by Michelle Wan
Jules Delage stepped back and emitted a great, rusty, hacking laugh. His flesh shook. His sour breath rode out in gusts at her. “There is no transformation. I am at all times a wolf. As for the moon, use your eyes.” He gestured at the blank walls around him. “I can’t see it. But I can feel it.” Lightly, he touched his breast with his fingertips. “I know its phases like the beating of my own heart.”
Mara took a breath and asked, “Is it true your mother was also a lycanthrope?”
“She-wolf.” Anger flashed across his face again.
“Tell me about her. Please.”
He said bitterly, “There’s very little to tell. One day, my mother grew whole. In so doing, she became a powerful, beautiful wolf-woman. I was only a kid at the time, just turned twelve, but I remember her still, her dress in shreds because she’d tried to tear it off, her hair hanging down her back. Her only desire was to run free, to hunt to fill her need, to mate with her own kind. Instead, she was forced to slink in shadows like a dog for fear of what the villagers would do if they found out about her. They were steeped in the old superstitions, and they didn’t part lightly with their sheep, those damned herders. For the first few years, Papa tried to keep her locked in the cellar. Eventually, he left us. He was a coward. From then on it was up to me to take care of Maman. We hunted in the forest, ate what we could bring down. Fresh-killed meat was the only thing that satisfied her hunger.”
“But,” Mara objected, “how could you have kept something like that secret?” And for so long? Dr. Thibaud had told her that Jules’s mother had died when he was in his early twenties. That meant Jules’s father, and subsequently, Jules alone, had hidden her condition for possibly ten years, or even longer. “Surely people must have found out about you?”
Jules gave Mara a lingering look. “Just the one.” His gaze shifted to fix on a point far beyond her. “After Maman died …” His voice trailed off. Seeming to lose interest in their conversation, he made as if to move away.
“Wait,” Mara cried, clinging to the tenuous contact she had established with this enormous, frightening man. “Don’t go. What happened after your mother died?” The death of the mother, she remembered Dr. Thibaud saying, had triggered the onset of Jules’s own delusions.
He turned back, a sly expression slipping over his face. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“Come nearer, and I’ll tell you.”
Involuntarily, Mara’s left hand closed down on the origami bird she still held. She felt its form crumple sharply against her palm. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m comfortable where I am.”
He regarded her scornfully. “For your kind, barriers are never strong enough. You ask questions, but you haven’t the courage to hear the answers. Look. How can I hurt you?” By way of demonstration, he thrust his fingers through the close-set bars as far as they would go. They jammed at the third knuckle, where they remained before her, clutching futilely at the air in a gesture that was as much beseeching as transfixing.
“Let me touch you,” said Jules Delage. “Just touch.”
Slowly, unwillingly, Mara put out her right hand.
“No,” he said, bargaining. “Your face.”
For the first time Mara looked the prisoner full in the eyes. They were dark and small, buried in their fatty creases, the eyes of a caged animal, wary and extinguished of hope. She held his gaze as she took another step forward. At that proximity, she could smell the acrid odor rising from his body, see the labored rise and fall of his chest. Her heart was pounding somewhere in the region of her throat. Gently, with infinite care, he extended a forefinger and tremblingly stroked her cheek. The touch lasted no more than a few seconds before Mara pulled back.
“What happened after your mother died, Jules?” she asked.
He put his mouth to the bars and whispered three words. Suddenly, his features seemed to collapse. As if jerked by a string, Jules swung abruptly away from her. Stumbling back to the middle of his cell, the wolf threw back his head in a long, ringing howl of despair. His anguish awoke a responding cacophony of sounds down the length of the prison wing. A guard came running. Now Jules was circling about, as if following the spiraling flight of an enraged hornet. His body began to quiver. Horrified, Mara watched as he transformed before her view into a melee of flailing arms and legs and fell to the ground in an ecstasy of spittle and uncontrolled thrashing.
I’m sorry,” said Dr. Thibaud. “It’s the first seizure he’s had in years. Not a pleasant sight for you, I’m afraid.”
“I’m really all right,” Mara insisted, although she was deeply shaken. “Is he?”
