The Case of the Fallen Hero (An Inspector David Graham Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Alison Golden

  “With any luck,” Graham told her, “we shan’t be here long. I felt that it would be instructive to stand at the actual spot from where we believe George fell and bring together what we know about his death.”

  “Know?” Antoine scoffed. “The man threw himself off. That’s what we know.”

  Harding fielded this comment sounding more like a textbook than she’d have liked but responding correctly all the same. “We don’t have any evidence to support such a theory and therefore can’t proceed on that basis.” Graham nodded at this neat summation.

  “Then where is Marie?” Antoine wanted to know. “If we are required to be here, surely you brought her from her hospital to be with us, also?”

  Graham had found it difficult to do so, but the situation demanded exactly that. Marie was, he knew, as much a suspect as any of them, maybe more so. With a family situation as complex and nebulous as the Jouberts, he needed everyone present, even if that meant requiring the patient and the helpful Dr. Bélanger to accompany her up to the battlements.

  “She will be here shortly,” Graham replied truthfully. Bélanger had called him moments earlier, assuring him that Marie was, in the doctor’s words, ‘”calm enough at the moment” to take part in this – hopefully final – stage of the inquiry.

  “So what do we do?” Mathilde asked, palms outstretched. “Some kind of stupid pantomime? A re-enactment of something that none of us saw?”

  Graham addressed her with a steady gaze. “We establish the facts of the matter,” Graham stated. “Beginning with your locations at the time of the… at the time of George’s death,” he said, trying to avoid calling it something it might truly not have been.

  “I was asleep,” Eleanor told him.

  “Et nous aussi,” the Joubert parents added.

  “And me,” Juliette chimed in. “Too tired and drunk to be anything else.”

  Harding began taking notes on her tablet, while Graham was doing the same, using his traditional notepad and pencil. “And what time did you all leave the wedding?” he asked.

  “Midnight,” Eleanor said. “There wasn’t much happening, and I was tired.”

  “Eleven or so,” Antoine said. “We left together.”

  Graham turned to Juliette. “What about you, Miss?”

  She pursed her lips. “I can’t say for certain. I had a lot of champagne. I think I danced for a while. Maybe two o’clock?”

  Harding made a note, finding at once that this detail triggered a memory. She swished her screen a few times and found reference in her notes from the interview with Sam, the castle’s night security guard, to a lone, drunken dancer. Was it only this morning that I spoke to the guard? It felt like a month had passed, perhaps more. She showed the note to Graham, who nodded.

  “So,” Graham surmised, “you were perhaps the last to leave.”

  “I guess so,” Juliette said. The others had the distinct impression that she’d been too drunk even to know where she had been, never mind how late it was. “But I was asleep by three or so.”

  There was an echoing, distant voice from the arch-ceilinged passageways that led to the battlements. “Mon Dieu, this is the place where…”

  “Marie?” four people said at once.

  The bereaved widow arrived, arm in arm with Dr. Bélanger, but it was hardly a romantic gesture. He had to make sure both that she safely navigated the spiral staircase and that she not bolt.

  “This is where… he fell,” Marie was saying, over and over. “George…” She had a dreamy, faraway look but was sufficiently engaged, both Bélanger and Graham judged, to become involved in this crucial fact-finding exercise.

  “Fell, yes,” Antoine said, taking Marie’s arm from Bélanger and gesturing toward the edge of the battlements. “Through this gap, perhaps.”

  Harding stepped across, removed Antoine’s arm with a deliberate, firm grip, and gave the grieving Marie a warm smile. “How are you doing, love?” She and Marie spoke for a few moments while Graham took Antoine aside for a stern talking-to.

  “It will not help at all,” he told him, “to put ideas in Marie’s head. I’m interested in the facts and only the facts.”

  “She is my daughter,” Antoine protested. “I may speak with her in any way I please.”

  “Not when you’re all party to what is possibly a murder investigation,” Graham hissed. “We should be conducting our interviews at the station, but, if you remember, the last time Marie was there, she became so upset we had to lock her up for her own safety.”

