A Well-Timed Murder

by Tracee de Hahn

  “No one thought to mention this first?” She sniffed. “Water with detergent of some sort. Something strong. Wasn’t the door padlocked? How did they get in?” She saw the answer to her question before Hamel pointed. A small panel near the base of the side wall had been pushed away. Perhaps at one time a door for chickens. It didn’t matter now. Someone had gained access to the room and interfered with their evidence.

  “That corner was covered by a stack of boards,” said Hamel. “Someone shoved in and pushed them away.”

  “We’ll never know who did this,” said Fontenay.

  “It must be whoever splattered the blood in the first place,” said Agnes. “This means they came back. That indicates it’s not someone passing through. I can’t imagine a hardened criminal returning. It’s amateurish, yet another reason to think it is someone here, at the school or in the village. Possibly someone young.”

  Boschung and Fontenay both objected. She silenced them. “Don’t deny that there can be tensions between the two. It’s not unusual.”

  She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the images from the previous night. “Look at the back wall. The blood was smeared in places like someone dragged their hand across the planks. The wood is rough and there are small nails. Even a couple of large ones. What if whoever did this cut themselves and left some blood? A good smear? That could have contaminated the samples. The residue on the floor and on the stump tested negative, correct?”

  Boschung nodded. “I took five samples on the back wall, only two were human. I’d have to look at my documents to see where those two were. Might have been near a nail.”

  Fontenay sagged. “To think that one of our boys would do something like this. And cause so much trouble.”

  “I didn’t say it was one of your boys,” said Agnes.

  “That opening is small,” said Hamel.

  It was. Too small for a full-grown man to crawl through. Agnes thought about her sons. They were well behaved, but she knew that they could be convinced to do stupid things. She only hoped that the trouble remained fixable until they were older and could exercise resistance to peer pressure.

  “Let’s keep an open mind. It might not be one of the students,” she said. “A small man or woman could fit through. I think I could fit, if I didn’t mind scraping my shoulders.”

  All four studied the opening, imagining lying on the ground and crawling through.

  “You haven’t heard anything in the village?” she asked Boschung.

  “No, and we’ve started questioning the likely suspects. Low-key, like you suggested.”

  “Ask them again,” said Fontenay. “It’s too easy to point fingers here. The village children have as much access to this plot of land as anyone. Maybe more, since we keep an eye on our students. I can’t say that about every child in town.”

  “I’m not denying it could be someone from the village,” said Boschung, “but no one’s talking about coming up here, and you know people. They like to talk. I’ll grant you there can be meanness, call it jealousy, but I don’t see a point in going to the trouble of making a statement like this one if no one sees it.”

  “I’ll lay odds that someone did this to scare or impress their friends,” said Agnes. “Maybe on a dare, maybe to get someone in trouble. Maybe we stumbled upon it before they were ready for a big reveal. After all, it was only Monsieur Hamel’s careful attention to the property that brought it to our notice. Possibly they learned the police were investigating and realized they had created more trouble than they intended. They tried to clean it up to destroy the evidence. Boschung is right, people who take the trouble to make a statement want it acknowledged. They don’t wash it away.”

  “You still might be wrong,” said Boschung. “Something bad may have happened here.”

  “Keep asking questions and get to the bottom of it.” Agnes turned up the collar of her coat, looking in the direction of the chalet, thinking. “Monsieur Fontenay, alone of all the boys, Leo Chavanon has an alibi because of the timing of his return to school. I’d like to speak with him.”

  “He went off campus for Sunday lunch,” Fontenay said.

  “I’ll wait.”

  Boschung opened the flap of his satchel. “I’ll see if I can find a spot that’s not been treated with solvent and try for another sample.”

  Agnes left the men to coordinate their next steps and walked alone to the chalet. There, she headed downstairs. Chef Jean and his assistant were too intent on their work to notice her. For a moment, she imagined how easy it would be to step into the kitchen and scatter peanut dust on the tray of cooling butter cookies. Or drop ground peanuts into the enormous floor mixer while it pounded flour and eggs into pasta dough.

