The Twenty-Year Death (7 page)

Meranger’s few possessions had been dumped into a box on the bed from when Fournier had made his own investigation. There were three books—a bible and two mystery novels—a travel chess set, odd-shaped stones most likely found in the yard below, a dried flower, and a small bundle of letters tied with a string.

The letters were all in the same feminine hand, although it had grown more assured over the years. There were four letters in total. The most recent letter was from only two months prior:

Father,

It’s unfair of you to be so demanding. You don’t know what it costs me to make those visits or to even write these letters. Every time I tell myself that this will be the last, that I can not take it anymore. I remind myself of what you have done and all the reasons I have to hate you, and I make new resolutions. But I still fear you, and I still wish to please you, and all I end up doing is reprimanding myself.

You must believe though that my husband would be enraged if you were to contact me or even if he knew that I contacted you. He treats me like a dream, but he can still be a rash man.

I will not promise to visit you again or even to write, but you must know that you are in my thoughts. And I will be here in Verargent when you are on the outside. You shall see. As you said, your little girl is all grown up now already.

Clotilde-ma-Fleur

The other letters were much the same. A photograph had been inserted in one of them, of a couple standing with a young girl. The woman looked much like Madame Rosenkrantz, and Pelleter figured that it was Clotilde-ma-Fleur’s mother.

He refolded the letters along their much-folded creases, and put them back into the box. He bent down and checked beneath the bed, beneath the toilet, and ran his hands along the walls. Then he stepped out of the cell. “Right,” he said. “It was as you said.”

Fournier looked up from his clipboard. “Of course,” he said.

Letreau tried to catch Pelleter’s eye, but Pelleter put on an air of one who was wasting his time and was ready to leave.

Fournier started to lead them back the way they had come, but they hadn’t gone two steps when a voice said, “Hello, Pelleter.”

The three men stopped, and Pelleter looked at the door to the cell beside the one they had just been in. A smiling face was visible in the small window in the door.

“How is Madame Pelleter?”

It was Meranger’s neighbor: Mahossier.

In the police car in front of the prison, Letreau turned to Pelleter before starting the engine. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

Pelleter stared straight ahead at the prison walls. The sun had come up fully, and now, with the last traces of the rain burned away, even the prison appeared gayer in the light. “Was Meranger slashed or stabbed?” Pelleter said.

“Stabbed. More than once.”

Letreau waited, but the inspector remained silent.

“Pelleter, talk to me. I appreciate that you’ve chosen to help, but this is still my responsibility.”

“Start the car. We should get back to town. It’s time to eat.”

Letreau sighed and started the car. The pavement on the road had dried to a slate gray. Puddles of rainwater in the fields reflected the sun, little patches of light dotting the fields.

Pelleter pulled a cheap oilcloth-covered notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “This is what we know...
Tuesday, April 4, just after eight PM: A man is found dead in the gutter by Monsieur Benoît outside of his house. At first it is believed that he drowned in rainwater while drunk, but it is later discovered that he had been stabbed several times and then had his clothing changed to hide the wounds
.”

“Or to hide that he was a prisoner. He would have been wearing his grays.”

Pelleter went on: “
Wednesday morning the murderer Mahossier
claims that the prisoners at Malniveau are being systematically murdered, and that he doesn’t feel safe.
”

“Wait a second.”

“
The dead man turns out to be Marcel Meranger, a prisoner at Malniveau Prison.
”

“Wait one second. Is that what Mahossier told you? Then do you think that this Meranger murder is tied up in something larger?”

“I don’t think anything. This is just what we know.
Wednesday night Meranger’s daughter Madame Rosenkrantz says that she knows nothing about her father’s murder. She claims at first to have nothing to do with him, then to have visited him on occasion. Her letters are found in Meranger’s cell.

“
Thursday morning another prisoner is knifed at the prison... Nobody can agree on the number of prisoners stabbed or killed in the last month.
” Pelleter closed his notebook and put it away. “And that’s it, which is nothing.” He said it with the bitterness of a man who has failed at a simple task.

