The Twenty-Year Death

by Ariel S. Winter

  Pelleter looked ahead, and then he steered Madame Rosenkrantz back the way they had come.

  The back hallway was empty still. The radio was off.

  “What is it?” Madame Rosenkrantz said, awakening somewhat from her mourning stupor.

  “Nothing yet.”

  Pelleter stood in the center of the hall, holding tight to Madame Rosenkrantz’s arm and thinking. He pushed her up against the wall shared with the ward, and he went back to the morgue doorway.

  He opened the door, but the room was as they had left it, storing the dead.

  He returned to Madame Rosenkrantz and took her arm again, steering her down the hall as though she were luggage. She had to take small hurried steps to match his long strides, but she didn’t complain and didn’t ask questions.

  They passed through a windowless door at the end of the hall, and found themselves in an alley beside the building.

  There was a man at the end of the alley, a large silhouette peering around the side of the building watching the front entrance. He turned at the sound of them, startled to find them behind him, and then he ran out into the street, disappearing from view.

  Pelleter pushed Madame Rosenkrantz back into the hospital, saying sharply, “Wait here,” and he ran down the alley after the man.

  The chief inspector reached the street just in time to see his quarry turn down one of the side streets that would lead him back into a series of uneven small passageways where houses had been built with no regard for keeping a thoroughfare.

  The chief inspector darted after him. The blood was rushing up his arms and into his chest, constricting his airway. His heart beat dangerously in his head. He had not seen the man’s face, but he had seen the man’s size. He was a hulk.

  The side street the man had taken was little more than an alley itself, and unlit. The crisp spring Verargent night was bright, but little of the light from the sky found its way down to these twisted cobble passages.

  Pelleter plunged forward, almost twisting his ankle on one of the cobblestones, running after nothing, since there was nothing visible ahead of him.

  He passed other openings, any one of which his man could have taken, and so he slowed his pace, trying to hear the other man’s footsteps over his own labored breathing. Running through back alleys was a young man’s work. Pelleter was no longer young.

  He stopped, but heard nothing but his own body’s protest.

  An oval ceramic tile screwed into the side of one of the buildings read “Rue Victor Hugo.” The provincialism of this almost made him laugh. To have a Rue Victor Hugo had apparently been deemed necessary, but that Verargent had settled on this back alley for the designation was small town politics in its most essential form.

  He waited another moment, straining for some sign, and then he turned back.

  As he did a large form materialized out of one of the doorways and brought both hands down on the back of the chief inspector’s neck, dropping Pelleter to his knees. A sharp jolt of pain shot from his kneecaps into his stomach, which threatened to empty itself.

  The man swung again, still a two-fisted blow, this one landing across the chief inspector’s cheek, unbalancing the downed man, who fell to the ground.

  Dazed, the chief inspector tried to look up at his attacker, but there was not enough light. The man pulled back, preparing to kick Pelleter in the ribs, and the chief inspector instinctively put his arms around his head, pulling his body into a ball.

  The blow did not come.

  Footsteps echoed and were soon beyond hearing.

  The chief inspector rolled onto his back, looking up at the lighter patch of sky between the buildings. He took deep breaths, trying to control his breathing, to steady his heart rate.

  He looked at his surroundings to distract himself from the pain. All of the windows were shuttered for the night. No one had seen the attack. The ceramic street marker caught a glint of light from somewhere, winking at Pelleter on the ground. Wink, wink. Wink, wink.

  It was not the first time he had been beaten, but it had been a long time, many years, and he had forgotten what kinds of little details got imprinted on the mind in such moments. The winking Rue Victor Hugo! There was one in every town!

  When his body had recovered enough to let him feel the throbbing ache stemming from the top of his spine, and the sharp pain radiating from his cheekbone, Pelleter pulled himself up to a standing position, leaning one hand against the wall beside him.

  His body had to accommodate the pain to his upright position, sending a shiver over Pelleter’s frame. He was thankful that his attacker held off that final kick. The man could have gotten away without any confrontation. But a panicked man too often made bad decisions. Once he struck he must have come to his senses.

  Who had Pelleter angered? Or maybe the right question was, who had he scared? The lineup at the prison had clearly worried someone, if he was being followed and attacked. But too many of the guards could be described as large men for Pelleter’s shadowy impression of his assailant to be any help at identification. Pelleter had thought he was close, at least to identifying the people who knew most of the answers, but there must be some piece that he was missing.

  He took his hand away from the wall, testing his weight on his feet, and rolled his head to one side, wincing with the movement. He started back the way he had come, towards the hospital.

  The nurse behind the front desk stood as he came in. Half of the lights in the building had been doused, creating the cavernous feel of a public institution at night.

  “I’ll get the resident physician,” she said, her weight already shifting, ready.

  “No,” the chief inspector said. “I’m fine.”

  Madame Rosenkrantz was sitting in one of the chairs along the wall of the main entry hall, her lost blank expression back on her face. She looked up at Pelleter as he came in, but she made no comment about the bruise he could already feel welling up on his face. When he held out his hand, she stood up, and walked past him out the front entrance.

