The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery

by R. W. Wallace

  Louis was taking advantage of Marie-Pierre’s attention being riveted on the back of the room. He crossed to the other side of the doorway and set light to the second fuse. Crouched down, he moved in Marie-Pierre’s wake.

  Marie-Pierre advanced on Catherine. In addition to her flashlight in her left hand, she had a foot-long baton in her right. “You’re going to regret this,” she hissed. “I may have to live with a Belle Paule in agony again, but it will be worth it to see your suffering every day.” She pointed to the sarcophagus. “Get in or I’ll knock you down and beat you into submission.”

  Louis thought of the second display, which Marie-Pierre hadn’t seen yet. La Belle Paule. Of course that’s what the scene was. La Belle Paule at her balcony, admired by the crowd. He couldn’t help but agree with Marie-Pierre in her choice; Catherine looked just like the famous beauty.

  The second mound of brains caught fire in the Belle Paule display. Again it silhouetted perfectly the massacre. Marie-Pierre’s flashlight turned toward it as the detonation sounded. She started screaming at Catherine, but Louis didn’t hear the words. His entire world focused on getting to the madwoman before she saw him. He sprinted toward her, crouching low and aiming for her waist. Rugby-lessons from school came back to him and he went in with his shoulder first, bracing both arms around the woman’s waist, and pushed using his legs with all his might once he was on her.

  They both crashed into the central pillar. Louis heard the air go out of Marie-Pierre’s lungs and her flashlight fell to the floor blinding him. “Catherine, get out and go to the left!” he yelled as he scrambled on top of Marie-Pierre in search of her pockets. He found the baton first and grabbed it with his left hand. His other hand located the keys.

  Marie-Pierre stirred. She must have hit her head when they collided with the pillar, but it wasn’t enough to keep her down for long. Rising up on his feet, Louis landed a blow with the baton. Louis was right-handed and his hands were slippery with gooey brain-matter, so he only landed a glancing blow on her head, then the baton slipped from his hand. It was enough for her to go immobile again, so Louis ran after Catherine and out the door.

  Thirty-Seven

  Catherine stood behind Louis on the stairs, shaking from exhaustion and fear. She kept imagining what that scene would have been like had Louis not been there. She wouldn’t have stood a chance against Carrie and would probably be buried in mud in a stone sarcophagus right now. “Will you hurry up?” she whispered.

  “I’m working on it,” Louis said. “There are a lot of keys here.” They jangled as he tried another one. The sound of it slipping into the lock, then the click of the lock turning, was the most beautiful thing Catherine had ever heard.

  Light flooded through the open door and they rushed out. Louis went straight for the front door while Catherine shuffled after him, becoming more and more conscious of the cuts and bruises on her feet. The front door was locked. Louis looked around the handle, along all the sides— “There’s no lock on this door.” He stepped up to a small box a hand’s breadth to the left of the sturdy door. “It opens with a code.” He hung his head.

  “I’ll try the windows,” Catherine said. She moved through the living room, kitchen, and something that could qualify as a home office. All the windows had locks, which she could try to open with the keys Louis had taken, but it wouldn’t do them much good. Metal bars covered all of them.

  As she exited the small office, she spotted a familiar bag on the floor. Her clothes lay in pile on the other side of her gym bag. She didn’t take the time to dress completely, but pulled on her sweat-pants, feeling infinitely more secure with more than just a thin shirt to cover her up. She also grabbed the can of pepper spray from her bag, sincerely hoping she wouldn’t need it.

  When she came back to the hallway, Louis had one phone in each hand: his own smart phone and the house’s landline. He looked up when Catherine approached. “I’m calling the police. Then we’ll try the upstairs windows. Maybe there are balconies or something.”

  Catherine watched as he dialed 17 on both phones. The landline he left on the table; his own phone he brought to his ear. “In theory, the police should come if they get a call without anybody talking,” he explained. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” he said in classic polite French fashion. “My name is Louis Saint-Blancat and I need you to come to number fourteen—”

  The door to the cellar shot open.

