The Luckiest Woman Ever: Molly Sutton Mystery 2

by Nell Goddin

  “Yes,” said Molly gratefully.

  “Bonjour Molly, Bonjour Adèle,” said Dufort. He kissed Molly and called to the other room, “Maron! In here and bring the letter!”

  “Another letter?” said Adèle, looking as though she wasn’t sure she could take any more surprises.

  “Would you give me the ones you found last night?” Dufort asked her. “I think the heart of this case is turning out to be what the principals have written. Let’s have a look.”

  “What about Murielle?” asked Adèle.

  “Maron is about to go continue the search,” said Dufort. “Though I believe she is no danger to anyone at this point. Now that she’s already confessed, there’s no point to making any more attempts to cover up the original crime.”

  “Maybe she won’t act out of logic, though,” said Molly quietly.

  “Oh, sure she will,” said Dufort. “It’s an emotional logic, granted, but all of her actions thus far have made a kind of sense, and I’m confident they will continue to do so. Madame Faure is at the moment trying to escape the consequences of her killings by hiding out, but I don’t think she has the resources to get far.

  “Would you agree, Adèle?”

  Adèle didn’t answer. She was appearing to be further and further disconnected from the present moment, and looked physically deflated, as though shrinking inside herself.

  Dufort read over the letters Adèle had brought, had a private word with Maron before he left, and then removed all four letters from their envelopes and spread them on his desk, taking his time, smoothing out the creased pages.

  “Here is the story, written out for us,” he said. “First we have a letter found in Josephine Desrosiers’s desk. A love letter. We thought the letter was written by Albert to Josephine, since it was in her desk and carefully tied with a satin ribbon as though it was something treasured. But notice it begins with ‘Ma belle’, not Josephine’s name. And then here—” Dufort pointed to the letter Adèle had brought. “You’re absolutely sure this is your mother’s handwriting?”

  “Yes,” said Adèle, not looking at the letters.

  “See, she is accusing Albert of calling her ‘ma belle’—and saying, essentially, that his words don’t match his deeds. The first letter was not a love letter written to Josephine, but to Murielle. Possibly from before Josephine seduced Albert, judging from the tone.”

  “Maybe Josephine found that letter, and that’s how she knew Albert and Murielle were in love?” said Perrault, coming back with two coffees.

  “And she had to get in there and wreck it,” said Molly. “I guess that could explain why Murielle poisoned her, even after all this time. But what about Adèle? It still makes no sense that Murielle raised their baby as her own, or am I missing something?”

  Molly and the two gendarmes looked at Adèle, but she only shrugged.

  Dufort continued, “Then we have the second letter, which was found at Claudette Mercier’s house. It is unsigned, but as Maron pointed out, anyone with the slightest knowledge of handwriting analysis can see it was written by Josephine, as we have her signed will and other papers for comparison. We would call it ‘hate mail’; the old term was ‘poison pen letter’. I believe it has bearing on the case because it demonstrates Josephine’s viciousness. It couldn’t have been easy being her sister.”

  Molly shot a glance at Adèle but she did not seem to have heard.

  “The third letter—thank you for bringing it in, Adèle—was written by Murielle to Albert. It looks as though it was never sent. She is cold and furious, understandable emotions given the depth of the betrayal.”

  “It’s bizarre that these letters, except for the Mercier one, are all over forty years old. Get over it, people!” said Perrault. Dufort and Molly shared a quick look of amusement.

  “It’s sort of sad that Josephine kept love letters her husband wrote to another woman,” said Molly.

  “All three of the recipients kept letters that must have been extremely painful,” said Dufort. “You do wonder why they didn’t just toss them in the trash.”

  “But if they had,” said Adèle, standing up from her chair, “we might never have found out who did this. And Murielle might have kept on killing, who knows? Maybe she started to enjoy it. I don’t pretend to know. Everything I thought I knew has turned out to be a lie.”

