When Hell Struck Twelve

by James R Benn

  “They didn’t detain him for questioning?” I said.

  “No, they know him well, and besides, there was much blood. The fellow had none on him, except on the soles of his feet,” Kaz said. “He says his superiors will want to know why we came here. A detective from the police judiciaire is on his way.”

  “Judicial police?” I said.

  “Yes. In France, they are separate from the regular uniformed police. They operate out of the prosecutor’s office,” Kaz said.

  “Have you been arrested in France? You seem to know a lot about it.”

  “There was an indiscretion in Marseilles once, but all was forgiven,” he said, as a black Citroën Traction Avant pulled up to the curb. A young plainclothes cop jumped out from behind the wheel and opened the rear door. Out stepped a tall, gaunt man with a graying goatee and a sharp eye that took in the scene before him.

  “We were expecting General Leclerc and his tanks,” he said. “Not a lone American and un officier polonais so far from home.”

  “Sorry, sir, I can’t tell you anything about General Leclerc,” I said. “We’re here looking for someone.”

  “So I understand, and I hear he is now lying dead upon his parlor carpet. Please remain here, gentlemen, while I acquaint myself with the situation. Inspecteur Giles Dufort, at your service.”

  Kaz responded, giving our names and dressing it all up in a lot of French politeness. Perhaps picking up on Dufort’s aristocratic bearing, he tossed in a reference to his title as a baron of the Augustus clan, and there was an exchange of slight, almost apologetic bows, as if it was bad form to mention it so close to a cooling body.

  As Dufort made for the door, an officer rushed out, shoving him aside, and promptly retched in the gutter.

  “Un corps,” he muttered, spitting out flecks of vomit. “Un autre corps.”

  “It seems we have a rather distressing second corpse,” Dufort said to us, with the calmness that comes from years of viewing what human beings do to one another. “You must remain here, do you understand?”

  Kaz said he did, which was good enough for the inspector, who didn’t bother asking me.

  “I think we have gotten Monsieur Marchand killed,” I said. “And maybe Lucien Fassier as well.”

  “How?” Kaz asked.

  “Yesterday in Beaulieu, we learned about Marchand,” I said.

  “From the servant girl,” Kaz said. “But if she told anyone else, that is not our fault.”

  “No, but we talked about it on the street while people were coming out of the café and celebrating. There was someone watching the Fassier residence, and they could have tailed us there and blended in with the crowd. While we were babysitting Gallois, they headed here, found Marchand, and killed him along with his houseguest.”

  “We don’t know it’s Fassier,” Kaz said.

  “I do.”

  “How?” Kaz asked.

  “He was tortured for being a traitor. Cops don’t puke like that unless it’s something really bad. This is more than another double homicide.”

  Dufort stepped outside. I had him pegged for an experienced guy, maybe fifty plus a few years, which meant he’d seen a thing or two. His mouth hung open, and his face had gone pale. He shook a Gauloises from a pack and lit up, inhaling the strong tobacco like a soothing drug.

  “This is a bad business, my friends,” he said. “You must tell me everything you know.”

  “We’re tracking a possible double agent,” I said, figuring this fit well enough with the deception plan. “A man called Lucien Fassier, originally from Beaulieu, where his father was the chief of the municipal police.”

  “Yes, Yves Fassier,” Dufort said. “Why do you say he was the chief?”

  “Because he was arrested after the village was liberated and thrown in his own jail. Yesterday, he hung himself. Or somebody helped him end it all,” I said.

  “Interesting,” Dufort said. “Few will miss him, now that the boche have gone. But what does that have to do with his son?”

  “We learned in Beaulieu that Lucien had come here to hide. He’s on his way to Paris with documents he had stolen from General Patton’s headquarters,” I said. I gave him a quick rundown on what had happened, and said we needed to view the murder scene.

  “When did you arrive?” Dufort asked, a glimmer of suspicion in his question. I would have wondered about us too.

