by Gerry Belle
“Yes, maybe,” she mumbled, hands over her mouth.
Beatriz rolled her eyes and then marched off to get another glass of water. By the time she’d corralled the two shocked observers into the salon, shoved a glass of Madeira into each of their hands and instructed Marie to put on large pots of hot water for coffee and tea, the police had arrived.
As the first boots echoed through the entry hall, Zhara could hear Beatriz barking orders, “Down the hill at the plaza. Three dead women, the sisters Regio from Villa Blanche. Shot in the hearts, all three. Maybe a witness. My mistress, Lady Six is in the salon.”
Multiple sets of boots tromped off down the path to the plaza. Zhara could hear them chattering away in French as they ran to confirm Beatriz’s statement. Walkie-talkie crackled to life after a few minutes and she could hear the words, “Oui! Oui! Trois dames! Balle dans le coeur!”
In return she heard the brusque order, “A la Villa Blanche! Securiser la scene!”
Beatriz returned, followed by a policeman in a wrinkled brown suit. The most striking thing about the man was that he was incredibly handsome. Zhara wasn’t dead and she wasn’t blind. The man before her was quite disheveled, presumably from a night of carousing that was probably the norm for him with his blond, blue-eyed good looks in the swank environs of Cannes. She sighed. This was probably not going to be easy. Handsome men always thought they knew everything, when usually they knew nothing. Clearly this guy wasn’t self-quarantining!
“I am Inspector Caron. I believe you are the persons who reported the deaths. Who found them?”
“I did,” Basilio replied shakily, his face still tinged with green. “I’d gone to the beach to swim. When I went down, they weren’t there, no one was. When I came back, they were in their chairs as usual. I called out a greeting, but they didn’t reply. When I looked closer, I could see the red stains on their clothes and their arms and heads were hanging at odd angles. Then, I realized they were dead,” his voice rasped with shock on the last few words.
The Inspector nodded. “Is it usual for them to be at the plaza this early?” he asked, scrutinizing Basilio closely.
“Yes, it is normal,” the young man replied shakily. “What is weird is for there not to be any others,” he added slowly. “Usually, when I come back up from my swim, almost all of the villa residents are at the plaza having their morning coffee and a chat. It’s a way of socializing without being close to each other.”
“I see,” the Inspector said, jotting down a note in a small black notebook. “Who is usually there?”
Basilio went through the list of the different villas and their residents. Stopping to add, “The Chinese sons don’t necessarily go down to the plaza. They probably don’t have anything to say to the other residents, who are much older, or they don’t speak English. I don’t know. They avoid swimming at the same time as me. I greet them if I see them, but they generally don’t reply.”
Zhara could see that this statement piqued the interest of the detective. With a sigh, she finally added, “But they weren’t at the plaza today either, Inspector.”
Caron lifted his blue eyes to Zhara, took in her elegant dressing gown, then cast his glance around the refined contents of the room. “I’ve heard that Villa Colline was rented by a wealthy American woman. I assume you are Lady Zhara Six?”
“I am,” Zhara affirmed haughtily and then, without smiling, demanded, “Please find yourself a mask. We’ve all had the virus and even if you are arrogant enough to think you won’t get it, we’d prefer not to be reinfected, or to infect anyone else. Please have your officers do the same and redirect them through the garden path, not through the house.”
The inspector froze, used to being the one in charge. His eyes narrowed and then he started to laugh. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. Then spoke smoothly into the walkie talkie reciting the demands she’d given. Within seconds a young officer, his face draped in a cheap black stretch-fabric mask, entered carrying another one for the Inspector. He donned it slowly, as Zhara gritted her teeth.
Beatriz handed the Inspector a damp cloth that she’d sprayed with bleach water and then graciously said, “Please have a seat Inspector. My Lady will speak with you now.”
The young man’s eyes crinkled above the black mask and he said, a lilt to his voice, “Thank you! I’ve been all night at the resource center in town handing out masks and sanitizer to people. I forgot what I was doing when I had the chance to get out on my own, in the car on the way up here. I apologize!”
Zhara, relieved, smiled in return and said, “We’ll also don out masks if you like, Inspector.”
“It’s your home. I should have had more awareness,” he said sadly. “This whole pandemic is making things that seem like common sense hard to follow. It’s like a fugue state for us.”
“Yes, I agree,” Zhara added thoughtfully. “Thank you for complying.”
The Inspector nodded, then said, “You say the young Chinese men were not at the plaza?
“No. No they weren’t,” Zhara said simply. “Beatriz, would you hand me the binoculars, please.”
The small, dark woman darted out to the terrace and returned in a moment with the heavy, antique binoculars. They looked even more ungainly in her small, weathered hands.
