Dead and Ganache

by Colette London

  You have hair like hers, the chocolatier had said then.

  I’d thought he’d been ham-fistedly flirting with me. Especially once he’d followed up with, Only it is your smile that is the much prettier one. But I’d been horribly wrong.

  “There are things that you do not know about my investigation.” In a firm voice, Mélanie Flamant took charge. “I suggest we share everything, now, before it is too late.”

  Eighteen

  The next several hours were fraught with tension. It didn’t take long for Mélanie to confide in me the rest of what she hadn’t shared—and for me to do the same. We all noshed through our fruit, bread, and cheese picnic as we did. I don’t think any of us tasted it. At that point, it was fuel—something to keep up our energy while we talked about the attack on Mélanie, the things I’d seen at the Fest-Noz, the suspects that Travis and I had compiled, and the research we’d all done.

  From everything she told me, Mélanie had been conducting a thorough investigation. That much was evident, exactly as Travis had assured me. I felt sorry for having doubted her. Seeing her sense of resolve that afternoon, I knew that the investigation into my mentor’s death could not have been in more competent hands. Despite her detractors, Mélanie Flamant was an expert policière—and she had much more information than she’d revealed.

  Unfortunately, though, that information did not include enough proof to arrest Mathieu Camara for Monsieur’s murder. The deadly chocolate chipper, implicating as it might have seemed, had not carried any fingerprints or other forensic evidence.

  “The killer wore gloves,” Mélanie explained ruefully. “It was chilly that night. Such attire would not have been unusual.”

  I silently cursed the Breton weather and wondered aloud about Hubert Bernard, too. His bloody hands still haunted me.

  “He was attempting to help—to remove the weapon,” the policière told Travis and me. “He and Monsieur Vetault were longtime friends. Monsieur Bernard was distraught and drunk. He did not know that it was already too late to do anything. He meant no harm.”

  Then Hubert truly hadn’t remembered finding Philippe’s body, I surmised, recalling my conversation with the château’s gardener when he’d surprised me in the jardin that day. It must have been awful for Hubert to have awakened, miserable and hung over in jail, only to learn that his childhood friend was dead.

  Although Monsieur’s death would have left the way clear for Hubert and Hélène to be together, I mused. But, by all accounts, Philippe hadn’t objected to his wife’s relationship with Monsieur Bernard. My mentor had left them with ownership of the château B&B, after all. If that wasn’t generous, I didn’t know what was.

  Maybe, since Philippe expected to get a big payout from the Vetault-Poyet merger, he’d felt he could afford to be giving.

  “Are you going to arrest Mathieu Camara for attacking you?” I asked Mélanie. “I’d be happy to give a statement. Whatever you need.” Troubled, I examined her bruised face. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It is not your fault. Monsieur Camara is an angry man,” the policière said. “And yes, I will arrest him. But because it is still possible that he is the one who killed M. Vetault, I do not want to be too hasty. I must do everything very carefully.”

  Travis agreed with her. “If you need evidence, we can look for it. If you want help, we’re ready to give it. Anything.”

  The two of them shared an affable look. It wasn’t quite smarty-pants-in-love territory (which I felt relieved about, actually), but it was definitely . . . something. Mutual admiration?

  “See, Hayden? I don’t know why you and Danny are always trying to go it alone.” Travis gave me a scolding look. “The police are ready, willing, and able to help in these cases.”

  Well . . . they hadn’t been in San Francisco. Or in Portland.

  In London, Detective Constable Satya Mishra had been slightly more capable, but I’d still run into serious trouble.

  Travis hadn’t been there. Long-distance assistance wasn’t the same. But I decided to let his misapprehensions slide. If another opportunity ever arose for my financial advisor to help in a homicide-related capacity, then we’d talk frankly about it.

  I still hoped I was finished with murder and mayhem.

  “Thank you.” Mélanie nodded, then began gathering her things. She reclaimed little Fleur by taking the leash from me, too. Our less-than-idyllic picnic was over. “It is necessary that you two return to château Vetault and stay there.” Her gaze transferred to Travis, then softened slightly. “Be careful. I will phone you when the appropriate actions have been taken.”