  He spoke to Marie now, leaving the furious Antoine to stew. “I’d like you to tell us where you were after the wedding dinner was over. Did you go to your bridal suite, here at the castle?” he asked.

  Marie thought carefully, tracking through the day’s events. “We were married. We had dinner with everyone, and there was dancing.” Beyond this, she seemed unable to describe. “I… I really don’t remember what happened next.”

  “Did you have a lot to drink?” Harding asked. This would, at the very least, offer some explanation for the strange gaps in her recollection of what should have been the most memorable day of her life.

  “Not very much,” Marie replied. “Two or three glasses, all evening.”

  “She wasn’t drunk,” Antoine reported for the record. “I remember her being very clear-headed at the dinner. And she danced beautifully.”

  “However,” came the voice of Dr. Bélanger from the back of the little group, “it is possible for alcohol to interact with her medication in ways that might leave her vulnerable to episodes of amnesia, especially under stressful conditions.”

  It was now Marie’s mother’s turn to be furious. Mathilde skewered him with a furious stare. “Then you should not have prescribed them. Or you should have banned her from drinking.”

  “No drinking?” Eleanor asked, incredulous. “At a wedding?”

  This made her Mathilde’s next target. “If it was not safe, if it would make her worse even than before, then yes.”

  Graham quieted her. “That isn’t important now. We have a gap in the record that we’re trying to fill. There’s no indication that George and Marie slept in the bridal suite.”

  There was no response from anyone to this awkward, if entirely truthful, statement.

  “There is a gap of some eight of nine hours between Marie and George leaving the wedding party,” Graham continued, “and their next appearance together at the foot of the battlements, just after eight-thirty in the morning. Marie, I ask again,” Graham said, facing her, “is there anything you can tell us about that period of time?”

  Mathilde butted in protectively. “She already told you that she does not remember a thing…”

  “I asked your daughter, Madame Joubert. Kindly let her speak for herself,” Graham spoke sharply.

  But it was fruitless. Marie stared blankly at them. “I’m sorry. If I think back, I remember the wedding and the dinner and dancing. Even some of the music. But after that… nothing.”

  Antoine began to speak in French to his daughter, but Graham stopped him. “English only, please, from everyone.”

  “Not even…” Antoine translated awkwardly, “the memory of your first night together?”

  Marie was shaking her head, staring around as if the battlements themselves might speak up and repair the fissures in her memory. “Nothing. There’s just nothing there. I’m sorry. I know that’s really not helpful. ” Marie turned to her mother, “I’m scared, Maman. Did I kill George?”

  “Shh, shh, chérie, it will be alright, keep calm.”

  To Graham, Marie appeared to have a genuine case of amnesia. It was also true, however, that claiming amnesia was an excellent way in which to deflect blame, avoid answering difficult questions, and deliberately leave the police with huge holes in their knowledge of events. Her mental condition was, Graham judged, either an elaborate plan to deceive or a genuine ailment with a hugely negative impact on her life – and his investigation. For the time being,
he decided to err on the side of simply believing her, especially having witnessed her all-too-real struggles with her mental state back at the station in Gorey. But the fact remained, anything could have happened on those ramparts.

  “Okay,” he said, taking a step backward, both literally and figuratively. “Let’s address something of the history of your families.” Antoine stiffened slightly, Graham noticed. “I want to discuss the death of George and Eleanor’s parents.”

  “This again?” Mathilde sighed, but then caught Eleanor’s withering expression. “Whatever you want,” she conceded with another shrug.

  “Take me back to those events,” he asked them all as Harding swiped to a new page in her notes. “And this time, tell me everything.

  Leo was buzzing with excitement. “So?” he asked for the fourth time. “What have we got?”

  “Hang on, Mr. Art Genius, I’m unwrapping the… wrapping,” Marina explained. This painting was more heavily protected than the others, and with softer, more expensive material. “This one has been so carefully crated,” she called over. “Perhaps it is the pride of the collection. Ah, I think I’ve got it.” There were ten seconds of silence, which for Leo were an agony far greater than his broken arm.

