Speak Softly My Love, Chapter Twenty-Two.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven 
Part Eight 
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Part Thirteen
Part Fouteen 
Part Fifteen
Part Sixteen 
Part Seventeen
Part Eighteen 
Part Nineteen
Part Twenty
Part Twenty-One

Louis Shalako


Speak Softly My Love


Chapter Twenty-Two

All three of their warrants were to be executed at once. For reasons that were rather more political than practical, it was anticipated that Gaston e Cie would cooperate willingly. As it was, their name should be kept out of it as far as that was possible. Before approaching the firm, some solid information would be helpful.

Levain and Tailler had been elected for the house in Paris. Gilles and LeBref were to search the house in Lyon, while Firmin and Hubert were in Molsheim.

“Are we ready?” There were six hulking cops on the sidewalk.

Levain gave Emile a nod.

“Go for it.”

Tailler pushed the button beside the street level door labeled Godeffroy.

“Yes, hello?”

It sure sounded like Monique; but then how the hell would he know…

“Madame Godeffroy?”

“Yes, who is it?”

“This is Detective Emile Tailler. I have a warrant, duly signed and issued by a competent authority, to search these premises for evidence related to a homicide.”

There was a long pause.

Tailler looked at Levain and bit his lip. He caught Sergeant Richard’s eye, as he stood with the axe casually over his shoulder. They had a master key from the landlord, but there were interior doors and closets as well. It would be interesting to see how she handled it.

Tailler was just about to speak when the latch clicked.

“So. She’s going to be sensible, then.” Levain grabbed the knob, whipped the door open and then they were all clattering up the stairs.

A lot could happen in thirty seconds when people were desperate and the jig was up.

***

They had been very patient.

With the chase most definitely on, Gilles as senior member of the unit had taken the simple precaution, once Didier’s (the real one presumably) location was firmly nailed down, of dispatching a pair of plain-clothes officers to shadow him. Once their shadows called in and confirmed that they had him under proper surveillance, Gilles had given the boys the go-ahead for the operation.

If Didier ran or went to ground in a major city, they might have one hell of a time catching up again. In order to avoid arousing his suspicions, they couldn’t even freeze his bank accounts. In what was very odd, phone taps to all three households indicated he wasn’t calling them and they weren’t calling or trying to call him. It might be hard for a wife or spouse to locate him on impulse. One would think he would call home once in a while, and let them know where he was, and how he was doing.

Their monitoring of the lines at Gaston e Cie had recorded several long and involved business conversations that left little doubt they were dealing with the real Didier.

That was an interesting moment.

Days had passed and the tensions mounted.

Now it was different.

With regular updates from their officers calling in from stations on the way, it was clear that Didier was finally heading home for Paris. He could still branch off at almost any point along the way, almost up to the last minute. The wine-producing regions of France were diverse and scattered all over. It was only when he got up in the morning, left his hotel, took a cab, made his way to the station and bought a ticket for Paris, that’s when they knew for certain he was really coming.

More than anything they wanted Didier to come home. The timing and execution of their warrants was predicated upon the fact that Didier’s train came in at approximately ten-forty-two a.m. from points south and west.

Once he bought that final ticket, his fate was more or less determined. One of their field officers called in hurriedly. Their quarry had actually boarded and one of them was on the train with him. As soon as the second shadow hung up, there would be two of them on the train with Didier…

They were coming home.

Any change in plans, even one unexpected move on his part, and his shadows would grab him and slap the cuffs on him without hesitation. They would grab him and drag him in by the scruff of the neck if that’s what it took.

Lucinde let them in without a problem and quickly stood aside as they went to work.

“What is this all about, gentlemen?” Her dignity was tragic, her countenance stern, although her lips trembled.

Gilles looked her in the eye.

“I may have a few questions for you. In the meantime, please sit down on the end of the couch and don’t move, Madame.”

Her face white with suppressed emotions, the lady had turned and did exactly what she was told. The redoubtable Jeannine stood there, arms crossed, keeping an eye on her.

***

In Molsheim, Detective Etienne Hubert stood looking around the room. They were accompanied by a detective and a sergeant from the local detachment. They would of course receive all due credit in any subsequent news conferences. Inspector Descamps hadn’t stinted them a bit of manpower. The thought that their detachment would share in any glory probably didn’t enter into it—not too much, anyways.

