The Luckiest Woman Ever: Molly Sutton Mystery 2

by Nell Goddin

  A million euros.

  She put her bag down on the metal table in the kitchen where she was used to chopping Mme Desrosiers’s vegetables, and walked into the foyer. Peering upstairs, she looked for the old woman’s face at the bannister, laughing down at her.

  Of course she’s not there, she’s dead.

  Sabrina knew very well she was dead, but some part of her resisted the knowledge, as though she was afraid of dropping her guard. But she started up the stairs, slowly and then running, up to the second floor. She had cleaned these rooms for years, but this was the first time she walked into them standing tall, taking her time, without dragging a vacuum cleaner or bucket and mop. All of it looked different—the ornate decoration no longer a series of cleaning tasks waiting for her attention, the paintings she could look at and consider at her leisure.

  She pretended she was part of the family, Mme Desrosiers’s daughter perhaps, in the house alone, mourning for her mother. Drifting into the sitting room with the stuffed ostrich, Sabrina touched its feathers, which she hadn’t dared to do with the old lady in the house. Madame was capable of swooping in out of nowhere to shriek at you if you touched anything the wrong way.

  Her footsteps creaked on the floorboards and she kept stopping to listen as though expecting the shrieking to start up any minute, or to hear the television going on the third floor. But the house was silent except for an occasional sigh from the radiators.

  Mme Desrosiers had always paid Sabrina in cash. Twice a month and never missed, which was surprising in a way, considering how fond the old lady was of making people uncomfortable. Sabrina had to give her that—she paid on time. Of course there was no knowing where the cash box was, if it was a box, but it must still be in the house, mustn’t it? Somewhere? And aside from cash, surely there were other things…of interest?

  Sabrina went back to the staircase and ran up another floor up to Mme Desrosiers's bedroom. The few times she had been allowed inside the room to clean, she had seen the jewelry box on the bureau. It was long and flat and Sabrina guessed there were rare and valuable necklaces inside.

  Albert Desrosiers was famous in Castillac—both for the invention of the special transistor (whose use no one understood) and especially for the river of money that the invention had sent his way. She could remember schoolmates talking about him with reverence, a local man who had gotten rich just from having a good idea! And to think, that one good idea had made this house and this jewelry box possible. It sat on Madame’s dressing table, long and flat just as she remembered. Sabrina ran her hand along the velvet top. And then she took it in her hands and popped open the lid.

  Inside was a string of pearls. Pretty enough, but not what Sabrina had been dreaming of. She had believed there would be diamonds, emeralds, perhaps sapphires, something with some flash. With disappointment she let the box drop back to the table, and began opening every drawer and box in Mme Desrosiers’s room that she could find, searching for the treasure she was sure the old lady had hidden there.

  Sunday was warmer but dreary. “La grisaille,” Molly said to Frances, pointing outside to the gray sky. “Maybe a day to read by the woodstove? Cold rain. Yuck.”

  “If I sit by the woodstove all day I’m going to sink into a depressing heap,” said Frances. “Come on, isn’t there someplace we can go for brunch?”

  “Brunch is not really a French thing.”

  “Well, we could go sit at the bar at Chez Papa and stare at Nico.”

  “And eat frites.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  They washed up their coffee cups and put on coats and hats. Once they were outside, Molly agreed that the air felt bracing in a good way, and didn’t mind the light sprinkle of rain. It felt good to get out and breathe.

  From far away they could see more traffic on rue des Chênes than usual. Cars parked on the road by the cemetery and black umbrellas were sprouting. When they got closer, they saw an old Citroën hearse pull up by the gates.

  “Do you think they’re planting the old lady?” said Frances, too loudly.

  Molly shot Frances a look. She scanned the people climbing out of their cars and walking under umbrellas, looking for Adèle and her brother, but didn’t see them.

  The friends walked slowly, watching the hearse driver open up the back of the hearse (which was a thing of beauty, the elegant lines of the Citroën perfectly appropriate for a hearse). A few people stopped and looked in at the casket.

  “I’m thinking it should say, ‘Pray for the living’,” said Frances, looking at the wrought-iron inscription over the gate. “I mean, we’re the ones who could use some help. What good will praying do when we’re already dead?”

  “Hush,” said Molly. “Talk to me about it when we’re at Chez Papa.” It must be the funeral for Mme Desrosiers, and she didn’t want to be distracted while she observed, just in case some sort of information dropped into her lap. She saw Rémy, the organic farmer, dressed in a dark suit, and wondered what his connection to the old lady was. And there was Pierre Gault, the mason, almost unrecognizable in a fedora and black suit. Also the dark-haired young woman who had been at La Métairie, and her boyfriend or husband, his arm tight around her waist, just as it had been at dinner the other night.

  Molly watched. She knew it was superstitious but she had the idea that since she had found the body, she was responsible in some way for setting things right, if in fact they were wrong. She had not even one tiny shred of evidence that anything was wrong. Desrosiers had most likely died of a heart attack, just like Dufort said.

  But still.

  The man with his arm around the dark-haired woman—he wasn’t doing anything, he wasn’t moving or talking, but Molly had the distinct impression that he was seething with anger. She could feel the waves of it as she stood thirty feet away.

