighed maybe three pounds. This one was new, but I’d used its older brothers often enough. As he screwed down the recorder on his own camera, he glanced up at Jean-Paul. “At some point we have to load the rest of this gear into your car. Fleur doubts she’ll be able to take me home later.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You two go ahead.” Jean-Paul popped his trunk. “Sorry about your plans, my friend.”

  And it was too bad, though I had a feeling that Guido and the fair detective would figure things out.

  Guido bumped my shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  We crossed the grass but as we approached the tarp screen a uniformed officer looked up from stringing caution tape and yelled for us to stop. Delisle heard him and stepped out from behind; she had already pulled on Latex gloves and stepped into a white crime-scene jumpsuit; she looked like a kid’s Halloween version of a spaceman, complete with white booties.

  “They’re with me,” she said to the officer and waved us over. She thrust plastic-wrapped jumpsuits into our hands and as we pulled them on over our clothes she gave us instructions, a similar list of Don’ts that had been delivered to us over the years by investigators at any number of crime scenes. Generally, we were to stay out from underfoot and touch nothing. I wasn’t at all sure why she allowed us, or maybe wanted us to be there with cameras, but I was hardly going to ask questions. Instead, as a courtesy I texted Diane Duval at the studio to let her know, in brief, where we were and why; Zed had told me the day before that in future Diane should be my first contact, a chain-of-command issue. I left it to her to decide whether to alert the news division that there was a report of a cadaver in a pond.

  In truth, stopping to send a text was a stall before following Delisle behind the screen. If, indeed, there was a body, I was afraid that it might be our missing girl and I didn’t want to see her as I imagined she would look after six days in the water. I was still outside when a bright blue van pulled up. Out came three men and a collection of large duffels and diving gear. I turned on the camera and filmed their progress across the lawn then fell in behind them as they joined their comrades behind the screen. Jean-Paul, I noticed, stayed well back, watching from the side, away from cameras.

  Behind the screen, out of the wind, the stench of stagnant water was joined by even stronger notes of something heavy and sweet and horrible and all too familiar; something or somebody was very dead.

  While Guido walked around the side of the pond looking for a good shot of the dark and bloated hump rising through the bright green blanket of algae covering the pond, I kept my camera trained on the activity of the divers. Geared up, with me close behind, two of the divers padded in rubber boots to the edge of the water and waded in. I stood on the muddy shore and filmed as they used their hands to push aside green scum, cutting a path that quickly closed behind them. With the camera as a sort of shield between me and what they were doing, I watched them reach the black-clothed mass. Before they could float the body to shore, one of the divers took out a knife, grabbed something under the water, and sliced it, freeing what was now obviously a corpse from a snag or tether so they could retrieve it.

  “When they bring it in, be sure to shoot the face.” I hadn’t noticed Delisle walk up beside me. As she spread a heavy green plastic body bag on the ground she said, “It’s important to catch a floater’s features right away before the tissues begin to drain and desiccate and deteriorate. On a warm day like this it doesn’t take long for the process to begin.”

  “Okay,” I said, but already I was fighting the urge to retch. Thank God we hadn’t stopped to eat. Normally I’m okay, but not when a kid might be involved. I raised my forearm to my nose and took a deep breath through the fabric of my sleeve to steady myself. Didn’t help. The stench of putrefying flesh preceded the progress of the cadaver toward shore. For a distraction, I asked Delisle, “Who found it?”

  “Neighborhood dog.” She raised her arm and did the same thing I had, hoping for a clean breath. “Merde. Worse than dead fish, yes?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Sorry to ask you to film this but our science crew can’t get here for maybe another hour, and that is too long to wait; we’ll lose daylight before they arrive.”

  Guido was about ten yards to my left, standing on the bank beside the third diver and a cart of scuba tanks, taping the retrieval of the cadaver from the side. Camera on his shoulder, Guido began to move along the waterline toward me, following the progress of the men in the water until he walked into my frame. Immediately, he faded back, lowered his camera and came around to where ­D
elisle and I stood. He pulled a little plastic jar of mentholated balm out of his pocket and handed it to me. I passed him my camera, still trained on the cadaver, so I could slather the stuff over my upper lip, a trick I learned the first time I visited a morgue.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked, passing the little jar to Delisle.

