Gabrielle was busy with customers when the inspector entered the boulangerie, but not too busy to give him a smile that—along with the wonderful smell of Louise’s fresh-baked bread perfuming the air—brightened his melancholy mood. She said to go right up. Mademoiselle Reece was expecting him.
Molly was in her room, packing. Bennett had called to tell her he was arriving the next day and would help her through French customs. She thanked the inspector for asking him to come. Said she could use Bennett’s experience with the details and was glad to have it. The black T-shirt she wore made her face appear paler, thinner, tired, her green eyes larger and even more striking than he remembered. Mazarelle, who knew how much she’d been through, was touched by her vulnerability. Her reference to customs reminded Mazarelle of news he had about her father’s partner, Sean Campbell.
“Sean!” Molly was surprised the inspector remembered.
Apparently he’d been stopped at Charles de Gaulle Airport while attempting to leave France with a small Cubist painting in his luggage—Braque’s portrait of Gertrude Stein.
“Your Monsieur Campbell made the unfortunate mistake of trying to take part of France’s cultural patrimony out of the country without an export license, and the airport customs agents discovered it. Probably his worst nightmare.”
Molly shook her head sadly. Her father had trusted Sean. She had been much less sympathetic. When she’d heard that Sean was in France, she’d even wondered if he wasn’t somehow involved in what happened. There’d been so many twists and turns to the investigation. She’d been startled by the newspaper story of the background of the serial killer named Koenig from whom Mazarelle had saved her. Molly had never heard of Koenig before then. She’d tried to come to terms with that idea, but then she’d spoken to Bennett.
Turning to Mazarelle, Molly said, “Bennett just told me that the reporters had it all wrong. His real name was neither Pierre Barmeyer nor Koenig. Is that a fact?”
Mazarelle stroked his mustache. “Yes, that’s true. As you saw from the passports he carried, the man who tried to kill you used several different names, several nationalities. But regardless of his real name, you and your family have nothing more to fear from him.”
“I hope you’re right, Inspector. The awful truth is there’s not much of my family left to kill.” Though she spoke in anger, it was impossible for him to miss the deep sadness in her voice.
Like the writing of reports, Mazarelle hated this part of the job. It was always hard for him to come up with the right words to say and the right way to say them. In these situations, he tended either to say too much or nothing at all.
“I see,” began Mazarelle softly, and stopped. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded without looking at him. Then suddenly glancing up, a worried look on her face, Molly asked, “What makes you so certain you’ve seen the last of him? Did you bury the body?”
Mazarelle seemed almost relieved to answer her question. “German Interpol wanted it in connection with their ongoing investigations. After that, he’ll be cremated.”
“Did you find out his real name?”
“No, I didn’t. On the other hand, he looked German, spoke French with a German accent, was a die-hard German football fan who operated out of East Berlin and probably was German. But whatever name he was born with and whatever sort of artist he might have been, I have no doubt he was the Taziac murderer.”
Lowering the top of her suitcase on the chenille bedspread, Molly sat down on the edge of the bed opposite the inspector, who had claimed the rocking chair.
“I owe you a great debt, Inspector,” said Molly, her eyes glistening. “I want you to know how grateful I feel that you found my parents’ murderer, and more than grateful to you for saving my life. But whoever the hell he was, why was he trying to kill me? I don’t understand any of it. Was he totally mad, or was there something else involved?”
“I wish I could explain everything to you, mademoiselle, but some of it is still a mystery to me. If Dwight Bennett is to be believed—and I’m not at all sure about that—the murderer was a paid assassin whose target was Schuyler Phillips. According to Bennett, your parents and Phillips’s wife were, in his words, ‘collateral damage.’ Even Ali Sedak and my man Duboit seemed to fall into that category.”
“Collateral damage! That’s my parents he’s talking about. What a depressingly grotesque idea …”
Mazarelle took a deep breath, and his whole body seemed to sigh in resignation at the sadness of things. He too found it overwhelmingly depressing, if true, that all the other Taziac deaths might have been merely gratuitous. An ad valorem death tax added to the cost of doing business. Mazarelle supposed that all CIA agents were trained to think in that cold-blooded way. Such jargon wasn’t called la langue de bois for nothing.
“But, Inspector, if Bennett is right, who was behind this and why did they want to do away with Phillips?”
“Bennett claims that it could have been a ‘back-channel operation’ originating somewhere in the stratosphere of Matignon or the Quai d’Orsay. Someone at or near the top casually letting it be known that it would be nice if something were done. Little more than that. A vague wish, a scarcely audible aside to ensure plausible deniability, and all the messy little details left to others.”
Molly shivered. She didn’t want to believe it, but she could imagine it. The seemingly innocuous “If only …” The subordinates who took the hint. The hired gun who carried it out. The hideous results. And most monstrous of all was the power of those who could set such forces in motion and believe they could get away with murder scot-free.
“Does any of that make sense to you, Inspector?”
“To me, mademoiselle, it sounds far-fetched. On the other hand, I don’t think Bennett was being open with me. Perhaps with you—an American—he’ll be more forthcoming. Ask him tomorrow. You’ll have time on the plane to Paris. And bon voyage home.”
As they were about to part, they hugged each other and Mazarelle was impressed that in spite of all she’d been through, she was still a very strong young woman.
“You know, ma chère Molly, you’re not the only one. I’m leaving Taziac too.”
She was obviously surprised.
“Yes, I’ve made up my mind to go back to Paris.”
“Now?”
“No, no. A few days. I’ve some business here to take care of first. My report. They don’t let you get away quite so easily in the police nationale. Fortunately,” he added, his tone adobe dry, “it’s not every day that you shoot somebody.”
Molly smiled in sympathy. “Are you planning to retire?”
It was a serious question and the inspector had given it serious thought. “I’ve considered retiring, but what would I do? Play pétanque? Work on my tan? Homicide is my life.” Glancing down and contemplating his worn shoes, his stained and wrinkled pants, he read the braille of his scarred forehead with his fingertips and said wistfully, “Such as it is. Besides”—he winked at her—“I’m much too young to retire, n’est-ce pas?”
On his way back to the commissariat, Mazarelle munched on the myrtille tart he’d picked up on the way out. He was glad Molly was finally going home. Above all, he was glad she was going home in one piece.