Death in Darkness

by Nell Goddin

  Charlot and Lapin looked at each other for a long moment. “I suppose it would have served the Crespelle girl well if she had felt the same,” she said finally.

  Lapin nodded. “I know it looks bad, and I’m terrifically embarrassed about running off like that. Especially for not calling Anne-Marie right away. But that’s the thing about shame, it makes you want to crawl in a hole and disappear. It took rather a long time for me to work out that I had to come home and face things, one way or another. But I can swear to you that I never touched Violette! I would never, ever…I don’t know what anyone in the village has told you, but it’s probably all exaggeration anyway. I used to talk a big game about women and all, but the truth is…anyway, all I can say is, I very much hope you catch who did it because I don’t like the idea of having sat down to dinner with a murderer one bit. I feel like I’m looking over shoulder every minute.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Charlot. She craned her neck to see down the aisle on the left. “You wouldn’t happen to have a small desk in this madhouse, would you?”

  Lapin beamed, realizing that was the chief’s way of saying he was off the hook, and noisily moved around several large pieces of furniture so they would be able to move to the back of the shop, where he did indeed have a small desk.

  Not being arrested for murder and making a sale in the same day? Things might be turning around just a bit, he thought, looking forward to telling Anne-Marie at the end of the day.

  38

  It had gotten to the point that Paul-Henri woke with dread each morning, not wanting to go to work and have to face Chief Charlot. Every day she found something to pick on: the windowsills were dusty (they were not), his uniform was unclean (never!), he made too much noise typing on his keyboard (nothing he could do about that). He was afraid to breathe for fear of disturbing her—and needless to say, in that kind of atmosphere, there was precious little detective work going on. At least he was able to take care of the everyday work well enough, and heaven knows there was not usually much excitement going on at the Castillac gendarmerie.

  But this month, they had a murder on the books. And to Paul-Henri’s eye, instead of throwing all her efforts into the case, Chief Chantal Charlot seemed concerned with every detail about himself, the cleanliness of the station, and what shopkeepers charged for an array of inconsequential items. Her attention was taken up completely by everything in the world other than who had killed Violette Crespelle.

  I’m waiting for the lab reports, she kept saying. Paul-Henri took forensics as seriously as any gendarme, but in the Crespelle case, he did not see how anything forensics had to say was going to crack the case. Okay, there was probably DNA evidence under her fingernails. Could be her own, or someone else’s. That wouldn’t prove the someone else strangled her. It would probably turn out to be one of the girls’ anyway, he thought. Just a scratch while playing a rough game of tag, something like that.

  Even though admittedly he himself had not been wearing out any shoe leather working the case, he was beginning to feel that unless a surprise video of the horrible act was discovered, the killer was going to go free. Seventeen people in the house, one strangulation.

  No suspects.

  Paul-Henri decided to delay going to the station and take a walk around the village first, checking in with various villagers. First he swung by Chez Papa, which didn’t do a big breakfast business, but Nico was behind the bar serving coffee and croissants to a few people who dropped in on their way to work. Paul-Henri chatted with him for twenty minutes or so, trying to keep the conversation casual in the hopes that Nico would drop his guard for a moment and say what was really on his mind.

  But what was on Nico’s mind was only Frances, along with grieving for Madame Gervais. Paul-Henri gave up and kept going, stopping in at Dr. Vernay’s next. After insisting to Robinette that he felt fine and was not coming down with dengue fever or anything else for that matter, he was allowed a few minutes with the doctor. Vernay expressed his sorrow for Madame Gervais as well, and for Violette Crespelle, remarking on what a delicious name she had and how he and Robinette had so enjoyed eating piles of crespelles when they went on holiday to Italy back in 2002.

  Bored silly, Paul-Henri moved on, heading straight to Pâtisserie Bujold where he could see Edmond Nugent and get something delicious to eat.

  “Don’t see you in here often,” said Edmond as Paul-Henri entered the empty shop. “Figured you must be giving your business to Fillon,” he added, lifting his nose in the air with a sniff.

