Life Is Short and Then You Die

by Kelley Armstrong

  It was difficult to sleep that night, my mind a violent storm of ugly facts and uglier plans coming together. I had one more day; in twenty-four hours, I would be dodging a German patrol and creeping back through the woods to the Free Zone—and before that, I had a man to kill. Could I do it? Marguerite hardly seemed bothered by the two lives she’d taken in defense of a free France, but I could never really know the weight of her conscience. If I did this, would I regret it?

  Would I regret it more if I did not?

  I left earlier than usual the next morning, not only because I’d been awake for hours, but because I also had a task to see to. When I finally let myself into the Lagardes’ sprawling, idyllic manse, I found Rabbit at work in the kitchen, unwrapping a selection of cheeses. His head snapped up the moment I entered the room.

  “Well?” Excitement gleamed in his eyes. “Did you follow Volz? Were you able to learn anything?”

  “I think I did,” I answered nervously, and described the previous night’s adventure.

  “So it was Georges.” Rabbit was quiet. “I’d hoped … well, I’d hoped it would be neither of them, somehow.”

  “I don’t understand what makes a person do it.” Bitterness crept into my voice. “Turn on their friends, their country.”

  “The Germans were likely blackmailing him,” Rabbit suggested moodily. “Threatening him or his family, perhaps, if he didn’t betray France. It’s happened before.”

  “Maybe.” Shoving a tray of proofed croissants into the oven, I slammed the door. “But I don’t care. He chose his life over everyone I’ve ever known—over everyone else in France. He’s helping the Nazis destroy us.”

  “He may not feel as if he has a choice.”

  “I came to Garance ready to die,” I returned with conviction, facing him. “There’s always a choice. Even if it’s a bad one.”

  He fell silent and stayed that way until well after breakfast. We were starting the preparations for lunch—a mushroom soup, followed by chicken roulade with a puree of carrots and parsnips, and coeur à la crème for dessert—and my eyes were fixed on the clock. Less than twelve hours to go until sundown.

  “I’m sorry,” Rabbit finally said, his voice a tense hush. “It’s just … Georges is a friend of mine. He was the first person I met when I moved here, and he’s the one who approached me about joining the Maquis. Another reason I asked for someone from the outside is … I wasn’t sure I’d have the guts to do the job, if the time came.” Turning a butcher knife over in his hands, he set it aside. “I make excuses for him not because I agree with what he’s done, but because I know there’s goodness in him. I’ve seen it.”

  “I’ve seen it, too,” I acknowledged. He’d been kind to me—had even refused to accept my money for the rented bicycle I was riding hard over damaged roads every day. “But we are at war.”

  Another moment passed as I chopped ingredients for the puree. I could feel pressure from Rabbit’s corner of the kitchen, a question at his lips. Finally, “How will you do it?” And then, immediately, “No, never mind. I … I don’t want to know. Just tell me what time I need to drive you to the border.”

  “After dark,” I said simply, trying not to think about the task before me. My hands shook, and I willed them to stop. It was too late for nerves. Too late for second thoughts.

  With Albertine off for the day, Rabbit helped me carry everything up to the dining room for lunch, but I had to stay there alone to tend to the family’s needs. After filling bowls with soup, I poured the wine and stood quietly in a corner as Konrad Scheller opened the meal with an announcement that he and Julie were formally engaged to be married.

  There were cheers and toasts, but I felt nothing inside as they started to eat.

  It was following the main course, as I circled the table to fill cups of coffee, that Madame Lagarde at last groaned and clutched her stomach. The family stared in curious alarm as drool spilled from her lips, as spasms shook the hand she thrust out in a hopeless grab for the table’s edge. But as she tumbled from her chair, her body racked with convulsions, the symptoms had already begun to spread around the room.

  Konrad Scheller dropped next, wheezing loudly, his lips slowly turning blue as tremors took him like St. Vitus’s dance; then Julie, Gustave, and Monsieur Lagarde—one by one they crashed to the floor, writhing and gasping for uncooperative air, trying their best to beg for help. Clutching the coffeepot tightly to keep my own hands steady, I forced myself to watch.

