Heart Collector

by Jacques Vandroux

  “Do you believe in Satan?” the priest asked the disconcerted young woman.

  “Those are fables for children, zealots, and clergy!” Drancey interjected rudely.

  Nadia stared at him in dismay. He was insulting the man who had welcomed them. But Father de Valjoney gave him a long look and a smile that took the policeman aback.

  “We don’t know each other, but you have a great quality: conviction. The devil has indeed been used to frighten children, entire populations, and even certain clergymen, it’s true. However, it is not merely a legend. I won’t go into details, but there does exist something you could call devil, demons, or forces of evil. My aim is not to convince you of this, and I will ask you to believe me just for the space of a few minutes. We have an exorcist here. A large number of the brothers or sisters who come to see him are in fact redirected to psychologists or psychiatrists we work with. In some rare instances, we must contend with cases of possession, which are expressed with the utmost physical violence. And the words these possessed persons say do not come from them, for they speak of things they do not know when they are in a conscious state. All of which is to say, monsieur, that there are groups of devotees to Satan who are prepared to make terrible sacrifices to serve him.”

  A shiver traveled up Lieutenant Drancey’s back. This priest was certainly convincing. Drancey decided to leave his religious, or rather agnostic, beliefs to one side and listen to the clergyman’s testimony.

  “I studied your photos with care. Moreover, the very morning of the crime, I went to the scene as soon as the police reopened it. I didn’t find anything that suggested human sacrifice dedicated to some hellish deity. First of all, no trace of blood was found around the body. The victims’ blood, most often animals’, is used either to draw kabbalistic symbols or to cover the body or face, a symbol of both death for the man and life for the demon. Next, no evidence was apparent on the ground. In general, there is a whole ceremony, wherein esoteric shapes are mapped onto very precise places. The position of the body was also very unremarkable. The murderer didn’t try to put her in the shape of a cross, or worse, shatter her limbs to shatter the cross, the symbol of Christ’s power.”

  “And the type of murder?” asked Nadia. “The heart removed from the body?”

  “That is indeed the most troubling point. Sometimes certain animals’ hearts are torn out. The famous Mayan or Aztec priests sacrificed their victims that way and offered their hearts to the gods. But here, the extraction was clean, according to the coroner’s report, the heart wasn’t found, and above all the victim was sewn up again. Furthermore, the murder itself didn’t take place in the baptistery.”

  “What’s your conclusion, then?” asked the policeman.

  “The killer is a sick man who doubtless had a very precise reason for bringing the corpse here. But for me, the crime, as horrible as it is, is not satanic in origin. You have to find something else.”

  “You don’t have any detail that could help us?” he asked.

  “Soon I must meet with Pierre-Marie de Morot, a peerless historian who knows the cathedral’s history throughout the centuries. If you’ll permit me to divulge part of the file to him, we will try to understand what connection there may be between the murder and the location—if there is one.”

  Back out in the heat of the city, the two police officers looked at each other, disappointed by their interview’s conclusions. They’d silently hoped the priest would give them a lead. But they were sinking further into mystery and ambiguity.

  Chapter 15: Second Vision

  Sophie admired the city spread out before them. Fatigue weighed down their legs, but they’d had a wonderful day. They had left early to take advantage of the morning cool, agreeing to meet at six thirty in the morning in front of her apartment. Carrying a substantial supply of water and salads prepared the day before, all four of them—Sophie, Julien, and two friends—had started off to tackle the slopes of Chartreuse.

  Grenoble had the advantage of close proximity to the mountains. In less than an hour of walking, the group could find themselves on a hiking trail leading into what felt like the wilderness. They came to the Bastille, that famous Grenoble fortification that had kept watch over the city for years, then four hours after their departure, reached the Place Lavalette. Even though Place Lavalette was strategically located on a rocky outcrop nearly twelve hundred yards in the air and overlooked Grenoble, it had never been used to defend the city—it had, however, become a famous hiking destination.

  They had walked along the ridge, passed through the village of Sappey, and then picnicked in an alpine meadow in the shade of a beech tree, benefiting from the relative coolness of the mountains.

  The group then had walked back down the mountain the same way they’d hiked up. They sat on the terrace of the Bastille’s scenic restaurant, joining the horde of city dwellers who’d climbed the slopes for this legendary Sunday outing.

  Sophie observed the hikers. Some were soaked with sweat, having braved the heat to run up the mountain. Others, sporting heels or even stilettos, had unquestionably taken the cable car linking the city center to the Bastille.

  “Here, some nice cold beer for the adventurers!” François called to Julien. François had just changed T-shirts under the indignant stare of a senior at the neighboring table. The man was quickly calmed by his wife, who understood that youth enjoys such liberties.

  “One second,” said Julien, who had collapsed into a chair. “Sophie, between Friday’s aerobics and today’s hike, I’m beat.”

  “When you go find the waiter, get a beer for me, too,” Sophie told François, who looked at her in surprise.

  “Okay, I’m going on a mission. What about you, Céline? What do you want to drink?”

  Red with exhaustion and the heat, Céline thought for a few seconds. “A Perrier for me, please, with a slice of lemon and no ice.”

