by Susan Finlay
“I am. It’s crazy here. Business has doubled over the past two days. I’m truly amazed. I thought murders would have a negative effect. I actually fretted over it, but Alain kept telling me not to worry. I guess he was right.”
“Speaking of the devil, where is he?”
“Are you and Alain still not getting along? I thought you two were going to try to work out your differences.”
Paul shrugged. “I tried. He’s impossible, truly. I don’t know what you see in him.”
“I know he has his faults. Most people do. Can’t you try to get along with him—for my sake?”
“Hah.” He gave an exaggerated shrug and pushed out his lips. “I’m not the one preventing that. He looks down his nose at everyone, especially me. What have I done to him? Nothing.”
Simone sighed. That’s what she was afraid of. Alain could be stubborn and insecure, she knew. “I think maybe he’s jealous because of our relationship. He feels he can never be as close to me as you are. We’ve know each other all our lives. We’re like brother and sister.”
“Do you really think that’s what his problem is? I’m not so sure. I mean, if he’s worried about other people being closer to you than he is, why isn’t he here right now, when you need him? I’ll pitch in and help you. If I’d known, I would have come earlier.”
“Thank you. I can always count on you. Why don’t you finish your coffee first? Business is under control for the moment.”
“Okay. But let me know when you need me to do something.”
Simone smiled, wiped her hands on her apron, then pushed her hair to the side, behind her ear, and pinned it in place. It had been hanging in her eyes and bugging her for the past fifteen minutes, but she hadn’t had a chance to do anything about it. “People have been rushing in here to tell me about the latest news, and then they sit around eating and gossiping about—”
Paul turned his head and raised an eyebrow.
“Haven’t you heard?” she asked.
“Heard what?”
“Felicia was found murdered in Alain’s bookshop a while ago. Isabelle called the gendarmes. Didn’t you see them swarming the place?”
“Well, yeah. They’ve been all over the village,” Paul said. “I thought that was because of the Tuesday night murder. Merde! Two murders in two days. What’s going on with this place?”
“I don’t know. It’s making me scared. Do we have a serial killer in Reynier?”
“God, I hope not,” Paul said. He took a sip of coffee, then set down his cup. “Wait a minute. Did you say Felicia? You mean, Felicia Beaumont?”
“Yes. I heard the first victim was an outsider, but the second victim is one of our own.” She looked at his stricken face and remembered that he’d dated Felicia a few months back. She put her hand over his. “I’m sorry, Paul. It must be a shock.”
DAVE CHECKED IN at a couple other shops on the main street and chatted with the shopkeepers. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly news spread in this town. The whole damn town seemed to know the names of both victims. They even knew that the first victim, Gabrielle Thibault, was from Paris.
By now, the short spurt of rain had stopped, and he headed back to the hillside. It was a little muddy up there, but he decided he could deal with that. The mud turned out to be slipperier than he expected so he decided to go to one of the main cave entrances instead and have a look around inside the underground chambers. He turned back, stopped at the general store, and purchased a flashlight.
He quickly discovered a team of gendarmes were searching the caves. So intent were they on searching the floor and walls, they only made a half-hearted attempt to stop him from going inside.
In the main chamber, the lights were turned on but he knew some of the smaller rooms wouldn’t be lit. Originally, Reynier had been an underground city. Eventually, the city had expanded outward. It was generally believed that excavation of the cave dwellings began in the High Middle Ages and continued throughout history. For some time, Reynier had been a walled town built high on the hill near the old church, but now only remnants of the old wall remain.
Dave and his friends had been intrigued by the underground city, as had their parents and grandparents before them. The locals knew this place could be a goldmine if they chose to commercialize it, but since many homes were connected via the underground tunnels, there was resistance and no clear ideas for how it could be managed. Not that they didn’t want the income that tourism would bring in. But having tons of sightseers in town and roaming around the caves without supervision could be a nightmare. The curator of Reynier’s museum had suggested they restrict entrance and offer guided tours, but there was a fight over who would get the rights to that since no one person owned the caves.
Dave shook his head. If it was up to him, he’d form a committee and let them organize and maintain guided tours, with the requirement that they be kept small and by reservation only. He’d also make sure all proceeds went into the city’s budget and could be used for improvements. But what did he know?
He made his way through the lit passages and found the unlit one that would take him to Maurelle’s cave. A few feet down, he came to a dead-end. A wooden barricade had been set up and a sign warned that the entry was prohibited by law.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I’M GETTING SCARED,” Fabienne said. “What’s happening to our little village? Do you remember when we first moved here? It was so tranquil.”
Jeannette waved her hand. “Oh, it was like heaven. I remember falling in love with this place the moment I set eyes on it.”
Fabienne remembered a somewhat different story, when Jeannette had told her she was marrying Charles and moving to Reynier. Charles had brought her here to look for a house, and Jeannette had come back to Paris mad as a hornet. She said she didn’t want to be hidden away in some hole in the wall town. A month after her move, she’d taken the train back to Paris and did a complete about face, begging Fabienne to move to Reynier. Told her there was a man there who would be perfect for her.