  The nurse, still standing, watched them go, shaking her head, but whether in disapproval or disbelief, it could not be said.

  Outside, Madame Rosenkrantz did not speak, nor did she ask where they were going. He took her by the arm and led her back to the center of town where a single car was crossing the square, and then out to the Rosenkrantz home.

  In front of the gate to her house, she stopped, resisting, and he at last let go of her elbow.

  She looked at him, and there was some color in her cheeks from the walk. Her eyes seemed more focused, but the pain was still written across her face. “Will this ever stop?” she said.

  “You should be safe now,” he said.

  She shook her head. That was not what she had meant.

  He nodded. “It’ll stop.” But his neck ached, and he did not know.

  “I guess I thought he’d always be there for me if I really needed him.”

  “Have you needed him?” Pelleter said.

  “No.”

  “Go home to your husband.”

  She put her hand on the gate, and Pelleter turned away, heading back into town without watching whether or not she really went home. When he was a few steps away, he heard the gate close behind him.

  He ate dinner alone at the hotel, and he called his wife before going to bed just to say good night.

  In the morning, Pelleter was in high spirits, even with the soreness from the previous night’s adventure. When he had come to Verargent, it had been to receive the testimony of an already incarcerated prisoner, no more than a day trip. Five days later, there were six dead bodies—seven, if he was not mistaken—at least one other murder attempt, and a building full of suspects. But today, Sunday, he was certain that he would have the answers to his questions, and that he could go home.

  In the hotel lobby, he found Officer Martin sleeping in the lion’s-footed armchair Fournier had waited in Friday night. Martin was dressed in the same uniform he had worn yest
erday, now thoroughly wrinkled, and a day’s growth of beard covered his face. He had a number of files clutched to his chest, his arms crossed over them.

  Pelleter called to the boy behind the counter, somebody he had never seen before, “How long has he been here?”

  “I come on at seven and he was here then.”

  It was only a little before eight now. The first train from the city came into Verargent at nine-forty, and Pelleter wanted to be there when Lambert arrived with his prisoner.

  He hated to wake Martin if the man had been working most of the night, but there was nothing to be done about it. Besides, Letreau wouldn’t want one of his men to be seen with his mouth hanging open in the hotel lobby. He reached out and touched the young man’s shoulder.

  Martin started, grimaced, and looked around without moving his head, a quizzical expression on his face. “Inspector,” he said, stretching in the seat, and then sitting upright, letting his burden of files down into his lap. He rubbed a hand across his face, and then became aware of the fact that he was being observed by a superior officer. His eyes went wide, and he prepared to stand.

  “Inspector, I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep. I wanted to be sure to get you these.”

  He started to sort through the files on his lap.

  “It’s okay,” Pelleter said, amused at the young man’s enthusiasm. It seemed to contribute to the upbeat temper at the end of a case. “Take your time. No need to stand. What time did you get in?”

  “Maybe five. What time is it now?”

  “Eight.”

  Martin had the files in order now, and he looked up at the chief inspector. His eyes went wide for a second time at the sight of Pelleter’s battered face. “What happened?”

  “Apparently somebody thinks we’re too close to finished. Once you show me those files, I have a feeling we might know who.”

  Martin handed three of them up to Pelleter. They were thick files with years of paperwork on uneven paper of various colors, the oldest sheets an almost amber-brown.

  Pelleter opened the first one. It was Passemier’s, the guard who had had nothing to say. He had been a large man. It was possible that he had been Pelleter’s attacker, but he had seemed too certain of his invincibility. “Fournier let you take these out of the prison?”

  Martin went slightly red. “Fournier wasn’t there, and I thought nobody would mind...”

  Pelleter opened the second file, which was the warden’s. It showed that his service had begun in 1899, the same as Passemier, on cell block D. While Pelleter looked, Martin talked:

  “You were right, as you can see. Those three men all started as guards at Malniveau within a few years of one another.”

  The third file was for a man named Soldaux. He had started in 1896, also on cell block D. The top of his file had been stamped, “Retired.”

  “And if you look at their detail...”

  “All three worked the same cell block when they started. Does Soldaux still live in town?”

  “Yes.”

  Pelleter smiled and nodded, looking off into the distance. It looked as though he might burst out singing. He would not be surprised at all to find that Soldaux was also a very large man.

  Martin was startled to see the inspector so pleased. He stood then, and handed the inspector the file in his hand, coming around so that he could look at it at the same time as Pelleter.

  “If you look here...Since the files of the murdered prisoners were marked transferred, I got the idea that we should see what a file looked like if a prisoner was murdered and it was marked properly...”

  This was another old file, as full as the others. It was for a prisoner named Renaud Leclerc. He had been sent to Malniveau in 1894 on a conspiracy charge, an anarchist believed responsible for a series of bombings in which several people were injured although no one was killed.

