“Tommy, we’re getting help and you’re going to be fine.” His eyes were closed and she shook him slightly, not wanting him to pass out.
A hand touched her shoulder. She recognized the cologne before he spoke. Julien Vallotton. “Go. I’ll stay with the boy.”
She hesitated for only a moment, then ran to her car and roared off in pursuit of the Mercedes.
They had entered dense mountainous forest, and she gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward, concentrating, looking for Patel’s car in the distance. She was so focused that she nearly missed the plume of gravel dust near the forest floor. She slammed on her brakes and reversed. Patel had turned onto a smaller road. She knew this place; this was where she and George had picnicked all those years before.
She skidded left, ignoring the ping of gravel stripping paint from her car. The road ascended steeply then curved. The Mercedes was only a few dozen meters in front of her. She pressed her horn, hoping Patel would realize the folly of his flight. He slammed on the brakes and jumped from his car. He ran deeper into the forest and she followed. She knew where he was going.
“Stop,” she hollered. “Don’t do this. We can talk.”
She stopped, the pain in her leg a sharp spike. “Wait.”
He didn’t pause, his feet crashing against dry branches, and she took up the chase again.
She reached the small clearing a moment after him. Patel was standing on the edge of the gorge. The spot was well-known; it even had a name, but she couldn’t remember it.
She stopped, not wanting to startle him. “I only want to talk.”
Patel looked backward over his shoulder into the ravine. He was less than a meter from the edge. She could hear the rush of water below.
“Let’s talk for a minute. Take our time.”
“Guy lied to me. Humiliated me. What was I to do? My friend, the one I trust for these years and he comes to me with his great idea. What do I offer? Everything. The power of the Patel Group to manufacture and market. Our financing. Our ability to operate on a truly global scale.” Patel glanced down again into the gorge.
Agnes took a few steps closer.
“Stay back,” Patel rounded on her.
She slowed, holding out her hands, showing him that she meant no harm. “What happened?”
“My friend told me that he’d changed his mind. That he could not partner with a company that wasn’t Swiss. He with his tiny family business and we are global concern—and now we are not good enough.”
Agnes listened for sirens. “Was your uncle angry? I understand the pressures of family. We all understand.”
Patel took a step back, nearer the edge. Agnes exhaled to calm herself.
“Do you think that I would shame my family? Tell my uncle that I have started negotiations with someone who now says we are beneath him? I tell my uncle that Guy has lied to us and has no invention. That it was all a figment of his imaginations. That he was chasing a dream. I will not have the Patel Group embarrassed. It is Guy who should be ashamed.”
“You didn’t have a choice, did you?”
“It was my duty.”
Agnes heard faint sirens in the distance. She wished they’d turn them off and not frighten Patel.
“Is that why you broke into the workshop, to steal Guy’s notes?”
“Maybe there is no invention is my thinking when I see what it is inside.”
“You slipped in during the reception after the funeral?”
“Yes, and I am finding nothing. Maybe he has lied to me? Lied and betrayed me. All of us. Marie, Christine, Leo.”
“Come to town with me and we’ll talk.”
He edged backward and she stopped speaking, holding out her hands in a gesture of supplication. There were multiple sirens now. She heard them pass on the main road and knew they had missed the turn into the forest. She needed more time. The longer Patel hesitated, the less likely he was to do anything rash.
“That horrible boy stole the candies.” Patel glanced first left, then right, to look over his shoulders.
“Guy dropped them at the reception after eating one?”
“There was much commotion that day and I did not find the box. That boy saw what was dropped and claimed it. He had no right to take what was not his.”
“That was clever of you. Peanut dust on his candies. Although I don’t know you did it.”
Patel offered a broad smile. “It was a masterful idea. Guy dead from something we had always known would kill him. It was easy to switch his box with my identical one. He is a man of habit and keeps it in the passenger seat of his car when he drives.”
