The Twenty-Year Death (12 page)

“Then if you know about everything else, wouldn’t it be easier to tell me?”

“I don’t know about everything else.”

“Then what do you know about?”

“Dead prisoners.”

“I know about them too.”

“See, you’re not a total loss, Chief Inspector. And I was trying to come to terms with the disappointment.”

It was easier to talk to the man without being able to see him, his voice floating up from below.

“Who moved the bodies?” Mahossier said.

That was the question. But he responded, “Who killed the men?”

“Perhaps...” Delight returned to Mahossier’s voice again, as though ice cream had been suggested and the question was now which flavor. “Perhaps you answer my question and I’ll answer yours!”

“You’re not worried about being a snitch?”

Mahossier’s delight turned to anger. “Listen, detective! I am already reviled. I told you that to start. But being reviled isn’t always a bad thing.”

Pelleter wondered how that could be. Still, Mahossier had highlighted once again the question that seemed most pressing. How had those prisoners’ bodies gotten out of Malniveau? Who had moved them?

Pelleter contemplated the wall. After a few moments, Mahossier began to hum, and the tune eventually penetrated the chief inspector’s thoughts. It was a children’s tune. If Pelleter remembered correctly it was about going to grandmother’s house.

Pelleter stood, his chair scraping the floor, cutting off Mahossier’s song.

He had learned nothing here. The initial summons, the oblique aspersions regarding the assistant warden...it all seemed to be for Mahossier’s own amusement, and Pelleter was jumping through his hoops like an amateur.

The chief inspector went to the door. He raised his hand to knock, but held it there, suspended in the air. A noise came from the other side of the table, a shuffle, and the clank of chain on stone, but Pelleter could not see what Mahossier was doing.

“Mahossier,” Pelleter barked.

The movement stopped.

“If those boys don’t turn up soon, and alive, you may find that you have yard privileges every day again.”

There was no response from the floor.

“Or perhaps the next time I send guards in here to pick you up off the floor, I’ll only have to follow your body to find out how they get dead prisoners out of Malniveau.”

With that, Pelleter allowed his fist to drop against the metal door, a hollow echoing clang, signaling that he was ready to go.

The temperature had climbed so that the brow of Pelleter’s hat was clammy and a faint sheen of sweat coated his body beneath his overcoat as he stepped out of the taxi in front of the café. It was the humidity that was particularly oppressive. Most of the sky was clear, but to the east there was a dirty-sheep-colored expanse of clouds that may or may not have threatened rain.

Verargent Square was quiet, the town about its post-lunch business. Only the old men who lined the base of the monument were to be seen, and they were as still as the statue above them.

The café was equally silent. Pelleter ordered some beer and a ham and cheese sandwich for carry away. He wanted to get back to the police station to find out any news about the missing children. He also needed to send Martin back to the prison files and to call Lambert at the Central Bureau.

The waitress appeared from the back and the proprietor bullied her to fetch the inspector’s meal.

Pelleter pulled out his watch. One o’clock, three days after the first body was found. This was the difficult time in a complicated investigation that so few people understood...the waiting.

The proprietor turned to Pelleter with an ingratiating smile.

“So they found those boys.” The proprietor shook his head. “They’re too old to have gotten lost in a field,” he said, and he
snorted. “When I was their age, I had to walk miles just to milk the cows.”

Pelleter did not reply, but there was a subtle relaxation of his shoulders. It was the first he had heard that the boys had been found, but he was not surprised. It accounted for the town’s quiet. He reached for a cigar, then remembered he was about to have lunch, and dropped his hand.

“To cause so much trouble,” the proprietor continued, “I hope they get a sound thrashing.”

The waitress returned with Pelleter’s sandwich, wrapped, he noticed with some satisfaction, in yesterday’s
Vérité
.

“But how are they? Is everything okay? And this other thing with the dead prisoners and the missing girl?”

Pelleter ignored the proprietor’s questions, making a point to say thank you to the waitress as he took his lunch.

