by Nell Goddin
“Like most men.”
“I suppose.”
Frances gave her old friend a careful look. “So tell me the plans! Are you having it here? Will it be hors d’oeuvres or dinner?”
“I’m having a flashback. Remember not so long ago when you had a huge case of cold feet?”
“I remember nothing.”
“Probably safer. We practically had to hog-tie you to get you to the altar.”
Frances swished her straight hair back and lifted her chin. “Dearest darling, if you think I can’t see you changing the subject again, you aren’t giving me the credit I deserve. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.”
“Neither of us were. Unfortunately enough.”
Frances reached to clink her glass with Molly’s. “Cheer up, pal. I’m sure there are benefits to being in our forties even if we haven’t discovered them yet.”
Molly shrugged and sipped. Once again she considered telling Frances about the robot call, but decided not to.
“So how much money are we talking about?” Frances asked.
“Petit? We don’t actually know, not yet. His house is quite nice, upper middle class, I guess. More than comfortable, but you wouldn’t say rolling in dough.”
“And Ben worked for him at one point? Did the guy think someone was after him and wanted some protection?”
“No, nothing like that. Where are you getting all this info, anyway—did we ever talk about Petit before now?”
“Well, I am married to a bartender, you may recall,” said Frances, draining her glass. “I spend more time sitting at the end of the bar than I otherwise might. So…I hear things.”
Molly’s eyebrows went up. “What things? Anything good? Anything I should know about?”
Frances smiled, prolonging the moment. “Oh yes,” she said. “Absolutely.”
Molly rolled her eyes. “Don’t torture me.”
“But it’s so much fun! Got any chips? I would murder for some sour cream and onion chips right about now. With ruffles.”
Molly rummaged through some cabinets and came up with a bag of salted peanuts, which they demolished as Frances related all that she had heard at the bar, but unfortunately, there was not a single nugget of news relating to Bernard Petit.
“I had no idea people were so interested in what Ben and I are up to,” said Molly.
“Are you kidding? You were the one who told me, the minute I got to Castillac, that gossip and people-watching were the main sports here. You can’t yawn without its being remarked on.”
“Well, keep an ear out for anything about Petit, his children Laurine and Franck.” Molly considered. “Or Sarah Berteau, the housekeeper, and Claude Blanchon and Jean Chauvanne, some of his neighbors.”
“I see what you mean about a long list.”
“I’m sure it will get far longer before it gets shorter.”
“Did you ever consider that some murders aren’t really crimes? I mean, they’re illegal, I don’t mean that. But…that the result is actually that, on the whole, society is better off?”
“There are terrible people in this world,” said Molly softly. “But that doesn’t give any of us the right to decide they should die.”
“I suppose not,” said Frances, going over to the cabinets to root around for more snacks. “Can we eat these olives? They look like they might have been living here when you bought the house.”
Molly did not smile as Frances came back over, wiping dust off the glass jar. She was lost in thought, but her expression did not have the usual lightness that Frances knew so well, even when Molly was concentrating on something unpleasant.
“You know—I’m loving seeing you and I have missed you lately,” said Molly. “But I have a headache and think I should just get in bed and go to sleep. Can we pick this up later? You can take the olives if you want.”
Frances set the jar on the counter and looked carefully at her friend. “Sure, go have a good sleep and maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?”
After waving Frances off, Molly did in fact change into pajamas and tuck herself in. Bobo nestled in next to her but Molly was so busy thinking about who Ben could be involved with and who could have killed Bernard Petit, that she did not shoo the dog out of bed as she usually did, but lay awake, her mind jumping into rabbit holes and scampering from one sordid image to another until finally she heard Ben come home. It was a good sound, and comforting to know he was home.
18
The next morning, Molly got up early and had coffee before Ben was awake. As she searched in a drawer for a pair of heavy socks, she saw the roll of fifty-euro bills she had found in the cottage earlier and paused, wondering about it. But there was no time for distractions. She put on her heavy coat, scarf, and hat, closed the front door as quietly as the old thing would allow, and drove the Citroen down rue de Chêne in the direction of the village. Ben would certainly disapprove of her going to the Valettes again, and she herself had misgivings about it. But the sad sweet faces of Giselle and Chloë kept coming into her mind and Molly felt an intense urge to be with them, since it was all she could do.
On the drive, her cell vibrated and as soon as she could, she pulled over to listen to the message in case it was something time-sensitive.
It was the robot-voice again.
Better ask your man why he comes home late
Then some scratchy static, nothing more.
Molly felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Ben could not be cheating, it wasn’t like him at all. It was just not possible.
But…it was true, now that she considered it—he did seem to be staying out later than he ever did before. Though neither of them had ever been the type to keep tabs on the other’s movements. They had always trusted each other.
Shaking her head as if to knock sense into herself, Molly turned into the Valette’s drive and tried to focus on the girls and the tragedy they were dealing with instead of her own worries.
