by Nell Goddin
“You want me to push you?” said Albert, happy that he understood. “Of course I will!”
Josephine felt awash in gratification that he had taken her hints with such enthusiasm. They went through the gate and down the gravel path to the playground section of the park. It was hidden from the street by a wide bank of viburnums, newly leafed out. It was almost as though they were alone in the countryside, surrounded by greenery, even though they were practically in the center of Castillac.
Josephine settled herself in the swing, her underwear almost showing in front because her dress was so short. Albert put his hands on her back. He could feel the strap of her brassière, and he swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think about her body even as he had his hands firmly against her.
“Push me,” said Josephine, sounding at once like a child and a queen, and Albert pushed.
She flew higher and higher, turning her face to the sky and seeing the stars spread out over the village. “Harder!” she shouted to him, and shrieked with happiness when he pushed her even higher. Eventually his hands drifted south, and did not push on her back but lower down, and finally on the swell of her bottom. He allowed Josephine’s swinging to wind down, slower and slower, and when she had stopped altogether and she was thanking him breathily, Albert came around to face her. He lifted Josephine from the swing and kissed her, more ardently than he had thought himself capable of.
There was an equipment shed not far from the swings, and before long Josephine was pressed against that shed as Albert kissed her neck, her lips, her forehead. And when he lifted her dress, she did not protest but leaned her head back, looked at the stars and smiled, having gotten precisely what she had planned for.
28
2005
The Sunday morning routine had become coffee at Chez Papa followed by frites, and Molly and Frances wasted no time getting there, still feeling a bit hungover from the awkward dinner party at the Faure’s.
“Bonjour, my beauties!” said Nico, when they walked in and began unpeeling their winter clothes.
Frances gave him a crooked smile and reached across the bar to touch his arm. “We should have had dinner with you last night,” she said.
“An excellent idea,” said Nico. “Were you bored?”
“It wasn’t that,” said Molly. settling on a stool. “Coffee, stat. Please. We went over to Adèle and Michel’s—”
“Did Dufort crash through the door and arrest him?”
“Not funny, Nico.”
Nico winked at Frances, who laughed.
“Anyway,” said Molly, “it just…I don’t know why, but you know how it sometimes happens: you go to someone’s house for dinner and it just falls flat. The conversation…lagged.”
“I’ll say,” said Frances. “Of course, I couldn’t understand it anyway. I’m just glad to be here now. Much better view,” she said, looking at Nico and winking back.
“Good Lord,” said Molly, rolling her eyes. She sat staring at a fleck of dust on the bar, thinking.
A gust of cold hit their backs as two men came in. “Beer!” one shouted to Nico, and they sat at a table close to the bar. “He is always making the most dramatic gesture he can think of,” said one man to his friend. “And now, he can enjoy all the attention that a night in jail—if he’s lucky—will bring!” the two men laughed uproariously, one of them slapping the table repeatedly.
“What’s up?” said Nico, delivering two frosty glasses of beer to their table.
“Just Jean-François cooling his heels in jail, that’s all.” They cracked up again.
“What’d he do?”
“We were at the demonstration yesterday in Périgueux. The garbage collectors were on strike. It’s horrible, the working conditions they endure! They had plenty of support, students coming out, and all kinds of workers…and Jean-François, he gets so worked up that he throws a brick through the window of a shop. Glass everywhere! A gendarme saw the whole thing and carted him off in seconds, Jean-François yelling the whole time about liberté and fraternité. What a crétin!” His friend was holding his belly, which hurt from laughing so hard.
“Maybe that’s exactly who Dufort should be looking at, instead of Michel,” said Molly to Frances, surreptitiously pointing behind her.
“Who? You know I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”
Molly leaned her mouth next to Frances’s ear. “Jean-François is in jail. Threw a brick at a demonstration. You know the guy—he’s Sabrina’s boyfriend. The type who’s always pissed off about something.”
