31She waited until Julien and Josette had gone off to a music festival in Bergerac, something Madame Barbeau would have enjoyed immensely in her youth but which now held little interest.
And besides, another, more powerful reason kept her home at the farm that day. Clearly Josette, lacking the most basic common sense, believed the Coulon matter was already far in the past and she had nothing to worry about. But her mother had no such confidence. She, Josette, Julien—they were all suspects, being so closely tied to the mayor, and the next days and weeks were going to be very dangerous for the entire family.
The gendarmes themselves did not especially worry her—they were a pair of bumblers, anyone could see that. But Molly Sutton was another thing entirely. And Madame Barbeau was not going