  In the end, it was Volz alone who managed to stand up. Volz alone with enough strength left to stumble from the room. He made it all the way to the telephone in the hall, and I had to disconnect the line while I waited for him to die, his eyes bulging as his lungs labored, slowed, and then finally stopped.

  Not plunging my father’s knife through his neck was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

  * * *

  When I returned to the kitchen, Rabbit stood hunched over the sink. He looked ill, and when he turned around, he was holding his stomach. “Are they done with the chicken? Should we bring up dessert?”

  “They’re done, but don’t worry about dessert.” My voice was thick, in spite of my clear conscience. “They’re all dead.”

  “I—What?” Rabbit blinked slowly.

  “They’re dead.” I repeated, steeling my nerves. “Go see for yourself.”

  He stared until he realized I was serious, and when he left the room, I poured him a glass of cognac. He was going to need one. Come to that, I needed one, and poured a second glass before I collapsed into a chair to wait his return.

  He wasn’t long. There wasn’t anything to be done upstairs, and so Rabbit reappeared in the kitchen minutes later, ashen and shaking from head to foot. “What…” The words came out in a strangled croak, his eyes wide and wild. “What have you done?”

  “Did you know,” I began, pushing the cognac in his direction, “that dozens of people die in this country every year from accidental poisoning? We love foraging, but in the wild, the deadliest plants grow right next to the harmless ones, and sometimes it’s difficult to tell them apart.” Helpfully, I added, “It’s like that with Nazis and traitors, too.”

  “What have you done?” Rabbit repeated, coming closer.

  “Cowbane root looks an awful lot like parsnip, and there’s some growing right beside the stream here at Chateau d’Armont—I dug it up this morning when I arrived. But it’s unbelievably poisonous. If you consume enough, you go into convulsions and stop breathing.” My own chest tight, I took a healthy sip of cognac. “It’s also called hemlock. Did you know that’s how Socrates died? Hemlock?” The alcohol warmed me. “Aunt Marguerite taught me that. Because of the food shortages, we spend a lot of time in the country, looking for things to eat. It’s important to know what to avoid.”

  “You … you poisoned them?” Rabbit’s voice was a hoarse whisper.

  “Not just them,” I admitted. “There wasn’t any way to sneak cowbane into the vegetable puree without you tasting it, so if you don’t feel well, that’s the reason.”

  Rabbit blanched even further, dropping into a chair, staring at me with glassy eyes. I could see his sense of alarm growing, his understanding of the situation finally catching up to him. “Am I going to die?”

  “Not from the puree, I don’t think.”

  “You … have you lost your mind?” Rabbit wiped his brow with a shaky hand, his voice thin. He still hadn’t touched his cognac.

  “Two years ago, Gerhard Volz killed my father,” I told him at last, the words cold and metallic in my mouth. “The only reason I came here was to kill him. I wasn’t going to leave Garance while he walked freely over the same earth on which he’d spilled Bougnol blood.”

  “But they’re all dead!” His voice was becoming shrill. “All of them! You killed all of them!”

  “We are at war,” I repeated, “and they chose their side. While France starves and burns and dies, they break bread with Nazis; they live a life untouched by our
suffering and offer comfort to the men causing it!” Anger violated my body, humming in my temples. “I’m sorry they had to die, but I’m not sorry they’re gone. They claimed their own fate, and good riddance.”

  “You’re a fool!” Rabbit scrubbed his face with both hands, eyes reeling. “A child. You have no idea what you’ve done. The Germans will burn Garance to the ground for this!”

  “No, they won’t.” I took another sip. “What happened here was just a tragic accident.” Kill only if you won’t get caught. If I’d targeted Volz alone, it would have invited retribution, but if everyone in the household fell victim to the same, horrible mistake? “And when investigators discover your confession, the case will be closed.”

  “My—” He blinked rapidly. “My confession? Are you … is that a joke?”

  “Not at all.” I set my glass down with a click, and pulled a sheet of paper out from under the menu beside me. It was a typewritten admission of guilt, awaiting Rabbit’s signature. “You are the traitor.”

