The Molly Sutton Mystery Series, books 1-3

Chapter 26

Chapter 26Monday morning. Molly woke up to pounding on her front door. Groggily she slipped on a robe and went to see who it was.

“Bonjour, Sally?” she said, opening the door wider once she saw who it was. “Is something wrong?”

“I need you to come with me!” Sally said, her face ablaze with emotion. “I must speak with Dufort right away, and I’m afraid of getting lost in those crazy narrow streets. Will you take me? Now?” Her arms were stiff at her sides, her hands clenching and unclenching.

Molly blinked, still only half-awake. “Of course,” she said. “Just…just give me a minute to get dressed. Come in,” she added.

“No, thank you,” said Sally. “I’ll wait here.”

Molly managed to find some clean clothes and put them on, and give her hair and teeth a quick brush. She looked longingly at the coffeepot on her way to the front door and Sally.

“Has something happened?” she asked, as they walked quickly through the yard and out to the rue des Chênes.

“Marshall went into town last night, by himself,” Sally said, her voice shaking. “I’m…I’m not sure I can talk about this,” she said, stopping, and then bending over and putting her hands on her thighs as though out of breath.

Molly put her hand on Sally’s back. She couldn’t imagine what could have happened to Marshall to make his wife so upset. “Is Marshall all right?” she asked. “Tell me how I can help!”

Sally stood back up. She no longer looked drugged, but alive, and for Molly it was almost as though she were meeting her for the first time.

“Did you know that this Broussard guy has been in trouble before? s****l trouble?” Sally’s lips trembled as she spoke, with rage not sorrow.

“I…no. What do you mean, ‘trouble’?”

Sally began walking towards the village again. “I mean he was caught trying to take photographs up girls’ skirts! A peeping Tom, that’s what!”

Molly was mildly surprised. “Hmm,” she said. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. He’s known for…” she cast about, trying to think of how to say the truth without making Sally feel even worse. “He can be sort of aggressive with women,” she said quietly. “He’s never touched me or anything like that,” she was quick to add. “But he leers. Makes a lot of comments, that kind of thing. Annoying.”

“Aggressive? Wonderful,” said Sally acidly. “Well, if there’s a man who is known to the village as being sexually aggressive, and he’s already gotten into trouble, and then a young woman goes missing—why was he not picked up a week ago? Even if just for questioning? That’s what I want to ask Chief Dufort.” Sally was walking so quickly that Molly had to trot to keep up with her. “Although the answer is pretty clear, isn’t it? The village is protecting their own. I don’t know why I ever had any hope that the police here would actually do something. They aren’t going to give up a villager in order to get justice for an English girl who’s only here as a student, who has no connection with anyone outside of school.”

“I’m…I don’t know about that, Sally,” said Molly breathlessly, feeling defensive about her new home and simultaneously yearning for a cup of steaming coffee with cream. “At least I haven’t gotten the idea from anyone that people here would behave that way. Sure, it’s a close-knit place, and the connections are deep and maybe sometimes tangled. But it’s a big jump to say they’d cover up for m—” She almost said murder but clamped her mouth shut just in time.

“Murder!” shouted Sally. “You think I haven’t thought of that? You think by not saying the word, the idea won’t be out there, in the air, suffocating me?”

Molly didn’t answer because she understood there was nothing to say. No way to comfort this woman, no way to soothe her. Not unless her daughter came back, alive and unharmed.

“Dufort is going to have to explain to me why this Broussard wasn’t brought in first thing. And why we, the parents, had to find out he was in custody from strangers in a bar!”

They were a block from the station. Molly figured she might need to translate so she pressed on, and the two women entered the station just as Maron and Dufort got back upstairs from talking to Lapin.

“Chief!” said Sally, grabbing his sleeve. She began talking so fast Dufort was instantly lost, and looked to Molly for help. Molly opened her mouth and closed it again. Sally was screaming now, and crying. Maron looked deeply uncomfortable and Perrault came out of the office. She took Sally’s hand and pulled her into the room, and got her a drink of water.

“She hears about Lapin with the camera,” said Molly to Dufort. “And she wants to know why so long for him to have questions.” Now that she said it, Sally did seem to have a point. Molly herself had momentarily daydreamed about moving to a different village once Lapin had started pestering her—it was that bad. It felt as though she couldn’t go anywhere without having to fend him off and listen to his growly insinuations. But now it was impossible to tell whether she had wanted so much to get away from him because he was annoying, or because she had sensed something else.