She was glad to notice, when Simon let her inside the manor house, that the place was not sunk in depressed disarray but was orderly and normal, at least on the surface. The girls were dressed for school and seated at the dining room table with bowls of chocolat and buttered toast. Simon was wearing what Molly knew to be his outdoor work clothes, and she guessed he would be spending the day working on the collapsed stone building that had been his favorite activity since the family moved to Castillac from Paris.
“I thought maybe,” started Molly, “well, I just wondered if you might want me to do your hair before school,” she said to the girls, feeling suddenly shy.
“Yes please, me first!” cried Chloë, hopping up to stand on a chair. Giselle smiled the reserved way she often did, not making the extent of her happiness plain, as though preferring to keep some of her pleasure all to herself.
“Can you make French braids? That’s what Violette used to do. Back like this,” said Chloë, pointing along the sides of her head with her fingers.
“I happen to be a braiding genius,” said Molly.
“Would the braiding genius like coffee?” asked Simon. When Molly said “Mais oui!” he disappeared into the kitchen.
“Giselle, can you find a comb and some elastics?” Molly asked. The girl nodded and clattered upstairs.
“Now I have you all to myself,” said Molly, putting her arms around the younger girl.
Chloë did not speak but buried her head on Molly’s neck. Molly felt wetness from tears but Chloë was crying so softly Molly could barely hear her.
“Everything will be all right,” Molly murmured. “It will be hard for awhile, and then it will be all right. You will be all right.”
Chloë’s arms tightened around her.
“I found lots!” said Giselle, bounding back into the dining room and holding out a handful of colorful elastics just as Simon came in the other door with two cups of coffee.
“It’s a bit snarly back here,” said Molly to Chloë, picking at a knot with the comb.
Chloë yelpe
d.
“She always does this,” said Giselle.
“Long hair has a real price,” said Molly. “You could always cut it short if you don’t like dealing with the tangles.”
A silence fell on the room. Molly stopped combing and looked at Simon. She waited a moment but no one spoke.
“Did…did I say something wrong?”
“No no,” said Simon, coming over and putting his hand on her arm. “It’s just…that was one of Camille’s…their mother always insisted that the girls have long hair and wouldn’t hear of anything else.”
“I wanted it my own way,” said Chloë, very softly.
“Of course you did,” said Molly, but then quickly wished she could take it back. “But your mother had great taste, and you both have beautiful hair,” she added. “Okay, I’m ready to braid. Giselle, will you have the elastics at the ready?”
“Yes, Madame,” said Giselle, taking her job seriously, as she took everything.
Simon stood sipping his coffee and watching Molly until the girls’ hair was delightfully styled (though a bit wispy in places) and it was time to take them to school.
“Can we meet later?” Simon asked, before Molly got into her car.
“I’m off to Bergerac,” said Molly. “Going to meet the son of the murder victim. And then lots of follow-up work to be done…”
Simon nodded. Molly glanced at him as she backed up and headed down the driveway. He was a lovely man, and he needed a new wife.
But whoever that turned out to be, it was not going to be her.
Driving the backroads to Bergerac, Molly did her best to keep her mind on the Petit case. She was meeting Franck at a café and wanted to think up a list of questions, though in practice that kind of advance planning rarely seemed to work very well. It was better to feel her way along in a conversation, seeing where the other person led.
Franck Petit was waiting and greeted her with a warm smile and handshake.
“I know you Americans are very big on the handshake,” he said, “and I like it too. It occurs to me—honestly I haven’t thought about this in years, not since I left Bergerac and barely saw my father—that one of the odd things about him was that he did not have the habit of greeting people.”
Never having met Franck before, Molly was a little taken aback at this quick launch into the subject at hand, but she was definitely interested. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “What do you mean exactly, that he didn’t have the habit?”
“Enchanté,” he said, smiling with a nod. “I mean that my father would enter a room, where people were that he had not seen that day, and simply launch into whatever conversation he wanted to have without saying bonjour or shaking hands or kissing cheeks or any of the things people around the world do to greet each other.”
“Hmm,” said Molly. “I can imagine that did not go over well. Especially in France.”
“Distinctly not. Laurine and I were lucky that our mother taught us manners, so we did not go out into the world at a loss for how to behave.”
“Do you have any idea why he acted that way?”
“Oh, he had his reasons. He would say greetings were a waste of time. He was always going on about efficiency, and no one could convince him that relationships with people shouldn’t be put into the same category as, say, factories or machines.”
Molly shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Just that your father was…”
“An insensitive tyrant?” Franck laughed, and Molly noted the lack of bitterness in it. “No worries, Molly. Laurine and I have long since moved on, in our different ways. And our mother is…wait, where is she now? Bali? India? It’s hard to keep up. In any case, we survived and we’re all right. Many people have far worse situations to deal with.”