  “Adèle, do you have any thoughts on where we should look for Murielle? Any places she especially liked, anything like that? We have her bank account shut down and her house being watched, so unless she somehow happened to be carrying a lot of cash, she won’t get far. Unless you might know of other resources we’re not aware of?”

  “Murielle is obsessed with plants,” said Adèle, walking towards the door. “I’m going to find Michel, if you don’t need me further. I would keep plants in mind, if I were you.”

  “She must have made the cyanide herself,” mused Dufort. “Does she have fruit trees in her backyard?”

  “Apricot, apple, and peach.”

  “Oh yes,” said Dufort. “Of course. That would do nicely.”

  40

  When Murielle knocked on Michel’s door in the morning, he scrambled out of bed and put on a robe. He was not used to visitors, preferring to meet friends somewhere more aesthetically pleasing, where they also might buy him lunch.

  “Maman! To what do I owe this pleasure? I’m not sure you’ve ever come to my apartment!”

  Murielle pushed past her son and looked around. “I see you keep it nice, just as I taught you.”

  “Of course,” he laughed. “Your tutelage in dusting and vacuuming was quite exhaustive. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Yes, actually, something to drink would be exactly what I need.” She reached into her pocket to make sure the small packet was safe, and then perched on the edge of the cheap sofa. “There are a couple of things I need to talk to you about,” she said, and felt her eyes welling up, just as they had the night before with that damned Dufort. It was both difficult and strangely wonderful to finally begin to talk about the things she had held back for so many years. Exhilarating, yet disquieting.

  “Sit,” she directed him, and Michel handed her a glass of water and flopped down in a tattered armchair and guzzled part of a Coca-Cola. Then he looked more carefully at his mother. “Maman? You look…you’ve got leaves in your hair,” he said in a wondering tone.

  “Not surprising,” she said, taking a sip of water. “I slept under my trees last night.”

  “You what?”

  “Under the apple in the back garden. But never mind that, it is not something you would understand. Michel, I want you to know everything, finally,” she told him, and was gratified when he look startled and interested. “I know you think you are adopted and your sister is my birth-daughter, yes?”

  Michel nodded.

  “That is incorrect. Well, you were adopted, that much is true. But didn’t you wonder where Adele’s father had disappeared to? I always thought it odd that you and Adèle were so incurious. I don’t believe you ever once asked where her father was, or who he was, so I had no occasion to lie.”

  “Maman, what are you talking about? We did ask you, numerous times! But you would get this stony look on your face and refuse to answer. We decided it was all highly romantic and your heart had been broken so you could not speak of it.”

  “I have no memory whatsoever of any questions. But in the event, you were correct. My heart was broken. I loved your uncle, Albert Desrosiers. I loved him desperately. And he loved me back, until my sister ruined it.

  “Josephine enticed him. Just the one time—she got him alone and tempted him, beguiled him, Michel—and that one time was enough to make her pregnant. Albert was a decent man, and his family was religious. He felt he had to marry her even though he did not love her or want to be her husband. Because of the child. He married a woman he did not love, for Adèle.

  “Of course, no one was doing anything for me,” she said, her voice low and
gravelly.

  “You’re saying Adèle—”

  “Just hush a moment, Michel. Let me tell my story. Please. The minute I heard about Josephine and Albert, I went to stay with some cousins, up in Franche-Comté. I never should have come back, especially once I heard she was pregnant. I knew Josephine would be parading around the village like she was about to give birth to royalty—you know very well what she was like. I should have stayed away for good. But I couldn’t help myself.

  “I missed Albert. Even though by then I was his sister-in-law, and there was of course no thought to an affair or anything like that—I wasn’t that kind of person as I think you know. But still, I wanted to live where I might run into him from time to time. Even if I would not allow myself to speak to him.

