The Molly Sutton Mystery Series, books 1-3

Chapter 28

Chapter 282005Lawrence parked on the road, at the end of a long line of cars. “I’d say our timing is perfect. Never want to be among the first.”

“No,” Molly agreed. She took Lawrence’s arm to steady herself, her heels threatening to turn her ankles on the uneven side of the road. “Do you really think he’ll be here?” she said in a low voice.

“Rémy? Almost certainly.”

“No no, I mean…the person who took Amy.”

Lawrence pressed his lips together and shrugged. “I was just messing around before,” he said. “I make fun because I don’t know what else to do. Of course it’s highly unlikely we’ll have any sort of Grand Unveiling of the Murderer, like we’re living in the middle of Agatha Christie-ville. But still…I would say, all kidding aside, that it is likely that someone here knows something. Is that vague enough for you?”

Molly nodded. The thought creeped her out, but she agreed with him. She wondered if Dufort would be here, and if he was thinking the same thing. She wished she’d put the mace back on her keyring, even though she wouldn’t be alone and certainly not in any danger. It was just that the thought of it was reassuring.

The party was in the big modern building that looked like a jellyfish, in a large room that jutted away from the road. Round tables dressed in white tablecloths lined a dance floor, and servers scurried around with platters of drinks. A small band played on a stage at one end. It looked to Molly as though half of Castillac was there. She caught a glimpse of that pretty gendarme, Thérèse she thought her name was, and saw Alphonse of Chez Papa going wild on the dance floor with a woman she recognized but hadn’t met. She got a glimpse of her next-door neighbor, Madame Sabourin, talking animatedly with a man who stood with his arms folded across his chest, nodding at whatever she was saying. The band finished the song and the crowd cheered.

This was her village. Her life now. It was time to jump in and enjoy it.

Lawrence was quickly swallowed up by the crowd and Molly made her way towards the bar, enjoying the high energy of the room. Pascal, the handsome server from Café de la Place, was bartending, and she felt buoyed up by his dazzling young smile.

“Merci,” she said to him, taking her kir and moving away. The music was insistent with a good beat. She heard shrieking laughter coming from one end of the room, someone nearby talking very loud and insistently about politics, and the hum of a party with momentum. She stood on tiptoes and ran her eyes over the crowd, looking for anyone she knew.

“Bonsoir, Molly,” said a voice behind her. She turned to see Dufort smiling at her.

“Bonsoir, Ben!” Awkwardly they kissed cheeks, Molly at first turning the wrong side. Dufort kept smiling and Molly thought again that she liked this man. He just seemed so decent. “I am glad to see you here.”

He nodded. “Would you dance with me?” he asked, surprising her.

“Of course!”

He took her hand and led her to the dance floor. Just then, the band switched tempo and started to play disco, of all things. Molly and Ben laughed and moved their hips to the beat and Molly sipped her kir and felt younger and happier than she had at any moment since her divorce. At the end of the song, Ben made a small bow and an excuse, and disappeared into the crowd.

Well, that was a little abrupt, she thought. I wonder….

Then she saw Rémy. She felt herself flush at the sight of him; without thinking she had expected him to appear looking as he always did, in jeans and a shirt streaked with mud, sometimes a battered hat. But of course he had dressed for the occasion like everyone else.

And my, he did scrub up good.

Molly walked straight to him and said hello. They kissed cheeks, not awkwardly, and Molly got a whiff of his masculine scent.

“You look fantastic,” said Rémy, looking into her eyes.

Molly’s face got redder. “Not so bad yourself,” she answered.

Lawrence staggered off the dance floor and joined them. “How am I supposed to stay in shape if there’s only one party like this a year?” he asked, mopping his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. “I don’t think I’ve been dancing since last year’s gala.”

“I had no idea Castillac was such a hotbed of disco,” laughed Molly, raising her voice to be heard. The three of them went to a table and sat down. Molly slipped her feet out of the torturous heels and took in the scene. Three older women were dancing together, doing a creditable version of the hustle. A group of men at the next table were huddled together, talking with serious expressions.

