Chapter Twenty-Four

The interview room at the Vaugirard commissariat did not have one-piece aluminum chairs and tables specifically designed so that enraged suspects couldn’t break them and use the pieces as weapons. Nor was it an anonymous carpeted square with a frosted window or poorly disguised two-way mirror set into one wall and a camera on the ceiling to capture all the action. Instead, it looked remarkably like the room in the Bibliothèque Nationale in which Boussicault had conducted the first round of interviews: the walls were white and the furniture consisted of a table with two chairs on one side and one on the other. The only addition to the commissariat’s decor was an inoffensive painting of two tall poppies in a glass on the wall behind the two chairs. This was hardly what television had led Rachel to expect, and she felt vaguely disappointed. What was the point of being involved with something in real life if it didn’t live up to the expectations raised by make-believe?

Capitaine Boussicault came in, shutting the door behind him. Some of Rachel’s disappointment must have shown on her face, because he said, “This room is designed to be both comfortable and neutral. No clocks, no windows, nothing to show the interviewee how much time has passed or what time of day it is. At the same time, a reasonable amount of comfort and even some inoffensive decoration. The idea is that this relaxes them, so they might let their guard down.” He smiled. “Let’s hope it works.”

He sat down next to her and put a bloc-notes on the table, flipping it open and flicking through the first few pages until he reached a list. “Bien, okay. First I will talk to Professeure Dale, then Professeur Stibb, and finally Docteur Cavill. The mysterious Jean Bernard we are still trying to track down.”

Rachel’s said nothing. She would tell him the truth about Jean Bernard, she knew, but she wasn’t quite ready to do it yet. After the interviews. She just wanted a little more time to feel they were ahead of the police in one small area.

For a moment there was a slightly awkward silence. Then Boussicault stood up and turned to look at the painting. “Inoffensive, isn’t it?” He reached behind the lower portion of the frame; suddenly there was a brief, high-pitched whine. He grinned at Rachel’s surprise. “In here”—he flicked one of the poppies and the canvas rippled—“are a camera and a microphone, recording everything. That’s why we want people to be relaxed. “High-tech, hein? We are not the police of Arsène Lupin these days.” He grinned again and sat down.

“Now”—he looked at his watch—“are you ready?” Rachel nodded, and he said to the empty room, “Send in Professeure Dale.”

*   *   *

When Boussicault’s brigadier led her in, Aurora Dale looked much the same as she had in the first interview, only a little more worried. This time she didn’t smile at them. She just sat down and settled her bag on the floor next to her. The capitaine nodded at the silent Didier, who settled into a chair by the door; Rachel took this as a signal that these interviews were no longer preliminary.

Boussicault tried to set Dale at her ease. How had she been finding Paris since their last interview?

“Hot,” Professor Dale said tightly. “But fortunately the reading room is air-conditioned. And where I’m staying is near several cinemas, so I take refuge there in the evenings. Last night I saw a revival of Rififi.” She looked across the table. “Would you like to see my ticket stub? I saved it because I know the police like that sort of thing.”

“That won’t be necessary, thank you,” Boussicault said. “But I would like to ask you a few questions about events further in the past, if I may.”

Dale nodded. She settled more comfortably into her seat.

“Thank you. Could you begin by reminding me how long you’ve been working in the reading room?”

“I was there for two weeks before that young man’s death.”

“And had you visited the Bibliothèque before?”

“No.” Which put her out of the running for the earlier theft, Rachel thought—before remembering that she could be lying.

“And in the two weeks before Monsieur Morel’s death,” the capitaine continued, “which books did you consult?”

“What, all of them?” Professor Dale looked incredulous. “There were about a hundred. I don’t know if I can remember them all.”

“Well, just the ones you can remember, then.”

At first with some speed and then with an increasing number of pauses, she listed an array of titles. The capitaine scribbled on his pad as if he wanted nothing more than to acquire a reading list on early modern French midwifery.

“I see. And during your time there, did you notice Guy Laurent?”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“Guy Laurent. He was working in the reading room during the early portion of your time there.”

“Oh, is he the other librarian? The one who died?”

