Old Bones (12 page)

Mathilde fixed him with a penetrating eye. "Are your men going to search them?"

"Yes, they are."

She sighed her displeasure. "There are some chairs at the landing near the central staircase."

"Thank you. Fleury, please escort everyone as Madame du Rocher directs, and wait with them."

There was some muttering but they went meekly, except for Mathilde, who expressed restrained indignation at these high-handed police methods in her own home.

"Oh, and get somebody here from Pathology," Joly called after Fleury. "Dr. Fouret, if he’s available."

"I hope he’s a
real
doctor," Mathilde grumbled with a last scathing look at Gideon over her shoulder. Gideon spread his hands apologetically. His tentative, conspicuously amateurish attempts at CPR had not met with her approval. Nor with his own, but Claude had been so obviously beyond the reach of cardio-pulmonary resuscitation or any other earthly assistance that nothing would have helped in any case. Not even a real doctor.

So said Dr. Loti, the elderly physician—Guillaume’s doctor of many years—who had been summoned by Marcel after Claude’s shocking attack.

"Well," he said to Joly, coming from behind the folding screen that had been set up around Claude’s body and snapping shut his black leather case, "your professor friend here is right about the cause of death. I’m sure your laboratory will confirm it." He nodded at Gideon. "The smell of bitter almonds; very good, young man."

Joly’s glance at Gideon was not especially grateful.

"Look, Inspector," Gideon said, "this is your case. I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t know anything about it. I just happened to be here."

"So it seems."

"All I know about bitter almonds is what I read in Sherlock Holmes. I don’t even know what a bitter almond is."

"Mm." Joly turned to Loti. "Do you have any idea how quick death would have been?"

"Within minutes, probably only a very few. Cyanide is one of the most rapidly lethal of all poisons. It disrupts the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood the moment it’s ingested."

"Then we can certainly assume that it was in the wine," Joly mused. He stood looking at the crime-scene crew taking their photographs and bustling around the corpse on their knees. One man was dusting the pieces of the broken carafe with black powder. "Are you getting any prints?" Joly asked him.

"Yes. More than one person’s, I think."

"Good."

"But you know," Gideon volunteered, "you wouldn’t have had to touch the carafe if you wanted to put poison in it. In fact, you’d be crazy if you did."

Joly gazed down his nose at him for a long moment, his lips pursed. "Thank you," he said.

"You’re very welcome." Funny the way policemen never seem to be particularly appreciative when obliging laymen point out self-evident facts to them. "I think," he said prudently, "that I’ll get out of here and take another crack at those bones."

Inspector Joly did not object.

   WHEN the manoir had been built, the stairwell in the southeast corner had evidently been housed in a massive tower. The tower itself had disappeared long ago, probably in some nineteenth-century remodeling, so that there was no sign of it from the outside. Inside, however, the worn stone steps still spiraled in their old cylindrical casing, and the landings were big, hexagonal chambers of bleak, gray stone, sparsely decorated with gloomy fragments of Greek and Roman statues, and furnished with a few appropriately austere wooden chairs and benches.

Fleury had taken the family members to the landing on the ground floor, through which Gideon had to pass on the way to the cellar, and there they stood or sat, alone or in small, grim clumps, looking put-upon, annoyed, or bewildered. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of grieving, Gideon noted. Not surprising, given his own brief acquaintance with Claude.

Ray (one of the bewildered ones) approached him tentatively. "It wasn’t a heart attack, then? I mean, with the police here and all…?"

Gideon led him a little away from the others; out of hearing. "It looks like the wine was poisoned, Ray."

When his friend seemed more bewildered yet, Gideon said gently: "It looks like he was murdered."

"‘As if,’ " Ray murmured automatically, off in his own world, "in both instances. Or‘as though.’ " He frowned dreamily while Gideon’s words made their way through. "Murdered," he finally said. "But why would anyone want to—" Guile was not one of Ray Schaefer’s strong points, and Gideon saw his eyes widen at some unwelcome thought in the midst of his conventional response. "—to kill Claude?" he finished weakly and predictably.

