by Nell Goddin
“I’m sorry,” she said, but it came out sulky instead of meek. Coulon reached for the newspaper and knocked into his cup, spilling some coffee on the table. Josette looked at the coffee spreading across the table and at him, but did not move.
“What has gotten into you?” he said. “Do you think you don’t have to work anymore? You’re too good to wipe up a spill, is that it?”
“No, I—” Josette could not find the right words but she moved close to him, and dared to slip her hand around his shoulders, wanting him to forget about talking. “I love…I love you, Maxime—”
Coulon scrinched up his face as though the sun had flashed into his eyes. “You love me?” he said. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Well,” said Josette, lowering her eyes, a flush coming up her neck. “When people love each other…” but she faltered, unable to finish.
“When people love each other…?” Coulon said. “Are you—are you suggesting that I should marry you? Really? Is that what you’re saying?” He got up from the table, taking a rag from under the sink and mopping up the spilled coffee himself. “Why in the world would I ever marry you?” he said condescendingly, wanting to hurt her. “So that’s what you’re up to? Ha! I will never do it,” he hissed. “Never!”
18
Later that afternoon, André had a meeting with his friend Alain in the basement of Alain’s house on the edge of the village. “It’s so dead around here,” said Alain. “Why Castillac, for God’s sake? Why not someplace with a little size to it, make the operation easier to hide, you know?”
“The small size is part of the plan,” André said impatiently. “We try to set up in Bordeaux or Toulouse, the gendarmes will be on us in two seconds flat. Here in charming Castillac, we’ve got nothing more than a few bumbling fools to deal with. If I can just get on the council and unseat that insufferable Coulon, we’ll be on easy street, I promise you that.”
“You’re never short on promises,” mumbled Alain, getting settled on a rowing machine and doing a few perfunctory rows. He was short and lean, in good shape, but without the bulging muscles of his friend. His hair was cropped in a military style, but his face had a softness to it, with full lips and a weak chin.
“Look, once that permit got blocked, we had to change strategy just a bit. That’s what winners do, Alain—hit a roadblock, figure out a way around it. Never give up.”
“Who said anything about giving up? I just don’t think it has to be so complicated. We’ve got suppliers, all we need is customers. If the sporting goods shop is a no-go, we’ll find ‘em some other way, right? How about some local ads for bodybuilding training, something like that?”
“Right. Sure. If you want to get one or two at a time, go right ahead. We need bigger numbers than that and you know it. If we don’t move a certain amount of product, we’re gonna get squeezed.”
Alain shook his head. “I don’t know why you wanted to get involved with those thugs in the first place,” he said, too softly for André to hear. “And if we need such big numbers, what the hell are we doing in Castillac?”
“Ever thought about online sales, my friend?” asked André. “The stuff is small—a months’s supply will fit into a cheap mailer. There’s just no need to take the risk of being in a city when we can reach customers that way.”
“So you’re talking about online ads? And who’s going to pay for those?”
But André was paying no attention to him. He had opened a small bag and taken out a syringe, a small glass bottle, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a box of cotton balls. Then he looked at himself in the mirror that covered one entire wall of the room, flexing his arms, and then lifting his shirt and twisting to the side, watching his abs pop.
“You gotta admit, the stuff really does the job,” he said, grinning.
Alain shrugged. He had readily agreed to go into business with André, but the idea had been to make some quick and easy money, that’s all. Taking illegal drugs to turn himself into some over-muscled freak—not his thing, not at all. Nor was getting entangled with a bunch of Russians whom he did not trust not to stab him in the back and toss him into the Dordogne on some moonless night.
André drew air into the syringe and then plunged it into the oil in the glass bottle, drawing it up to a black line on the syringe. Then he put the needle on the table and disinfected a place on his thigh with a cotton ball dipped in alcohol.
“I don’t even want to watch,” said Alain, doing a quick sprint on the rowing machine to distract himself from any thought of needles.
André laughed. Then he picked the syringe back up and plunged the needle into his thigh, grunting as he pushed the plunger in.
“Once they get their operation up and running, we’ll be getting this stuff so much cheaper. Keeping up this physique is costing me a fortune.”
“How long do you think we’ll be able to keep this thing going?” asked Alain, panting.
André shrugged. “That depends. If I get elected mayor? Then we’ll be sitting pretty no matter what. If I don’t—and how I could lose to that pathetic slug?—then maybe a year…and we reassess. The Russians won’t be sticking around that long, either way. They’re just here to get the ball rolling, get the shop up and running. Once they do that, we can take over.”
“But they’ll still take a cut.”
André shrugged again. “Well, yeah. Cost of doing business. They’re the ones who know how to run a business like this. We need them right now. Later…anything can happen.”
Alain laughed nervously. “You talking about skipping out on payments to those guys? You kidding me? I don’t even want to guess what they do to deadbeats.”
“I can take care of the Russians, and Coulon too,” said André, gazing at himself in the mirror, more confident than any man in all of Castillac.
