The Paris Directive (18 page)

Mazarelle announced that the medical examiner had been notified that they were coming. Then he looked at Molly and appeared to have second thoughts. “I’m afraid it’s not very pretty over there. You understand, mademoiselle: it’s a morgue, not a funeral home. The sights and smells can be difficult at times even for trained professionals like me. Are you sure you want to go ahead with this? You don’t have to. We have photographs,” he revealed, and was pleased to see that pictures seemed to appeal to her. “Yes, that’s it. We could do it with photographs,
n’est-ce pas
?”

Molly shook her head firmly. “I didn’t come all the way here to see pictures. Let’s go.”

In the hospital morgue, which smelled oppressively of chemicals, Dr. Langlais had taken the two bodies out for viewing. They’d been placed on tables behind a faded green curtain. He cautioned Molly not to disturb the sheets that covered them up to their chins. Then without ceremony, he drew back the curtain, and there side by side under the cold fluorescent light lay her parents as motionless as if their heads—her father’s swathed in a towel—were chiseled in stone on top of a sepulchre. The last time she’d seen them alive was when they were preboarding their plane at JFK. Then she’d watched the wing and taillights twinkling festively as the plane took off and was sucked up into the darkening sky. The vacation from hell, she thought.

Molly stepped closer, terribly moved by her father’s stillness, his scruffy cheeks, his five-o’clock shadow. Her dad, who prided himself on his immaculate grooming—always freshly shaved, even on weekends. She asked herself, When does the hair finally stop growing, when does the body notify the follicles that it’s all over? The one present she’d ever given him that he actually loved was the gold soap bowl and badger brush from Jagger’s in England.

She wondered if her mother was wearing the silver necklace that Molly had bought her for her last birthday. Her very last. Her
mom, who had sworn that she’d never take it off. Whenever they got together, she’d worn it, even at the airport when they were saying their final good-byes. The sudden realization that she was an orphan now was a cold chill that pierced her heart. Leaning forward toward her mother, Molly reached for the sheet and drew it down.

“No, no!” called Dr. Langlais.

Molly jerked back, turning away from her mother’s slashed neck and, as her eyes darted about the room looking for a safe place to rest, she uttered a cry so heartfelt, her voice cracked into a dozen pieces. Perhaps it was the pungent smell of formaldehyde in the air mixed with the aroma of pine-scented disinfectant that made her feel so dizzy, so nauseous.

Mazarelle, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the spunky young woman since the viewing of the bodies began, saw the color drain from her face and, with a move surprisingly nimble for a man his size, caught her just as her knees began to buckle. The young woman felt like a healthy armful. Carrying Molly out into the hall, he sat her down and told the others to get her some water.

He stroked Molly’s hands, rubbed the back of her lovely neck. Mazarelle wondered what another woman would be like after so many years—a different smell, a different shampoo, a different sweat—but there was only one smell in his nose now.

“Ça va?”
he asked, taking the glass of water from Langlais and holding it to Molly’s lips. As she sipped, the pink seeped back into her cheeks.

“Better?”

Molly nodded.

“Good. Have some more.”

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Yes … it’s them.”

She got up, hating the fuss she’d caused. “I just wasn’t expecting …”

“Naturally, of course.”

Male condescension infuriated Molly. But how could a human being have done such a thing? She couldn’t believe that anyone could have been so cruel, so depraved, so consumed by evil to pitilessly chop away at her mother as if she were firewood, a good woman who’d never harmed a soul. Such monsters were beyond help, incapable of redemption. Though she’d always hated the idea of capital
punishment, perhaps she was wrong. The world would be better off without them.

Molly asked, “Does France still have the death penalty?”

“La guillotine?”
The inspector rolled his eyes. “Not since 1981. Ancient history. I was happy to see it go. I’d much prefer to put such animals away in cages for life. However, in a case like this,” he sympathized, “I can understand how you feel.”