  She slipped away, heading to the farthest corner of the basement. When she found the correct door, she reached inside for a light switch. The room was neatly organized: wooden easels, toboggans, a bin full of soccer balls, a stack of tennis rackets. What interested her was the back wall. It was filled with bows and arrows. The bows hung neatly on wall brackets. The arrows were stored point down in narrow tubes with leather handles, the feather fletchings exposed. There were dozens of arrows, and no one would notice if one was missing. Anyone could access this room unseen.

  “Have you found what you’re looking for?” Helene Fontenay said, startling her. The floor was coated with vinyl, an effective silence of the headmistress’s crutches.

  “Monsieur Hamel told me I would find the school’s sporting equipment here.”

  “Looking for the arrow shot into the wall outside Leo and Koulsy’s room?” Helene moved toward the nearest tube. “It was one of these.”

  “Meaning one of the school’s?” Agnes studied the ten or twelve arrows slotted into the tube.

  “It’s the same type.” Helene shrugged. “I was hardly going to waste time finding the owner. Or is that stealing?”

  “No. Only I’m surprised you weren’t more concerned about it.”

  “After seeing how easily someone could take an arrow from here? You know boys. They take things they shouldn’t and mess around recklessly. What happens when one misfires? Do you think they’re going to tell us? No one was hurt; there wasn’t a reason to make an issue of it.”

  “I suppose not.” Agnes lifted an arrow. It was impossible to tell precisely which one had ended up in the wall of the chalet, and it didn’t matter. They were all the same style and type. She frowned. They looked exactly like the ones she’d seen at shooting ranges her entire life. Basic and generic. It might belong to someone in the village. “You’re very calm in the face of trouble. Monsieur Chavanon’s death—”

  “I still believe it was an accident and has nothing to do with us.”

  “Koulsy’s fears aren’t based on accidents.”

  “Childhood trouble. We’ll deal with it.”

  “Not everything is innocent trouble, Madame. His is a well-known name. People have strong feelings about his father. Maybe they think the death of a boy—as a message, a warning, revenge—is nothing compared to the thousands dead under the father’s rule. Villagers talk, they know who’s here.”

  “They have time for gossip, I suppose.”

  Agnes replaced the arrow in the tube. “Even Officer Boschung admitted that there can be jealousy between the locals and an enclave of foreigners, and Koulsy’s father is an international figure.”

  Helene’s fingers whitened on the grips of her crutches. “You think I’m not troubled? I have too many troubles to enumerate. I don’t have the luxury of worrying about children’s pranks. Or even those of the village. Everything here is my worry. The food on the table, the wages, the maintenance. Don’t pretend that staff do everything without being reminded. And the teachers? Everyone has their own opinion, without a thought to rules and regulations. Then there’s my husband. Where was he when Monsieur Chavanon died?”

  “What do you suspect?”

  The mask fell across Helene Fontenay’s face. “There is nothing you can help
us with. I’m simply tired.”

  She turned and left, and Agnes didn’t try to stop her. Instead she took her time, glancing in again to the kitchen and exchanging pleasantries with the chef before walking past the dining room on her way upstairs. The sound of voices caught her attention. Tommy Scaglia was apologizing.

  “I didn’t mean anything—”

  Accented French cut him off. Narendra Patel. “What were you doing watching me? Lurking in the corner like a thief.”

  “I was waiting for you to finish. I thought you were praying.”

  Agnes watched from the doorway. Scaglia was red faced. He saw her and took the opportunity to run out of the room. Patel was only a few steps behind him, muttering that he had dropped off a gift and needed to return to Baselworld. She briefly wondered what Tommy was up to now.

  Looking across the tables and chairs, she imagined what Patel must feel. The suddenness of Chavanon’s death. The finality. She felt that places—rooms—could communicate an atmosphere. To her the dining room was full of optimism and hope. It was youthful. She suspected it felt very different to Guy Chavanon’s family and friends. To them, it was a place of loss and despair.

