A World I Never Made

For her unfailing intercession on behalf of all those who seek it, this book is dedicated to

Thérèse Martin, a child of France who died in 1897 at the age of 24 and who, in 1925, became St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to my wife Karen, to my daughters Erica, Adrienne, and Jamie, and to my friends Greg and Joy Ziemak for their unwavering support and their thoughtful and insightful comments. I am also profoundly grateful to my friend and editor, Lou Aronica. This would not have happened without him. Last, a special thank you to my brother Pat for his deep and steadfast loyalty to me and to family.

And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.

A.E. Housman, Last Poems

~1~

PARIS, JANUARY 2, 2004

Dad,

I don’t owe you or anybody an explanation, but I think you’ll appreciate the irony of a suicide note coming from a person who has abborred tradition all of her life. I met a young girl on the street the other day who looked into my eyes and told me that Jesus was waiting for me in heaven. She was fourteen or so, selling flowers on the Street of Flowers, and had the look of a young Madonna. The red roses I bougbt from her were the last thing I saw before pulling the trigger.

If, as you read this, I am actually with Jesus in heaven, I will be one shocked woman. I doubt it, though. Megan Nolan is no more. Go and have yourself anotber daugbter. It’s not too late, and the odds are very good that she will turn out better than I did. If I were famous, I would be joining the long line of suicides known to history. But as it is, in a matter of days, if not hours, my life and death will be as anonymous and as forgotten as a stray breeze.

Megan

P.S. You know how I feel about being buried. Please, no service and a quick cremation. Don’t let me down.

Pat Nolan read the note for the first time sitting in the cramped office of Assistant Chief Inspector Geneviève LeGrand at the Seventh Arrondissement Police Prefecture on Rue Fabert. When he was finished, he looked over at Madame LeGrand, sitting across from him at her cluttered desk.

“One less hegemonic, imperialist American pig to worry about,” he said.

“Pardon?”

Pat shook his head, and then watched as the bored look on the middle-aged inspector’s face—she was perhaps fifty or fifty-five-was replaced, in quick succession, by a widening of the eyes in surprise, their narrowing in concentration, and finally a slight smile.

“You are perhaps weary from your traveling, Monsieur Nolan,” she said, looking at him with what seemed to be a bit more interest than when he first entered her office and accepted her invitation to sit.

Pat was, in fact, jet-lagged. He had arrived in Paris from New York the morning before, slept as if drugged all day, and then, when he went out looking for a late dinner, got caught up in a walkabout involving thousands of beautifully dressed Parisians celebrating the New Year. His inner clock reversed, he had managed to fall asleep at seven AM for an hour before having to get up for his nine olock meeting with Inspector LeGrand.

“I must be:”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you:”

“I am sorry for your loss:”

Pat nodded his head, keeping his acknowledgment of this declaration as perfunctory as its delivery.

“I will not keep you long:”

“You have a job to do:”

“Yes, I do. The note is in your daughter’s hand?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know she was ill, Monsieur Nolan?”

“No.”

“She had last stage ovarian cancer. She would have been dead in another few weeks. You did not know this?”

The police building, which looked to Nolan like a church, was a three-story affair located about a block from the Seine. Assistant Chief Inspector LeGrand’s corner office was on the third floor. Through the window behind her, Pat could see one of the bridges that crossed the river. It also looked like a church, or rather the type of bridge that a church would have if it needed one. Next to the bridge on the near bank stood a large tree. Settled on its numerous leafless branches were, he estimated, two hundred crows or black birds of some sort. Some watched a barge pass slowly under the bridge, others seemed to be staring directly at him. Megan had decided as a teenager that the crow—arrogant, malicious, intelligent, cunning—was her totem. He wondered, collecting his thoughts, remembering his only child, if she was sitting in that tree. If she was, was she looking at the barge or at him?

“No, I didn’t.”

“Autopsies are required in France for all cases that are possible homicides. You understand it had to be done quickly in case the entry wound was inconsistent with suicide. We would want to start searching for the killer as soon as possible:”

“I understand:”

“There appears to be no doubt that she was a suicide. Our investigation is almost complete. I have only to ask you one or two questions:”

“Go ahead:”

“Do you know why she came to France?”

“She was a writer. She could work anywhere. She loved Paris:”

“Did you know she was living in Morocco?”

“No.” Though he had spoken to Megan on Christmas day, prior to that he had not seen or spoken to her since the Christmas before. They were in Rome at the time. and she had told him then that she was thinking of heading to Sicily and possibly North Africa.“I take it she was:”

“She had a Moroccan diplomatic visa:”

“What is that, exactly?”

“It is issued by their minister of Foreign Affairs. It allows a person to stay indefinitely in Morocco. It appears that she was there for some four months. Did she know people there?”

“Not that I know of.”

“She must have known someone very important to have secured such a visa. They are rarely issued to anyone outside the highest diplomatic circles:”

“Have you made inquiries in Rabat?”

Pat watched Inspector LeGrand’s eyes narrow again. He could almost hear her thoughts:
A semi-intelligent question coming from this American cowboy? Did he actually know that Rabat was Morocco’s capital?
Under different circumstances, it might have bothered him that he was perceived as a caricature by the haughty and bored Frenchwoman sitting across from him. As it was, he just wanted to get to the end of the interview as quickly as possible, to get the identification of Megan’s body over with, and to figure out privately how it was he was supposed to grieve.