The families of victims were always the hardest for the inspector to deal with. He was relieved that she hadn’t pulled the sheet off her father too and seen the gruesome way he’d been carved up. The cruelty was incomprehensible. Mazarelle made a silent vow to get the son of a bitch, remove that cancer from society. He’d already come to the bleak conclusion that the murderer in trying to learn Monsieur Reece’s PIN had turned him into a flesh and blood cutting board. The man, whoever he was, had a diabolical sense of humor. A sadistic bastard, for sure, even possibly a madman. What an odd coincidence, he thought, reminded of Simenon’s
The
Madman
of
Bergerac
. Algeria played a role in those murders also. He was mildly amused, and not for the first time, to find life mirroring art.

“Where are you going?” he called out, trying to stop her from returning to the viewing room, but Molly was determined.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. Approaching her mother’s body, she asked the doctor if she might see her left hand. Langlais carefully lifted the sheet and held up Judy Reece’s rigid fingers. Molly noticed the black-and-blue bruises around her mother’s wrist. If they upset her, she gave no indication.

“Where’s her wedding band?” she icily demanded of the medical examiner. “Did they take that too? Is that what they were after?”

“
Doucement
, mademoiselle. We have it, I’m sure.”

“And my dad’s?”

Dr. Langlais did not like being questioned in such a tone about trivialities. He assured the overwrought young woman that her father’s keys, his ring, his watch, and all of the jewelry her parents were wearing was safely put aside for her. He promised to return everything before she left. As Mazarelle had concluded already, the killer had not been after jewelry.

Bennett asked the doctor, “Could we see the body you think is
Schuyler Phillips? Mademoiselle Reece may be able to help with the identification.”

Langlais looked as if he didn’t understand him or, perhaps closer to the point, didn’t want to. “That won’t be necessary.”

Molly didn’t know what to think. She glanced at the inspector.

“You don’t want to see it. Besides there’s hardly anything left of his face to identify.”

“I don’t need his face.”

What could you do with a young woman like that? Expecting that in the end he’d have to scrape her up off the floor with a teaspoon, Mazarelle shrugged and turned to the doctor. “As you like,” he said, with a careless wave of his hand.

When the body was brought out, it was shrouded from head to toe like a mummy. They all watched expectantly as Molly approached. “Just show me his legs,” she said. Dr. Langlais pulled back the sheet to reveal the dead man’s muscular, ivory-colored limbs.

“There!” She pointed to the long, lightning-bolt scar just under his right kneecap, a legendary wound from the blade of a hurtling Harvard skater. Just as Odysseus could always be identified by the scar on his thigh from the tusks of a great boar, Schuyler—according to her dad—had his telltale hockey scar. “It’s him,” she said, biting her lip to keep back the tears. Everyone in her family loved Schuyler.

After quickly agreeing to show Molly and Bennett the house where the murders had occurred in order to get rid of them, Mazarelle ran into the bathroom, feeling a major allergy attack coming on. Leaning over the sink, he spit out one of the two cloves that he’d stuffed into his nostrils. As the other clove shot out of his nose, he began to sneeze violently. The aromatic dried buds had made bearable what had promised to be a difficult task for him. A little trick of the trade he often used in Paris. As he blew his nose and washed up, the inspector wondered why an attaché from the American embassy had come down here together with the young woman. Most unusual. Perhaps these people were even more important than he imagined. Mazarelle wondered if he could have been right years ago about the clean-cut, callow-looking American. He’d always suspected Bennett was the CIA station chief in Paris.

24

THE CRIME SCENE

M
olly had made up her mind to stay overnight near the crime scene. She wanted to be close to the house where her mom and dad and their friends had been vacationing.

Bennett claimed there was only one tiny hotel in Taziac. “No bigger than a broom closet, according to my secretary.”

“Sounds cozy.”

“It probably doesn’t even have any rooms available.”

“Let’s go see.”

Though Barney following his instructions had made reservations for them in Bergerac at the Gambetta, the best hotel in town, Bennett didn’t want to argue. He’d more bad news to tell her as it was.

Driving south on the way to Taziac, he tried to amuse Molly. Told her a story he once heard of Mazarelle waiting for his wife in some noisy Left Bank café and, being stood up, he got so rip-roaring drunk that he finally reported her a missing person. The tinkly, seductive sound of Molly’s laughter was gentle as wind chimes.

