The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  Pelleter inhaled deeply on his cigar, pulling the flame into the last of the tobacco. He then dropped the butt in a puddle standing in one of the ruts of the uneven road.

  “What about Rosenkrantz? Is he big news, one of the other local celebrities along with Mahossier?”

  Servières turned back. The sound of the engine grew steadily, but it was still a good distance off.

  “People don’t care much about an American, or a writer. His books aren’t translated into French either. His wife is something to look at, though. And there was some scandal there. They married when she was barely eighteen, a girl. He left his wife for her too. But she’s learned to carry herself like a much older woman.”

  “So you wouldn’t think that he would kill his father-in-law?”

  “No, I wouldn’t think it. But what does that mean?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Exactly.”

  Pelleter was beginning to like Servières a little. His stunt the night before was just the kind of thing Pelleter would have tried if it served his purpose.

  “I understand why you have to look at Rosenkrantz, but I wouldn’t expect too much of him. He makes Fournier look like a society man, except when he’s on his rare drinking sprees, but then they usually go to the city for that.”

  “When was the last time that happened?”

  “Four, maybe five months ago.”

  The engine was loud enough now that Pelleter looked back to see how close it was. He started to get over to the side by Martin.

  “Won’t you give me one quote,” Servières begged, “about Mahossier? People out here were indignant, but they really can’t imagine what it must have been like to find those cages and the pit.”

  “And the boy still alive,” Pelleter said.

  “Yes. And that.” But Servières seemed unable to actually say boy or child.

  “When Mahossier was brought here, my mother wouldn’t let me out of the house for a week,” Martin said beside Pelleter. “And I was thirteen!”

  The headlights resolved and it was a truck that was almost on them.

  “Wait a second,” Martin said.

  Servières at the last moment decided to jump and join them on their side of the road, a shadow dancing across the headlights.

  “Do you think Mahossier...” Martin said, upset.

  “There are two boys missing,” Servières said.

  “We should go back,” Martin said. “Perhaps Chief Letreau didn’t think to check the prison.”

  The truck pulled to a stop beside them, and the man in the driver’s seat rolled down his window. There were two other men beside him, although their faces could not be seen.

  “You find anything out this way?”

  “No, Jean,” Martin started, “but—”

  Pelleter gripped Martin’s shoulder, cutting the young man off. He glanced at Servières, but there was no need to worry there. Servières understood how information could be used to stir up the public and the value of releasing that information at just the right moment.

  “They haven’t found anything back in town either. I offered to drive out a good ways to extend the search, and some other people were going to drive out on the highway too.”

  “We’ll cover the next few hundred yards,” Pelleter said. “You go on.”

  “We’re not going to find anything at night anyway,” one of the other men said from the darkness of the truck.

  “Madame Perreaux is hysterical,” Jean said. “I heard they gave her something to calm her down, but Letreau promised that we would search all night if we had to.”

  Martin said, “Thanks, Jean,” as though he had the power to thank the men on behalf of the Verargent gendarmes.

  Jean nodded, and began to roll up his window, bobbing in his seat with the activity even as he released the clutch and let the truck begin to roll forward.

  When the taillights were a good deal ahead of them, Pelleter said, “I saw Mahossier at the prison myself this morning. He’s not involved in this.”

  “But two boys missing and just when we found that a prisoner had gotten out of Malniveau—”

  “That’s not what this is,” Pelleter barked.

  Martin closed his mouth, and looked away.

  It was hard to tell in the light from the moon, but Servières looked pale.

  “That’s not what this is,” Pelleter said again. But he had been thinking the same thing from the moment he heard the boys were missing. For two young boys to go missing with Mahossier close by...

  Pelleter took control again. “Let’s finish this. I’ll take that side this time, Monsieur Servières. You join young Martin here. We don’t have far to go.”

  He pointed. The red taillights of the truck were small, but still visible in the distance. They had only to cover the ground that would not be covered by the men in the truck.

  They spread out and began to pace along slowly without speaking. The distant sound of voices would sometimes reach them when the wind blew, but the words were indecipherable. The movement of the grass was like the sound of a poorly tuned wireless.

  The more they looked, the more Pelleter felt like the man in the truck, that they would find nothing at night.

  Across the road, Martin and Servières began to talk in quiet tones that did not reach the chief inspector. He may have heard the name Mahossier, or it might have still been weighing on his mind.

  Georges and Albert Perreaux. They had never determined the name of the boy they had found in the cage in Mahossier’s basement.

  A sudden gust of wind cut them hard, the grass yelling in anger. The tension in Pelleter’s neck and shoulders from the cold pained him. It was time to turn back.

  They continued forward.

  Servières laughed, and Martin then joined him.

  Pelleter shivered. If Mahossier was involved, the boys wouldn’t be out here somewhere, they would be in town in a basement. He had searched the one basement, but all of the others had been locked. They would have to be opened.

  Pelleter thought of the cages...small prisons...

  “Servières,” Pelleter called.

  It silenced the two men’s laughter, and they stopped to face the chief inspector.

