by Nell Goddin
“I don’t know,” said the older man dubiously. “He’s had time to grease a lot of palms, if you know what I mean.”
“Life is unpredictable. Maybe he’ll drop dead and make it easy for me,” laughed André, and some in the crowd laughed with him, perhaps at the ridiculousness of such a notion, the mayor not being an old man by any stretch.
* * *
“Is anything wrong, Monsieur Lachance?” the assistant asked the banker, who was standing in the doorway to his office with an especially sour look on his face.
“No, no,” Lachance said, going into his office and closing the door. The meeting with Coulon had not gone the way he might have wished. Oh, the mayor was game, all right. He wasn’t going to cause any trouble with the case in front of the examining magistrate, at least he claimed he would not.
But the mayor’s services did not come cheap. Lachance sank into his chair and put his head in his hands. He was deep in a hole, yet all he could think to do was keep digging.
13
The next morning, to Bobo’s great disappointment, Molly got out of bed and zipped into the village on her scooter without having coffee. She wanted to pick up fresh pastries for her guests at Pâtisserie Bujold and have a leisurely breakfast at the Café de la Place before starting in on the day’s chores.
The sight of the red-enameled shop made her mouth water, and as she parked the scooter she was already struggling to decide which pastries to get.
“Bonjour, Edmond!”
Edmond Nugent, proprietor of the bakery, gave Molly a wink and a wave as he finished helping a customer who was buying a dozen beignets.
“Au revoir, Malcolm,” Molly said to the young man, and he mumbled a goodbye to her on his way out.
When the man had left, Nugent leaned across the counter and said, “Look out for that one. He’s something of a sneak. When he comes into the shop I don’t dare turn around or he’d manage somehow to have all the éclairs stuffed in his pockets in the blink of an eye. Though he might be good to know for whatever you and Ben are working on—you know, part of the criminal element—who could have some information for you from time to time.” He let his eyes drift to Molly’s chest but remembered himself and looked out the window.
“I’m rather fond of Malcolm actually, he helped out with a case awhile back.”
“Well, I never would have guessed you’d be friendly with the likes of Malcolm Barstow. He’s well known to all the shopkeepers because he’ll steal anything that isn’t nailed down. I heard the Barstows were in hot water back in England, but they haven’t improved their conduct here. Father’s in and out of jail.”
“Sort of a sad case.”
“There is nothing sad about Malcolm, believe me. He’s the type of thief who enjoys the whole thing immensely.”
“Well, thanks for the tip, Edmond. Though the way things are going, I’m going to be out of the private investigator business before long.”
“How come?”
“Pure and simple: no clients.”
“At least you have your gîte business to fall back on. Can’t you simply be patient until something comes up? Not that I’m hoping for anything to come up, to be honest. I mean, um, I wish you every success but at the same time, I am not in favor of crime, you understand? Oh dear, this is awkward.”
Molly laughed. “Not at all, I’ve had the same thought myself. The trouble is, yes, I have the gîtes—and I love doing it, so that’s all good—but Ben is another story. He needs work, and he can’t just wait for it indefinitely.”
Edmond shrugged, not feeling especially warm towards Ben Dufort since he, Edmond, could quite easily imagine himself in his place as Molly’s boyfriend. He allowed himself the fleeting hope that Ben would be forced to leave town to find work, leaving the field open…
“Edmond? Hello?”
“Oh yes, so sorry,” he said, reddening. The doorbell tinkled and Lucie Séverin came in, at least Molly thought that’s who she was, the wife of the principal of the primaire who had been part of a case Molly worked on the year before. Everyone in the village understood that Lucie had struggled with depression, so Molly was glad to see her out and about.
“Bonjour, Lucie!” said Edmond, with a big smile. “Have you made your decision?” he asked Molly, gesturing at the pastry case. She was unused to being hurried along and quickly chose a variety of deliciousness—napoleons, éclairs, and lemon tartlettes—hoping to hit on something that would tempt Wesley, the Russians, and the pair from San Francisco. She was halfway out the door when she remembered that Wesley did not eat sweets, and asked Edmond if he had any small spinach quiches.
While he went in the back to check, Molly gave Lucie a quick smile and looked away. Though she had moved to Castillac almost two years earlier, it was still tricky navigating the social customs of the village; as an extroverted American always up for talking to anyone, Molly had learned some restraint, and though she wanted to start chatting away with Lucie and asking how she was doing, she understood that Lucie would most likely find that to be intrusive. So they stood next to each other, both of them staring at the pastries for something to do, until Edmond returned with a quiche and slipped it into a bag.
“No charge,” he said gaily, causing Molly to wonder what in the world had gotten into him. Though his joyful expression as he turned to Lucie, all twinkly-eyed and intense, gave her a pretty good idea.
With some effort she managed not to eat any of the pastries as she walked to the Café de la Place, taking a seat in the sunshine, and once again thinking that despite whatever problems arose—as they would anywhere, simply being life—she had managed to find paradise. The plane trees made a dappled shade over most of the café’s terrace, and some sort of spiky-leaved palm grew next to the Presse across the street. A few tourists drifted through on their way to the church, which was an interesting example of its type but not so interesting as to draw very many people out of their way to see it. Window boxes and hanging baskets were everywhere, brightening up the stone buildings with splotches of red and yellow. She saw her friend Manette going into the hardware store, and several other familiar faces that she couldn’t quite match to names.