  “The diver over there gave it to me,” he said, handing me the second camera, the heavier one. “He has a whole box of them. Basic body-retrieval equipment.”

  Delisle rubbed the strong-smelling goo under her nose and passed it back to me. I said, “Keep it. You may need it again one day.”

  Moving a corpse through water doesn’t take a lot of strength. Lifting water-logged dead weight and manhandling it onto shore through foot-sucking mud, however, does. Both divers were panting by the time they had their sodden bundle laid out on the rubber mat at our feet.

  I tapped Guido’s shoulder to get his attention. “Delisle wants a close-up on the face.”

  “Looks like fish already got at it,” Delisle said. “People dump their aquariums in the pond, so who knows what’s out there. Looks like the work of crabs to me. Crabs’ll make quick work of flesh.”

  She stepped forward for a closer look as Guido thrust the running camera back into my hand, doubled over and heaved up his last meal. Hoping I wouldn’t follow suit, I took the camera and trained the lens on the face, or what was left of it.

  “Throat was cut,” Delisle said, putting a gloved finger against a flap of the long, bloodless gash. “Sharp blade, one clean cut.”

  The poor soul laid out on a bag atop the mud at my feet looked like any of the men I had seen that morning emerging from the woods after sleeping rough the night before. He was fairly tall, definitely underfed and unkempt. Somewhere, he must have a family that would grieve for him. My only feeling, other than revulsion at the sight and smell of him, was relief that this bloated cadaver was not a certain five-foot-two-inch, hundred-and-two- or four-pound fifteen-year-old Goth-attired girl.

  ] [

  The satellite news van from our home network pulled in beside the police cars strung along the lawn. When she saw it, Delisle gave me an accusatory side-eye. I had told her earlier that I called my producer and told her what was happening, but the detective had shrugged it off. Of course, she was busy at the time waiting for a cadaver to be brought to shore. And now here they were.

  “Merde,” she said. “I’m detective in charge, so it’s up to me to talk to them. I hate talking to them. Any tips, TV girl?”

  “Always pretend you know what you’re doing,” I said, looking her over. “And ditch the crime scene chic.”

  Delisle’s white jumpsuit was black with pond mud from booties to knees. She discarded the Latex gloves, pulled off the booties, stepped out of the jumpsuit, and reached up to finger-comb stray hair into the bun at the back of her head. While she tucked in her shirt and put on her blazer, I grabbed a towel from the pile of diving gear and handed it to her to wipe away the shiny smear of menthol balm around her nose. When there was nothing more she could fuss over she held up her palms and shrugged.

  “You’ll do,” I said, handing her a clipboard someone had left on a pile of jackets. “Just remember to look directly at the red light atop the camera when it’s running. Plant your feet, keep your shoulders back, chin up, don’t fidget, and if you need time to think, look down at the clipboard as if it tells you something other than the dive team’s work rotation schedule.”

  She chuckled. “Anything else, my guru?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t matter what you’re asked,” I said. “Just give the answers you want to give, and don’t volunteer anything.”

  “Like politicians, yes?”

  “Exactly.” I glanced over the crowd drawn by the news van. “Who will tell his family?”

  “I will,” she said. “If we can find a family when the morgue identifies him, if they can identify him. I like that conversation even less than talking to the press. But, here I go. Wish me luck.”

  “Merde,” I said, the French equivalent of “break a leg.”

  The news crew, a cameraman, a soundman, and the generically attractive on-camera female talent in full television makeup, was still getting set up when Delisle, looking as crisp as she could under the circumstance, headed off across the grass to face them.

  Jean-Paul was standing over by the cars, chatting with one of the uniformed policemen when Guido appeared from behind the screen, a camera dangling from each hand.

  “Any reason to hang around?” he asked.

  “No.” I took one of the cameras from him and tried to keep up as he strode across the grass. His color had returned, but I asked, “You okay?”

  “Embarrassed, but yeah. That wasn’t our first floater, Mags. They don’t get prettier, do they?”

  “No,” I said, stomach suddenly roiling just thinking about it. “I’ll be happy if it’s our last. How long do you think he was in the water?”

  He shrugged. “More than a couple of days, less than a month. If corde means rope and my French tutor wasn’t lying when he said pierre means stone, I think someone intended for him to stay on the bottom.”