  She climbed the stairs to the third floor and found Tommy Scaglia in the corridor. He was standing in the middle of the hall.

  “I expect you startled Monsieur Patel,” she said when Scaglia spotted her.

  “Yeah, I did. The visitors don’t usually yell at us.”

  She laughed. “No, I suspect they don’t. I wouldn’t take it personally. Monsieur Patel lost his boyhood friend in that room. I think he feels guilty that he wasn’t able to save him.”

  Scaglia shoved his hands in the pockets of his uniform, looking very much as Agnes imagined a nineteenth-century clerk would, minus the ink-stained hands.

  “I came up for a book,” Tommy said absently, apparently still bothered by Patel’s words. To distract him, Agnes asked what he liked about the school. It turned out that outside his concerns for Koulsy, Tommy liked quite a lot. The quaint village, the snow in winter, the cat he’d made friends with and named Taylor. “After my best friend at home,” he said.

  “Glad to hear you’ve settled in to life in Switzerland,” Agnes said when he paused for breath. “And don’t worry about Koulsy. We’ll find out what’s going on. The police have all sorts of ways to uncover evidence. Do you watch American police shows?”

  His face sank. “Yeah, I do.”

  * * *

  Earlier, Agnes had asked Bernard Fontenay if she could look into the dorm rooms and he’d said they weren’t locked. She knocked on the door to the room Koulsy Haroun shared with Leo Chavanon. It hadn’t been properly closed and swung open. She walked in, amused to see a Rolling Stones poster on one wall. Some things never changed.

  The room was large enough to accommodate a twin bed, clothes cupboard, and desk for each boy. The desks were pushed against the wall opposite the door, fitting in under the windowsills. To one side of the windows a narrow door led to the balcony. The room was neat, and Agnes imagined the strict rules in place to bring order to the natural inclination of the boys who lived here. A gift-wrapped box was on Leo Chavanon’s bed. She read the tag. It was from Patel.

  A narrow door led from each bedroom to the balcony, and she stepped outside to look for the hole made by the arrow. It was easy to find, a deep chink straight into the wood. Tommy was right. A half inch over and it would have struck glass or passed through an open window.

  She returned inside and surveyed Koulsy’s belongings. A slew of swimming medals hung from a hook. Otherwise his side of the room was bare to the point of austerity.

  Leo’s side was cluttered. There were family photographs and a row of odd-shaped boxes scattered on a low shelf. She picked up the largest one, weighing it in her hand. Maybe large enough to hold a pack of cards? The smallest was the size of a man’s thumb. Setting them aside, Agnes ran her eye down the row of books on the short shelf: volumes on math, science, and history. Tucked in among them was an old book on astronomy. She pulled it out. The title was long, but the essence was that it contained an explanation into the construction and use of astrolabes. Inside were photographs of various astronomical and astrological devices including the astronomical observatories in Jaipur and Delhi. She flipped to the handwritten inscription: For my son. Love, Father.

  No date. No names. From Guy to Leo? Christine had mentioned that her father dreamt of building a replica of the Jantar Mantar observatory in Jaipur. This was a book he would share with his son. The book next to it was titled A Treatise on Codes and Puzzles. There was a lengthy subtitle, and Agnes glanced at the date of publication: 1887. This book was signed in the same hand but a date had been added. A recent date.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket—a message delayed by poor reception—and she listened to Aubry’s update while skimming the pages of the book, admiring the old-fashioned diagrams and illustrations. Nowadays people encrypted their secrets. The earlier need to build a hiding place had a certain beauty. She closed her eyes and pictured Guy Chavanon’s workshop. Had they missed his hiding place?

  Twenty-four

  “What are you doing here?” a man’s voice asked.

  Agnes turned to find Julien Vallotton lounging against the doorframe of the dorm room.

  He walked in and sat on Leo’s bed, bouncing as if checking the springs. “More comfortable than when I was at school.”

  “I was waiting to speak with Leo.”

