The Paris Directive (11 page)

“My mobile? Sure, boss, you want it?”

He dialed Dr. Langlais, the forensic pathologist in Bergerac, who handled autopsies for the police. When Langlais got on the phone, the inspector told him what he wanted. Langlais didn’t recall, but he said he’d check Reece’s pockets. It took a while until he finally came back.

“No,” he said. “Keys but no wallet. Anything else?”

“The murder weapon. How would you describe it?”

“I think there were two.”

“Huh—?”

“One maybe a large double-edge hunting knife—very long. The other smaller, sharper, and pointed like a dagger.”

“And the time of death?”

“All three died about the same time. Based upon the temperature and rigor of the bodies when I examined them the following day, I’d say they probably died some time before midnight of the twenty-fourth.
But I can do better than that for you after I’ve run the potassium tests on their eyes. I’ve got a lot more work to do.”

The inspector paused. “Anything unusual about the bodies?”

“The violence.” The doctor’s answer came back with the speed of a blistering net volley return. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Whoever killed them was right-handed and incredibly strong. A killer in complete command of his weapons. In each case, he cut through the carotid arteries and the trachea in a single blow. The murdered man’s throat was torn open so deeply that his head was nearly severed from his body. The chest wounds delivered so powerfully that four of his ribs were fractured. But that wasn’t enough for this killer. There were twenty-three stab wounds in the male victim alone. A few no deeper than pinpricks. He seemed to want to torture his victims first, as if he relished inflicting pain on them. Or perhaps he was after information and didn’t want to kill them immediately.”

“What about the women?”

“They weren’t raped, if that’s what you mean.”

“What about their legs? The cuts?”

“Their Achilles tendons were sliced in two. They couldn’t run away even if they wanted to.”

“Their feet were taped together,” the inspector reminded him.

Langlais didn’t like being corrected. “I’ve got to go,” he said, and hung up.

If it was information that the murderer wanted, what information was he after? The missing wallet of Monsieur Reece pointed Mazarelle in a familiar direction. Phillips wasn’t the only one who had disappeared since the murders.

“Where are we going now, boss?” Bernard asked.

“I’m going to see Georgette Chambouvard. As for you, my friend, you’re going to stay right here and go over every inch of this place inside and out until you find me a couple of murder weapons. I’ll be back.”

On the way out, he told Thibaud and Lambert to be on the lookout for Ali Sedak, the handyman. “If he shows up, keep him here. I’ll be back soon.”

Madame Chambouvard announced that Georgette would be down in a little while. Her daughter hadn’t been feeling well ever since she discovered the dead body. And madame herself hadn’t slept a wink. Who would believe such a horrible thing could happen in Taziac?

“And such nice people. Do you know yet who killed them, Inspector?”

“Not yet.”

She asked if he cared for a cup of coffee and led the way into the dining room. It was small, spartan, and subfusc with a dark wooden chest for dishes and a heavy wooden table and chairs. The one picture on the wall was a framed sepia-colored marriage photograph—the bearded groom seated stiff as cardboard, his bride standing beside him. From the sunlit adjoining kitchen with its white walls wafted the delicious aroma of peaches stewing on the stove. Mazarelle had often seen madame in the village. As for her daughter, he didn’t actually know her but had heard stories. A promising triathlete who had been dumped from competition for taking andros and EPOs as freely as vitamins.

Georgette, when she came down, was as tall as her mother. She had lines under her eyes, her face was drawn. She shook the inspector’s hand and huskily complained that she had already told the police all she knew. Mazarelle noted the deep voice; her thin, muscular arms; the acne on her cheeks. At least she hadn’t yet lost her hair to the steroids or, worse yet, gotten cancer. He felt sorry for the intense young woman, hoped that she wasn’t still taking the little blue pills in pursuit of her dream.

Mazarelle said he’d only a few more questions, but before he could ask the first she began talking nonstop—describing how she had found the house locked up when she arrived, the shutters closed, and thought that everyone was still asleep. How she’d gone in through the back door and started to work, cleaning up the dining room table where the four of them had been drinking, and how it wasn’t until she went into the kitchen and found Monsieur Reece on the floor, trussed up like a turkey, his blood-smeared face staring
up at her with one ear hanging down by a thread, that she’d raced to get help.

The inspector, who had heard the outside door slam and the heavy footsteps approaching, turned to see Chambouvard in the doorway. He made a lot of noise for a man his size. Working in the field, the farmer had spotted the police car turning into his driveway and hurried back to the house. He’d had enough of the gendarmes hassling his daughter, first about drugs and now this. They were nosy, pushy, and always ended up costing him time or money or both.

“What now?” he demanded.

“It’s okay, Papa. Only a few questions.”

“Why don’t you go find the murderer and leave us alone?”

The inspector rubbed his mustache and shook his head like a man with few options. “I can do this one of two ways. Either here or at the commissariat in Bergerac. Which would you prefer, mademoiselle?”

“Okay, okay.” Her father knew when he was beaten. “Get on
with it.”

Mazarelle wanted to know whether Ali was working that morning at L’Ermitage when Georgette arrived. She said she didn’t see him, and as for the day before, she had no idea because she wasn’t there. He came and went as he pleased.