“I have been very ill. Not strong and not able to make the long walk down the path to the beach or the plaza,” Zhara said, taking a damp piece of linen from Beatriz’s hand and wiping down the binoculars before handing them to Caron. “I spend a few minutes, several times a day, looking through the binoculars as a way to see the world go by.”
Caron stood and walked out onto the terrace, focusing the glasses on the plaza below. It bustled with activity. The green fronds of cypress and olive trees that surrounded it occasionally obscuring the activities he could observe. He lowered the glasses and then turned back to Zhara, still seated in the salon watching him.
“You have a very good view of things from here, yes?” he inquired.
“As you can see, yes,” Zhara nodded in agreement. “This morning I saw the sisters come down after Basilio had descended down the path towards the beach. A few minutes later, I saw Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Durand come down to the plaza with a small bag over his shoulder. He didn’t stay long and I lost sight of him for a while as I had breakfast on the terrace and applied myself to that for a bit. My arm gets tired,” she added. “Those are heavy,” she waggled a hand at the massive binoculars.
“They are,” the Inspector agreed, waiting for her to continue.
“When I looked again, Monsieur Durand was gone. The sisters were still in their chairs,” Zhara continued pensively. “Then the couple from Villa Folie arrived. They sat down for a minute and then when I looked again, I could see them hurrying back up the path to their villa. The Chinese couple arrived soon after, made an attempt to talk to the sisters and then also departed. I thought they left there because there was no one besides the sisters to talk with. But, perhaps, they left as the sisters were already dead,” she added slowly.
Inspector Caron narrowed his blue eyes, pushed back his tangled blond hair and said, “You’re saying what, one of the earlier parties killed the sisters?”
“It would seem so, as Basilio came onto the terrace here a few minutes later saying they were dead, shot through their hearts. I saw them arrive. I saw each of the other groups arrive. I saw them leave. It had to be one of those groups,” she added thoughtfully.
“I don’t think the Chinese went close enough. I don’t think the couple from Villa Folie went close enough and they didn’t have anything with them except travel mugs, so I don’t see how it could have been them,” she said, shaking her head.
“It could only have been Monsieur Durand,” she muttered.
At the Inspector’s exclamation of denial, Zhara held up a hand to stop him.
“I know. I know. He’s the cat’s meow according to everyone around here. I don’t know. I’ve never met him. What I do know is that he was the only one w
ho arrived on the plaza this morning with a bag that could have contained a gun. I suggest you search his home and gardens before he has a chance to dispose of the weapon,” Zhara added, urgency in her voice.
The young policeman gave her a look of open disgust, then issued the order through is walkie talkie. Giving her a disgruntled look, he left the room to stand in the exterior courtyard and bark orders into his communication device. As soon as he’d exited the front door, he’d ripped off his mask and Zhara could see that his face was dark and flushed with indignation at the idea that their local celebrity could have done such a dastardly deed.
Having observed the group agreement in Jordan that allowed different individuals to kill off people they judged as bad or loathsome, Zhara knew that a murderer could be anyone. A little old man could still kill people, no matter how dignified he looked.
To her surprise, Inspector Caron stomped back into the room, and stopped abruptly in front of them. “What would his motive be?” he demanded. “What possible reason could he have for this action?”
Zhara looked at Basilio who shook his head. They both knew the reason, but it sounded so ridiculous that he was certainly not going to say it out loud. Zhara sighed and said, “You won’t believe us if we told you.”
“Tell me and let me be the judge of that,” the young man huffed indignantly.
“The sisters had stockpiled paper products,” Zhara said reluctantly. “They rubbed it into all the others on the plaza every chance they got. Everyone was getting by without those things...mostly, I think. But the lack of toilet paper was a nasty sticking point for some. We have bidets here at Villa Colline, but I don’t know about everyone else,” she finished simply. “I don’t know any more than that. It could be a motive, or it could be total schlock,” she said at the disbelieving look on Caron’s face. “Only you will be able to find out.”
He turned and left without a word. Stomping to the outside path and tearing down it towards the plaza.
Zhara sighed, helped Basilio to his feet, then stumbled into her own bedroom. Murder was exhausting, she thought as she simply melted onto her bed and pulled a throw over her head. She couldn’t think about it for one more second.
Chapter Eighteen
Murder Most Mundane
The next day, Basilio returned from his usual morning swim with a look of complete defeat on his face. “What’s wrong?” his mother called from the upper terrace, where she sat chatting with Zhara.
“They did arrest Monsieur Durand,” Basilio said, shaking his head. “No one can believe it and they all think Caron has gone off his head.” Basilio trudged into the house and disappeared.
“No one wants to believe these things,” Zhara muttered. Looking at Beatriz she said, “Unfortunately for us, we know they happen.”
