Seven
Agnes wound her way toward the château’s kitchen, following an airborne trail of rich aromas. Stepping through a stone archway into a large space with a high vaulted ceiling, she knew that the scent of baking bread, sugar, and roasting meat hadn’t led her astray. This was the working center of the château.
“Hello?” she called out, her voice echoing. “Is anyone here?” She walked toward a door at the far end of the room. It led to a secondary corridor where the absence of decoration was pronounced.
“Marie-José, hold your breath, I’m coming.” A large woman wrapped in a flour-covered apron backed into the hall. “You’ve no reason to. Oh—” She stopped when she saw Agnes.
“I’m Inspector Lüthi, sorry to intrude.”
“Come to question me?” The cook smiled to show she meant no harm and indicated Agnes should return with her to the main kitchen. She set an oblong pâté mold on the table before dusting her hands on her apron.
“Not so much question as see what you might have remembered since last night,” Agnes said, glancing around. She wasn’t much for kitchens but this was a marvel, a perfect blend of modern need with ancient practice. The overhead vaults were not plastered; neither were the stone walls. Sunshine streamed in through high windows and glanced off copper pans and stainless steel utensils.
“When the old Monsieur was alive we’d have parties that made me want double the space,” the cook said.
A pile of logs burned in a fireplace large enough for a dozen men to stand in. Meat was threaded onto spits and grease dripped and sizzled. A long, scarred wooden table commanded the center of the room and the sink on the far wall was as long as a bathtub.
“The old Monsieur would bring live game in like when he was a boy and we’d pluck and dry it back there.” The cook waved a thick arm toward the secondary corridor. “An entire wild boar one time. Made our own jams and bread and most other things. He kept to the old ways. Liked things just so and was willing to keep the staff to make it right. Madame barely eats and likes a”—she paused—“a more modern lifestyle. Modern. Ha. Like not having staff means she’s living like everyone else.”
There were modern touches: a twelve-burner gas stove, four wall ovens, and bevy of high-tech Swedish-designed dishwashers. Agnes noted the handle on a door leading to a refrigeration room. Although her mother-in-law’s kitchen was well-appointed, this was in an entirely different category. Sybille would swoon with jealousy.
“But that’s not why you’re here,” the cook said, unmolding the pâté in one deft motion and placing it on a shelf for later.
“I know you’ve spoken with my colleague, Monsieur Carnet,” Agnes said. “However, I wanted to see if you’ve remembered anything. Any detail out of the ordinary yesterday?”
“Nothing, and don’t think I haven’t tossed and turned all night wondering what I might have missed. That young woman must have passed right outside my door, or near enough, if she went down those steps. And I didn’t hear a thing. I didn’t even hear her. Of course the wind was howling all afternoon. I could hear it inside; it was that loud. Like demons were screaming at us. And then the power went out, right in the middle of preparing the dinner for Monsieur Julien’s homecoming. Good thing they didn’t want a hot meal after all.” The cook caught herself and started to apologize.
“I understand,” Agnes broke in. “Today, I think everyone will appreciate a hot meal to keep the cold at bay.”
“That I can do easy enough. We never got rid of the old equipment when the modern came. I’ll keep hot food on the table until it runs out … and that won’t be for weeks. I keep a pantry ready for any emergency. The things people used to ask for when we had large parties. Kept me on my toes and I’d like to think I’ve not dropped my standards.”
Agnes shifted to stand nearer the fire, enjoying the heat. Without pausing for breath the cook poured cups of coffee for them both and slipped a plate of pastries alongside. Agnes hesitated, then took one, biting into the almond filling. The cook nodded approvingly at her expression. “It’s happened before, although not so bad,” she said.
“An ice storm?” Agnes said. “I grew up near Lausanne and don’t remember anything like this.”
“There’s never been an ice storm like this but we’ve had wind. I’m a good deal older than you and I remember a time when I was a girl. Was a proper kitchen maid here, then under cook and finally head cook. One spring the Foehn knocked out the power and enough trees to trap us for a day or two.”
Agnes had lived through the strong warm African winds that blew through Switzerland periodically, but she couldn’t remember one doing that kind of damage.
The cook set a pan of hot madeleines on the table and nudged them forward. Agnes took a small sample, tasting butter and lemon.
“Can’t remember the exact year but the electric lights were already here, and the phone line.” The cook shot Agnes a glance. “They didn’t put electric power in the château until late, just before the boys were born. I remember early on when the lines would get blown down in a storm, and it would be a few hours until everything was working again.”
Agnes knew the rich were different but this was remarkable. Why not have modern conveniences if you could afford them?
The cook ran her hand across her face. “The radio. I’d forgotten. It’s not having a butler that does it. When the old Monsieur died our butler retired and Madame didn’t care to replace him. He kept the radio ready in case of emergency. We gave him grief about it, especially after everyone had a mobile phone, but he was old-fashioned and never took to having one himself.”
She motioned for Agnes to follow and led the way out of the kitchen and down the main corridor away from the stairs. There she pulled out a set of keys and opened a door. “Habit, keeping it locked. Only room in the whole place I need a key for. Keep the account books here for the food and such. The silver room is through here as well, although it’s only for the special banquet silver. The everyday is kept near the family dining room.” She fussed through a cabinet. “It is here somewhere. Yes.”