  “And then the truly appalling thing happened. Josephine gave birth to Adèle, at home. They lived in a small house then, on the edge of the village, I forget the name of the street. Adèle was born with a clubfoot. And when Josephine saw that foot, she pushed the baby away and said she refused to raise her. That she would not have a deformed daughter. And that was the end of it. I don’t even believe Albert argued with her much, because he had already learned that arguing with Josephine was fruitless. She always got her way. The luckiest woman on earth, that’s what she used to say about herself, but it wasn’t luck. It was domination.

  “Anyway, the midwife got hold of me, told me Josephine had rejected her own baby. Said she had never seen anything like it. Well, what was I going to do—let my niece be given up for adoption and never see her again? The daughter of the man I loved more than anything in this world?

  “You took her.” Michel was sitting up, listening intently to his mother.

  “I took her. Of course I did. Josephine didn’t like it. But at least that one time, Albert insisted and got his way. They had to bribe the midwife somehow, and they all told a story about the baby being stillborn.”

  Michel sat with his eyes wide. He drank some of his Coke. “Aunt Josephine is Adele’s mother?”

  “Yes, Michel—that is precisely what I’ve been saying.”

  “But that means…not to jump immediately to the mercenary…that means Adèle inherits the bulk of Aunt Josephine’s fortune.”

  “Indeed it does. As it should be, and not a minute too soon.”

  “What do you mean, not a minute too soon?”

  “After what her parents did, disowning her like that because of a small imperfection—Adèle deserves that money. She should have had it all along.”

  Michel had a moment’s regret for all the evenings wasted in the company of his vile aunt, but he was not one to dwell on his mistakes. “So you just got impatient, is that it?” he asked.

  “And you wouldn’t stay away from her,” said Murielle, shaking her head slowly. “I tried to suggest a different path for you, I gave you that money to settle in Paris, out of her clutches. Why would you not listen to me, Michel, dearest boy?”

  “Oh, Maman.” He couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for her. “I detested Josephine, you know that.”

  Murielle gave Michel a quick hard look, then reached into her pocket and drew out the packet. “I’ve heard that before,” she said. “You say you detested her, but you couldn’t stay away. She was like a spider wrapping you up in silk, feasting on you until you’d have ended up a dry husk, no longer a man but an empty husk.”

  Michel’s eyes widened even more and he noticed a jittery feeling in his legs that he recognized as fear.

  “Give me your soda,” she said. “How you can drink this disgusting fluid I will never comprehend.”

  Michel held out the can. “Yes, I know, no nutritional value whatsoever. Don’t dump it out, Maman.”

  She tipped the packet to the hole in the can and tapped it to make some powder drift down inside. Then she did the same to her glass of water.

  “What is that, some new vitamin?” laughed Michel, trying to believe she was joking around. “And go on with your story. I can’t decide whether you’re pulling my leg or not.”

  “It’s not a vitamin, no,” said Murielle. “But it will make us both feel better, I believe. It will take the pain away at long last.”

  Michel had a sudden feeling of cold sweep through his body and he put his hand over his heart as though to make sure it was still beating. In that moment he understood very little of the convoluted tale his mother had been telling, but he grasped very well that she was deeply, deeply disturbed.

  And that whatever she was putting into his drink, he had better avoid at all costs.

  41

  “So how did you get away?” Adèle was asking Michel, as they sat with Molly and Frances at Chez Papa the next afternoon.

  “You won’t believe it,” Michel said, laughing and taking a sip of his beer. “I told her I’d be right back, I had to go out and get a pack of cigarettes, I was dying for a smoke. And she started in on how terrible smoking is and how stupid must I be to take up such a filthy habit at my age. There she was, trying to kill me—and nagging me about the danger of cigarettes.”

  Molly and Frances were speechless.

  “I guess that sort of sums up how lost she was,” said Adèle sadly.

  “I’m laughing but there is nothing funny about it,” said Michel.

  “And so she let you leave?” asked Molly.

  “Oh, she protested. My place only has one room, and I had to get dressed in front of her which was awkward. I was shaking like a leaf. You can’t imagine…one minute, she was telling me this crazy mixed-up story, and the next minute, I felt this cold, stabbing feeling in my chest. This fear. She had this expression on her face—I’ve never seen anything like it. It was an expression of overwhelming assurance that she was doing the right thing, even though quite clearly it was insane. Literally…insane.”