  “Well?” he almost shrieked.

  “You need to come over here.”

  “Really?” he asked, beginning to stand.

  “Please don’t make him,” Emily said from the dark corner she’d been sharing with Harry. “He’s not well.”

  “I’m on my way,” Leo said.

  “Good. Because… well… you’ll see,” Marina said, her voice tinged with amazed wonder.

  Leo held his aching arm to his chest, aided by a makeshift sling Emily had made earlier from her scarf, and tottered over to the crate where Marina was standing in front of her find. “Okay, my little detective, what have you…?” He stopped, stood, stared, and found himself utterly speechless.

  The painting was in a large, highly ornate, golden frame. It was of a style entirely different from the modern pieces they’d been uncovering. This was the work of a Renaissance master. Even Marina could see that it was a particularly good one. It depicted a man dressed expensively, clearly a nobleman, but with a certain feminine air, as though he had allowed the artist to depict his inner self, and not simply the façade he presented to the conservative public. He was holding his left hand by his heart, and his hair was luxuriously dark and wavy. He had a certain pout to him and an undeniable allure that spanned the centuries. Marina thought him very attractive, certainly a seven or an eight; maybe a nine, if he changed his hair or grew some scruff.

  She was about to relate this to Leo, but then she saw his face. He was ashen, as though stricken by some new ailment, and he trembled slightly as she watched him. “Jesus, Leo? Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

  “Yes,” he confessed. “But I’m not going to.”

  “Huh?”

  Emily and Harry came over. “Another weird swirly thing from a guy I’ve never heard of?” Harry began. “Oh, no… Wait, this is… Well, a lot more conventional.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Emily agreed. “Leo, what have we got?”

  His voice was dreamy and uncertain, as though arriving from another room. “I don’t believe it.”

  “It’s very beautiful,” Marina said. “Is it by someone famous, do you think?”

  Leo turned to her. “Marina… Harry… Emily,” he said, touching each of their arms in turn, as if to ensure he had their fullest attention. “We’re standing in front of a miracle.”

  “We are?” Harry said, peering more closely at the portrait.

  “This is…” Leo could barely say it. “I believe this to be Portrait of a Young Man by the artist known as Rafael.”

  “Whoa,” Marina said, stunned. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Jesus, Leo,” Emily gasped.

  “How can that be? This is a modern collection,” Harry was saying. “This doesn’t fit…”

  “It doesn’t, but it’s real, and we’ve found it,” Leo said, holding a trembling hand out toward the painting. “We’ve found it,” he said again.

  They watched him commune, transfixed, with Rafael’s lost masterpiece for a long moment before Emily broached the inevitable question. “How much do you think it might be worth, Leo?”

  He was lost in the details of the young man’s face, the beautifully decorous accoutrements of wealth and class, the carefully depicted sable fur. But he managed to say, “Well over a hundred million dollars.”

  Then, with an abrupt folding of his knees and a strange, frightened moan, he collapsed under his own weight and hit the stone floor with a sickening impact.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE TENSION THAT pervaded the battlements could not have been less than that of the castle’s hardest-fought siege. Graham was prowling around the group of five suspects, asking increasingly terse questions and relentlessly demanding more detail from each of them. Any pause or error was seized upon. Harding had never seen him push witnesses like this, but she took it as a sign that he was closing in on his quarry. Or perhaps he was reaching the limits of his patience. She couldn’t help but wonder what he might do when that happened.

  “So, the shotgun was just lying on the floor by the body of Mr. Ross, the elder.” Graham confirmed. “There were no signs of forced entry. And the nearest farm other than yours was well over a mile away.”

  “Oui,” Antoine said. Of the five gathered witnesses, he’d spoken the most so far and had borne the brunt of Graham’s questioning.

  “Did you check for signs of life?” Graham asked.