  “You want a quote about Mahossier?”

  Servières’ face turned somber then. He slapped his chest to feel for his pad.

  The chief inspector spoke before he had found it.

  “It was a horror.”

  7.

  Visiting Hours

  The morning found Verargent soaked in sunlight, but Pelleter could tell even from his hotel room that there was a nip still in the air by the way the people in the square walked with their hands in their pockets and their elbows pulled tight to their bodies.

  Pelleter left the hotel still pulling on his overcoat, a troubled expression across his brow. He shoved his hands in his pockets against the chill, and found a wad of folded paper there. He pulled it out. It was the newspaper Servières had pushed on him the night before.

  ESCAPED CONVICT MURDERED IN THE STREET

  After last night’s unsuccessful manhunt, this seemed like old news. But it was big news for a town like Verargent, and the Vérité had treated it accordingly, devoting the entire front page and most of page two and three to the article. The byline was Philippe Servières.

  It was all speculation, although none of the facts were incorrect. They had interviewed the baker. They had Meranger’s name and history. They mentioned the Rosenkrantzes by name, although they didn’t yet have Clotilde’s disappearance. Pelleter figured the paper could expect to hear from an irate Monsieur Rosenkrantz today anyway. Otherwise there was nothing new.

  There were also public opinions, and a brief history that recounted the three previous escape attempts from Malniveau much as they had been described to Pelleter the first day of the investigation.

  Pelleter refolded the paper and stuffed it back into his pocket. He didn’t see how it would affect his investigation one way or t
he other, but he still didn’t like it. Newspapermen were just sensationalist leeches.

  There was a tired group of men standing outside of police headquarters, smoking cigarettes in silence. This was what was left of the volunteer search party, men who could put off their day’s work or had no work to go to.

  Pelleter went inside. The entire Verargent police department was there behind the desk that divided the public space from the department offices. Officer Martin tried to catch Pelleter’s eye, but Pelleter ignored him, intent on Letreau’s office.

  Letreau was squatting before a tearful woman who Pelleter recognized as the woman that had been waiting the day before as he left to investigate the coffins in the field. Madame Perreaux, no doubt. Had that been just yesterday? There was too much happening too fast without enough answers.

  Pelleter lit a cigar, and leaned in a corner beside a filing cabinet without a word.

  “We will find them no matter what,” Letreau was saying, as the woman shook her head back and forth, back and forth. “We will find them, but you need to let me give my men orders.”

  Madame Perreaux shook her head again. She was hysterical.

  Letreau came to the same conclusion, and stood with the woman still shaking her head, tears pouring down her face. He looked over at Pelleter with grave eyes, and then took a step towards the door.

  Pelleter met him in the doorway, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “You must search the basements.”

  “What basements?”

  “All of the basements.”

  “I was going to do another concentric circle search based from the Perreaux farm. If that was where they were heading from the sweet shop and they got lost, it’s most likely they’re out there.”

  Pelleter nodded. He could not argue with that. As he had told Martin and Servières the night before, Mahossier was in prison; he most likely had nothing to do with this. Still, the basements needed to be checked.

  “Then assign only two or three officers to check the basements. Whatever you can spare.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  Pelleter looked back at Madame Perreaux, who was still bawling, twisting a handkerchief in her lap. He pulled Letreau out of the office.

  “If they got lost, you’re right, they’re probably somewhere close to home. But if they got taken...”

  “You think this is a kidnapping?”

  “I think we need to search everywhere.”

  “Fine. You can have four men. I’m going to organize the rest.”

  Pelleter shook his head. “I’m going to Malniveau.”

  Letreau lost his cool then, puffing out his cheeks. “Pelleter, I have six dead prisoners in my jurisdiction and two missing children! I’ve said it before, I appreciate your help, but I’m not sure I see how you’re helping.”

  Pelleter ignored this outburst. “I’ll take a taxi to the prison. Search the basements.”

  Letreau’s cheeks puffed out again, and his eyes blazed.

  Pelleter said nothing. Letreau had a tendency to get overwhelmed, but in the end he was a good policeman. He would do what Pelleter had suggested, because he knew that Pelleter might be right.

  The chief inspector pushed his way back through the officers towards the front door. As he did, he heard Letreau begin to give orders behind him.

  Verargent’s sole taxi sat parked outside the café across the square. As Pelleter reached for the rear door handle, the driver came out of the café straightening his paperboy hat.

  “Malniveau Prison.”

  Pelleter settled in to the backseat relieved that the driver was one of the astute drivers rarely found in provincial towns, who knew when his fare preferred silence to small talk.

  He pulled out his oilskin notebook, and added the details he had been too tired to add the night before.

  His notes ended:

  Thursday morning another prisoner is knifed at the prison... Nobody can agree on the number of prisoners stabbed or killed in the last month.

  He corrected himself so that the entry read, Thursday, April 6, approx. 10 AM. It wouldn’t do to be imprecise. With so many happenings, it would be important to know exactly when everything took place. He continued:

  Approx. 1 PM—Coffin uncovered in field halfway between Malniveau Prison and Verargent. Further investigation reveals a total of five coffins containing murdered prisoners.

