An Official Killing

by Nell Goddin

  33

  Ben waited for Molly in front of Chez Papa. He was not surprised that the market took longer than expected—in June, it almost always did, because the entire village was there and conversations could get long—and Ben chatted with numerous friends before he saw an over-caffeinated Molly striding along, swinging her straw bag along with a big white paper bag from Pâtisserie Bujold.

  They kissed cheeks, and then lips, both smiling and happy to see the other.

  “Uff, it took forever,” said Molly. “I talked to about ten people, but I only got two little scraps that might be useful to the case. Wish we’d found something in the house.”

  “Same. Maron and the rest were thorough, I guess. What are the little scraps?”

  “Well, I ran into the guy who drives the ambulance, I forget his name but I met him last year during the Desrosiers case. Anyway, he took Coulon’s body to the morgue on Tuesday. And he told me he noticed a guy hanging around on the street the whole time the ambulance was there. His description matches Daniel’s exactly, right down to the color of his shirt.”

  “Good work,” said Ben. “And there’s something more?”

  “Yeah. This Lebeau character sure has some of the village women all stirred up, and apparently he’s something of an aggressive type.”

  “Aggressive? Who told you that?”

  “The kid who helps Manette unload the truck since she got pregnant. I think he’s a cousin? Anyway, I was just leaving to come here when Manette called me over and said the cousin—Geoff—had something to tell me. Geoff works out at a gym on the south end of the village? I didn’t even know we had a gym.”

  “I go sometimes.”

  “Oh, really?” said Molly, raising her eyebrows comically and squeezing his bicep.

  “In fact, I was wondering…it’s true I don’t go that often, but I’ve never seen Lebeau there even once.”

  “Maybe he works out at home?”

  “Maybe. But for someone with his physique, that’s a lot of equipment to invest in. Plus, part of the point is to show off, you know? The bodybuilder types at the gym do a fair amount of preening in the mirrors.”

  “Right, I can picture that. I’m not really a gym sort myself, but I totally take your word for it.”

  “So go on, what did Manette’s cousin have to say?”

  “That Lebeau had come up to him on the street and started giving him a hard time, saying he needed a real trainer to show him how to work out because whatever he was doing, it wasn’t working. Obviously very strange coming from some random guy Geoff had never even met but just passed on the street. Anyway, so the cousin argued back and Lebeau shoved him pretty hard. They almost got into a fight but they both had friends who pulled them apart and Lebeau took off.”

  Ben was shaking his head. “And this guy is running for council?”

  “I know. Manette told me that she had heard him speak and he seemed reasonable enough. She agreed with a lot of what he had to say. But his temperament…he doesn’t sound like someone we want in charge of anything. I was hoping to see him at the market, try to ask him a few questions, but he wasn’t there.”

  Ben nodded. “Okay, listen, I know we were going to have lunch together, but I think I’ll take the opportunity of a crowded village to talk to some more people. So far no one that I can find saw Josette or Julien in Castillac on the day of the murder, but I’d like to hear what Rémy has to say before setting her aside. And I’d very much like to meet Lebeau as well, if he shows up.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  Ben considered. “Of course, always,” he said with a quick smile. “But you’ve got a chicken to put in the fridge, and plenty to do at La Baraque I’m sure. Just to double-check, I’ll knock on all the doors on the mayor’s street, swing through the end of the market looking for Lebeau, and meet you back at your place?”

  They kissed again, lingeringly, and Molly went off to find her scooter. She was thinking, for once, not about Coulon or Coulon’s murderer, or about Frances and Nico’s wedding, but about whether she should ask Ben if he wanted to move in at La Baraque.

  But why potentially ruin something when it’s going so well? she thought, echoing Frances without realizing it.

  The scooter started up with no problem and she got the chicken and the carton of eggs with the small red heart safely home and refrigerated, and set about trying to figure out her next step.

