Chapter 19
1992 Words
Chapter 19Dufort walked back to his house from the station so that he could drive his own car to Molly’s. The police car was available, but he preferred a more low-key approach, having found that showing up in an official car—even without sirens and lights flashing—tended to put people ill at ease. Even people who were not guilty of anything. Even someone like Molly, who he guessed would be eager to help with the case.
He knocked on the door and stood waiting, looking around at the property of La Baraque. It was a mess, really—the front garden still had tall frozen stalks of something or other leaning this way and that. A woodpile lay in disarray near the side of the house. The lawn needed raking. Yet the place gave him a good feeling; it didn’t seem neglected so much as a lot going on at once. He saw a cart with a load of stone, and a giant metal toolbox next to it. Probably Pierre Gault, he guessed correctly.
He knocked again, more loudly, and heard rustling inside. The door opened and a striking woman with a black pageboy and pale skin opened the door.
“You’re not Molly,” said Dufort, drily.
“I have no idea what you just said,” said Frances. “But hey, I like a man in uniform as much as the next girl. Want to come in? Molly is back in the meadow talking with the mason guy.”
Dufort considered making an effort in English, but she was distractingly pretty, and he couldn’t stand how he mangled the language. So he simply nodded and smiled and came inside. Frances went to the French doors and shouted to Molly that someone was there, and the two of them sat in the cold living room, uncomfortable without the grease of small talk to make things less awkward.
Molly came in shortly, not wearing a coat, her cheeks flushed from the cold, and her red hair flying up in a curly cloud around her head. “Ben!” she said with a grin, striding over to kiss cheeks. Ben gripped her arms firmly and smiled back.
“So you two met?” Molly switched to English. “Frances, this is Ben Dufort, our chief gendarme. Ben, this is my old friend, Frances Milton.”
“Are you from Massachusetts also?” he ventured in English.
“Oui,” said Frances, but that was the end of her French, and she smiled and excused herself. Dufort and Molly heard her tinkling on the piano in the music room.
“Police business?” asked Molly, hoping hard that it was.
“Well, I’m just here informally. Can we sit? There are a few things I’d like to talk to you about.”
They walked to the sofas facing the woodstove and sat down. “Is it about Madame Desrosiers?”
“Yes. You were at the restaurant, of course, and there are a few things I’d like to nail down, if you have a moment to talk.”
“Of course! I was just out with Pierre Gault, the mason. You know him? Of course you do. He’s going to rebuild my pigeonnier so I can rent it out. Hoping to be done by early summer, fingers crossed.” Molly blathered on about the cost of stone and dry-stack walls, wondering at the same time why she was delaying getting to the subject that had been consuming her. It was a bit like saving a fat wedge of chocolate cake to eat in bed at the very end of the day.
Dufort was wondering the same thing. Did she know something she didn’t want to tell him? Curious, he decided to let her babble on.
Finally Molly said, “So about the other night. Frances was there too. She kept getting mad at me for watching the birthday party. You know I’m incorrigibly nosy. So anyway, what can I tell you?”
“First, the guests at the party,” he began.
“Yes, I’ve been giving that some thought,” Molly jumped in. “Okay, there was Desrosiers, of course, at the head of the table. Michel right beside her, on her left. They were there before anyone else.”
“How did they seem together? Did you notice any…unhappiness between them?”
“None. He seemed like a pretty devoted nephew, to be honest. Even though Desrosiers looked like someone who was hard to please.”
“By all accounts,” said Dufort. “Next?”
“Next to Michel was his mother—I keep forgetting her name—”
“Murielle Faure.”
“Yes. She was next. She seemed pleasant enough. One of the few people at the table who wasn’t either angry or looking like a wolf caught in a trap who would happily chew off a leg to escape.”
Dufort laughed.
“Next to Murielle was Adèle. Then coming around the other side of the table were Sabrina and her boyfriend, Jean-Francois.”
“You figured all this out just by sitting at the next table?”
“Well, not exactly. I also went out for a drink with Adèle.”
Dufort raised his eyebrows but said nothing at first.
“Would you like some coffee or anything? Excuse me for being a terrible hostess,” said Molly, jumping up and going into the open kitchen.
“No, no thank you. Do you mind telling me why you went out with Adèle? Is it because you were engaged in some, uh, some amateur sleuthing?”
Molly bustled around in the kitchen getting herself some coffee. “Well, not exactly, Ben. I mean, yes, it’s true that I had some questions. I am curious about a few things. But also—I like Adèle. We have things in common.” She shrugged, not specifying that she was thinking about their taste in handbags.
“May I ask if you talk with her in French, for the most part? I must add that yours has improved rather dramatically since I first met you.”
Molly beamed. “Thank you! Of course I’m learning more every day. But the main thing is, I got over my fear of making mistakes. I just make them and keep on going, and paradoxically, that means I make fewer of them.”
Dufort nodded. “I wish I could say the same about my English.”
“People back home think they will be crucified if they make a mistake, trying to speak French in France. But aside from a few snickers and the occasional belly laugh at my mistakes, I’ve found people to be extraordinarily patient about it. Sometimes my genders get corrected, but that seems like more of a reflex correction than anyone trying to be overbearing and critical.”