  Travis nodded—but not me. I couldn’t agree. “We’re supposed to just wait around, then?” I shook my head. “No way.”

  I was sorry that poor Mélanie had been attacked, but I couldn’t forget that it should have been me sporting bruises.

  “There must be something else we can do,” I went on, keeping my voice low. The town market must have ended. More people were strolling past us now, most of them carrying flowers and produce and bread in their market baskets. “We could keep an eye on Mathieu Camara and make sure he doesn’t get away.”

  “And if the murderer is someone else?” Mélanie arched her brows. “You will be . . . I believe it is called sitting ducks?”

  “We’ll be no less ‘sitting ducks’ at the château!”

  Travis touched my arm. “Not if we stay in our rooms.”

  I scoffed. Danny would never have suggested hiding. I wished he were there. I could have used his handy impulsiveness.

  “I could arrest you on suspicion and keep you in a jail cell for safety,” Mélanie offered. “That would be very secure.”

  Hmm. Suddenly, house arrest in a wonderful French château didn’t sound so bad. Besides, I still wanted to think about all this on my own—to review my notebook of observations and ideas.

  Some (or most) chocolatiers and professional bakers maintain notebooks. The difference is theirs are extensive collections of recipes, formulas, and percentages, compiled over years of experience. Mine has become a compendium of reasons to murder someone and how to (potentially) get away with it.

  Honestly, I’d rather have been tracking cacao butter percentages and chocolate varietals or recipes for cookies.

  My personal favorite is chocolate chip, aka the king of cookies. But I’m amenable to peanut butter, snickerdoodle, a nice oatmeal-cranberry-pecan cookie with white chocolate chunks . . .

  “Fine. We’ll stay in until you give the all-clear,” I said.

  Was it wrong that I was daydreaming about cookies? I must have been stressed, because I couldn’t stop mentally creaming butter and sugar, adding vanilla and salt, spooning in flour . . .

  “I’ll make sure of it.” Travis burst my mental bake-off bubble just as I reached for the cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate morsels needed for triple chocolate chunk cookies.

  I shot him an unhappy glance, wishing I had a strategy that didn’t involve lolling around waiting to be ambushed. I’d been planning to follow up in person on Danny’s tip about the importance of proximity (and criminal laziness) when it came to chocolatiers who might have had access to the chocolate chipper on the night of the Fest-Noz when Monsieur had been murdered.

  I doubted a phone call would pack the same punch. Not to mention, my French was probably too poor to extract useful information—not without the help of hand signals and smiles.

  “Très bien. I will be in touch,” policière Mélanie said.

  With that, I was stuck. I drove my Citroën back down the winding autumn roads to the château and prepared to wait.

  * * *

  In the end, waiting had to wait. Because as I entered the château and headed for the front desk to claim my chambre (room) key, I ran into Hélène. Not altogether surprisingly, the châtelaine had a full wineglass in one hand and (shortly thereafter) my room key in the other. I could see she’d been drinking for a while.

  Patiently, I waited for my key while
Travis parked his rental car. It was easy to be relaxed about the delay, knowing that I’d defiantly sprinted into the château after finding my own parking space, unwilling to be overprotected by my financial advisor. Travis had seemed determined to guard me, going so far as to walk me (arm in arm!) to my car after leaving Mélanie.

  I didn’t think our “house arrest” kicked in the moment we lost sight of the policière, but Travis had disagreed. He’d tailgated me the whole way back from Saint-Malo, a suit-wearing guardian angel who navigated French traffic roundabouts like a pro. Of course I’d felt compelled to duck him for a few seconds once we arrived. I needed a little breathing room, didn’t I?

  “Voilà! Voici, votre clé!” Hélène brandished my key with a triumphant smile. In many older European hotels, room keys are kept at the front desk, to be relinquished, and claimed, when guests come and go. Mine was on an ornate gilded key fob with silk fringe. Just then, Hélène held it tantalizingly out of my reach. “Vous voulez une petite visite de la maison, peut-être?”