“Charles wanted us out of the big city. Said Paris was filthy and crime-ridden. He would roll over in his grave if he knew what was happening to our little village. This is the first time I can say I’m glad he’s not here to see this.”
“I remember when he caught old Ferdie stealing food from his store,” Fabienne said. “My God, I thought Charles was going to call for a firing squad to punish the man for the crime.”
“Oh yes, I remember that. Charles had little tolerance for sin. I don’t know what he would have done if there’d ever been a murderer amongst us.”
“When my Claude heard about Ferdie, instead of anger, he felt sorry for him. Ferdie did the best he could on a farm hand’s wages. Claude had me make up a basket of food from the café and take it to his family.”
“True. That husband of yours always was a softy. He could have made a much bigger success of the café if he wasn’t always giving handouts. Simone has beggars coming around all the time. Why, just the other morning, in the middle of all the drama, Bruno showed up wanting liquor of all things! She sent him away and rightly so.”
“Well, Claude wouldn’t have given liquor away for free, either.”
“But Claude didn’t have a head for business. It’s a shame he wouldn’t take advice from Charles. You could have had all of this, too, if he had.” She motioned to her luscious kitchen, stocked with up-to-date high end appliances, granite countertop, and a host of expensive pots and pans Fabienne would die for. But she wasn’t going to tell her that. No need to fill Jeannette’s head with praise. It was more than swollen enough as it was.
Jeannette sipped her tea. “You might not know this, but in the beginning Charles made me work all the time. Said we had to show a good profit at the store that first year so his father would turn the business over to him. We put in long hours and I never complained, not once. And he was right. Nobody knew business like Charles did. I’m fortunate to have learned from the best.”
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br /> Fabienne had heard it all before. Jeannette talked a big story, but Fabienne sometimes felt a sorrow now when she was with her friend. Oh, they could laugh and gossip, but Jeannette’s deep buried sadness—what she saw as her great sin—weighed more heavily, not less, with each passing year.
FILES AND NOTES were spread out across Goddard’s desk, but he couldn’t make any sense of them. Of all the cases he’d worked on, this was certainly the weirdest—well, at least the messiest. Most crimes were simple, committed by either known thieves or burglars. Murders generally were a consequence of a fight, an act of passion, or collateral damage from some other crime. You either knew pretty fast who the culprit was or had a fairly clear trail to pursue. But in this case? The first victim was an outsider from Paris with no apparent reason to travel to Reynier. Her car was found in Belvidere, and her daughter was found in the woods of Reynier. Second victim was a local woman with no apparent connection to the first victim and no known enemies. And then there was the Martin woman who had lived temporarily in the cave where the first victim was discovered and owned the murder weapons for both murders.
Glancing at his watch, an hour had elapsed since his interview with Isabelle Lambert. He decided twenty more minutes should suffice for letting Alain Delacroix grow nervous and impatient enough in the interview room, giving Goddard a bit of time to start creating a diagram of connections.
He gathered up his papers and took them over to a large white board attached to one of his office walls. At the top of the board he wrote the two victims’ names and ages in large blue letters. Next to the names, he wrote their occupations. Gabrielle: teacher; Felicia: summer waitress, rest of the year teacher.
He stood back a moment, hand on his chin, a thought surfacing. Hmm, Maurelle Martin had been a teacher also. Searching back through the notes he found something else. Gabrielle had graduated from Birkbeck College, University of London.
Goddard rushed out of his office in search of Officer Vargas. Finding him a moment later, he said, “I need you to do something.”
Vargas nodded.
“I want to know where Maurelle Martin, I mean, Maura Barrington went to college, and the dates. Check on Felicia Beaumont’s college, too, while you’re at it.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir.”
“Have you spoken to her family? Felicia Beaumont’s.”
“No, sir. She doesn’t have any family left.”
“Oh. All right. Let me know as soon as you find out about the colleges.” On his way back to his office, Goddard was stopped by Officer Michaud.
“I have something that came in. We received an anonymous phone call half an hour ago. The caller said that we should know Alain Delacroix lied to everyone about where he was living before he moved back to Reynier.”
Goddard raised one eyebrow.
“Why would he lie about that?”
Michaud shrugged. “According to the caller, Monsieur Delacroix lived in Paris for several months after he left Vendome, before returning to Reynier. Something apparently happened in Paris, and he left in a hurry. He came directly here but didn’t tell anyone about having lived in Paris.”
“Any idea who this caller might have been, or where he or she was calling from?”
“The caller ID showed a payphone. I tracked it down to Vendome. Sounded like a man, but I can’t be sure. The voice quality was poor; maybe even disguised.”
Goddard turned toward the interview room. Alain Delacroix had probably waited long enough. Goddard wanted some answers.
After routine introductory questions, Goddard asked, “Where were you last night, Wednesday?”
“At home. Simone and her family went to a dinner party at her grandmother’s house. I was going to go with Simone, but I developed one of my migraines. Have you ever had a migraine, Officer?”
He shook his head.
