The officer in charge of the investigation was standing inside the locked museum door, quizzing Madame, who was sitting on one of the large chairs, looking like a schoolgirl called before the principal. He seemed confused and asked her to say again how she took out the trash. Did she go around the block to deposit it outside the wall? Madame looked up at him and asked why she would do that?
“There is no back door to the alley,” he said, waving toward her apartment.
“Of course not. We go, or at least the schoolgirl who helps me twice a week goes, through the old half door in the below stairs.”
“But the trash goes through a neighbor’s yard, yes? Why didn’t you tell my men?”
“I don’t recall them asking me. But what difference can it make?” Madame asked. “The trash goes out once a week unless there has been some special event. And no one but us and the man who owns that yard knows about the door, and he doesn’t live there anymore. The house has been empty for almost a year.”
“The trash collectors know. Anyone who saw them picking up your trash would know.”
“Mais non, Monsieur. Not necessarily. If you think about it, all they see from the alley is the collector coming in and out of the neighbor’s door in the wall. It gives me much peace of mind, I assure you, especially since the wooden door frame downstairs in the sous-sol is warped and the lock doesn’t fit quite right.”
The man made a growling noise in his throat, told her he would send two gendarmes back to check the back exit and the neighbor’s back patio for evidence, and turned to leave, at which point Madame began the cumbersome process of unlocking the door. The policeman shifted his weight from one foot to the other and left without the customary goodbye as soon as she swung the door open.
“What was that about?” Katherine asked.
“Only he knows, I am sure,” the old lady said, shaking her head. “But it means we shall have more gendarmes in the museum and I had to tell Josée and Jeannette just now to put off getting into that room to clean it still longer, I fear. Are you ready to leave also?”
Katherine realized Madame was holding on to the doorknob, ever the guardian of her private realm. She asked Madame if she would like to go out for something warm to eat, “something to cheer you up a little?” but Madame declined the offer. Her daughter would stop at the market and bring her some soup and a little sweet and she would be fine, thank you. Perhaps another day? “Please say au revoir to Josée for me,” Katherine said, bending down to exchange kisses.
The rain was steadier now, and cold. Katherine wanted only to get back to her house, turn on the electric heat, and maybe indulge in a hot bath if the balky hot-water heater would cooperate. She ducked her head and began to circle back down the main street toward the lot where the car was parked. The street was almost deserted. Even the optimistic shoppers had given up. Only a couple dashing toward the parking lot under the trees and a solitary person, maybe the man she bumped into, standing in the shelter at the bus stop. He was just handsome enough to remember.
As she passed the Sabines’ shop, she glanced into the window. The store was dark, as she would have guessed, and there was a notice taped to the glass from inside. A blurry copy of a snapshot of a smiling Mme Sabine and the notice of a memorial service at the church in Avallon. She made a mental note of the time. She could hardly say she was a friend of the deceased, but she was a steady customer, and the Sabines recognized her when she went in to buy the boudin blanc sausages Michael insisted on eating at least once a week. She turned back to the sidewalk and had taken a few steps when she bumped into someone in a long black overcoat. “Pardonnez moi,” she said. She needed to watch where she walked. Twice in one day was too much.
“Rien,” the man muttered in a cracked voice, it’s nothing. The voice sounded familiar. Katherine was startled to see it was the widower himself, turning away from the door of the apartment above the shop. His collar was up and he was wearing the kind of billed cap Katherine usually associated with tweedy golfers. He looked different only because she had never seen him except in a dress shirt with a bow tie and the sleeves rolled up, and a white apron tied around his waist. His face today was ravaged, pasty, the shadow of an unshaved beard and dark circles under his eyes making him look unkempt, ill.
She wondered if she should say anything to him, offer condolences. Surely, he had heard more than enough of those, and if some of the gossip was right, he was under at least a degree of suspicion as the spouse of the victim. He didn’t look like a killer, more like a depressed and preoccupied—and already wet—man trying to get somewhere. Still, she ought to say something. Lifting her arm toward the poster in the window, she said, “I am so glad to know about this. I’m sure many of her friends and customers will want to be there.”