Molly loved Castillac with all her heart. If only the investigation business would take off, and allow Ben to stay, life would be about as perfect as it ever gets.
Pascal appeared, bestowing a warm smile and a view of his dazzling white teeth, and took her order, the usual Spécial. Circling back to the problem at hand—she couldn’t help wondering—was she the problem with the P.I. business? Did people not want to hire them because she was a foreigner, and worse, devoid of any real credentials beyond a few lucky breaks in some local cases? Maybe she should suggest that Ben drop her name from the business and try to make a go of it by himself. He was the one with all the local connections, along with a stellar reputation as former chief of the gendarmerie.
It was the last thing she wanted to do, since solving the various cases that had cropped up in Castillac had been one of the main reasons she was so happy there. It felt so good to set things right as well as give back to the community she adored. And yes, admittedly, the successes weren’t half bad for her ego, either.
Pascal arrived with her freshly squeezed orange juice, croissant, and long overdue coffee. As Molly sat still, rather like a child unable to decide which thing to have first because they all looked absolutely divine, two women sat a few tables away, deep in conversation. An inveterate eavesdropper, Molly tuned in right away.
“—and the thing is,” the woman with dark auburn hair said, “he’s only doing it to annoy me. As though he hadn’t gotten quite enough of that while we were married!”
Molly nodded to herself. One of the best things about moving to France after her divorce was that she and Donny, her ex, led completely separate lives now, and any ideas either might have for tormenting the other in the ways exes sometimes do were nullified by the distance between them. Molly actually thought mostly fondly about Donny now,
much to Frances’s horror, but she was pretty sure that would not be the case if she had stayed in Boston where he still lived.
Enough ruminating, and back to eavesdropping!
“Do you think he will win? He always seems to. Honestly, I don’t think it’s because anyone likes him that much, Odile. It’s more that no one ever runs against him who isn’t some kind of nut. The truth is, no one wants to be mayor. It’s a lot of work, after all. For me it would be a nightmare of a job.”
“Well, Maxime adores it. It gives him delusions of grandeur, you know. Don’t you see him swanning about the village, greeting people as though he were wearing an ermine stole and a giant crown on his head? Though I suppose if he wore a crown, maybe he wouldn’t need to have that comb-over.”
“Odile, you are terrible!” tittered her friend.
It didn’t take a crack detective to figure out that they were talking about Maxime Coulon, thought Molly. She had shaken his hand and exchanged a few pleasantries with him at some point, but never met his wife. Her impression of the mayor had not been negative…or positive either, come to think of it. He seemed to be a mild sort of man, very much wanting people to like him—at least that was her impression from the brief contact she had had.
“Just between you and me, I wouldn’t be sorry if someone pushed him in front of an oncoming train. Do you know he has blocked my business permit for over six months? We all accept a certain amount of bureaucratic lethargy but this is just ridiculous. It’s obviously on purpose. He’s costing me gobs of money and absolutely reveling in it.”
The two women then engaged in a long discussion about facials and various skin creams, and Molly got bored and stopped listening. Breakfast eaten, she hurried back to the scooter clutching her bag of pastries, hoping that the guests all slept late and her timing would then be perfect.
14
Madame Barbeau had called the mayor Thursday morning to let him know that Josette was not feeling well and would not be coming to work that day. She tried to pressure Josette into making the call herself, but her daughter rolled over, pretended to be asleep, and did not respond to Madame Barbeau’s entreaties.
Which were half-hearted, in any case, since the older woman was glad of an excuse to talk to the mayor himself. If she were not so arthritic she would have paid him a visit long before—how she would love to get inside that house and see it for herself! Josette was utterly deficient when it came to relating any sort of detail. Well, utterly deficient in most things, her mother thought, except looks. And those will go soon enough.
Madame Barbeau stroked her chin, thinking carefully about what to say before she made the call. Perhaps if she took a hot bath and rubbed her knees with ointment, she might be able to make the trip? She was still young, only in her fifties…if her joints would just behave. It’s not as though she had lived her life avoiding pain; she wasn’t afraid to suffer if the reward was worth it. For a moment she thought greedily of the mayor showing her around the house on rue Malbec, while she made note of the paintings, sculptures, fine plate, and who knows what other valuables might be there that Josette was blind to?
But with a sigh, Madame Barbeau returned to reality. Though she was no stranger to fantasies of fortune, she was a practical woman always, and knew that if she tried to go to Castillac and climb the mayor’s three flights of stairs, she might be stuck in bed for days after, barely able to move, with her joints on fire. There was too much work to do on the farm to allow it.
The phone call was brief and disappointing. She told him Josette wasn’t well and he thanked her for calling and hung up before Madame Barbeau could get out another word.
She did not believe for a moment that her daughter was sick. Either something had happened to upset her or she was just looking to have a day off so she could lounge around doing nothing.
