by Nell Goddin
Discreetly Dufort reached for his blue glass vial. He had used the day’s allotment already but ignored that and shook a few drops under his tongue—a mixture of lavender, lemon balm, and ashwaganda this time—before going in to the administration building to find Marie-Claire. It had been months since he had been on a date and he felt a not-unpleasant agitation. But when he saw Marie-Claire sitting at her desk, her brows furrowed as she typed something and stared at her computer monitor, his unease fell away.
She looks so intelligent, he said to himself. So intelligent, and also…sexy.
“Hi, Ben,” said Marie-Claire. “Just give me half a minute,” she said, still looking at the screen and typing furiously. Then she smiled at him and stood up and smoothed her skirt. “I don’t know why I have this job,” she said, shaking her head. “I absolutely loathe filling out forms and doing paperwork. And yet…that is eighty-five per cent of what I do.”
She came around her desk and she and Dufort kissed one cheek and then the other.
“What’s the other fifteen per cent?” asked Dufort, helping her with her coat.
“Listening to people bitch and moan,” she said, laughing. “I’m sort of the resident pseudo-therapist, for both faculty and students.”
They walked outside together and climbed into Dufort’s car. “I make a lot of pots of tea, and do a lot of listening,” she added.
“And do you like that part?”
“I do. The students here—and the professors too—they’re interesting, engaged people, for the most part. Most of them are very ambitious. Not necessarily for money, not that kind of success. But for art. There’s a kind of purity in it, you know? An innocence. And I like being around that, being part of it, helping in a small way.”
When Dufort turned towards La Métairie, Marie-Claire said, “Ben! La Métairie, really?” but her tone was of happy surprise.
“I’ve got some news, I’ll tell you when we’re seated,” he said. “I don’t know, something about it—it made me want something very good to eat. Like a talisman? I don’t really know what I mean.”
Marie-Claire looked at Dufort, her expression serious. She did not ask him what he meant but waited until they were inside and had given their orders to the waiter.
Dufort hesitated. Strictly speaking, he should not disclose to anyone outside of the officers on the case what the video had shown, but he thought perhaps Marie-Claire could shed some light on Amy’s movements that night. Would Marie-Claire think it possible Amy would go off with Lapin willingly? And for what reasons? Aware that this line of thinking was partly rationalization, he decided to go ahead with it anyway.
“I asked you to lunch to talk about Amy,” said Dufort. “And I’d like to go ahead and do that. There has been something of a break in the case.”
Marie-Claire sat very still and waited.
“We got video footage from around the village, hoping to find something, some clue about who she was with or…just anything, we didn’t know what we were looking for. Anything.”
Marie-Claire nodded.
“And video after video was useless. No Amy, nothing at all of interest. But the last one we looked at, just this morning, did have Amy. Many minutes of Amy, apparently celebrating with her friends and some people from the village. Amy left with one of those people. She looked rather inebriated, and his arm was around her as they left the restaurant.”
Marie-Claire had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were wide. “I’m surprised to hear Amy was drunk,” she said. “She…wasn’t like that. Not wild at all that way, I would have guessed. All business, that girl.”
The waiter brought a small tray with tiny cups arranged in a line and explained in some detail what they were, but neither Marie-Claire nor Dufort paid any attention, though they looked at the waiter while he spoke and pretended to listen.
“I can tell you what they were celebrating, at least,” said Marie-Claire. “Amy had just won a contest, the Marfan Prize. It’s not one of the really big ones, but any prize brings a great deal of prestige at her age. And I believe there was a cash award, more than just a token. I’d have to check to tell you how much, but I’d guess around 5000 euros.”
Dufort cocked his head, then took one of the tiny cups and drank the contents. “Mmm,” he said. “I have no idea what I just ate, but it is extremely good. Do you know if she had received the money?”
“No idea. I doubt it, because her winning had just been announced, and usually with these things, the check is a little slow in coming.”
Dufort nodded.
“So are you going to tell me?” said Marie-Claire, smiling.
Dufort liked Marie-Claire’s smile. It was warm, it was enticing, and part of him wanted to shove work to the side and get to know her better, instead of the endless talk of work, revolving around something horrible someone had done to someone else. With an effort he dragged himself back to the moment.
“I’m sorry, tell you what?”
“Whom did she leave with?”
Dufort nodded but did not speak. He really shouldn’t tell her. But he did want to know several things: had Lapin been hanging around the school at all? Had Marie-Claire perhaps seen him around, either before Amy’s disappearance or after?
He took a breath before he spoke. “A man from the village, known to many, including me. Lapin. Real name’s not Lapin of course—it’s Laurent. Laurent Broussard.”
Marie-Claire shook her head. “Every woman within a hundred kilometers knows Lapin,” she said, and took a sip of water.
The waiter brought wine, local and very good, and then starters and main courses and coffee and a pair of the most exquisite crèmes brûlées flavored with lavender. But unfortunately the pall of Amy’s disappearance, possibly at the hands of a man they both knew, cast such a deep shadow over their lunch that they barely tasted a thing; their conversation was not what either of them would have hoped, but rather drooping and lacking in wit.
