The Molly Sutton Mystery Series, books 1-3

Chapter 3

Chapter 3“It’s so totally beyond awesome that you really, really did it!” shrieked Frances, dancing around Molly’s living room and looking everywhere at once. “You moved to France!” She grabbed Molly’s hands and spun her around. “Hey, wanna put some music on? We can dance together just like in our wanton youth!”

Molly laughed but made no move for music. “Want me to show you around? House first?”

“Yes ma’am! I want to see it all! It’s so quaint I may die. Look at these itty-bitty little windows, they’re like something out of a fairy tale.” Frances reached out to a small leaded window in the foyer and put her hand right through the glass.

“Oh my God, Molly!”

“Jeez, wait, Frances—don’t yank your hand back through there, you’ll slice yourself to ribbons!” Blood was already pouring down the glass. “Stay right there, don’t move, I’m getting a bandage…”

A first-aid kit was on a list Molly had made of things she needed for the house. Somewhere. She got a clean rag from under the kitchen sink and trotted back to her friend.

“It’s nothing, really,” said Frances. “I’ve cut my hand a trillion times, you know that. I’m just—I’m so sorry about your window.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Molly. She got Frances’s hand back through the window without further cutting, led her to the bathroom sink and rinsed out the cut. Then she wrapped the rag around it and told Frances to push down on it.

“Oh, believe me, I know how to stop blood loss,” Frances said, laughing. “I’d be even paler than I already am if I hadn’t learned that pretty quick.”

Then, because of the bitter cold, she cut a piece of cardboard and fit it over the window, taping the edge tightly to keep drafts out, choosing warmth over aesthetics at least until she could get the pane replaced.

Molly and Frances had met in grade school. They had both been known for their white complexions—Molly a freckled redhead and Frances dark-haired and long-legged with unusually white skin. They had done everything together and been nicknamed The Pales.

Frances was undeterred in her wish to see every nook and cranny of La Baraque, so Molly took her up the front staircase and into every room, down the back staircase and into the pantry, the laundry room, and an odd little room in which the former owner had left some remnants of fabric and a pincushion shaped like a mouse.

“I love how ramshackle it all is—don’t take that the wrong way,” said Frances. “I mean…how it’s so asymmetrical, like one day the owner woke up and said Hey, I really need another room, let’s get busy! and that just kept on happening over decades, you know?”

“I like that about it too,” said Molly. “I wish I knew its history, but the couple I bought it from didn’t seem to know anything. I don’t think they owned it for very long.”

“You could probably find out a lot in the courthouse, or wherever they keep the real estate sales records, and deeds, that stuff.”

“Probably so. Though, uh, chances are pretty good I’ll never get around to it.”

“Yup!” said Frances. “Now let’s put on our boots and go tramp around your Property.”

“It’s not exactly Property,” said Molly, laughing. “It’s just a little over five acres.”

“Oh, that counts! That totally counts. You’re a châtelaine, Molls! Have I mentioned I love that you moved here! I bet your family is all pissed off, aren’t they?”

“They…weren’t in favor.”

“Just icing on the cake,” said Frances, grinning, and she opened up the kitchen door as she pulled on her coat.

It had been a satisfactory day thus far, thought Josephine Desrosiers with more than a touch of complacency. Silly Sabrina had stuck her hand in the wrong place and had a rat trap go off. Definitely fractured one finger, maybe two. Josephine had waited at the top of the staircase, listening. She was prepared to wait a long time, but Sabrina had found the trap quickly, propped inside a bucket she used for mopping the kitchen floor.

The old lady had closed her eyes and listened to the howling with a serene smile on her face. Stupid girl, not to look where her hands were going.

The afternoon passed with one television program after another, mostly game shows. She felt more energetic than usual and went wandering into a room where several large chests of her old things were kept. Fancy dress after fancy dress, the lace, the taffeta! And what was the point, she thought morosely, running her fingers over the finery. It’s nothing now, useless.