  Mathilde answered this one, her head shaking. “You must never have seen a shotgun victim, monsieur. There was no chance that either of them were alive.”

  Graham had, in fact, seen more than his share, but he kept that to himself. “And you’re certain,” he asked once again, “that this was a murder-suicide?”

  “How many times?” Antoine protested. “We’ve told you what happened. We know what we saw.”

  “Let me try something else,” Graham suggested. “Who might have had motive to murder a relatively wealthy couple?” He looked squarely at Juliette, who said nothing. “Someone who always had one eye on the future. Someone who was determined to move away from her provincial upbringing and see something of the world?”

  Juliette spat furiously, “You’re disgusting.”

  “Am I?” Graham asked. “Is it so disgusting to assume that your callous attitude toward human life could possibly extend to murder?”

  “I have nothing to say,” Juliette told him.

  “You cannot think…” Mathilde began, but Graham cut her off.

  “Madame Joubert, I’ve known people to kill for the most trivial of reasons. Over an old flame or the placement of a garden fence.” It was, Graham thought given his own experience, remarkable that the public was so naïve to assume that murderers belonged in a special, unassailable category of people; that they were born, rather than self-created. He had learned over the years that anyone could be a murderer. And often, they became so for the most slender, even most absurd of reasons.

  “So?” Graham said to Juliette. “Why should I rule you out?”

  “You are quite insane.”

  Graham smoothly moved on to Eleanor. “What about you?” he asked. “Were you perhaps awaiting a full share of the inheritance you were earlier forced to split with George?”

  Aghast, Eleanor stuttered, “You think I did this?”

  “You’re not entirely without a motive,” Graham pointed out.

  “That’s outrageous! He was my only surviving family. I would have died for him!”

  Graham scribbled continuously in his notebook, but he knew that there was more than an element of theater in his doing so. Listening acutely, he was absorbing and memorizing every word and gesture, adding each detail to what he already knew, analyzing and critiquing and formulating his strategy as he went. The sure-footed mec
hanisms of his own mind, seldom at a loss and frequently surprising even to him, gave him the confidence to be knowingly brusque with these people. If he leaned on the right one in just the right way, he suspected, they might simply crack.

  But Eleanor’s reaction was genuine. She would not be the one in handcuffs at the end of the evening.

  “Did you ever,” Graham asked next, “have cause to disagree or argue with the Ross family, Monsieur Joubert?”

  Antoine was pinching his nose, exhausted by the stress of this unbearable day. “They were our friends, our neighbors. We didn’t argue.”

  “In fact,” Mathilde added, “we were the same. Politics, religion, you know.” She kept her voice mild, almost conversational in her attempt to defuse the rising, crippling tension.

  Graham ignored her, pacing rapidly up and down the battlements. “And what about you, Marie?” he said.

  “She was good friends with George and Eleanor both,” Antoine replied.

  “I suggest you let your daughter answer.” Graham said. This was just the kind of juncture that was worrying Harding. Would Marie’s last, tenuous hold on sanity finally slip under this barrage of questioning? It didn’t seem fair to her, but there was no other way.

  “We were friends,” Marie recalled. “We played a lot together, both at their farm and ours. And along the river and in the fields.” She remembered it as a happy time.

  Graham stopped. “And did you have the same plan as your older sister, I wonder? A long game, where you inherited the Ross’ money and land?”

  Marie stared at him. “A game?” she said, very confused.

  “Juliette already confessed to having planned her union with George from a very young age. And not despite, but because of the death of his parents. Did she concoct this plan with you?”

  Marie was trembling now, her head shaking from side to side. “I don’t…”

  Graham looked at Juliette. “He marries the first sister,” Graham said, playing out his grotesque version of their romantic lives, “and not to worry if things don’t work out… We’ve got a spare!” he announced, still looking at Juliette but pointing at Marie. “All the wealth stays in the family. Very tidy. But there is a problem. You can’t wait for him to die of natural causes. So you hatch a plan. Together.”