  “That’s absurd!” Rabbit recoiled. “You just told me yourself you found what Georges has been hiding at the inn!”

  “It was basic stuff, making sure I’d discover a radio and codebook in both their rooms. But it didn’t make sense.” I leaned forward. “If they both had radios, then they would’ve never had to meet face-to-face to exchange information. Volz would never even have had to come to Garance at all. He and Georges could have traded all the secrets they had from hundreds of miles apart—which would have been smarter and safer.

  “And we both knew there would be a radio among Georges’s things. As the leader of the local Maquis, he was guaranteed to have one; you and Volz just needed to make sure I had enough time to find it. It’s the only reason the colonel went into the village that night and convinced Georges to leave the inn.”

  Rabbit’s face colored. “That doesn’t even—”

  “The whole time I was in that dining room, Volz didn’t look at me—not once,” I elaborated. “In fact, I was the only thing in the room he didn’t look at. A soldier thinks about things like that—who’s sitting in his blind spot—but he put his back to me and made a point not to notice I was watching him.”

  “You’re basing this on where he looked when he was drinking?” His tone was snide, dismissive—false.

  “It was clever, lying to me about Volz going into the village on a regular basis, about him eating at the inn and sleeping with Josette. But he had to ask Georges what beers were available, which no regular patron would need to do, and Josette called him ‘Colonel’—not Gerhard or some pet name, but Colonel. Addressing him by his rank seems pretty formal to me, considering the relationship you claimed they had.”

  “You are utterly unhinged.” Rabbit’s jaws flexed.

  “But Volz having a radio at all got me to thinking. I expected Georges to have one—and Josette could easily hide one from her sick grandfather.” Picking up my glass again, I swirled what was left of the cognac. “But you live here, with people coming and going from your quarters, to dust and clean and take the laundry. You’re the only one who’d have trouble concealing a radio. The only one Volz would need to come into Garance to meet.”

  He didn’t answer me—just glared, his eyes dark and mutinous.

  “And then there were the codebooks. The one in Volz’s room was so new the ink was practically wet, like it had been printed for the purpose of being discovered.”

  “The Germans probably change their codes all the time,” Rabbit declared stiffly. “No doubt they reprint those books more often than the bible.”

  “And yet the one I found under Georges’s mattress was so old and used it was falling apart.” I smiled. “There are Nazis crawling all over France, and not one of them could bring a fresh copy by the inn? And then there’s the fact that it was hidden under his mattress—the first place an amateur would think to look. He has two objects in his room that could get him killed, and one he conceals under a loose floorboard below his armoire, while the other he … tucks beneath his mattress?”

  “You’re reaching. You’re desperate! You’ve killed an innocent family and now, now…”

  “And now we come to code names.” I finished the last of the cognac. It did nothing to rid me of the six corpses upstairs. “Rabbit is not your call sign as a Maquisard. You wouldn’t have been foolish enough to risk the Resistance encountering your real pseudonym in a transmission sent across the Line and connecting it back to you. You chose Rabbit.”

  “So?” He was utterly still now, aside from a slight twitch in his clenched fist.

  “So, the name the Germans gave you was Pascal—Easter. Which I guess makes you the Easter Rabbit, leaving hidden gifts for the Nazis. It’s almost too cute for me, but I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “You have no—”

  “Real proof.” Sitting back, I tucked a hand in my pocket. “But I’m right, all the same.”

  “If I were the traitor, why—”

  “Would you have asked for someone to come look for you? Simple. You were afraid the local Maquis were aware a traitor was in their midst, and you needed a scapegoat—and who better to do your dirty work than an outsider? Someone unfamiliar with the players, someone you could manipulate. You planned to frame Georges, and for me to kill him, so you could return to the Maquis an exonerated hero. So that you could continue selling our secrets and helping the Nazis in their destruction of France.”

  He was silent for a long moment, fighting something within himself. “All of this is conjecture.”