  “Twenty minutes ago,” I said. “We went straight to the police station to ask for help locating Charles Marchand and found everyone running here. Listen, Inspector, I was a detective myself before the war. I know this looks odd, but there are a lot of other people who were upset with Fassier. Resistance people.”

  “There have been armed groups about since yesterday,” Dufort said. “Everyone is talking about the Allies taking Paris, with Leclerc and his men in the lead. But all I have seen are men and women with FFI armbands and the two of you, of course.”

  “Inspector, if you’d allow us inside, we need to determine if Fassier had a document with him. A map showing the planned advance into Paris,” I said.

  “Very well,” Dufort said, grinding out the cigarette with his heel. “Prepare yourselves.”

  We entered the building, greeted by a narrow hallway and a sitting room on our right. Marchand lay on the floor, his feet sticking out into the hall. His chest was stained with dried blood, the carpet beneath his back soaked in it.

  “Whoever is responsible did little to hide it,” Dufort said. “The door was left open and Marchand’s feet were visible from the street.”

  “My guess is he opened the door for the killer,” I said. “Then he was pushed back, a knife run through his ribs, and left there.”

  “While the others searched for Fassier,” Kaz said. Dufort gave him a quizzical look. “There had to be others, since Fassier would be quick to run at the first sign of trouble. He survived the Spanish Civil War and the Occupation, which means he was adept at survival.”

  “Ah,” Dufort said. “He was with the FTP then?”

  “Yes. I don’t think they treat turncoats lightly,” I said.

  “No, the Communists are willing to spill blood, theirs and everyone else’s. As you shall see. Come,” he said, walking along the hall and pushing open a door. A single bare bulb lit a series of steep, uneven steps leading to a basement. He ducked his head, and even Kaz had to do the same in the cramped passageway.

  Thick wooden beams carried the weight of the house above our heads. Shadows played across the cellar as we passed in front of the swinging light bulb. Something was hung from the rafter, something that once had been human.

  That something had been Lucien Fassier.

  Wire bound his wrists, his arms strung up behind his back, shoulders at a terrible angle. They’d been dislocated, his screams muffled by the rag gagging his mouth. His cheeks and lips were cut in several places, blood staining his clothes and dripping onto the hard-packed dirt floor. His feet were bound tightly by the wire, his trousers down around his ankles. Oddly, his eyes weren’t marred or swollen shut.

  My own eyes adjusted to the gloom, my mind trying to make sense of what I saw.

  His genitals were gone, cut away and left in a small pile of red gore beneath his feet.

  Kaz stumbled back, grabbing the wall for support as he took in the scene of torture. I stood my ground, my cop’s pride on display, as I worked to stifle my rising gorge. I had to work the scene. One of the lessons Dad drummed into me was that a detective can’t allow his emotions to get away from him, at least not at a crime scene or an autopsy. There was too much information to take in, and a guy who was swooning from the blood and guts was bound to miss something.

  Later, he always said. Later, at Kirby’s Tavern, we can talk about it over a drink. But for now, focus. Focus on finding traces the killer left behind.

  “The gag tells
me the killer wanted to take his time,” I said. “And that he didn’t need Fassier to say anything. This wasn’t torture in order to obtain information. This was torture for its own sake. Revenge?”

  “What do you make of the eyes?” Dufort said, studying me as I looked at the ruined corpse.

  “He left them alone so Fassier could see what was coming. So he could see his killer clearly,” I said, grasping why they’d been left unmarked. The area around the eyes can’t take much bruising without swelling shut. “This was personal.”

  “Yes. Marchand was killed quickly and cleanly, because he was in the way. With Fassier, the killer took his time. There may have been other complices, but this was the work of one man. A man who desired that Fassier should suffer greatly,” Dufort said.

  “We need to search him,” I said. Kaz, who was no stranger to blood, edged even farther away, grabbing the railing for support.

  “You may,” Dufort said. “But without moving the body. The coroner must examine it first, and he is known to take his time.”

