The Orchid Shroud (24 page)

Marie-Sylvette handled the shop front. Her husband, an enormously fat man named Thierry, did the baking. Thierry had started out as Madame’s father’s apprentice and had been a part of the establishment so long that most people forgot that his surname was not Méliès but Potdevin. Thierry rose at three every morning to make the day’s pastries in a big electric oven: gâteaux and fruit tarts and colorful macaroons. He baked his bread—his speciality was a sourdough loaf that people from the surrounding area queued up to buy—in a great, traditional wood
four
, using as his fuel of preference walnut hulls, which imparted, according to him, a special flavor.

The lineup of patrons at the Boulangerie Méliès was larger than normal on that rainy Tuesday morning. Everyone wanted to talk about the ghastly murder. Also, everyone knew that Laurent Naudet, who was a distant cousin of Madame Méliès, came in first
thing from the Gendarmerie where he was quartered to buy his breakfast croissants.

“I can’t talk about it,” the young man said, looking flustered as people crowded around him.

“They’re saying he was killed by the Beast,” a little man in carpet slippers shrilled. “They say it tore him open and ate his heart and liver. Just like it did that Piquet fellow.”

“Dieu du ciel!”
exclaimed a woman in a housecoat. She crossed herself, nearly letting slip the baguettes she held clamped under her arm.

Other voices chimed in:

“Ringuet’s old spaniel has been missing for weeks, and Chabanas lost a lamb last week.”

“It’s the Sigoulane Beast, I tell you. We’re not safe in our beds!”

“Non, non, et non!”
Laurent cried loudly, throwing up his hands. “This is all nonsense. There is no Beast.”

“So you say,” boomed a deep voice. “Our lives could be in danger. And what are you lot doing about it? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“I assure you, Madame Barrage”—Laurent found himself sweating, although the morning was cool—“there’s absolutely no danger to you.” Madame Barrage, big, with arms like a logger, was more than a match for any beast.

“Oh, do leave the boy in peace,” interceded Madame Méliès, taking pity on her young kinsman. “He has his job to do like the rest of us. Now, who’s next?
Un demi-pain au levain
, did you say, Madame Vignot?”

L
ater that morning, Adjudant Compagnon looked up from his desk to see Laurent hovering in the doorway. The gendarme held some typed sheets in his hand.

“What is it, Naudet?” Compagnon barked. He had been up most of the night, had not shaved, and exuded a bitter smell of sweat and frustration. On top of having to assign personnel to help
rout out this damned animal that was running amuck, he now had a murder on his hands. It never rained but poured. Or, as the French put it, trouble never arrived alone.

“
Procès-verbal
on our interview with Madame Tardieux,
mon adjudant.”
Laurent put the report on Compagnon’s desk. The previous evening, he and Albert Batailler had been dispatched to Aurillac Manor to take a statement from Christophe de Bonfond because of his association with the dead man. The housekeeper had informed them that her employer was away. “She said he left last Tuesday, sir. She doesn’t know where he is or when he’s coming back. She said he often takes off without telling her.”

Compagnon frowned. “What do you make of it?” He indicated a chair. Laurent sat down. The chair as usual was too low for him. He did not like to sprawl in the presence of his superior officer, so he perched on the edge of it with his knees rising up before him like two bony peaks.

“He could be off on business. He runs a publishing house. Editions Arobas. But I think it has more to do with the baby. De Bonfond locked himself in his room after they found it”—Laurent prudently omitted to say how he knew this—“and he may have just gone away to avoid the publicity.”

“Well, I want to talk to him, Naudet. Get on to Editions Arobas. If he’s really off on business, somebody’s bound to know where he went. He was one of Fournier’s clients, and that uncle of yours”—Compagnon said it grudgingly—“suggested we look into the possibility of blackmail. I think it’s a bit premature myself, at least until I’m sure this Dunn woman isn’t at the bottom of everything, but it doesn’t do to leave stones unturned.”

“People are awfully nervous about this death,” Laurent thought it necessary to say. “Because of what happened to the body.”

“No thanks to the media!” Compagnon shoved a copy of the morning paper
—Beast Strikes Again?—
across the desk.

Laurent shared his superior officer’s sentiments. He believed in the feral-dog theory. Most people of sense did. He couldn’t imagine Stéphanie, for example, going along with any of the other rubbish. But there were always those, like the patrons of the Boulangerie Méliès that morning, who were genuinely convinced that something worse was out there. Irresponsible journalism like this didn’t help.

