He stood up with a groan. His legs felt like rubber, but he made himself walk to the cable car and get in. Eulalie sat shoulder to shoulder with him, threading her fingers through his.
“Will you come with me to Angel’s Place when we get back?” she asked.
“For dinner? Won’t it be a bit late?”
“What’s today? Tuesday? The kitchen might be closed, but they’ll rustle up something for us. I want to ask Angel a question. If she can fill in the gaps in my memory, we might have a new lead.”
Chief Macgregor felt life returning to his limbs. The promise of a new lead was always invigorating.
“What about the train?” he asked. “Won’t the last train have left?”
“It’s too early. The train keeps going until midnight. And besides, the train always waits for the cable car and vice versa. Don’t worry, Chief. You’ll sleep in your own bed tonight.”
He turned his head to look at her. “Not in yours?”
That dry Scottish voice combined with the hawkish look in his eyes gave her tingles. She laughed and said, “We’ll see.”
It was nearly eleven by the time they got to downtown Queen’s Town. Angel’s Place was a hive of activity, but the kitchen had indeed closed. Only bar snacks were being served.
“The wanderers return!”
Angel swept up to give them each a double cheek kiss.
Eulalie sighed when she saw what her grandmother was wearing – a long purple dress with silver moons and stars appliquéd onto the fabric. This was accessorized by a purple velvet cape that fell almost to the floor, and a mauve turban.
“Why the fancy-dress, Grandmère? Why? Pourquoi?”
Angel patted her cheek. “I had back-to-back readings and consultations all afternoon. I didn’t have time to change. Besides, the tourists like it.”
Eulalie never understood how such an elegant woman could make a figure of fun of herself. Angel offered a variety of psychic services, including palm-reading, crystal balls, Tarot cards, tea-leaf readings, and whatever else the client might ask for. It was the kind of hocus-pocus that irritated Eulalie beyond bearing.
“You must be starving,” said Angel. “Let’s see what they can put together in the kitchen.”
“I could murder a cheeseburger,” said Eulalie, hopefully.
Angel patted her cheek again and disappeared into the back. Eulalie and Chief Macgregor sat at the bar. Two glasses of iced water appeared at their elbows, followed by an ice bucket with a nice bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc chilling in it.
Eulalie felt her spirits rise. She could put up with the sight of her grandmother looking like a carnival fortuneteller for this.
“How was everyone at home?” Angel popped up on the other side of the bar.
“All good. They send their love.”
“I thought you’d spend another night there. Lorelei told me she would be feeding the cat tomorrow as well.”
“We got as much information as we could and were keen to get back to town. I wanted to ask you something, Grandmère. I had a dream last night…”
Angel’s hand shot out to seize Eulalie’s wrist. “Did you see her? Did you see what happened to my baby? Tell me at once.”
“No, no.” Eulalie was embarrassed. Her eyes flicked around the bar to see if anyone had heard. “It wasn’t that kind of dream. It was just an ordinary dream. It was like my mind was trying to remind me of something that happened years ago. Perhaps you will remember better than I do.”
Angel took a sip of her cane brandy. “What is it?”
“Do you remember that time years ago when we had only been in Queen’s Town for a short while and you didn’t let me go out on my own? I got bored one Saturday afternoon and sneaked off to Finger Alley. Do you remember that?”
“Remember it? It was the longest two hours of my life. When your granddaughter goes missing, it tends to stick in your memory.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I only realized when I was older how worried you must have been. But can you remember what I said when I came back? I know I ran all the way home from Finger Alley. A man had accosted me there and I was scared. Do you remember, Grandmère?”
“Of course, I do. You were out of breath and hysterical. If I hadn’t believed that he would already be long gone, I would have tried to find him myself. You told me he said something about… about your mother.” Angel’s eyebrows rose. “You think he was talking about Fauve?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see his face clearly in my mind. It’s as though it was in shadow. The same for his voice. The words are muffled by my memory. I can’t remember what he said. Can you, Grandmère? Can you remember what I told you?”