  What is he so furious about? And why was he always holding on to his wife like that, so protectively? Is he super jealous and controlling?

  Then the sound of laughter came suddenly, like something alive being let out of a cage. Molly and Frances looked down the road and saw Adèle and Michel walking to the cemetery, their heads bare with no umbrella, and they were smiling and laughing as though on their way to the theater for a night of fun, almost as if they were a young couple.

  Odd, thought Molly.

  Don’t blame ’em, thought Frances.

  “Would it be horribly rude for us to go in for the ceremony?” whispered Molly.

  “You want to go to a funeral?”

  “Well, this one. Yes.”

  Frances looked at Molly like she had two heads. “Okay. You go ahead, enjoy yourself, you nutter. I’ll trot on ahead to Chez Papa and dive into those frites. Nico will keep me company.”

  Molly nodded and Frances took off without a backward glance. Adèle and Michel saw Molly and waved as they approached.

  “Bonjour, Molly,” said each of them, kissing cheeks with her.

  “I was just walking into the village,” she said hesitantly.

  “We’re going to our aunt’s funeral,” said Michel, grinning.

  “Yes. I was wondering…would it be weird? Or impolite? I’d like to attend, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Not at all!” said Michel. Adèle stared at him but he did not notice. “We’d love your company,” he said, still grinning. He was wearing a very nice black wool suit that looked good on his slim frame. A lock of hair fell across his eyes as they walked on. So charming, thought Molly. Adorable really. Although maybe a little giddy for a funeral?

  Through the gate and under the inscription, the three joined the cluster of people near the grave. Four men broke away from the group and went back to the hearse, lifted the casket, and walked back with Mme Desrosiers. The casket was ornately carved, a work of art that Molly couldn’t help thinking was a shame to put in a grave. She was surprised to see that the casket was going in the ground and not being laid to rest in one of the mausoleums scattered about the cemetery, since from all accounts Mme
Desrosiers had been a woman of means.

  Rémy caught her eye and nodded. A blush crept up her neck although their one date months ago had fizzled. She looked as closely as she could at the other mourners without staring. Michel and Adele’s mother was there, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Her hair was scraped back into an unadorned ponytail, an unflattering hairstyle that was too severe. A couple of faces looked familiar from around Castillac but she did not know their names or who they were.

  When the priest began to speak, Molly observed the others. The dark-haired young woman buried her head in her husband’s neck, and he glowered at the priest and then at the casket.

  Michel and Adèle, on the other hand…the emotion Molly picked up from them was all lightness, relief, even joy. Michel especially.

  If you murdered someone, Molly was thinking, would you go to the funeral, if the person was someone you knew? She looked at each mourner in turn, trying to see some truth in their faces or the way they held themselves. At first she thought certainly yes, and then she thought perhaps it would feel like a trap, that going to the funeral would be exactly what a detective would expect and be waiting there with handcuffs.

  She shook her head to brush such thoughts away. Really, sometimes her imagination got the best of her and she acted like she was living in an episode of Law & Order: En France. Heart attack makes the most sense. It was most certainly a heart attack.

  Absolutely.

  12

  Gilles Maron had never eaten a meal at La Métairie; the prices were completely out of reach for a junior gendarme with no money other than his salary. He was surprised to find that the inside of the restaurant was on the plain side, really—he had expected crystal chandeliers and gold leaf everywhere.

  Nathalie met him at the door. She was dark and slender, practically no hips at all, just Maron’s type. He had to make an effort to stay professional and not give her The Look. Her skin glowed and her almost-black hair was glossy, pulled back from her face in a low ponytail that went down to her shoulderblades.

  “Anything I can do to help,” she said, as Maron came inside. “Let me take your coat.” Maron slid out of his heavy coat and looked around at the dove-gray walls and carpet, and the painting of the sea. He didn’t understand why everything was so subdued, and he didn’t like not understanding.

  “This situation has been very upsetting for us,” said Nathalie, and Maron could see the strain in her face now that he observed her more carefully. “The chef…I know it sounds like a cliché, hell, it is a cliché—but he is a sensitive man. Temperamental. He was working on a new menu, we all had very high hopes for it, but now…now he comes in for the dinner service and goes home directly after. I don’t believe he’s even thinking about the new menu. Not that I mean to say a menu is more important than a person’s life, I just mean—”

  “I understand, and I’m sorry,” said Maron, and he was sorry, sorry that anything could have caused trouble for this beautiful creature. He made an attempt to pull himself together. “I’m here to ask, first of all, if there is any chance that anything is left from the other night—any glasses, dishes, or the like. I will tell you in confidence,” he said impulsively, “that Madame Desrosiers did not die of a heart attack as Chief Dufort first thought. No, it was poison,” he said in a low voice though there was no one else around. He thoroughly enjoyed how Nathalie’s eyes grew wide and her hand flew to her mouth when he spoke.

  “Poison?” she said, not quite able to take it in.

  “Yes. I’m here on the outside chance that anything, a wine glass, a plate, anything at all, might have escaped the dishwasher? We are trying to find how the poison was administered,” he added, once again saying more than he should have.

