The writing wasn’t going well. Somehow, writing about exciting events wasn’t as interesting as observing them. Pippa slammed the lid of her laptop down a bit too hard and got up. She had promised herself a strict hour or two of work before heading in to the butcher shop, but it was only one o’clock and her mind was drifting. The cats were sleeping, some inside, some on the steps, and it was so quiet she had almost dozed off staring at the computer screen. The sun was making a brave effort and it was time for a brisk walk. That would refresh her and lead to a breakthrough.
She set out along a path that went directly from her backyard through a stand of trees that met the road. A run-down set of train tracks provided a walking route. Katherine had told her that the line was an offshoot of the local web of rail service that existed when the alternative was mostly carts and horses. Used by Nazis ferrying the provisions they commandeered from the locals, it was only a ghost now, grown over with wildflowers in the summer and decaying weeds in December.
Something was nagging at her. Losing her train of thought happened a lot, but this had something to do with the murder at the museum. She resolved to concentrate on remembering, but she had reached the road and walked less than a kilometer when the two-tone sound of gendarmes’ sirens grew loud. In a few moments, she turned to see three cars, their blue lights flashing, heading toward and then past her at high speed. Toward L’Isle-sur-Serein, perhaps? Two more police vehicles zoomed past, one an unmarked car but with a blue light, and the other an ambulance. What could it mean?
There was only one way to know. She turned and ran back to her cottage, grabbed her bag and her camera, and, honking to make sure the cats were safely away from the car, she backed out of the driveway and headed for the nearby town at top speed.
The Serein was visible off to the left, a small river that gleamed dully beyond the leafless trees that lined its low banks. It curved away and then swerved back closer to the road, leading the way from one farmhouse to the next. Pippa took the road over a small bridge and into the center of the town, where she had to slam on her brakes as she approached what, in these country towns, constituted a traffic jam. A small crowd had gathered near a ragged line of stopped police cars, their blue lights still flashing. Men in thick sweaters and knit caps, women in print dresses paired with socks and sturdy shoes, a few toddlers trying to wrest themselves free of restraining hands, and a half dozen uniformed policemen were all leaning over the low wall that held the water back from the street and the stone buildings across from it. There was a lot of shouting, alas all in French. Pippa decided parking rules were suspended, and simply stopped behind the last police car in the street, as did the driver of a mud-spattered truck right behind her.
“Quel est la?” she said to a woman standing on tiptoes to see over the crowd. “What is it? What’s happening?”
The woman, who carried a straw basket from which protruded bunches of green leaves, looked up suspiciously into Pippa’s face, her pursed lips suggesting either the question or the questioner was out of line. She shook her head. “Qui sait? Un corps dans l’eau, vous comprenez?”
Pippa did comprehend, at least the body and the water part. Another murder? Was it possible? The only thing to do was get closer. Edging toward the policemen who were pointing and calling to someone, she could see that two other officers had gone around to the other side of the riverbank and were scrambling down the bank from the shrubbery that dipped into the slowly flowing water. They waded under some branches, intent on getting to something they could see. The crowd noises increased as everyone, it seemed, shouted at the two men. Pippa had no idea if they were getting instructions, warnings, or encouragement, but she knew what she wanted to get. She pulled her camera out of her bag and started clicking. The waders, the watchers, the thing entangled in the branches.
Suddenly she pulled the camera away from her eyes and gasped. It was a body, the flesh of an arm bobbing in the water, tangled in a thicket of wet leaves. As she turned away in horror, her stomach tightened and she saw pricks of light in front of her eyes. She couldn’t faint. Steady on, girl, remember you’re a writer and this is your job, she scolded herself. Buck up. Swallowing hard, she peeked, in time to see a hand, the fingers still graceful as it floated toward an officer.
She dropped her head to fiddle with the camera and take what she hoped was a steadying breath. She was disoriented when a loud cry went up from the onlookers, followed by gales of raucous laughter. Laughter? She whipped her head around and saw one of the men in the water tugging hard at the corpse while his partner was grinning. How could that be?
“Makeen, makeen,” someone shouted above the general noise. Then others took up the cry, but Pippa couldn’t understand what they were saying. Damn this language thing.
“I beg your pardon,” she said to the man next to her, a swarthy fellow with a three-day beard and a missing front tooth. “What is everyone saying?” He looked at her blankly. Taking a deep breath, she managed, slowly, “Quel est la?”
He grinned broadly at her and put his hand on her shoulder to turn her toward the scene. “Un mannequin, d’accord? Dans un magasin? A doll, yes?”
“Bloody hell, a store dummy, you mean?”
“Oui, oui,” he said, scratching his chin and nodding to her as he melted away. Around her the crowd relaxed. It was a joke, not a tragedy, something to gossip about over a café crème, not to send you to bed afraid of nightmares. The police were still working, those in the water tugging the thing free and those on the near bank opening up a bag they might have put a body in so as to take this curious bit of flotsam away. Pippa looked around to see the ambulance back out of the crowded space and make for the bridge and out of town, followed by a couple of police cars that had been in the original caravan. Women closed their cardigans tighter around their torsos and headed back to the warmth of their houses or shops. Children pleaded in vain for more time outdoors, however cold it was, and were dragged off under protest. A man in a jacket that sported the name of a soccer team chatted with a man in a jacket that advertised a car company. The energy of the crowd fizzled.