Chambouvard interrupted. “I know when he left. I was on my tractor working late that night in the fields and saw his car leave about ten or ten thirty.”

“Could it have been a little later?”

“Maybe. I don’t wear a watch and I don’t punch a clock. But one thing I know for sure is that old white bug he drives.”

Mazarelle turned to Georgette and asked if there were any hunting knives at L’Ermitage. She folded her arms defensively and told him no knives, no guns. The only knives were the ones in the kitchen.

“How did the two couples get along?”

“If you mean was anything going on between them the answer is yes. I’d say so. Monsieur Reece and Madame Schuyler loved the sun. They were always up at the pool together, sunning themselves.”

The inspector’s bushy right eyebrow rose like a circumflex.

“So what?”

“Naked.”

The way she said it clearly indicated that she didn’t care to say any more on the subject or need to—especially while her father was watching her like the pope. Interesting, Mazarelle thought, but hardly decisive. He chalked it up to a romantic young woman and an overheated imagination thunderous with heavy breathing. The last question he asked before leaving was whether Georgette happened to notice if any of the four visitors owned a cell phone.

“Monsieur Schuyler. His wife complained about it all the time.”

16

CHEZ DOUCETTE, TAZIAC

T
he restaurant’s parking lot was almost empty when Mazarelle pulled in. The last two lunchtime customers were just leaving, one man holding the other by the arm and talking nonstop as they stood in the sun out front beside the small stone fountain. The inspector had picked a good time to speak to Doucette. He found him in the back room with his wife, rubbing his eyes. Looking up, Doucette quickly put his glasses back on and, seeing who it was, took the inspector’s hand. He asked how he was and poured him a glass of wine. His wife nodded a silent greeting.

Though Sandrine Doucette had nothing against the policeman, she’d never cared for his wife. They had gone to high school together and Sandrine thought Martine was a snob. Too good for Sandrine and her friends and Taziac. And wild too. It didn’t surprise her at all that as soon as Martine got knocked up, she’d dropped out of school and left for Paris to get an abortion. She had always talked about living in Paris. What Sandrine didn’t expect was that one day she’d marry a cop and come back.

Mazarelle took the bill out of his pocket and asked Doucette if he recalled the four foreigners. Of course he remembered them. They were good customers who’d come several times since they arrived in Taziac. Lovely people. He called their deaths a tragedy and an awful thing for the village. The frightening news all over the newspapers, the TV. He’d heard that reservations had already been canceled at the Fleuri, which was the only hotel in town. Though Chez Doucette was a popular restaurant, he was sure business would suffer if the killer wasn’t caught soon.

“Any new developments, Inspector?”

Mazarelle shook his head and pointed to the time on the bill. “Was that when the four of them left?”

“Three.”

The inspector looked at him.

“They had a reservation for four, but only three of them came. Madame Phillips said that her husband wasn’t feeling well. That’s why she took home some dinner for him.”

“I see. And the time?”

“Yes, around eleven. That would be about right.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about them that night?”

“No, they all seemed to be having a good time. There was some discussion about who was going to drive home because Monsieur Reece had ordered a second bottle of wine, but there was nothing unusual about that.”

Mazarelle recalled thinking when Reece came to his office that if he kept up the drinking, by the time his vacation was over his liver would look like a lace tea bag. But the way things turned out, Reece had nothing to worry about from alcohol. Go figure.

Sandrine said, “I think he gave his wife the car keys before leaving.”

“How did the two men get along?”

Madame deferred to her husband.

“Fine. They were friends,” he said, and shrugged. “Oh, once or twice they had their little arguments, but that happens with friends. And frankly it’s hard for me to imagine anyone being angry with Phillips very long. Even the night his friend got into a loud fight with the young people at the next table, Monsieur Phillips was able to smooth things over. I can’t believe he’s responsible for this.”

“We’ll know more when we find him. What were they fighting about?”

The restaurant owner shrugged. “The usual. The noise they were making.”

“Who were these young people? Did you know them?”

“Never saw them before in my life.”

Returning to the house of the dead, Mazarelle noted the long black-velvet shadows cast by the trees on the front lawn of L’Ermitage and glanced at his watch. He hoped that the techies from Toulouse had shown up by now.

“Come and gone,” Lambert replied, standing at the door. “They filled up their little bags with goodies and went home. The dogs you ordered from Civil Protection are still here. Thibaud went to get us some coffee.”

“Where’s Bernard?”

“With the dogs.”

Mazarelle glanced at the shutters and recalled what Georgette had said about finding them closed and the door locked. The murderer had taken pains to make it seem as if no one was inside. Giving him more time to get away before the bodies were discovered. The cars of his victims couldn’t be seen from the road. What he didn’t count on, or perhaps forgot, was that Georgette would arrive early the next morning. Mazarelle would have felt much more comfortable if they’d recovered Phillips’s passport along with the others.

He heard the barking before he saw the dogs. Two large German shepherds bounded out of the woods, each straining against the leash of its handler. Bernard brought up the rear, trotting behind them and puffing hard to keep up, his face red and sweaty with his effort. A young man like that, Mazarelle thought. He sounds like an old Soviet tractor. He needs more exercise. He should be in better shape.