  The chief inspector looked out the window at the passing landscape. It was so uniform that it was incredible to him that whoever had buried the bodies had been able to locate the same burial ground each time, since he was convinced that the bodies had been buried on five separate occasions. He would know for sure when the medical examiner had examined the corpses.

  Tuesday, April 4, Approx 5 PM—Georges Perreaux (six years old) and Albert Perreaux (five years old) go missing. Last seen at Monsieur Marque’s sweet shop.

  Letreau had interviewed Monsieur Marque himself. He assured Pelleter that Monsieur Marque was in no way involved with the children’s disappearance. And why would he be? In a small town like Verargent the owner of the candy store could not afford to have a bad reputation with regards to children.

  Pelleter turned back to his earlier entries, and tried to fit in the margin beside the entry on Madame Rosenkrantz’s visit to the hotel,

  Last time Madame Rosenkrantz is seen.

  He did the same for the warden beside the entry on Mahossier’s claim that prisoners were being systematically murdered.

  He looked at what he had written, and he felt the anger well up in him again. It was time to take the offensive. There was too much going on, and up until now they had been reacting. Events happened and they tried to keep up. Even the manhunt the night before was a reaction. But today, at least, he would find out what Mahossier knew.

  To calm himself he started at the beginning and reviewed everything so far, but it didn’t help. He knew what had happened in many instances, but he did not know why or how, and therefore he did not know who. He knew nothing.

  The prison loomed before them. The taxi drove up to the gate, and Pelleter got out, instructing the driver to return in two hours and to wait if he was not yet ready. The chief inspector showed his documents to the guard at the outer gate, crossed the space where several cars were parked, moss and wild grass growing in places from between the cobbles, and then he showed his documents again at the inner door, where he was admitted to the prison.

  “I hear there was more excitement in town last night,” Remy said.

  “Any excitement out here?”

  “Oh, it’s always exciting here.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Pelleter passed in to the administrative offices. The young woman at the first desk took one look at him and reached for the phone. She was a plain girl who would have been prettier if she had had the conviction to either cut her hair shorter or to grow it longer. Instead she had settled on an awkward style that paid homage to a bob without being one.

  She whispered into the receiver with her head bowed, blocking her mouth with the closed fist of her free hand.

  There was a kind of lethargy in the rest of the office that came perhaps from some of the men having been involved in the search the night before, but Pelleter had spent enough time in police stations, courts, and prisons to know that the usual situation in those places was of utter boredom.

  He saw a desk towards the back of the room stacked with files. This, no doubt, was Officer Martin’s workspace. The prison workers had been unsure if they were allowed to clean it up yet. Pelleter made a mental note to get Officer Martin back out here as soon as possible. Even if he found nothing, it was better to have someone on hand.

  The young woman replaced the receiver of the phone, and sat up rod straight as though the phone cradle were a switch attached to her spine. She looked up at the chief inspector with pursed lips, took a breath, and said, “Monsieur Fournier is otherwise engaged at the moment, and does not know when he wi
ll be available to assist you. He suggests that you come back another time.”

  She waited then, as if to see if she had passed some recitation exam.

  Pelleter could not help but smile, and the girl slumped a little sensing that she had failed.

  “That’s fine,” the chief inspector said. “I wasn’t here to see Monsieur Fournier anyway. I can just show myself around,” and he began to turn back to the door.

  “But...”

  “No need to bother,” Pelleter continued in his light tone. He pointed at the door. “I’m on my way to the infirmary. I know the way.”

  The young woman looked around at her colleagues, imploring for help. They were paying attention now, but only with surreptitious glances that relieved them of any responsibility.

  As Pelleter pushed open the office door, the young woman stood up behind her desk but did not move. He turned back. “You could do me one favor,” he said as though it were an afterthought. “I’ll need to see Mahossier again. Please have him brought down.”

  The woman’s shoulders sank, but Pelleter did not wait for an answer. As he stepped back into the entry hall, he could only just see one of the other men stand behind her.

  “Open this door for me, Remy. I’m going to the infirmary.” Pelleter tried to remember if there was another locked door between this one and the infirmary, but he thought it best to keep moving and worry about it when the time came. If the young woman had recovered herself, she no doubt was on the phone to Fournier once again, and it was only a matter of a few minutes before the assistant warden made an appearance.

  As Remy unlocked the inner door, Pelleter said, “Could you be sure that they’re bringing Mahossier down to the interrogation room for me as well. There seemed to be some confusion about that in the office.”

  “I’m sure there was,” Remy said, smiling. “There needs to be a paper for everything, and god forbid if you miss one little paper.” Remy pulled open the door, stepping aside to allow the chief inspector to pass.

  Just as he was about to step into the hall, the office door jerked open and one of the clerks appeared. He pulled himself up short in an attempt to regain some composure, and then he said, “Right this way, Monsieur Pelleter.”