Lawrence leaned close to Molly and said, “The guy in the pink shirt is Jack Draper, head of the school. American. Nobody much likes him.”

Molly nodded. “Doesn’t look like they’re having a very festive conversation.”

Rémy scraped his chair over closer to Molly’s. “Okay, let me in on it. What juicy tidbit are you telling Molly, Lawrence?”

“Ha—I wish I had a juicy tidbit,” said Lawrence. “I bet if we could hear what they were talking about—” he tossed his head in the direction of Draper, Rex Ford, and Gallimard “—it would be…interesting.”

“So come on, Larry, give us the dirt!”

“Says the farmer,” laughed Lawrence. “I don’t know why you think I know anything. Draper’s okay, as far as I know, although he thinks very highly of himself. Don’t we all, deep down,” he shrugged. “Gallimard, the one next to Draper, with the big belly—he’s a bit of a sad case, in my opinion. One of those people who peaked way too early and so has felt a failure most of his life.” He paused to consider.

“So what do you think,” he continued. “Which is worse: to show tremendous promise and then fizzle, or never to have any glory or promise in the first place?”

“Fizzling is worse,” said Molly. “Because your failure is on everyone’s minds all the time. I mean, look at us. We don’t even know him, at least Rémy and I don’t, and yet we sit here judging and thinking about how he had something big and then lost it. Pitying the poor man for his failure. But when anyone looks at me, they’re not thinking about blown potential, but just…taking me as I am. Whatever that is,” she shrugged.

Rémy nodded. “I would have to agree with the American,” he said, with a little smile.

“I suppose for Gallimard there are compensations,” said Lawrence thoughtfully. “From all reports, he pretty much runs the school. Draper is more a figurehead and promoter than anything. It’s Gallimard who decides who’s in and who’s out.”

“Amy Bennett’s teacher, I suppose?” said Molly.

Lawrence nodded.

On the dance floor, Dufort came into view, dancing with Marie-Claire Levy. It was a slow song and Dufort was holding her close. Molly watched them, unable to suppress a pang of remembering how very pleasant it was to have a man hold her like that. She shook her head as though to wipe those thoughts away.

“Lawrence, come on!” she said, dragging him out to the dance floor as the band started the next song, and hustling like it was 1975.

On the other side of the room, Thérèse Perrault appeared to be partying with a group of her oldest friends, but in fact she was working. She laughed at her friends’ jokes, she danced, she ate and drank—and every minute she was thinking about Amy Bennett, and looking at the crowd thinking that somebody there knew something, and how in the world was she going to figure out who.

He’s got to be here, she was thinking. He’s probably laughing at us, knowing we’re lost. Maybe even sizing up his next victim.

She tried to follow along in a line dance while scanning the room for suspects. Even though she had been well-trained in police work, she couldn’t help holding on to a slice of hope that something less rational, less by-the-book, might point her in the right direction. Like if she happened to look into the man’s eyes, she would know. She would be able to see down into his rotten core, see what he was capable of and what he had allowed himself to do; after that, justice for Amy would simply be a matter of walking backwards and collecting evidence along the way.

“Come on, Thérèse, you’re not listening to a word I say,” said Pascal, putting his warm hand on her cheek. He was so charming that he managed to make even a complaint sound inviting.

“She’s off in the clouds,” said her friend Simone, bumping hips with Thérèse.

“No, I’m listening,” she said, reaching for Pascal’s hand and squeezing it, and looking past him at the group of men who ran Degas, who were huddled together as though sharing the best gossip ever.

But Pascal saw that she was not listening, not to him, and so he gave up and walked away, wanting to spend his few minutes of break with someone who was interested in his company. If she wanted to work undercover, he thought, bartending would do pretty well. He was always amazed at the things people would say as they waited for their drinks, as though he weren’t an actual live person with ears standing only a few feet away.