The air in Zoe’s flat was stale but relatively odorless. Her houseplants were definitely getting dry when he pulled off a glove and stuck a finger into the soil. It was very quiet and all the windows were tightly shut. There were no pets. She had a little milk in the fridge. When Hubert smelled it, it was sour. There were perishable items, looking pretty limp by now, and the potatoes when he found them were spotted and beginning to smell.

He wandered the place in his cotton gloves as the technical guys, local people, went about dusting for prints.

He raised his voice.

“Look for anything masculine. Anyplace where a guest, especially male, might have touched.”

He thought about it. Fingerprints were the most damning evidence. The bathroom, the bedroom…which side would the woman sleep on?

She would shove further in from the side they got in on, and that would put the male beside the bedside table and the telephone.

“Check the alarm clock and the telephone.”

The fridge, maybe. Not the stove. She had a little bar alcove at one end of the salon, mostly for show thought Hubert.

Someone knocked at the door and the men inside Zoe’s apartment froze for a second as if stricken by the most abject guilt. With a look at Firmin, Hubert went to the door.

It was Ada Bellerose.

“Can I help you?”

Her face was flaming.

“You! You bastards. What’s going on in there?”

Hubert shrugged.

A uniformed sergeant appeared at his shoulder.

“There is no need for alarm. Other than that, you can read about it in the papers, Mademoiselle.”

Gently, ever so gently, Hubert shut the door in the young lady’s face.

“Sir?”

A little thrill ran through Detective Hubert.

“Yes?”

“I think we’ve got something.”

Following the voice, he went into the bathroom, a small but attractive little room up under the back eaves.

“What have you got for me?”

“It looks like a man’s shaving kit.”

Hubert grinned.

He gave the sergeant a look.

“Okay, men. We’re looking for fingerprints, strands of hair, dead whiskers in the brush, and fibres from the man’s coat. Mud from his shoes. Male personal hygiene items, cigarettes, pipes, a gross of condoms, you name it. Leave no stone unturned.”

“What about the rug?” The grinning young gendarme, crowding in for a look, had a point, thought Hubert.

“Pull it up when we’re done and look for money—stuff like that. Right?” He gave the sergeant a quick look.

The grizzled veteran nodded.

“You heard the man.”

Firmin gave Sergeant Paquet a wink, receiving a blank look in return. Hubert was so wound up, it was like the poor guy just couldn’t stand still.

***

Didier Godeffroy, every inch the picture of the perfect businessman, la parfait négociant, stepped off the train into the shrill babble of the platform crowd, and was immediately confronted.

A perfect cliff of a man in big shoes, grey trousers and a long black raincoat stepped directly in front of him. A wide-brimmed fedora shadowed his eyes from the hot glare above. A sturdy woman with a face like a potato was at his side. Her hair was in a tight bun and her cap hung half sideways, pinned on a precarious angle. Their eyes bored into his as others crowded him from behind.

“Didier Godeffroy?”

“Yes?”

The woman held up a shiny official badge while the man-ape stood there watching his reaction carefully, arms held loosely at his sides.

“There’s not going to be any trouble here, is there sir?” The deep rumbling voice matched the man.

“No, no, of course not.” Didier stared in apparent confusion at the badge. “Who are you people? What is this about, please?”

The lady officer spoke.

“If you would come with us, sir, we would just like to ask you a few questions.”

People eddied and swirled around the three, Didier with his baggage at his feet and the other two oblivious to all around them. Their focus was entirely on him.

His eyes flickered left and right. He became aware that he was under scrutiny from certain other rather cold-looking ladies and gentlemen. They stood off to each side, cold in the sense of being watchful, motionless and emotionless, rather than from the temperature. He tore his eyes away.

“Where are we going?”

“Leave the bags, sir. Please, sir, just turn around and put your hands on your head.”

Didier’s jaws dropped as the big officer spoke and the female stepped slightly off to one side, pulling her coat back and it was obvious that she had her hand on the butt of a weapon.

“Whoa.” He gulped. “Okay, okay—no problem.”

He raised his hands, nice and slow and then he was quickly spun around by the clamp of a hand on his collar bone area. An iron grip took hold of his right wrist as the emotions ran through him. For a moment there it looked like, it sure felt like, he would bolt. The steel ring snapped on his wrist.

He sagged at the knees and then fought for composure, his posture straightening in spite of all odds. He took a long, hard breath, his darting, shocked eyes seeking something above the level of their heads.

