Theory of Remainders (46 page)

“Ah, that’s right,” the old man was saying, finally recognizing the name. “It is the Hesse family. They lived here for quite a long time. Young Bertrand, he was never . . .”

While Bécot trailed off in reminiscences, an idea began to crystallize in Philip’s mind. Hesse. S. He’d separated these words by the thinnest of sounds, the breath of the H, that most vanishing of letters. Édouard Morin’s words played back in his ear, every S abuzz, sentence after sentence. But there was static in these recollections, interference from Bécot’s voice in the background. The old man was still talking about the family, something about a woman named Gisèle, and then a man called Julien.

“Good Yvetot people, they were,” he said.

Bécot had known them, of course. After all, he knew everyone in town, past and present.

But the S of Hesse was too miraculous to be an accident. It called to Philip like a siren’s song, an SOS. “Where do they live?” he said, interrupting the old man. “Here in town, or out in the country?”

“Live?” Bécot looked astonished. “Why, they live nowhere, Monsieur Adler. Did you not hear what I said? They are all in Saint-Louis.”

Philip narrowed his eyes. Saint Louis was the king who dispensed justice under an oak tree. Guérin had told them where they might find sculptures of him. “What do you mean?” Philip pressed. “That they all moved to America?”

“
Non, non
.” The old man brushed away this idea with both hands, as if shooing a cat. “They are in Saint-Louis,” he said, nodding toward the south. “The cemetery. Julien Hesse, he was the last of them. It’s what I tell you all the time. Yvetot is dying.”

Hesse. Saint-Louis cemetery, the crosses, the Calvary.

“Monsieur Bécot, I need a flashlight.”

The old man’s mole eyes glimmered at Philip behind his glasses. “Whatever for?”

“I have one more stop to make, if there’s time.”

Bécot heaved himself out of the chair and trudged behind the reception counter, pulling out a yellow plastic flashlight. He flicked it on and off. “How extraordinary! It works!” he said, handing it to Philip, who was already making for the door.

Across the Place des Belges Philip nearly ran into another man on the walk, one of the regulars from the
Tord-boyaux
. It was the tweed-capped mayor. The man slowed to examine him before tipping the brim of his hat and moving on down the walk. So much for anonymity, even in the dark. He soon followed in the same direction, but as he rounded the corner, there was the mayor again, now standing under a streetlamp, speaking to, of all people, Hervé Legrand. Philip shrank back into the shadows as he watched the two men converse, the man from Yvetot nodding to the one from Rouen, saying
oui, oui
, and then gesturing off into the distance. The mayor was sending Hervé in the wrong direction, and Hervé thanked him enthusiastically for the misinformation.

This small act of charity would buy him a little time. He hurried across the road and headed south. He knew the route. Crossing the main thoroughfare, he curved around behind the church. From there it was a straight shot south, leading to the place he knew all too well. Soon, against the dark sky, the shadow of the giant tree rose before him. Saint-Louis at the foot of an oak.

Under the blackness of the branches Philip could scarcely make out the movement of his own hands. The cemetery gate was locked for the night, but he hoisted himself up on the stone ledge, felt for places to grip, then swung over the metal grating on top, catching his left thigh on a spur of wrought iron. He stifled a cry and let himself drop down. Rising from his crouch on the gravel, he felt the side of his leg. The fabric was torn, the leg tender, gouged.

The cemetery was dark but not black. The moonlight illuminated the sea of stone vessels, crosses listing to the right or left like the masts of sea-tossed ships. He had a rough idea where to look. He had passed it before, had walked on the very spot. Following the path between the rows of tombs, he limped by the war monument, where the flaking statue of the angel of death rose above him in the beam of his flashlight. Further and further back he went, finally turning at the maintenance shed, past the tomb of Anne-Madeleine, all the way to the reddish stone he knew so well.
Sophie Marie Adler, 4 février 1979–2 juillet 1993
.

That was the center. What he sought would be to the side, or a little in front. He didn’t remember exactly. One by one he swept the flashlight over the names on stones as he spiraled outward, widening the radius of his search, his leg throbbing.

In the distance came the pulsing wail of a siren. Rouen must have been putting pressure on Boucher.

He checked his thigh in the beam of light. The cloth was saturated, glistening with blood. But he pushed forward, extending the search one more row, and then another beyond that. He fanned out the beam of his light to read the names of the tombs on either side.

And then he found it, a family vault, the one he had seen before, the name
Hesse
chiseled in tall, broad letters at the top. The last name on the list read
Julien Hesse, décédé le 27 mai 1993
. This was what had caught his attention days earlier, because of the date, the same year as Sophie’s death, just weeks before. And here it was, only twenty yards from her grave.

As he hobbled back to the maintenance shed, beams from headlights splashed over the stone wall at the far end of the cemetery. Brakes squealed to a stop and car doors slammed. That would be Hervé, along with his helpers. The gate rattled.

Philip rifled through the tools in the shed, selecting a hoe. Back at the Hesse tomb he worked to pry the metal edge into the seam between the stone lid and the base. As he leaned into it, the pain seared in his leg and he stopped to clamp his hand over the wound, feeling lightheaded.