“Does he have a record?” Molly said to Nico in a low voice.
“Jean-François?” Nico laughed. “A mile long, I’d guess. He’s been to every demonstration within three hundred kilometers for the last ten years. He usually does his best to get arrested—might get his picture in the paper that way.”
“Hmm,” said Molly. “You know, I saw him going back into the mansion, after Desrosiers was killed. He was carrying a sack with him. Now, you know something’s not right about that.”
“His girlfriend worked there, right? He could have been going to get her things. Probably left a sweater there or something. Hey, let’s have some frites,” said Frances, never losing sight of the best reason to come to Chez Papa on Sunday mornings. “And tell me, Nico—does the chef make his own mayonnaise? Because if so, bring some out with the frites, will ya?”
“Your wish is my command, Princess,” said Nico with a smirk as he disappeared into the kitchen.
“Don’t even,” said Frances as Molly was about to speak. “I know you’re going to blather on about how Michel didn’t kill his dear Aunt Josephine and blah blah blah. The fact is, Molly, you’re attracted to him. And that’s blinding you to reality.”
“So it’s case closed as far as you’re concerned? Some detective you are. You just go along with what Dufort says and don’t question anything?”
“I didn’t say anything about case closed. All I’m saying is that you, dear friend, have lost your objectivity. And you know, Michel does remind me of Donnie, just the tiniest bit….”
“Who’s Donnie?” asked Nico, putting his elbows on the bar and stretching his back.
“Never mind,” said Molly.
“Molly’s ex,” said Frances. “Total crétin,” she added. “Hey…did you hear me speaking French right there?”
Molly wasn’t laughing. Maybe because Frances had hit on some truth, and she had been too willing to give Michel a pass. And also, why in the world would she think that the lock of hair falling into his eyes was charming anyway? It’s just a dumb hank of hair. Means absolutely nothing.
“So you’re saying that no one knows who their father is?” Molly said to Nico.
Nico looked up at the ceiling and thought this over. “I guess not. Honestly, I’m not the best person to ask. My parents always had their noses in books and didn’t spend any time talking about other villagers, so I missed out on a lot of gossip.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Frances.
Nico laughed. “You’re a trip,” he said.
Molly could see where this was going. She wasn’t at all sure it was a good idea, but she was sure it was none of her business, so she spent the next half hour not listening to Nico and Frances flirting, and trying to come up with a plan to shift suspicion off Michel.
Maron waited until Sunday afternoon to stop by Claudette Mercier’s, guessing correctly that she was at church in the morning. He also thought she would probably be having Sunday dinner at someone’s house, since she had a large family in Castillac, but on that particular Sunday Claudette had felt a cold coming on and stayed home once church was over. Maron knocked on her door, ready with a list of questions.
“Why, Officer Maron, bonjour!” said Claudette, opening the door for him. “What a surprise! I was just making some soup—I’ve got that tickly feeling in my nose like I’m right on the verge of catching a cold, you know how that is? I hope you’ve made progress. Did you catc
h the burglar, is that why you’re here? Shall I come to the station for a line-up?” she asked, her eyes bright.
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t made any headway on your case,” said Maron. “I’ve got my eye out, though, you can count on that.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear it. You know, it isn’t easy living alone, a woman of my age. I never minded being alone when I was young; in fact, I liked it, to be honest. Never one for the boys and such, except for my Declan. I miss him terribly, as you might imagine. And now, you know, it can feel awfully…awfully vulnerable, being here by myself. I don’t think Diderot would do much to protect me,” she said, pointing her elbow at the tabby cat, which was stretched out on the back of the sofa, sound asleep.
“I would agree with you there,” said Maron, inwardly sighing. Old people made him want to yawn, even this one, whom he thought might be Desrosiers’s killer. Might, he added to himself, defending himself against Dufort.