Pippa wished for a warmer jumper, and was about to put her camera away when she noticed something odd. The policemen had hoisted the mannequin over their heads and across the narrow channel to their waiting colleagues, who leaned far over the wall to grab it. Only then did Pippa see that the dummy was bald. She took pictures as fast as she could, then went over to a small knot of gendarmes standing near their cars and smoking.
“Excuse me. I say, are you from Avallon by any chance?”
They looked at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. Well, she guessed she was but this was important and surely one of these people had some English. She was definitely not up to explaining this in French.
“Did you need something, Madame?” a young woman said in heavily accented English, dropping her cigarette and stepping closer to Pippa.
“Not exactly, I mean, oui. Look, I’m sorry I don’t speak French, but this is important. That store dummy? Do you think it came from the costume museum in Avallon?”
The young woman’s face showed nothing. She looked from Pippa to the thing lying stiffly on the pavement. Dripping wet and half-covered in debris from its time in the river, it was grotesque in its similarity to a human body as it rested on hard cobblestones, face turned unseeingly to the sky. “Do you work at the musée, Madame?”
“Of course not. That’s not my point. It’s the same kind of store dummy they use. I wondered if one was missing from the museum. It could be evidence of a crime, don’t you see?” The young policewoman looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Oh dear, I can’t manage this in French, I’m so sorry. Is there someone…?”
“Philippe,” the policewoman called over her shoulder, and spoke rapidly to a young man who ambled over to her.
Pippa realized she was holding her breath. Black hair, a lock of which fell forward as he smiled at her. Dark blue eyes like deep water, a discreet cleft in his chin. And, he was taller than she was. Without thinking, she stood up straighter.
“I speak English, Madame. Please tell me what it is you want us to know. Do you recognize the doll?” His voice was charming, she thought, and his accented English was adorable. And here was a coincidence—he had the same name as she did.
“Madame?” he repeated, and Pippa woke from her daydream with a start.
“No, well, perhaps yes. You see, I think it was in the Musée du Costume—you know it?—in Avallon. Are you with the Avallon police?”
“Yes, we are from the Avallon brigade of gendarmes. You must be referring to the dead woman discovered in the salon there, yes?”
“Yes, that’s it, precisely.” Finally, someone who understood. “You see, the body was substituted for one of the mannequins. So, don’t you think this must be connected to that murder?” Pippa waited, hoping she hadn’t spoken too quickly or, more importantly, that she didn’t appear to be some kind of nutter.
The handsome cop nodded and smiled as if he approved. Maybe he’d ask for her name and phone number so he could follow up, said an unbidden voice in her head. The policewoman’s face had changed from impassivity to open suspicion. “And who are you, Madame?” she said, whipping a small notebook from her jacket pocket.
Pippa fell back to earth. Why hadn’t Philippe of the blue eyes and cleft chin asked for her address instead of this officious policewoman who made her feel like a criminal? She opened her mouth to explain she had been there when the body was found, but had sudden misgivings. What if they thought she was like one of those criminals she had read about who show up at the site of investigations? Would she get home before Christmas if she were locked up in a French jail? The woman was waiting, pencil held up, notebook at the ready, and the handsome one was still standing there, looking at her encouragingly. Oh dear, why had she spoken anyway?
“Will you give me—us—your name, Madame?” he finally asked, perhaps thinking his fellow officer’s bad English had been too hard for her to understand.
She found she was stammering. “I’m Philippa Hathaway, you see, I live in Reigny-sur-Canne, on rue Benoit, near the edge of the town, near the road you came here on. Not that that’s important.” Oh dear, I am making rather a mess of this, she thought. I have to stop staring into his eyes. He really will think I’m mental. “I was with my neighbor, who was driving some tourists to the museum. I needed to pick up my car, so I hitched a ride. And then, all of that happened and … I was an innocent bystander,” she finished, knowing she sounded like a fool. “But, I write murder mysteries—”
Bad move. “Murder?” The woman’s pencil was poised, almost quivering at the possibilities.
“Well, I’m working on my first novel, but it’s made-up, you know, not the real thing.” Pippa tried to laugh. “What you’d see on the telly, those dramas, you know.”
The young woman sighed, but he of the blue eyes nodded again to show he understood. “You think that the dummy is a signal that this incident relates to that most serious crime. Both happened in the same area and near the same time and you wanted to make sure we realized it.”
The policewoman snapped closed her notebook, gave Pippa what looked like a pitying smile, and turned back to her colleagues. Philippe reached into his shirt pocket and leaned toward her as he handed her a business card. “If you need to reach us again.” He gave her another almost intimate smile, bowed slightly, and rejoined the group of officers, who had finished their cigarette break and were nodding at instructions being given by an older man in a jacket and tie. How lovely it would be to meet him for coffee, she thought while looking at the card, perhaps even for dinner in that cozy café she had passed by so many times because it always seemed to be occupied by couples.