  “Oh no,” said Paul-Henri. “It’s not that at all. I know perfectly well that there is no place in Castillac to buy pastry except right here at Pâtisserie Bujold! Do you think me an utter Philistine?”

  Edmond was momentarily off balance.

  “You don’t see me often only because I watch my waistline,” said Paul-Henri. “If I allowed myself to come here as much as I like, I would need an entirely new wardrobe within a month.”

  Edmond chuckled. “So, I’m sure there are all kinds of bothersome rules about what you can say, but…has there been any progress on the murder? It does make the village unsettled, you know, thinking that someone like that…is loose.”

  “I did want to have a few words with you, if I might. The coffee éclair,” he said, pointing at the row of identical éclairs in the glass-fronted case.

  Edmond drew one out with a pair of tongs and slipped it into a waxed paper bag. “Ask away,” he said. “Though I…I should admit that my own performance that night brings me no pleasure to remember. I howled like a small child when the lights went out. Terrified. And…well, I have thought that perhaps I did not make a fuss because I am a coward—though indeed that is possible—but because I sensed something terrible was happening.”

  Paul-Henri leaned forward, forgetting his éclair. “Can you close your eyes, think back on it, and remember what might have led you to that conclusion?”

  Obediently, Edmond closed his eyes, holding onto the counter with both hands. He thought back to the night of the Valette party. Remembered how lovely Molly had looked, her red hair a crown of curls. How the little girls kept running through and getting underfoot, and the nanny in pursuit….

  “Nothing, I’m afraid,” he said after a few moments. “I can say that Rex Ford was coming into the dining room from the library when the lights came back on. Has he explained what he was doing in there, or whether he bumped into anyone?”

  “I have spoken with him, of course. He says that he got mixed up in the darkness and was merely wandering randomly about.”

  “Hmph.” Edmond knew for certain that the professor patronized Fillon, an unforgivable offense. He would not be sad to find out that Ford was guilty and would be carted off to face justice.

  Paul-Henri took his first bite of the éclair and chewed slowly with his eyes closed. “You are a master,” he said finally. “I have eaten éclairs from the top pastry chefs in Paris my whole life, and you, Monsieur Nugent, have surpassed them all.”

  Edmond beamed. “Perhaps you would like to take something home, something to brighten the last moments of a difficult day? I have no doubt that chasing murderers around the village is taxing work. Perhaps…the fig tart?”

  “How did you know? That is one of my very favorites, and it’s not easy to find. Yes, I will take two. And please, if you remember anything at all, you know where to find me.”

  “Glad to be of service,” said Edmond. The junior officer has good taste in pastry, that is true, he thought. But a detective? Please. He is nothing compared to our Molly. Nothing.

  39

  Molly was never one to turn down chocolate in any form, so when Pascal told her his mother had made her famous chocolate torte with raspberries, she ordered it without hesitation. Seeing that the restaurant wasn’t busy, she started to make conversation, but Pascal backed away and scurried into the kitchen before she could get out a word.

  Something was going on, she was absolutely sure of it. People don’t s
uddenly change into unrecognizable versions of themselves, for no reason. She wanted to know why.

  But in the meantime, there was a cup of espresso and a big slice of the chocolatiest torte ever made, decorated with whole raspberries around the outer edge and a sauce spilled over the dense slice like a fruity red quilt. Molly took her time, taking tiny sips of the strong coffee and savoring every mouthful of torte while watching Pascal’s every move.

  There weren’t many moves to be observed, though, since the room was nearly empty. He rang up a bill, took another diner some extra bread, stood looking out the window for five minutes, folded some napkins on a table in the far corner. Usually, if things were slow, he would come over to Molly’s table and chat with her. Flirt, really, she corrected herself. Because Pascal was a flirt, for sure, of the most harmless and well-intentioned kind. Could it be his new romance with Marie-Claire Levy that was making him act so strangely? Did he think that a bit of chatter with Molly would count as being unfaithful somehow?