“You were waiting for him when he came to the Institute. He had already told you he had changed his mind about a business partnership. He didn’t arrange to meet you, but you knew about the reception and went there. You got in the car with him.”
“He called to tell me that he was looking for a partner in Switzerland. That week—when I am flying to Baselworld and all is to be a grand surprise celebration—he tells me that he cannot go through with his promise. He talks to me about pride. To me about pride. What of my pride? I have arranged for my uncle to be there and planned a party to announce the news of our joint venture. I am forced to lie to my uncle and conceal everything so he will not suffer humiliation. My uncle is a famous and respected man. What he does is reported in all the business journals. What they would not give to report this. That even my friend does not trust the Indian partnership. I could not bring this shame to my family.”
Patel looked down toward the distant rushing creek. “I came to the school to give him one last chance. Guy would not speak to me; his mind was made up.” Patel took a tiny step nearer the edge. “This made the decision very easy for me. I had prepared the duplicate box as insurance and carried out the switch as I sat down. We were only in the car for a second. He would not listen to my side of story. He was not even respecting me this much.”
“You went inside to wait and see what happened,” Agnes said, talking to buy more time. “Guy didn’t walk across the campus to see something. He was avoiding you. He hoped you’d leave, that you’d give up. When he came inside, you noticed him take a candy. You recognized the gesture, maybe he was already returning the box to his pocket. It was something no one else paid attention to. You knew it would be a matter of minutes and faked a phone call so you wouldn’t be in the room when his symptoms started.”
She’d remembered the voice mail she had received from Aubry. The call hadn’t gone through because she was in the dining room. Patel couldn’t have received a call during the reception because there was no service in the basement.
Narendra stiffened. “He was no longer my friend. He had betrayed my trust. I would have been ruined, my family’s honor destroyed.”
“You could have saved him. You knew about the EpiPen. Instead, you gave yourself the shot, didn’t you? In the coat closet you discharged the EpiPen into your leg. You told me that you’d worked for your uncle in the electronics division, but he mentioned that you’d also worked in pharmaceuticals. You knew what would happen. Everyone thought you panicked and nearly had a heart attack, but it was the adrenaline from the shot. One dose might have saved him. It nearly killed you.”
Agnes felt the breeze shift. Patel adjusted his weight. He looked over his shoulder. She had to keep him talking.
“Why kill Mercier?”
Patel looked at her and she relaxed. “I am most certain that he was the one who turned Guy against me. He made a point to visit me at the show and spoke only about Swiss Made. I knew then that he was to be Guy’s new partner. I could not have him telling this tale, and others knowing what had happened to the Patel Group.”
Patel took a great gulp of breath. He stared at his feet, clenching and unclenching his fists. Agnes could see his lips move. He edged backward until his heels were on the brink of the ravine.
“Ending your life won’t help,” she said softly.
Patel looked up and smiled a
t her, serene. “This is only the start of another life. I will be rewarded for my sacrifice. For what I have done for my family.”
He stepped backward off the edge of the cliff and fell. Agnes ran forward. He screamed, the sound echoing in the cavern, the end abrupt. This was how she had imagined it. She fell to her knees.
Forty-one
A dozen official vehicles were in the small clearing, lights flashing and sirens muted. Boschung sent climbers down the cliff to find the body, and Agnes shared the details of her exchange with Patel. She had finished when a bright red Ferrari drove up. The front bumper was crushed and the side panel destroyed. Vallotton leaped from the impossibly low seat, then stopped when he saw her standing among the uniformed officers.
She felt her heart flutter and excused herself to walk toward him.
“What were you thinking?” She gestured toward the smashed bumper and side panel. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
She pressed her hand to her throat as if to contain her fears. Her pulse beat beneath her fingers; it was comforting.
“I know the roads around here and knew I could cut across on the farm lane. I thought I’d block him. I thought he would stop. Never considered he’d bash his way past.” Vallotton ran a hand along the crumpled fender. “I’ll tell my brother you were driving.”