She slipped one dress out of the pile and held it up. It was black lace, with a silk sheath underneath. Stunning workmanship. She vividly remembered how she had enjoyed spending her husband’s money, with no thought of bank accounts or overdrafts or anything else. And how when she would come out of her dressing room wearing a frock like this one, all would be forgiven.

Josephine decided it would be the perfect dress to be buried in, not that she had plans to go anytime soon. But it felt wrong to try it on. Wear a fancy dress all alone in the house? That’s ridiculous. Yet she took the dress back to her room, and stood in front of the mirror, looking at it. It fell just above the knee, not an outrageous length for a woman her age if she had the legs to carry it off.

And I do, she thought, nodding at her reflection. Michel is coming tonight anyway, perhaps I will go ahead and put it on. Show the little weasel how a woman of sophistication dresses.

The dress still fit, although it was tight in different places than it had been when she was thirty. She selected some diamond earrings to wear with it, because black and diamonds are so natural together.

Her hair and makeup were finished before Michel arrived, so she was forced to flip through an old issue of Paris Match while he waited downstairs, but finally got tired of that and made her entrance on the grand staircase.

“Well, Aunt…” Michel was speechless. He desperately wanted to laugh at this ridiculous specter coming down the stairs like she was the star at a Hollywood premiere, her hair standing on end with Lord knows how much hairspray, eyeliner gone terribly awry, and stuffed into a dress that ought to be in a museum somewhere. “…you look magnificent.”

“Thank you, Michel. Sometimes I get tired of just throwing on any old thing.”

“You must have quite a closet full of treasures. Did Uncle Albert let you buy all the couture you wanted?”

Josephine smiled a girlish smile and laughed, “Nearly! Sometimes he could be fussy about money. But most of the time…most of the time he was shut up in his room fiddling with little bits of things, or on the phone talking to one of his colleagues. Such a bore,” she added.

“But that fiddling as you call it—that’s how you could afford a dress like that,” said Michel, who barely remembered his uncle, but felt someone should stick up for him.

Josephine glared at her nephew. “What do you know about anything,” she sneered. “Have you ever made more than fifty francs altogether, in your entire excuse for a life?”

Michel sighed inwardly. Her barb did not hit home because he had long ago realized her poison was about her and not those at whom she directed it, and because she was so ridiculous standing on the stairway in what she imagined was an elegant pose, hurling thunderbolts down on his head.

She was a tiresome, noxious old hag.

“Oh, dear Aunt, you have such admirably high standards. I will redouble my efforts to try and meet them.” He bowed his head to hide his ironic grin.

Josephine was momentarily mollified. She made her descent, clutching tightly to the handrail, her heels clopping on the stone stairs and sounding like a small pony. Michel went to the sideboard to pour his aunt her usual Dubonnet, which she drank off in two gulps.

“So this evening, my darling. Would you like me to take you out for dinner? I made reservations at La Métairie, if you would like to go.”

Madame Desrosiers pursed her lips. On the one hand, she appreciated that he had made an effort, in advance, to please her. On the other hand, she wanted to make whatever decisions were to be made about dinner, not follow along with whatever Michel wanted to do.

“Hm. Well, what sort of food is it? It’s nothing modern, is it? Not…not ethnic?”

Michel laughed at the way his aunt spat the word as though she had suddenly realized there was merde in her mouth. “No, Josephine, La Métairie is French, through and through. They specialize in duck, as a matter of fact. I’ve not had the pleasure of eating there myself, but all reports are extremely positive.”

“You mean you can’t afford to go on your own.”

Michel inclined his head, and forced himself not to roll his eyes. “Yes, Aunt, true enough.”

In the end, Madame Desrosiers agreed, and she allowed Michel to fetch her fur coat and bundle her into the economy car she had bought him, so that they could drive the six blocks to the restaurant. Certainly she would have refused his offer had she had any way of knowing what would occur after she arrived, but that is life.

And death.