by Nell Goddin
The train station in Castillac was tiny. Since it took two train changes to get to a station with the super-fast TGV, people didn’t use it much anymore. That morning no one else waited, either to get on the next train or pick up a passenger. The young woman at the ticket counter was reading a novel. Once there had been a bustling café, but that was closed now and if you were hungry there was nothing but a vending machine in the hallway by the bathrooms.
He heard the whistling, grinding sound of the train before he could see it. The grimy engine finally came poking around the curve and with much squealing and shrieking of brakes—even though it had been moving quite slowly—the train stopped. A conductor hopped off and lowered the steps.
Maron waited.
The conductor looked at his watch.
“Is anyone getting off?” Maron asked.
“She’s coming,” said the conductor with a grin. He shook his head as if to say he could hardly believe Esmé Ridding was actually going to walk down these steps, these same steps that he went up and down a hundred times a day.
“Officer Maron,” called Esmé, standing at the top of the stairs and waving to him. Maron startled, realizing that he had been expecting her to arrive in some kind of costume from one of her movies—long gloves and stiletto heels, a tight sequined dress—when of course she wasn’t on a set, and was dressed like any sophisticated woman, casual yet expensive-looking in wool slacks and cashmere, with Italian ballet flats.
“Thank you for coming in,” said Maron, wincing at himself for sounding obsequious.
“Delighted,” said Esmé, with a crooked smile and roll of her eyes, and Maron laughed and was instantly put at ease.
“Do you have any bags?”
“Just the one,” she said, gesturing to a porter who was holding a small overnight bag. Maron took it from him though he resented doing it, feeling that the general rule should be that people carry their own bloody bags unless they were old or infirm. He glared at Esmé out of the corner of his eye as they went out to the station parking lot, bristling at the feeling of inferiority her mere presence bestowed on everyone else.
“I hope you’re going to tell me about all the progress you’ve made in Marcel’s case,” Esmé said as she buckled her seat belt.
“I’m afraid I won’t be making any sort of report today. It’s in process. I’m looking forward to our interview.”
Esmé sighed. “If it’s a matter of funds, I can certainly hire investigators or whatever you need. Obviously Castillac is…low on manpower?” She cut him a look, checking to see if her dart struck home.
But Maron did not respond. After the initial agitated moment, when there in front of him stood Esmé Ridding the movie star, two feet away and smiling at him—once that moment had passed, he slid a door down between them, bang! and determined that whatever he thought or felt during the interview, she was not going to know about it. He had a talent for keeping his face impassive and still.
He parked outside the station and they went inside. Maron had of course sent Paul-Henri off on a wild goose chase up in Thiviers that would take him all day, so he and Esmé had the place to themselves as long as Castillac remained crime-free for the duration.
“Now then,” said Maron, when he was seated at his desk and she was in a chair next to it, her long legs elegantly crossed to the side. “First, please tell me the character of your relationship with Marcel de Fleuray.”
“The character of it? What an interesting turn of phrase, Officer Maron,” she said, looking up at him innocently. “We were lovers,” she said, lifting her chin with some defiance. “I don’t mean simply that we were having an affair, and yes, this time the tabloids are correct, we were having an affair. What I mean is that it wasn’t just a dalliance. We loved each other. Very deeply. Without restraint.” She reached to wipe a tear from the corner of one eye, carefully so as not to smear her eyeliner and mascara. “It is a nice feeling to be able to say that, to open up to you,” she added. “Though I must ask—is this interview confidential? Would it be lawful for you to run out and call up World Wide News and tell them what I’ve said? I ask not because I’m going to lie, but you must understand, this battle with the tabloids, it’s never-ending for me….”
“What you tell me is in confidence, though it might be brought up if there is a trial.”
“Oh.” Esmé looked up at the ceiling and blinked back tears. “I am sorry. You’d think I’d have cried out all the tears ever in existence by now,” she said ruefully, again wiping carefully under her eyes, this time with a lace-edged handkerchief she retrieved from her bag.
“How long had you been romantically involved?”
“December 23rd of last year. I met him at a party, a terribly boring party—long story but I attended as a favor to someone. Only it turned out that I was the lucky one, because the instant I met Marcel, I knew there was going to be something very special between us.”
“You felt you could see the future?”
“Disparage if you must, Officer Maron. I stand by my intuition. I remember coming out of the kitchen and seeing him standing by the window. He was very handsome, you know—did you have the good luck to meet him, by chance?”
Maron shook his head.
“Well, very very handsome. Craggy, weathered, intensely masculine. And more than that—he…he saw me.”
“I would imagine that was not a new sensation for you, Mademoiselle Ridding.”
“Ha! Actually, yes it was—the way Marcel looked at me was entirely different. It was as though he could see right down into my soul, that he missed nothing about me, took all of me in…this is what he told me with his eyes. He did not say a word. He did not have to.”
Maron tapped his fingertips on his desk, feeling impatient.
“I’m not making this personal as I do not know you, Officer Maron. But the thing about Frenchmen,” she said, uncrossing her legs and turning in the chair, “is that they think they know all about women—am I right? You do know what I am talking about?”