  How did she do that? He locked the door and left the key in the lock!

  Carrie came out, cheeks flaring as red as her highlights. “Stop talking,” she said to Louis as she pointed a pistol at him.

  Louis held the phone away from his head.

  “Hang up. And put it on the floor.”

  Louis complied. Standing right behind him, Catherine wasn’t directly in Carrie’s sight. She brought her hand under Maxime’s shirt and slipped the can of pepper spray into the lining of her pants. She hoped they were tight enough so the thing wouldn’t clank to the floor.

  Catherine studied the gun. Why hadn’t she brought that when she came looking for them in the crypt? Catherine didn’t know anything about guns, but it didn’t look like the stuff used in modern action movies. It made her think of old war movies with its dark brown handle and long, thin tube pointed in their direction.

  Louis must have looked at the gun too, for Carrie got defensive. “It’s a Luger from World War II. I’m not the only one who’s been digging under the streets of Toulouse in the last century.” She narrowed her eyes at them. “Don’t worry, though, it fires just fine.” She stepped away from the door to leave the passage clear. “Now down you both go.”

  Louis stepped aside to let Catherine go ahead of him. At first, she didn’t find that very chivalrous, but soon realized this meant he would be the one in the line of fire when Carrie came down behind them with the collector gun. Before she reached the bottom of the stairs, Catherine took the chance to lift the rim of her shirt enough for Louis to see the pepper spray in the lining of her pants. He might not even recognize what it was, but she hoped he understood that she would try to use it and back her up.

  They went back down into the red brick cellar.

  Thirty-Eight

  At the bottom of the stairs, Catherine took a step to the right, ending up in front of an old moss-green couch. Across the cellar, a curtain was drawn partially over a hole dug into the wall. She hadn’t noticed that when they ran through earlier. A couple sat in each other’s arms, apparently asleep. There was something wrong with them, though. Even asleep, there should have been some movement from dreaming or breathing.

  They were yet another tableau, like in the crypt. This one was more…peaceful, though, if such a thing could be said of what had been done to their bodies.

  “Are you really planning to get us back to that crypt, Marie-Pierre?” Louis asked as he turned to face their captor.

  “You think I should let you go now, Louis?” Carrie sneered. “You’ve destroyed my life’s work, but I’m a patient woman. I’ll start over. And I already have my Belle Paule.” She glanced at Catherine. Cocking her head, her lips lifted into a sneer. “And you’d probably make an excellent Capitoul.”

  Catherine thought Louis kept admirably calm. “Don’t you realize you’re not going to get away with this, Marie-Pierre? By killing us, you’re only making things worse for yourself.”

  “You’re no better than your father,” the woman practically spit out. “You can’t recognize a vision of grandeur even when it’s standing right in front of you.”

  Louis’s jaw was working furiously, but he managed to reply. “Congratulations, Marie-Pierre. I believe that’s the first time in a very long time that I’ve been proud of being compared to my father.” After a few seconds, he added. “What happened to him, anyway?”

  Carrie actually rolled her eyes. “That was all Bernard’s fault.”

  Louis let out a surprised huff. “Bernard Gallego? He’s in on this too?”

  “Bernard has a personal
interest in this project and was able to grasp the genius of it. Unfortunately, when Pierre was here, the discussion got a little out of hand and, in a moment of panic, Bernard hit him over the head with a vase. There wasn’t much we could do after that, so we gave him a double dose of sedatives.”

  Mouth dry, Catherine whispered, “Like you just did to Maxime.”

  The woman’s only acknowledgment of the recent murder was a glance in Catherine’s direction.

  To keep her mind off the memory of her ex-husband amidst a heap of rotting bodies, Catherine asked, “Why did you send me those pictures at work?”