  “I’m off,” said François. “If I don’t come back in ten minutes, send backup.”

  A second round followed the first. They’d been lucky enough to snag a waiter passing by their table at exactly the right moment.

  Céline, Julien’s childhood friend, had met Sophie and François for the first time that day, but already she felt at ease with them. François and his jokes had animated the group; Sophie, a seasoned mountaineer, had kept an eye on everyone, offering encouragement and sound advice. As for Julien, he had been in his element keeping everybody happy. Céline had rarely felt as relaxed as she did at that moment, even if she did dread the time when they’d have to get up and finish the descent to Sophie’s apartment, where they’d left their belongings that morning. As if on purpose, Sophie signaled for their departure.

  They rose stiffly from their seats. Hisses of pain, held back until now, escaped from all their mouths. After the first step, the aches seemed more endurable. The group went back out to the open walkway and began the descent, amid the Sunday hikers.

  “That was an excellent hike,” Céline told them. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”

  “It was a pleasure,” replied François. “Julien painted us such a flattering picture of you that we couldn’t refuse.”

  “And?” asked Céline hesitantly.

  “He was right, of course!” added François with a big smile.

  They’d gone down a good part of the trail when Julien stopped short. François narrowly avoided running into him.

  “What’s up with you?” François asked.

  Julien’s gaze was fixed on a group of about fifteen people heading down two switchbacks below. He pointed them out.

  “Can you explain what we’re supposed to be looking at?” asked Céline.

  “Down there, the girl . . .” said Julien.

  “There’s a dozen of them. And you already have two that are at least cute,” commented François.

  Julien didn’t grin at his friend’s
joke, as if he hadn’t even heard it. “The girl in the white sundress!”

  Sophie’s senses immediately went on high alert. She peered at the group disappearing around the bend in the trail with heightened focus. She hadn’t seen the girl in the white dress her friend was talking about, but she’d caught only a glimpse of the hikers.

  “What was she like?” Sophie asked.

  “Brunette, with curly, shoulder-length hair, a white sundress, sandals, also white. But that’s all I saw. I have to have it clear in my mind.” He took off his backpack, shoved it into François’s arms, and ran off down the trail.

  “Where are you going?” cried Sophie.

  “I have to know!” he answered without turning around, running away.

  Julien had rushed off without thinking about what he’d do once he caught up to the young woman. He wouldn’t have especially noticed her if she hadn’t looked so pointedly at him. She was at a distance, but he was sure that was her. She’d stopped walking, turned her head, and looked at him for several seconds. It was much too long to be random. And he’d felt the same sensation when he’d followed the Grenoble baptistery victim. A sort of inner summons.

  So now he had to know. He had to know if he was going crazy, if these encounters were coincidences, or if something or someone wanted to send him a message. The third possibility struck him as delusional, but he couldn’t discount anything anymore.

  He ran for a good minute, and he could catch up to her by the next curve, one of the last before reaching the Isère riverfront. As he went around the last bend, he finally saw the group fifty yards ahead of him. They were all going into the Church of Saint-Laurent, which had been deconsecrated and transformed into an archaeological museum. While excavating, the archaeologists had brought to light older and older layers, at last uncovering a Carolingian crypt and a necropolis from the Gallo-Roman period.

  Julien slowed down and caught his breath. Apparently I’m a regular at churches and museums, he said to himself as he hurried under the church portico. The shade gave him an immediate sensation of well-being, but he didn’t stop to enjoy it. He was looking for the young woman in the white dress.

  One part of the group had just gone into the church, and she wasn’t with the people lined up at the ticket window. He rummaged through his pockets—his wallet was still in his backpack.

  “Entry to the museum is free, monsieur,” said an employee sitting behind the counter. “I just need to know your postal code.”

  Julien walked quickly toward the window. “38000.”

  “Here you are, monsieur, and enjoy your visit. I rarely see anyone in such a hurry to visit our beautiful museum,” she added with a little laugh.

  “Thank you.”

  Julien nearly snatched the ticket and rushed to the church entrance. He climbed a few stairs and reached a platform, and was struck for a moment by the sight before him. There was no longer a floor under the nave but instead a maze of half-ruined or reconstructed walls, proof that this place was a thousand years old. He quickly realized that no woman in a white dress was among the visitors. And she wouldn’t have had time to go farther inside unless she’d run, which would have made no sense.

  He left the museum, disoriented. The last visitors were collecting their audio guides. He headed toward an imposing-looking woman he’d noticed when he’d come back out.

  “Do you have a woman wearing a white dress in your group?”

  The woman looked at him, first surprised, then with a disapproving frown. He realized how cavalier and brusque his question sounded. He tried again. “Please excuse me for how abruptly I addressed you just now. I was supposed to meet a friend to visit the museum, and I got here late. Since she told me she was going to participate in a guided tour, I thought maybe she’d joined you.”

  The woman brightened when she heard this much more polite request from the man in front of her. Julien used his most distressed expression to try to elicit a quick response.

  “No, monsieur, I haven’t seen a young woman in a dress. Perhaps she grew tired of waiting for you.”