She turned with a flourish, a heavy two-way radio clasped in her fist. Agnes took it, trying not to laugh. It had the look and feel of World War II. “You’re sure it works?”
“He tested it regular as clockwork on the first Monday of the new year.”
“Then the last test was two years ago?”
The cook frowned. “It always worked. You press this button, don’t touch the dial, it’s set to the right channel. The gendarmerie will hear you. They’ll be listening for us in an emergency.”
Agnes looked from woman to radio and back again. “It’s been a while.”
“We’ve only missed two years testing the radio out of fifty.” The cook crossed her arms over her broad chest as if fending off an attack on the integrity of the household and its practices.
Agnes pressed the button as instructed, thinking that this was a heavy-duty version of the small walkie-talkies her sons played with on the farm, calling each other from distant fields in an extended, technologically enhanced game of hide-and-seek. She spoke, feeling like an idiot, and released the button.
“Do it again. They don’t sit around and wait for us. You need to give them a minute to realize you’re calling and they’ll get back to you. That’s why we did it at the same time every year, to skip the waiting.”
Agnes didn’t comment. Not exactly an emergency test. The officers at the gendarmerie probably turned on the equipment once a year rather than argue with the Vallottons, then forgot about it the other 364 days.
“’Allo? You are coming in,” a voice echoed through the small speaker, the sound broken by static.
Agnes keyed the microphone with a level of excitement she didn’t know possible. Contact with the outside world. She could reach Bardy and her boys.
The next response was so full of static that she couldn’t make out the words at all. The cook pushed her out the door. “Sometimes you have to go outside,”
she hissed. “The stone walls are too thick for reception.”
Agnes yelled this into the microphone, hoping they would hear her and wait. She ducked into the hall and raced down the stairs to the outside, ignoring the blast of frigid air, thankful she had not taken her coat off. Once outside she held the button and spoke, then waited. The transmission was still unclear, like a modern-day mobile phone in a weak service area. Quickly she moved toward the corner of the château, aiming for closer proximity to the station up the cliff.
“Yes, we are all well,” she said in response to what she thought the officer asked. “We have the deceased in a controlled location,” she added in case he had forgotten why she was at the base of the hill in the first place. “Otherwise we are fine.”
Rounding the corner she nearly ran into Petit. She waved him off and focused on the voice coming through the radio speaker.
“You’re lucky,” the man said, finally clear, his excitement evident. “The village is stacked with people. Couple of busloads of tourists were stranded and it was market day for the locals. We are the epicenter. Government’s sending us into the hills to check on households one at a time and make sure they have supplies to see them through.”
Agnes let the man talk for a moment, realizing that in their isolation there was a need to share experiences. She watched Petit join Doctor Blanchard. Together they entered a door set in a small building dug halfway into the ground: the disused ice house where they had stored the body. She’d noted the roof from the height of the château’s walls. Glancing past it toward the grove where they had discovered Felicity Cowell, she glimpsed a figure standing behind the bench where the body was found. She recognized Frédéric Estanguet by the distinctive color of his scarf. He was probably pondering how one good deed had resulted in his being trapped here.
“And tell Petit that his wife went to the hospital last night to have her baby,” the officer said. “He’ll want to know—”
Silence.
“Know what?” Agnes clicked the microphone button but nothing happened. No static, nothing. Batteries? she wondered, wishing she had interrupted the man earlier.
Petit approached, stopping within inches of her.
Agnes looked from the dead radio to him. “Your wife is having her baby.” She hoped this was good news.
His face fell. “Early.”
“How many weeks is she?”
He rolled his eyes up, concentrating, and took a step nearer. “Thirty-eight.”
Agnes touched his arm. “That’s not too early. She’s probably ready to deliver.”
“Early and alone?” His face screwed up in anger, his eyes bulging. “The dead woman might not be an emergency but this is. They have to get me out of here.”
Agnes didn’t need to ask if this was his first child; she recognized the particular kind of anxiety. “There is no they. We’re part of emergency services and Bardy would never approve our calling in an evacuation helicopter for you to meet your wife at the hospital. I know it seems unfair, this is an important day for you both, but there are larger matters. They need those helicopters to save people who are in actual danger of losing their lives.”
Petit took a deep gasping breath. “Just because no one cared about death enough to help us, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t care about life. My wife needs me. I promised her I would be there.”
Agnes knew enough to not argue. He deserved the chance to be angry. “She’s not alone. She made it to the hospital.”
Petit scowled, then stomped off, turning toward the steep hill. Agnes hoped he’d work off his anger trying to walk up the slope. Without mountain climbing gear there was no chance he’d make it farther than a half dozen meters.
After he disappeared around the bend in the drive she ducked her head beneath the low beam of the door to the ice house. Doctor Blanchard was standing over a canvas-covered table. She could tell by the outline that it held the body.
“Felt wrong to leave her out here unattended, poor girl,” Blanchard said. “The door was locked,” he added as an afterthought. “No windows and the only way in.”