19
It had started out a Monday like any other Monday, Annette thought to herself later. She was the first to arrive at the mairie as she usually was; she unlocked the front door and made herself an espresso with the machine the mayor had kindly bought for them with his own money. Claudine and the others had come in and settled at their desks, everyone reasonably productive, everything as normal and regular as could be.
Except that the mayor did not arrive. He was known to miss the occasional workday, as everyone did, but he always called or emailed, usually the day before unless it was a matter of illness keeping him away.
Annette was worried. But she said nothing until the following day, when she could no longer convince herself that nothing was the matter. She had called, texted, and emailed, and gotten no response. So finally, when the time for an important meeting had come and gone with still no word from Coulon, Annette decided to take action. Without discussing it with her co-workers, she stepped outside to the street and called Maron at the station to tell him that the mayor was missing.
20
Molly was making a salade Niçoise for her and Frances to eat on the terrace while they talked wedding plans. She cut some romaine and added a few handfuls of baby greens, and was bent over looking for olives in the refrigerator when Frances breezed in, looking glamorous as ever in skinny jeans and a white silk top that set off her jet-black hair beautifully.
“Bonjour, Franny,” said Molly, standing up with a crick in her back. “Jeez, you’re looking fab. I would hereby like to give myself some major credit for being your best friend all these years. It’s not exactly easy standing next to you, you know.”
“What has gotten into you?” said Frances, genuinely wondering.
“I don’t know.” Molly scrunched up her face. “Ignore that. What I meant to say was, that outfit looks amazing, and what are you going to wear for the big day?”
“Let’s call it a medium day, please,” said Frances, a note of panic in her voice.
“Okay!” laughed Molly. “Bring the glasses and I’ve got the rest. I already put a pad and paper on the table so I can take notes.”
“Notes?
You’re taking the whole thing way too seriously, Molls.”
“My best friend doesn’t get married every day.” She paused. “Oh, wait…”
Frances did not crack a smile. “Not funny. Okay, well, it was funny, but also not helping. I’m barely able to make myself go through with this. Maybe lighten up on the teasing until after the deed is done?”
“I’m sorry. Truly. Let’s have some rosé and talk about something else and then we can start fresh. Have I told you I’ve been on a massive rosé obsession lately? I like drinking it with pretty much everything, especially things you’re not supposed to drink it with. I don’t know what it is about the wine-drinking rules, but all I ever want to do is break them.”
“You do have a streak of willfulness.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“I always thought it was particular to redheads, but maybe,” said Frances, flashing the first smile since she’d arrived. She took a deep breath. “At the risk of being exceedingly tiresome, tell me again why I am getting married for the third time?”
“Because you and Nico are made for each other, and it will make him happy.”
“Isn’t it weird that it’s the guy who has his heart set on getting hitched?”
“Sexist pig.”
“And why mess with something that’s working so well? That’s what I keep coming back to. We’re so ridiculously happy at the moment. Why not sit back and wallow in it, instead of…”
“Oh, Franny, it’s just a quick ceremony and then a party right here at La Baraque with all your French friends. Celebrating your incredible luck in coming for a visit and finding someone you love with all your heart. Anyone would be thrilled to be in your shoes!”
“Not literally,” she said, pulling off a new loafer that was giving her blisters. “And if you’re so big on getting married, why aren’t you doing it?”
“It’s not the same thing at all.”
“Oh no? You and Ben are obviously totally smitten. There’s no complication standing in your way that I can see. Or are you holding back about something?”
“No, not holding back. Just…we’ve never even talked about it. I…”
Frances put down her fork and waited.
“…I guess in the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking at some point he would dump me and look for someone younger. Not because he’s a jerk,” Molly added, seeing Frances’s expression, “but because he probably wants to start a family. He’s younger than I am, you know, and I’m staring forty in the face in a couple of months.”
Frances let out a cackle. “Honestly, Molls, the crazy stuff we come up with! From over here, that whole story you just spun is nothing but a pile of b.s. And um, how about just talking to him about the children stuff for crying out loud?” They munched their salads for a few moments in silence. “What about Lapin? Isn’t he about to jump the broom too?”
“Haven’t been to Chez Papa all week and didn’t see him at the market either. Maybe he’s in hiding,” Molly said, laughing.
“Just between you and me? It’s Lapin’s getting married that was the last straw for me to go through with my own wedding. I could stand plenty of indignities, but Lapin having more courage than me…oh the shame, the shame.”
Molly snorted and picked up her pen. “All right, then. Decisions must be made, Madame Courage. Pick a date, first of all, and then I’m going to need to know how many people you want to invite, and whether you want a full dinner…and how about music?”
Frances turned even paler than usual as she poured herself another glass of wine. “Please tell me you have some dessert,” she said weakly. “I’ll get to all that in a minute. After a pastry and maybe three more glasses of wine?”
21
Paul-Henri Monsour, junior officer of the Castillac gendarmerie, was feeling queasy. “If it’s all right,” he said, officious as usual, “I’ll just trot downstairs and let Nagrand know where we are?”
“Yes, fine,” said Gilles Maron, smiling to himself because he understood very well why Monsour wanted to leave the room. The sight of Maxime Coulon lying on the rug in a gigantic pool of blood was enough to put anyone off, no matter how experienced in the grisly matters of murder one might be.
