Speak Softly My Love (26 page)

She
barely glanced at it.

“
Yes.” She practically spat the word.

He
showed her the best one from the morgue.

“
Just for confirmation, is this the same person?”

“
Oh, God.” She took another look, eyes focusing clearly, mouth
slightly open. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

Her eyes
came up and she regarded Tailler.

“
He’s lost weight since then.”

Tailler
raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Neither one of them had
really thought of that, but the clothes seemed to fit the body, (in
both of their cases). Just one more headache, he thought. One more
handful of question marks.

Tailler
showed her a picture of Zoe, a reproduction of the one on her
passport. The trouble with Zoe’s morgue pictures was that she
looked just a little too glazed, a little too obviously
dead.

“
Is this Zoe?”

She
squinted at the photo.

“
God, that’s an awful picture. Yes, that is her.”

With
open mouth, Tailler watched in sick fascination as she reached over
all on her own initiative, flipping through their collection of
photos with no remark. Some of those photos were Monique—and some
of them were Lucinde. She didn’t catch on, apparently.

Hubert
sat watching, almost afraid to move or even breathe.

There
was more, lots more. At some point, having helped to destroy the
young woman in some small way, they had no choice. It was time to
make some hurried excuses and get the hell out of there. It seemed
to Tailler that they were destroying their own case somehow. The
whole thing was beginning to bug him.

“
So tell me, what did you think of Didier?”

“
Well. He’s very handsome. He’s always so beautifully dressed,
and of course they made such a lovely couple…”

“
Okay.”

After
getting her phone number they made their exit.

He was
sort of proud of himself though. They had gotten what they came
for, without giving up one damned thing.

Hubert
had, out of a sense of self-preservation, grabbed the driver’s
seat. Unfortunately, Tailler had taken the key with him.

“
Come on, Emile.”

In no
mood to argue at this point, Emile handed it over
wordlessly.

He
heaved a deep sigh.

“
All right. Let’s go.”

“
You did okay there, Emile.”

Tailler
nodded.

“
Sure. Huh. Then why does my head hurt so?”

“
Yeah. It is getting complicated. But maybe we can still nail
some of this down.”

***

They
were in town for the day and they must make the best possible use
of it.

They found other Godeffroys in the phone directory. It was a
nice, small town. Call a number, and ask for Zoe. Sound nice but
dumb on the phone, very polite. As dumb as two sticks, they were.
That was Tailler’s expression, not Hubert’s. As long as they
got
something, he would
be okay with it. A half a dozen careful phone calls later, they had
found that Zoe Godeffroy was a local girl. She was real. Zoe was
somebody’s daughter, a niece, a cousin. She was the correct age for
the Rive Gauche victim, and she was described in such a way that
they were convinced that they were not being presented with an
imposter—such was their befuddled thinking at this point in time.
There was just no way to know the truth.

They checked at the post office, the local grocery stores,
coffee shops, and, in a fit of inspiration from Emile, some of the
higher-end shoe and dress shops. People knew the girl by name and
by sight. While they were getting a few raised eyebrows and no
doubt causing some questions to be asked, they were the police. In
a homicide investigation their writ ran very large. In their own
minds, a vivid mental picture of Inspector Descamps hung there,
watching their performance. Surely some of this would get back to
him. Surely some of
that
would get back to Gilles…

The
people they talked to all said the same thing: that’s Zoe, sure
looks like her, but it was a real bad picture or
something.

While
waiting for room service to bring up their meals from the kitchen,
Hubert got on the horn to Paris, almost sure the ferret-faced
switchboard operator would be listening in.

He was
in luck. Levain answered the phone, and put Gilles on as Hubert
checked his watch.

“
Hello.”

“
Hello, Inspector. This is Hubert.”

“
Ah. Hubert. How are things in Molsheim?”

Hubert
had thought it out carefully. If they were indeed eavesdropped,
rumours would spread like wildfire in a little place like
Molsheim.

“
I’m afraid I can’t speak completely freely, sir. However, we
spoke to the subject’s best friend.”

Maintenon cut in.

“
Which subject…???” Busy enough with his own cases, thought
Hubert.

“
Ah, yes, sir. The subject. Of our inquiries. From the Rive
Gauche.” Beyond that he would go no further, although calling in
from the local police station was an option.

Hubert
simply hadn’t thought of it in time, being more intent on dinner
and a shower.

“
Of course.”

“
Gilles. We can go to the police station and call you from
there. But this is a big one—that’s for sure.”

“
What do you mean, a big one?”

“
It’s a revelation. We spoke to the neighbour-lady at some
length. We’ve been asking around town about the subject. I really
can’t tell you much more than that. It’s an open line. Our subject
hasn’t been seen in some days. She left last Friday, the day before
the Rive Gauche. She knows our friend D. We have independent
confirmation.”

They had
even found a maitre’d and a doorman, both working the same little
downtown restaurant. They had been shown the photo of Zoe and the
ones of Didier and the look-alike victim. They remembered seeing
the couple together, at least once, having an intimate
dinner.

There
was a long silence.

“
Very well. How soon can you get back here?” Gilles understood
their eagerness, but there were any number of ongoing cases and he
needed the manpower.

“
Yes, sir. We can’t think of a whole lot more to do here—maybe
find the church where she was baptized. A birth certificate would
be nice. We may have to come back, actually.” Hubert consulted with
Tailler.

Having
anticipated the question, Tailler had the answer.