“Ah…”

“Keep that left hand up there.” The lady was the total professional.

There was the momentary gleam of a wedding ring.

He gave her the look of a frightened rabbit confronted by the fox. His eyes were everywhere, the heart-rate shooting skywards and the adrenalin making his knees knock.

His body gave one massive twitch, but he remained in some semblance of control over himself.

The opportunity passed, and he never would have made it anyway.

There was nowhere to run. There were trains before and behind his narrow platform. All avenues were blocked by officers in bulky shoes, ill-fitting trousers, and shapeless jackets and coats. The cuff was on his right wrist. His left wrist was seized and brought down.

His hand was yanked into position and then he was secured.

“Who do you people think you are—”

“Look on the bright side, Monsieur Godeffroy. You won’t have to carry your own bags. You won’t even have to tip us.”

The lady gendarme waved off a porter as he came along, recognizing Monsieur Godeffroy perhaps and not seeing that there was some action here he might not want to be involved in.

It all clicked in and he sought their hard eyes in confirmation—he knew cops when he saw them. The old fellow, all dressed in blue and with the regulation cap, stood there gaping, hands clasping the handle of the cart. Another impatient traveler plucked at his elbow and dragged him rather unwillingly off. Clouds of steam and gaggles of tired travelers straggled past in the light breeze.

“I want to speak to my lawyer.”

“You’ll have all the time in the world, sir.”

The big male gendarme leaned across in front of the prisoner, turned his head and gave Jeannine a quick and admiring glance.

The arresting officers, taking an elbow each, his arms cuffed behind him, frog-marched an ashen-faced Didier Godeffroy down the platform, through the concourse and out into the bright, marvelous autumn day.

It really was perfect weather for September.

***

With one prisoner in custody, the woman calling herself Monique and the one calling herself Lucinde had been ordered not to leave town. They were under non-stop surveillance by teams of officers working in shifts.

On their own, Hubert and Tailler never would have been able to pull it off, but with Maintenon and Inspectors Delorme and David pulling for them, they had gotten all the resources they needed.

Monsieur Godeffroy had been allowed to call his lawyer. He had been booked and processed and was sitting in a holding cell.

Their teams in Lyon and Molsheim had, essentially, twenty-four hours to get the goods and return to Paris, although the public prosecutor was good for one twenty-four hour extension. 

After that, they would have to go to the judge and show cause for holding Monsieur Godeffroy any longer.

The team from Molsheim having returned triumphant, Maintenon had pulled more strings.

They had taken over the biggest conference room they could find, luckily on their own floor this time. All the desks and tables had been pushed together in two lines, tables in one, all about the same height, and the desks in the other line. Each subject and each aspect of the case got their own big table as detectives wandered up and down, organizing everything they had. Tailler had a big blackboard with a time-line on it, and references to railway schedules, salient events, eye-witness reports and ticket stubs seized so far…it was all coming together beautifully.

They had their exhibits lined up, neatly tagged, bagged, labeled and identified. When the team from Lyon came bounding down the hallway with their boxes and materials, they were rapidly redirected by Firmin to the appropriate room.

Tailler had taken to calling it a think tank.

Gilles and Levain were off on a case of their own, but after a noisy greeting, the small group settled down. There were just Hubert, Firmin, and Tailler. The gendarmes had been sent back, with some effusive thanks, to whatever duties they had originally been pulled from.

Now it was just a case of making sense of what they had.

Tailler stood awed for a moment as Firmin and Hubert hunched over the phone, and mumbled away at their one and only clear desk in the corner.

With fingerprints, hairs, shaving kits, bloodstains, bodies, time-tables, railroad and the killer’s as well, it had become fairly overwhelming.

“Oh, boy.”

This was going to take some doing—he knew what must have happened, what could have happened, what might have happened. Now they just needed to prove it.

First things first.

Fingerprints.

***

It was time for les enfants terrible to spell it out.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened yet, Emile?”

“Yes, Inspector.”

Hubert nodded firmly.

Sure. Why not.

Hubert began.

“Well, sir. We have Didier Godeffroy’s fingerprints all over, all three domiciles. We have hairs from his head, most likely, according to preliminary analysis. It’s difficult to see where else they might have come from. We’ve asked around and there are no other interesting males in any of the women’s lives. We have Didier’s whiskers from the razors. What’s interesting, is that with the decedent from the river, the look-alike, we can’t find his prints anywhere in any of the premises.”

Reports stated the unidentified victim’s whiskers, were in general thicker and perhaps a bit darker than the real Didier’s. This part did sort of throw doubt on all other evidence regarding whiskers, as it was simply not possible to be conclusive. All their experts agreed on that.

“I see.”

“Okay. This is where it gets fun, Inspector. I have to admit, it took me a while to figure it out.”

Hubert raised his hand like a schoolboy.

“I give Emile full credit for that—this is all his idea, Inspector.”

Gilles snorted gently, as Levain grinned and Firmin gave Hubert a blank stare. The young detective coloured slightly and shut up.

Tailler looked shy for a moment, but then plunged on.

“Okay. The lady in the Rive Gauche—her prints are all over the Paris residence of Didier Godeffroy. And the hotel room—and nowhere else. Yet they were on the ticket stub, although the ladies of a certain class still favour gloves, and the weather was cool that day. They were on the letter.” He cleared his throat. “So—she had gloves with her. She came in wearing a spring and fall jacket. I noticed it at the time. The stations are cold inside, and she would have bought the ticket and stuck the stub in her purse. She might have been wearing gloves—or, more usually people just toss them.”

Train stations and the sidewalks around them were littered with just such cancelled stubs.

Gilles pursed his lips and even Firmin looked impressed.

“Go on, my dear boy. Go on.”

Tailler stammered and cleared his throat.

“What’s interesting is that the prints from the body in the Rive Gauche don’t match any of the prints in the Zoe passport. But all the passports are a mess of mostly unidentifiable smudges. When we look further, we can match up prints from Zoe’s house, to fragmentary prints on the Zoe passport. Did I get that right?”

He was pretty sure he had. He glanced through his notes, but that was what it said. He tried again.

“Now, eliminating the maid and the cook and one or two prints that clearly don’t belong to anybody—I’m a bit unsure there, but surely Monique, and even Lucinde, couldn’t have been that isolated. The most perfect servant will miss the odd print when cleaning, waxing and dusting. But they can linger for quite a while—”

Gilles coughed and he broke off.

“…getting right to the point, sir, is that the prints of the lady calling herself Monique appear in the Paris household and the Lyons household.” His eyes went far away. “What’s interesting is that the servants haven’t been seen in a while. The theory is that they’ve been let go and any documents are missing somehow…”

With none of them talking under advice of cousel, it would take some time to find them.

Levain nodded, a quick little jerk of the head.

“And the fingerprints of the lady calling herself Lucinde are found in the house in Lyon as well as the house in Molsheim. It’s a regular fucking shell game going on here, sir.”

Gilles exhaled in a kind of admiration.

“The body in the park really did get up and walk away. In the absence of other leads, other reports, it’s the only sensible explanation. Following Didier’s movements, and we have hotel confirmations going back quite a ways, there are a couple of big gaps. There are two big, beautiful windows of opportunity, one for the Rive Gauche killing. Also. He was out of the house for the body you found, Inspector. The time frame is perfect. We have officers interviewing station attendants all up and down the line, and we expect to get their reports. It would be nice to know exactly when he left town. So far we’ve turned up nothing. Part of the problem is that he was actually fairly well-known. He ditched most of his own ticket stubs—a sensible precaution. Honestly, he would have had a handful, and that’s just from his regular job. People are saying that they saw him come and go—can’t remember when, but he was a regular customer. Maybe we’ll get lucky there.”

Tailler tailed off. The truth was, he still had questions.

“So.”

“So, ah, sir. The theory is that the look-alike gentleman was blackmailing Didier.” He cleared his throat. “That’s probably where the idea originally came from—he remarked upon the resemblance. Obviously, he had a real thing for blonde women of a certain height and build.”

Hubert spoke.

“The blackmailer may have actually contacted the wife—Monique. That would precipitate events. He didn’t have to tell her anything, in fact he probably didn’t. But she took the call. The guy got pushy and called there—and she picked up. It’s all she had to do. It would put a hell of a lot of pressure on Didier. It would show that the blackmailer meant business—or else.”

“Very well.”

Maintenon looked at Hubert.