Chief Maron crouched next to the body, looking at it from different angles. A clear slit on the side of the neck, but Maron could see nothing lying around that could have made it. He stood and went into the bedroom across the hall, apparently Coulon’s own, noting a sculpture of a swan and a few framed photographs on a bureau, a pair of pants draped over a chair. On the bedside table was a dirty coffee cup and a bookmarked novel. An undistinguished painting of a sunset at the beach hung over the bed.
The chief gendarme, as he often did, thought for a minute about what the former chief, Ben Dufort, would have done next. Dufort had given him the best training of his career, which could mostly be summed up as listening to what people are saying that they do not mean to tell you, and following protocols to the letter. Maron stood in the Mayor’s bedroom and tried to see if there was any statement, any meaning to the small items already catalogued, but he could see nothing. He made a note to find out who was in the photographs, and went downstairs to wait for the coroner and the forensics team.
“Well, we got a call from the mairie,” Paul-Henri was saying to Florian Nagrand as he bustled through the front door carrying his big black bag. “I guess there was an important meeting this morning and Coulon never showed up. Never came in all day yesterday, which Annette—you know Annette? Receptionist at the mairie. Always most helpful. I once had a problem with the—”
“Monsour,” interrupted Maron. “Let Florian get upstairs and do his job.”
“Of course. I was just saying that Annette sounded the alarm and so we came over to check. The front door was wide open, that’s one thing right there, and we called and so forth, and, well, you’ll see…”
“Well, for once in your life you called when I wasn’t just sitting down to the table,” growled Nagrand, huffing as he went up the long set of stairs to the second floor. “It’s been, what, four whole months since the last murder? Was beginning to think the village had gone back to its sleepy old ways.”
“Carotid artery was cut,” said Maron just as they got to the second floor.
Nagrand pressed his lips together, irritated as always that the gendarmes refused to keep their untrained opinions to themselves and let him do his job in peace. He stood quietly for a moment, looking at Coulon. “Impressive pool of blood, eh? Reminds me of the baron. Remember—”
“Not a château this time, but a pretty nice house nevertheless,” said Maron.
“In Paris, as I’m sure you know, houses like this are a dime a dozen. My mother always says—”
“Monsour, go downstairs and wait for forensics.” Maron waited until Paul-Henri was gone before saying to Nagrand, “Sorry about him. He’s not as dull-witted as he seems, actually, just doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”
Nagrand made a wheezy chuckle. “All right then,” he said, with some difficulty squatting down next to the body. “Yes, a cut to the anterior left side of the neck. Quite deep. At first glance I don’t see any other wounds, though the autopsy might find otherwise. If the intent was to kill him, that slice to the neck did the job quite nicely. Preliminary finding is death by loss of blood caused by trauma to the neck.” With a groan he stood up and wiped his hands on a rag taken from the black bag. “Maron, this isn’t turning out to be an interesting case for me at all. Next time try to do better, huh?”
Maron smiled grimly. He had learned to stay out of the way and let Nagrand and the forensics team do their job, and was already starting a list of potential suspects in his mind. First stop, he supposed, was the mairie, so he said goodbye to Nagrand, left Paul-Henri nominally in charge, and strolled over to see who might be able to tell him something useful.
“Annette,” he said softly to the woman at the front desk, her eyes glued to her computer screen.
She
looked up and blanched, able to tell in an instant that the news was not good for the mayor. “Is everything all right?”
“I’m afraid not. Coulon is dead. Murdered, unless you have any reason to think he would have any desire to cut his own throat?”
Annette looked horrified.
“Sorry,” Maron said hurriedly. “That was unprofessional of me. We at the gendarmerie tend to develop dark senses of humor, perhaps you can understand? At any rate, I am sorry. Would you be able to answer a few questions? I know it’s a difficult moment for you, but we need to move quickly. Can you tell me Coulon’s habits, regarding when he came to work, when he left, that kind of thing?”
“Yes,” she said, and then put her hands on either side of her face. “Wait. Can I…the others should know…”
“This won’t take long. As you might know, speed is critical in a murder investigation. As I said, I am sorry for your loss, Annette. The best thing you could do for Coulon now is help us catch his killer.”
She looked down at the floor for a moment, trying to get control of herself. It’s not that she had been close to Coulon, or even liked him very much. But he was her boss, he had been there every workday for nearly twelve years, and she was used to him. The thought that someone had killed him—it was hard for that to sink in. “He—we weren’t exactly friends. But he was okay to work for. Fair, even generous sometimes. The office is going to be terribly upset.”
“I understand,” answered Maron, trying to keep impatience out of his voice. “Just quickly—did the mayor stick to a schedule? What time did he come in to the mairie usually?”
Annette sighed deeply. She fluttered her fingers on her forehead, trying to focus. “He is mostly quite regular, getting here by 9:30 most mornings. Lately…he’s been a little more erratic. So when he didn’t come in at all this morning, I didn’t think at first…could…would it have made a difference if I had called sooner? Could he have been saved?”