  “I’m afraid there’s no chance of that,” said Nathalie, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “The party was days ago. Thursday night, was it? Everything has been washed multiple times since then. We don’t keep dirty dishes hanging around in the kitchen,” she said, almost laughing at the idea.

  “I didn’t think so,” said Maron. “But we have to ask. Would you show me the dining room?”

  “Certainly.”

  They walked down the short corridor to the dining room with its soothing gray monochrome, the small bar, the stack of folding stands that waiters sometimes used to hold large platters.

  “May I get you a coffee?” asked Nathalie.

  Maron shook his head, focused on his job. He walked around the tables, getting down on the floor at one point and looking at everything from down there. “It was a large party, yes? Can you show me how the tables would have been arranged, and approximately where Madame Desrosiers was sitting?”

  Nathalie did as he asked. Maron wanted to get a clear and factual picture in his head of how the room had looked the night of the murder. “Do you know the names of the guests?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not, and the party was not so large. Five, maybe six? Her nephew, Michel Faure, made the reservation. He did the inviting as well of course, since it was a surprise party. I must say he seemed like a very caring nephew, wanting to celebrate his aunt’s birthday that way.”

  “And did Michel pay for the party?”

  “Well, no. Actually it was Madame Desrosiers who paid for it. I will tell you that it felt a little strange to run her Carte Bancaire through the machine, knowing that she was lying dead in the bathroom. But Michel had presented me with the card when they all arrived, and after what happened I asked the family if I should cancel the charge, but they said no. Rather vehemently.”

  Maron nodded, unsurprised. “May I look around?”

  “Of course. Let me know if there is anything at all I can help you with?”

  Maron looked into Nathalie’s warm brown eyes, noticed her smooth cheeks, and had a sudden impulse to kiss her. “All right,” he said, “thank you. You’ve been quite helpful. One more thing—can you show me where the garbage goes at the end of the night?”

  “It’s just around the back. There’s a wooden fence blocking it from view, but if you go around the building you can’t miss it.”

  Maron smiled at her and she went back to her office. After giving the dining room one last look, he walked on the soft carpet to the bathroom, knocked, and entered the ladies’ room. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of gardenias. He looked at the tiled floor but there was no sign that anything had happened there, no sign of the last living moments of Josephine Desrosiers. Had she tried to call for help? Did she know what was happening to her?

  Did she know who had poisoned her?

  Molly had barely gotten settled on a stool at the bar of Chez Papa when a text came in from her friend Lawrence Weebly, who was vacationing in Morocco: heard JD poisoned. you on the case? xox

  Molly stared at her phone. She blinked.

  “The usual, Boston?” Nico asked.

  Molly jerked her head up. “Not answering to that,” she said, more sternly than she meant. “What the hell,” she said, not to anyone.

  “What’s up?” asked Frances.

  “A friend, my best friend in Castillac actually—I’m sorry you haven’t met him but he’s been away. Thing is, here in the village, Lawrence always knows what’s going on. Not a gossip exactly…just the kind of person who’s always in the know. How, I can’t say. Anyway, he just texted me to say that Mme Desrosiers was poisoned.” Molly’s eyes were wide and her mouth open, stunned.

  Nico slid Molly’s kir over to her and leaned back against a pillar. “So how’s it going, then? Are you enjoying Castillac, Frances?”

  “So far it’s been nothing but corpses and funerals. Loving it.”

  Nico laughed.

  “Have you heard anything in particular about Mme Desrosiers?” Molly asked him.

  “Dead. That’s all I know. And that you found her. I’ve heard of chick magnets, Boston, but you my friend are a corpse-magnet!” and he guffawed at his own joke.

  Molly wasn’t laughing. “I just got a text from Lawrence saying
she was poisoned.”

  “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised. She was widely known as a bitch on wheels, pardon my language,” he said, nodding and winking at Frances.

  “I’ve been getting that impression,” said Molly. She sipped her kir.

  “How about a big plate of frites, handsome?” said Frances to Nico. He winked at her again and disappeared into the kitchen. “How come his English is so good?” she asked Molly.

  “He studied in the US. He’s practically a professor. Why he’s bartending in a small village, I can’t say. Don’t know the backstory.”

  “I’ll find out,” Frances said, nonchalantly.

  “No doubt,” said Molly. “Just don’t break his heart, okay? This place is too small for bad blood.”

  Chez Papa was empty but for Molly and Frances. The entire village was probably either at Sunday dinner with their families or at home recovering from Josephine Desrosiers’s funeral. Alphonse, the owner of Chez Papa, kept the place open on Sunday mornings because he had a soft spot for people without families, who needed a place to go. Lapin was usually there, but he had kept more to himself after the Amy Bennett case.

  Frances slid off her stool and drifted back to the kitchen to talk to Nico. Molly sat absently drinking her kir and drawing circles in a water droplet that had plopped off the bottom of her glass. She was thinking about poison and trying to sort out actual information from the perhaps less substantial gleanings she had stored away from random reading. It was the kind of subject that could grab her attention late at night when she should have turned off her computer and gone to bed—a perfect internet worm-hole when you’re putting off sleep.