He nodded, made a sound that might have meant agreement or thanks, and walked away down the street in the same direction she was walking, but faster. Katherine shrugged. Of course he didn’t want to stand in the cold rain and chat with a casual customer.
Looking past the hurrying figure, Katherine saw a cluster of young people at the next intersection. They were laughing and chattering loudly, perhaps waiting for the bus, some shivering, some with their chins buried in the collars of the insubstantial jackets that, like those of young people everywhere, telegraphed their complete disdain for inclement weather. They all wore backpacks, no one had an umbrella, and they were soaked. The gold-blonde curls cascading from a thick, red knit scarf wound high around one girl’s neck had to be Jeannette’s. The girl had gotten to the bus stop early since the museum job had been put off. Her back was turned to Katherine. M. Sabine had paused to use an ATM behind the clot of teenagers, who seemed to all be talking at the same time.
Katherine glanced at her watch. If the kids were waiting for the bus, it would be another fifteen minutes. She had time to finish her last errand and she could still give Jeannette a ride back to Reigny. People who had no other option complained all the time about the lumbering bus that took forever, stopping at every small crossroads between Avallon and Reigny.
After darting into the patisserie and waiting in a short line to buy two pistachio macarons she silently promised the dentist would be followed immediately by a vigorous toothbrushing, Katherine headed downhill toward the group of teens, who were looking at Jeannette at the moment. She was telling a story and her back was to the bank and its ATM. She probably didn’t realize M. Sabine was there, finishing up his transaction and taking a phone from his coat pocket. He looked distracted and Katherine hoped Jeannette wasn’t telling her friends about the body at the museum, although she had an unpleasant feeling that was the topic.
Confirming her suspicions as she got closer, a boy facing Jeannette suddenly kicked her in the shin and jerked his head toward M. Sabine. Jeannette turned and saw the man and when she faced the group again, her mouth was open in an exaggerated O. The kids got quiet, signaling whatever it was that teenagers meant with their various gestures and body moves, then parted into groups of twos and threes, hitching up their backpacks and studiously not looking in the butcher’s direction. Jeannette and another girl ducked into the flimsy protection of the bus stop roof. The man who had been sitting there looking at his phone screen absently got up and wandered out, sticking his phone in his pocket and opening up his umbrella. Katherine didn’t know everyone in Avallon, but something about this man made her sure he didn’t live here. Odd place to visit in the depths of winter, she thought, and then Jeannette turned and, pushing her mane of hair away from her face, came to meet her.
“You still want a ride home?” Katherine asked after giving and receiving kisses.
“Merci. Je suis trempé comme une soupe.” She laughed as she complained about being soaked to the skin, and held up one arm to show Katherine that the rain had penetrated the fabric of her coat.
Jeannette chattered as Katherine drove slowly through the downpour, the car’s heater blasting and windshield wipers laboring noisily back and forth. School was boring. The teachers were forever leaving the classroom to chat with each other during class. Romain, the boy in her history class, was handsome but never talked to her.
“So you aren’t happy?”
“Oh, oui, I like being with my friends, you know? Especially after school.”
As they got closer to the entrance to Reigny where Pippa lived, Jeannette was apparently reminded of the Englishwoman because she began to tell Katherine about Pippa’s cornering her and asking questions about her work at the costume museum.
“She ask me about the toupee, you know, the hairpiece, on the mannequin, and if it was in the salon, and I say I cannot get into the salon yet. I clean—cleaned—on Monday and the dead woman did not turn up there until Thursday. Today, again the flics are saying to leave everything alone.” She held up her hands in an exaggerated, palms and shoulders up, expression of confusion. “On Monday, the displays in that salon were as they should be, comme il faut, yes?”
Katherine pulled up in front of Jeannette’s house, the motor running, and, replaying the reactions of the police officer, said, “But you did a special cleanup before Mme Sabine was found, didn’t you?”
“I had to straighten up after the tour the church women took, but it wasn’t hard, paper napkins and plates, and wineglasses on the mezzanine. Some empty wine bottles. Nothing on the level where Madame was murdered.”
“About the cleaning up,” Katherine said, thinking about the policeman’s surprise when they stood at the window watching the garbage collector at work, “I’m not sure how you get the trash out. Is there any way to the yard through Madame’s apartment?”