“I thought it was your car?”
“Technically, legally, it is, but it’s Daniel who bought it. He sent the bill to me.”
Agnes laughed with relief at so many things. She slipped her hands into her pockets.
“You’re not hurt?” He took a step nearer, then stopped as if remembering himself and where they were. He looked her up and down. She shook her head and explained what had happened after she left him on the roadside.
“Tommy’s off to the hospital,” he said. Agnes nodded. Boschung had told her.
“Broken arm, cuts and bruises, but in good spirits.” Vallotton glanced at the officials milling around. “You don’t need me. With my stunt, I’ve already created more trouble than help—”
She reached for his arm. “You did help. You slowed Patel and stopped the other traffic. I was afraid he’d disappear on a small road and we’d end up with a hostage situation.”
“I was afraid for the boy. Afraid for you, Agnes.”
Boschung called for her, and she said she needed another minute. A few of the police cars pulled out, but there was still a crowd. The body was carried away.
“When did you know it was Patel?” Vallotton asked.
“I think it was the phone call. When Chavanon entered the reception, Patel left to take a call. But when Aubry called me the other day, his call went to voice mail. It only came through when I left the basement. That, and Patel had a background in pharmaceuticals, which meant he understood how the EpiPen worked and how to dose the candies with peanut. Guy Chavanon’s candies were the missing link.”
“Why didn’t Marie or Christine think of them?”
“Those candies were so ubiquitous that no one who knew him well thought about them. Plus, Marie Chavanon didn’t want to go through her husband’s belongings. She hadn’t realized the silver box wasn’t with his personal effects.”
“We still don’t know if there was any legitimacy to Chavanon’s big invention.”
“Certainly both Marie and Christine stopped believing in a real invention years ago.” Agnes remembered the notebook Christine brought her. It was part of the series but it didn’t seem like Guy Chavanon. It was a pale imitation of him.
“If there was a great discovery it would be a shame to think that Chavanon gave his life for something that was then lost.”
“He was a paranoid man,” Agnes said. “He liked hiding things.” Her thoughts drifted to the absence of a computer and to the cybercafé. Was Chavanon using one of the café’s public computers? His work would be completely anonymous if the data was stored on a flash drive. Maybe he took photographs of notes and transferred them to a drive? Burn the notes and keep the drive safe? Complicated, but for a man who liked complications, possible. But where would he have stored the flash drive?
“Did Patel also kill Mercier?” Vallotton asked.
“Yes. I think they’ll find that the murder weapon is an antique from Patel’s showroom. He had tribal pieces there, and among them several daggers. Mercier was killed because Patel thought he was Chavanon’s new partner for his invention.”
“That’s unlikely. Mercier was a bureaucrat, not a watchmaker.”
“Patel didn’t know that. Mercier spoke with him about Swiss Made, and Patel thought he was delivering a message. A reminder of why Chavanon backed out of a partnership with the Patel Group. The other federation members are with watch companies; Mercier is probably the only one who retired from active manufacturing and took on a purely advisory role. Patel didn’t know them well enough to understand that Mercier was the last person who could have partnered with Chavanon.” Just as Mercier didn’t know how his warning to her about Copernicus would prove true. In some ways, he was killed by his fear of a radical idea.
“Marie and Christine will be grateful to know what really happened,” Vallotton said.
“I’m not sure.”
“Christine, at least, wanted the truth.”
“Everyone wants the truth until they hear it. Guy backed out of an agreement with a friend. It doesn’t justify what happened, but it wasn’t the most honorable action.”
Boschung called out to her again.
Vallotton gave her the smile she remembered from the first time she met him, when they’d stood on the top of his château and looked out across the frozen lake. It was a smile that held promise.
“Please tell your aunt that honor is as powerful as the seven deadly sins and that pride and honor aren’t easily separated. She will know what I mean.”