Angel took her time thinking about it.
“You were upset, chérie. You were so frightened that you weren’t making a lot of sense. For a long time afterwards, I wondered if the man had touched you in some way or made an inappropriate suggestion. I tried to question you gently, but you were incoherent. I remember you telling me that he said something bad about you and about your mother, but I thought it was just one of those indecent insults that men use when they accost young girls. Your mother is a this or a that. I didn’t for a minute suspect that he was talking about your actual mother.”
“You can’t remember my exact words – what I said to you?”
“You kept repeating that he had said something bad about you and your mother. That was all.”
“Did I describe him?”
“Now, that I remember. I tried to get you to tell me what he looked like because I wanted to know if he was someone I would recognize, or someone that anyone I knew would recognize. I was trying to figure out if he was a local or a tourist. If he had turned out to be a local, I would have rained holy terror upon him for frightening my granddaughter. But you couldn’t identify him. You said that his face was in shadow and that you didn’t get a good look at it. And you said something about a badge or… a logo that was on his shirt.”
“That’s right!” said Eulalie. “Something with boomerangs. I remember that now.”
“Boomerangs?” Chief Macgregor had been listening quietly to this exchange. “You think he might have been Australian?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I recognized boomerangs. I went through a phase of being fascinated with them. I used to make them when we still lived in the village. Do you remember that, Grandmère? You taught me about boomerangs and how the indigenous hunters in Australia designed them to return to the thrower if they were unsuccessful in hitting the target. As someone who had spent hours hunting for lost arrows in the forest, I thought that was a great idea. I can’t say I was a huge success as a boomerang designer, but I certainly recognized one when I saw it. That logo had boomerangs on it.”
“More than one?” asked Chief Macgregor.
“I think so,” said Eulalie. “That’s how I remember it. I can’t remember what color they were or how they were arranged.”
Gigi came through from the kitchen carrying two dinner plates. She set them in front of Eulalie and Chief Macgregor. Eulalie found herself looking at grilled sole on the bone with wild rice, and stir-fried vegetables. It wasn’t the cheeseburger she had been hoping for, but she was too hungry to complain. They picked up their forks and dug in.
“Tomorrow, I’ll start doing internet searches for logos of boomerangs,” said Eulalie. “I’ll concentrate on logos that were current sixteen years ago. Perhaps I’ll see something that will jog my memory.”
“Good idea. And we can look into the hitchhiking lead as well.”
“What’s that?” said Angel. “What hitchhiking lead?”
Eulalie took a breath. “Apparently, Fauve had heard that one way of getting around Queen’s Town was by hitchhiking. Sapphyra showed us how she and Fauve used to practice it down at the river.”
“Sapphyra?” said Angel. “She was Lucien’s age, wasn’t she?”
“She was, but she became friendly with Fauve too. She acted as a go-between to facil
itate meetings between them.”
“I didn’t know that.” Angel looked stricken. “How could I not have known that?”
“Every teenage girl has secrets from her mother,” said Eulalie. “Most are harmless. The fact that this ended tragically is no one’s fault except for the person who killed her. He is the only one to blame.”
“You’re right.” Angel pulled herself together. “What else did Sapphyra tell you?”
“Not much. Fauve’s disappearance took her by surprise. All she could tell us was that she might have been trying to hitchhike, and that she intended to change into modern clothes as soon as possible.”
“She had some money,” said Angel. “She wasn’t completely penniless. That’s how I knew that she had gone off of her own free will, rather than having been abducted. She broke into a tin box I kept on the mantle and took some money out of it. It was only about eighty dollars, but it wasn’t as though she had no money at all.”
“Let’s say she used some of that money to buy a ticket on the cable car and another one on the train, and then hitched from the train station,” said Eulalie. “How did she end up at Robson’s Field?”