“No, not at all. You’d have to climb through a window, yes? The basement is only a small place I get to by going through the hallway, and it has a funny door that I duck down to get through. The trash can is just inside the door to the yard. It is a nuisance to get outside at times, I tell you.” She made a face.
“I was looking at the yard from the salon upstairs today. There doesn’t seem to be a gate to the alley. Where do the trash collectors pick it up? I saw a side entrance from the next house.”
“Mais oui, I don’t throw it over the back wall.” She giggled and looked at Katherine.
Katherine hesitated. She knew Pippa annoyed people with her pestering sometimes and Katherine didn’t want to do that. She still felt she was on probation as a member in good standing of Reigny’s community. Hers was a fragile acceptance in a small town with so many sensitivities. Still, she had a piece of paper in her coat pocket that demanded some explanation. Probably it was nothing, but Mme Sabine deserved at least a small measure of support in death. “When you cleaned up the day before the body was found, what did you actually do? Can you remember? It’s only because I’m so concerned that nothing is overlooked in bringing this horrible murderer to justice, you see?”
Jeannette picked up her backpack from the floor in front of her. Her lower lip stuck out as if she thought she would be criticized for a lack of attention to her work. “Nothing in that room, only sweeping in the hallway in front of it, where they had grouped to look at the rosary collection, and below, where they had set up a food table. In the other tableaus, I do the regular thing—sweep the carpet, dust the tops of the furniture, use a cloth on the small things sitting on the tables. Since no one goes into the rooms, there’s not much to do except look for cobwebs. I told the flics all this when they asked.”
“And all was as it should be?”
“I think so. It is hard to remember. It was ordinary, you know?”
“Listen, Jeannette. I know it seems like Pippa Hathaway and I are asking a lot of questions, but we were both there and it still concerns us.” Jeannette nodded and glanced over at Katherine, her face relaxing a bit. “I’m going to say something that shouldn’t frighten you, but I think is important. I don’t think it’s wise to talk about what you know, what you saw, or even that you were there with anyone else, well, anyone but the police when they ask. It’s best that no one else hear about you and how close you were to the murder site, okay?”
“Okay,” the girl said, with no apparent worry in her voice. “D’accord, only my friends already know.”
“I realize that. But I think it’s best you don’t spread the information any further.”
At that moment, the door to the stonecutter’s house burst open and what seemed like a herd of small boys rushed out into the courtyard, calling for their big sister. “’Nette, come in, come in, we’re hungry. What’s for dinner, ’Nette?” Their hair getting plastered to their heads in the downpour, the boys, in good spirits, banged on the Citroën’s passenger-side door, rapped small knuckles on the closed window, and peered in.
Jeannette opened the door. “Ta gueule,” she shouted, shut up, a term Katherine had heard kids in groups use on their way to or from school or soccer games, always in high spirits. It had the same effect now, that is, none. It wasn’t until the girl got out, leaned her head back into the car, and thanked Katherine for the ride that the boys seemed to realize they were getting drenched, and raced back into the house.
“Is there enough food in the refrigerator to feed that horde?” Katherine said, laughing.
“There is never enough for them.”
“Tell you what. Send one of them over to my house in fifteen minutes. I bought a lot of sausages thinking Michael would be home tonight, but he won’t get back for a few more days and the sausages won’t keep. I had to buy them at the supermarket since M. Sabine is closed for now. There are way too many in the package.”
Jeannette smiled her thanks and slammed the car door. In the open doorway of the house, two boys and a puppy clustered, watching her with interest and waiting for her attention. It was too much for a fifteen-year-old girl, Katherine thought, as she drove up the hill, got out to open the stiff gate, and parked as close to the house as she could, but what choice did she have? Jean was either out doing whatever brought in a few euros at a time, or sitting at the café, striking up conversation with neighbors who couldn’t avoid him and who rarely offered to buy him the glass of wine he hoped to snag.
Tomorrow, she would have her small lunch party, hope that the weather was better, and only after that would she sit quietly and try to make sense of the odds and ends, the clues as Pippa would call them, that were piling up about Mme Sabine’s last hours and her grotesque death.