“Oh, he’ll recover. They’ve taken him to the infirmary. I’ll keep him under observation for a day or so. He probably needs his meds increased. Incidentally, what was it that set him off?”
Mara hesitated, thinking of Jules, drugged to a stupor, deprived of the only thing he had left—the ability to run free in his mind. She fingered the crumpled paper heron in her pocket.
“He said to ask the postmistress,” she said faintly.
29
FRIDAY NIGHT, 14 MAY
Ortolan.”
“Garden bunting,” Julian translated for the benefit of Prudence, who had joined them for their usual Friday evening at Chez Nous.
“Little bird. Not much bigger than that.” Loulou measured a distance between thumb and forefinger. “Now, the only way to cook them, in my opinion, is to put half a dozen or so in a pan and roast them whole in their own dripping. It’s their fat, you see, that makes them so delicious. A little salt, a little pepper, et voilà.” He brought his fingertips to his lips. “Melts on the tongue like butter. In fact, a real gastronome covers his head with a cloth while eating ortolan, so as not to lose the wonderful aroma.”
“My god.” Prudence’s perfectly made-up face looked scandalized. “It’d be like having dinner with a spook.”
“A real gastronome,” said Julian, “covers his head because eating ortolans is messy and he doesn’t want people seeing him with grease running down his chin.”
“Balivernes! Anyway, all this business of stuffing them with foie gras, smothering them with truffles, and flambéing them in Armagnac is so much flummery, as far as I’m concerned. Where ortolan is concerned, simplest is best, I say.”
Julian, Prudence, and Loulou sat at a table at the front of the bistro. They were already deep into their meal, which did not consist of ortolan, now a protected species in France, but the evening’s special, a fricassee of rabbit served with spring vegetables. Jazz, Bismuth, and Edith hung about hopefully. At that point, the beaded curtain separating the dining area from the rest of the Brieux enterprise flew apart. Mara, who had phoned ahead to say she would be late, walked in. She sat down with them but ordered only sorrel soup. She looked rumpled. Her air of suppressed excitement, however, suggested that she had news. She saved it until the bistro had emptied of all other customers and Mado and Paul could join them. If Loulou could keep them dangling, so could she.
Poor thing,” Prudence said after they had heard Mara’s conclusions on Cécile and the parentage of Baby Blue. “You think her brother Hugo was abusing her?”
Mara nodded. “And possibly doing the same thing to his other sister, Catherine. Which could explain why she wound up in a convent. At a guess, he might have tried it on with Eloïse, too, although she would probably have been a willing participant since she was looking to marry him. Of course, Eloïse went back to her family when Hugo married Henriette. But Cécile, being his youngest sister with nowhere to go, was probably his special victim.”
“Bastard,” cried Mado with feeling, tossing her red mane and crossing Rubenesque arms before a magnificent bosom. “I’d have cut off his couilles and fed them to the pigs.”
Loulou coughed. “Maybe she did. In a manner of speaking.”
“Eh?” Mado queried. Baby Eddie, in his carry cot behind the bar, gurgled. She jumped up to check on him. The dogs, ever hopeful o
f food, rushed after her. She shooed them away and returned with a bottle of local plum brandy and a clutch of glasses.
Loulou, who had been eyeing the ceiling thoughtfully, followed up. “After all, he came to a sorry end, n’est-ce pas?” He paused to watch Mado pour the dark liqueur into the glasses, took a sip from one, and smacked his lips. “Very good, this.” He nodded at Mara. “Didn’t you say Jean-Claude told you that Hugo died from a fall from a horse when his saddle girth snapped? Maybe Cécile engineered it. She knew about horses.”
“Bigre!” uttered Paul. “You think she did for him?”
Julian stirred restlessly and addressed Mara. “Was there nothing in the diary about orchids? No mention, say, of Cécile liking embroidery? Or ‘I was out riding the other day and saw an unusual flower’? Or even where the woman liked to ride?”
Mara shook her head. “I’m sorry, Julian. I was concentrating on other things, and I only read a small part of her diary. I saw nothing about Lady’s Slippers or flowers of any kind. I take it Vrac hasn’t been in touch?”
“No.”
“And nothing about loups-garous?” Paul put in slyly.
“In fact,” said Mara, and went on to tell them about her day.
