Chapter SevenThérèse Perrault was the first to get to the station on Friday morning. She was almost always first. She was young and enthusiastic and trying to make a good impression on Chief Dufort, and very pleased to have a job she was interested in, where she could make a difference in people’s lives. Even if, in Castillac, that often meant returning Madame Bonnay’s dog or Madame Vargas’s husband, both of whom tended to wander.
“Bonjour, Thérèse!” said Dufort, striding in. He ran every morning, farther in winter than in summer because he liked working out in the cold. His skin was still bright from the exertion, and he too was glad to come to work, happy for a job where he didn’t have to sit behind a desk but could spend most of the day out on the streets, talking to the people of the