Rachel noted the form of this description, which suggested Dale imagined a natural death—then remembered that that, too, could be a ruse.

Professor Dale, meanwhile, said, “I didn’t care for him.”

“Why not?”

“There wasn’t a particular reason. I just—I found him disquieting. He delivered some of my books, and whenever I saw him coming—” She acted out a shiver. “And he had greasy hair. There’s no need for that sort of thing.”

Boussicault hid a smile as he noted down this lapse in hygiene, then looked up. “But you never had a conversation? Never ran into each other outside the Bibliothèque?”

“Absolutely not. First, I would have gone out of my way to avoid him. And second, staying in the sixth I never run into anyone from the Bibliothèque.”

“You don’t remain in the second arrondissement when you finish your day’s work?”

“No.”

“You and Professeur Stibb and Docteur Cavill never have a drink together after the library closes?”

“No. Just a chat before we go sometimes. One sees the same faces over and over; it would be churlish not to say hello and good-bye.”

Boussicault nodded, made another note. “And Monsieur Morel? Did you notice him in your time at the reading room?”

“Only as someone to hand slips to and receive books from. Why?” Professor Dale straightened. “Are the two deaths connected?”

The capitaine ignored these questions and sailed smoothly onward. “You never talked about books with Morel?”

“Not beyond saying, ‘Thank you for this psalter.’ ”

Rachel’s ears pricked up at the final word; she also noticed that Professor Dale sounded irritated.

Perhaps Boussicault noticed the same, because he changed the subject. “Now I wonder if you could answer a few questions for me about your life in England?”

Dale looked puzzled but said, “Certainly. I’ll try.”

“When you are in Cambridge, you bank with National Westminster Bank?”

“Yes. They’ve been my bank for thirty years.”

“You have a current account with them, and until five years ago you had a savings account as well?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask, what became of the savings account, Professeure?”

“May I ask why you’ve been prying into my finances?” Dale shot back.

The capitaine raised his eyebrows. “I checked into the finances of all the witnesses, madame. I like to be thorough in my investigations.”

For the first time, she looked worried. “Then you know I closed it.”

“Well, yes.” He gave a little laugh, as if she had made a mildly funny joke. “I’d like to know why you closed it.”

“I had transferred its balance into my current account, and there didn’t seem much point in keeping an empty account open.”

“And why did you transfer the balance? It was a sizable amount.”

The capitaine’s tone remained calm as he asked this question, but Professor Dale had become increasingly tense. Now she snapped, “You can see that I did it over time, in increments. I did it first to pay the death duties on my husband’s estate, and then to help with my grandchildren’s school fees. It was all aboveboard, I assure you.”

“Death duties?” Boussicault looked puzzled. Droits de succession, Rachel said silently, reflecting that if he’d kept up the pretense of wanting her help with translation, she could have helped him with the term. But since she was present just as a courtesy to her, she said nothing.

Fortunately, Dale responded. “Yes, taxes. Our house was in my husband’s name—the legacy of nonsensical prefeminist British laws—and that pushed the value of his estate up. I had to use some of my savings to pay tax on the estate, and of course also the expenses of the funeral. And we had promised to help with the school fees, and I wanted to keep that promise. So my savings went.”

“And your current account, too,” Boussicault observed genially. “I saw that until relatively recently you were running a very large overdraft—one that grew larger every year, in fact.”

“Well, if you have very little money and you take not-very-little sums away from it repeatedly, you’ll find that it grows into a very large overdraft.”

Rachel felt great respect. Obviously taken off guard, plainly angry, clearly discomfited, Professor Dale nonetheless managed to retain both her wits and her power over words. Rachel didn’t think she could’ve managed as well.

Boussicault, however, seemed untroubled by admiration. Unrelentingly affable and unrelentingly calm, he was nonetheless unrelenting. “And then, about a year ago your financial situation began to improve?” He made it a question, but it required no answer. “You started to receive generous payments into the account.” He stared at his bloc-notes as he threw his last card on the table. “From a London antiquarian bookstore. Peter Harrington.”

Professor Dale stayed silent for a very long time. She thinned her lips, then sucked the left side of her lower one between her teeth. At last she said, “Yes.”