  Martin, excited over his discovery, talked faster than Pelleter could read. “Leclerc was killed two months ago, at least a month before any of the men found in the field. He had no family any longer, so he was buried here in Verargent, which is why we didn’t know about it. The police are only informed if the body has to go out by train.”

  “Good work, my boy,” Pelleter said, still reading through Leclerc’s history. “Good work.”

  Martin beamed, and his broad smile juxtaposed with his shabby appearance was comic. He had the makings of a fine detective.

  Pelleter closed the file, and looked closely into Martin’s face. “Listen to me, we’re nearly finished. This is what I need you to do...Go to Soldaux’s house, and bring him to Town Hall. Stop by the station and get a partner first. He may not want to come with you, and I don’t want him getting away...I have a feeling he’ll be a big man...yes, I’m certain of it...Then the same with Passemier. Again, two men...I have to meet the nine-forty train with Chief Letreau...Do you think you can handle this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Martin waited expectantly for the inspector to say something else, but Pelleter continued to look off into the distance with a smile on his lips.

  “Yes...” the inspector said to himself. His smile broadened. He saw that Martin was still standing next to him. “Go. Go. I want everybody there by ten-thirty at the latest.”

  Martin turned and practically ran out the door. Pelleter wasn’t far behind.

  The weather fit the inspector’s mood, not a trace of the storm from earlier in the week. It looked as though it never rained in Verargent.

  “Inspector,” somebody called as Pelleter turned towards the police station. Officer Martin was already out of sight. “Inspector!”

  It was Servières.

  Pelleter didn’t stop, but instead called behind him, “Come to the station around ten o’clock. You’ll get your story then.”

  Servières surprised at this jovial command, stopped short, and Pelleter hurried on to the police station.

  The Verargent train station was little more than a wide patch of beaten dirt at the side of the track just outside of town. A small wooden enclosure open on two sides had been built at some time to offer protection from the elements, but it had clearly long been a target of vandalism for the Verargent youth. There was a hole through the roof, and every square inch had been carved into more than once.

  Pelleter and Letreau stood under the post that read Verargent outside of the enclosure. The weather was warm, and Pelleter had removed his jacket and held it draped over his arm. He whistled as he looked down the length of railroad track that cut through the countryside.

  Letreau paced, impatient. He appeared less ragged than the day before, but still on edge.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said, not for the first time. He had already asked Pelleter about his injuries and had not been happy that the chief inspector had not given him much of an answer.

  “We’ll know soon enough,” Pelleter said, and resumed whistling.

  “It’s all well and good for you, but I have to live here. We don’t want any problems with the prison. We want to forget that it’s there. I haven’t spent so much time out there in one week in my life.”

  The distant steam of the locomotive could be seen on the horizon.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Now that the train was visible, Letreau stopped, and stood beside Pelleter. Pelleter put his jacket back on, and put his hands in his pockets. He would have liked to smoke a cigar, but he had not had a chance to replenish his supply.

  “You hope to leave tonight?” Letreau said.

  “That’s the plan.”

  “It’ll really be tied up?”

  “You might not have all the answers you want, but I think you’ll have the ones you need.”

  “My wife’ll never forgive you for skipping all those dinners.”

  The tracks began to sing their metallic whine.

  The two policemen stood side by side like immovable objects. The train whistle soun
ded, and the air brakes hissed while the train was still two hundred yards away. The chuff chuff of the wheels slowed, the expanse of metal slowing impossibly, and then the engine stopped just past them, and the escaping hiss of gas marked the train’s arrival in Verargent.

  A round-hatted conductor appeared on the platform of the first car before them, and called, “Verargent,” and then Lambert appeared.

  Pelleter smiled at the sight of his old friend and colleague, but he didn’t take his hands out of his pockets.

  “You are some trouble, aren’t you?” Lambert called, as he stepped down.

  Behind him, a tight, pale face appeared, an older man carrying two large leather cases in front of him.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Letreau said again, a refrain that had long since lost its meaning.

  The older man stepped down as well. The warden of Malniveau Prison was home.

  13.

  Thirty-two Years

  Being escorted home by a national police inspector had made the warden quiet. He looked as though he were in danger of throwing up at any moment.

  His wife, however, had no qualms about laying into Inspector Pelleter.

  “Who do you think you are that you have us taken on a train against our will, and on our vacation, too! My husband is a very important man. You think you can push him around!”

  The warden ignored his wife’s outburst, and headed directly for the police car that was parked just off the side of the road near the train stop.

  Letreau tried to catch Pelleter’s eye, but unable to, he turned to follow the warden.

  “The reason we have an assistant warden is just so that this kind of thing does not happen,” the warden’s wife continued, her cloying perfume sweetening the air. “It’s not a one-man job, certainly not anymore, now that my husband’s not a young man. You take this up with Fournier. We would have been back tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry to have cut your vacation short, madame,” Pelleter said, and he smiled at Lambert behind her back.

  The warden’s wife went to the police car and got in back with her husband.