Molly settled back on the sofa and took a long sip of her coffee. “All right, now be straight with me, Ben. I’m picking something up in your tone…are you thinking Adèle was responsible for poisoning her aunt? Or is there someone else you’re looking at?”
Dufort considered brushing her off, telling her “police business blah blah blah.” But he was still grateful to her for her invaluable help in that earlier case. He liked her. And he wanted to see her reaction to what he had to say.
“I haven’t said anything to Perrault and Maron yet,” said Dufort. “But looking at the usuals of means, motive, and opportunity—the person who comes at the top of the list is not Adèle, but her brother, Michel Faure.” He watched Molly carefully.
She sipped her coffee and narrowed her eyes, thinking.
“We have no physical evidence—not yet. But Michel ticks all the boxes. Number one, he arranged the party,” said Dufort, “which I believe is an important point. If you’re going to poison your aunt with face cream—that is how we believe it was done—then it’s clever to invite as many people as you can so you have a crowd to blend into. If he had simply taken the cream to her house, the list of suspects would narrow to him and Sabrina, the housekeeper. Madame Desrosiers did not have other visitors, and she very rarely left the house.
“Michel’s family stands to inherit the money, since Desrosiers had no living children—and who knows, perhaps he had managed to persuade her to favor him with a large share. Arranging birthday parties for her might be kindness, or perhaps he was trying to curry favor, you see?
“Perrault is at the house now searching for the will, and I’ve got an accountant working on Desrosiers’s books. We’re still waiting to hear how much she’s worth, but possibly in the neighborhood of five to ten million euros. Not in the same category as your American tech billionaires,” he said with an ironic smile. “But for a young man with no work, no career, and no money? More than adequate.”
“I think for most of us,” said Molly. She felt herself pulling away from Dufort, not wanting to be convinced by his theory. She liked the Faures. She remembered the siblings coming down the road on their way to the funeral, laughing and walking in the light rain—Molly had interpreted that moment as innocent joy, not guilt.
But she also knew she had a bit of a weakness for charm. Her ex-husband being Exhibit A.
Not that charm was all bad. What she wanted was for the charm to mean something. For Michel and his lovely suits and good humor to be her actual friend, not just a man looking for a momentary audience. And certainly not the cover of someone capable of killing an old woman, no matter how unpleasant she was.
For his part, Dufort was not as decided about Michel as he pretended to be. He wanted to see Molly’s reaction, see if she could be convinced. Especially now that she appeared to be making friends with Michel and his sister.
“Well?” he said, breaking a long silence. They heard some rather frantic piano coming from the music room.
“I…I don’t know. I’ll tell you, I noticed immediately that something was off at that party. People were tense and unhappy. And it did occur to me, probably because of that and my sometimes out of control imagination, that she had been murdered. Once I found her, I mean. But now that you’re presenting me with who might have done it, my brain is resisting and rejecting the idea as hard as it can. I don’t want it to be Michel. Or Adèle. Honestly, Ben, I think they’re lovely.”
Dufort shrugged. “I don’t have to tell you that lovely people can commit murder. People who appear lovely, I should say, but I think you understand what I mean.”
Molly nodded. Intellectually she agreed with him, and she knew that there were serial killers who were known to be especially charismatic and engaging…Ted Bundy, right?
“I hear what you’re saying. I’m afraid I’ve got nothing, no evidence or conversation to report, that would steer you in Michel’s direction or away from it.” She sighed. “I have some questions, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“I believe that’s supposed to be my job,” he said, amused.
She grinned at him. “Well, I’m just wondering if money is the only motive you’re considering. I know it’s a pretty good one, I’m not saying otherwise. But what about…what about revenge? What if Desrosiers had been absolutely horrible to the maid, for instance, and the maid snapped? She wouldn’t inherit, obviously, but we’re not talking about a well-thought-out crime with a jackpot at the end. We’re talking about the satisfaction of hurting someone who has made your life a misery.”
Dufort nodded. “Of course. For the right person, certainly revenge could be motive enough,” he agreed. “Was there anything about Sabrina’s behavior at the party that would lead you to believe she would capable of seeking it?”
“Well, no. No one behaved badly, at least that I saw. But she really did look like if she had to stay there one more second it might kill her. And her boyfriend was trying to soothe her, but she was having none of it.”
“What do you mean, ‘soothe’?”
“Oh, he was stroking her arm and occasionally nuzzling her—I think at one point Desrosiers snapped at him for it. But the whole time Sabrina just looked like she was in agony. But…I guess that could be about anything, right? Like maybe something in her life that had nothing to do with Desrosiers was making her so upset?”
“Could be,” said Dufort. “And was Jean-Francois the last guest?” he asked, knowing he was not.
“Nope. Another old lady was next to him. Beautiful white hair in a braided bun. No idea who she is, though.”
“Claudette Mercier,” said Dufort. “A classmate of Desrosiers’s. Did you happen to overhear any conversation between her and Madame Desrosiers?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Molly. “I mean, I wasn’t paying attention to the table every single second, but I’m not sure they ever spoke to each other.”
She and Dufort sat in silence for some time, blocking out the tinkling of the piano in order to think about the case, but neither of them had the slightest bit of inspiration.
“I hope it’s not Michel,” said Molly in a quiet voice.
But Dufort only pressed his lips together, and said nothing.
- Writer