  * * *

  The morning’s almond croissant already a distant memory, Molly ate an enormous salad dotted with plenty of sardines and some leftover potatoes, and with renewed energy set about attacking the weeds in the front border. She put earphones in and listened to the blues, quickly reaching that almost blissful state in which her hands were busy and productive but her mind was ranging all over the place, mostly in the direction of Coulon’s murder.

  Opportunity, she thought. Opportunity first, means second, motive last. Either the murderer is someone Coulon knew and invited inside the house, or someone who talked his way in. Because if the entry had been forcible, it’s unlikely the murder would have taken place upstairs, especially since there wasn’t any disturbance downstairs, no sign of any struggle.

  Which category would Daniel Coulon be in, she wondered, reminding herself to call Daniel’s mother and see what she might have to say. If it was true that Coulon had never met his son—that could be all the mayor’s fault, or just as easily the mother’s. Daniel’s mother would by definition give a biased view, but of course, sadly for the mayor, it was the only one available. If you had never even met your father, could you be angry enough to kill him? Probably so, thought Molly, even if the way to get there was to have spent a long time blaming your absent father for everything that had gone wrong in your life. And definitely so if his death meant you would come into a significant amount of money.

  Hell, people will kill for next to nothing, she thought with a resigned shrug. Daniel for sure does not lack for motive. But we can’t put him in the house, at least not yet. Maybe Ben will strike gold when he interviews the neighbors.

  Molly troweled down into the dirt, trying to get all the roots of that noxious weed she could never get ahead of, trying to imagine the minutes before the murder. Someone knocked on the door in the morning, before Coulon left for the mairie. Was there an argument, a dispute that turned violent, surprising them both? Molly couldn’t figure out why Coulon would have invited anyone he wasn’t getting along with up to the second floor, so that scenario seemed unlikely.

  So, she reasoned, Coulon might not have realized what the murderer had in mind. The two of them might have walked upstairs together, talking about any old thing, with Coulon completely unaware. Was anyone that clueless…able to overlook that the person standing next to you wanted to kill you?

  Was someone staying with him, a friend from another time in his life, university in Rennes for example? And did this guest come prepared, with a knife hidden in his jacket, ready to settle some old score that Coulon had possibly forgotten about?

  She tried again to see the murder unfold, but the image refused to come into focus. Eventually Molly got tired of weeding and went inside looking for a cold drink. No sign of Ben. She texted him to see when he might show up, feeling hungry and anxious to start dinner.

  Another hour passed with no word, and Molly restlessly went to the refrigerator and took out the eggs, having planned a soufflé for dinner. She grated some cheese and then put an artichoke in the steamer, expecting Ben to text any minute.…and then, abruptly, said to hell with it, shoved the carton of eggs back in the fridge, turned off the stove, and headed out to Chez Papa. She had spent hours alone and she craved some company, a kir with friends, and a laugh or two.

  As she steered the scooter onto rue des Chênes, she did not pay attention to Bobo, who stood at the end of the driveway barking at the man who appeared out of the dusky evening on a bike, following Molly at a distance meant to prevent her from noticing he was there. Bobo had not been a f
an of Vasily from the beginning, occasionally being a better judge of character than the human she lived with.

  34

  Chez Papa was packed and Molly could hear shrieks of laughter coming from inside as she parked the scooter out front under a twinkling string of lights hung in a scrawny tree.

  “Molly!” shouted a chorus as she came inside.

  “This is just what I needed,” she said, grinning as she slid onto the only remaining stool next to Lawrence.

  “I’m happy to see you, my dear. I don’t mind saying that while I’m glad things seem to be so jolly between you and Ben, it does mean that I don’t see you nearly as much as I used to. And it takes some willpower not to pout.”

  Molly kissed her friend on both cheeks. “Well, you know Ben is sort of a homebody. Though where he is now, I can’t say. I expected him for dinner…”

  “His loss, our gain,” said Lawrence, signaling to Nico that he wanted another Negroni. “Now tell me, how’s the case going?”