Outside he took a long refreshing swallow of beer. The sandwich was good. Benoît, even in his crisis, made good bread, crisp and firm. He ate as he crossed the square, the sweat beginning again to pour down his back. It was good that the boys were safe, but he felt lost in this other thing. He could not help but feel as though he kept forgetting to do the simplest things that would lead him to the answer. There were too many distractions. He contemplated for a moment how a small town could seem to have more distractions than the city.

He saw the man standing in the shadow of the police station steps before he recognized him. “A happy ending, Monsieur Pelleter!”

“Servières.”

“We’re doing another special edition tonight. The headline...” He traced his open hand across the air. “
FOUND
.”

Pelleter continued to eat. “You really are becoming a daily.”

“This may be my chance for a larger market.”

“Then who would write the
Vérité
?”

“Inspector! It’s good to see you in high spirits as well. I’m not the only reporter at the
Vérité
.”

Pelleter finished his sandwich and made a point of balling up its wrapping, but Servières did not notice.

“What happened?”

Servières took out his notebook. Pelleter could not fight the feeling again that Servières was very much like him, and he felt a burst of warmth for the young reporter.

“Tuesday, April 4th at approximately five in the evening, Georges and Albert Perreaux left Monsieur Marque’s sweet shop, and headed west on the Rue Principale on their way home to the Perreaux Farm.

“Georges decided it would be faster to cut across a field, but the boys quickly became lost, circling in the high grass in an ever-increasing panic.”

“That’s how you’re going to write it?”

“I haven’t settled on it yet. Dark fell, the rain started, and the boys were pinned down, lost in the field. In the morning, Albert was ill and unable to move. Georges was frightened to leave his brother.

“Madame Perreaux assumed that the boys had stayed with an aunt in town because of the weather and so she did not inform the police until Thursday, April 6
^th
. Chief of Police Letreau organized an all-night search that continued into the morning until the boys were located in the field west of town, now both with fevers.

“They were removed to the hospital, and there will be more here with quotes from the police and the men who found them and maybe the boys themselves if I get lucky.”

“Then why are you waiting out here?”

“Monsieur Rosenkrantz is inside, and I thought it best to stay out of his way, since it seems he’s unhappy I mentioned his wife in yesterday’s paper.”

Pelleter smiled at that. He turned up the steps.

“Inspector, wait!”

Pelleter stopped, now looking down at Servières.

“Do you have anything new to report in the Meranger murder?”

Pelleter’s smile softened.

“Or would you care to comment on the five prisoners’ bodies that were found yesterday? Or Madame Rosenkrantz’s disappearance?”

Pelleter’s expression had turned dark, and he growled, “I thought you were running good news tonight, Servières.”

“Good news is news that sells papers.”

“Stick to the boys,” Pelleter said and began to turn away. He stopped again.

“What is it?” Servières said.

Pelleter didn’t reply. He thought again about how he felt as though he were forgetting something or some things and how he was at a loss as to what to do next, as he had thought that morning, that he was only reacting. Maybe the trick was to get something else to react to. He turned to Servières.

“Take this down. Inspector Pelleter is very encouraged about his investigation into the prisoners murdered at Malniveau Prison. He has some promising leads and hopes to have the case tied up by the time this paper goes to press tomorrow.”

Servières was writing feverishly. When he finished he looked up at Pelleter, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “Is it true?”

“We’ll know tomorrow, I guess.” The chief inspector thought of the young, attractive woman standing in the entryway of the
Verargent Hotel’s dining room like a lost little girl. She did not need to be dragged through the papers. “And leave out Madame Rosenkrantz’s disappearance.”

“But everyone already knows—”

“Leave it out,” Pelleter said, climbing the last step. “I gave you plenty.” He pulled open the door to the police station at the back of Town Hall.

The police station was as deserted as the rest of the town, only it was as noisy as ever.

“You bastards search night and day when its two little boys missing, but you don’t give a damn about a young woman!”

Monsieur Rosenkrantz was standing against the desk that separated the public space from the department offices. There were two police officers Pelleter did not recognize sitting at the desk furthest from Monsieur Rosenkrantz watching the angered man with silent determination. There was no one else in the office. Letreau had probably given everyone else leave for the rest of the day after last night’s search.