“Yes, you acknowledge that you received these payments?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell me, please, what they were for?”

Again she thought. Then, “No.” The word came out of her thinned mouth like a flat package through a mail slot.

“No?” Boussicault repeated. “No, you won’t tell me why you are receiving money from this antiquarian bookseller?”

“No.”

“Did you sell him books? Engravings? Illustrations?”

Still Professor Dale said nothing. Rachel wasn’t quite sure what was going through her mind. Perhaps fear had made her careful—or perhaps, a voice in Rachel’s head murmured, knowledge of her guilt had done it. But certainly she had changed. Now she opened her lips a little wider and said with controlled calm, “I have no desire to discuss my private money matters with you, nor with anyone else. And I have no intention of doing so, either. If you want this conversation to go any further, I demand to be allowed to call the British embassy for assistance.”

The room was silent. Then Boussicault raised his eyebrows. “Innocent people don’t usually need consular assistance.”

“Nonsense!” For a moment Rachel saw how Professor Dale dealt with flawed reasoning, and she was glad she wasn’t one of her students. “That’s the oldest line in the police book: innocent people don’t need lawyers. I should think innocent people need lawyers more than anybody else. I’d have to be mad to sit here blithely answering questions in a foreign country, whose legal system I don’t understand, without legal assistance.” As if to underline this observation, she picked up her bag from the floor and planted it firmly in her lap.

Boussicault smiled. “I’m not going to steal your portefeuille, Professeure. In fact, now that you have asked for embassy help, I’m not going to do anything except provide you with a telephone number and request that you wait in the commissariat until that help arrives.” He rose and opened the door. “If you step outside, my brigadier will show you to a telephone.”

With dignity worthy of a wronged Edith Sitwell, Professor Dale did just that.

As Didier shut the door behind them, Boussicault exhaled a long rush of exasperated air. Rachel marveled at the range of meaning the French could achieve with breath alone. “Probably her consulate representative will advise her to say nothing, and so that will be that for us. But in the meantime”—he raised his voice—“Professeur Stibb, s’il vous plait.”

*   *   *

Like Professor Dale, Homer Stibb looked slightly worried at being called in for a second interview. Unlike her, as soon as he sat at the table he began to complain. “When is all this going to be over? It isn’t cheap living in Paris, and my research money will only go so far. I’m already carrying significant debt, and I’d like to get home before I incur more. How soon can I leave?”

If Boussicault was taken aback by this deluge, he didn’t show it. He did, however, skip the opening questions he’d used to put Professor Dale at ease, instead moving right to the point. “We already know that you have significant debt, Professeur Stibb. It’s exactly this I wish to ask you about.”

Stibb crossed his arms and slouched lower in his chair. “Sure, go ahead.” But his jaw made its nervous back-and-forth motion.

Boussicault removed some printed sheets he had tucked into his bloc-notes. “You have thirty thousand dollars in education loans.”

Professor Stibb nodded.

“You have an outstanding mortgage of ninety-two thousand dollars.”

He nodded again, and Rachel saw his arms tense across his chest.

“You have three credit cards, with a total balance of ten thousand dollars.”

Homer Stibb’s lips rolled and his cheeks moved in and out, as if he were sucking a gobstopper, but his voice was calm. “Did you bring me in here to tell me about a bunch of debts I already know I have? Yes, I owe a lot of money. That’s not news to me. Thanks to the American government’s decision to keep its future and current academics financially strapped, I had to take out student loans, and it took me years to save up for a down payment on a house. So now I have a high mortgage, and if I want to make any big purchases I have to put them on a credit card.”

“And I see these credit cards are also how you pay the fees on your mother’s retirement home.”

“Community,” Stibb corrected. “They’re called communities now. Yes, I use the cards to pay the fees.”

“Used.”

“Excuse me?”

“You said use, but I notice that you haven’t paid any fee on a card for the last … three months. So it should be used, really. And in any case, none of them has enough credit left to pay any large fees.” He appeared to consult the pages and do some quick mental arithmetic. “Even if you split it between them.”