“We still haven’t determined whether she died there or was taken there,” said Chief Macgregor. “Dr. Autry can’t say for sure. It might be that Robson’s Field meant nothing to her and was just a convenient place for the killer to take her.”
His phone buzzed.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I must check my messages. It might be urgent.”
He scrolled for a moment and sighed.
“Bad news?”
“Not bad, exactly, but inconvenient. I have to fly to Port Louis early tomorrow morning. My team has finally managed to set up a meeting with a certain customs official in Mauritius. We’ve been trying to establish a joint anti-drug initiative between us and Mauritius and Madagascar for a while now. Meeting with this person will give it new impetus. I’ll probably have to fly to Antananarivo tomorrow night as well.”
“Bien.” Angel gave him an affectionate smile. “Eulalie can take it from here. You have done so much already.”
Eulalie felt like pointing out that it was his job to investigate murders, even ones that had happened a long time ago, but she held her peace. Angel insisted on remaining dazzled by Chief Macgregor.
“I guess that answers the question of where you’ll be sleeping tonight,” she said.
“You’re right. I’d better go home now. I need to find my passport and pack.”
“At least give me a goodnight kiss.”
He slid off the bar stool, seized Eulalie by the waist, and pulled her against him for a long kiss. She could have sworn she felt his shirtfront spontaneously combust.
“Goodnight.” He put money on the bar counter. “Thanks for dinner, Ms. Angel. I’m glad it wasn’t a cheeseburger.”
He gave them a tiny salute and walked out the bar.
Angel pretended to fan herself. “You lucky girl. That man is just delicious.”
“Stop ogling my boyfriend.”
“Oho! You admit he is your boyfriend now?”
“I don’t know. Stop trying to confuse me. Maybe. I’m already confused enough about what happened sixteen years ago with that man.”
“I could try to do a reverse reading,” said Angel. “Perhaps I could peer into the past rather than the future.”
It would be a cold day in hell before Eulalie let her grandmother do anything of the sort.
“No, thanks. I’ll figure it out on my own. I’d better go home now. No doubt Paddy will demand a midnight snack. Thanks for dinner.”
“You are very welcome, ma petite. Tell your Chief Macgregor he doesn’t have to pay for dinner when he eats here with you. You are a part-owner of the business, after all.”
“He’s not a cheapskate,” said Eulalie. “An excellent quality in a man. Give the money to Gigi. It can be part of her tip.”
“You’re a good girl.” Angel kissed her on both cheeks. “Go home to your cat now. You’ve earned a night’s repose.”
So, Eulalie went home to her cat who was rapturously delighted to see her. She gave in to his demands for a midnight snack, because she was weak, and he knew it. In return, he wound his way repeatedly through her ankles, threatening to trip her up, as she got ready for bed.
She got into bed and he collapsed heavily against her side.
“Don’t let me dream tonight,” she told him. “Especially not about the man from Finger Alley. He frightens me.”
Chapter 7
Eulalie woke up just before her alarm clock.
She felt energized, and keen to get on with the day. It felt as though the investigation had a new impetus, but when she tried to analyze what that was, it wasn’t clear. There was a logo that may have involved boomerangs, and the information that Fauve was likely to have tried hitchhiking. There was Fauve’s desire to get rid of her village clothes as quickly as possible and her intention of making contact with the ex-villagers of Majestic Towers.
If you laid it out like that, it wasn’t much to go on. But Eulalie remained convinced that she had something valuable. Now she needed to work out how to use it.
She took a quick shower, enjoying the feeling of the water pounding against her body. That was one thing she missed when she went to the village – hot showers. It was possible to heat water over a wood-fired stove and to enjoy a bath that way, but most villagers washed themselves in the fast-flowing waters of the river. It wasn’t particularly relaxing because you had to keep an eye out for crocodiles. They were a small-bodied species, but perfectly capable of killing a human being.
City life might have its disadvantages, but at least you could take a shower without worrying about crocodiles.