Gideon studied him for a moment. "Ray, if you know something, you ought to mention it to Joly."

"Oh, I don’t know anything," he said, dropping his eyes to stare at his toes. "Nothing important; nothing that could matter." He paused and considered. "It’s just …well, there was some trouble during the war."

"The war? You mean the Second World War?" He looked at Ray with interest. There were an awful lot of World War II vibrations bouncing around the Manoir de Rochebonne.

"Well, yes, sure. In 1942." Ray wriggled and shifted. "Oh—it’s just that Claude had a chance to warn some people that the Nazis were going to arrest them, but he didn’t do it and the SS executed them. One of them was my Uncle Alain—my cousin, rather; Sophie’s and René’s brother— and I guess there were some hard feelings."

"Yeah, I can see how there just might be."

"Well, I mean
really
hard feelings." He hesitated, then gave his mild version of a what-the-hell shrug. "The thing is, Sophie absolutely adored him, and she’s never forgiven Claude. They never even got Alain’s body back from the Nazis."

"I see."

"And Mathilde was engaged to him before she married René. And—"

"Listen, Ray, if you’re thinking about holding this back because you think it’ll protect Sophie or Mathilde—"

"Me?" Ray said miserably and uttered an implausible laugh.

"—don’t do it. Tell Joly what you know."

"But I don’t—Gideon, it was almost fifty years ago."

"Ray, don’t hide anything; it can wind up hurting whoever you’re trying to help. Believe me."

"Whomever," Ray said, and retreated into a mute and uncharacteristic mumpishness.

   WITH his slim, elegant fingers steepled before his lips and his elbows on the plain metal desk in Guillaume du Rocher’s study, Joly read aloud from the note lying on the blotter in front of him. It had come from the bureau in Mathilde’s room.

"‘I have reached a decision on a matter of singular family importance,’ " he read. "‘We will discuss it at Rochebonne on 16 March.’ You have no idea what he was referring to?"

Mathilde fingered the necklace of heavy gold links at her throat. "I’m afraid I don’t," she said flutily. "You do realize he sent the same note to everyone."

Joly unsteepled his fingers. "You, your husband, and your son flew here from Germany—your husband giving up several days of work—without knowing why you were coming? Merely on your cousin’s instructions to do so?"

"Yes, Inspector. Others came from considerably farther. There was nothing strange about it. When business matters of importance to the family arose, Guillaume would simply send for us, and we would come."

"But you arrived Sunday, the day before. You had many chances to talk with him. The subject never arose?"

"
Every
one arrived Sunday," Mathilde said patiently. "
Every
one had many chances to talk with him. I should be very surprised if any of them know any more than I do about it."

"Not even Claude Fougeray?"

Mathilde’s upper lip curled very slightly. "Claude least of all."

"Claude and Guillaume were not on good terms?"

"I believe Claude Fougeray had not set foot in the manoir in over forty years."

"And why was that, madame?"

Ah, a hesitation, a fleeting shift in the focus of her eyes, a gathering of resources for equivocation.

"Oh, he had some sort of falling out with Guillaume— ages ago, in the forties. I never knew the details. I was quite small at the time."

You were seventeen at the time, madame, Joly said to himself, but he decided to let it go for the moment. There were more immediate matters.

"Madame du Rocher, can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Claude Fougeray?"

Mathilde’s eyes lit up with happy malice. "Well, there
is
someone who comes to mind, but …no, it’s ridiculous, and I’m not one to tell tales…" Her glittering fingers rose again to her necklace as she paused demurely.

With a small sigh Joly delivered what was expected of him. "Permit me to decide that, madame."

"Very well, Inspector," she said promptly. "I understand that most murders are committed by one’s closest relatives. Isn’t that so? Well, that’s where I should look if I were you." She rested her topmost chin on the next one down and eyed him meaningfully.

Joly did not enjoy coaxing, and he was not very good at it. And he didn’t care for Mathilde du Rocher.

"If you have something to say, please say it clearly," he said sharply.

She glared at him, as if deciding whether to punish him by holding back, but in the end her instincts won out, as he was sure they would. How often could opportunities like this fall into her lap?

