by Katie Penryn
Chapter 36
When we reached the gendarmerie Dubois came out to meet us at the reception desk and take us through to the interview room with the one-way mirror. On the way we explained to him how we thought Kiki had committed the murder.
An unrecognizable Marie Renard sat at the table gasping for breath. Her giant sobs were tearing her apart. I couldn’t believe the change in the woman in half an hour.
Head in hands, she shook as she repeated time after time, “C’est ma faute. It’s all my fault.”
As Dubois closed the door on us, he said, “We haven’t been able to get a coherent word from her. That’s all she says.”
Dubois entered the interview room and took his seat opposite her. He waited for her to calm down but when she carried on sobbing her heart out, he sent an officer out for a glass of water and a box of tissues. She accepted both, sipped the water and wiped her eyes then blew her nose.
When she spoke again, she said, “C’est vrai. C’est ma faute. It’s true.”
“What’s true?” asked Dubois. “And what is your fault?”
“It’s my fault Sauvage is dead. My husband Christophe had nothing to do with it.”
“How can that be when Sauvage was smothered, and no one was seen going into his room? Are you saying you were invisible?”
“Of course not,” she scoffed. “But it was me all the same.”
Dubois sat back and regarded her through narrowed eyes. “Are you trying to make me believe you climbed out onto the window cleaning cradle and then went in through the window to murder Sauvage?”
Marie jerked back blinking fast.
“Madame Renard?” asked Dubois when she didn’t answer.
It was obvious to all of us that Marie hadn’t known that we suspected this was how the murder had been carried out.
Dubois sighed. “Madame, I think you are wasting police time. You are trying to sacrifice yourself to save your husband from prosecution, no?”
“Not at all. It was me who put Jonny Sauvage in the hospital.”
Dubois rapped his knuckles on the table. “Explain yourself or I’ll charge you with wasting police time, madame.”
“The coma, you silly man. The coma,” she shrieked trying to get to her feet, but the attending officer pushed her back down into her seat. “It was the coma that killed him.”
I whispered to Felix. “She has a point. If Jonny hadn’t been in a coma it wouldn’t have been so easy to smother him, but what has she got to do with his coma?”
“Shush,” said Felix.
“But Felix, we know Jonny had kidney damage beyond that to be expected from being smothered. How do we know he wouldn’t have died from organ failure without regaining consciousness? Kiki may have only hastened him on his way.”
“Boss, we can’t know that. Just be quiet and listen. Dubois is getting the story out of her.”
Dubois took a deep breath. “Madame Renard, what do you have to do with Jonny Sauvage falling into a coma?”
He resumed his leafing through of his file as if he dismissed her protestations.
Marie blurted out, “I poisoned him, Inspector. See, it wasn’t my husband. It was me. I poisoned him.”
Dubois’s hands froze. He stared at Marie for a moment before continuing his search through his papers. I guessed he was looking for the autopsy report. He pulled it out and scanned it. When he reached the bottom of the page, he left the room leaving Marie in the charge of the attending officer.
“What do you think about that?” he asked as he came into our section.
“The hospital thought he’d been poisoned. It was the only cause left after they’d ruled out known diseases and other possible natural causes, but they couldn’t identify the poison.”
“Right,” said Dubois. “Let’s see what else she says.”
And he went back into the interview room.
He settled down in his chair, leaned his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers before resuming his questioning.
Marie had stopped crying by now, but she still exhibited all the signs of someone who had received an almighty shock: pale skin, trembling hands and shortness of breath.
“You say you poisoned Jonny Sauvage and that caused his coma, Madame Renard. In your opinion, his coma would have led to his death? Please tell me exactly what you did and when, so I can assess the feasibility of your claims.”
“I’m a gardener and a good housewife—”
“Yes, yes,” Dubois interrupted, “but what has that got to do with anything?”
“I grow a lot of soft fruit,” she went on.
Dubois closed his eyes with a sigh, “Madame Renard!”
“Jonny came to dinner at our house the night before he was taken into hospital.”
“We knew that,” I whispered to Felix. “But no one else was taken ill.”
“And?” said Dubois.
“I served purée d’oseille, sorrel puree, with the fish. My husband is allergic to sorrel, so he didn’t have any. I had a small helping and when I cleared the course, I rushed to the bathroom and made myself sick. The sorrel was poisoned.”
“How so?”
“The puree was part sorrel but mostly rhubarb leaves, which as you know are very poisonous. Jonny had two helpings. No wonder he was so ill during the night.”
She burst into laughter. “The best joke was we had rhubarb tart for dessert.”
Felix dug me in the ribs. “That’s what she gave us for lunch that time. Little did we know how close we were to death.”
Dubois stared at Marie as if he thought she was mad. She looked it. Her eyes wild. Her desperation turning her into a harpy.
“But why, madame? Why did you do it? What did you have against Jonny Sauvage?”
Her laugh evolved into a cackle and she rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.
Dubois asked her again why she’d poisoned Sauvage.
She came to a rest. “Jonny Sauvage was a crook. He owed Kiki. He owed Kiki big time. And he never paid him. Not a centime. So I thought I’d get him back.”