“And that’s our motive?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Ah…the guy is demanding money. He might have phoned the house. It’s a big threat. Didier arranges to go and have a drink with him. That’s what he tells Monique—the real one. It’s just a guy from work, Honey. He’s changed clothes, he’s all set to do his gambit in the park—that shows real inspiration, Gilles. He’s got some crazy old stiletto—none of them are going to tell us that, are they? That’s because he had it, a souvenir or something, and of course Monique is dead. It was from the house in Paris. She can’t tell us anything now. So. Someone reports a body in the park. Off he goes. The suit is dark enough, he can go into a bar if needs be, but I think he met the victim near the river. The guy’s waiting for a payoff. One quick stab in the guts and in he goes. Didier dumps the body off the bridge. He could never carry a body there. We might look for car rentals, certainly no taxi would have taken him. Not with a dead body, and remained silent. We could ask around, but dead drunk passengers, ah…maybe. But he could walk to the Pont Tolbiac, or get there by cab fairly quickly. Keep his appointment.”

“I see. So he arranged to meet the blackmailer near the point of disposal. What then?”

“Well, sir, he did have a railway locker key in his possession upon his arrest. The locker was empty—he probably had a fresh suit in there. He changed in the rest room, and either ditched the black suit he was wearing, or took it with him on the train for disposal somewhere more suitable.” A dark suit wouldn’t show the blood.

It was night and the light in train stations often pretty garish. He could change in the restroom and sling it out the window, once on the train and out in the countryside between stations.

“That explains why our dead man was wearing a different colour of suit—according to Monique.” There were bloodstains on it, but mostly washed out by the cold water. “If the guy showed up in a blue suit, it wouldn’t make much difference to Didier.”

“Ah, yes, Monique.” They were doing well. “Tell me more about her.”

“Okay. She’s the dead one at the Rive Gauche—”

Firmin’s left eyebrow, unseen by Tailler and Hubert but definitely in Maintenon’s field of vision, was climbing higher and higher.

“Ah.”

“Yes, sir. It has to be her. One thing we noticed, but didn’t properly remark upon, was how drawn she was the second time we saw her. But by this time it wasn’t her at all—it was Lucinde.”

Firmin laughed. He shook his head, and picked up a few papers, still listening though.

Emile shrugged, face reddening.

He gave Firmin a look.

“Yeah, but think. Every time we turn around, we’re being presented with another beautiful blonde—we’re so busy staring at their tits and their asses, we can’t see the forest for the trees kind of thing. No wonder we missed it.”

“Keep going, gentlemen.”

“And here’s another thing. Didier was just praying that body never surfaced. It’s his bad luck  that it did, or his plan might have worked fairly well.”

It was true enough, that bodies went into the river and were never seen again.

Maintenon had to admit, it was ingenious. And they were right—the blanks could be filled in with some intensive investigation, now that they knew exactly what they were looking for.

“Okay, sir. Interestingly, because we took the case over from Delorme, those boys never had the chance to show Didier’s picture around the hotel. They’ve never even seen it, although I’m sure they got the bulletin. It’s just one of those things. It would appear completely unrelated to them. Nothing but another pain in the ass missing-person report. And we were so excited, so busy, I guess, we never even thought of it.”

There was a long silence. Gilles closed his eyes, he appeared to be thinking deeply.

“So who is our mystery man?”

“I’m thinking someone connected to Lucinde. That whole set-up in Lyon stinks to high heaven. Since she is so obviously not his wife, and the other one wasn’t claiming to be, I have to wonder if we’ll ever know her real name. She had the newspaper clipping. I’ll bet that’s Monique in the picture—and she knows it, too. Zoe, on the other hand, good question. But think about it. This bozo, our mysterious victim, goes out of the country for a while. Maybe he’s in jail or something. He and Lucinde—I don’t know what else to call her, they’re estranged. But they’ve never really gotten divorced. Years later, he comes back, and he’d dead broke. Goes back to the old home town, you know. He probably wonders about the ex-wife. He’s hungry, he’s hurting. He makes inquiries. He sees them around. He learns they’re living as husband and wife…and he knows that just can’t be.”

“He was killed in Paris.”

“True—but that just shows he knows who Didier was. It shows that Didier was a good target for blackmail—Didier was a successful man with a good reputation. A guy with a piss-pot full of money. Life must have seemed very unfair to our blackmailer. Didier had a lot to lose, Inspector.”

Gilles looked at Tailler and Hubert.

“And how would you gentlemen like to proceed?”

Tailler looked at Hubert, who sat up straight and glanced down at his briefing notes.