“May I get you a coffee? I’m afraid I don’t have much else to offer besides a bit of toast and jam. Declan liked a big breakfast—a lot of men do, I’m sure. The soup won’t be ready for at least another hour.”
“I’m fine, Madame Mercier. I was hoping to talk to you about a few things, if you are feeling up to it.”
“Oh, I’m not sick yet,” she said, winking at him, which made him tense. “Ask away, young man!” She gestured to a high-backed chair with velvet upholstery. “And make yourself comfortable.”
Maron sat gingerly in the velvet chair. The room made him feel slightly claustrophobic. “Let’s start with Anne Arbogast. Did you know her or her son Lucas?”
“Not well,” said Claudette, wiggling into the sofa cushion. “She was younger than I by a few years. I knew her to say hello in the street but not anything more.”
Maron nodded. “You know she nearly died from cyanide poisoning a few days ago?”
Claudette’s eyes widened and she shook her head. What was happening to her sweet little village?
“How about Josephine Desrosiers. You were schoolmates, is that right?”
“Yes, but Officer Maron, I thought you had questions about the break-in.”
“I’ll get to that,” Maron lied. “What was your relationship with Josephine like, when you were young?”
Claudette looked hard at Maron. She found him difficult to read, nothing at all like Declan, or any of the men in her family for that matter, who were all rather genial and liked to laugh. This officer looked as though he hadn’t had a giggle in months.
“Well,” she said, “We were good friends, as children. Went to the same school, of course. At least, we were good friends for a while.”
“And then?”
Claudette shrugged. She said nothing. She looked at the front door as though wishing someone would come in and interrupt the conversation, then trailed a hand along Diderot’s back, waking him up. “You know how it is in the schoolyard. Children can be vicious, really. The situation was that my family was prosperous—my father owned a big hardware store in the village, and oh my he did quite a business, I’ll tell you—but Josephine’s family…was rather hard up. Her parents ran an épicerie but I believe it was a faltering business. You know how it is, Officer Maron—some people’s personalities are suited to sales, and some are not. My father was helpful and popular, and people wanted to buy from him. Jospehine’s father, well, he was a sour kind of man. Who wants to buy their jam from someone who glowers at them, you know?”
“And this inequality of finances, it came between you?”
“I certainly didn’t care. It wasn’t important to me, although I suppose that’s easy for me to say, when I never had to go without. My interest was always food. I wanted to be in the kitchen all the time, learning how to make everything! So finery and such—that was what Josephine cared about, but not me. Eventually her envy….”
Maron waited.
“Well, she became bitter and unpleasant towards me, and we stopped spending time together.”
“And how old were you when this rift occurred?”
“Oh, I don’t know. This was all a very long time ago, Officer Maron! Before lycée, I would guess. Twelve, thirteen years old, something like that.”
Maron nodded. “And Madame Desrosiers was not well off until her marriage?”
“Well, not even then, not right off. Albert didn’t have any money at all when they married. I was shocked, actually, that she married him—always thought she would go after someone rich. She was that kind of person.”
Maron noted a hint of coldness that came into Madame Mercier’s voice.
“But of course, there was the baby,” she said, shrugging, and giving Maron a meaningful look.
“Baby?”
“Oh, yes. Now, let me assure you that I don’t judge them. You might not think it to look at me now, but I understand passion, Officer Maron. Declan and I—well, to get back to Josephine, yes, she seemed to be pregnant right off the bat, if you catch my meaning.”
Maron wasn’t sure that he did. “But Madame Desrosiers has no children. Am I mistaken? Or did something happen?”
Claudette stood up, frustrated with Maron who was rather trying to talk to. “I’m afraid the baby was stillborn,” said Claudette, “but that is not my point. What I’m saying is that it was plain to everyone in the village that Josephine was pregnant before marriage.”
Maron just stared, unable to see why this mattered to the case.