  The woman still held her gun steadily pointed at Louis, but she was clearly warming up to the discussion. A satisfied gleam lit up her eyes. “We had a situation on our hands and had to make the best of it. We already discussed various possibilities for creating a buzz around our work. With the body of La Belle Paule needing to be changed and the mayor being so unreceptive to our work and effort, we decided to set the both of them up on place du Capitole. We knew La Belle Paule’s body wouldn’t stay intact for long outside, so I took the pictures from a window at the Capitole before she turned to dust.”

  Louis intervened. “What did all those people do to deserve this, Marie-Pierre? I understand Geraldine Hérault, but what about the others? And why did you take them for their birthdays?”

  “They were all responsible for neglecting someone close to them.” Carrie’s eyes were hard as she stared at Louis. “They didn’t deserve to live, nor to have others celebrate them.”

  Louis’s brow furrowed. “But with that logic, shouldn’t you also be part of your own experiment? Wasn’t your neglect in great part responsible for your parents’ deaths?”

  Carrie was done talking. She motioned toward the back of the cellar with the gun and said curtly, “Get moving, Saint-Blancat.”

  This was her chance. Catherine brought the pepper spray bottle up right next to the woman’s face and firmly pressed the button. There was a short lapse before it started spraying, but that actually played to Catherine’s advantage as her victim then had the time to turn her face into the spray.

  “Arrrh!” their captor screamed. “You bitch!” She pointed the gun in Catherine’s direction, but the woman couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were closed and she brought her free hand up to cover them. “I’m going to kill you,” she promised.

  That’s nothing new, Catherine thought. You’ve been trying to kill me since last night.

  Catherine had not let go of the button on the pepper spray despite moving around the woman to avoid the gun. Now it clicked empty, all of its content presently in Carrie’s face. Catherine threw it away.

  “Give up the gun, Marie-Pierre,” Louis said, his voice so strong and confident that, for a moment, Catherine thought his father was back from the dead. This certainly would be the place for it.

  Carrie didn’t want to give up anything. Eyes closed and tears running, she must have localized Louis with her ears alone. The gun swung around to point directly at him.

  She pulled the trigger.

  “No!” Catherine screamed and threw herself onto the woman’s back.

  Marie-Pierre yelped.

  Catherine looked over the woman’s shoulder—still clinging on as if she would make a difference to or fro in this fight—to see the old gun blown to bits. Marie-Pierre’s hand was black and bleeding from the juncture between thumb and forefinger. Catherine stared up at Louis.

  He was still alive. Eyes so wide the entirety of his irises were visible and then some, he held his arms out from his sides and looked down at himself. Catherine looked too. He was uninjured.

  With a scream of his own, Louis threw himself into the fight. Between the two of them, they were more powerful than Carrie and the whole group scrambled backward. Louis, it seemed, was having something of an adrenaline rush from his near brush with death by ancient pistol. When they hit the far wall, Catherine slid off the woman’s back, down to the floor. Louis had a death grip on their captor and shoved her farther and farther. They ended up in the niche with the two bodies—this close, Catherine could confirm they were dead—and Marie-Pierre was being shoved face first in with them.

  Catherine didn’t know what Louis intended to do, but given the rage of his constant scream, neither did he. So long as he kept the upper hand, she left him to it.

  Carrie’s body went limp. Louis kept screaming and pushing like a six-year-old finally getting his hands on his enemy, but not knowing what to do with him except push.

  Catherine tapped him on the shoulder. He stopped screaming. Stopped pushing.

  “Mon Dieu,” he whispered. He held his hands up as if in surrender and took two steps back.

  The woman stayed where she was, unmoving.

  Once Louis was out of the way, arms still in the air, Catherine took a step closer to the niche. Carrie had been pushed so far back her head and upper torso were farther in than the two bodies. What hadn’t been immediately apparent from farther away was the broken wine bottles covered in dirt at the back. One of them had cut into the woman’s neck. Judging by the quantity of blood now flowing to the floor, it must have cut her jugular.

  Louis, staring wide-eyed at his handiwork, was of no use. Before she could lose her nerve, Catherine leaned forward and patted the woman’s pockets. Nothing. A quick search of her trousers gave the same result.