  “But it’s true.” I was as sure of it as I was of my own name. “And I left a note at the inn that Georges could discover any time now—or perhaps he already has—explaining everything.” I let that sink in. “Even if you kill me, your secret is coming out. It’s over.”

  “What have you done?” The familiar words came out in a whisper.

  I pushed his glass of cognac another inch closer. “You should drink this.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “A quicker end than you deserve.” I eyed his clenched fists. “You could kill me, but Georges and Josette and the others will still know who you are, and you’ll be useless to whoever the Germans send in Volz’s place. You’re dead either way. But if you drink this, the Resistance will have no reason to expose your crimes. You might even be remembered as a hero—the Maquisard who took out a Nazi colonel and died for a free France.

  “I know you were talking about yourself when you said maybe the Nazis were blackmailing Georges. I don’t know what Volz had on you, and I don’t care. Everyone has a choice, and it’s time for you to make the right one.”

  I expected him to attack. Deep in my pocket, I gripped my father’s knife, ready to draw it and drive it into his gut when he lunged across the table, but he surprised me.

  With shaking hands, he signed the confession and drank the cognac, and then he slumped back in his chair. He sobbed and blubbered, told the truth and apologized, and begged forgiveness that wasn’t mine to offer.

  And then, finally, he died.

  Killing Volz had been my plan all along, and I had known it would demand a piece of my soul. I called the village after Rabbit drew his final breath, mustering tears and terror, describing the scene and pleading for help. Having passed myself off as the cousin of the kitchen boy, I couldn’t just disappear without Albertine raising troublesome questions.

  Various authorities turned out and, through panicked sobs, I delivered my story. On Thursday, the Lagardes had ventured into the countryside, returning with baskets of mushrooms, berries, nuts, and vegetables; Monsieur and Madame had asked that Saturday’s menu be based on the spoils of their outing; and the mushroom soup, the root puree, the herbs in the roulade, the berry reduction … everything we had prepared for the luncheon had been sourced from their pickings.

  My story, coupled with Rabbit’s signed confession, made events clear: The party had brought something poisonous back to the chateau, and the shorthanded kitch
en staff had failed to catch it. The chef’s guilt over the deaths of the family he worked for, coupled with his fear of reprisal from the Nazis, had led him to take his own life.

  The account of Pierre Dupont was recorded, and I was permitted to leave.

  It was Georges who drove me to the border after the sun had set. He was silent the whole way. Eugène Gounod had been a personal friend, and even if the innkeeper comprehended the cook’s treachery, it was difficult for him to process. He never thanked me for what I’d done, but I didn’t take offense.

  Evading the German patrol was harder exiting the Occupied Zone than it had been entering it, but I managed; and when I emerged from the shadow-choked forest, stumbling into the moonlit clearing of a familiar, abandoned farmstead, I felt changed. I would never get my father back. The injustice of his death would be with me always, a stamp upon my heart, and what I’d done at the Chateau d’Armont had only temporarily satisfied my need for vengeance.

  But there were plenty of Nazis where Colonel Gerhard Volz had come from.

  Leaning against the truck, captured by the pale glow of the moon, Aunt Marguerite was waiting for me with a cold, satisfied smile and a long, warm embrace.

  SIX WAYS TO KILL YOUR GRANDMOTHER

  By Barry Lyga

  If there was one thing Jasper Dent had learned from his father, it was this: There were many ways to kill someone, but damn few ways to do it without being caught. This is what sufficed for “pearls of fatherly wisdom” from Billy Dent, quite possibly the world’s most infamous serial killer.

  The killing part is easy, Billy had told him time and time again. Might even be too easy. It’s the getting away that separates the men from the boys.

  Jasper was only fourteen years old, but he thought there was a good chance he could fit into the “men” column and get away with it. His theoretical victim was his own grandmother, Jasper’s only relation who wasn’t in jail or flat-out missing.

  Killing his grandmother was something he thought about with a frequency that would have disturbed most other fourteen-year-olds. Or most other people of pretty much any age, really. But Jasper figured that as long as he thought about killing his grandmother, he wouldn’t spend any of his time thinking about how to kill anyone else.