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| Margot. |
Louis Shalako
The first case was that of a young man, Alain Garreau,
nineteen years old. Missing for two weeks, no body, no sightings. Friends and
family knew nothing. No one knew anything, and yet the mother was utterly
convinced.
Whether she was merely hysterical, or had some
knowledge that she wasn’t willing to share, was a good question, but she was
certain her little boy had been killed. Not knocked down by a bus, not drowned
in the river, but brutally murdered by someone or something nameless, and for
reasons unknown. His few friends had claimed to know nothing of his whereabouts
or the reason for his absence. He had not turned up at his employment, working
evenings and weekends at a small green-grocers just blocks away from home, in
fact the mother shopped there regularly—it was that close. With no evidence,
none whatsoever, for or against, one must wonder if a body would eventually
turn up—dead or alive. The thoughts of her precious little boy, simply running
away from home, were somehow inconceivable to the lady; a familiar type.
And where the hell was he supposed to go—right.
This one didn’t seem all that interesting so far, and
he set that one aside.
The next one was a little better.
A young woman, dead in her bed—strangled, and with
big, dirty shoe-prints leading in from the front door. Across that beautiful
white carpet—it was that kind of house, and up those stairs and down that
hallway and ending up right at the bedside. Where, presumably, the young lady
had been sleeping, oblivious to the danger. The same prints going back down,
the other way, fading out as dirt and crud and moisture was lost with each and
every step. That might have been all right, figuratively speaking. It had been
a rainy night, with dirty puddles and genuine mud all over the place. There were
photos and everything and it all seemed cut-and dried. But. Murder by unknown
stranger was also quite rare—those were very difficult to solve, not without
witnesses, and especially not without a known motive. But it was a very
prosperous household. The family name, Boitard, was well-known, the house very
modern, which included proper deadbolts, and all known keys accounted
for—mostly, and it would be easy enough to make a copy. The idea of a stranger,
a burglar, picking a deadbolt on the front door and then just killing someone
for the sheer hell of it wasn’t very convincing in the eyes of the attending
detectives and he could certainly understand why. Nothing of any real value had
been taken, or so they said—just a life. The home of a banker, there were
plenty of objets d’art, pictures on
the wall, hell, even the booze in the cabinet had its value. Bankers were smart
enough not to keep large sums of money in the house, although there would be
some small cash, in a wallet or a purse…there was the silverware. The
housekeeper kept a small lock-box in a drawer of her own little desk. Petty
cash, and never more than a hundred francs in there. There had been no signs of
tampering and according to her, nothing had been disturbed.
Also, a proper burglar would have come in a window, a
back door. The cellar door, a coal chute. If surprised in the act, they might
have strangled someone, but why put them back to bed? Why not just run for the
door. The detectives on scene, hadn’t gotten anywhere else with it.
“Hmn. The butler did it.” He tossed that one aside.
“Any honest criminal would have wiped his shoes on the mat by the door.”
Pros tried very hard, not to leave any evidence at
all. Amateurs spewed clues, real and fake, all over the place. Also, locking
back up again would take real nerve, and possibly a good bit of time—and yet
that was what, ostensibly, had happened. It was barely possible, that a real
pro would try to make it look like an inside job, in which case the question
was, why the footprints?
Just then, there were footsteps and the door came
crashing open. The door closed with a bang and he looked up.
Margot—
Putting her bag down, and turning, she saw him.
“Gilles!” Margot, and making a beeline for him as he
quickly stood. “Oh, Gilles, it’s so good to see you. Especially as we thought
you were a goner—”
Standing, he was cornered there by the side of the
desk and she was going to hug him whether he liked it or not. There were a
couple of clicks from the mid-back area as she readjusted his spine for him.
“Er, thank you, my dear.”
Right out of nowhere, she gave him a quick peck on the
cheek and turned away, eyes suspiciously moist, and engaged in the immediate
business of stowing her jacket, the hat, and the contents of the briefcase.
“LeBref has your cat.”
“Yes, I know.” He settled in again, wondering, but the
others were somewhat unlikely to hug him, although handshakes and all kinds of
talk would appear to be inevitable.
They’d only let him out of the hospital Friday, and
the weekend had been spent quietly, doing a bit of shopping and stocking up on
a few things for the kitchen.
There was that third file sitting there waiting for
him.
He sighed, deeply.
“Ah, what the hell.” Opening up, he began to read.