  “Mmm, so-so. We’ve been hired, as I guess you’ve heard, but that’s about it. No actual progress yet, though we’ve got a few weak leads to follow up on. Let me ask you something: if you were about to be murdered by someone you know, do you think you would realize you were in danger? Like, if you weren’t actually arguing or anything, but the person had reasons for wanting to kill you—do you think you’d be able to sense that?”

  “That depends on many things. Is the murderer a sociopath who has no feelings for other people? They can cover up their intentions quite well, or so I’ve heard.”

  “I guess it sounds like I’m blaming the victim. It’s just that I can’t see how this plays out any other way—the house showed no evidence of a struggle, yet the body was found on the second floor.”

  “And it’s certain that he was killed on the second floor, not moved there later?”

  “Oh yes. There would have been blood everywhere if he had been moved.”

  “Eww.”

  “Sorry. So the murderer was a guest of Coulon’s, right, not someone who came in the house by force? Isn’t that the only possibility?”

  “Didn’t he have a housemaid? Pretty Josette Barbeau, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “Yes. She was home sick the day of the murder. Three people support that, and we’ve not been able to find anyone who saw her in Castillac that day. Nor have we found any motive for her to kill her boss, when by all appearances her job was sorely needed. Everyone at the mairie reports that he was a good man to work for.”

  Lawrence shrugged. “Then I’ve got nothing. Of course, I have the utmost confidence in you,” he said, patting her knee.

  “Are you being patronizing?” she flashed out.

  “Molly! Of course not!”

  “Sorry,” Molly said, and meant it. “I’m…I guess I’m a little on edge. All we’ve got is a bunch of unpromising nothing. Often when I’m on a case, I get this…it’s hard to describe…I get this sort of tingling feeling, when I’m on the right track. It’s like…this feeling of confidence that even though I don’t know what happened yet, I am going to know.”

  “And you’re lacking it this time?”

  “Yes. Mostly.”

  “Bonsoir, Molly,” said Nico, sliding a kir in front of her. “Frites?”

  “Of course,” she said. “Where’s Frances?”

  Nico just shook his head and looked away. Uh oh, thought Molly.

  “I suppose you haven’t ignored the possibility that it was your client who killed him?” asked Lawrence.

  “Well, of course not,” said Molly, realizing with a sharp pang that deep down, she had believed Odile completely, perhaps over-identifying with her as a fellow divorcée. The deadly assumption raises its head again, she thought ruefully.

  “I suppose there’s no chance it was a suicide?” asked Lawrence.

  “I—well, that never occurred to me. I guess we should consider it. Do people actually slit their own throats?”

  “People will do anything, dear Molly, surely you of all people know that.” Lawrence swiveled on his stool and caught a glimpse of someone outside on the sidewalk looking in, but the figure stepped back out of sight and Lawrence made nothing of it. “So, did you hear the latest? About Lapin?”

  “No!”

  “He and Anne-Marie eloped. Our dear friend is now a married man.”

  “You’re kidding! Incredible! How do you know?”

  “He sent me a postcard. The two of them went up to Poitiers to a big flea market, and I guess it was a spur of the moment thing. Obviously it’s hard to get much from a postcard, but I gather they’re blissfully happy.”

  Molly nodded, smiling, but inside she was starting to feel cranky. The case felt stubbornly closed-up and all anyone ever wanted to talk about was weddings. She looked over at Nico, who was listening to some people at the other end of the bar. His expression was droopy and he looked sad; it didn’t take an ace detective to guess that the cause was Frances. With a sigh she called out to him.

  “Hey Nico! Come talk to me a sec.”

  “Yes, madame,” he said, trying to sound comic and failing.

  “Want to talk wedding details? I know you said anything was fine, but since Frances is, uh, less than helpful, that leaves me in the driver’s seat. I would be much more comfortable following directions about what kind of celebration you want than making those decisions myself.”