“Yes but—other people’s troubles don’t have anything to do with yours. I mean, if I have a broken leg and you have a scraped-up knee, your knee still hurts no matter what, right? My leg’s got nothing to do with it.”
Franck said nothing but looked over Molly’s shoulder for the server, who was straightening shelves behind the counter and hadn’t seemed to notice they were there.
Molly continued, “Do you mind if I jump in and ask some questions? I’m aware that it is your sister who hired Ben and me, and perhaps you were not so much in favor of the decision?”
Franck’s eyebrows flew up along with his shoulders. “Not in favor? Oh, not so, Madame Sutton! Laurine…she gets ideas in her head from time to time, and I’ve found it’s best to let her run with them. If she believes having a team of investigators on our father’s case is worth doing, I’m not going to stand in the way.”
“And our fees coming out of the estate, so essentially your money too….”
Franck waved his hand. “Not a problem. Truly. I don’t…I don’t consider anything that belonged to my father as mine. I’ve been giving some thought to donating whatever I eventually inherit to some cause or other.”
“That’s quite generous of you.”
He shrugged. “Eh, not really. I haven’t decided what to do yet. But I had the idea that anything of his has…has a kind of darkness associated with it. And maybe I would be better off not to bring it into my life.”
“I understand.” Molly cocked her head and looked at him, wondering if a person, even a lucky and hard-working one, could possibly have emerged from such a problematic family undamaged. She considered asking him point-blank why his sister suspected him, but decided to sit on that bomb for the moment.
“You and your sister get along all right?” she asked, nonchalantly.
“Eh, siblings,” he said with a chuckle. “We’re very different sorts of people, Laurine and I. I am a scientist, and have been since I was a young child. Always turning over rocks to see what was underneath, always mixing potions to see what would happen.”
“And your sister?”
Franck caught the eye of the server at last and grinned at her. “Oh, she was all about dressing up her dolls, things like that. I had no interest, as you might guess.”
“So you didn’t play together as children. What about later?”
“Bonjour, Madame,” said Franck as the server appeared at their table. She was older, and tired-looking, with her graying hair in a tight bun. “Thank you for coming over. You seem to be carrying the entire café on your shoulders this morning.” The server brightened and nodded.
“What would you like, Madame Sutton?”
“Please, call me Molly. I’ll have an espresso.”
“Make it two. Thank you so much,” he said to the server, with another brilliant smile.
I don’t trust this guy as far as I can throw him, thought Molly.
“So, let’s see. You were asking about Laurine and me? I know many siblings are practically best friends, but unfortunately Laurine and I were not so lucky. You could blame that on many things, I suppose, but I chalk it up to our having such different interests. We were always attracted to different things, had friends who liked the things we liked, and…so that was how it went.”
“Would you say your father favored one or the other of you?”
Franck laughed. “He didn’t favor anyone. That was one thing we absolutely received in common—the contempt of our father. We shared that generous portion equally, I would say.”
The server placed their espressos on the table. Molly thought the woman curtsied but then thought no, it couldn’t have been. She must have lost her balance for a moment or something. But there is no denying the effect Franck had on her—the woman was mesmerized.
“And—and please do forgive me, I know these questions are insufferably intrusive, but understanding the dynamics of your family is important to solving the case—I have heard how he mistreated you and your sister. I wonder if your mother tried to intervene?”
Franck sipped his espresso. “She did. But it made little difference. Laurine and I could never understand why she married hi
m in the first place.”
“Chemistry can have unexpected effects.”
Franck laughed.
“Do you think there is any possibility your sister could have had anything to do with his murder?”
“Laurine? No. Is that a serious question?” He laughed. “She works in fashion, she has a whole life in Paris that she believes is the envy of the world. Why on earth would she bother about our father, when she had escaped the family home and was doing perfectly well on her own?”
“We in the private investigator business always wonder about debts. You’d be surprised how often murder ends up being about money.”
“No doubt,” said Franck. “And money meant a great deal to our father, that’s for sure. But I can say with some assurance that the rest of us—me, Laurine, and our mother—were not on that same page at all.”
Molly came up with more questions, and she and Franck had another espresso before going back outside into the cold. But she had the clear sense that none of them were the correct questions, that there was more to this family story than Franck was letting on.
What was that Tolstoy quote, she wondered. “Happy families are all alike. Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Unhappy…or twisted…or murderous.
19
“Just quickly before I run out the door,” Molly said to Ben, who was still in bed after staying up late reading one of his Napoleonic sea tales. “I want to meet with Laurine soon. I don’t know if she’s right about Franck, but I’ll tell you, I got the distinct impression yesterday that something is not quite right about him.”
“In what way?”
Molly stopped combing her hair and thought for a moment. “It’s…it’s hard to put my finger on. He’s…it’s like he’s too good to be true, you know? So forgiving of his father’s abuse. So polite.”
“You think something’s wrong with him because he’s polite?”