  “Kaz, would you tell Big Mike to radio Harding? He needs to know what happened,” I said. Kaz nodded weakly, and I was glad of the excuse to get him out of this awful cellar. Once he was upstairs, Dufort and I bent to our work.

  Searching Fassier’s trousers was unpleasant, the stench of what he voided mingling with the coppery, brittle smell of drying blood. Scratch unpleasant. It was repulsive. But nothing was in his pockets. His worn jacket held nothing either.

  “His pockets weren’t turned out,” I said as we both backed away from the corpse. “It doesn’t look like he was searched.”

  “My men are searching the house now,” Dufort said, motioning to the stairs. “I think there is nothing else for us here.”

  I looked around the small space, almost empty except for spindly old chairs and a few tools, all covered with thick cobwebs. There was nothing to be found here except dust going to dust.

  Upstairs, the place was being tossed by the uniformed cops and Dufort’s young partner. A back door leading out of the kitchen showed signs of having been kicked in, splintered wood scattered on the tile floor. They’d come in hard at the rear, after Fassier had been alerted by the attack on Marchand.

  “How many?” Dufort asked, sensing my thoughts.

  “Someone to get Marchand to open the door,” I said. “Maybe someone he trusted. A local? Then the guy with the knife, and another at the rear to block any escape.”

  “I would say their leader was a fourth. This was a well-planned operation, accomplished swiftly without attracting attention,” Dufort said. “Whoever tortured Fassier made certain of that.”

  It made sense. The killer wanted Fassier all for himself, and based on what I’d seen, he’d want to be sure his quarry didn’t get away. We continued through the house. Two bedrooms and a small bath upstairs yielding nothing but the debris of everyday life. Dirty laundry, a threadbare suit hanging in an armoire, and rough, yellowing sheets on a bed covered by quilts sprouting feathers out of tiny holes.

  Downstairs, the nicest room in Marchand’s place was opposite the kitchen and sitting room, a comfortable study where officers flipped through books and tossed them on the floor like so much garbage. Others pulled out desk drawers and rummaged through papers, flicking through documents once important enough to file and save, now nothing more than wastepaper.

  I tested floorboards for loose slats, looked on the underside of drawers, rustled through the cold ashes in the grate, and helped one of the cops take cheap prints out of picture frames. Nothing.

  “Marchand was a teacher,” Dufort told me, after a conversation with his partner. “Forty-one years of age, unmarried, and possessed of poor lungs, which kept him from being sent for forced labor to Germany by the Service du travail obligatoire.” The STO was a Vichy outfit that did the Krauts’ work for them, rounding up Frenchmen for what amounted to slave labor. They were the best recruiting tool the Resistance could have hoped for. Thousands had taken to the woods and mountains to avoid their roundups. “He survived illness and the Occupation only to be slain because he gave shelter to the even more unfortunate Lucien Fassier. Tell me, what was their connection?”

  “They attended university together in Paris,” I said. “We believe Fassier was on his way there with the map.”

  “His pursuers knew this as well?” Dufort said, his eyebrow raised.

  “We learned about it from a girl who works in his mother’s house,” I said. “They may have done the same, or we could have been overheard talking about it. We were detained, so they got here ahead of us.”

  “Unfortunate for these two men,” Dufort said, idly kicking a book out of the way as we left the study. He had another chat with his partner, and then motioned me to follow him outside. I didn’t mind leaving that sad and terrible house one bit.

  Kaz had driven the jeep out front. The sun was up, casting long shadows in the street as people gathered around the police car. He looked paler than ever.

  “Are you okay?” I asked in a low voice, not wanting to embarrass him. Cops are taught to act tough around scenes like that, but Kaz, after all, was still basically an academic at heart.

  “Yes, I am fine,” he said, with a weak smile.

  “I have more questions for you, gentlemen,” Dufort said, lighting another cigarette. “But let us find some refreshment. Follow me please, the Hôtel du Grand Veneur is around the corner.”