  Molly couldn’t believe it. They weren’t middle schoolers, after all. She watched as Pascal pretended to be doing something with a pile of ashtrays—she could tell he was pretending to be working, having performed that particular pretense herself once upon a time.

  She signaled to him. “Pascal?”

  “Check?” he mouthed, miming scribbling on a pad.

  Molly nodded. And when he approached her table, she could see he was thinking he would toss the paper down and flee, but she was ready for him.

  “Pascal,” she said, firmly grabbing his wrist. “Please. Stay still a moment.”

  He looked at her, crestfallen. “Oh, Molly.”

  “‘Oh Molly’ what? You’ve been acting like a nut since the minute I came in. What is going on?”

  “I am the world’s worst liar.”

  “Indeed. I would put that in the plus column, actually, but yes, you have no talent for dissembling at all. I suggest you don’t join the…whatever the spy group is called in France?”

  “The DGSE?”

  “Yes. That. Okay, my dear friend, out with it. Is it something about the other night, the murder? Or something else? Has Frances caused some kind of scandal that hasn’t reached me yet?”

  “No, no, Frances is fine as far as I know.”

  “Because she’s been known to…well, beside the point. Go on.”

  “I don’t like to gossip.”

  “I’ve noticed that about you. It makes you something of an oddity in Castillac, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes,” he said, bowing his head. Molly looked at his full head of nearly black curls, then at his handsome face when he lifted it again. “It’s…all right, I’m only going to tell you this because I know Simon Valette hired you, and you should have all the information that might…might be relevant. Not because I want to talk behind anyone’s back.”

  “I understand that,” said Molly. “Please, sit. It’s okay for you to sit down?”

  “Of course,” he said, pulling out Ben’s chair and sitting heavily. He flexed his fingers and blew air into his cheeks, delaying and delaying.

  But Molly was patient. She could sense that whatever Pascal was going to tell her was going to be worth waiting for.

  “That night, at the Valettes’. It was insane when the lights went out, right? People were screaming and acting like they were being attacked by monsters or something. I’d never have imagined that a group of adults would be so undone by the dark.” He took a sip of Molly’s water. “So I figured I would help get the lights back on, if I could, and I left the dining room and felt my way along the wall until I got to the foyer.”

  Molly nodded, holding her breath.

  “And…so this was right when Violette was killed, am I correct? Just then, during the minutes of darkness before the fuse was replaced?”

  “Yes.”

  Pascal took a deep breath and held it. Finally he said, “When I got into the foyer, someone grabbed me by the shoulders. Pressed herself against me. And kissed me on the mouth.”

  Molly’s eyes were wide. “And you have no idea who it was?”

  “Oh, sure I do. It was Camille. She was wearing Opium, I noticed that when Marie-Claire and I first got to the house. Camille and I kissed cheeks—you know, we’d met before, and had quite a long talk—and I noticed then that she was wearing Opium. It’s one of my favorites.”

  Molly smiled to herself thinking that not once had she had an American boyfriend who would have been able to identify a perfume, any perfume, if his life depended on it. But her smile quickly faded as she realized what Pascal’s revelation meant.

  “So Camille…could not have murdered Violette,” she said softly.

  “Right,” said Pascal. “I pulled away from her and went straight to the basement, and got the fuse changed in a minute or two, not more. The electrical box was ship-shape, and there was a box of new fuses right there. It couldn’t have gone more quickly and smoothly once I was downstairs.”

  “And so…what…was there any acknowledgement later, between you and Camille, about what had happened?”

  “No. None. Thankfully.”

  “Thank you, Pascal.” She sighed, shaking her head. “I’ll be honest, you’ve just blown a hole right in the center of our case, but I’m very grateful you told me. Wouldn’t want to be accusing someone who could not possibly have committed the act.”