It’s the constant not-knowing, thought Dufort later, going out for a second jog that evening. The whole village has been waiting over the course of years for this abductor to be caught. Yet to hear it might be someone we’ve known our whole lives—that does not bring any comfort either.
20
Lapin? Lapin?! No.
Thérèse Perrault had known Lapin Broussard since she was a baby. Everyone in Castillac knew Lapin. Because he was friendly, a mec who liked to socialize more than anything, who knew all the latest gossip because in the course of his junk collecting he was up in everyone’s private business, and he delighted in passing on what he saw and heard.
Really, if someone was going to get killed, Thérèse thought it more likely to be Lapin, not at the hands of Lapin.
Of course she didn’t approve of the way he pawed the women he came in contact with (or hoped to come in contact with, she thought wryly). Of course she’d seen him behave like a total creep, no doubt about it, and it wasn’t infrequent behavior either.
But that didn’t make him an abductor. A possible murderer.
He used to do these silly tricks, like making coins rain out of my nose at Sunday dinner, she thought, and the memory made her angry.
Dufort and Maron had gone to find Lapin, and Thérèse was left at the station with nothing to do but sit by a phone that rarely rang.
I’m going out to Degas, she thought. If I had to pick someone guilty here, it would be that blowhard of an art professor, Gallimard. Let’s see what the students have to say about him.
She had no police vehicle to take, and since this plan of hers was not directed by Dufort in any case, she figured she was better off on foot. She could always say she was out looking for Mme Bonnay’s dog, who was still missing.
As she set off, Thérèse made a list of questions about the case in her head.
Why did Nico take so long getting us a copy of that video? Was he protecting Lapin? Does he know something?
For a moment she considered stopping off at Chez Papa to intervie
w him, but thought rightly that she shouldn’t take that step without talking to Dufort first. He might want to question Nico himself.
Thérèse had struggled in school and in office jobs because she had real difficulty following the rules. The gendarmerie, of course, had even more rules—of protocol, of procedure—but the work was so meaningful to her that she had managed to stay in line so far.
And now that the pressure was on, she was determined not to get carried away by her own ideas and stick to doing what she was supposed to do. Probably hanging around Degas wasn’t Dufort’s idea of sticking to the rules, but she didn’t think it would be enough to get her in real trouble. Hell, maybe Lapin would be able to tell Dufort something useful, if he had been with Amy so late in the evening.
Had Amy really left with him voluntarily?
Well, at least from the tape, it looked like she had. She hadn’t appeared to be struggling or resisting or anything at all like that. Just walking calmly, if a little woozily, out of the door of Chez Papa, with Lapin’s arm firmly around her waist.
Thérèse loved Lapin, sort of. Or at least, she loved the fact that he was a village institution, a presence she was used to. He had been a fixture at many of those Sunday family dinners since her mother had taken pity on the “poor orphan” and invited him countless times, even though he was a grown man. But still—to leave with him? A young woman Amy’s age? It didn’t make any sense.
Thérèse thought about it for a good stretch of the walk to Degas, and she could not remember any woman ever leaving with Lapin. Because let’s face it, he may be a semi-beloved village character, but he’s an unattractive boor when he’s trying to seduce someone.
If he’s even trying to. Thérèse had always had the feeling it was all a bit of a show, not meant for anyone to take seriously. She certainly hadn’t.
It was nearing noon when she turned into the driveway to L’Institut Degas. It was a little chilly but a few students were outside with sketchbooks. She wondered whether there was any sort of food service on campus, or whether they had to troop into Castillac for all their meals.
Deciding to start by going into the modern building that looked oddly like a sea creature, she started down the path heading to it, when out of the corner of her eye she saw Dufort leaving the older building on an adjacent side of the commons. He was walking with a woman Thérèse did not know. She wasn’t sure, but something told her Dufort was not, at that moment, working.
So had he and Maron found Lapin? Was Lapin in custody?
More than anything, Thérèse wanted to rush over and ask those questions along with about ten others that popped into her head, but she was learning to hold back, difficult as it was.
Dufort did not see her. She watched them get into his car, saw Dufort smile in an especially warm way she had not seen him smile before, and that answered at least one of the ten questions.
The door to the sea-creature building was locked, so she headed over to a group of students talking on the commons, wishing she were not wearing her dorky gendarme’s uniform, and mentally rubbing her hands together at the prospect of digging up some dirt on Gallimard.
* * *
This really shouldn’t be a big deal, Molly was thinking, sitting out on the terrace in the chilly morning, drinking her second cup of coffee. Okay, so the Bennetts don’t want to leave the cottage—that’s their business. If I can’t get in there to clean, that’s also their business. I can’t go busting in there and tell them what to do, they’re paid up and not bothering anyone. And really, a clean floor doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. Or even at all.
They must be thinking…what does anything matter, anything at all, in the face of their daughter missing, precious as all daughters are.
Of course I don’t know, having no daughter myself. But it’s not hard to imagine, is it, she thought, throwing back the last of her cup and feeling a surge of determination, having just come up with what she thought might be an excellent idea.