Laurent cleared his throat. “I also came to tell you, sir, that hunters are taking it on themselves to patrol the woods. There are groups of them operating in the Sigoulane Forest and Aurillac Ridge. They’re practically tripping over each other.” He made a rolling gesture with his hands to describe the willy-nilly nature of their activities.

“Putain!”
groaned Compagnon. “That’s all we need. Those morons pose more of a threat to public safety than any damned Beast.”

T
he rain had stopped. Julian and Bernard were debating the placement of the electrical cable for the water pump when Denise and Antoine came down from the pavilion to inspect the work. It was the first time Julian had seen Denise since their recent strenuous coupling, and he greeted her with a certain amount of constraint. With her, however, it was business as usual. Sunday night might never have been.

“I thought this thing was supposed to be a waterfall,” she snapped, taking in Bernard’s efforts. “It looks like a mud puddle to me.”

“This is the basin,” Julian explained patiently. “Where the water collects to be recycled. The pump will be installed here and will drive the water up through rocks that we’ll set in place to create the impression of a natural spring.” He glanced at the father.

Antoine’s quick eyes took in everything. “When will this be up and running?”

“End of the week. No problem.”

“Bon,”
said the winemaker. He gave a jerk of the head that
passed for a nod and strode off toward the parking area. A moment later, he drove off in the Twingo.

Denise, looking unconvinced, headed back to the pavilion. Julian took the opportunity to walk with her.

“Terrible thing, this Fournier business,” he remarked. “Who do you think would have wanted him dead?”

“Lots of people, I expect. Your
petite amie
, for one.” Denise said it without breaking stride. “I take it she’s the Canadian woman who was with him the night he died?”

Julian was still stinging from Mara’s anger of the night before, but he rose to her defense. “That doesn’t mean she killed him. In fact, if I know Mara, she’s probably doing everything she can to find out who did.”

“Beating the gendarmes at their own game?”

“Maybe. She thinks the answer is somehow tied up with something Jean-Claude found out about Baby Blue.”

Denise seemed amused. “They
say
she pushed him off the terrace in a lovers’ quarrel.”

He parried, “Was Jean-Claude the kind of person one had lovers’ quarrels with?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Oh? I heard you were pretty friendly with him yourself at one time.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.” Denise’s cold, flat eyes gave nothing away. “Anyway, I was with you the night he died, if you recall.”

Julian steeled himself. “But not all night. Where did you go, Denise, after you left my house?”

She faced him coolly. “Home,” she said. “I have to start my day early, and I prefer to do it from my own bed.”

As Denise walked away, Julian realized that, with eyes like hers, it was hard to know if she was lying or telling the truth.

TUESDAY MORNING, 11 MAY

M
ara got out of bed, still swamped by the depressing thought that she really had been responsible for Jean-Claude’s death. The sleeping pill she had taken the night before hadn’t helped her sleep, it had simply made her brain fuzzy. She walked unsteadily into the kitchen, filled the coffeemaker, spooned grounds into a cone filter, and flipped the switch to “On.” She leaned against the counter in a kind of stupor, staring unseeing as the dark liquid trickled into the receptacle. Gradually, she became aware of the coldness of the flagstone floor on her bare feet and the fact that the phone was ringing. It was Prudence, asking how she was. Awful, she told her truthfully, and, no, she didn’t want company. She just needed to be alone. To put her life, which had been blown apart in the last twenty-four hours, back in order.

The coffee, hot and bitter, made her feel somewhat better. She poured herself a refill and drank it while she dressed. She slipped on a pair of rubber clogs and ran out over the wet grass to her studio. Patsy’s reply, waiting for her when she switched on her computer, gave her a much-needed morale boost:

Patsy’s commonsense assurance—Jean-Claude had
not
screamed—and unconditional offer of support was as good for the soul as chocolate cake, as comforting to the heart as hot pancakes in maple syrup on a frosty morning. Patsy went on:

Mara wrote back:

Mara thought with renewed bitterness about Julian’s defection. There was no other word for it. He had blatantly shown her that he could not be relied on.

Again she paused, reading on-screen the words she had just entered. She knew her hypothesis sounded far-fetched. But was it? She was convinced that Jean-Claude had believed in his werewolf idea, at least enough to try to profit from it. And Christophe, with his extreme family pride and horror of scandal, might well have reacted violently, especially if his antecedents were not as faultless as he liked to make out. Once again, she put her fingers to the keyboard: