by Nell Goddin
“You know Lapin?”
“Oh, most of us in the village know each other. Lapin and I were in school together, and occasionally I buy something from his antique shop. He calls me when he thinks something’s come in that I might like. In any case, what do you say, Molly Sutton? Will you take the case? I need this thing wrapped up as soon as possible. Sales are already down and if rumors start to swirl about some of the public fights Maxime and I had, I’m afraid that will only get worse.”
Molly, of course, readily agreed, deciding on the spur of the moment to ask for about thirty per cent more than the fee she and Ben had decided on. Odile assented without hesitation, and rushed off to a meeting in Bergerac she claimed she absolutely could not miss.
All very curious, thought Molly, settling back on the sofa with a cup of fresh coffee after the Peugeot had disappeared down rue des Chênes. Never a word about all the reasons most people want to find a killer: nothing about justice, or making the village safer, or avenging Coulon’s murder. Odile’s only concerns were business and branding. For an instant Molly wondered whether hiring Dufort/Sutton Investigations was anything more than a public relations move.
Then she grinned. They were on the case! And she dug out her phone to text Ben the news.
27
The ride back to the village was quiet. Maron was embarrassed by his conduct with Josette; even though he had said or done nothing untoward, he knew he had been embarrassingly distracted by her feminine charms.
Well, it wasn’t her charms exactly, to be honest. It was her animal, physical presence he had responded to, her shape and her smell. Unable to imagine any man not similarly affected, he had a quick flash of pity for Coulon, having her in his house day after day.
Josette claimed she wasn’t at the house the day of the murder, and all that remained was to check with Rémy, and double-check to see if any of the neighbors had seen her. Perhaps the delivery boy for the épicerie might have been on the streets and noticed something, or the postman.
Typical legwork, that’s all that was required. He welcomed the tediousness of it, in a way. Just a long list of boxes to tick off, precisely and thoroughly, and by the end of the process, there was your killer. Though he suspected Molly Sutton operated somewhat differently.
“So what did you think?” asked Monsour, after they had driven for a good half hour without speaking. “Do you believe the girl?”
“Same as any witness at this point in an investigation—I don’t believe or disbelieve.”
“Hm,” said Monsour. Having eyes in his head, he had seen how Maron responded to Josette, but wisely he kept his thoughts to himself for once. “The mother is certainly of a piece of work.”
“Suspicious of outsiders, for sure. You get anything from her?”
“I did not. I thought I was successfully softening her up, when suddenly she said she wanted to talk to you and barreled out the door. I’ll say this though: if Madame Barbeau had been the housemaid to Coulon, I’d bet a Louis XV armchair that she was the murderer.”
Maron was happy to talk about someone other than Josette. “I told you I sensed a violent streak in her.”
“I kept glancing at the set of knives dangling from a wire in the kitchen, and thinking that if she had reason to, she would pick one of those up and slit my throat without a moment’s hesitation. Just, you know, just a feeling I got.”
“And what kind of feeling did you get from the daughter?”
Monsour shrugged. “A pretty girl, a bit dim. I suppose we should talk to the brother as soon as we can—doubtless he will back up her story, but Madame Barbeau said Josette doesn’t drive. If she was in the village on Monday, he would have driven her.”
“And driven her home after the murder.”
“When we get back, let’s find André Lebeau,” said Maron. “Interview him. He may be a much better suspect than Josette, given that he was Coulon’s competitor in the election and as you said, making death threats.”
“Though you said that if you were going to murder someone, probably best not to announce it in public beforehand.”
“And I believe you answered and we have previously noted on innumerable occasions, criminals are often idiots. What else do you know about Lebeau?”
“Not much. He’s a loudmouth.” Monsour was pleased to have been given the interview to do on his own, and already feeling protective of any information. He had gathered from Ada Bellard and Georgina Locatelli that André’s interest in running for office had something to do with small business interests, but Monsour wanted to understand that angle more completely before bringing it up with Maron. This was his first real chance to impress his boss, and he wanted to give it a wallop.
28
“I thought you would be thrilled,” said Molly, mixing lettuce with a mustardy salad dressing as she put the final touches on lunch for her and Ben.
“Who said I’m not thrilled?”
“You didn’t crack so much as a smile.”
“I suppose my mind had already run ahead and gone around the bend in the road.”
“Which road is that?”
“The road lined with the ever-growing list of suspects in the case, and the huge amount of legwork we need to put in before we can hope to get anywhere at all. Of course I’m very pleased, just anxious to get at it.”
“Now you’re talking my language. What’s the list look like so far, in your opinion? The chicken’s ready, would you scrape the rice into a bowl and set it on the table? And bring the drinks.”
Ben came around the side of the kitchen counter, kissing Molly on the ear as he passed by on his way to the rice. “In no particular order: his son, if indeed Daniel is actually his son. Also, I’m interested in the banking angle…I’ve got little to go on besides noticing Coulon seemed to go into the bank unusually often, but speaking generally, you know how time and again money turns out to be the motive for murder. At any rate, that’s where I’m going to continue digging for now. Monsieur Lachance at the bank has not been very forthcoming, claiming privacy restrictions, but I may be getting somewhere with his assistant. There’s Josette the housemaid, of course. And I don’t think we can leave our client off the list either.”
