The Paris Directive

by Gerald Jay

  Mazarelle, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the spunky young woman since the viewing of the bodies began, saw the color drain from her face and, with a move surprisingly nimble for a man his size, caught her just as her knees began to buckle. The young woman felt like a healthy armful. Carrying Molly out into the hall, he sat her down and told the others to get her some water.

  He stroked Molly’s hands, rubbed the back of her lovely neck. Mazarelle wondered what another woman would be like after so many years—a different smell, a different shampoo, a different sweat—but there was only one smell in his nose now.

  “Ça va?” he asked, taking the glass of water from Langlais and holding it to Molly’s lips. As she sipped, the pink seeped back into her cheeks.

  “Better?”

  Molly nodded.

  “Good. Have some more.”

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “Yes … it’s them.”

  She got up, hating the fuss she’d caused. “I just wasn’t expecting …”

  “Naturally, of course.”

  Male condescension infuriated Molly. But how could a human being have done such a thing? She couldn’t believe that anyone could have been so cruel, so depraved, so consumed by evil to pitilessly chop away at her mother as if she were firewood, a good woman who’d never harmed a soul. Such monsters were beyond help, incapable of redemption. Though she’d always hated the idea of capital punishment, perhaps she was wrong. The world would be better off without them.

  Molly asked, “Does France still have the death penalty?”

  “La guillotine?” The inspector rolled his eyes. “Not since 1981. Ancient history. I was happy to see it go. I’d much prefer to put such animals away in cages for life. However, in a case like this,” he sympathized, “I can understand how you feel.”

  The families of victims were always the hardest for the inspector to deal with. He was relieved that she hadn’t pulled the sheet off her father too and seen the gruesome way he’d been carved up. The cruelty was incomprehensible. Mazarelle made a silent vow to get the son of a bitch, remove that cancer from society. He’d already come to the bleak conclusion that the murderer in trying to learn Monsieur Reece’s PIN had turned him into a flesh and blood cutting board. The man, whoever he was, had a diabolical sense of humor. A sadistic bastard, for sure, even possibly a madman. What an odd coincidence, he thought, reminded of Simenon’s The Madman of Bergerac. Algeria played a role in those murders also. He was mildly amused, and not for the first time, to find life mirroring art.

  “Where are you going?” he called out, trying to stop her from returning to the viewing room, but Molly was determined.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted. Approaching her mother’s body, she asked the doctor if she might see her left hand. Langlais carefully lifted the sheet and held up Judy Reece’s rigid fingers. Molly noticed the black-and-blue bruises around her mother’s wrist. If they upset her, she gave no indication.

  “Where’s her wedding band?” she icily demanded of the medical examiner. “Did they take that too? Is that what they were after?”

  “Doucement, mademoiselle. We have it, I’m sure.”

  “And my dad’s?”

  Dr. Langlais did not like being questioned in such a tone about trivialities. He assured the overwrought young woman that her father’s keys, his ring, his watch, and all of the jewelry her parents were wearing was safely put aside for her. He promised to return everything before she left. As Mazarelle had concluded already, the killer had not been after jewelry.

  Bennett asked the doctor, “Could we see the body you think is Schuyler Phillips? Mademoiselle Reece may be able to help with the identification.”

  Langlais looked as if he didn’t understand him or, perhaps closer to the point, didn’t want to. “That won’t be necessary.”

  Molly didn’t know what to think. She glanced at the inspector.

  “You don’t want to see it. Besides there’s hardly anything left of his face to identify.”

  “I don’t need his face.”

  What could you do with a young woman like that? Expecting that in the end he’d have to scrape her up off the floor with a teaspoon, Mazarelle shrugged and turned to the doctor. “As you like,” he said, with a careless wave of his hand.

  When the body was brought out, it was shrouded from head to toe like a mummy. They all watched expectantly as Molly approached. “Just show me his legs,” she said. Dr. Langlais pulled back the sheet to reveal the dead man’s muscular, ivory-colored limbs.