“Somebody had to have gotten Meranger out of prison whether it was before or after he was killed. If we could figure that out, then we might know a lot more.”

Pelleter didn’t answer. Instead he reached into his pocket, retrieved his cigar, and smoked in a restless silence without enjoying it.

Suddenly, he said, “What do you think of Fournier?”

Letreau shifted in his seat. “You know what I think of Fournier. I could wring his neck. Although really until today, I didn’t know anything about him. He’s only been here a few months. He came from another prison, and the word was that he is extremely good at what he does...But I don’t know. The prison really is its own entity.”

“You said the men who work there live in town,” Pelleter said.

“It’s as if there’s a wall of silence somewhere along this road. Sometimes things get said, and others...” He shrugged. “If only the warden were here. This Fournier seems intent on blocking us out at every step. That’s what I think.”

“And the warden?”

“He’s brutish and controlling. He started at the bottom, so administration might not be his forte, but he’s been there forever, and the prison gets run.”

Pelleter nodded, considering this.

“What are you thinking? That the staff has something to do with all of this? These are prison stabbings. They happen. This wouldn’t even be our problem if it wasn’t for this body in town.”

“I’m not thinking anything. I’m just trying to understand. What can you tell me about the American author? Do you think he would have killed his father-in-law?”

“Rosenkrantz? He keeps to himself mostly. That’s why he chose to move out here, as far as I understand. He was part of the American scene in the city for many years, getting his photograph taken at bars, drinking until sunrise. He produces a book every year or two, and they’re apparently big sellers back in the States. He can seem loud, but I always figured that’s because he’s American. Clotilde caused him to settle down. She means everything to him.”

“Enough to kill for.”

“I don’t know. Somehow I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“He’s all bark and no bite.”

“So we still know nothing.”

“We know that one man’s dead,” Letreau said. “There’s that.”

“There’s that,” Pelleter said like it was a curse.

The mud-drenched fields made the whole countryside appear dirty.

Letreau looked over at the inspector, but Pelleter was lost deep in thought again, a scowl on his face.

The town had come alive in the sunshine. There seemed to be an impossible number of people on the streets, hurrying from shop to shop, sitting out in the center of the square along the base of the war monument. The café where Pelleter took lunch had every seat filled, and the inspector had to sit on one of three stools at the counter.

Letreau had returned to the station in order to see about his other duties.

Pelleter ate with his back to the crowd. Occasionally he would hear the name Benoît, and he knew that the town was discussing the murder, but the tone was of idle gossip, with little regard for the reality of the crime.

The man beside him pushed his plate back, and stood up, and another man took the seat immediately.

“Inspector Pelleter?” the man said. He sat sideways on the seat and had a notebook and pencil in hand. “Philippe Servières, reporter with the
Verargent Vérité
. Could I ask you a few questions about the Meranger murder?”

“No,” Pelleter said without looking at the man.

“What about what you’re doing in town? You arrived before the body was discovered. Was there another matter you were investigating?”

Pelleter drank from his glass and then pushed back his plate.

“I know that you and Chief Letreau have made two trips to the prison already, and that the warden has left town. This
sounds like something that’s bigger than just Verargent. Malniveau is a national prison after all. The people have a right to know.”

Pelleter stood up, turned to the reporter, and stopped short. It was the man from the hallway last night.

“You...”

The man flinched as though the inspector had made a move to hit him. “I had to try,” he said.

“Try what?” Pelleter growled.

“If you would talk about an old case, even out of anger, maybe you would talk about the new case too.”

The man was a small-town reporter, practically an amateur. He mistook Pelleter for an amateur too. “I know you’re doing your job, but you better let me do mine.”

Pelleter called the proprietor over and settled his bill.

The reporter stood too. “I’m going to write this story for a special evening edition either way. You might as well get your say in it.”