“Right, I had the same thought. I wonder if it would be terrible for business if we ended up getting our own client arrested?”
“It could definitely have a chilling effect, at least as far as more criminals wanting to hire us,” Ben said wryly.
“About Josette—I made a few calls this morning, itchy to get started. Turns out Rémy was out at the Barbeau farm the day of the murder, and corroborates Josette’s story about being home sick that day.”
“Rémy and the Barbeaus? I wouldn’t have thought they’d have anything to do with each other.”
“Something about AOC chickens and some strange vegetables he doesn’t have room to grow? You know Rémy, in two seconds he was off talking about soil composition, drainage, and all the flap about new EU rules for organic certification. Anyway, he says he talked to her at the farm on the day of the murder, so that’s one less person to worry about. I’ll go ahead and interview her in case she has something to tell us about who the mayor hung out with, his habits, all that jazz.
“All right, good, keep going. Tell me more about running into Daniel Coulon.”
“He was a bit strange,” said Molly.
“His father was just murdered.”
“Right. If he’s actually Coulon’s son. I guess it would be a little unorthodox to ask Maron to ask him to take a DNA test? Should we call Nagrand and ask him to swab some of Coulon’s cells, or is it too late for that?”
“Not too late, I don’t believe. But maybe to avoid asking a favor of Maron, how about contacting Daniel’s mother—Coulon’s first ex-wife—and see if she can shed some light on the family situation. Who knows what you might be able to get out of her.”
“I hope you like lemon. This sauce will turn your mouth inside out.”
“I adore lemon,
actually—have you forgotten how Frances has infected me with her addiction to fresh lemonade?”
“Oh yeah. I’m…sometimes not that great with…I get distracted…”
“By murders, instead of your boyfriend’s tastes?”
“You could put it that way.”
“Excellent. That’ll be good for business.”
They smiled at each other, a warm, loving smile of appreciation, and dug into the food.
“So Daniel was a little odd, as I said. He looked…poor. He expressed zero sadness about his father, but maybe the fact that they didn’t know each other explains that? There was definitely something chilly about him. But more than that—he zigzagged all over the place, one minute chuckling, the next minute super defensive. I don’t know if it was instantaneous mood swings or he was hiding something. But he was definitely off somehow.”
“Hmm.”
“I was thinking, if he’s as poor as he looks, there might be a financial angle.”
“Right. Though you don’t want to go around assuming if someone’s not well off, they’re automatically a candidate for murderer.”
“Not what I meant. He was weird, Ben. Not only not grief-stricken, but seemed to be almost happy about the death.”
“All right. Let’s hear from Daniel’s mother before we go too far with this. She may say there is no son and this guy is a con man or something.”
Molly nodded, chewing thoughtfully and thinking about Daniel. She made a mental note to ask Edmond what his impression of the young man had been.
“Okay, let’s lay out our first steps, shall we?” said Ben.
Molly nodded. “I was thinking I’d head out to the Barbeau farm tomorrow morning, talk to Josette, and get her view of Coulon as well as anyone who came to the house over the last few months.”
“Want company?”
“Of course. But maybe you should follow a different lead. Can you meet with that bank assistant again? Talk to Odile, maybe? Do you know her?”
“I used to. We were in school together, all the way through lycée. She was always a sharp one, winning math contests and things like that. No surprise she’s made such a success—she’s one of those people you can tell early on will accomplish something.”
“But you didn’t know Coulon?”
“He’s a little older. You know how it is with kids, a few years can make a big difference. I knew who he was, vaguely, but we weren’t friends or in the same classes. And he was definitely not one of those people who have success written all over them. He was sort of a…nobody. That’s my slim bit of memory about him, anyway. Not someone you wanted to be around.”
“You find out anything on your stroll around the village?”
“I did not. Even Tessier had nothing of interest.”
“What about the method of killing? I know we always talk about means, motive, and opportunity, so I guess this sort of fits under means…what I’m wondering is, what circumstance, or personality, brings about a throat-cutting? Is it a crime of impulse, or something planned? How much force would it take?”
Dufort grinned at her. “It is a joy to watch you in action, chérie.”
“Oh,” said Molly, coloring a little. Ben had been so full of compliments lately that it was making her a little uncomfortable.
“To answer, I’m not sure you can say much that’s definitive. Could be an impulsive act or not—obviously it would help to have the murder weapon. In this case I lean toward planned, because in the guest room, what would be at hand to slit a throat with? The knives presumably were in the kitchen. Guest rooms don’t tend to have much of anything in the way of weapons, do they?”
“We need to get in that house and find out.”
They ate quickly, anxious to get going. They left the dishes in the sink, kissed goodbye, and went their separate ways, Molly on the long ride to the Barbeau farm, and Ben to the gendarmerie to see if he could find Maron and arrange a look inside the mayor’s house, before heading back again to the bank.