  His partner opened the car door for him and Dufort folded himself in, not looking back. It was nicely worded, and it sounded like there’d be coffee, but it was still an order. We followed the Citroën to the hotel; the same one we’d been left next to when the truck dropped us off.

  That seemed like ages ago.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Big Mike and Jules had driven off in search of higher ground, unable to raise Colonel Harding or anyone else on the radio network. Kaz and I sat at an outdoor table with Inspector Dufort, the day warming as the sun crept over the rooftops. His junior partner lounged against the Citroën, smoking and watching both vehicles. Dufort had told us to leave our weapons in the jeep, and we’d obediently stashed the Thompson and the Sten gun away.

  More civilized, he said. Easier to cuff us, as well, if need be.

  Dufort ordered and settled back in his chair with a sigh.

  “This is not how I imagined the arrival of the Allies, my friends,” he said. “The rumors fly about General Leclerc, but all we see is a dead Communist and you two. It is very strange. Tell me more about Fassier’s treachery, and those who knew about it.”

  “It began early yesterday,” I said, giving him the cover story about the meeting at Patton’s HQ. “There was some shelling, and Fassier took advantage of the confusion to steal a top-secret map. In the process, he killed another FTP leader and an American intelligence officer.”

  “You were given the task of tracking him down?” Dufort asked.

  “Yes. His description was also sent out to the Military Police,” I said.

  “FFI units assigned to protect important crossroads,” Kaz added, “also knew of Fassier and were on the lookout. He left his automobile with FFI markings in Beaulieu and took a motorcycle here.”

  “Where, through either your unwitting assistance or from the serving girl, he was found out,” Dufort said. “Leaving me with the troublesome murder of a local resident as well as a victim of the épuration sauvage.”

  The wild purge. We’d heard the term before. Revenge and retribution unleashed by the French as the Germans pulled out ahead of the imposition of a legal government. Old scores were settled under the guise of la liberation, most of them having to do with the war, some of them using the Occupation as an excuse.

  The wild purge left men like Inspector Dufort with little recourse to investigate the numerous armed bands, some of them no more than mobs, acting in the absence of any legal restraint
s. The Germans with their iron-fisted control were gone. The Vichy state was discredited, and the fascist Milice had retreated with their Kraut pals. No one knew if the Allies were going to run France, or let de Gaulle set up shop. Or if the Communists with their powerful FTP army would declare themselves in charge, especially if they held Paris.

  “It will be difficult to bring a murder charge against a résistant executing a traitor,” Kaz said. The waiter appeared and set down three large cups of coffee. Café au lait, the way the French liked it, good joe swimming in steamed milk. Then plates of rolls, butter, and jam.

  By unspoken consent, we feasted for a few minutes before continuing.

  “Better,” Dufort said. “I have always found murders to be discovered at inconvenient times. Is it that way in America, Captain Boyle?”

  “The call always seems to come at the end of a shift,” I said. “Or just before.”

  “Shift? Oh, yes, I see. Indeed, it is not my practice to begin the day so early. So, tell me. Who are the others in pursuit of Fassier?”

  I went over the list. Marcel Jarnac, a member of the Front national executive committee, the political wing of the FTP. Olga Rassinier of the FTP Main-d’œuvre immigrée, the collection of immigrants and escapees from Nazi-controlled areas fighting in France. Raymond Louvet, leader of the Gaullist Resistance group, Corps Franc Nord. Emilie and Father Matteu of the Catholic la Croix network. And of course, Jules Herbert, who was with us. I told him about Bernard Dujardin and Sean McKuras, who’d been Fassier’s victims.

  “Those are the main leaders who were present at the meeting,” Kaz said. “But they all had fighters with them. It could be anyone. No one appreciates a turncoat, but the Communists especially will go to great lengths to punish anyone who betrays the Party.”

  “Yes, yes,” Dufort said. “But I think this was a betrayal of more than political beliefs. You saw what was done.” He spooned jam onto his bread and bit into it eagerly. My stomach turned, and I looked at Kaz, who’d gone pale again. Was Dufort taunting us?