Rosenkrantz was shouting in English now, and Pelleter was able to pick out more than one of the words he had learned in the war from an American soldier in return for teaching him the equivalents in French.

Pelleter came up behind the tall American, and slipped a hand under his elbow.

Rosenkrantz jerked away in surprise, but Pelleter had a tight grip.

“What are the police doing?” Rosenkrantz said, switching back to French. “Nobody’s doing anything here. They searched night and day for those little boys. My wife’s been missing for a day and a half now. Because of these two little miscreants, I haven’t even been able to file a report.”

“Come on,” Pelleter said, nodding his head towards the chairs in the waiting area and tightening his grip on the American’s elbow. “I’ll see to you in a moment.”

“Are you going to help me look for my wife?”

“Why don’t we talk about it?”

Rosenkrantz regarded Pelleter for a moment. The two men were almost the same height, but Rosenkrantz managed to look down at Pelleter nevertheless. He pulled his arm away and Pelleter released it. “Okay. We’ll talk.”

The American straightened his overcoat, but did not sit down.

Pelleter went behind the desk and approached the two officers, whose expressions had not changed since Pelleter had come in, even now that the shouting had stopped. “Where’s Chief Letreau?” Pelleter said, glancing into the chief of police’s office.

“At the hospital with Madame Perreaux.”

“Inspector!” Rosenkrantz called from the waiting area.

Pelleter held up his hand, and said to the officer, “And everyone else?”

“Skeleton crew until tomorrow. Don’t want to pay us too much overtime.”

The other officer tapped his companion on the shoulder, and the first officer realized what he had said.

“I mean, sir...”

“I know what you mean,” Pelleter said. He turned.

“Any message, sir?” the second officer said.

“No.”

“Inspector!”

As Pelleter approached Monsieur Rosenkrantz, he said, “Let’s go.”

The American writer said, “Where?”

“To talk about it,” Pelleter said, taking out a cigar and busying himself with lighting it.

Rosenkrantz watched this performance, and then said curtly, “Okay. Fine.” He turned and led the way out of the police station, and Pelleter followed.

Outside, the chief inspector was glad to see that Servières had had the sense to disappear. He was probably on his way to the hospital to try to get some quotes. Or perhaps he needed to go type up the chief inspector’s comments immediately.

Rosenkrantz led them away from the square, into an area of town that appeared residential. He walked with long angry strides, his outrage far from gone, but for the moment invested in walking. At a small alley, no larger than one man across, he turned. The windows at ground level were all shuttered. Empty laundry lines crisscrossed between the buildings above their heads, each line just long enough for a single shirt or several socks.

Halfway down the alley there was a steep set of stairs, almost vertical. Rosenkrantz went down, holding the side of the building for support, guiding his head beneath the low passage and through a door.

Pelleter followed and found himself in a private pub, just a board across the width of the room held by evenly spaced posts acting as a bar. There were no tables. The place smelled of stale cigarette smoke and sour beer. Pelleter’s shoes stuck to the floor, each step giving way with a resisting crack as he stepped up to the bar.

They were the only people there. The ancient barman had been sleeping on his stool with his head leaned against the wall,
but he stood, rubbing his eyes when Rosenkrantz knocked on the board. He set two pints on the bar without either patron ordering.

Rosenkrantz stared ahead as he drank, still standing. The ceiling was only inches from the tops of their heads.

The barkeep went back to sleep in his corner.

Down in this basement, it was already night.

Pelleter took a seat and left his beer untouched. He watched Rosenkrantz drink, smoking his cigar and waiting for the man to speak. He remembered what Servières had said about Rosenkrantz’s drinking bouts.

Half a pint gone, Rosenkrantz, still facing forward said, “Why would she have gone away?”

“You tell me.”

Rosenkrantz turned. There was real hurt in his face. He shook his head. “She wouldn’t have.” He downed the rest of his beer, and turned to wake the barkeep, but Pelleter said, “Have mine.”