The owners of Dufort/Sutton Investigations were feeling energized and confident that beautiful Thursday in June, not so complacent as to think the murder was nearly solved, but they had outlined the steps to get there, and soon enough the latest evil to threaten Castillac would be arrested, giving their business a welcome boost.
They had no idea, not yet, that the mayor’s case was going to become quite a lot more complicated—and dangerous—in very short order.
29
The air was sweet and warm, the sky an intense blue as Molly revved up the scooter for the trip to the Barbeau farm. A long solo drive is a perfect time to do some clear thinking, thought Molly, zipping down rue des Chênes away from the village and whipping around a corner. But the case was so new, there wasn’t much to turn over in her mind. The mayor had been killed on the second floor of his house, in the guest room. Did the exact location matter? How often would you go into a guest room if no one was staying there? Had he been preparing the room for someone—Daniel Coulon, for example?
She made a mental note to ask someone at the mairie if Coulon had an appointment book they could look at, and to ask Ben if there was a way to access his phone records.
Having little else to consider, for the rest of the forty-five minute drive Molly made a mental list for Frances’s wedding party: she needed containers for flowers, because there would be flowers, no matter what Frances said. A long linen tablecloth, snowy white, that would look so lovely with fallen petals scattered across it. The food—oh, what in the world could she make that would be extraordinary but not take too much time away from working the new case?
When she got close, Molly began to slow down at each farm, looking for house numbers sometimes in vain, but she recognized Julien’s truck parked next to an ancient stone house with some outbuildings scattered behind it, and pulled into the driveway. She smiled to herself, having discovered that she had an effortless, almost photographic memory when it came to cars and trucks, which was rather a surprise since she wasn’t especially interested in them.
The farm was quiet except for a rooster crowing over and over somewhere behind the house. Molly went up to the front door and knocked hard several times, hoping Julien would come to the door, since she knew and liked him.
But instead, the door cracked open just barely, not enough for Molly to see anything except a narrow stripe of face and dark clothing below.
“What do you want?” asked a voice. Molly was at least relieved that the woman’s accent wasn’t unusual and she could understand her without any difficulty.
“Pardon,” Molly said, and then used what she had found to be the magic words when she wanted to enlist someone’s help in France: “Excuse me for bothering you, but I need some help.”
The door did not budge.
“My name is Molly Sutton, I live in Castillac. Ben Dufort, the former chief of gendarmes, is my partner.” She paused, this being the first time she had introduced herself that way, and thinking it sounded like she was talking about a boyfriend. “I mean, he and I have an investigation service. We are looking into the mayor’s case and I would like to talk to Josette.”
She was about to ask if Josette was home, but held back, not wanting to give the woman an easy out.
The door did not move and the woman did not speak. Molly shifted her weight, waiting, and just as she was about to try to say something reassuring, the door swung open.
“Bonjour, Molly,” said the old woman, smiling. “I am Alicia Barbeau, Josette’s mother. Of course your exploits are famous, even as far away from the village as we are here. I grew up in Castillac, as a matter of fact, but it’s a simpler life we lead, you understand, in the country. Up with the sun, physical labor all day. Not much extra time for following the goings-on in the village, or anyplace else for that matter.”
“I understand. I’ve never done farm work myself, having grown up in Boston, but I’m very grateful for your hard work. I benefit from it directly—I’m a longtime customer of J
ulien’s. Your chickens are amazing and I try to get one every Saturday. And your eggs! Oh, they are the best anywhere. I can’t tell you how many double yolks I’ve gotten! And they are the deepest, most beautiful orange. One of my favorite colors.”
Madame Barbeau was taken aback by this outpouring of verbiage, not used to being around Americans who will sometimes share their personal opinions with you only seconds after being introduced.
“If you will wait here for a moment, I will tell Josette you are here. She is up in her room, where she spends much time these days, I’m afraid. The death of her employer has hit her very hard, especially as sudden and violent as it was.”
Molly nodded. She listened as the old woman slowly made her way up the stairs, then heard murmuring between mother and daughter. In a few moments a young woman came downstairs, her gait not sounding lugubrious to Molly, but rather light and energetic. Molly remembered how pretty she was, and held out her hand to shake.
“Nice to see you again,” said Molly, “I’m so sorry for what’s happened. You must feel rather shaken.
Josette nodded and shook Molly’s hand.
“Would you like a cup of tea? Or coffee?” asked Madame Barbeau.
Molly was hoping the old woman would leave to do some of that constant physical labor she had talked about, but she showed no sign of budging.
“Coffee would be lovely,” said Molly. “Then maybe we could take a walk around, you can show me the farm?” she said to Josette.
“That’s what the chief wanted to do, too,” said Josette.
“Ah, Maron’s been here?” Molly was not surprised but was looking for Josette’s reaction to the gendarme’s visit.
Josette only nodded.
Madame Barbeau bustled in the kitchen as though preparing a great feast. “I’m wondering—since I was born and raised in Castillac, you see, and only got this far away—what brings a person to change countries? I don’t mean to be rude, but isn’t that sort of drastic? Were you running away from something?”