The small group of officials laughed all together and Pippa’s face burned. They had probably been told about her comment. Pippa felt daft. Of course the police had put two and two together. Who wouldn’t see that if they knew about the dead woman on their pitch? She tripped over a cobblestone and almost lost her bag as she tromped back to her car, and hoped the handsome cop hadn’t seen her clumsiness. They would probably be able to figure out who killed the poor woman from this find in the river. And here she had almost thrown up when she saw the thing floating around.
Stupid, stupid, she said to herself as she unlocked the car and ducked in, her head as always grazing the edge of the roof. She sat there for a few minutes, trying to push away the dark mood. I’m a novelist, no one expects me to be a real investigator, she told herself. But, wait, didn’t that show that she was getting this business of clues right? It would help her write her book.
She dared to glance back at where the knot of policemen had been, but they weren’t in sight. She shook herself and turned the key in the ignition. She had to drive forward, along the now-empty road edging the river and its low wall. She turned to look once more at the scene, wondering how it could have taken her so long to see that it wasn’t a real person. The figure had been loaded in a van and taken off. The police must have finished here and walked to the adjoining street, probably looking for anyone who’d seen the dummy dropped in, if this was where it happened.
From this angle, as she drove cautiously forward, something small gleamed at the edge of a puddle near the wall that kept the Serein at bay. Curious, she put the car into neutral next to the water and got out to see what the object was. Probably a small euro coin, but still. She fished it out of a depression made by someone else’s tire.
It was a slender gold cross on an even more slender gold chain that was twisted and crushed. There was a flat charm attached to the chain too. Perhaps someone standing here had lost it during the crowded moments. She should turn it in, but a stubborn voice in her head cautioned her that the police might laugh at her again. It could be a clue. If she gave it to the police, she’d never know. If she held on to it for a little while, maybe she could learn something. Clearly, the coppers weren’t interested in sharing information.
She’d take it home, examine it, and if it didn’t seem important, she’d bring it back to the town and hand it over to someone. They had a mayor, most likely. Every little town had someone who was available to deal with local problems. Maybe Katherine would come back with her and explain where she found it. Then, if the mayor thought it was important, let him bring it to that arrogant policewoman himself. Yes, tomorrow would be soon enough. She jammed it in the pocket of her anorak and drove out of town and back toward Reigny.
She felt guilty enough about taking it that she half-believed the policewoman’s car would come barreling along the narrow road behind her, lights flashing. But nothing happened and she arrived at her house with no more excitement than several of the cats waiting impatiently to be let in out of the cold. They brushed by her as soon as the door was open far enough to squeeze through, rude creatures, and demanded milk before she’d even taken off her coat. “Really, now,” Pippa said, “you’d best be more polite than that when I’m gone or Madame Robilier will just leave you without your afternoon snacks.”
She looked at the old clock on the wall. Too late to drive to Avallon and back. Her investigation of the butcher would have to wait. For now, she had a significant clue to examine.
Fifteen minutes later, a mug of strong black tea in hand and the rest of the cats in and draped everywhere in the room, she fished the cross from the coat pocket and dropped it on her desk. “All right, thing. If you’re a clue, prove it.” Two of the thin rings of the chain were open wide, and one was clearly too short to be whole. Elsewhere, the chain had doubled back on itself and been crushed into a tangle that wouldn’t come unstuck. Unless a lot of pieces were missing where the links had opened, Pippa thought it had been a short necklace, and would have been visible at a woman’s neck. Definitely not a man’s, much too delicate.
The cross wasn’t damaged. Other than an almost unreadable gold mark, there was nothing unusual. It didn’t look old or handmade or in a shape that might indicate a particular culture. The charm had some kind of design engraved on it, but no writing, and the design didn’t look familiar.
Pippa sat, tapping her front teeth with the rim of the small magnifying glass she had pulled from her mug of pens, pencils, and letter openers. What now? The digital camera was still in her bag and she fished it out and started tapping through the images. The backs of heads in the crowd, the wet street, the police cars fanned out at the bottom of the road, the river, brownish and clotted here and there with debris from the trees and bushes that hung over it. A policeman up to his waist, leaning toward a protruding foot. A series of quick shots as he tried to grab a leg, an arm, his face contorted with concentration. Then, a shot of the dummy, now clearly unreal in its rigidity, rising up as the policeman yanked on a false limb, its blank face turned up to the sky, mouth slightly open.
Pippa closed her eyes and pictured the mannequins in Madame’s museum, the same vacant expressions as they gazed through the visitors, graceful hands turned out, palms up, as if in welcome or explanation, jewelry around their necks and dangling from their ears, bands across their foreheads or feathers in their hair, feet clad in heels. Stop, she told herself, think. Something … hair, that was it. The dummy in the water had no hair. Where was the wig? Wasn’t it glued on or something? Would it come off in the water? Maybe it came off in the car of whoever brought the mannequin to the river, which would be a clue, wouldn’t it?