“Any luck?”
Bernard, wiping his face, caught his breath. “The dogs found some blood on the trail and ran down to the lake. They raced around but were stumped. We all thought Phillips was hiding there. Now they’re excited again.”
The dogs were barking loudly at the back of the house and pawing the narrow, crooked door. One of the handlers tried the doorknob. It was locked. Then they both tried. Seeing the inspector, they asked for permission to use force.
Bernard said, “That must be the prune room, boss.”
The inspector scowled at him.
“I found a note tacked up on the kitchen wall with a list of the local market days. Underneath someone had written that the prune room was kept locked at all times and no one was to go in.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me that before?”
“You just got here.”
Mazarelle limped over and, rearing back with his good right leg, kicked the door in. It was dark inside, but he could see there was nobody there.
“Well, well! What have we here?”
The walls were covered with shelves filled with unlabeled, dusty, brown liter bottles. Mazarelle opened one and took a sniff, then a swallow. He wiped off his mustache. Eau-de-vie de prunes, homemade and excellent. “Have some,” he said, handing the bottle around and then, putting back what was left, closed the door.
The inspector soon tired of watching the handlers with their dogs. He asked Bernard to show him the trail of blood. As they walked into the woods, Mazarelle told him that only the three victims had been at Doucette’s the night of the murders. According to Phillips’s wife, he wasn’t feeling well.
“I don’t think so,” Bernard objected. He guessed that it was more likely the two men had had a fight. Phillips was angry. His wife was carrying on with his friend. He didn’t go with them because he didn’t want to go.
“Doucette did mention something about arguments.”
“You see!”
The inspector was amused. Bernard, despite being a solid family man, was still a young stud at heart. Like Georgette, Duboit also thought that Reece and his friend’s wife were lovers. As for himself, Mazarelle saw too many anomalies in the triple homicide to believe this was a
crime passionnel.
“You and Béchoux,” he said.
“What?”
“He thinks Phillips was the murderer too.”
Bernard winced. He knew what his boss thought of the gendarmes.
“I could still be right, you know.”
Mazarelle had a hunch that whether Phillips killed the others or
not, he’d be dead when they found him. Pointing to the dark brown stain on one of the worn wooden planks covering what appeared to be a well, Mazarelle asked if the dogs had stopped here. Bernard nodded. “We looked into the well but didn’t see anything, so no one went down.”
Mazarelle blew out his cheeks in disgust. “Go get me a long heavy rope and a flashlight. Hurry!” he shouted, as he began pulling away the planks. Their job would be that much harder the later it got.
When he uncovered the well, Mazarelle couldn’t tell if it was dry. He knelt down on the ground and peered in, trying to see the bottom, but it was lost in shadows. There was a trickling noise coming from deep inside as if the heart of the earth had a leaky valve. He tossed in a rock and heard a splash. Water—but not much from the sound of it. When Bernard came back he didn’t have a rope at all.
“Where did you get
that
?”
“Up by the pool.” He dumped the heavy coil of green hose on the ground, glad to be rid of it. “I couldn’t find a rope.”
Mazarelle shook his head. Quickly he managed to tie one end around the trunk of a nearby tree. “Where’s the flashlight?”
Duboit was taking it out of his jacket pocket when his boss stopped him. “Keep it. You’ll need it down there.” He tied the other end of the hose around Bernard’s waist, hoping it would hold. “I double knotted it, but don’t let go till you’re down.”
“Me?” It was a touching cry, somewhere between a whine and a bleat.
“Come on, Bernard. We don’t have all day. Move your ass.”
“Why can’t
you
do it?”
“Because I weigh more than one hundred twenty kilos. I’d pull you in after me.”
“You’re stronger than I am.”
“Now you’re getting the idea.” Mazarelle picked up the hose and braced himself to lower the young cop. “Please, Bernard. Don’t try my patience. Just go.”
Clutching the hose with both hands, the white-knuckled Duboit stepped into the well and Mazarelle, hand over hand, slowly lowered him down.
“Not so fast!”
As the coil unwound, Mazarelle feared the hose wasn’t going to be long enough. It was then he felt Bernard touch bottom.
“It’s wet down here.”
The beam of Bernard’s flashlight darted over the surface. Mazarelle followed it, trying to help in the search, when he heard him cry out, “There’s something here …”
“Tell me.”