Stibb reddened. “What business of yours are my credit cards? Where did you get that information?”

Exercising his policeman’s prerogative once again, Boussicault ignored the second question. “Your credit cards are very much my business, Monsieur Stibb, when I’m dealing with a murder that seems to be linked to theft and blackmail.”

“What? What do you mean?” Stibb’s face now paled, and his lips tightened. “What theft? My God, I’ve never blackmailed anyone in my life!”

“Your financial records back you up,” Boussicault observed drily.

Stibb winced. “It’s been a hard couple of months. I’ve had to use the credit cards for other things. But I’m managing.”

“Ah, you are.” Boussicault put down the sheets of paper. “I’m relieved to hear that, because I see from your credit card records that you haven’t been managing to pay these retirement community fees.” Stibb gave a little jerk, and the capitaine gave a little sigh, as if it pained him to admit what he knew.

“Okay.” Despite his reaction, Stibb’s voice was level, even reasonable. “Look, you know how it is. You have rough patches. I had a rough patch. And my university doesn’t pay for travel up front. They reimburse us. So I nearly maxed out my credit cards to pay for this trip, but by the end of the summer I’ll get it all back. So I told my mother’s place I’d give them a large payment in September. I thought it might get them off my back, and it worked. They agreed to wait, provided I’d make payment in full then, and I promised I would. Then when I pay down the cards I’ll hold some back, and I’ll pay the community that. It won’t be what I promised, but it’ll be enough for them to be willing to wait for a little more the next month, and a little more the month after that. I say big, but I pay little; that’s how I do it.” He leaned forward. “Look, this isn’t The Name of the Rose. I don’t steal medieval manuscripts, and I don’t murder people. I’m an overextended academic who teaches French to bored twenty-year-olds and has to connive a little to make ends meet. Who doesn’t?”

Where she’d felt respect for Dale’s steely reserve, Rachel now admired Homer Stibb’s frankness. In might be humiliating to own up to your terrible financial habits, but his willingness to do so looked like it might save him from being a viable suspect in a murder.

But again Boussicault obviously didn’t share her admiration. Rachel saw a muscle on the left side of his mouth give a small jump, then another, before he spoke. “What makes you think I suspect you of those things?”

“Oh, come on!” Stibb ran his hand through his curls. “I was contacted Tuesday night and told the police wanted to interview me about a library theft, and when I arrived on Wednesday morning, someone who worked in the reading room was dead. It isn’t too hard to put those together. Especially given that literary analysis uses some of the same skills as detection.”

“Yes, Professeure Dale made a similar observation at her first interview.”

“Did she now.” Stibb looked mildly surprised. “Well, I may have made the point to her while we were waiting to talk to you.”

Rachel saw the muscle in Boussicault’s cheek twitch once again. Finally he stood up. “You may go, Professeur Stibb. But don’t leave Paris until we tell you it’s all right to do so.” He waited a moment, then added, “The prefecture of police can cover your expenditures, if that becomes necessary.”

As the door closed behind Stibb and the brigadier, the capitaine sat back down. For a moment he rested his fingers lightly on the spot where his muscle had jumped. Then he said, “These people have seen too many films. Or watched too much television. This was all easier when the police were more mysterious.”

Rachel wasn’t sure if by this he meant investigating, interviewing suspects, or simply having the upper hand in any scenario, but she thought she understood how he felt. They had been in this room for—she checked her watch—over an hour, and all they had to show for it was the obduracy of one academic and the rudeness of another.

“This man,” Boussicault went on. “One step further and he would be un escroc. He tells us how he has managed in the past as if that’s an indication of how he is managing now, but that is a false equivalency. And la bonne professeure, she saves her ticket stub as if going to the cinema proves she isn’t a murderer, while she refuses to explain the behavior that makes her look good for the crime!”

“But doesn’t that suggest that they’re innocent? I mean, wouldn’t a murderer try harder not to suggest any reason for suspicion?”

The capitaine frowned and stared at the floor for a minute. Then he shook his head hard and looked up.

“Well, there is still Monsieur Cavill. Let us see what he has to say for himself.” Once again he spoke to the air: “Please send in Docteur Cavill.”