The Molly Sutton Mystery Series, books 1-3

Chapter 12

Chapter 12Gilles Maron had never eaten a meal at La Métairie; the prices were completely out of reach for a junior gendarme with no money other than his salary. He was surprised to find that the inside of the restaurant was on the plain side, really. He had expected crystal chandeliers and gold leaf everywhere.

Nathalie met him at the door. She was dark and slender, practically no hips at all, just Maron’s type. He had to make an effort to stay professional and not give her The Look. Her skin glowed, and her almost-black hair was glossy, pulled back from her face in a low ponytail that went down to her shoulder blades.

“Anything I can do to help,” she said, as Maron came inside. “Let me take your coat.” Maron slid out of his heavy coat and looked around at the dove-gray walls and carpet, and the painting of the sea. He didn’t understand why everything was so subdued, and he didn’t like not understanding.

“This situation has been very upsetting for us,” said Nathalie, and Maron could see the strain in her face now that he observed her more carefully. “The chef…I know it sounds like a cliché, hell, it is a cliché—but he is a sensitive man. Temperamental. He was working on a new menu, we all had very high hopes for it, but now…now he comes in for the dinner service and goes home directly after. I don’t believe he’s even thinking about the new menu. Not that I mean to say a menu is more important than a person’s life, I just mean—”

“I understand, and I’m sorry,” said Maron, and he was sorry, sorry that anything could have caused trouble for this beautiful creature. He made an attempt to pull himself together. “I’m here to ask, first of all, if there is any chance that anything is left from the other night—any glasses, dishes, or the like. I will tell you in confidence,” he said impulsively, “that Madame Desrosiers did not die of a heart attack as Chief Dufort first thought. No, it was poison,” he said in a low voice though there was no one else around. He thoroughly enjoyed how Nathalie’s eyes grew wide and her hand flew to her mouth when he spoke.

“Poison?” she said, not quite able to take it in.

“Yes. I’m here on the outside chance that anything, a wine glass, a plate, anything at all, might have escaped the dishwasher? We are trying to find how the poison was administered,” he added, once again saying more than he should have.

“I’m afraid there’s no chance of that,” said Nathalie, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. “The party was days ago. Thursday night, was it? Everything has been washed multiple times since then. We don’t keep dirty dishes hanging around in the kitchen,” she said, almost laughing at the idea.

“I didn’t think so,” said Maron. “But we have to ask. Would you show me the dining room?”

“Certainly.”

They walked down the short corridor to the dining room with its soothing gray monochrome, the small bar, the stack of folding stands that waiters sometimes used to hold large platters.

“May I get you a coffee?” asked Nathalie.

Maron shook his head, focused on his job. He walked around the tables, getting down on the floor at one point and looking at everything from down there. “It was a large party, yes? Can you show me how the tables would have been arranged, and approximately where Madame Desrosiers was sitting?”

Nathalie did as he asked. Maron wanted to get a clear and factual picture in his head of how the room had looked the night of the murder. “Do you know the names of the guests?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not, and the party was not so large. Five, maybe six? Her nephew, Michel Faure, made the reservation. He did the inviting as well, of course, since it was a surprise party. I must say he seemed like a very caring nephew, wanting to celebrate his aunt’s birthday that way.”

“And did Michel pay for the party?”

“Well, no. Actually, it was Madame Desrosiers who paid for it. I will tell you that it felt a little strange to run her Carte Bancaire through the machine, knowing that she was lying dead in the bathroom. But Michel had presented me with the card when they all arrived, and after what happened, I asked the family if I should cancel the charge, but they said no. Rather vehemently.”

Maron nodded, unsurprised. “May I look around?”

“Of course. Let me know if there is anything at all I can help you with?”

Maron looked into Nathalie’s warm, brown eyes, noticed her smooth cheeks, and had a sudden impulse to kiss her. “All right,” he said, “thank you. You’ve been quite helpful. One more thing—can you show me where the garbage goes at the end of the night?”

“It’s just around the back. There’s a wooden fence blocking it from view, but if you go around the building you can’t miss it.”

Maron smiled at her, and she went back to her office. After giving the dining room one last look, he walked on the soft carpet to the bathroom, knocked, and entered the ladies’ room. It was spotlessly clean and smelled of gardenias. He looked at the tiled floor, but there was no sign that anything had happened there, no sign of the last living moments of Josephine Desrosiers. Had she tried to call for help? Did she know what was happening to her?

Did she know who had poisoned her?

Molly had barely gotten settled on a stool at the bar of Chez Papa when a text came in from her friend Lawrence Weebly:

heard JD poisoned. you on the case? xox

Molly stared at her phone. She blinked.

“The usual, Boston?” Nico asked.

Molly jerked her head up. “Not answering to that,” she said, more sternly than she meant. “What the hell,” she said, not to anyone.

“What’s up?” asked Frances.

“A friend, my best friend in Castillac actually—I’m sorry you haven’t met him, but he’s been away. Thing is, here in the village, Lawrence always knows what’s going on. Not a gossip exactly…just the kind of person who’s always in the know. How, I can’t say. Anyway, he just texted me to say that Madame Desrosiers was poisoned.” Molly’s eyes were wide and her mouth open, stunned.

Nico slid Molly’s kir over to her and leaned back against a pillar. “So how’s it going, then? Are you enjoying Castillac, Frances?”

“So far it’s been nothing but corpses and funerals. Loving it.”

Nico laughed.

“Have you heard anything in particular about Madame Desrosiers?” Molly asked him.

“Dead. That’s all I know. And that you found her. I’ve heard of chick magnets, Boston, but you my friend are a corpse magnet!” and he guffawed at his own joke.

Molly wasn’t laughing. “I just got a text from Lawrence saying she was poisoned.”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised. She was widely known as a b***h on wheels, pardon my language,” he said, nodding and winking at Frances.

“I’ve been getting that impression,” said Molly. She sipped her kir.

“How about a big plate of frites, handsome?” said Frances to Nico. He winked at her again and disappeared into the kitchen. “How come his English is so good?” she asked Molly.

“He studied in the US. He’s practically a professor. Why he’s bartending in a small village, I can’t say. Don’t know the backstory.”

“I’ll find out,” Frances said, nonchalantly.

“No doubt,” said Molly. “Just don’t break his heart, okay? This place is too small for bad blood.”

Chez Papa was empty but for Molly and Frances. The entire village was probably either at Sunday dinner with their families or at home recovering from Josephine Desrosiers’s funeral. Alphonse kept the place open on Sunday mornings because he had a soft spot for people without families, who needed a place to go. Lapin was usually there, but he had kept more to himself after the Amy Bennett case.

Frances slid off her stool and drifted back to the kitchen to talk to Nico. Molly sat absently drinking her kir and drawing circles in a water droplet that had plopped off the bottom of her glass. She was thinking about poison and trying to sort out actual information from the perhaps less substantial gleanings she had stored away from random reading. It was the kind of subject that could grab her attention late at night when she should have turned off her computer and gone to bed—a perfect internet rabbithole when you’re putting off sleep.

She wanted to go by the station and ask Dufort to fill her in, but of course that was out of the question. She wondered if Lawrence’s contacts were good enough to find out what kind of poison? Because without that, without knowing if it was slow-acting or fast, she couldn’t know whether the list of suspects was narrowed to the guests at La Métairie or not.

Could even have been a waiter, for that matter, she thought, taking care not to assume anything, and making notes in the new file that was taking shape in her head, with the title Desrosiers: Murder.