“Hold on— It’s a knife.”
“Aha!”
“A large one.”
“Don’t touch it! Use the gloves. Put on the gloves first.”
“Okay.”
“Is there another knife, a smaller one, nearby?”
“No. Come on, boss, get me out of here. I’m freezing my ass off.”
Taking pity on his young assistant, the inspector hauled him up with his prize. But it wasn’t a knife at all. To Mazarelle, who had done his military service after the war, it looked more like an old World War II bayonet. A strange murder weapon—if that’s what it was—in 1999. What seemed promising to him, in fact really cheered him up, was that it must have landed at the bottom on a mound of mud, and, despite having been down there for at least several days, the bloodstains on the blade were still visible.
Thibaud returned from the village with a couple of cans of beer but had to leave at once for Toulouse. The inspector’s instructions to the PTS lab were to run fingerprint and DNA tests on the bayonet as soon as possible. Taking a sip of Thibaud’s beer, Mazarelle handed the rest to Duboit, who was talking to Lambert. He glanced toward the barn, where the dogs’ barking had turned leather-lunged and insistent. They had found something.
The three of them hurried inside the barn, where, in the storage room at the back, the dogs excitedly scratched and sniffed at a large wicker basket. No sooner did their handlers throw open the lid than the dogs—their tails whipping back and forth—were up on their
hind legs peering into the basket. It was empty. Without a hint of disappointment or a backward glance, they scampered away.
The inspector started to leave and stopped.
“What’s the matter?” Bernard asked.
Mazarelle, with an effort, got down on his knees. He ran his fingers over the curved scrape marks etched into the stone floor. Breathing heavily, he straightened up and examined the wall behind the wicker basket. Although the door was practically seamless, the outline of it—even in the dim light—was visible if you knew where to look. And the door, he shrewdly realized, was why the basket was bolted to the wall behind. Mazarelle pulled on the handle, but the basket didn’t budge.
“Let me help.”
Mazarelle and Bernard each took an end and tugged at it hard, but they were out of synch. The basket quivered and creaked noisily. The wall to which it was attached appeared solid and unyielding. Although Bernard was eager to try again, Mazarelle brushed him aside. He wrapped his big hands around the handle, planted his legs, and yanked with all his might, falling back as the basket tore away from the wall.
“Salaud!”
Picking himself up with Bernard’s help, he brushed off his clothes and eyed the basket disagreeably. The inspector was certain that the dogs had been on the right track. What they were looking for had to be right behind the basket. But who expects a sealed room with no windows in a barn?
“Give me your flashlight,” he told Bernard, and sent him out to the car to see if there was a floodlight in the trunk.
With the aid of Bernard’s small flashlight, Mazarelle went over every inch of the wall. He tapped sharply on the surface with his fingertips like a doctor checking his patient’s lungs. It sounded hollow—a hollow chamber. Could Phillips still be hiding inside? If there was no other way, Mazarelle was fully prepared to have his men tear down the entire wall.
“Nothing in the trunk,” Bernard announced. “Should I go back to the commissariat and get—”
“Never mind. Come on. There must be another way in.”
Going outside and around to the rear of the barn, Mazarelle
found what he was after. Bernard had said that in Taziac old barns like this one sometimes had granaries, and sure enough there was an outside chute.
“See. I told you.”
“So you did.”
The young cop saw the look on his boss’s face. “Okay, okay, I’m going.” He pulled open the chute and peered in. “Do you think I can fit in there?”
Behind him, Mazarelle drew back. The familiar sickeningly sweet stench that poured out was overpowering. “Like a prick between a
putain
’s legs.”
“Very funny.”
“Here, take this.” The inspector returned his flashlight. “Now hurry. Hurry!”
Putting his head and shoulders into the chute, Bernard inched his way along, crawling through and climbing down. He turned on his flashlight, curious to see what was inside. The place stank like an abattoir. Awful!
“Well?” demanded his boss from outside.
“It stinks in here!”
“I noticed. Hold your nose. Anything else?”
Bernard moved his light beam slowly around the room.
“Well? Well?”
“There’s something here.”
“Okay, okay. What is it?”
Duboit hadn’t spotted the body at first because it was sprawled facedown in a corner. Shouting to his boss, he told him what he’d found and reported that the entrance was bolted from within. Duboit lifted the wooden bar. After much effort, he managed to push open the door. Mazarelle was already there, puffing on his pipe and, wreathed in a cloud of smoke, impatiently waiting to get in.