He returned to his task, forgetting even the throbbing now. He shoved harder with the hoe, finally thrusting the tip under the edge of stone, working the handle like a lever. With a grunt, he lifted the slab a fraction of an inch and heaved it to the right, leaving it askew. Dropping his tool, he placed his right foot at the corner of the stone, leaned and shoved, trying again, throwing all his weight into it. Finally the slab ground across the surface of the sepulcher, sliding halfway open, enough to reveal the black cavity.

Voices sounded from the far end of the cemetery and lights bobbed in the distance. Dusting his hands on his trousers, he picked Bécot’s flashlight up off the ground. He paused for a last moment, looking into the night sky, then tipped the beam of the light down, shining it into the cavity. And he looked.

Whatever else one might think, you had to admire the genius of it. Nothing was out of place, Édouard Morin had insisted. At least, not beyond a certain tolerance.

Because the Hesse grave had already been disturbed for another funeral just weeks before Sophie’s death, no one would have noticed the signs of Morin’s additional deposit in July of that same year. And because Julien Hesse was the last member of his family, no one was going to disturb this vault again for a very long time.

Morin had hidden Sophie Marie Adler in the one place they would never think to look. He had put her where she belonged. Almost. Just a stone’s throw away. Within eyeshot.

Twenty-Six

He woke in the middle of the night in a large and unfamiliar bed. Across the room the wind teased the gauze curtain over an open window. A hint of moonlight glinted on one wall, the corners lost in shadows. It wasn’t the room at La Cauchoise. Was he in Boston? Then came a groan of rafters overhead, the creak of a branch rubbing against the house, and he knew. The room was emptier, quieter than it should have been. His leg hurt. He slid his hand toward the right, finding only cold mattress. Where was Yvonne? Perhaps upstairs, checking on Sophie?

The double wrongness of this thought troubled him as he slipped back into sleep.

It was the throbbing of the leg that woke him the next time. Now the room was bright. He recognized the dresser, the shelving, the pictures on the wall. It was the guest bedroom in the Aubert home. Beyond the closed door, from down the hallway, low voices sounded.

He thought to get up, but the deep ache in his thigh put an end to this plan, and he flopped back onto the pillow.

The memory of the previous night returned.

The voices had stopped, and Philip heard footsteps approach. When the door cracked open it was Roger’s face that appeared, showing a hint of concern that dissolved into a smirk.

“Aha,” he said. “The mummy wakes.”

“I’m afraid so.” His voice was thick. “What time is it?”

Roger slipped in. “Nearly noon. I’m glad to see you’re finally adopting the French work schedule.”

“I slept eleven hours?”

“It’s the painkillers, don’t you think? How’s the leg? Do you need another serving?”

At first Philip declined, but as he shifted again, he gasped. It was like a blade plunging into the muscle.

Roger picked up the pillbox from the night table, and rolled a tablet onto his palm. “I thought I might be able to sell you another one.”

Philip took it without protest. “Who’s out there?” he asked.

“Francis Boucher. And Yvonne. Beauty and the Beast—though not necessarily in that order. Do you feel up to seeing them?”

“I think so.”

Roger stopped at the door, paused, and turned back to Philip. “That was a good thing you did, you know. A hell of a good thing.”

The brigadier came in first, looking as bashful as always, his cap in his hands. “Good morning, Monsieur Adler. How are you feeling?”

“Better than last night.”

“That’s the Vicodin,” Roger said. “Narcotics are such a wonderful invention.”

“What’s the news, Francis?” Philip asked.

“Well, we’ve been busy,” Boucher began. “According to the coroner, those are almost certainly your daughter’s remains.”

Philip nodded. “When I saw the healed break in the bone, I knew what I was looking at.”

“They’re running some additional tests, just to be sure,” Roger added. “It’s a waste of time, of course, but it turns out there are protocols for this sort of thing, aren’t there, Francis?”

“That’s right, Monsieur Aubert. Unfortunately. It’s all from Rouen, you know.”

Philip raised himself up, and offered his hand to Boucher. “Thank you for your help.”

“Oh, I didn’t do very much.”

“I hope I haven’t landed you in hot water with your superiors.”

Boucher grinned. “I try not to worry about them, Monsieur Adler. Besides, Monsieur Legrand isn’t pressing any charges. How could he, given the circumstances?”

Roger chimed in. “I’d been hoping for a little tarring and feathering, in keeping with that grand American tradition. But it appears I’ll be disappointed.”

Between the shoulders of the two men, Philip caught sight of Yvonne in the doorway. Roger and Francis went quiet, eyeing each other.

“Say,” Roger said to Philip. “How’d you like something to eat? A piece of toast to go with your drugs?” He was already headed out.

“Would you like a hand with that, Monsieur Aubert?” Boucher called as he darted after him.

They spoke for a long time. After the first halting descriptions of the previous night, they turned instead to remembrance. A burden had lifted, and Philip found there was pleasure to be had in conjuring up portions of the past. The memories were still there, preserved under their dust covers. It was possible to peel back a flap from time to time and expose them to light.

Strangely, the discovery of Sophie’s remains now seemed unimportant to him. It was at most a kind of tidying up. All the hard work had come before.

And then, for a longer time, after words were exhausted, they sat quietly in the old bedroom. The pill Roger had given him made him drowsy, and he slipped in and out of consciousness. Each time he came to—a minute later? an hour?—Yvonne was still there, sitting on the edge of the bed or in the chair, or standing by the window.