  Catherine turned to Louis. “There are no keys.”

  ***

  0 - 4 - 5 - 5. Louis had started at 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 on the assumption that four digits were needed and he’d work his way through the combinations. The keys they used earlier were still on the other side of the door, but Marie-Pierre wouldn’t have shut herself down there with no way out, so they had gone up the stairs to study the exit. And sure enough, high up on the wall, they found a box similar to the one on the front door: a digi-code to unlock. That explained how Marie-Pierre had unlocked it earlier.

  “We’re losing too much time,” Catherine complained. “We have to go back to get Maxime.”

  Louis glanced back at her. “Why? Where is he?”

  “He’s back down there. I think she killed him like she killed your father. But perhaps it’s not too late. We have to go find him.” Her voice was much higher than usual and she spoke fast. She was clearly freaking out.

  Louis didn’t know what to do about it except try his best to get them out of there. “Maxime was in the crypt?” He sincerely hoped he hadn’t kicked the man’s head in to use his brain for tinder. Doing it to strangers was bad enough, but he’d talked to Catherine’s ex-husband only days ago. Louis rubbed his free hand on his thigh trying to remove the stickiness of brains.

  A sob escaped Catherine. “No, farther down the tunnels. In a room full of dead people.”

  Louis shook his head. “I think we should try to get out this way first. Then we can go back and look for him later. Our priority right now should be to get hold of the police and make sure we don’t die down here as well.” Louis didn’t add that if the man was already dead, there wasn’t much they could do for him.

  Thankfully, Catherine seemed to accept his authority. “Who were those dead bodies down there?”

  “Her parents.” Louis recounted Marie-Pierre’s story.

  “Oh. If she hadn’t killed so many people because of it, I’d have felt sorry for her,” was the reply.

  Louis let his right hand fall to his side to rest and continued typing digits with his left. The box was high up on the wall, not intended to be punched at for more than a few seconds. “At least now her parents can have a decent burial.”

  Catherine covered her face with her hands. “God, I’m going to have to arrange for Maxime’s burial. And tell his mother.”

  “Mm.” Louis tried to sound supportive, but his own mind was occupied with a different subject. He’d killed someone. He’d felt the moment when Marie-Pierre stopped fighting back. His mind refused to accept what that meant, so he’d kept pushing until Catherine interrupted h
im. A small part of his brain worried about the repercussions this could have on his life. Would he go to jail? Would people look at him differently knowing he was a killer? What would his mother say when she discovered he’d killed her friend?

  To avoid thinking about Marie-Pierre, Louis launched a new discussion. “I just realized there’s another point where I agree with my father. Cremation sounds like the perfect solution. No tourist attraction, no using your brains for fuel. And there’s room for everyone.”

  “Room?” Catherine sounded surprised.

  “Yeah,” Louis replied as he entered another digit. “Doesn’t your family have a plot in a cemetery somewhere?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s bound to fill up one day, isn’t it? In our plot, if my parents hadn’t both opted for cremation, the whole thing would be full by the time my sister or me died. I don’t even know what we’d be supposed to do then.” Louis imagined battling with such issues if his sister died before him. “Make sure to die first, I guess.”

  “That’s optimistic.”

  “The situation calls for it.” Louis changed arms again. God, it was tiring holding a hand over his head for so long.

  After a pause, Catherine asked, “She really thought people would want this as an alternative to burial or cremation? I don’t see how visiting the dead body of your loved ones on a regular basis could do anyone any good.”

  “I agree,” Louis said. He was up to 0 - 6 - 8 - 9. “And I think Marie-Pierre is the proof of that. She had her parents down here for thirty years.”

  Louis thought about his father. “My father had his own wake and funeral all planned out. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to make any of the decisions, but I know my sister wasn’t happy with the cremation. She said she couldn’t talk to a heap of ashes.”

  “I don’t see the difference with talking to a rotting body,” Catherine replied.

  “The funeral and everything is for the people left behind, anyway, isn’t it?” Louis mused. “The dead don’t care.”