The light flooding through the open door washed over the blood-splattered floor. Viewed from the back, the motionless figure stretched out on the floor and wearing sandals, chinos, and a blue polo shirt might have been napping. The inspector, holding the man’s rigid arm, turned the body over to see who it was. There was no doubt he was dead.
“Jesus!” The whites of Bernard’s eyes gleamed.
The corpse’s head resembled a swollen pomegranate from which crows had pecked out the crimson berries and eaten one whole side.
“Where’s his face?” Bernard asked.
“Blown away, I’m afraid. A shotgun will do that. And whoever killed him popped off both barrels at point-blank range. He wanted to make damn sure he did the job.”
“You mean you don’t think Phillips killed the others and then committed suicide?”
“Don’t be dumb, Bernard. If it was suicide, where’s the gun? What happened to the cartridges?”
“But the door was barred from the inside. How did the killer get out?”
“Same way you got in—through the chute.”
Duboit wasn’t satisfied. “It doesn’t make any sense. If the killer had a shotgun, why didn’t he use it on the other people he murdered?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps,” Mazarelle suggested, “there were two murderers.”
“You think?”
He shrugged. In any event, he’d been right about Phillips. Mazarelle knew that when they found him Phillips would be dead. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before I lose my appetite.”
“No, wait a minute.” Bernard had an idea. “Maybe this isn’t Phillips at all.”
“It’s him. Didn’t you see the logo on his shirt? ‘Gray Rocks. Mont-Tremblant.’ As we know, Monsieur Phillips is from Montreal. And furthermore …” The inspector reached into Phillips’s right-hand pocket. He tried the left one. Then his two back pockets. When he straightened up, he seemed genuinely disappointed not to have found his wallet, his passport. Nothing was easy in this case.
17
CENTRE HOSPITALIER DE BERGERAC
T
he main hospital in Bergerac was not far from the commissariat, and before work the next day Mazarelle dropped in to see Dr. Langlais. A small man and, despite having slept only a few hours the previous night, ramrod straight. They greeted each other warmly, Langlais’s hand almost lost in the bearish paw of his visitor. Langlais had good news for the inspector, who had mentioned fluoxetine when the body was brought in. Fortunately, as the doctor explained, fluoxetine has a long half-life.
“Which makes a very hard job, of course, somewhat easier.” The body had tested positive for the antidepressant. “I think you may have your missing Phillips.”
“Aha.” Clearly pleased, Mazarelle thanked him for laboring through the night. But before he let the doctor get on with his work, he had one more question.
“Was Phillips murdered before or after the others?”
“Hard to tell. Given the condition of the body, he probably was killed on the twenty-fourth too, the same evening as the others. As for the time, the three of them died shortly after dinner. Based on my tests of their eyes, however, not before ten thirty p.m.”
Close enough. Mazarelle knew it had to be after 10:51 p.m. but held his tongue. He didn’t think the doctor would care for a second opinion.
“As for Monsieur Phillips,” he went on, “my guess is he was murdered before that. In fact, based on the contents of his stomach, I’d say that he didn’t have any dinner at all.”
Which to Mazarelle meant that, despite appearances, the food
Madame Phillips brought back that night from Chez Doucette was never touched by her husband.
“You sure of that?”
Langlais glanced at him in annoyance, but before he could say what he thought, there was a knock at the door. The doctor went to answer it and, obviously impressed, added a dash of sugar to his voice. His visitor had come to see the bodies of the victims. Langlais asked if she knew Inspector Mazarelle.
“Only by reputation.”
He introduced them. Though Mazarelle had had little to do with Christine Leclerc, he certainly knew who she was. A well-dressed, middle-aged woman, her intelligent eyes peered at the world from behind large, round glasses. She was wearing a cerulean Chanel—straight shoulders and indigo buttons down the front—her long black hair pulled back into a tight chignon.
Madame
le
juge
was more chic than most of her colleagues. Her wealthy family owned a shipping company in Bordeaux. He’d heard that she was serious, tough-minded, and had a girlfriend who taught in town at the Conservatoire de Musique. She was also, she told him, the newly appointed investigating magistrate in the L’Ermitage murder case, having just been assigned by the procureur. She too wanted to be kept fully informed of developments.