Eulalie got dressed in her usual weekday uniform of skinny jeans, ankle boots, a tank top, and a lightweight blazer. It had the advantage of looking smart and authoritative for interviews, while also being cool enough to feel comfortable in the subtropical climate of Prince William Island.
Because she had the time, she blow-dried her wildly waving hair into submission and tied it back in a tail at the nape of her neck. Then she went through to the kitchen where the cat let her know in raucous terms that he wasn’t happy with her prioritizing her shower over his breakfast.
Eulalie opened a new box of cereal. Today’s offering was called Extra Creamy Chocolate Mallow Puffs. She sat down to scroll through the newsfeeds on her phone while she ate, with a pot of coffee at her elbow.
The governor’s office had announced that a sting operation in their Parks and Forestry Department had uncovered certain corrupt staff members, who had now been fired. Eulalie had a pretty good idea of who those staff members were. The only surprise was that they had been fired. She remembered a time when graft and corruption had been the norm on the island. The new administration had promised to be tough on corruption, and three years into Governor Montand’s term of office, he seemed to be living up to his promises.
Part of that anti-corruption drive had been the decision to hire Detective Sergeant Donal Macgregor of New Scotland Yard in London – a young Scotsman with a public-school background and an impeccable record – as the chief of police. That had been another popular move, although there were members of the department who resented the scrupulously ethical chief with his demands for hard work and transparency.
News of the body found in Robson’s Field had already been relegated to page five. The story was three days old and would soon drop off the media’s radar altogether.
News from the rest of the world was as depressing as ever, so Eulalie put her phone aside and finished off her coffee staring out the window at Bonaparte Avenue. The garbage collectors were clattering around, and a faint hum of traffic could be heard from Lafayette Drive where the new day was getting underway.
She made her bed and popped her bowl, mug and spoon into the dishwasher. Then she looked down at the cat who was washing himself in a pool of sunlight on the rug.
�
��Want to come down and say good morning to Mrs. Belfast?”
He stood up immediately, tail raised and alert. It was a mystery to her why he refused to go and live with Mrs. Belfast when he clearly adored her. Instead, he had insisted that he was Eulalie’s cat. This made her feel ridiculously flattered – a fact she would admit to no one.
She locked up the apartment and went down to her office, the cat trotting at her heels. Lorelei Belfast was already in. She had pulled open the blinds and set a pot of coffee on to brew. The cat galloped up to greet her, and she bent to stroke his head.
“Morning, Mrs. B.”
“Good morning, dear. I thought you were only coming back tonight.”
“I wanted to get a jump start on this case. Good thing too as Chief Macgregor had to fly to Port Louis this morning.” She looked at her watch. “He has probably already landed.”
“Coffee, dear?”
“Yes, thanks. Hey, Mrs. B, if you were trying to remember something that happened a long time ago, how would you go about it?”
“That’s easy. I’d consult a hypnotist.”
Eulalie shook her head sorrowfully. “You disappoint me, Mrs. B. You’ve been spending too much time with my grandmother. I’m looking for serious solutions here.”
“There’s nothing mystical about hypnotism, dear. It’s a tool used by respectable psychologists. Yes, there are charlatans who use fake hypnotism, and there are stage performers who use hypnotism as entertainment, but it is also a serious branch of therapy. In the hands of a properly trained person, it can be quite effective.”
Eulalie opened her mouth to protest but closed it again. Mrs. Belfast was not prone to talking nonsense.
“How would one find a proper hypnotist? I guess they don’t advertise online.”
“I know a good one. I could put you in touch with her.”
“Is she a ‘good’ hypnotist in the same way as my grandmother is a ‘good’ fortune teller?”
“Your grandmother is a good fortune teller. But the lady I have in mind used to consult to the police department. She’s a clinical psychologist. I remember that she used hypnotism in some cases.”
The Complete H-Series of The Eulalie Park Mysteries Page 102