“Lucky man. A migraine is the worst imaginable pain. Well, perhaps not as bad as my kidney stones. I spent the evening lying on a bed in the darkened room, except when I was running to the toilet to throw up. I couldn’t keep down any food. Trust me, no one would have wanted me at their dinner party, I can assure you of that.”
“Can anyone verify you were at home all night?”
“Afraid not. I was alone. I don’t remember seeing anyone else on the way there, either.”
When Goddard first met Alain, the man’s dark hair had been a curly mess but at least he was clean-shaven. Today, his hair was oily and his face was covered in beard stubble. His appearance would be understandable if he had just climbed out of bed to come in here, but Goddard knew he’d been out in public much of the day. His men had seen him.
“What time was the dinner party?”
Alain shrugged. “Eight or nine, I suppose.”
“And when did your migraine begin?”
“I don’t know. Maybe an hour earlier? Why?”
“What were you doing before the headache began?”
Alain squinted, then looked away.
“I helped out in the café and ran some errands for Simone and her grandmother, Jeannette. They needed wine and groceries for the dinner party.”
“Did you go to your bookshop?”
“Yes, early in the morning. I checked for damage after the storm the night before, you know, broken windows, leaks. Everything was fine.”
“You didn’t open the shop on Wednesday?”
“No. Power was out in the morning because of the big storm on Tuesday night, plus with all the excitement over the storm damage and the discovery of the murder, I didn’t think people would be shopping for books.”
“What is your relationship with Isabelle Lambert?”
“I’m her boss. She works part-time in the bookshop and part-time in the café.”
“Are you romantically involved with her?”
“What, no.”
“What is your relationship with Maurelle Martin?”
“The same as with Isabelle. Maurelle works for me part-time.”
Goddard noticed the different wording. No ‘boss’.
“She’s very pretty. Are you attracted to her?”
Alain stared at him and pushed his silver-framed eyeglass up in place. A nervous habit?
“I’m not having an affair with her, if that’s what you’re getting at. She’s my best friend’s wife.”
“My men tell me that Dave Martin dated Simone Charbonneau last year. Did you know that?”
“Of course I knew. That was before I moved back here and before he met Maurelle.”
“How do you feel about that?”
Alain shrugged.
“Do you think Dave Martin is having an affair, and maybe his wife found out? Or maybe the other way around?”
“Of course not. They’re not that kind of people. Neither of them would cheat.”
“How well do you really know them?”
“I’ve known Dave for years.”
“But you barely know his wife?”
Alain squirmed.
“Come on, Monsieur. How well do you know her?”
“She’s only a friend, okay. I don’t know her that well, but I know she’s a good person.”
Goddard stared at Alain, hoping to rile him.
“How long have you been back in Reynier?”
“I don’t know. About eight or nine months.”
“So you’ve known her only that long?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right. Why did you move back to Reynier?”
“I grew up here and moved away when I finished school. It was time to move back home.”
“Did you know Felicia Beaumont?”
“Yes. Everyone in this village knows everyone else.”
Goddard noted that Alain was becoming agitated. “How well did you know her?”
“We went to school together.”
“Did you ever date her?”
He adjusted his body in the chair and said, “We went out a few times during our last year of school. Nothing
serious. Look, our class was tiny. Of course we dated. It was a long time ago.”
“Fair enough.”
“Did you know Simone when you were young?”
“No. She grew up in Paris.”
“She didn’t come to visit her grandmother here in Reynier?”
“Well, I suppose she did occasionally when she was young. But I didn’t really know her. I remember hearing people say that Charles and Jeannette enjoyed trips, and they visited family in Paris, or they all went to her aunt’s house in Orleans.”
Goddard twisted his mouth.
“All right. Where did you live in between your two periods in Reynier?”
“Why are you asking me all these questions?”
“I’m doing my job.”
“I don’t see what my life has to do with this investigation.”
“Answer the question please.”
“I’m done talking to you.”
“You’re not done until I say so. Now answer the question.”
Alain’s forehead beaded up with sweat, and he looked like he might pass out.
Goddard regretted pushing so hard, but sometimes it was necessary.
“Okay. I lived in Vendome. I managed a bookshop there. I realized I wasn’t happy, so I decided to move back to Reynier. I had friends here. By that time, Dave had moved here.”
“Why are you lying and why did you lie to everyone about where you lived? Why don’t you want people to know you lived in Paris for a few months after leaving Vendome?”
Alain’s mouth flew open, then he clamped it shut. “How—how did you know that?”
“Again, I must instruct you to tell the truth and answer my question, Monsieur Delacroix.”
He sighed and slumped down in the chair. “I was involved with a married woman in Vendome. One day her husband discovered the affair, and after that he moved the family to Montmartre.” He paused, and his mouth twisted slightly. “I only found out after weeks of trying to call her. She finally answered the phone when she was home alone. She said she missed me. After we talked, I quit my job and left Vendome. I moved to Paris, near Montmartre, and took a job as waiter at a bistro. That’s how I learned about working in restaurants and cafés. I didn’t know then that I’d be helping Simone run her café soon afterwards. At least something good came out of my experience in Paris.” He paused again and pushed his eyeglasses up.