Let me get this straight.” Paul squinted at her skeptically. “According to you, Christophe isn’t a werewolf but a lycanthrope, and he gets it from his great-something-grandfather Xavier, who was a werewolf?”
“Lycanthrope,” Mara corrected. “I’m saying Xavier suffered from lycanthropy, and he passed the condition on. He really believed he was a wolf, and he took on the behaviors of one. So, yes, in a way, Xavier was a werewolf, and he was the true Gévaudan Beast. But he expressed his sickness in an unusual way. He didn’t attack people directly. He used a trained, vicious animal to do his work. It was his alter-ego and his killing machine. It’s the only way of reconciling conflicting eyewitness accounts. People described the Beast as some kind of wolflike creature, but others swore it went on two legs. Many said it was invulnerable to injury, and a few claimed the thing wore some kind of leather cuirass that buttoned underneath. A wolf in a protective jacket? Or a man in a wolf suit? Or both, working together? And then there was the way the bodies were left. Clothing was removed—not torn away, as an animal would do it. Heads were severed, not ripped off with tooth and claw. I think the animal carried out the attacks, but the master, maybe dressed in a wolf skin, was on hand to direct its movements and participate in the eating and despoiling of human flesh. This went on for three years. Then, when his beasts were killed—I say beasts because two were shot—and things got too hot for him in Le Gévaudan, Xavier shifted to the Sigoulane Valley, where he trained up other generations of wolves or wolf-dogs. One of them went for him in the end.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Prudence.
“Wait a minute,” said Julian. “All this evidence simply points to a nutter with an attack dog. Why do you assume Xavier was a lycanthrope?”
“Because of the psychology of the case. The killer chose to hide behind the identity of a wolflike creature. That’s significant. You saw the dog in the portrait, Julian. It’s painted in such a way that it almost merges with Xavier himself. I think that was how he wanted it. The de Bonfond motto, ‘Blood Is My Right,’ was probably created by Xavier and sounds like the declaration of someone who saw himself as a predator. A wolf, in fact, because Xavier would have believed himself to be one. He might even have used Julian’s orchid as a drug to enhance his delusion, because Julian says that some Lady’s Slippers have hallucinogenic properties. But to me the most compelling thing is something I didn’t tell Dr. Thibaud. I was afraid she’d think it silly.” Mara glanced around her. No one seemed in a laughing mood. “You see, Jean-Claude told me Xavier’s title of ‘le Baron’ was a purposeful corruption of the surname ‘Lebrun.’ But I found out that the word for werewolf in Occitan is leberon. I think ‘le Baron’ was actually a different play on words. Leberon. Lebrun. Le Baron.”
Paul whistled. “Leberon de Bonfond! The con was having everybody on.”
“Gee-hee!” uttered Prudence again, the sound this time seeming to emanate from the depths of her Giorgio Armani shoes.
“There’s more,” Mara went on. “I think Hugo inherited the condition, except he didn’t use an animal. But like Xavier, he may also have hopped himself up on a tincture of Cypripedium incognitum to heighten the effect of his ‘transformations.’ He had a reputation for drinking the blood of game he brought down while they were still kicking. He probably did the same with his human prey.” She paused. “And then there was Baby Blue.” They all turned questioning faces to her. Everyone had forgotten about him. “I don’t believe his killer was simply eliminating an embarrassing bastard. I think whoever smothered him was trying to end a tainted bloodline. We have to remember, with Cécile and Hugo as parents, that kid had it in spades.”
“Hmm,” said Loulou. “Which would account for the secret way he was disposed of. Makes sense. Despite the rosary and the crucifix, if it’s as Mara said, there was no way Baby Blue could have been given a Christian burial.”
“Mon dieu,” said Mado, and poured herself another tot of plum brandy.
“Which brings us to the present,” said Mara, “and Christophe.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Julian declared.
“Look, Dr. Thibaud seems to think lycanthropy might be hereditary. There’s exactly a three-generation spread between Xavier and Hugo and again between Hugo and Christophe. Maybe it means nothing, but it does seem curious. Also, Thérèse confirmed that Christophe disappears periodically. I had to pull worms from her nose, but I finally got her to admit that he might have been away around the time that man was killed in Colline Basse. We also know he went off the same day the Dupuy woman was hit outside her henhouse. Pretty coincidental, don’t you think?”