Pelleter gave him one last look, which silenced him, and then the inspector went out into the street.

He crossed the square. People went about their daily business. It was as Letreau had said: the town seemed unaware that twenty miles away there was another community where somebody had just been attacked that morning. The newspaperman hadn’t even mentioned the knifing.

He turned the corner at Town Hall to go to the police station, and as he did a figure jumped out from between two of the police cars parked at the curb and rushed Pelleter.

Pelleter turned to face his attacker, and was able to register the face just in time to not draw his weapon.

“I warned you, damn it!” Monsieur Rosenkrantz said, forcing
Pelleter back against the wall without touching him. His face was red, and he leaned forward, crowding Pelleter, his chest and shoulders pushed out.

Pelleter watched the American writer for any signs that he would actually turn violent. He remembered that Letreau had said all bark and no bite.

“I told you to stay away from her. That she had nothing to say.”

“She came to me,” Pelleter said.

“I told you!” Rosenkrantz leaned even further forward, and then he pulled himself away, spinning in place and punching the air. “Damn it!” he said in English. Then he turned back to Pelleter, and said in French, “She didn’t come home last night. Clotilde is missing.”

Pelleter watched the American writer pace the sidewalk in front of him, full of nervous energy. The inspector stayed on his guard, but it soon became clear that Rosenkrantz’s violence, like at the house the day before, was entirely auditory. There was no danger.

“Come, let’s go inside,” Pelleter said.

Rosenkrantz shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you. They won’t let me make a report anyway, it’s too soon.”

“Has she ever run away before?”

Rosenkrantz jerked towards him. “She hasn’t run away.” Then his manner eased again. “When she got home yesterday from her shopping, I told her that you had come around...She insisted on going to see you. She was in a panic. She was convinced that her father must be dead.”

Pelleter nodded.

“I know now that he is, but then...Well, good, I hated the man for all that he put Clotilde through as a girl, for what he did to her mother. He deserved to die. I hope he suffered...But last night, I told Clotilde to not get involved...That it only ever upset her, and that she should stay home...It was raining still... But she went out anyway.”

“I saw her.”

“Was she upset?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Rosenkrantz shook his head. “That’s Clotilde. You can’t always know.”

“Does she have friends she would stay with? The hotel?”

“I checked. Both. No one has seen her.”

The two men looked at each other. Neither said what they were both thinking, that it would be easy for her to have gotten on the train and to be almost anywhere by now.

“Do you think that she hated her father?” Pelleter asked.

“If you’re suggesting that Clotilde might have killed the old man, you can forget it. She can’t kill a fly.”

“But if she thought she were in danger, or if she were angry...”

“No,” Rosenkrantz said, shaking his head and frowning. “You met her. She’s so small, and gentle, and quiet. Like I said, you hardly ever even know what she’s feeling, she just keeps to herself...” The American writer’s eyes got soft. “She’s practically a kid. She’s never run away before...”

Pelleter nodded. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Rosenkrantz’s eyes flashed and his fists closed, his rage returning. “Listen you...” But then he swallowed it back, taking a deep breath. “Thank you,” he said.

Pelleter turned to go into the police station, and Rosenkrantz grabbed him by the arm. Pelleter looked back, and this time the American writer just looked sad and scared. He let go of Pelleter’s sleeve, and Pelleter went into the station.

A country woman in the waiting area looked up at Pelleter with an imploring, forlorn expression that did not see him.

This was a police station face. It was the same everywhere.

The inspector went behind the counter and into Letreau’s office.

“Rosenkrantz was just here,” Letreau said, running his hand through his hair, which only caused him to look more harried.

“I saw him outside.”

“Now the girl’s missing.”

Pelleter took a seat.

“I don’t like this. Things are happening too fast. There was apparently a reporter around here earlier. One of our local men. The
Vérité
is usually a weekly paper, but they’re putting out a special edition about this business. I think my boys know not to talk, but who knows...Do you think we should worry about it?”