by Nell Goddin
She stood across the street, watching. Upstairs and downstairs the shutters were open. She wished she had asked Blanchon any number of questions: did Chavanne have a family and did any of them live with him? Did he have a housekeeper? Molly guessed, judging by the size and grandeur of the house, that he did at least have a cleaning lady.
The street stayed absolutely quiet. No traffic either by foot or by car. Was it always this quiet? Would that make it easier or more difficult to break into someone’s house and kill him?
Finally she crossed the street, hopped up the three steps to the front door, and gave the knocker a hearty bang, then another. She turned her ear toward the door and listened for footsteps.
She banged again.
On the point of giving up, she thought she heard something, not a confident striding but more of a shuffle. The door swung open and a small man, his back bent, glared at her.
“Excuse me for bothering you, but I have a problem,” blurted Molly.
The old man’s eyes softened just a degree or two.
“My name is Molly Sutton. I am a private investigator working on the Petit case.”
Jean Chavanne smiled faintly. “Ah, dear departed Bernard,” he said, smiling with more vigor. “Come in,” he said, making a flourish with his hand and then closing the door behind her.
He led her into the salon and sat down in a shabby armchair. Molly glanced around, seeing faded wallpaper, worn upholstery with stains, a layer of dust on the side tables. No housekeeper after all, or a very bad one.
“Thank you, I appreciate your talking with me. I was just bringing some friends for an art lesson and thought I would stop by,” said Molly.
“Ah,” said Jean, with a genuine smile. “I know they say music soothes the savage breast, but in my case, I would choose painting.”
Molly nodded, anxious to ask questions. “I wonder if you could give me some background on Monsieur Petit? We have heard he was a difficult and widely disliked man—people wasted no time telling us that, as you might imagine. But what else can you tell me about him?”
Chavanne grimaced as he leaned back into his chair.
“What else? He was a scourge on humanity, and that’s a fact. I’m utterly thrilled someone decided to put us all out of our misery. If you do find whoever crushed his skull in, please give him my sincere regards for a job well done.”
Molly’s eyes widened. “Ah, so I…right. We have not yet uncovered a single person who seems to feel any regret at his passing.”
“Nor will you.”
“Understood. Was it—did you ever chat on the street, have a drink together, anything like that?”
Chavanne looked askance. “Are you listening to what I say to you? Does it sound like he was a man I would socialize with in any way? What do you take me for?”
Molly shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry, that’s not what I…I’m speaking a bit from experience, Monsieur Chavanne. Back home, we had some troublesome neighbors we couldn’t stand. But we did very occasionally observe some formalities…”
“That is a pretense I was unwilling to undertake. What possible purpose could it serve?”
“Peace?”
Chavanne waved his hand and looked away.
“You and Petit had a longstanding dispute over a tree, I have heard?”
Chavanne’s eyes brightened. “Bernard didn’t like that tree any more than I did! It was poorly formed, and dropped its foul little fruits all over my yard!”
“Was his refusal to cut it down a matter of not wanting the expense?”
“You are a slow-witted one, aren’t you? No, it was not about the expense, though it is also true that Bernard was tighter with a centime than anyone you’ve ever met. He did not remove the tree because I made the mistake of telling him I wanted the tree removed. He was a man who delighted in blocking the satisfactions and pleasures of others, Madame Sutton. I venture a guess that you have been lucky enough not to have come across a person like this in your life.”
“Honestly, Monsieur—I have known plenty of annoying and even mean people in my life, as have we all. But Bernard Petit seems to be one of the worst. I can understand that to have him as a neighbor must have been extremely trying.”
Chavanne inclined his head.
“Do you have any knowledge of anyone that might have…been involved in the murder? Maybe someone that Petit might have pushed too far?”
Chavanne looked at Molly and smiled. “You really aren’t much of a listener, are you? I just told you to congratulate his killer, and now you’re asking me to inform on him? Hear my words, Molly Sutton: the murderer of Bernard Petit deserves a gold medal as far as I’m concerned, not a prison sentence!”
She took a breath, trying to think of other strategies. Over his head was an oil painting, dusty, of the nighttime sea, with a tiny sailing ship in the distance.
“Those sailors were so brave,” she said, gesturing to the painting.
She thought she saw a whisper of a warmth in his face. “Indeed,” he said, turning to look at the painting for a moment. “I am very fond of paintings,” he said. “I spend some time every month in museums, here and there.”
Molly felt irritated and not in any mood to discuss art. “With a murder taking place right next door, are you worried at all for your own safety?”
“Me? Not at all. I can look out for myself,” he said, drawing himself up, and struggling to straighten his back. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery. Molly tried to picture him carrying a ladder out of his garage, climbing over the wall, and pulling the ladder after him. Highly unlikely, not to mention that Chavanne was small, wizened even, and his shape did not match the bulky shape of the shadow on the tape.
“I would just think if it were me, having my next-door neighbor violently killed might make going to sleep at night a little more difficult.”
“Psh,” said Chavanne.