  Nico nodded but said nothing.

  “How about you help me with the menu? I thought we’d have a dinner. It’s so nice to sit at a long table all together, you know? The conversations are better than when everyone is just mingling and eating appetizers.”

  Nico managed to raise an unconvincing smile.

  “There is going to be a wedding, right?” Molly said, letting a little more exasperation into her voice than maybe she should have.

  Nico’s eyes looked glittery and he shrugged. Molly instantly felt bad. “Okay look, I’ll talk to her. I’m sure whatever it is…it’ll be nothing. She’s…you know, most of the time the things we love about someone are the very things that drive us crazy. Frances does not walk the expected path, Nico. She colors outside the lines. And we love her for this! And so…” Molly took a big sip of her kir, feeling both sorry for her friends and like telling them off at the same time.

  “I think I’ll head home,” she said finally.

  “You haven’t even gotten your frites yet!”

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t know, suddenly I’m not in the mood. I think I need to get to bed early with a good book.” She kissed Nico and Lawrence goodbye, and went outside. The scooter coughed, coughed again, and the engine did not catch.

  “Dammit to hell,” she said under her breath.

  Vasily Vasiliev leaned out of the alley next to Chez Papa, his eyes on Molly. It was dark, he was hidden in shadow, and Molly had no idea she was being watched.

  On the fourth try the motor started and she took off through the quiet streets of the village headed for home, with Vasily on his bike not far behind.

  35

  “Bonjour, Annette,” Monsour said as he came into the mairie, first thing Monday morning.

  “Bonjour, Paul-Henri. I hope you’ve got some news?”

  “We’ll see. People seem to think murder investigations go like that,” he said, snapping his fingers. “But usually they take time and patience. It’s not as though we have a long line of witnesses,” he added defensively. Monsour glanced around the office for a moment, noting the two women working at desks behind Annette. They looked busy but were no doubt straining to hear every word. “I do have some more questions for you. Is there somewhere private we can talk, or would you like to come outside?”

  Annette looked rattled. She glanced behind her, then took a deep breath. “Maybe we should go out,” she said.

  Once on the street, she asked, “Is this…is this normal? I’m not in any trouble, am I?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Monsour with a slight smile. “I have ju
st a few questions for you. You probably spent more time with Coulon than anyone, so it’s not unusual at all that you are the person who can clear up a few things.”

  Annette turned pale. “More time? I suppose technically that’s correct. But Paul-Henri, it’s not as though he and I were glued at the hip at the mairie. I am behind the front desk and he was in his office most of the time.

  Monsour sighed. “You are not under suspicion, Annette. But your continual protests are starting to make you sound like you have something to hide.” Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her blanch, and smiled to himself. “Now then. First, I wonder if anyone purporting to be Coulon’s son ever came to the mairie?”

  “Son? Coulon had no son, not that I ever knew about.”

  “Young man just showed up in the village, says his name is Daniel Coulon. Story is that they were estranged, and Daniel came to try to patch things up.”

  Annette thought about how excited her co-workers, a pair of inveterate gossips, would be with that bit of information. “News to me,” she shrugged.

  “All right, then. Next, I want to know about the process of granting business permits. Can you tell me how that works?”

  Annette swallowed hard. She tucked her short hair behind her ears several times and smoothed the front of her dress. Monsour felt alert, his ears pricking up.

  “Okay, listen,” said Annette slowly. “I knew it wasn’t right, but the mayor was explicit about how he wanted it handled and…and maybe I should have stood up to him more. I just never thought…”

  Monsour was surprised to have hit on something so easily but hid it well. “Continue,” he said.

  “I don’t know for sure. I mean, I can’t give you a tape of incriminating conversations or anything to prove it. And the thing with his wife, I mean his ex-wife, well, that was just icing on the cake, if you know what I mean.”