“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to ask you something.”

“That depends on what it is.”

“Are you Jewish?”

She stared at him. “Yes, I’m Jewish. Why?”

“Orthodox?”

Molly reached up and grabbed a hank of her flaming red hair. “Does this look like a wig?”

“No, no.” Bennett laughed uncomfortably. “Not at all.”

“What’s this all about?”

He explained that the inspector had told him that all four of the victims had already been autopsied. There had been no time to get her approval about her parents. He hoped that she understood. It was standard French police procedure in a murder case like this.

Molly sadly shook her head.

“I once had a problem about an autopsy with an Orthodox Jewish family. I didn’t know it was against their belief.”

“No, I don’t mind.” She regarded nothing about her mom and dad as orthodox. “Anything that will help catch the monster who did this.”

There was something else he feared she wasn’t going to like.

“I know you were hoping to return to the States tomorrow with the bodies of your parents, but the inspector says he’s still not finished with them. I think he wants Dr. Langlais to run some more tests.”

“How much longer does he need?”

“I’m not sure. He’s in charge, and there was nothing more I could do. I’m sorry, I tried.”

Molly was obviously upset.

“Please don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything here. As soon as the bodies are released, I’ll ship them home to you in New York immediately. I promise.”

Molly sank down in her seat and her silence was worse than anything she might have said to him. It was about as unpleasant a job as he’d expected.

The Hôtel Fleuri, on the main square in Taziac opposite the church, was not much larger than Bennett had suggested, but it did have an available room.

“Une chambre très bonne et tranquille,”
said the worried-looking man behind the desk.

“We’ll need
two
rooms,” Bennett said.

“Of course. You’re Americans!” He loved Americans. He handed Bennett a registration card and suggested he fill it out at his convenience.

“Where’s mine?”

“No, no, mademoiselle. You needn’t trouble yourself. One card is more than enough.” As for the price, it was a bargain. The
petit
déjeuner
cost a little extra but, he assured them, was well worth it. Business must be awful, she thought, wondering if the other five rooms in the hotel were empty.

He introduced himself as Louis Favier, the owner. A short, thick, round-jawed man with a hairy mole on his chin, a ludicrous beauty mark that for some reason he didn’t mind calling attention to with his stubby fingers. Favier thought they should know he often watched American films on the TV. “Did you ever see
Morocco
?” he asked them, kissing his puckered fingertips.
“Pandora’s Box?”
He loved the young Cooper, Louise Brooks, the great Brando.

Molly, too tired for Favier’s movie stars and ready to lie down, asked for her key.

Later that afternoon, with directions from Monsieur Favier, who seemed surprised when he heard where they wanted to go, they drove to L’Ermitage. The cop at the top of the hill said that Inspector Mazarelle hadn’t arrived yet, but they could wait for him as long as they didn’t get out of their car. After that, he watched them like an air controller eyeing wayward blips on his radar screen. It was a half hour more before the inspector and Duboit finally showed up.

Mazarelle had regretted agreeing to meet Mademoiselle Reece here as soon as he’d done so. Though he felt like an idiot, he hated to say no to such a sad and lovely young woman. He guided them around the grounds—strolling past the swimming pool to the well, where, he told them, one of the murder weapons had been found. Then on to the barn, where Phillips’s body was discovered hidden in a secret room, victim of a double-barreled shotgun.

Bennett asked, “Can we see the room?”

“I’ll show you,” Duboit gallantly offered the attractive young woman.

Naturally, thought his boss as he watched them go.

Duboit led the way to the rear of the barn. At the half-open door, he explained that it had been barred from the inside and how the
murderer must have gotten in and out. He knew better than to enter the room to demonstrate how it was actually done. In any event, the yellow police tape all over the door made entry out of the question.

Mazarelle brought his visitors across to the house. Escorting them around the outside of the building, he described the layout of the rooms and the bodies—exactly what had happened and where—but when Molly asked to go in he apologized.