Molly was just about to get up and leave, thinking she was wasting time on a dead end, when Chavanne reached over to the desk next to him and opened a door. He pulled out a pistol, closed the drawer, and cocked his head at Molly.
“Never liked cops,” he said, weighing up the gun in his hand. She didn’t know much about guns but was pretty sure she saw him flick off the safety. His finger rested on the trigger and he pointed it at various objects in the room.
“I’m not a cop.”
“No? Next best thing, though.” He used the barrel of the gun like a paintbrush, swirling it in this direction and that, looping around a lampshade, going up and down her legs, finally pointing it right at her face.
“Monsieur Chavanne,” Molly said softly. “I don’t think you’re supposed to do that unless you mean it.”
He looked at her intently and then chuckled. He brought the pistol up and looked through the sight, closing one eye, still aiming at Molly. “It’s late. I’m going to have an apéro and some pecans. I like pecans very much and have them shipped all the way from Georgia, in the United States. You ever been to Georgia and eaten pecans, Madame Sutton?”
“Pecans are a wonderful nut,” said Molly, starting to tremble as she looked down the barrel of the gun, which was narrow and long, like a deadly metal finger pointing at her nose.
“I will have my apéro alone. And I like my little rituals, Madame Sutton, as no doubt you will too when you reach my age. If you do,” he added.
As quickly as she could while remaining polite, Molly thanked him for his time, and slowly stood up, hoping he was only trying to scare her and wasn’t about to shoot. Chavanne only chuckled again as she scrambled out of the limestone manor with the bright green door, and ran back to her car to go pick up the girls from their lesson.
What in the world was in the water on rue Lafayette?
23
The next morning, Molly decided to get out of the house and get the marketing done early. She had promised Paul-Henri she would take care of Lucie Severin’s garden gnome problem, and had thought of an easy way to accomplish it. An
d after the fright Jean Chavanne had given her, she felt grateful to have a nice, easy, non-lethal problem to deal with.
The market was one of the worst Molly had ever been to, thanks to the unpleasant cold. You couldn’t be fooled into thinking it was tolerable when a frosty wind would whip down the street, and it felt as though you might as well be naked for all the protection your clothes gave you. Conversations were limited to the transactions at hand, and no one was in any mood for gossip. Molly got her basket of vegetables and some sausages from her favorite leftist sausage maker, and headed to Pâtisserie Bujold afterward, as was her custom.
But partway there, she reconsidered. It wasn’t that her fervor for pastry was in any way diminished, though the waistband of her clothes seemed to have shrunk lately. It was that she wanted to get the garden gnome business over with so she could get together with Ben and hash things out.
It was only a little bump, she thought. But best to talk through the bump before it becomes a hill.
Oh, but she really should take the gîte guests a little something; she’d been neglecting them terribly.
I’ll just hurry Edmond along, she thought, continuing on to the pastry shop. It was crowded and he didn’t have time to chat in any case, so Molly was able to be on her way with a just few crumbs on her face from an almond croissant, hurriedly and very contrary to French custom eaten in the street as she made her way along the cobblestones to the Barstow house. She saw no friends or acquaintances, the cold having chased everyone inside.
Molly had gotten into the habit of surveillance no matter whose house she was approaching, and so once the Barstow’s rental had come into view, she slowed down and observed. It was a timber house, somewhat unusual in the region. It needed paint. The roof looked insecure. She could hear a child crying.
At the front door she paused, wondering whether her idea was a bad one, whether there might be some unintended consequences she was failing to envision. Then she rapped smartly on the door.
“Madame Sutton!” said Malcolm with surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Is that how you greet visitors?”
“No, I… we don’t really get visitors. I mean, unless…” he trailed off.
“Are you going to invite me inside? It’s ridiculous out here.”
“Yeah, sure!” The boy ran his hand through his hair, which was cut in the current fashion with a sort of rooster comb sticking up down the center of the top of his head. Pimples scattered across his forehead. He grinned at Molly as she came inside.
The front door opened onto a large downstairs room which was comprised of the kitchen and a sort of living room. A cheap sofa faced an old television set that had a clump of wires coming out of its back. Dirty dishes were piled up on the kitchen counter and in the sink.
“Sorry for the mess,” he mumbled. “What can I do for you?”
“I have a small job and am willing to pay.”
Malcolm’s eyes brightened.
“I know you’re not that familiar with legitimate paying work,” she said, to tease him, “but here’s how this will work. I tell you in advance what the job is. I’ll pay you one third in advance because for some crazy reason I trust you. When you finish the job, you’ll get the rest. How does that sound?”
“Très bon.” Malcolm waited for Molly to describe what he was to do. He was dying of curiosity but did not want to lose dignity by pressing her.
Molly was looking around the room, sad that Malcolm and the other children lived in such an uncared-for place. “How are your brothers and sisters doing? And your mother?”
“She’s in bed,” he said, making himself taller. “I can take care of everything, it’s okay.”
Molly thought it was pretty obvious everything was not okay. “Good. All right. So the situation is this: you know Lucie Severin, widow of Monsieur Severin, who used to be head of primaire?”