  “We had a long lunch. I thought he needed an afternoon away. I know what it’s like to lose a parent at a young age.” He picked up the wrapped box and gave it a little shake.

  Agnes took it and set it aside. “Did Leo come back with you?”

  “Yes, and Bernard said you wanted to talk to him. That’s why I came up. Leo’s waiting in the office.”

  * * *

  Agnes liked the way the boy spoke. His voice was still sweet, his cadence soothing. Leo Chavanon liked school, liked living on the campus, and it made her happy to hear this, given the tough week he’d had.

  They were seated in the headmaster’s office, and Agnes was surprised by the boy’s ease. He had chosen a bentwood chair, and she took its twin. Petit had joined her for the interview. He selected a more comfortable armchair, stretching his long legs in front of him.

  “Leo, you’ve only been back a few nights and I—” She nodded toward Petit. “We know you’ve a lot to catch up on, but we need your help. This is important.”

  The relaxed pose vanished. Leo sat up straight, fingers clutching the sides of the chair.

  Agnes smiled to allay his fears. Unwilling to share details that might end up feeding the chain of rumors, she described the shed in vague terms. Vandalism was how she summed it up.

  “Leo,” she continued, “the Fontenays don’t want to punish anyone. They’re simply worried. When property is damaged, it often means the person—the vandal—is hiding their own trouble. They want attention because they don’t know how to fix what’s bothering them.”

  “The cow shed?” Leo asked, as if she’d suggested a Mars space station. “The other side of the hedge?”

  Agnes nodded.

  “That’s awful far away. We’re not supposed to go on the other side of the hedge.”

  Petit snickered softly.

  “I have a son about your age,” Agnes said, “and he’s always in fields he shouldn’t be in. We’re not angry about that.”

  “There’s got to be somewhere off campus that you go?” said Petit. “Somewhere you can have a little fun? Get away from all of them.” He jerked his head toward the closed door.

  Leo swallowed.

  “Somewhere in the forest maybe? That’s where I went when I was in school.” Petit looked at Agnes. “We built a tree house with a secret rope ladder. No one knew about it. A true hideout.”

  “No,” said Leo. “There are wild boars in the forest. A few years back a boy from the village was attacked, and no one goes there now.”


  Agnes and Petit let Leo wrestle with this conscience. He bounced up and down in his seat uncomfortably. Then he went still. “There’s a place in one of the fields near an old watering trough. You can’t see it from the chalet. It’s near the forest, but not in it, and we used to go there. There’s a kind of structure built into the side of a dip in the hill.”

  “You use it as a sort of club?” said Agnes.

  “No, just a place to go. The older kids walk into town on their free afternoons. We can’t. Not until we’re fourteen.” Leo shrugged. “Besides, it’s a long way to walk and there’s not much to do. There’s a café. Sometimes they buy stuff at the store, but we’re not allowed to keep food in our rooms so it’s mainly a place to go.”

  “What about the other boys, those younger than your year? Or maybe some in your year who wanted their own private place to meet? Do you think they might have used the shed?”

  “I don’t know. Monsieur Fontenay gets really angry when we wander into the fields.”

  Petit scoffed. “My mom got angry about nearly everything I did when I was your age. Didn’t stop me doing it.”

  “The place you mentioned, near the old watering trough, is that off-limits?” Agnes asked.

  Leo nodded.

  “Meaning it’s possible that some of your classmates might have gone to the other side of the hedge?” said Agnes.

  “Why don’t you ask Tommy?” Leo’s face brightened.

  “You think he goes there?” Agnes wasn’t surprised. Tommy Scaglia struck her as a child who balanced ideal behavior with recklessness.

  “No, but he knows everything. Knows who’s going to get in trouble. Whose rooms are going to be searched for contraband.” Leo shrugged.

  “That’s a gift, to know everything that’s going to happen,” said Agnes.

  “He tells people. Warns them.” Leo flushed. “I shouldn’t have said that. There’s nothing wrong with what he tells us.”

  “Is it a certain circle of friends he helps?” she asked. “Is Koulsy Haroun one of the circle?”