"Leona Fougeray," she said flatly, letting him know that he had taken the joy out of it for her, "is having an affair with a man in Rennes; an elderly, immensely wealthy widower who is eager to marry her. He is in his dotage, as I need hardly point out—or haven’t you met Leona?"

"Briefly, madame. I should think she would find divorce a more delicate avenue than murder." Damn. Sarcasm wasn’t going to get him very far. Did he used to be more tolerant of mean and boring people, or was it his imagination?

"More delicate, perhaps," Mathilde replied evenly, "but far slower, and with the disadvantage of requiring dealings with obstructive petty
fonctionnaires.
"

He looked at her with new respect.

"In addition," she said, "Monsieur Gris is a devout Catholic. He would never marry a divorced woman. But a widow—well, that’s a different story."

"May I ask how you come to know this? Is it common knowledge?"

"In our family? I don’t think so.
I
certainly have never talked about it; except with my husband, of course." She glanced challengingly at him, but there was nothing to read in his eyes. "However, I happen to have a friend in Rennes who keeps me informed. You can rest assured that it’s true."

"I have no doubt of it." He stood up. "Thank you for your help." Joly was known among his colleagues for his abrupt interview terminations, which often shocked informants into giving more information than another twenty minutes of questioning might bring. He walked around the desk to the door of the study and opened it.

Mathilde watched him without getting up.

"Is there something more you wish to tell me?" he asked with a small smile.

"How," she replied, "is this to be paid for?"

The smile disappeared. "Pardon, madame?"

"Am I expected to maintain the people you’ve ordered to remain here? Food is not free, and I’m sure you’re aware that it’s going to be some time before the estate is formally settled—"

"I didn’t
order
them to stay here, I asked for their cooperation," Joly said, drawing a finer point than he liked. "But I’m sure that if you speak with Monsieur Bonfante he’ll arrange something."

He sincerely hoped so. A complaint from the commanding Mathilde du Rocher to Monsieur Picard, the public prosecutor, was not something he wanted to think about. And now that he had a fresh murder on his hands, things would be getting even worse; there would be a
juge d’ instruction
riding herd on him as well. Pity the poor French detective. Did John Lau appreciate how simple his life in the FBI was? Joly doubted it.

He bowed Mathilde out, went back to the desk and jotted a few more sparse notes on the lined pad on which he had put down a word or two from time to time. Then he turned to the list of names at the front, placed a check mark before Mathilde’s, as he had already done before those of René, Beatrice, and the resolutely taciturn Marcel. With a finger to his lips he studied the remaining names, then got up again and called to Fleury.

"Will you have Madame Fougeray come down, please?"

   ANOTHER formidable woman, Leona Fougeray. Not in Mathilde’s way: Mathilde was imposing the way a cannonball is imposing—heavy, dense, solid. Leona had the formidability of an arrow, or better yet a poison dart—quick, thin, brittle, full of venom. Vivid as a magpie in a black-and-white-striped suit with enormous square shoulders that made her neat, dark head look tiny, there was not even a pretense of the mournful widow about her; no hint of tremor, no tastefully restrained anguish over the fact that her husband’s body had been carted off to the police morgue barely half an hour before. In fact, she had spewed a stream of abuse each time Joly had mentioned Claude.

"No, how do I know what my husband meant?" she said, her Italian accent strong despite a quarter-century in France. "I haven’t paid attention to him for years. Half the time he was raving from wine, the other half he was raving just from natural stupidity."

"Perhaps," Joly said, "but his remarks this time were very specific." He glanced at his notes. "At the reading of the will he claimed that Guillaume had planned a
new
will, did he not? He said that was the purpose of the council."

She turned down her mouth. "He said, he said. Pipe dreams. How could he know what Guillaume planned? You think Guillaume confided in him? If he did he’d be crazy. For forty years we never heard from him; not once. You know the first time I ever saw the great Guillaume? Last Sunday." She shrugged. "Not such a treat."

"Your husband also said—to you, before Guillaume died—that the others had a surprise coming, that he knew some things they didn’t know."