“She would never have married Albert otherwise, don’t you see? In those days, the only option in that circumstance was marriage, if you wanted to escape the condemnation of nearly everyone in the village. Josephine wanted to be admired; she had no tolerance at all for being shunned or thought badly of. But even more to the point—Albert was poor, and she wanted money! She was always so envious of me because my Papa was generous and gave me pretty things. And yet—as I’m sure you know, Albert ended up inventing something or other and making truckloads of money after all. Josephine always was the luckiest woman ever.”
“Not so lucky to end up poisoned on the bathroom floor of a restaurant,” said Maron, watching for her reaction.
But Claudette just shrugged again. “Eh, who knows. What you young people can’t understand is that there are worse things than death.” She stood up, having had enough of talking about the past. “I’m sorry, but I feel that cold coming on and I’d like to have a rest. Thank you for coming to see me, and do let me know if there’s a break in the case.”
Maron quickly made his escape, noting that Mercier did not specify which case she was talking about, and thinking that nothing she said made him any less inclined to believe she was capable of murder.
29
Now that’s more like it, Dufort said to himself when the next lab report came in. The chemist had tested all of the jars of face cream Perrault had brought in, including the commercial ones that appeared to be either unopened or barely used. The unmarked jar had indeed tested clear of any poisons (though in Dufort’s opinion, cosmetics and lotions were usually loaded with all kinds of less than salubrious chemicals, but at least they were legal and not immediately lethal). One of the barely used jars was Chanel, a monstrously expensive beauty product in a small glass jar: the Chanel cream had been replaced with dimethyl sulfoxide, which had been loaded with cyanide. The chemist pointed out that dimethyl sulfoxide was readily available to anyone and would allow for very efficient absorption of the poison into the skin. Madame Arbogast could easily have stepped from her bath and moisturized with the adulterated cream, and exhibited symptoms within fifteen minutes, as her son stated.
In a side note, the chemist said that upon further testing he found that none of the jars held what their labels promised. The Chanel cream was in a Guerlain jar, mixed with lye; the Guerlain cream was in the unmarked jar, mixed with naphthalene from crushed mothballs. Neither of these was likely to be fatal, but Madame Arbogast would possibly have had unpleasant symptoms if she had applied either of the creams to her face.
So: two poisonings, both older women. Unrelated to each other, and possibly unknown to each other even though they lived on the same street, given how reclusive Desrosiers had been. Curious that not one but an array of poisons had been used—and why the mixing up of containers? But of course the important question, thought Dufort, is whether one or both of the victims were selected on purpose, or were simply the unlucky casualties of someone who wanted to cause random destruction and mayhem.
Maron and Perrault came in on time, and Dufort got them up to date on the lab report. “And what do the two of you have for me?”
Perrault shrugged. “None of the neighbors saw anything. But if we’re thinking the murderer is someone from Castillac—someone the neighbors might know—then they might have seen him and not paid any attention. Also, I went to the hospital and talked to the medic. He says Arbogast's symptoms had pretty much faded by the time they got there. She was conscious, not gasping, and her skin was ruddy but not abnormally so. He reports that she did look as though she had been through something—her hair was in disarray, and she was sweating—but overall, she was right as rain, and enjoying a nip of brandy.”
“There’s no reason to think the son was involved,” said Maron. “I talked to some of the neighbors as well, and he appears to be devoted to his mother, and genuinely relieved that she is all right. No reports of fighting or falling out or anything like that. He’s upset that she’s always spending money on these ridiculous creams that promise to make you look like Deneuve, and he says now maybe she’ll listen to him.
“However,” Maron continued, steeling himself, “I also dropped by Claudette Mercier’s—”
Dufort looked exasperated. “So you think she poisoned both of them? Did Mercier and Arbogast know each other? Is there any evidence of a motive or have you promoted the poor woman to full-on serial killer now?” Dufort’s tone was biting, and it was clear his questions were rhetorical only.
“You have another way this went down?” said Maron, barely able to keep the contempt out of his voice.