Something much, much worse.

“And you know whoever took her has r***d her!” Sally was shouting. “That’s what always happens and you damn well know it!”

Molly saw Thérèse Perrault blanch. Dufort remained calm, and he reached for Sally’s hands and held them. Then he spoke in halting English.

“I tell you, Madame Bennett: we look, and we find out what happened. We will not stop until this.”

Sally sat down and put her head in her hands, but was finally quiet. Molly saw the pain in Dufort’s eyes and liked him quite a lot for it. Then she touched Sally on the shoulder and they left the station, both of them feeling wrung out.

“I have to make a stop before we head back,” said Molly, steering for Pâtisserie Bujold. She couldn’t fix any of the things that were so terribly wrong, but at least she could get a box of cream puffs.

Which was not nothing.

Molly supposed it was better to just go, even though her feelings were mixed and she couldn’t begin to imagine how the Bennetts would manage. L’Institut Degas had a yearly gala at the end of October, and the school was moving ahead with it despite their star student having been missing for nearly two weeks. Lawrence had insisted she go with him—everyone in the village will be there, he’d told her, everybody—but she took her time getting ready, the usual uncertainties about what to wear snowballing into almost frantic indecision, quite uncharacteristic for Molly.

It’s my first village party, she thought, and I have no idea whether to dress up or down. Or way up.

Or…maybe she shouldn’t go. In fact, she was pretty sure she felt a headache coming on.

Right, you’re going to skip the first party in your new village because you don’t have a headache but you think you might, sometime? Could you be any lamer?

And with that little self-slap, she pulled herself together and thought the problem through. One of the few pearls her mother had left her with was: always err on the side of over-dressing. So she went with a black cocktail dress, because really, how could that ever be too far wrong? And a good pair of heels, plus more than five minutes devoted to hair and makeup.

She had been so taken up with the move and culture shock and getting La Baraque ready for guests that she had sort of forgotten about her appearance. She dragged out a curling iron, found an adapter, and tamed her wild red hair. It took a half hour to get the eyeliner right, but she had started the whole process early and so was ready when Lawrence came by to pick her up.

“Who are you?” he said, laughing. “I wondered if there was a glamor-puss hiding somewhere under all that tangled hair. I’m glad to see there is.”

“Um, thank you?” Molly smoothed on lipstick looking in the mirror by the front door. “Damn,” she said, having drawn outside her lip line. She used her thumb to correct the error.

“So the burning question…” Lawrence said, leaning against the doorway while she put things in her bag and took them out again. “Is whether whoever took Amy will be there.”

Molly looked up sharply. “You look positively gleeful about the idea.”

“No. Well, yes. Everyone has a Sherlock Holmes fantasy deep inside, don’t they? I mean, come on, Molly. Wouldn’t you like to be in the midst of the crowd and suddenly point at…someone…and say: It’s him. This is the man who took Amy.”

“You’re sure it’s a man?”

“Of course I’m sure. You disagree?”

“No. I don’t. Just asking.”

As they walked to Lawrence’s car, Molly gave a fond glance back to La Baraque. The house looked so beautiful in the moonlight, so mysterious yet inviting, with one light showing in the kitchen and the grosser imperfections hidden by darkness. She felt a sudden strong urge to turn away from the car, to go back inside and get in bed and read a book.

She stood with her hand on the car’s door handle, not opening it.

“You’ve never struck me as the shy type,” said Lawrence, but his tone was soft.

“I’m really not shy,” said Molly. “But I…I don’t know…I’m feeling…” She shook her head quickly and got in the car. “It’s dread,” she said quietly as they drove into the village. “That’s what it is. And it’s not about the party. It’s that…something is going to happen, and whatever it is…it’s bad. It’s bad, Lawrence.”

He took his hand from the gear shift and rubbed her arm. “I don’t want to tell you to ignore what you’re feeling,” he said. “But I do think having the Bennetts so close by, and depending on you, might be having…an effect. I’m not at all convinced anything awful has happened. There’s no proof. No evidence at all except for her absence.”

“I’m not claiming to be clairvoyant or anything. But I…and maybe…oh, I don’t know.”

“Look, this is usually the best party of the year. The food will be amazing, and as I said, everyone will be there. So, dear Molly, try to put the Bennetts out of your mind just for tonight. They will be waiting for you in the morning, after all.

“Rémy will be there,” he added, with a twinkle in his eye so bright Molly could see it in the dark.

She had figured he would be. Not that she was the least bit interested one way or the other.