***
The third file wasn’t so much bizarre, as intriguing. Just what the doctor might have ordered if
only he wasn’t such a fussy old fool, likable enough for all of that. Two dead
young men, blood stains and a weapon. The bodies are missing, and just a tonne
of blood on the floor, the counters, and the knives. Big, fat, and very sharp
carving knives. Kitchen staff, no one saw or heard anything—or so they were
saying. If one young fellow had killed the other, that was one thing. For two
young men to kill each other, (and how was that even possible), and one must also
ask just how the bodies had been removed. If one had killed the other, why
remove the body at all…unless to obscure exactly which one had been killed, and
thereby, which one had been guilty. Why the two knives. That part was a little
bizarre, one had to admit. It would have taken some thought, some planning, in
what was ostensibly une crime passionnel.
And the kitchen in question was busy—he
knew the place, although he’d never eaten there. The sort of restaurant that
was talked about, and by all the right people. Whatever had happened, hadn’t
taken much more than thirty seconds, a minute at most, when all others were
either absent from the room or just plain busy. Which did not necessarily make
it impossible. It was hard to believe someone being stabbed wouldn’t have
screamed or made some other noises…it was hard to believe the whole crew would
leave the room, and all at the same time.
That would have been too convenient, and everyone was
denying it anyways—
Other than that, it was one hell of a set-up, and
there was much food for thought there.
With the stories of their fellow workers more or less
unshakeable, this one looked interesting enough…
He went back and read them all through again,
hopefully Andre or somebody would show up and they could get down to work. It
was doctor’s orders, and for the next few weeks he wouldn’t be working alone,
not for any reason, anywhere other than this very room. They were right about
concussions, of course, but the truth was that he felt all right and it was
time to move on.
He looked up at the clock. He’d take just about
anybody, at this point.
One of the young bucks might be best, leaving Margot
and the older ones for the more important stuff.
***
“Ah.”
“Good morning, sir.” Martin Garnier, whom Gilles had
met briefly down in Bagneres du Luchon.
“It’s good to see you’re back. I’m Garnier.”
“Yes, I know. I thank you for your work here, also,
er, down there.”
“Yes, sir.” Garnier was a sergeant now, having passed
the test with flying colours and with sufficient seniority to make his current
assignment stick well enough.
Other than that, Maintenon didn’t know much about the
man.
“Okay, grab yourself a coffee and we’ll talk.”
“Absolutely.” The grin said it all, but that coffee
pot was part of the routine around here and he knew it well by this time. “Oh.”
Garnier reached into a pocket and pulled out a box of
his favourite thin black cheroots.
With a slight blush to the cheekbones, he laid them
reverently on the corner of Maintenon’s desk.
“It’s a real honour to be here, sir.”
Maintenon nodded wordlessly, and why dispute the
obvious. The man had earned it, after all.
…and here was LeBref again, and right behind him,
Archambault, and then Firmin. More bonhomie.
It had to end eventually, and yet it felt pretty good as well. He’d missed them
all, just as much as they’d missed him. Finally, they settled down, some to
their desks and one or two right out that door just about as quickly as they’d
come in. It was like they just wanted to touch him, a touch on the shoulder, a
pat on the back…they wanted to hear him talk; just convincing themselves it was
real, perhaps.
He’d come back from the dead, after all.
“Where’s Hubert?”
Margot looked up.
“Still at the hospital.”
“Ah.”
“I’m giving fifty-fifty odds. It’s either a girl or a
boy—”
Maintenon grinned and she put her head down and went
back to work.
He looked at Martin, seated by now at his own desk.
“Are you super busy today? Anything truly pressing,
anything you just can’t get out of?”
“Ah—no, no, sir.”
“All right. We’ll take off in a few minutes, assuming
you have to make quick call or something…”
Martin Garnier looked at the files on the desk, a few
brief notes there, and shook his head.
“Nothing that can’t wait until later.”
“All right. Just give me a minute and we’ll be out of
here. Ah—we’ll need a car.”
With a nod, Garnier reached for the phone as Gilles
idly opened up a desk drawer.
He didn’t think he’d need it, but he was sort of
curious to know what they’d done with his weapons.
END
Louis Shalako has books and stories available from Amazon.
See his works on ArtPal.
His story, The Haunted Hills, appears in Helion Science Fiction, in Romanian Translation.
Thank you for reading.
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