  “She told you about killing Aunt Josephine?”

  “Not directly. Heavy hinting. I had been suspicious of her anyway, you know. Suspicious of you, too, Adèle, if I’m honest. At first I thought maybe it was Sabrina, because doubtless Aunt Josephine had been making her life a living hell. But it just made sense that it was somebody in our family, and obviously I knew it wasn’t me.”

  He shrugged. “So when I got out on the street, I called the gendarmes and they got there right away. But it was too late for Maman.” Michel squinted, looking out of the plate glass window onto the street. “It’ll sound a little weird, but you know? I felt bad that she died by herself like that. I hung around outside, freezing my ass off with no coat on, no way was I going back in there with her and her little packet of cyanide. But even so…I’m sorry she was alone.”

  “Michel, she tried to kill you,” said Molly.

  “I know,” said Michel. “But the thing is, and Adèle will back me up on this, she did do her best for us. Our childhood was a whole lot better than it would’ve been without her.”

  “I’ll say,” agreed Adèle.

  “So that’s it? Two murders and a suicide, and in three days it’s Christmas and everything will be back to normal?” asked Frances.

  “No more ‘normal’ for Adèle—she’s going to be rich!” said Michel, lifting his glass to toast her.

  Adèle smiled a smile of wonder. “It’s not real to me yet,” she said. “Eight million euros, Perrault told me yesterday when we were at the station.”

  “That’s a lot of handbags,” said Molly, grinning. “Are you going to move into the mansion? I bet Lapin is itchy to get his hands on that place!”

  “No plans yet, Molly. It’s going to take some time before I can get used to so much change.”

  Molly nodded and put her arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

  The four of them finished their drinks and then walked to La Baraque, Molly having invited the Faures over for a makeshift dinner. Molly and Michel got ahead of the other two—Adele’s foot was still suffering the effects of the long walk the other night and she made slow progress—and Molly asked in a low voice, “So Michel, did your mot
her say anything about why Josephine gave up Adèle? That’s the part about this whole thing that I haven’t been able to wrap my head around. I keep thinking about it and trying to work it out, but I get nowhere. Did she give you any explanation about that?”

  Michel shook his head. “Not a word,” he said, hunching his shoulders to keep the cold off his neck. “Now tell me what amazing things you’re going to make for dinner. Frances says you’re an absolute magician in the kitchen—and I’m a Frenchman, in case you haven’t noticed!”

  “I wasn’t wrong about the poisoner being a woman,” said Maron to Perrault, who rolled her eyes.

  “I never said you couldn’t make assumptions about what kind of person a poisoner is,” said Perrault. “Obviously it’s someone who likes to plan. Someone who doesn’t want to get her—or his—hands dirty. Who doesn’t mind causing pain. But you can’t assume gender, Gilles, that’s all I’m saying. And I’m sticking to it like glue. Hey Chief—I went by Mme LaGreffe’s this morning, and caught her daughter at the house. Guess what I found sitting on the kitchen table?”

  Dufort shook his head.

  “A bag of pine cones!”

  “Huh,” said Dufort. “I wouldn’t have expected that.”

  “That loose thread was nagging at me,” said Perrault.

  “Suck up,” said Maron under his breath, but he flashed Perrault a rare—and small—smile.

  “All right, the two of you. You did some good work. I want you both to go out on the street for the rest of the day, enjoy yourselves, talk to people, see if there’s anything that needs our attention. Pay close attention to the elderly who might need an extra bit of help during this bad winter.”

  Perrault and Maron jostled each other jokingly as they went out, and Dufort sank down in his chair, at his desk, and rubbed his face with both palms.

  I’ve been wrong, he was thinking. Wrong about what I should be doing with my life. There’ve been too many mistakes, too many deaths, and it’s time I heard what those mistakes are saying.