Heart Collector

by Jacques Vandroux

  There, in the distance, appearing under the wavering halo of a lamppost, he saw a white outline moving hurriedly. He recognized the dress she had been wearing that afternoon. It was her. He started running, followed by his two assistants. She was at most two hundred yards ahead. She rushed into a side street. He lost sight of her. By the time he entered the street, she was on a bridge over the Isère. She was heading for the Saint-Laurent neighborhood. All the restaurants were closed at that hour of the night. She was running along the Isère. He’d soon reach her. No pedestrians in sight—luck was with him. He caught his wife by the shoulder and spun her around violently. He was going to teach her some manners. Her expression stupefied him. Where he’d expected to see terror, he saw serenity. The two other men caught up with them, out of breath. He unceremoniously dismissed them. They didn’t need to be asked twice.

  He pulled roughly on Magali’s arm and walked along the Isère, sheltered from the prying eyes of any unlikely night owl. Now close to her, he realized with horror that she’d already given birth. But where? And when? It wasn’t possible.

  He looked at her, filled with hate, and gave her a terrible slap. She fell to the ground, without crying out, maintaining her serene gaze, which he already couldn’t stand. He pulled her roughly upright and placed a hand on his wife’s stomach, to confirm a fact he already knew. She was no longer carrying his heir, the flesh of his flesh. He screamed.

  “Where is he? Where is my son?”

  “He’s not there anymore!”

  “Where is he?” he cried like a madman, kneeing her in the belly. She crumpled. Tears appeared in response to the pain. He looked at her face. She still had that half smile at the corner of her lips.

  “The child disappeared. He’ll never become the monster you wanted to make of him! We could have raised him together, Dominique. I loved you, but what you’ve become repulses me. What I’ve endured up to now for his sake—I didn’t want him to experience it, too.”

  Dominique Cabrade began to comprehend the meaning of his wife’s words. “But you killed him? You killed my child so I couldn’t give him the best of myself? You’re a madwoman, a madwoman.”

  In a fit of rage, he punched her repeatedly. Magali curled in on herself, trying to limit the pain he inflicted with each blow.

  “Where did you put his body? Where?”

  “You’ll never be able to find him again.”

  The man screamed, screamed his despair and his hate. He yanked his wife up violently and approached the riverbank. He grabbed a large stone. Magali knew her last moments had arrived.

  “You have no reason left to live. You would have been the mother of my son, I’d planned a place for you. But you wanted more, in spite of everything I did to protect you from your environment. And I failed. What you’ve just done deserves death.”

  She burst out with a laugh that transformed into a heartrending groan.

  “Poor Dominique. I was unhappy enough to die during these last twelve months. I tried to find reasons to love you, despite the facts, despite what my friends and family told me. I looked for reasons. But tonight, it’s over, I don’t have any more reasons. You can do with me what you like.”

  Cabrade’s eyes shone with hate. So she was trying to put the blame on him! She was definitively evil. By making her disappear, he was doing the world a favor. Magali knew he was about to deal her final blow.

  “I hope one day you’ll realize what you’ve done. And that day will be terrible for you.”

  He screamed and struck her like a madman. When the body went limp under his blow, he looked again at the waters of the Isère. The purity of the water was much too beautiful a casket for this whore he’d considered his wife. He hid her along the wall—no one would come by at this hour. That would give him time to get his vehicle and take away the corpse. The mountain was vast enough to make a body disappear.

  Covered in sweat, he reopened his eyes and looked around him. He was sitting exactly where, thirty years earlier, he’d removed from his life the one who should have given him descendants. A sign from elusive fate, no doubt. He was wrapping up a cycle of torment. He was going to dispel the curse she’d put on him once and for all. He considered this coincidence a positive sign, stood up, and headed for his mentor’s home.

  Chapter 44: Why Grenoble?

  Rivera leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He was spent. He defied the administrative prohibitions and lit a cigarette. He inhaled the smoke deeply, eyes half-closed. He’d just concluded an armed peace with Captain Barka. He’d decided to make the first move and call her. He was expecting a difficult conversation, but she’d been rather conciliatory. She was quite far from accepting a dinner invitation, but she wanted to move the investigation forward as quickly as possible.

  Rivera was affected by what he’d seen a few hours earlier. That ghost house, the torture chamber, that young woman’s heart still marked by Sartenas’s teeth. He’d really acted like a giant asshole with Barka, wasted precious time and information. But he couldn’t go back. All he could do now was use his colleague’s aggressiveness and intuition instead of being jealous of her.

  He reopened his eyes, took a last puff on his cigarette, and stubbed it out in the bottom of his empty coffee cup.

  “So, Garancher, are you done with that Sartenas file, yes or shit!” he hollered into the hallway. He heard his colleague’s very calm voice answer him.

  “Higher decibels won’t make things go faster, Captain. Let me have one more little hour, and I’ll bring you the summary of our research.”