“Far too often,” Beatriz said, agreeing reluctantly. “We’ve seen it over and over now. It does get tiring.”
Zhara sat soberly for a few minutes. “Hopefully, they will dispense the sisters’s supply of paper products to those in the greatest need. To think that ordinary, everyday supplies can lead to this is one of the greatest tragedies I think I’ve ever seen. People can descend to almost any level given the slightest threat to their current level of comfort,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I want to disbelieve it, but I can’t.”
“On the other hand,” Zhara said simply, “we are lucky enough to have bidets. If we had to wipe with leaves or newspaper or magazine, we might have frayed nerves as well.”
Beatriz snorted. “My Lady, don’t be ridiculous. Patting our bums dry may seem ok to us, a generation who has seen diapers rinsed in the toilet then put in a pail. The unwillingness to do that is the same reason that the Earth is being choked to death with disposable diapers. You underestimate the lack of experience, compassion and practicality it takes to be willing to pat dry with a cloth and not use a paper product,” she said scornfully.
“People are lazy, my Lady. People are selfish. I almost feel sorry for Monsieur Durand. I’m sure it wasn’t the actual fact of them having paper products when others didn’t that drove him to it. He probably has bidets and is doing exactly what we’re doing here. Basilio said Durand simply nodded when he told the others what we were doing here to get by without paper products. I think it was more those women’s superiority and nastiness about it that drove him to it.”
“There will be many people in town, people Monsieur Durand knows and cares about, who don’t have the luxury of bidets or spare clothes to get by. They could have used paper products desperately. That is probably what drove him to it,” Beatriz said, nodding to herself with certainty. “Other people’s selfishness made him do it. He had a righteous anger towards those dreadful ladies.”
Zhara wasn’t sure about any of that, but it did explain a few things. Though, to be honest, Zhara had always had a wary attitude towards righteous anger. Too much of it in Sunday school when she was little.
It was almost a week later when Inspector Caron appeared on their doorstep, mask in place across his face.
“Please come in, Inspector,” Beatriz insisted. Hurrying to pull one of the iron terrace chairs farther apart. “We need to keep our distance,” she added. “We don’t want you catching the virus.”
The inspector thanked her and sat down facing Zhara, who had given up using the binoculars altogether.
“I want to thank you for the information you gave us on the murder of the Regio sisters,” he started slowly. “I was angry at the time that you could blame Monsieur Durand. He is someone I’ve always looked up to and admired.”
Caron leaned back in his chair and fiddled with the mask across his nose and mouth. “We don’t need to involve you or take your statement,” he added slowly. “Durand confessed immediately. And, with you being a foreigner, it would only complicate things.”
Zhara nodded. “I’m glad about that.”
“He did it because the town was in such desperate need. The sisters had disinfectant wipes that could have been used to help people at the clinic in town. He felt they should have donated those things to the hospital and managed the way everyone else was on the cove,” the inspector’s cheeks tinged a bit pink at this mention. How people managed to clean themselves after toileting not being a subject he was usually comfortable with.
“They should have,” Zhara agreed simply. “It’s a hard line to draw between keeping other people safe, keeping ourselves safe, doing the right thing, having a conscience, and keeping individual rights. We expect that people will have common sense and common decency, but when their own way of life, or ease of life, is threatened, it usually doesn’t come down to acceptance. People fight to keep what they have, even at the cost to others.”
“I just never thought murder could become so mundane,” Inspector Caron muttered darkly. “Killed over disposable wipes. It’s ridiculous.”
“I agree,” Zhara said gloomily. “On the other hand, I’ve seen people murder for less. Or, perhaps I should say more,” she added consideringly. “I’ve seen people murder in order to allow others to have a better life. Now I’ve seen people murder because others didn’t allow people to have a better life. The world is confusing Inspector and if I might agree with you, murder has become mundane. It is inexplicable. But it is true.”
The two sat in gloomy silence as Beatriz brought a tray of cheese, pate, and crackers, along with a carafe of Madeira and two finally-cut crystal glasses.
“Take off your mask if you wish,” Zhara said suddenly. “Eat and drink with me. We might as well enjoy life with people we respect, then die with those we don’t. If you get ill, I hope you live. If you die, I will have been proud to meet you.”
The Inspector looked at her piercingly over his black mask, then slowly removed it. Cleaning his hands with the sterilizing linen rags that Beatriz had set out, he poured each of them a good measure of liquor, handed a glass to Zhara and said, “To a beautiful life - a good life - an honorable life, whether we live or die.”
“
A votre sante!” Zhara declared, then tipped her glass to the Inspector and took a good swig of the dark, fragrant liquor. Life could be good, even when others were bad. And that was anything but mundane.
The End