I grabbed hold of Felix’s arm as the realization struck me. Marie hadn’t known about the money. She hadn’t known Jonny had paid Kiki ten thousand dollars. It looked as if she’d poisoned him for nothing.
“Do you think it would have made a difference if Marie had known about the ten thousand dollars?” I whispered to Felix.
He shrugged. “How can we know?”
“Why did Jonny Sauvage owe your husband, madame?” asked Dubois.
A strange look came over Marie’s face. She turned sly. “I can’t tell you that. It is my husband’s secret. But he will confirm that Jonny owed him, and that it was I who gave Jonny what he deserved.”
Dubois closed the interview at that point instructing the officer to take Marie away. She was to be held for further questioning.
Dubois came round the mirror to talk to us.
“That was the strangest interview I’ve ever conducted,” he said.
“Do you think she was telling the truth?” I asked him.
“I’ll run the idea past the doctor in charge of Sauvage’s case before I go home. See what he says.”
Felix reached for the water jug and poured us each a glass. “The point is: if she did poison him, she’s guilty of attempted murder at least. We have no way of knowing if Sauvage would have died eventually from the long-term effects of the poison.”
“And how could we prove it?” asked Dubois stroking his chin and looking thoughtful.
That’s when I remembered the nasty contents sitting in a plastic box in my freezer.
“It’d be circumstantial and there’s no secure chain of evidence, but I did scoop up some of the vomit found in Jonny’s room. It will contain his DNA and the poison if her story is true. Felix and I signed and dated a tape sealing the box.”
Dubois brightened up for a moment but sank back again. “You could have done that at any time.”
“Producing it in front of Kiki may
be enough to make him admit he finished off what his wife started,” I said.
Felix added, “Particularly if you threaten to charge his wife with attempted murder. She’s covering for him. Maybe he’ll cover for her.”
Dubois snorted with contempt. “Cover? They’re both guilty from where I’m standing.”
Remembering how Kiki pushed me off the hospital roof, I agreed. “Keep them separate and interview Kiki again.”
Dubois checked his watch. “I’m exhausted. I’ll do it tomorrow. It won’t hurt for them both to stew overnight in the cells.”
I pushed back my chair and gathered up my jacket and purse. “I’d love to know what the terrible wrong was that Kiki did to Jonny Sauvage, a wrong so terrible it merited death.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out tomorrow,” said Felix holding the door open for Dubois and me. “I suggest we make for the nearest bar and have a drink.”
“D’accord,” said Dubois.
*
The three of us had walked round the corner from the gendarmerie to the nearest bar, and so it wasn’t until Felix and I got back into our car to drive home that I saw the purloined scrapbook lying on the back seat. Marie’s bizarre performance had completely blown it out of my mind. I reminded Felix about it.
As soon as we reached home, we made for the study and locked ourselves in so we could go through the book in peace. I had to leave it to Felix to read the press clippings, and the other printed and written material Kiki had interleaved in the book. Progress was slow. A scrapbook of a hundred pages bulged with all the inserts to a wad of about six inches thick. Only the piece of knicker elastic that had bound it had prevented the pages from falling out and being lost.
The material dated back to the beginning of Kiki’s musical career in school, the first slip being a receipt in his father’s name for a basic learner’s Spanish guitar. We traced Kiki’s life through the cuttings: here an article about his winning an inter-school music competition, there a program from his first performance with the college band as their lead guitarist.
“What happened to him?” asked Felix. “He began with such promise. How did he turn into a drunk who ran over his daughter?”
“Keep looking. I’m fetching something to drink and eat. We’ve had no supper.”
I left Felix poring over the scrapbook and went into the kitchen where everyone else was having supper. It smelled delicious, steak with mushrooms.
Jimbo stopped eating and looked up at my entrance. “Do you have to work so late? I haven’t seen you all day,” he said with a slight whine in his voice.
I circled the table to give him a hug. “Sorry darling. We’re about to crack this case. We have to find some important information for Inspector Dubois for tomorrow. It’ll soon be over.”
Audrey frowned. “You always say that, Penzi. It’s time you started thinking of yourself?”
“Where’s Sam?” I asked.
“Where do you think?” asked Gwinny with a laugh. “He’s at the mayor’s spending the evening with Emmanuelle.”
I took out a tray and loaded it with a couple of wineglasses, a bottle of the local Charentais red wine and a bowl of mixed olives.
Audrey looked at my preparations askance. “You need more than that. I cooked steak for you.”
I didn’t want to stop what Felix and I were doing, so I asked her to make our steak into sandwiches and bring them through when the family had finished eating.
I picked up my tray and returned to the study. As I opened the door Felix leapt to his feet and took the tray off me to put it on the end of the desk. To my surprise he grabbed my arms and pulled me into a mad polka. Round and round the room we went with him shouting, “Eureka, Eureka. We’ve found it.”
“Whoa,” I said when he gave me the chance. “Stop prancing around like a crazy and show me what you’ve found.”
He dragged me over to the desk by my hand. “Look!”
All I could see was a buff colored enveloped, A4 size. I picked it up and noticed it was stamped but had not been opened. I couldn’t read the address or the handwritten note on the front.