  She was asking if I wanted a little tour of the house, as though I hadn’t already toured the place with her multiple times. Poor Madame Vetault. I felt sorry for my mentor’s wife all over again. “Peut-être,” I replied. Maybe. “Bientôt.” Sometime soon. In the meantime . . . “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  At my switch to English, Hélène blinked. She frowned.

  “Ah, non. No.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I promised that I would look for it, but I must have misplaced it.” Her gaze grew dark. Apprehensive. “So many things are missing to me.”

  Like her husband, I couldn’t help imagining, morbidly.

  I couldn’t be sure she hadn’t had some sort of mental break. She definitely didn’t seem stable or well. Would finding out who’d killed Philippe really be enough to help Hélène?

  She swigged more wine, then gave a tipsy salute to the wall behind the reception desk. The nook didn’t occupy much space, but what existed appeared to be noticeably bare—especially as compared with the rest of the château’s extravagant furnishings.

  “Il aurait dû être là!” she wailed as she studied that bare wall behind the desk. “Je ne peux plus le trouver maintenant.”

  It should have been right here! I can’t find it anymore.

  Before I could formulate a response that went beyond “I’m sorry,” Travis barged in. He shot me a beleaguered look, then crossed the marble-lined foyer and strode past the stone stairs.

  When he reached Madame Vetault, his demeanor softened. He must have heard part of our conversation, because he jumped right in and did something that hadn’t once occurred to me—not for days.

  I’d been so busy feeling sorry for Philippe’s widow that I hadn’t thought to ask the most (sorry to say) logical question.

  “De quoi est-ce que vous cherchez, Madame?” he asked in his deep, rumbly, considerate voice. “Peut-être je peux vous aider.”

  What is it that you’re looking for? Maybe I can help you.

  Hélène responded immediately. “Le peinture de ma famille.”

  Aha. Of course. My mentor’s wife was looking, I translated, for a family portrait that had been misplaced. I had an idea.

  “I’ll check with Nathalie,” I told Travis. “Be right back.”

  I was willing to bet that Philippe’s daughter had taken the family portrait upstairs to her room sometime, possibly to keep her company in her grieving. She, too, might have been too grief-stricken to pointedly question her mother about all the “missing” items Hélène kept going on about. Nathalie had told me that she found her mother’s drinking difficult to deal with.

  Trailed closely by Travis’s tight-lipped misgivings, I headed upstairs to the room I’d seen Fabrice in earlier. He and Nathalie had to be sharing accommodations, I reasoned.

  My beach going friend from that long-ago summer of training with Monsieur answered my knock promptly. “Hayden, hello!”

  Behind her, I glimpsed her fiancé bustling around the room. I must have been staring at him (probably with animosity, given his dalliance with Charlotte Moreau), because Nathalie frowned.

  “Fabrice has been called back to Paris on urgent Poyet business,” she explained softly. “He will miss Papa’s memorial, but I will remain here in Saint-Malo for some time, of course.”

  I nodded, but I couldn’t help wondering if Nathalie was slightly less easygoing when it came to Fabrice’s business priorities than she seemed. It looked as though they’d argued.

  Fabrice put some clothes into a suitcase, then glared across the spacious room. Irritably, he snapped his fingers. The housekeeper, Jeannette Farges, timidly came into view with more items. Fabrice barked at her to hurry up. He was insufferable.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” I told Nathalie. “You must want to spend your time alone together before Monsieur Poyet has to leave.”

  “Pas de problème.” No problem. “You wanted something?”

  “Oui! Yes. I’m sorry.” I snapped back to my friend’s face, leaving aside the issue of her deceitful, tyrannical fiancé for now. “I was wondering . . . it seems that your mother is looking for a family portrait that she’s lost? One from the château’s front desk? I promised her I would try to help her find it.”

  Nathalie frowned in thought. “There has always been a photograph on the desk,” she said. “But it remains, I think.”

  “Then you didn’t . . . maybe . . . borrow it?” I asked delicately.

  “Bof. If Maman cannot find her things, she should stop drinking.” Now Nathalie seemed harassed. “I cannot help you.”

  Wow. She really was upset by her mother’s drinking.