Maron shrugged, but yes, he did know.
“And they will talk on and on, telling you how much they understand women, how they appreciate them, blah blah blah…but Marcel? He understood women all right. Splendidly. Superbly. But he didn’t have to say a word.
“Marcel would have made a magnificent detective,” she said, leaning forward, “because he would have been able to figure out who the killer was without even asking any questions.” She leaned back in her chair and watched Maron.
His face showed no expression. “He sounds like a talented man,” he said, a bit lamely.
“Oh yes—that too,” agreed Esmé, giggling as a blush washed over her cheeks. Maron wondered if she could do that on purpose.
“All right. So you started seeing him last December. Nearly a year, then. How was it going? Were you happy?”
“Blissfully.”
“It did not bother you to be in a relationship with a married man?”
“No.”
“You were not jealous of the Baroness, of Château Marainte, his family? You did not want Marcel all to yourself?”
“Not at all. I have a full and busy life, as you might realize, Officer Maron. I travel all over the world and spend much of the year on location. The last thing I would want is to settle someplace like Castillac, which is the back of beyond if I may say so without any insult intended.”
Maron was surprised to feel a surge of defensiveness about his village even though he himself thought of it as a backwater.
He continued the interview for another hour, doggedly trying to ferret out whether any tension had existed between the actress and Marcel, but not succeeding in getting any such admission out of her. To hear Esmé tell it, Marcel was a natural diplomat who loved his family and her, and managed to navigate the potentially perilous waters of a serious affair by being kind and understanding both to her and his wife. Talented indeed, Maron was thinking to himself, not sure what to believe.
“And�
�one last question for now. Did Marcel ever show you the emerald, La Sfortuna?”
Esmé let out a laugh that Maron recognized from movies, throaty and sensual. “Of course he did! He was absolutely gaga over that thing. It reminded him of his sister. Which—do you see? He was, above all, devoted to the women in his life, and remained heartbroken over the loss of Doriane. That, to me, is an exceptional man. A man who feels deeply, and who doesn’t put you on a shelf and forget about you, even after death.”
Maron wanted to grin at Esmé’s theatrical delivery of that last bit. He reminded himself that she could have been acting all the way through the interview, spouting prepared lines every step of the way.
But if she was lying, he had to admit—she was very, very good at it.
While Maron interviewed Esmé, Molly was back at Château Marainte the next day to continue searching for La Sfortuna. When she arrived, Georgina answered the door and told her that Antoinette had gone to a livestock auction that day, south of Bergerac, and would not be home until late in the day.
“Thanks for the message,” said Molly. “Do you mind if I ask—did you ever see the famous emerald? Was the Baron in the habit of showing it off to people?”
Georgina stood very still. She did not like the idea of this American barging in and asking a lot of questions that were none of her business. “I would not say ‘showing it off,’ Madame. I did see La Sfortuna. It was an item with history, you know, an Italian jewel that once belonged to the Borgias.”
“Incredible! Was it amazing to see? Did you get to hold it?”
Georgina controlled herself with effort. “You’ve got to understand, the emerald belonged to Doriane Conti, and I was her maid. She showed it to me, of course, but she was not at all a show-off and I think she might’ve been a little embarrassed to own it. I was devoted to Doriane, Madame. La Sfortuna is not something to drool over, but something precious that belonged to a person we loved.”
“Yes, of course, I do understand that. I’m sorry if I sounded rude. You know that the Baroness has hired me to find it? Apparently it cannot be located, and you realize that something of that value—sentimentally as well as financially—has got to be found and kept somewhere safe,” she added. Antoinette had given her a thorough description of the jewelled box that contained it, although she had warned that it was possible Marcel had hidden it separately from the box.
“The Baron carried it in his trouser-pocket,” said Georgina. “It was a way to keep the memory of Doriane with him.”
Molly cocked her head. “Did you ever know him to stash it somewhere, just temporarily?”
“Madame, I have no idea.”
“Well, thanks for your help. If you do remember anything that you think might help me in my search, please let me know?”
“Of course.”
Thanks again. I’ll be roaming around the Château, just tell me if I’m getting in your way.”
Georgina nodded, thinking it was extremely unlikely that she would stop the American from anything she was doing, no matter how disruptive it was; after all, the Baroness hired her, and now that the Baron was gone, she was in charge of everything.
Georgina went to do the breakfast dishes and Molly stood in the lounge and looked around. Obviously Marcel had not hidden the jewel just anywhere, the way you might hide an envelope of cash or some papers you’d rather no one saw. Besides, if she were to search under every cushion and behind every painting, it would take months and months given the vastness of the Château. She had to think of a different approach, something more selective, more discriminating. In the back of her mind—she couldn’t help it—she was fantasizing about paying every last bill off and then having so much money to spare she could go on a trip. Even a luxurious trip, to Venice or the Canary Islands. She could afford to find someone to restore the barn finally, perhaps even a part-time gardener. There was no end to the things she could think of to spend money on, same as most of us.
The day before she had not really searched in earnest, but walked around the Château trying to get a feel for the place and seeing if anything led her to one place over another. Like Alexandre, Molly quickly concluded that since hunting was what he loved above everything, it was reasonable that the hiding place had some connection with that. She figured there must be a place in the Château where he kept his guns and other equipment, and deciding to leave Georgina alone, she set off to find it herself.
