No Honor Among Thieves

Chapter 6

6

It was perhaps not completely above board, Ben recognized that, but nevertheless, he had delved into his files and come up with the cell number for Bernard Petit’s son, Franck, and immediately given him a call. No doubt his friend Léo Lagasse would not approve of Ben’s talking to the family of his new murder case, but any murder within a hundred kilometers, Ben and Molly considered fair game.

He waited for Franck in an out-of-the-way café on the edge of Bergerac, a somewhat dreary place the gourmand Lagasse wouldn’t be caught dead in. No point asking for trouble, after all. Ben had called Franck months earlier, when he was trying to figure out who was stealing from his father, and remembered him as being good natured, which had surprised Ben after the sourness of his father.

You never knew how it would go, with children—they often zigged where their parents zagged: the children of alcoholics turning out to be teetotalers, and the children of really annoying people managing, some way or another, to be rather charming.

“Bonjour, Monsieur, are you Ben Dufort?” said a young man, looking with an open, friendly expression at Ben as he stood up from a table inside the café.

“I am,” said Ben, shaking the other man’s hand. “It’s good to meet you. I’m glad you could get to Bergerac so quickly. I’m so sorry about your father. Of course death is almost always a shock, but in a case like this…” he cut himself off before rambling any more. “At any rate, my condolences.”

“Thank you,” said Franck. “And please, let’s be frank, not to joke on my own name. My father was…a difficult man. I don’t know how long you knew him, but in a way, even though his murder is shocking—it is not an enormous surprise.”

“Really?” said Ben. “Are you saying…you believe he had enemies?”

“Does that astonish you?” Franck laughed in disbelief.

Ben thought before he spoke. “Actually, yes, it does. I’m not saying he was an easy man. But the degree…the savagery of his death…that’s not something that happens to people who are simply…annoying. Or to say it another way: it is one thing to have enemies, and another to have enemies that will actually kill you.”

Franck’s mouth tightened and then relaxed when he saw the server coming over. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle,” he said, smiling at her. “I’d like a black coffee. And if you have pastry, pick something out for me, would you mind?”

The server, a small young woman with too many teeth, looked as though nothing would make her happier than to select Franck’s pastry. Ben ordered coffee as well, and a croissant, though he knew it would not be as good as the ones from Pâtisserie Bujold in Castillac.

“I appreciate your forthrightness,” said Ben. “And I will follow your lead. I called because, as you know, my partner and I have a successful private investigation business. Quite successful, I should say. And we would like to offer our services to you, if at any point you would like more support than the gendarmerie of Bergerac.”

Franck nodded. “Do you have any reason to think the Bergerac force isn’t up to snuff?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Ben. “At least not publicly,” he added with a small smile.

Franck nodded and smiled back, then craned his head to see what the server was up to.

“Maybe you’d like to tell me about some of these enemies your father had?” asked Ben.

Franck leaned back in his chair and again glanced over at the server who blushed and looked away. He was not an especially good-looking man, but Ben noted that he had a kind of magnetism that people, including himself, responded to.

“I don’t think…about hiring you—not at this point,” said Franck, with another smile. “Let’s see what the local detectives can manage. You must understand, it’s not that I don’t want to see my father’s murderer caught. Anyone capable of such an act…of course they should be arrested and the full weight of justice applied. But I am on a student’s budget, you understand, Monsieur Dufort….”

“Understood,” said Ben, hiding his frustration, and Franck grinned at him.

Ben thought the man smiled an awful lot for someone whose father had just been murdered. It could simply be his habit. Or an unwillingness to splash his own feelings all over the place, to someone he’d just met. Certainly comprehensible.

They chatted about football, about the weather, and about Franck’s mother, who was currently in India and had no plans to return.

“Will the funeral be here in Bergerac?” Ben asked.

“Funeral? Oh, I don’t think there’s going to be any funeral,” said Franck. “Though I suppose I should talk to my sister about it.”

Ben c****d his head, wondering.