  Fabrice strode to the entryway and glowered at me with his hand on the door. “It is time that you leave, Madame.”

  In the middle of the room, Jeannette Farges watched the whole tableau unfold with an inscrutable expression. Most likely, she simply wanted to get away from Fabrice Poyet.

  That made two of us. “I’m sorry, Nathalie. We’ll talk later.” I gave Fabrice a dismissive look. “Adieu, Monsieur.”

  It was rude of me, and I knew it. But I just couldn’t help myself. In most cases, au revoir or something casual is used to say good-bye; adieu is reserved for instances when you never expect to see the other person again. At that moment, it fit.

  Fabrice was stone-faced . . . all except for his nostrils. I saw them flaring with angry hauteur and almost laughed out loud.

  He might have been able to fool Nathalie, but not me.

  Inside the room, the housekeeper piped up. “Monsieur?”

  That was my cue. I nodded another silent good-bye to Nathalie, then headed down the hallway. I wished I could have easily solved Madame Vetault’s dilemma, but so far, I hadn’t.

  A door slammed behind me. Then opened. Then slammed again.

  “Madame, attendez!” Jeannette called out. “S’il vous plaît!” Wait, please! I heard her footsteps hurrying behind me.

  They were muffled by the deluxe carpet, of course. We were still in the Vetault’s fancy château, after all. I stopped.

  I mustered a smile for her. “I’ll bet you’re not sorry Monsieur Poyet is leaving,” I joked. “One less guest to try to please?”

  Jeannette gazed at me, possibly in confusion. I wasn’t sure how much (if any) English she spoke. It occurred to me that I had never experienced anything less than exemplary service from the housekeeper, though. Fabrice definitely stood alone in his annoyance with her. Why was he always so curt with her, anyway?

  “Thanks for breaking the tension back there,” I added in my friendliest tone. I nodded toward Nathalie and Fabrice’s chambre, then mimed her pert query. “‘Monsieur?’ Merci à vous.”

  “Ah, de rien.” You’re welcome. The housekeeper curtsied.

  That was uncomfortable. Embarrassed, I stopped her. “If I can just ask,” I said slowly, watching her face to determine if she understood, “how do you deal with someone like Monsieur Poyet?”

  All Je
annette comprehended was Monsieur Poyet. Her eyes filled with tears. Her lips blubbered. Her former composure vanished.

  Oh no. What had I done? I tried again in French, my query mingled with apologies for upsetting her. I’d only wanted to congratulate her on a job well done. Instead, I did something else: I reminded the housekeeper of something distressing.

  Jeannette apologized in French, then added something more. I didn’t understand. She gestured for me to follow, then let us both into an unused chambre de château—a guest room—where we could (I presumed) speak privately. She drew in a deep breath.

  “J’ai très peur. Aidez-moi, Madame. S’il vous plaît.”

  It was worse than I thought, I realized as I translated.

  I’m very afraid, the housekeeper had said. Please help me.

  There was no way I could placidly go under house arrest now. I nodded and reassured her. “Je vais. Je vous promets.”

  I will. I promise, I’d said. And I meant it, too.

  Nineteen

  When I got back downstairs after helping Jeannette, Travis had secured my room key and his own. We went to his room to pick up a few things, then headed to my (slightly larger) chambre. Once we were inside, that was it. The waiting game was on.

  Have I mentioned that I detest waiting? I’m someone who likes to be always on the move—to be always doing something. Just then, being stuck sitting around felt excruciating.

  Fortunately, Capucine Roux had messaged me about the film footage she’d promised at the market. She’d given me temporary access to her film crew’s Internet “cloud” account, where they stored their work online. It wasn’t edited, the director told me, apologizing for the excess material, but it was complete.

  Well, if anything could distract me from waiting for policière Mélanie to arrest Mathieu and give us the all-clear, it was shots of Travis and me together—not to mention uncut images of hunky Lucas Lefebvre singing, dancing, and being all-around irresistible. While Travis wedged shut our room’s door with a straight back chair and then paced near the fireplace, I pulled out my laptop to get a clearer view of Capucine’s film.