On the first floor, the ceilings were quite high in some rooms and low in others. Some floors were stone and some had glossy parquet. The incredible thing for Molly was simply how many rooms there were—she kept walking and discovering more and more, some barely furnished and others jammed with furniture and the walls covered with paintings in elaborate gilt frames. Eventually she came to a dead end, and went outside to the courtyard. There were other rooms on the first floor in a different wing, and she knocked and then entered the first door she came to, heavy and wooden, probably many hundreds of years old.
Ah, she thought, once her eyes adjusted to the dimness. The room exuded a clubby masculinity with its stuffed heads, leather furniture, and deep green walls. She crossed the room with her eye on the gun rack, opened it, but saw nothing but a couple of guns and a box of shells in the bottom. Turning on a green-shaded lamp on the desk, she stood still, breathing deeply, focusing on Marcel de Fleuray, trying to imagine his state of mind.
Had he guessed someone was trying to kill him? Did he see it coming?
It seemed that a man in his position might have any number of enemies—political from his time as Minister of the Interior, romantic from his years of affairs, even neighbors who might be jealous of his title and position in the community. The bigger you are, the more people hate you, right? Molly thought, walking away from the desk and seeing the bloodstain on the rug for the first time.
Molly squatted down and put her finger on the dried blood. She imagined the solidly built man lying slumped, the life draining out of him. Did the murderer stand there watching, taking pleasure in the sight? Or did he—or she—grab the emerald from the Baron’s pocket and make a run for it?
Or perhaps both?
She stood up and went over to a bookshelf that was crammed full of books, some of which looked well-used. On one shelf was a row of photographs in silver frames. A beautiful woman leaning against a pillar, reading a paperback, her brow furrowed. Perhaps that is Doriane? wondered Molly. The next was a picture of Marcel holding a gun in the crook of one arm, and his other around the shoulders of a smiling man also holding a gun. A dead boar lay at their feet. The next was a faded photograph of a boy who—wait a minute. Molly picked up the frame and looked at the photo more closely. The boy had longish dark hair pushed back from his face and no shirt on. He was about ten years old, standing on a rock with water behind him.
The boy looked a hundred percent like a young Nico. Molly peered at his face. The same aquiline nose, the same dark eyes, angular cheekbones, full lips. The same aura.
It was Nico.
What in hell was Nico doing in Marcel de Fleuray’s salon?
21
That night Molly set off for Chez Papa, hoping to catch Nico alone but dreading the prospect. It was a typical October night as she drove in on her scooter—a few couples out taking a walk in the cool evening, a kid riding a skateboard, otherwise empty streets—but for once Molly didn’t pay attention to the village, instead lost in her own thoughts until she parked outside the bistro. The scraggly tree was lit up with a string of lights but it looked half-hearted instead of festive, with one light blinking and two others dark. She saw the place was crowded and wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.
“Nico,” she said, nodding when they made eye contact.
“The usual?” he said, smiling and picking up the bottle of cassis.
“Not tonight,” she said. “How about…let’s see, oh, make me a Negroni, why not?”
“My darling!” said Lawrence, spinning around on his stool. “What
ever has caused you to see the light?” He lifted his own Negroni to toast her.
“Oh, I don’t know. Not feeling like the usual tonight, if you know what I mean.”
“I do not. But it doesn’t matter. I’m glad to see you! And please allow me to introduce my friend Stephan,” he said, smiling hesitantly and nodding at a handsome young man on the stool next to him.
“Stephan!” exclaimed Molly. “I’m so happy to meet you. And to see that you are in fact a living human.”
“Thanks?” said Stephan.
Molly smiled at him and then glanced over at Nico, who was his usual imperturbable self as patrons called out drink orders and jostled to find a place at the crowded bar. “Frances here?” she called to him.
“Nah. Got a job with a quick turnaround. She’ll be coming over to use your piano in the morning probably.”
“Ah,” said Molly, thankful that at least she didn’t have to face Frances yet. Of course she would have to tell her about Nico’s photograph at Château Marainte. Or by tomorrow would she have figured out an excuse not to?
“So, tell us everything,” said Lawrence, putting a hand on Molly’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “I’ve told Stephan all about your sublime powers of detection. What’s going on with the Baron?”
Molly thought she saw Nico flinch.
“Oh, I—Antoinette did hire me, I guess word of that has gotten out. But nothing to do with the murder. I’m sure you know about the emerald?”
“Darling, everyone knows about the emerald,” said Lawrence.
“Well, that’s the job. It’s lost and she wants me to find it. Sort of a needle in a haystack, to be honest. Apparently the Baron usually carried it with him in his pocket, but no one knows where it is now.”
“Most assuredly someone knows where it is,” said Lawrence. “At least, if stealing it was the reason for the murder, which seems reasonable. Do you think it was?”
“I have no idea,” said Molly. “Maybe. I guess it’s suspicious that it wasn’t found on him. Did you know it’s supposed to be unlucky, that emerald?”