  Julien couldn’t tell whether she was sorry or there was a touch of wickedness in her reply, but he didn’t care. He left the museum. He headed back to the trail, jogged the last hundred or so yards, and came out on the Rue Saint-Laurent, at the foot of the mountain.

  He pulled himself together. He’d been mistaken in thinking that she was with the group visiting the museum. She must have continued on into the city while he’d wasted his time looking in the church.

  Lost in thought, he jumped when he heard François’s voice.

  “So, did you find her?”

  He noticed his friends waiting for him nearby. They were looking at him questioningly. He walked up to them.

  “No, I missed her. She didn’t go to the museum. She must have continued on down, and now she’s probably somewhere in the city.”

  “We should be able to find her,” said Sophie. “Assuming she’s in Grenoble, she has to take either the Rue Saint-Laurent or the Quai Xavier-Jouvin, where she’ll then have to take the bridge over the Isère. She’s at most two or three minutes ahead of us. By running in those directions, we might be able to spot her.”

  “Run?” asked Céline. “I’m worn out! Is it okay if I stay here with the bags? That way you’ll be able to move faster.”

  “Good idea,” Julien affirmed. “I’ll take the Rue Saint-Laurent, François and Sophie can check the other two ways. We’ll call each other in five minutes. If nobody’s found her by then, I think she’s definitely gone.”

  After five minutes, their phones all rang. Fifteen minutes later, they rejoined Céline, empty-handed. They looked at Julien apologetically. Sophie briefly explained their friend’s hitherto inexplicable reasons for the pursuit. He hadn’t wanted to talk about it during their hike, but Sophie judged it necessary to bring them up to speed. They sat down on a bench, speechless. Julien broke the silence.

  “I might be crazy. What do they call people who hear voices and have hallucinations? Schizophrenics, right?”

  “Tell us instead about what you saw,” said Céline, cutting him off. “Sophie went quickly through what happened to you this week.”

  “She did the right thing. I saw this woman, also in white, and I felt, how do I put this . . . called. She was far away, but I was convinced I would recognize her if I saw her again.”

  “And you think she could be one of the killer’s next victims?” asked François.

  “Well, shit, I don’t know! I’m not an expert in the sixth sense!” shouted Julien, losing his temper. “I supposedly have the gift of seeing unknown victims of an unknown killer? That’s so freaking stupid!” He let several seconds go by, but no one interrupted his train of thought.

  “Sorry, that had nothing to do with you, and you even helped me out. But this thing is putting me on edge. Imagine for one second that, in some way I won’t even try to understand, this girl is the second victim of the maniac stalking the city. What should I do?”

  “I suggest we go home. Then, we all sit down and make a decision. Walking will likely do us good and put our heads on straight.”

  By mutual agreement, they got up from their bench and went to Sophie’s place on the Rue Montorge. They were no longer thinking about the day’s aches and pains and secretly wondered what was causing their friend’s hallucinations. They had every confidence in him, but this precognition business was hardly believable.

  Chapter 16: The Lead

  Nadia ended the call on her cell phone. She put it back in her pants pocket and grabbed her office phone.

  “Give me Commissioner Mazure. This is Captain Barka. It’s urgent. This is in connection with Operation Open Heart.”

  Whoever had named the battle plan hadn’t demonstrated extreme creativity.

  “He’s on the line, Captain. I’m transferring you.”

&nb
sp; “Thanks. Hello, Commissioner, this is Captain Barka.”

  “Good evening, Nadia. I imagine you have something new if you’re calling me on this line.”

  “Yes, I just received a rather strange telephone call, to say the least. The man who had come to see us on Friday, Julien Lombard, called me. He told me he saw a woman, under conditions identical to those of his encounter with Monica Revasti.”

  “Where did he see her?”

  “On the trail that leads down from the Bastille and ends up at the Church of Saint-Laurent.”

  “Okay, and then?”

  “He didn’t manage to catch her. He was with friends who helped him look for her, but she, well, truly disappeared.”

  “And did his friends also see this woman?”

  “No, he’s the only one who noticed her.”

  Mazure was silent, reflecting on what his colleague had just told him. “What impression did you get of him on the phone?”

  “Sincere. He himself was frightened by what he was telling me. But he wanted me to share it, even if it meant sounding deranged.”

  “Have you continued your investigations into him?”

  “Yes, and they haven’t found anything abnormal in what they’ve been able to collect. No psychiatric trouble, no history of cult membership, normal social life, friends. Nothing that makes him a pathological liar.”

  “And what do you intend to do?”

  “I want to give it a shot. The woman he’s talking about vanished near the archaeological museum, which happens to be an old church. It’s the structural similarities with the first murder that make me want to dig deeper—a museum, an ancient religious building.”

  “He could have made this story up.”

  “He could have, of course, but why? Besides, we have no serious leads. So I risk nothing in going for it. I’m going to take Lieutenants Fortin and Drancey with me. That should be enough.”

  “What do you plan to do, exactly?”

  “Hide out around the church overnight. There’s only one entrance. I wanted to keep you informed.”