  “She was still in the foyer when I came back upstairs. Impossible for her to have circled around to the library, killed the girl, and returned, in the few minutes I was gone. I…I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. It’s just…it’s an embarrassing story for her, obviously, and I didn’t want to tell it to anyone.”

  “Understood,” said Molly, adding some more euros to the ones Ben had put on the table and standing up. “Thank you again. I need to be off—of course, I must tell Ben right away.”

  Pascal nodded, somewhat sheepishly, and watched as Molly flew out of the restaurant, hopped on her scooter, and sped away.

  40

  Telling Ben the news about Camille’s alibi involved eating a dish of crow. Molly had no desire to put that on top of the lovely lunch she had just eaten, but what choice did she have? When she got home, she told him what Pascal had related about the kiss in the foyer, thinking she was doing a better job of hiding her disappointment than she was.

  Ben was no dummy, and refrained from saying anything even in the neighborhood of ‘I told you so.’

  Nonetheless, Molly was mad at him.

  “You know you want to say it, so just go on and say it,” she said, knowing full well she was acting like a thirteen-year-old and not a grown woman only days away from turning forty.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ben, who again, was no dummy.

  Molly sighed theatrically. “Well, ugh. Just ugh. I suppose all we can do is plod along?”

  “In my experience, cases usually get solved by the long slog. So who’s up next?”

  Molly went to her desk and looked at some notes. “Rex Ford? Somehow I thought we’d talked to him already. You haven’t?”

  “No. I did have a chat with Nico after Madame Gervais’s funeral. For a clever fellow, he’s not all that observant.”

  “Or maybe just protective of his friends?”

  “Even if one of them is a murderer?”

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t think he’d go that far, no. But he is extremely loyal. Would he lie to protect Frances? I have no doubt at all that he would.”

  “Have you ever noticed that when you get frustrated, you have trouble sticking to the matter at hand?”

  She took a deep, slow breath, trying to decide whether to get huffy. She decided they couldn’t afford it, not with the murderer not only on the loose but so far completely undetected. “Sorry,” she said, and meant it. “Do you want to take Rex or shall I?”

  “You, if you don’t mind. I’d like to catch up with Lawrence and see what he has to say.”

  “You don’t�
�?”

  “Oh, no, of course not. But unlike Nico, he does pay attention to what other people are doing and saying, and unlike Pascal, is quite ready to dish it up.”

  “Did you hear back from your friend in Paris with any information about Camille’s hospitalization?” asked Molly.

  “No. I’ll give him a call, too. Though I suppose it doesn’t much matter now, does it?”

  They kissed a distracted kiss and went their separate ways. Molly was grateful not to run into any of the gîte guests on her way out, feeling pressure to make some sort of progress with the case as soon as humanly possible.

  She arrived at L’Institut Degas fifteen minutes later, her hair in a tangled cloud of frizz thanks to the humid weather, and strode down the corridor of the administration building looking for Ford’s office.

  The school was not large and Molly found the door without any trouble. “Rex Ford,” said a gold nameplate, and under that, several drawings were stuck to the door with putty. One was pen and ink of a large beast, a fantastic sort of monster with crooked teeth and spittle flying out from its mouth. In its five or six hands it held tiny persons—women, Molly noticed, all of them—and appeared to be about to throw one into its cavernous mouth. She looked for a signature, and saw a tiny “RF” in the bottom right corner.

  The next drawing was different in style and Molly checked for the signature first and saw that it was by “BN,” probably a current student, she guessed. She rapped on the door.

  A young woman answered, looking nervous. “Bonjour,” said Molly, then looked over her shoulder at Rex, who was sitting behind his desk, leaning back in his chair.

  “Bonjour, Molly,” he said, sounding annoyed. “As you can see, I am meeting with a student at the moment. If you had only called first, I could have cleared my schedule or at least given a time when I was free.”

  “It’s perfectly all right,” said Molly, “I’ll just wait outside until you’re done. Is the appointment after this taken?”