  Rivera sighed loudly enough for them to hear and thought back on his conversation. He’d asked Captain Barka to get back in touch with Lombard so that he could have another discussion with him, but more calmly this time. Lombard’s statements took on much greater significance given their revelations in Sartenas’s house. He’d see the young man at the end of the day. He went back over the medical examiner’s file while waiting for Garancher to grace him with the research results. He was eager for those results, because he knew his colleague and the team he had at his disposal would get their hands, or their eyes, on everything there was to find.

  He went over the report one more time. Sartenas was a real nut job, and hate mounted inside Rivera. He’d never felt that during an investigation. He’d engaged in acts of violence he’d in fact been reproached for, but never had he felt like some kind of avenging angel, like he wanted to take a guy in his own hands to make him suffer. He had to get ahold of himself. But how could he after reading these lines:

  . . . The body was cut into along the abdomen, between the fourth and fifth ribs. The ribs were then separated with the help of a surgical instrument such as three-prong pliers . . . the venae cavae as well as the aorta were severed using a scalpel. The heart was removed through the rib cage . . . the color of the flesh as well as the small quantity of blood found in the victim’s circulatory system prove she was alive when the act was committed . . .

  Fuck! But why make the girl suffer?

  Garancher came into the office at his lethargic pace. Rivera cut him off before he could start disclosing the results of his research. “Meeting in the briefing room in five minutes. You’ll tell the whole team what you’ve found.”

  Garancher felt a sense of importance when he addressed the twenty investigators and policemen gathered around him. Mazure himself had just entered the room. At a nod from the commissioner, he began.

  “If we can present these results to you this evening, it’s thanks to the diligence of my colleagues and the excellent cooperation put in place between judicial services and the police. Judge Hellbronner’s team has demonstrated extraordinary responsiveness.”

  Rivera rolled his eyes. The emphatic tone his colleague used as soon as he was speaking to more than three people at a time always irritated him. But he didn’t interrupt him.

  “Our man’s name is Do
minique Sartenas. As you know, we’ve been able to trace him based on his vehicle identification. He was born October 3, 1952, in Neuilly sur Seine. His official address is in Fort Myers, Florida.”

  “What the hell was he doing in the United States?” asked Rivera, surprised by the information.

  “I’m getting there, Captain. Just know that he arrived in France in the month of April. The house we searched this morning has been rented since March. We found the name of the owner—he lives in the Paris area. We managed to reach him, and he isn’t at all involved in this case. The house was rented through an agency.”

  “And do you know what brought this sad individual to Grenoble?” asked Alain Mazure.

  “No, not yet. But to answer Captain Rivera’s question, we know Sartenas is a plastic surgeon.”

  “You mean he does cosmetic surgery.”

  “Among other things. He operates in a clinic on the west coast of Florida. We managed to get in touch with the clinic, and with the help of the American police, we got the testimony of two of his colleagues. That’s why I asked you for an extension, Captain Rivera. The time difference, you understand?”

  Rivera motioned for him to keep going.

  “We can say for sure at this point that although the surgeon might command respect, the man does not.”

  “Explain.”

  “It took less than half an hour for my colleagues to learn that he officially worked part time at the clinic, and that he spent the rest of his time in Cuba.”

  “Cigar fan?” said Rivera ironically.

  “Not really. Cuba is an island of contradictions. Although Castro’s family still holds political power, the power of money is back in force. Cuba welcomes clinics that offer low-cost surgical interventions. If you go on the Internet, you’ll find addresses in spades. But there are also more discreet clinics that offer more luxurious services, sometimes bordering on illegality. Sartenas is said to have worked in that type of clinic.”

  “Did you take into account, Garancher, that this type of statement can be driven by the speaker’s jealousy, or even anti-French sentiment?” asked Mazure.

  “Certainly, Commissioner. But two people, without apparent connection, gave us the same information. Besides, the research results agree with them. While investigating the real estate agency, and thanks to the support from the Ministry of Justice services, we were able to uncover in record time the origin of the money transfers that pay his rent. They come from a bank in the Rhône-Alpes region. The account was opened in March. Two colleagues popped into the bank with convincing papers and a touch of persuasion. The money the bank received comes directly from an offshore account in the Caribbean.”

  “Making money isn’t a sin in the United States, unlike in France.”

  “You’re right, Commissioner. But not obeying the law is. And Sartenas’s activities in Cuba seem to fall into that category.”

  “Good, let’s continue. So we’re dealing with a surgeon, as Doctor Blavet predicted. He must earn a very comfortable living, no doubt in part illegally, but he wouldn’t be the first. And he came back to Grenoble three months ago. But was he already plotting his murders?”

  “I know nothing about that, Commissioner. But we’ve obtained very surprising information. Sartenas has been living in the United States for eight years. He divided his practice between Florida and Alabama. But when you go back in time, you don’t find anything more on him.”

  “Which is to say?”

  “No trace of a Dominique Sartenas. It’s as if he appeared officially only eight years ago. We called city hall in Neuilly—no trace of his birth certificate.”

  “They could have lost it.”

  “They could have, but he was born in 1952, not during the upheaval of the French Revolution. No trace of him before the issuance of his identity card or his passport, eight years ago. One could imagine he managed to procure a false birth certificate and a few other falsified official documents, then created himself an identity.”