As she swept the kitchen floor, she pondered the situation. Truthfully, Josette had never been lazy. Sure, sometimes she put off doing her chores until the last minute, but overall her mother couldn’t really complain about her daughter on that score. With a groan Madame Barbeau put a dustpan on the floor and swept dirt and tracked-in bits of straw into it.
I wonder, she thought slowly, if what I feared has finally come to pass. It’s no good putting a young woman like Josette alone in a house with a man—men are beasts, plain and simple. They will do the worst if even given half a chance, as I very well know.
She stood up straight, for once not noticing the pain in her knees, imagining Maxime Coulon taking advantage of her innocent daughter. It felt as though an electrical storm unleashed in her head, a raging fury interspersed by fleeting memories of her husband Adolph’s savagery, which she had been forced to endure until his death.
Madame Barbeau clamped her teeth together and went off to find Julien, who might be able to shed some light on the truth. It had been several years since Josette began to work as a housemaid, and Madame Barbeau had felt, right from the beginning, that there was more going on than she was being told by either of her children. And now she was almost certain something had shifted, exactly in the sordid way she had anticipated, and she did not intend to submit to it, not this time.
* * *
By the next morning Josette had made a miraculous recovery. She fed the chickens and made the coffee as she usually did, then waited for Julien to load the truck.
“Glad to see you are still among the living,” said her mother unpleasantly, watching for a reaction.
“Guess I needed to rest,” was all Josette would say. Cheerfully, she kissed her mother on both cheeks and said goodbye before getting into the truck with Julien.
“I hate her,” Josette said simply.
“Yeah,” said Julien. They said nothing further, and did not need to.
Once on rue Malbec, Josette began to feel nervous. She had not wasted her day of rest but done a lot of thinking, trying her best to come up with a plan, some way of salvaging the disaster that had ensued when the mayor had caught her stealing the silver sugar bowl. His threats had scared her so completely (and she had not even considered whether he might not be telling the truth) that she was sure she faced years of living as his virtual slave, with the constant sword of prison hanging over her head if she did not keep him satisfied enough to keep quiet.
Josette liked life on the farm, and while she enjoyed working in a grand house and being surrounded by beautiful objects, she did not crave that world the way her mother did. She had always expected to marry a local guy and have a family somewhere nearby, to go on raising chickens and keeping a large garden. Once out of her mother’s house, she expected to be happy.
But obviously life had taken a different turn. There had been no local guy that her mother would agree to her seeing, and so instead of her own farm and family, she was stuck living with her detestable mother and now found herself desperately under the thumb of Monsieur Coulon.
But maybe, she thought, knocking on the door with renewed confidence, maybe there was a way to turn everything around. If he likes me so much, she reasoned, why not marry me? Then I would be able to leave Maman for good, and he will not want to see his own wife go to prison. He has so much money, he might even buy a little place in the country so I could have some animals, maybe another goat like the one I had when I was little. He’s ugly, but so what? And as for what had happened in his bedroom…it certainly hadn’t been romantic, but at least it had been over quickly. All in all, being married to him might be better than living with Maman. Almost anything would be.
Josette was pleased with her plan, if only because it is always better to have one than not. She did not have any specific ideas for how to put it in motion, but felt reassured nonetheless.
Anxiously, she knocked on the door. The mayor had mentioned giving her a key years ago, but never seemed to get around to it, instead leaving for the mairie only after she had arrived, even the times she was late.
Would he kiss her? Take her upstairs again? Or would things settle back down to normal?
The door opened and Coulon waved her inside. “Come, come,” he said briskly. “I’m glad you’re on time, I have a series of crucial meetings this morning and I must get to the mairie right away.”
Josette glanced at his face but he did not look at her. When they had last seen each other, the events had been so momentous that neither one knew how to act.
“Well, good luck!” she said, trying to sound like a supportive wife. “Let’s see, it’s Thursday…I’ll be doing the laundry and all the usual things, unless you have something else in mind?”
“No. No, that would be fine,” said Coulon.
They stood awkwardly in the foyer for a few seconds, then he leaned over, inhaling the air next to her neck, and kissed her wetly on the cheek, while reaching around and giving her backside a squeeze.
When he had closed the door behind him, Josette wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Getting straight to work, she gathered up the laundry and washed it in the washing machine in the kitchen, dusted the ground floor, and after lunch, lugged the basket of wet things out to the yard to hang them to dry.
Hanging the laundry was one of her favorite jobs, probably because it was an excuse to go out and feel the sun on her back. She liked the feel of the wooden pegs in her fingers, and the smell of the clean sheets and clothes. She had just gotten back in the kitchen, about to close the door, when she heard someone coming down the alley behind the house. Quickly she closed the door and stood behind the curtain, waiting a few seconds before peeking through.
It was that red-haired woman again. Just as before, she stopped, poking her head up over the back wall and looking intently at the clothesline. Who was this nosy person, anyway? She did not look like anyone from around there, thought Josette. It wasn’t her clothes, or her hair, but something… something about her was not French at all. Josette did not trust her and wished she would turn her attention somewhere else.