Malcolm nodded.
“She’s got some problems, her life is not easy. Perhaps that explains why something so trivial has got her so worked up. Apparently she has several garden gnomes in her front yard, and she believes someone is moving them around for nefarious reasons.”
His eyes were wide. “Garden gnomes? What is that?”
Molly laughed. “Just little pottery people. Gnomes made of clay.”
Malcolm looked mystified. “What’s the point?”
“They’re just decorative, Malcolm. Whimsical, I suppose. At any rate, you can understand that no one wants to have their stuff disturbed without their permission. It doesn’t matter what the possessions are, understand what I mean?”
Malcolm shrugged. “You want me to find out who’s doing it?”
“Yes,” said Molly. “I am one hundred percent sure it is nothing more than some kids trying to be funny, but it would put her mind at ease if we knew who it was and could put a stop to it. And we’d be doing Officer Monsour a favor, and allow him to spend his time on more important matters for the village. Think of the job as a moment for you to express some civic duty,” she added, teasing again.
“Oh now hold on just a minute,” said Malcolm, his face turning red. “I don’t want to help out that jerk!”
“He catch you shoplifting again?” asked Molly.
Malcolm walked around the kitchen counter, picked up a metal mug and slammed it down. “It’s not like that,” he said.
“Look, I know you could use the money. I’ll pay you fifty euro.”
“To catch some school-kid?”
Molly nodded. She had blurted out the number without thinking it through—now she had set the bar far too high if she ever wanted to hire him again for anything. But the sight of the house and the crying child upstairs…
“Game on,” said Malcolm. “Give me the address and I’ll have your guilty party delivered on a platter.”
“Fantastic. Her address is 106 rue Anatole France. Don’t let her see you, it would make her nervous to feel like she was being watched.”
Malcolm smirked. “Oh please,” he said, rolling his eyes. “How you insult me.”
“So how are things, now that your father is back?” she said, trying to sound offhand.
“They suck,” he answered, but offered no details, and Molly said her goodbyes and headed to the car and La Baraque.
After Malcolm closed the door, he stood for a moment savoring his good luck. Life could be terrible from time to time, but he did seem to land on his feet and he was grateful for it.
“Malcolm!” called his mother from upstairs. Her voice was gravelly and unsure.
“Coming, Ma!” he yelled, and leapt for the stairs, taking them two at a time.
When he got to the second floor, his father came out of the bathroom and blocked his way.
“What was that woman doing here?” he asked.
“Nothing. She came to see me. We’re friends.”
“Friends? You joking with me, kid?” Fletcher Barstow slapped Malcolm on the back of the head.
“Fletch,” called Mrs. Barstow from the bedroom.
“Your son says he’s friends with the redheaded American. The one who shacks up with Ben Dufort, of all people.”
“Would you bring me some water?” said Mrs. Barstow.
Malcolm took the opportunity to go downstairs to get it for her. He had recently swiped a few bottles of mineral water—not Evian or Perrier, but still, it said L’eau Minerale on the label—rinsed out a glass, and poured it full.
“Here you go, Ma,” he said, coming into the bedroom. She was sitting up in bed, her skin paler than pale, dark circles under her eyes.
Fletcher took two strides and knocked the water out of Malcolm’s hand, spraying all three of them with l’eau minerale.
“Aw, what did you do that for?” said Malcolm.
Fletcher took another step and hit his son in the jaw. The boy dropped to the floor and did not move.
His mother shrieked, clambered out of bed, and kneeled next to him. The baby continued to cry in the next room. Fletcher
Barstow trotted downstairs, took a bottle of whiskey from the kitchen counter, and left the house.
24
Ben was not waiting at La Baraque like Molly imagined, but headed down the N21 to Bergerac to meet Léo Lagasse, having stopped off at Pâtisserie Bujold for a little something with which to tempt Léo.
As he drove, Ben let his mind wander over the facts of the Petit case, thin as they were. He had not managed to verify Franck’s alibi—that was the only faint possibility so far. Certainly the young man had suffered at the hands of his father, and who was to say how much suffering is enough to push a person to murder? It was true that Franck seemed like a good guy, the most decent fellow in the world, actually. Perhaps he had murdered his father out of an excess of concern for the rest of the world.
But Ben guessed that the details of his alibi would no doubt fall into place eventually and he would be able to cross Franck’s name off the list along with Laurine’s. Her assistant had confirmed Laurine’s whereabouts not only for the night of the murder but the week leading up to it.
He couldn’t simply march into the gendarmerie and ask to see Léo; it would take a bit more luck and legwork than that. Ben had made a few calls and found out that, unsurprisingly, Léo was a man of habits, and one of those habits concerned a late-afternoon stop at a café near the statue of Cyrano de Bergerac, toward the river. Ben found a parking spot with no trouble and made sure to collect the small cardboard box containing a pistachio and rum tart, one of Edmond Nugent’s specialties. He spied Léo through the window of the café and waved.
“Mon ami,” Léo said, standing to shake hands. “Just happening by?” he asked, with a hint of sarcasm.