“As I’ve said—no one liked him,” Franck said. “I mean—no one. He was a miserable, complaining sort of man who got pleasure out of making other people uncomfortable. So why go to the trouble and expense of putting on a show of sending him off, when everyone who knew him is probably glad he’s dead? And I’ll freely add, Monsieur Dufort—that includes me. I know that sounds terrible. Well, I am exaggerating. It’s not that I’m glad, more…relieved, I suppose? My life is elsewhere now, I’m studying to be a chemist. I hadn’t seen my father in over a year and had no plans to come to Bergerac. And believe me, he wasn’t rushing off to visit me in Bordeaux, either. We just weren’t a close family. It happens.”

Ben nodded. He felt a pang just then of wanting his own family, and had a flash of spending a snowy night in the living room at La Baraque with Molly and his own little son or daughter, watching the snow come down, all of them happy just being together.

He rubbed his eyes and looked to see if the server was coming with their orders. “Is it the same with your sister, would you say?” he asked.

“Oh sure. Laurine got out of town as fast as possible. Left home when she was sixteen and never looked back.”

“And your mother? Are you close to her?”

Franck laughed. It was a melodious laugh, and infectious, and Ben found himself joining in though he had no idea what was funny. “Alaina, for the most part, had other irons in the fire besides being a parent. She was much younger than our father, had two babies in quick succession, and then saw she had made a big mistake. Who knows how he ever convinced her to marry him in the first place? He was terrible to her. Not the most attentive mother, it is true. But she did try, in her way. She wasn’t the worst mother, not by a long shot.” Franck said.

It was refreshing to hear someone speak of his inadequate parents without any self-pity. Franck certainly seemed to have landed on his feet, somehow.

“Would you say Laurine will be glad to hear of your father’s death? Have you spoken with her?”

“I have not, and I’ll let her speak for herself. Perhaps it sounds cold-blooded of me, but in my opinion he had a pretty good death, all things considered. He was seventy-two years old, so he had a pretty good run. He was alive, and then he was not. He probably didn’t even know what hit him. Far better than getting some lingering, painful illness, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I see your point.”

“Murder is gruesome, no question about it. It will make a showstopper of a story to tell at dinner parties—or it would, if the resolution were at all interesting. But the murderer will probably turn out to be someone dreary, one of my father’s shady business associates getting revenge for being cut out of a deal, or stiffed, or something like that. My father did not exactly have a reputation for scrupulousness in his business dealings, shall we say.”

“And that would not be a satisfactory ending to the story?”

Franck was about to answer but paused and looked at Ben. “You think I’m horrible. Tell me, what were your parents like? Or are they still alive?”

“My mother died eight years ago. My father moved to Toulouse to live with his brother after that.”

“Leaving you behind?”

“It wasn’t like that. I mean, yes, technically, I stayed in Castillac and he moved away, but it was the best thing for him. No rancor between us.”

“And how often do you see him?”

Not very often, thought Ben. “We talk on the phone. He has a bit of dementia, and so…we tend to have the same conversation over and over.”

“That’s difficult,” said Franck, with an expression of concern.

“Here you are,” said the server, plunking down their coffees and taking two plates from her tray. “I thought you might like an almond croissant. They’re a specialty of the house,” she said shyly to Franck, who thanked her sincerely.

I just cannot make up my mind about this man, Ben was thinking. Is he the most decent and forthcoming person on earth? He seems to be. Yet something doesn’t quite…is it just that I can’t quite believe the son of Bernard Petit could be trustworthy? He watched Franck bite into his almond croissant and then give the server a wink. She giggled and skipped back behind the counter.

“Well,” said Ben, figuring he’d give it one last try. “If at any point you are unsatisfied with the job the Bergerac cops are doing, please give me a call. My partner, Molly Sutton, is a very talented detective—she really has a knack for thinking about situations in unexpected ways.”

“You care for her,” Franck said, nodding.

Ben was startled. Was it that obvious? That unprofessional? “Uh, we are engaged to be married later in the month. She’s that good,” Ben said with a smile, trying to salvage the moment, but afraid he might have just torpedoed their chances of getting hired with that one awkward sentence. “Well, it was very pleasant meeting you. You’ve got my number if you change your mind.”

After Ben had left, Franck sat with a private sort of smile on his face, and waited for the server to approach, which she immediately did.