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| Not leaving too much to the imagination... |
Louis Shalako
Édouard put down the
telephone.
“Half an hour. That’s
unbelievable.” Pelletier looked a little ill, perhaps his confidence wasn’t so
unassailable after all.
Was he expecting
nothing but failure? Did he not have the courage of his convictions…a little
faith went a long way in such things.
The young man had
rolled the forms and carbons into the machine. He’d carefully typed in all the
data, (avoiding typos like the plague, and with spelling errors a kind of kiss
of death in a legal document), wrote his ideas, his rationale, into the provided block, attached one or two items,
addressed the envelope, and then signed the original in ink…it was a purely
bureaucratic process. He’d run that over in the car to the Palais de Justice, over on the Île de la Cité. He’d knocked on
the door, introduced himself, spoken to the clerk, handed that off, and he had hardly gotten back in the door,
before the phone rang.
But he seemed somewhat
shaken by his success.
“Oh, well. You know.
They know us pretty well over there…” And the juge d'instruction, the investigating magistrate, Albert Rochfort,
was an old friend, going way back into the distant mists of time. “I guess you
could say our reputation precedes you.”
Gilles grinned at this
little witticism.
“I should say it does.”
Holy, merde.
“All right, we’ll pick it up on the way.” Gilles
thought. “Have you ever done a major search before?”
“I’ve been along once or twice, and there were plenty
of crime scenes and such. Only as a very junior constable, where they stick you
on the door and tell you not to let in unauthorized personnel. But,
essentially, no.” Naturally, his training had covered all the rules of
evidence, the chain of custody, and that sort of thing.
What he lacked was experience…
“That’s all right. Your warrant application wasn’t all
that detailed and specific, in terms of what we’re looking for. In such
circumstances, we tell the people nothing—nothing at all, about what we’re
looking for…” They especially wouldn’t tell them it was a desperation move,
purely a fishing expedition, and had no idea of what they might be looking for.
“Got you.” The young man nodded, eyes straying to the
box of doughnuts…but no.
It was best to leave a few for the others.
“…other than that, so much time has gone by, focusing
solely on the shoes might not be such a good idea…”
“Actually, I
was thinking of a diary.” Pelletier.
A
diary.
Now
why in the hell didn’t I think of that—
Appointment books, a desk calendar or day planner,
notes and doodles on the desk blotter…he’d been thinking all right.
“…and I think you’re right about not telling them a
damned thing. If there really is something going on, some kind of involvement,
it will scare the hell out of the guilty party. And, if they’re totally
innocent, I don’t see what harm it can do. They’ve already been through the
worst shock of their lives.” He looked at the clock. “It would be better if
Monsieur and Madame weren’t even home, although the odds on the lady are fairly
slim. Still, you never know, and sooner or later, she’s going to have to leave
the house.” The only good thing he could say, was that it was a school day for
the younger ones.
The oldest boy had already gone off to university, a
week before the younger ones, according to the notes. They hadn’t even called
him up, although he’d been at home at the time of the crime.
“Here’s another thing. I wouldn’t mind talking to some
of the original investigators. What were their impressions, and why did they
give it up—the case, I mean. It’s a bit presumptuous, bearing in mind they all
outrank me in terms of rank and experience.”
Maintenon nodded, eyeballing the clock again.
“Let’s hope Madame Boitard’s having lunch with her
lady friends, which must happen sooner or later, and who knows, if we are
extremely lucky; I mean, if it’s Jardine’s day off, the rest of them are pretty
much powerless to object.”
“Shall we go?”
“Sure. Just give me a minute—and I have a quick stop
I’ve been meaning to make.”
***
Gilles fiddled with the key, which finally went.
Stepping into the room, he felt around, looking for the light switch. The
windows on the far side had heavy curtains, closed up tightly enough, and it
was dim in there…very dim.
He found the switches and snapped them on, one, two
three…the overheads in this end of the room came on, mostly. Two or three burned-out
bulbs, and knowing their time was up, no one had bothered to replace them. That
part wasn’t too difficult to read. They wandered down to the other end, where
there was another door and another set of switches.
“Let’s get a little more light on the subject…”
Pelletier snapped them on.
“Huh.”
“Wow. This place is huge—” Which was about all one
could say about it.
The previous crew seemed to have left in some haste,
although there were still a couple of lonely desks, and a row of battered
filing cabinets lining the far end wall to their right. It smelled airless,
musty, and there were a few stray sheets of paper laying on the floor here and
there.
“Well. We’ve seen it, anyhow.” This room, a good
twenty metres in length and ten wide, wasn’t all that much nicer than the one
they had.
It was just big—too big, but then he’d been asking for
an awful lot, and that included manpower as well. The fact they had gotten the
room augured well for his other plans—maybe. Other than a row of small cubicles
along the left end, there wasn’t all that much to tear out. That being said,
the tiles were cracked and stained, showing traffic patterns, and there were
oddly lighter patches where desks must have originally sat, and hollow metal
stanchions, floor to ceiling, with bits of wire hanging out where the phones
must have been. Some of the ceiling tiles were sagging and there were a couple
missing…there were electrical outlets on the bottom parts of the structural
columns as well, and there must have been twenty people or more working in that
room at one time.
Roger’s revenge, and yet also, one hell of an
improvement—given enough time and a hell of a lot of work.
Hmn.
“We’ll come back later, and maybe we can borrow a
broom or something—”
Gilles laughed out loud, and the echo rattled around a
bit in there.
“Thank you, Édouard. That was a good one.”
***
Approaching the Boitard residence, they were still
fifty or a hundred metres away when Pelletier popped it out of gear and applied
the brakes.
“There’s a vehicle out front.”
“Ah. Damn—” There were no empty slots, and a good
chunk of the block was No Parking.
They’d have to double-park, and pretend they were
waiting for someone to come down…or go up. Almost any place would do. Traffic
was light on this little street, and not a gendarme in sight.
 |
| Got the old war paint on. |
They sat and watched.
The driver got out, went around and held the door…the
front door of the residence opened up, and Jardine came down and spoke to the
man. Giving instructions, probably, one working stiff to another. Heaven forbid
the lady having to speak for herself. Returning up the stairs, he left the door
wide open, and then it was the lady herself, sweeping majestically down the
short steps and then into the car.
“Well, there’s one stroke of luck. And the old man
probably at work—we hope.”
“Wow. She’s really got the war paint on, eh,
Inspector.”
Maintenon nodded.
“How old is that woman, anyways—”
“Er—not quite forty, according to my recollection.” Édouard gave his head a little shake.
“That dress doesn’t leave too much to the imagination.”
You could probably buy
a small house for the price of that dress…or at the least, a very good car.
“Considering she’s had
like six kids, it really is kind of impressive. But she looks damned good.” With all due respect—
Maintenon could only
agree.
They waited until she
was gone, and then it was time.
END
Previous Episodes.
Louis has books and stories on Draft2Digital.
See his free audiobook, Dead Reckoning, Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #11 on Google Play.
Here are his works on ArtPal.
Thank you for reading.
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