Boschung called out again.
Vallotton straightened her coat collar. “I’ll let you get to work now that I know you’re okay.” He slipped into his car and lowered the window. Despite the cosmetic damage, the car roared to life. He backed up slowly.
“Call me for dinner,” she said. But it was too late for him to hear.
Forty-two
Agnes was waiting by the front door when Tommy arrived. She followed him into the chalet. He was grinning despite his bandages and cast. Clearly a night in the hospital had restored his spirits. He was holding Helene Fontenay’s wrist and smiling. The headmistress said something to him in a low voice, and he headed toward the stairs.
“Chef Jean has set up a welcome-home party in the dining room,” Helene said to Agnes. “Ice cream and cookies. Bernard dismissed classes for the rest of the afternoon.”
“I called the hospital. They said you didn’t leave Tommy’s side all night, and that he will make a complete recovery.”
Helene shrugged slightly. “He’ll probably have some bad dreams. I know I did after my accident. Hopefully his will only last a few weeks. But we talked about it, and I think he will be fine.”
“Are his parents coming to get him?”
“They’re on their way, but only for a visit, I think.” Helene looked around the entrance hall. “When we came here, I hadn’t healed. I had too much pain, physical pain, and emotionally I wasn’t ready. I’d never felt a physical limitation before, and to be trapped here.” She shivered. “I hated the boys who were living far from home, having their own school adventure. Young, their entire lives in front of them. I hated the fact that they didn’t understand how precious their time was. Why weren’t they striving to excel; why didn’t they want excellence in everything they did every day?” She glanced at Agnes. “You’re kind not to laugh at me. I wasn’t a perfect child, or even a perfect athlete. But it’s easy to forget when you’re on the other side.”
“You’d suffered a terrible blow. Most people wouldn’t be near your level of recovery.”
“Bernard told me about his ridiculous distillery. Not that the project is ridiculo
us, but hiding it? You don’t know what I’d imagined. It opened my eyes. I’d trapped myself in these walls. There’s no reason I can’t walk to the farmhouse and see what they are doing. Just like there’s no reason I can’t try skiing.”
Agnes was surprised.
“It won’t be the same. But nothing ever is, and maybe I’ll learn to appreciate the beauty and serenity of the slopes. I’ll take it easy on the speed. After a lifetime of triple black diamonds, I’ll be a fixture on the blue slopes now.”
“And Tommy, what about him?”
“We’re going to give it the rest of the semester. That’s what we decided.” Helene adjusted her crutches, and Agnes could tell that she was exhausted from a night spent in a hospital chair. “He likes it here, but wants to be home. Wants to impress his father, but also find his own way. He’s not so different from the rest of them, he simply decided to act out on his feelings. He’s got a tendency toward the dramatic.”
Agnes laughed. “Understatement.”
She asked if she could go to the dormitory floors, and Helene waved her on before joining the party.
Standing in Leo’s room, Agnes studied the shelves. There were five little boxes, not the four she remembered. She picked up the one she’d not seen before. It was the size of a man’s palm, made of wood and fine strips of metal. She toyed with it for a moment, then pushed a faint recess. A tiny drawer opened. Hardly more than a sliver. She closed it and turned the box over again. This time she pulled. The box slid open, revealing a long, narrow hollow.
Downstairs she found the entire school gathered in the dining room. Tommy and Koulsy were sharing the glory due healing heroes. It took her a moment to find Leo Chavanon.
His eyes brightened when he saw the box in her hands. “That’s my favorite, too.”
“I didn’t see it in your room before.”
“Loaned it to Rudolph. He thought he could find all of the secret drawers. He only found three.” Leo grinned. “My dad told me there are nine, but I’ve only found five. He gave it to me last term, and it’s the most complicated one yet. He liked to play with it when he visited.” His face clouded over. “Do you think I’ll ever find them all now that dad’s gone?”
A Well-Timed Murder Page 27