  “Well, you can’t create a persona out of nothing!”

  Garancher looked at his superior with astonishment.“You well know, Commissioner, that with money and a few well-placed accomplices, it is possible to do many things.”

  Mazure didn’t address Lieutenant Garancher’s commentary. “So we have a guy with a fake identity who comes to Grenoble for an unknown reason, slaughters two poor girls chosen who knows how, and disappears into thin air. We’ve made quite a bit of progress, gentlemen. I ask the question on pure principle: have you found a link between this man and the Grenoble region?”

  “None for the time being, Commissioner. He could just as easily have come here by chance as lived here for thirty years. But for the moment, we know nothing. We’ve planned to send out a call for witnesses by this evening. Perhaps people will recognize his photo? Anyway, if he lived here, it was under another identity.”

  “Okay. Now go pull out all the stops when questioning the neighbors. Comb through Saint-Martin d’Uriage with his picture. Get in touch with the American authorities. Give them the killer’s pedigree and tactfully ask them to check if they’ve had any unsolved murders of the same type in the last few years. Gather up all there is on his American life—I want to know everything on the subject. I also want to understand how he could have obtained an official existence from nothing. Make a big stink in the Grenoble medical community to find out if Sartenas, or X—whatever his real name is—ever practiced in the area. And finally, plaster his photo everywhere in Grenoble! I’m going to ask for official authorization. I want this guy to sweat bullets when he sets foot in the street . . . with or without a blond wig.”

  Chapter 45: Sanctuary

  Sartenas looked up and verified the building’s number. He’d found the apartment. He hesitated for a few seconds, but the sound of a car braking hard at a red light startled him out of his stupor. He pushed open the door and entered the foyer. Tiled in marble, decorated with floral arrangements in soothing colors, the place instilled in him a little of the serenity he’d been lacking since he’d seen his house being spied on by strangers. His nervous tension lowered a notch, but his vigilance remained total. He was mere steps from success. Then he’d disappear again, forever, into the new life he’d dreamed of for so long.

  It was seven o’clock. He buzzed the intercom, crossing his fingers that the only voice capable of helping him would answer. The speaker crackled a moment.

  “Who’s there?” asked a voice deformed by the poor-quality audio system.

  “It’s Dominique.”

  A pause, which seemed an eternity to Sartenas, followed the utterance of his name.

  Then the door buzzed open.

  “Come up, it’s on the fourth floor.”

  Sartenas pushed open the door and chose the stairs. Above all, he had to limit the number of possible encounters. When he reached the fourth floor, he immediately noticed a door ajar. He quickly crossed the hallway. The occupant opened the door completely, let him enter, then swiftly closed it behind him.

  Without a word, Arsène brought Dominique to the living room. His gaze was questioning and angry.

  “What’s come over you? It was quite clear between us that we must never see each other here. Our meeting point is, and will always remain, the manor.”

  Sartenas collapsed into an armchair. He was well aware of their agreement, but the situation was too dire.

  “I didn’t have a choice, Arsène. A very unfortunate setback! You alone can cure me.”

  Arsène observed him keenly. He’d never seen Dominique Sartenas so disturbed. In the end, it was probably better to have him close at hand than to know he was on the loose, capable of any rash action.

  “Take off your jacket while I go find something to drink. You will tell me everything.”

  A glow of relief lit up Sartenas’s face. Now he was going to pull through, he knew it.
Arsène would find the means to chase away Magali for good. Sartenas began his tale as soon as his friend came back with two glasses and a bottle of fruit juice.

  Twenty minutes later, Arsène was annoyed, very annoyed. The risk they faced now had significantly increased. The man in front of him usually demonstrated uncommon composure, but he was, at times, very unstable psychologically. The disappearance of his son, which Sartenas had considered the ultimate betrayal, and the subsequent murder of his wife, had sent the man into a sort of parallel world. He’d invented encounters with Magali, which had grown stronger year after year and undermined him. Magali, a sort of female Don Giovanni, appeared to remind him of his crime but also of her betrayal. Arsène had to make some quick decisions. He grabbed his cell phone, went out to the balcony, and made his first call.

  Chapter 46: Pierre Dupré

  Julien Lombard pushed open the door and headed for the reception desk. A woman buried in papers looked up at him questioningly.

  “I’d like to see Monsieur Pierre Dupré,” he announced.

  Nadia Barka came up from behind and quietly took out her badge. “We’re working on a murder case . . . Monsieur Dupré may have information that will help us make progress.”

  The receptionist was taken aback. She looked at each of them in turn. “Is this a bad joke?”

  “Absolutely not. My ID is quite legitimate, and my request is quite serious.”

  “But Pierre Dupré is gravely ill and hasn’t left the establishment for more than six months, aside from a few stints in intensive care.”

  “It’s actually his memory we’d like to call on. And time is running out,” Captain Barka explained.

  The nurse looked at them. They didn’t seem like they were playing a joke on her. “I have to ask for permission from the director. Can you give me a few minutes?”

  “We’ll wait for you here.”

  Five minutes later, she came back, accompanied by a short, energetic woman.