  “Shallow water, warm days, wouldn’t take long for decomposition gasses to pop a fully-clothed, skinny guy to the surface,” I said. “Less than a week, anyway. Did you notice, his throat was cut?”

  “Yeah. That’s when I lost it. Something was living up inside there.”

  “Fishies having a dinner party,” I said, taking a deep breath and trying to think of anything other than the image of creatures crawling out through the white, bloodless edges of the open gash across the man’s neck before the divers zipped him into the bag, ready for the morgue’s meat wagon to take away.

  Guido said, “I saw your reaction, Mags. Did you recognize him?”

  “No. I only know who he wasn’t,” I said.

  Guido and I were about halfway to the cars when the news hen spotted Jean-Paul and made a beeline toward him. She greeted him like an old friend, offering her cheeks for les bises. I didn’t want to interrupt their chat, but Guido and I might need to work with her or her crew at some time, so I forged ahead, intent on introducing the two of us. We were maybe ten feet away when she tapped her ear and excused herself. I knew the gesture: through an earpiece, the cameraman had summoned her. Jean-Paul walked with her until their trajectory intersected ours. She looked up suddenly, saw me, did a double take, then held out a hand, “You’re—” But got no further.

  “Chloe, have you met Maggie MacGowen?” Jean-Paul said. “Maggie, this is Chloe Caron, a colleague of yours.”

  “Hello, Chloe,” I said, taking the offered hand. “This is Guido Patrini, my work partner.”

  “Maggie,” she said, giving Guido a token nod. “Delighted to meet you. I recognize you from the Jimmy show. We all watched you, of course, our new girl. We wondered if Jimmy would say something that was so absolutely offensive that you’d run right back to America.”

  “I can’t imagine what that something could be, but no, he behaved himself.”

  “Next time,” she said, wagging a finger. “He might be better prepared.”

  “If there is a next time, I’ll be better prepared, as well,” I said. “It is lovely to meet you, Chloe, but I think the detective is waiting and the light is fading.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Give me a call. I’m in the studio directory. We’ll sneak away for a coffee, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Pointing at Jean-Paul, she said, “And bring him.”

  Guido watched her go. When she was out of earshot, he addressed her back: “Nice meeting you, too.”

  “Don’t worry, son,” I said, patting his arm. “You still have your magic. Delisle didn’t seem to mind that you nearly barfed on her shoes.”

  “If the face of that guy didn’t faze her, why would a little recycled breakfast?”

  Jean-Paul bobbed his head, considering the question. “Speaking of food, before we adj
ourn to the local, let’s take a little walk on the wild side.”

  “Metaphoric walk, or an actual walk?” I asked.

  “A short walk.”

  Guido glanced at the sky. “It’s getting dark soon.”

  “Won’t take long,” Jean-Paul said. “Bring your camera.”

  We started across the meadow, past the soccer fields and into the woods beyond. There was no path, so we ducked branches and pushed our way through the undergrowth until, after maybe twenty yards, we came out onto a familiar meadow. I looked around to catch my bearings. The haras was a huge, meandering, open parkland. Across the way were the tennis courts, the kiddie playground, and the curved walkway that led to the foot path that ran behind Jean-Paul’s house. To our right, remnants of police tape snagged on a branch after police left the scene that morning waved in the light evening breeze. Following Delisle, we had driven around a long neck of the park to get to the pond, but we were never far as the crow flies from where we began that morning.

  I caught Guido’s attention and pointed toward the tape. “That’s where Ophelia’s backpack and cello case were found.”

  His response was to turn on a camera and zoom in on the flag of tape. “Light’s gone. I’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Jean-Paul gripped my elbow. “You see?”

  “My imagination is in overdrive,” I said. “I can come up with half a dozen scenarios about what happened in this strip of woods sometime after nine-fifty Friday night. I don’t like any of them.”

  “No,” he said. “There isn’t much to like about any of this.”

  “His throat was cut,” I said. “Where’s Nabi’s knife?”

  “Wrapped in a kitchen towel in the safe in my office floor. I opened it, Maggie. That knife has never been used. The blade still has protective plastic on it.”

  “I just wondered,” I said. Nabi told us that Ophelia gave him the knife, and that she carried one like it. Could she have used her knife to slit a tall man’s throat, weight him with stones, and drag him into a pond? Not likely. Not bloody likely, unless she wasn’t alone.