“
Ah, sir. Emile says the first train leaves at six-twenty.
That gets us home by noon anyways.”

“
Okay. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon then.” The inspector
hung up.

He was
probably busy as hell, and short on manpower.

Hubert
hung up.

“
So?” Emile sat in an upholstered armchair and Hubert was on
the end of a couch so short it might more properly be called a
loveseat.

“
So. We take what we have and go home. We’ll run it past
Maintenon and see what he thinks.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The next
afternoon Gilles, Levain and Firmin were all in the office. The two
younger detectives arrived and quickly unloaded their briefcases.
Having come by taxi straight from the station, they still had their
overnight bags. These were dumped at the end of their respective
desks. Gilles was on the phone taking notes and asking questions.
Levain nodded pleasantly. Firmin gave them a blank look, and then a
wave and a grin. He typed for a moment, and then looked up again,
as if only now remembering who they were.

They
hung up coats, put their hats on the rack, and got cups of the
rather cold coffee that was left in the pot.

Hubert
took his chair and Tailler glanced through his notes.

He
looked at the room and cleared his throat.

Maintenon beat him to it.

“
So.”

“
Yes, sir. We spoke to an Ada Bellerose. The address from the
passport in the Rive Gauche killing was correct. The lady in the
Rive Gauche was—near as we can make out—the real Zoe Godeffroy.
Ah…maybe.” Hubert continued as Gilles gave a quick and approving
nod. “Ada knows quite a lot about Zoe, as they are best friends.
She
says,
Zoe
hasn’t been out of the country in five or six years. That’s
confirmed by the stamps in her passport. Why she had it in Paris,
we don’t know. Here’s the really neat thing, Inspector. Ada knew
exactly who Didier Godeffroy is. She says the pair met at some
function somewhere and they had some kind of relationship. She was
holding a few things back, for the sake of her friend’s reputation
if nothing else. She used the term
lovers.
There was nothing we could
safely tell her. There’s some love or affection there, at least on
Zoe’s part. She had the same last name, pure coincidence, but
it
probably
led
to their original conversation. I mean, when he picked her up.
Didier was nothing if not a quick study.”

“
So the basic premise is that Didier stole the passport—or
someone who knew something about them, Inspector. The real question
there is why Zoe herself, would bring it to Paris. We figure Didier
brought it and left it there.” Tailler had a thought. “The victim’s
fingerprints are on the ticket stub. We really ought to get one of
Zoe’s kin to have a look at the body.”

“
I see.”

Tailler
looked up from his notebook.

“
Ada didn’t have all the intimate details, but she says Didier
always called ahead. Zoe knew when he was coming to town. He sent
her letters, flowers once or twice. When we asked if Zoe had a home
phone number for him, that’s when Ada dried up.” That part was
understandable enough. “We asked if they had ever spoken of
marriage, whether there was any kind of commitment, and that’s
about the time Ada began to tire of us.”

She
simply wasn’t telling one way or another.

The odds were that both Zoe
and
Ada knew about, or even
just
suspected
the existence of a wife, in Paris or elsewhere. Zoe might
tell Ada everything. Ada was only going to tell
them
so much. Didier would of course
be feeding Zoe a story. The
trail of
lies
could be revealing, or so Tailler saw
it. By the time they were done, the young lady was becoming quite
fearful for her friend. News of the killing would break her
up.

She had
two cops grilling her and after a while she was pretty upset with
them.

“
She knew Didier was in Paris a lot and didn’t see Zoe much.
Once or twice a month, sometimes for pretty short stays. We asked
that question early on, then dug deeper. She says Zoe and Didier
were very good friends for about the last two, or two and a half
years.”

“
So what’s your plan?”

Gilles’
eyebrows rose as Hubert passed the buck by turning and looking at
Tailler.

“
Well, sir. We want to get search warrants. For both Godeffroy
households, as well as Zoe’s place. Ada might have a key. She
probably does, but she wasn’t about to just let us in so she played
dumb. As to whether we can include his business premises in there,
that’s a tough call. It would be tough to establish a connection to
Gaston e Cie except for the fact that he’s employed there. The real
question in a warrant is what do we expect to
find
there? My
guess
is nothing. It’s difficult to
see how anyone at work might have benefited from his demise. The
whole thing is just too complex for someone bucking for a
promotion. Why not just rat him off? Surely the boss, the firm,
would absolutely hate employing an infamous bigamist. That, is a
question we haven’t really asked. It’s a question of do we have
enough? Sometimes it’s just the judge you get, sometimes it’s just
the way you say it. I would sure as hell prefer not to
lie
to a judge, and
claim a lot more than I really have. But this is by no means
clear-cut.”

“
So what do you hope to find?”

“
So far, we have the fingerprints from the body in the river
and the body in the hotel room.” They had little bits of evidence
from here and there.

Gilles
nodded sharply.

“
I would very much like to clearly establish who’s who—and
who’s what.” Emile thought further, as long as one must have a wish
list. “We can set our people to tracing Didier on the train. I
would like to see some confirmed hotel stays. Real sightings from
real people, people who know him well. The train schedule can’t
prove his guilt. What I expect to find there—hopefully—are some
pretty big gaps when he could have been in Paris. When he shouldn’t
have been.” Like for example the Rive Gauche case. “I’d shit bricks
if we could find someone who saw Didier and Zoe together on the
train, coming to Paris when he should have been somewhere
else.”