I will hire someone to clean the cottage while the Bennetts are here. Can’t afford it long-term, not yet, but at least if someone else did it now, just while they’re here, I can take that load of worry off.
It feels to me like there’s this aura of fear around them, and I get the wobbles when I step close.
I’m a horrible person, really. Complaining about my feelings when it’s not even my tragedy.
Thinking that perhaps her neighbor might know of someone she could hire temporarily, Molly got dressed and brushed her wild hair, even trying (and failing) to tie a scarf around her neck in the French way.
It was nine in the morning, a time when Molly often saw Madame Sabourin in her garden, but that morning she didn’t see her, so she walked around to the road and came down the stone path to her front door and gave it a hard rap.
Please let my French be adequate, she prayed to the gods of language. I’m not asking for fluency, just let me be understood and not completely humiliate myself. That’s all I ask.
Her neighbor answered the door dressed in a dusty housecoat, her hair covered by a scarf.
“Bonjour, Mme Sabourin!” said Molly, a bit too heartily. “Excuse me for making you bother, but I looked for a girl who cleans?”
“Ah,” said Mme Sabourin. “Come in, Madame Sutton. Can I offer you a coffee? I am cleaning the house myself at the moment, as you can see.” She gestured first to her clothing and then to a bucket and mop leaning against the wall of the foyer.
“Yes,” said Molly, grinning because she understood. “Thank you but no coffee anymore.” She looked into her neighbor’s kindly face, thinking how beautiful she was with her wrinkles and bright brown eyes. Something so warm about her, so solid in her life, with its regular chores and no doubt regular meals.
Molly was struck suddenly by the desire to confess what she was up to.
“You know the Bennetts? The parents of the girl who is gone? They are here, in my cottage,” she began, and Madame Sabourin nodded encouragingly. “And I do not understand myself, but…I am fearful with them, do you know this?”
“They make you nervous? Because they are so deeply upset?”
Yes, that is it,” said Molly, relieved. “And I would be easy if a girl came and cleaned the cottage now. Not after the Bennetts, but during the Bennetts.”
I understand,” said Mme. Sabourin with a small smile. “I’m trying to think…but I’m afraid no one is occurring to me at the moment. I will consider it, though, and let you know if I come up with anyone.”
Molly nodded. “Thank you,” she said, feeling a pressure to say more, but not able to find the words. “Thank you,” she said again. “I will go now,” she added awkwardly. “See you later!”
Perhaps Nico will know someone, she thought, and went straight down rue des Chênes to Chez Papa, although she had no idea whether it would be open so early in the morning.
She pulled her sweater tight as she walked, feeling the chill in the air and wishing she’d worn a coat. Glancing at gardens along the way, she saw that there had not been a frost the night before, but she bet it had been close. The village felt half asleep, as though with the cold air everyone had decided to take a few extra hours in bed where it was warm and safe, before venturing out to begin the day.
Chez Papa was indeed closed, and Molly could see no one inside when she peered through the window.
Now what?
Well, perhaps she might as well go by Pâtisserie Bujold since she was practically next door anyway. Croissant aux amandes? Yes, definitely. And she would pick some up for the Bennetts while she was at it. Of course it was always a trial going there, with the lecherous proprietor to contend with. Worth it, for pastry.
But then, almost anything would be worth it for pastry.
* * *
Molly had not been able to resist the duck legs at the market, and she was braising six of them for lunch. After several hours in a low oven, the carrots, onions, celery and tomatoes had made the most delicious unctuou
s sauce imaginable, and the duck meat was falling off the bone.
No one could possibly resist this, she thought, first inhaling the scent of rosemary and onion, and then arranging two legs per plate along with a big spoonful of the thick sauce, and a small heap of rice on the side.
Tentatively she walked over to the cottage with the tray.
I’m probably making a real annoyance of myself, plying them with food all the time. Or maybe they’re grateful because even though I understand some people do not eat when they’re upset (strange creatures, if you ask me) even so, you can’t keep that up for days on end. You just can’t.
She set the tray down and knocked, bracing herself against the turmoil and fear that she felt swirling around the cottage, determined to press on regardless.
“Hello!” she called out. “I’m sorry to bother you, but please answer!”
Quickly (had he been watching her approach?), Mr. Bennett opened the door.
“Are we behind in payment?” he asked. His face was pale and drawn, and his eyes glassy.
“No, no, nothing like that,” said Molly. She stooped and picked up the tray. “It’s just that I’ve brought lunch. May I come in? I won’t stay.”
Marshall Bennett paused, a too-long pause, and finally opened the door wider.
Sally Bennett was sitting on the sofa, perched on its edge like a sparrow on a branch. She turned her head towards Molly but did not change her expression, which—Molly was not sure how she would describe it—it looked like her face had fallen in on itself somehow, as though the bones and cartilage had turned soft, or melted.
“I’m sorry to intrude,” Molly said softly. “But I’ll be honest, I’m worried about you. You don’t know anyone here, you’ve got no support, and…well, you need help. It’s far, far too much to try to deal with something like this all by yourselves.”
Well, that was more than she had planned to say. So much for keeping it light.