The room was empty except for two rough tables, a chair, and a heap of old flour sacks piled in a corner. There were no windows and the doctor had set oil lanterns around for light. They cut through the dark better than a flashlight beam. A low door leading to the underground ice storage was set in the opposite wall. Despite its lack of use the room was clean and thankfully free of cobwebs. Agnes stepped nearer the table.
“Last night I did everything I could without cutting,” the doctor said. “I was looking for other injuries. I usually get flu, cold, skiing breaks. Farm accidents. People in my village die of old age. I wondered what I should look for and even tried to call a friend, but couldn’t get a call out, so I did the best a country doctor can do and made complete notes for the coroner. Came back this morning with a few more lamps, wondering if there were other cuts, or something that indicated she might have struggled. Maybe she was tied up and escaped?”
Agnes didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm by asking if he watched as many American television series as she did.
“She appears to have been a healthy young woman,” the doctor continued. “No signs of drug use—again this is what I could see with the naked eye, no toxicology.” Agnes nodded encouragingly. “A bit thin, but too many of them are at her age. Late twenties I guessed, but you knew that.”
She shifted the canvas away from the body. Beneath it, Blanchard had used Mylar thermal blankets as a makeshift body bag. She glanced nearby and noted that the white evening gown Felicity Cowell had died in was neatly folded next to a clear plastic sack.
“Hardly ideal, but I didn’t want to lose any evidence that hasn’t already been destroyed,” Blanchard said. “Petit took photographs of the clothes on her first.”
“Do you have another of these?” She indicated the Mylar blanket. Blanchard pulled one from his satchel and spread it on the ground. Agnes laid the coronation gown out on it, carefully spreading the delicate fabric of the skirt and arms. Beside it she laid the heavy coat and boots. Underwear occupied a final tiny heap.
“Quite something,” Blanchard said, nodding to the dress.
Agnes had to agree. The white silk was delicately pleated from a high waistline. Stones—diamonds, she corrected herself—were embroidered into a floral pattern across the bodice and down the skirt.
“What is that?” she said, pointing to a flaw in the fabric.
“What you didn’t see last night.” Blanchard motioned for her to join him beside the body. He pulled the foil covering down to expose the chest area. It didn’t take a medical degree to see the small incision below her breast.
Agnes glanced from the dress on the floor to the woman in front of her. “She was stabbed twice? In the back and chest?”
“No,” Blanchard said. “This is the exit from the injury to her back.” He pulled surgical gloves from his satchel and handed a pair to Agnes, then grasped the corpse by the shoulder and motioned for her to assist him. Together they rolled Felicity Cowell onto her side to expose her back. Suddenly Agnes wished she hadn’t walked into this room.
“The edges of both entry and exit are clean,” Blanchard said. “Something about seven inches long. We have a deep, precise wound. A thin sharp blade that entered from the back here”—he used his free hand to indicate the wound they had observed the night before—“and passed through the chest cavity before reaching the chest wall, which it pierced.”
Agnes nodded, stifling a shudder. She’d seen enough. Gently they returned the corpse to its back.
Blanchard pulled his gloves off and brushed the hair from his forehead. “Her attacker struck with force, either through strength or fury. The location of the wounds combined with the lack of blood and other presentation that I observed indicate rapid cessation of heart function. Near-immediate death.”
“Someone who is an expert at wielding a knife?”
“Not necessarily. Force and luck m
ay play a role equal to expertise. An expert might strike carefully to be assured the blade would slip through the ribs. Fury could do the same job, driving the blade against the ribs, forcing it to slide past.”
Agnes stepped away from the table and Blanchard re-covered the body with the foil blanket, then the canvas.
“You said that she was seated when struck.”
“Technically she may have been standing,” he said. “Although the angle of the blade was a clean stroke down. If she was standing, her assailant would have to be much taller than her.”
“Like Petit?”
“Taller even than him.”
“Or standing on something.” Agnes paused. “Like a bench?”
“Not on that bench, at least in my opinion. She fell too near it. And the position of her legs makes it appear that she was seated and pushed forward.”
Agnes sat on a nearby chair. “She was sitting like this? And shoved forward?”
Blanchard considered. “I don’t know how near the front edge she was sitting, or what her posture was.”
Agnes tried to imagine what it would feel like to be pushed. Different than falling since a natural collapse happened from the shoulders down. She tried it. Head and shoulders settling in on themselves toward the chest. Arms in and finally toppling forward headfirst. She straightened.
“She didn’t strike her head?”
“I see what you are getting at and no, not what I believe you mean by the head. She didn’t roll forward and hit the top of her skull. She landed on the side of her face in the lower quadrant. The cheekbone and below.”
“And her wrist was broken under her? Broken because she fell on it?”
The doctor nodded. Agnes considered the sequence of injuries. Head erect, not tucked down, propulsion forward, not a collapse down. She hunched her shoulders and relaxed. “Give me a push.”
Blanchard touched her between the shoulders.
“Not there, push where the blade entered. I need the direction of motion.”
Swiss Vendetta--A Mystery Page 8