“There you go again,” objected Julian. “What you’re suggesting is preposterous. It was an animal that went at those people, not a human being. Unless you seriously think Christophe is able to grow fangs and claws?”
“No, of course I don’t. But I feel somehow there’s a link. Something I’m missing.” She paused. “You don’t know if Christophe has a dog, do you? I know he doesn’t keep one about the house. I mean a dog or dogs that he kennels elsewhere on the property?”
“No, he doesn’t,” snapped Julian. “He has an allergy to fur. And Didier doesn’t like them. In any case, Jean-Claude wasn’t killed by an animal. He was pushed off the terrace and strangled.”
“I think by Christophe,” said Mara. “As a lycanthrope, Christophe would have taken an accusation of werewolfism seriously because it came too close to the truth. That’s why he had to silence Jean-Claude. Who else had as good a motive for murder?”
Julian thought of Denise’s flat, black eyes, the way she had coolly dismissed his question about her whereabouts on Sunday night. She was a woman who, he had no doubt, could hate intensely. “Denise,” he hazarded. “She had an affair with Jean-Claude, don’t forget. Maybe it was a lovers’ quarrel after all. They fought, and she pushed him over.”
“Hmm.” Mara was gratified to hear him suggest it. “That takes care of means and motive”—a nod at Loulou—“but what about opportunity? You’d have to place her at the scene of the crime during the critical time.”
“If she did it,” Prudence observed, “you can bet she’s the kind who would have organized a convincing alibi.”
She tried to, Julian thought. Me. He couldn’t acknowledge the fact openly, and he couldn’t prove where she had been during the early hours of Monday morning. But he sure as hell knew where she hadn’t been.
“And then,” Mara went on, “she would have had to climb down afterward and strangle him with the wolf belt. Can you see her doing it?”
“Yes,” said Julian very seriously. “I think I could.”
The question of Whose Place was simply decided. Mara drove Julian and their dogs back to his cottage and opted to stay. A light rain was falling by then, a
nd the air was chill and damp. Julian hustled around, opened a bottle of wine, set it aside to breathe, and tried to get a fire going in his front room. It was smoky work. His chimney drew badly, undoubtedly because it was clogged with soot and swallows’ nests. He kept forgetting to get it cleaned. Eventually, he achieved a promising flare. The dogs flopped down in front of it, and he pushed the sofa forward to be nearer the warmth that the fire was not yet giving. They sat together in comfortable companionship, the first they had shared in days. Julian poured the wine.
“Nice,” Mara said appreciatively, noting the label, a Coteaux de Bonfond Domaine de la Source 2000.
“Their Gold Medal Vintage.” He did not mention that Denise had brought over half a case on the occasion of their one-night stand. “Not bad for a small Bergeracois winery.” He swirled the liquid slowly in his glass and sniffed, allowing his mind to range through the hyperbolic phrases that wine-promoters indulged in. A serious bouquet, underlain by a darker whiff of—what?—autumn leaves, the gardener in him decided. Wet ones. He took a mouthful, sucking in noisily to let the aeration do its thing and holding it long on his tongue. Very smooth, with a good balance of sweetness, bitterness, and astringency. A lengthy finish that made him think of chocolate and—to his surprise—a hint of well-aged manure. Suspiciously, he held his glass up to the light, studying its color and body. It was a clear ruby-red with good visual texture, measured by the time it took for the glycerine and alcohol in the wine to coalesce into droplets and slide down the interior of the glass. In English they called it legs. He thought of Denise’s legs and cleared his throat.
“You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it’s a mistake to leave Denise out of the equation.” By then he had reconciled himself to the manure, in fact quite liked it. “I’m not saying this just because Christophe’s my friend. I really think the woman’s pathologically ambitious and capable of anything, especially where the winery is concerned. Sometimes I wonder who really runs Coteaux de Bonfond, she or Antoine. He’s a master winemaker, but she’s the one who’s positioning them for the bloodletting that’s happening in the French wine industry. I think she’d cheerfully eliminate anyone who stood in her way.”