  “There!” She pointed to the long, lightning-bolt scar just under his right kneecap, a legendary wound from the blade of a hurtling Harvard skater. Just as Odysseus could always be identified by the scar on his thigh from the tusks of a great boar, Schuyler—according to her dad—had his telltale hockey scar. “It’s him,” she said, biting her lip to keep back the tears. Everyone in her family loved Schuyler.

  After quickly agreeing to show Molly and Bennett the house where the murders had occurred in order to get rid of them, Mazarelle ran into the bathroom, feeling a major allergy attack coming on. Leaning over the sink, he spit out one of the two cloves that he’d stuffed into his nostrils. As the other clove shot out of his nose, he began to sneeze violently. The aromatic dried buds had made bearable what had promised to be a difficult task for him. A little trick of the trade he often used in Paris. As he blew his nose and washed up, the inspector wondered why an attaché from the American embassy had come down here together with the young woman. Most unusual. Perhaps these people were even more important than he imagined. Mazarelle wondered if he could have been right years ago about the clean-cut, callow-looking American. He’d always suspected Bennett was the CIA station chief in Paris.

  24

  THE CRIME SCENE

  Molly had made up her mind to stay overnight near the crime scene. She wanted to be close to the house where her mom and dad and their friends had been vacationing.

  Bennett claimed there was only one tiny hotel in Taziac. “No bigger than a broom closet, according to my secretary.”

  “Sounds cozy.”

  “It probably doesn’t even have any rooms available.”

  “Let’s go see.”

  Though Barney following his instructions had made reservations for them in Bergerac at the Gambetta, the best hotel in town, Bennett didn’t want to argue. He’d more bad news to tell her as it was.

  Driving south on the way to Taziac, he tried to amuse Molly. Told her a story he once heard of Mazarelle waiting for his wife in some noisy Left Bank café and, being stood up, he got so rip-roaring drunk that he finally reported her a missing person. The tinkly, seductive sound of Molly’s laughter was gentle as wind chimes.

  “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to ask you something.”

  “That depends on what it is.”

  “Are you Jewish?”

  She stared at him. “Yes, I’m Jewish. Why?”

  “Orthodox?”

  Molly reached up and grabbed a hank of her flaming red hair. “Does this look like a wig?”

  “No, no.” Bennett laughed uncomfortably. “Not at all.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  He explained that the inspector had told him that all four of the victims had already been autopsied. There had been no time to get her approval about her parents. He hoped that she understood. It was standard French police procedure in a murder case like this.

  Molly sadly shook her head.

  “I once had a problem about an autopsy with an Orthodox Jewish family. I didn’t know it was against their belief.”

  “No, I don’t mind.” She regarded nothing about her mom and dad as orthodox. “Anything that will help catch the monster who did this.”

  There was something else he feared she wasn’t going to like.

  “I know you were hoping to return to the States tomorrow with the bodies of your parents, but the inspector says he’s still not finished with them. I think he wants Dr. Langlais to run
some more tests.”

  “How much longer does he need?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s in charge, and there was nothing more I could do. I’m sorry, I tried.”

  Molly was obviously upset.

  “Please don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything here. As soon as the bodies are released, I’ll ship them home to you in New York immediately. I promise.”

  Molly sank down in her seat and her silence was worse than anything she might have said to him. It was about as unpleasant a job as he’d expected.

  The Hôtel Fleuri, on the main square in Taziac opposite the church, was not much larger than Bennett had suggested, but it did have an available room.

  “Une chambre très bonne et tranquille,” said the worried-looking man behind the desk.

  “We’ll need two rooms,” Bennett said.

  “Of course. You’re Americans!” He loved Americans. He handed Bennett a registration card and suggested he fill it out at his convenience.

  “Where’s mine?”

  “No, no, mademoiselle. You needn’t trouble yourself. One card is more than enough.” As for the price, it was a bargain. The petit déjeuner cost a little extra but, he assured them, was well worth it. Business must be awful, she thought, wondering if the other five rooms in the hotel were empty.