“So? What’s the significance? It’s just an envelope.”
“It’s addressed to Monsieur Christophe Renard… Wait for it… Sender’s name is also Christophe Renard — Kiki.”
“He sent a letter to himself that makes it important. What does the note say?”
Felix could hardly contain his glee.
“It says This envelope contains my original score and lyrics for the song I wrote last week—”
“Got it,” I said as everything tumbled into place. “It’s the music and words for Mon P’tit Oiseau.”
“–which I’ve called Mon P’tit Oiseau. You’ve guessed right.”
The lawyer in me asked, “What’s the date of the postmark? That’s critical.”
Felix squinted down at the blurred stamp. “It’s a bit smudged but clear enough to read: 8th March 2005.”
“That’s several months before hurricane Katrina and over a year before Jonny and his band came over to France. If the original score is actually inside this envelope, which must only be opened in the presence of someone in authority by the way, this is Kiki’s proof of copyright.”
Felix sat down with a thump. “Jonny stole Kiki’s song and made a fortune out of it. No wonder Marie is so bitter.”
“We don’t know what happened back then. Maybe Jonny paid Kiki for it at the time — bought it off him. All we know is that Jonny didn’t credit Kiki as the songwriter, and as Kiki didn’t go back to Louisiana with the band, he wouldn’t have earned anything from the royalties when the song was produced.”
“I’m willing to bet Kiki never saw a centime from his song. The theft and lack of recognition sent him into a depression, and that’s why he started drinking.”
“You’re guessing, but it does fit the facts. If you’re right, Marie has borne a grudge against Jonny all these years. He didn’t give Kiki any financial compensation or professional recognition. That led to Kiki’s drinking which led to the loss of the life of Marie’s only child. Marie blamed Jonny for her child’s death.”
Felix opened the wine and poured out two full glasses. “Drink this down, boss. The whole story is so darned depressing.”
I took the glass he handed me and gulped down half of it. Too quickly. It made me choke. Felix had to thump me hard for several seconds. When I recovered from my choking and spluttering, I said, “We’ll have to tell Dubois about all this first thing in the morning. He won’t know anything about the music angle.”
“True. We only know because you were involved with the band.”
I picked up my glass again and took a careful sip.
“We think we know why Marie tried to kill Jonny by poisoning him—”
“Hang on. I’ll Google rhubarb leaves,” Felix said opening up his laptop.
I drained my glass while I waited. Tap, tap, tap went Felix.
He looked up. “Oxalic acid. Nasty stuff. Damages the kidneys, causes vomiting, diarrhea, extreme pain, breathing difficulty and can lead to coma and then death. That fits in with the autopsy findings.”
“As I was saying, we know why Marie gave Jonny a dinner of rhubarb leaves, but why did Kiki smother him later on? Jonny had just paid him ten thousand dollars.”
“We’ll have to wait until tomorrow and see what Kiki says when Dubois questions him again.”
Chapter 37
We were late arriving at the gendarmerie the next morning. Felix and I had both overslept. We’d been too wound up the night before to go to bed at a reasonable hour and had watched mindless television into the early hours and drunk two bottles of wine. Inspector Dubois was waiting for us outside the police station faisant les cent pas, as the French say — pacing up and down — and glancing at his watch. As I parked he came hurrying over to greet us.
“Penzi, you are so late, and you don’t look so great,” he said giving me the once-over.
“Our apologies, Xav
ier. But you’ll forgive us when you hear what we have to say.”
“Come along then,” he said taking my arm and almost frog marching me up the steps to the front door. “We can’t keep these two on ice forever.”
When we reached his office, he pushed us inside and shut the door. “Now, tell me. What have you found out?”
I explained that we thought we had found Marie’s motive and so her confession was probably true. That was the first Dubois had heard of the musical connection. Dubois wrinkled up his forehead as he thought it over. Mon P’tit Oiseau had been one of his favorite songs at the time he said. He was annoyed that an American had stolen the song from a Frenchman.
“But Renard himself?” he asked. “Why would he take the second step and attack Sauvage in the hospital if he had at long last been paid for the song?”
“We don’t know if Kiki and Marie were working in collusion … or what?” I answered.
“Let’s recap. One – you have Renard’s scrapbook with what is probably proof of his copyright of a song that Sauvage took credit for ten years ago; Two – you have the vomit which when tested should reveal Sauvage’s DNA and the oxalic acid poison; Three – we know Renard tried to murder you, Penzi, by pushing you off the hospital roof, which he would only have done if he was guilty; and Four – Renard had access to Sauvage’s room via the window cleaning cradle.”
I nodded. “Most of it’s inconclusive, but if you work it right this morning, you have every chance of getting a confession, Xavier. You are an excellent interrogator.”
Dubois smiled as he accepted the compliment. “Come, let’s start.”
He showed us into the room behind the mirror and left to take his place on the other side.
Kiki shuffled into the room in an orange prison coverall, his gait handicapped by the leg cuffs he wore. His arms hung in front of him weighted down by metal handcuffs. The attending officers pushed him down into a chair facing Dubois and moved back to stand against the door.