  He introduced himself as Louis Favier, the owner. A short, thick, round-jawed man with a hairy mole on his chin, a ludicrous beauty mark that for some reason he didn’t mind calling attention to with his stubby fingers. Favier thought they should know he often watched American films on the TV. “Did you ever see Morocco?” he asked them, kissing his puckered fingertips. “Pandora’s Box?” He loved the young Cooper, Louise Brooks, the great Brando.

  Molly, too tired for Favier’s movie stars and ready to lie down, asked for her key.

  Later that afternoon, with directions from Monsieur Favier, who seemed surprised when he heard where they wanted to go, they drove to L’Ermitage. The cop at the top of the hill said that Inspector Mazarelle hadn’t arrived yet, but they could wait for him as long as they didn’t get out of their car. After that, he watched them like an air controller eyeing wayward blips on his radar screen. It was a half hour more before the inspector and Duboit finally showed up.

  Mazarelle had regretted agreeing to meet Mademoiselle Reece here as soon as he’d done so. Though he felt like an idiot, he hated to say no to such a sad and lovely young woman. He guided them around the grounds—strolling past the swimming pool to the well, where, he told them, one of the murder weapons had been found. Then on to the barn, where Phillips’s body was discovered hidden in a secret room, victim of a double-barreled shotgun.

  Bennett asked, “Can we see the room?”

  “I’ll show you,” Duboit gallantly offered the attractive young woman.

  Naturally, thought his boss as he watched them go.

  Duboit led the way to the rear of the barn. At the half-open door, he explained that it had been barred from the inside and how the murderer must have gotten in and out. He knew better than to enter the room to demonstrate how it was actually done. In any event, the yellow police tape all over the door made entry out of the question.

  Mazarelle brought his visitors across to the house. Escorting them around the outside of the building, he described the layout of the rooms and the bodies—exactly what had happened and where—but when Molly asked to go in he apologized.

  “I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but that’s impossible.”

  “Ms. Reece is in law enforcement,” Bennett informed him. “She’s an assistant district attorney in New York City.”

  “The crime scene is closed.” Mazarelle was in no bargaining mood. He didn’t give a damn about Bennett and assumed that if Ms. Reece was in law enforcement, she’d understand. Besides, he’d no desire to show her the kitchen where her father was murdered—his dried blood still covering the ceiling, windows, and walls like gruesome wallpaper, the kind that could kill you if you weren’t dead already.

  Molly, ticked off with him, didn’t understand at all. Punishing her because she had almost fainted. Typical, she thought. She hated the way some men try to overprotect women. It was, after all, nothing more than a power play, just another way of keeping us in our place. Kinder, Küche, und Kirche. Eyeballing the inspector, Molly asked where his investigation stood as of right now, and her tone suggested that she would not be put off.

  “Yes … yes, of course. Well, we’re coming along. I can tell you that.” The inspector took out his pipe and lit up.

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. What I want to know is how close are you to breaking the case?”

  “We have an interesting suspect, if that’s what you mean.” Mazarelle told her about Ali Sedak, the man they were holding as a material witness, whose fingerprints were found on one of the murder weapons as well as on the tape with which all the victims in the house were bound. Sedak, according to the inspector, was somehow involved in all the murders, even if he didn’t actually commit them all. “Or,” he added, with a puckish gleam in his eye, “any of them, for that matter.”

  At the moment, Molly had no patience for paradox. “Who is he?”

  “Sedak?” Duboit knew all about him. “A tough little sidi. Works here at L’Ermitage, doing odd jobs on the property. He’s a beur, lives with a French woman and a baby who looks a little like him. Dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes. Mixing up those Arab genes of his with ours. It’s disgusting.”

  “Shut up, Bernard! They’re married.”

  “He’s still a beur.”

  “So what? He speaks French as well as you or I do.”

  Molly asked, “What’s a beur?”

  “You know,” Duboit told her, “the same as Jews and Gypsies. What can you expect from people like that?”

  Mazarelle didn’t have to see Mademoiselle Reece’s face to sense that she was unhappy. He told Bernard to go back to the car, to wait for him there. He’d be along shortly.

  When he’d left, Molly asked, “Where did you get him?”

  The inspector shrugged helplessly. “What can you do? Even in the police we have a few who confuse fascism with law and order. But Bernard isn’t really so bad. He’s a provincial. And the Front National’s racist, anti-Semitic ideas are not unknown in this part of the country. I’m sorry to say that only a few kilometers away in Villereal we have our own local Jean-Marie Le Pen in René Arnaud.”

  Dwight Bennett knew all about Arnaud. “He’s almost as bad.”

  Mazarelle sighed and turned to Molly, who was still seething. “I can tell you this, mademoiselle. Your father’s credit cards and money were almost certainly stolen by Ali Sedak. Furthermore, he’s admitted being the last one to have seen Monsieur Phillips alive. And it’s very possible these crimes were all drug related. Sedak is a known user. He has a record of violence and being a pusher as well. We think he may have been working together with a local dealer they call Rabo.”

  “Rabo?” He sounded like a Vegas gangster to Molly. “Is he an American?”

  “French,” snapped Mazarelle. “His real name is Rabineau.” Was there something he said that amused her? “And that’s where we are,” he said, abruptly concluding the matter. Mazarelle promised that when she returned home to New York he’d keep her informed of any major developments in the case. “Now I really must go.”

  As he limped away, Molly felt depressed by what she’d heard. Though she basically liked the inspector, she wasn’t exactly thrilled with his progress. Or with his “interesting” suspect. Or by that bigoted creep Duboit. Faced with cops like that, Ali Sedak might be as innocent as Jesus and still end up on the cross.

  A number of reporters, having heard that the daughter of two of the murdered Americans had arrived in Bergerac, were waiting for Molly at the commissariat when Inspector Mazarelle drove into the courtyard. But only Jacques Gaudin, who wrote for the local edition of Sud Ouest, had tracked her down at the Hôtel Fleuri in Taziac.

  Sitting in the hotel’
s small lobby, Gaudin was killing time with an old copy of Paris Match when he heard Favier calling to him in a whisper from behind the desk. The woman who came in was tall and had red hair. A very classy dame with great cheekbones. Tossing aside his magazine, he hurried to the door and introduced himself. Bennett quickly stepped between them, insisting that Mademoiselle Reece had had a very exhausting day and was not giving any interviews.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I don’t mind a few questions. What do you want to know?”

  She was as nice as she looked. Was he falling in love again?

  “Do you think the man the police are holding, Ali Sedak, killed your parents?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Gaudin coolly scribbled down her reply on his graph-paper-ruled notepad, but he was almost as surprised as her friend was by the strength of her conviction.

  “May I ask why not?”

  “And certainly not alone. I don’t believe any one man by himself could have killed all four of them. Schuyler Phillips was a great athlete and my father was a big man in pretty good shape for his age. Not to mention my mother, who was not someone who scared easily. And even if Schuyler was already dead in the barn and there were only the three of them still alive in the house, this one guy with a knife was unlikely to be able to tie up all three and then murder them in different rooms.”

  “I understand your father, Monsieur Reece, was an important figure in the New York art world. Did he have any enemies?”

  “None that I’m aware of. People who knew my father had the highest respect for him. On the other hand, I can’t imagine anyone who owns an art gallery in New York who doesn’t have a few enemies.”

  Molly said nothing about Sean. As for that, she’d always supposed their relationship was like any marriage, with its ups and downs. They were successful partners, after all, and had been for years. But what if Sean felt that he was going to be turned in to the police by her dad for dealing in stolen art, felt that it was the end of his career and there was only one way to save himself from doing time? Could Sean have hired someone to murder him? But why kill all four of them? Only a maniac would do something like that.