“Let’s bring the ladies in on charges and see if we can shake anything loose. Hopefully, if they’re innocent, and yet know something, anything, they’ll talk. If they’re any kind of accessory, we’ll have them in custody. Let them feel the pressure for a while. They’ll talk.”

Levain piped up for the first time.

“Here’s what gets me. The ladies. How do you figure that part worked?”

Hubert nodded.

“He’s got all that figured out.”

Tailler glowed a little.

It shone out of him.

“Ah, yes, Andre. Monsieur Godeffroy could have told the one in Lyon that he and Monique were getting a divorce—he would say that she had gone to live with her mother or something like that. The wife went nuts. I stuck her in the asylum. My uncle Albert left me some money, but he’s strict Catholic, and if he hears I’m divorced, he’ll cut me off. Whatever. He would have told them whatever they needed to hear. He is nothing if not subtle. He would have ideas, this man. He might have suggested that he had to sell the place in Lyon to pay the ex-wife off. A lady living in Lyon might have been happy to move to Paris. A man like that would have thought of something convincing. She already knew she had a false passport, she was already in that so-called marriage, one she knew to be bogus. He would have been able to pull it off.”

“And the one known as Zoe, and now, as you say, claiming to be Lucinde?”

“Pretty much the same deal, Inspector. He would tell her, ah, that his wife had left him and why not come to Lyon? He would give her another big story. See, Inspector, she, she thinks he lives in Lyon. The guy lies like a rug. Seriously. Her employer says she just stopped coming to work one day. This was before, a few days before all of this started to happen. How much she knows, is anybody’s guess. The neat thing, Inspector, is that neither one of them really had to know anything.” He went on. “Psychologically, they were sort of screwed, sir. They knew what they were doing was somehow not quite right, in the social sense. It was not so much criminal in their eyes, it was merely unconventional, something of a potential embarrassment. This would leave them, especially women of a certain class, a certain mindset, a kind of mental hostage to Didier. I suspect a very controlling influence. As soon as we started sniffing around, they knew something was up. But they had no choice but to keep playing their parts. Soon as they saw the body in the morgue, they must have been shitting bricks and wondering what the hell was going on.”

 “The fact that they are lying about their names suggests something, otherwise. You still haven’t tied up all the threads yet, gentlemen. Although I admit you’re doing well.”

“So. We figure Didier had the germ of an idea. When the crunch came, he initiated a plan that was so crazy, so absurd, that it might have actually worked. More than anything, I think he just decided to kill the guy. And then make it work, somehow. Once Monique—the real Monique, saw the papers, she must have wondered. She must have seen the papers. She never let on to us, which was what killed her. At that point, she became a threat. There are two separate bodies, and we have two separate motives. Didier was just making it up as he went along, sir. Psychologically, there may be a term for it. Whatever it was, he must have had it real bad.”

Tailler stared at Gilles, who grinned slightly under the gaze.

“What was the clincher for me, sir. Didier nipped back to Molsheim, did some business—all confirmed by Gaston e Cie. He bought a shit-load of product, and in a very short time, apparently. He bought a ticket to Paris, and with a bit of quick thinking, called ahead and got Monique to meet him downtown for a romantic getaway. We’ve got the day, the time, the ticket-clerk, and the conductor. He had to get her out of the way first, then get the other ladies to move on short notice.”

They were convinced the ladies knew something.

“Well?” Hubert was on pins and needles.

“Well. Well, what?”

“Can we bring them in, sir?”

Maintenon tipped his head on an angle and gave Levain and Firmin a look. There was a kind of unspoken consensus visible in their faces. Firmin shrugged and then shrugged again. Levain chewed on that blasted pencil…

He caught Gilles’ eye on him and stopped.

“Sure. Why not.” Maybe they could get to the bottom of this thing after all. “Let’s see what they have to say for themselves.”

A coffin only needed so many nails. As for the guillotine, that only took one little trip of the lever, and the sometimes surprisingly cheerful acquiescence of a jury of one’s peers.

“Hopefully you gentlemen can connect a few more of the dots.”

“Yes, sir.” Hubert grabbed the phone.

His first call would be Lyon. He and Tailler would pick up so-called Lucinde personally.

Gilles sat there watching through lidded eyes, hand clasped across his belly, which was beginning to rumble.

Both of them were very highly-talented detectives. They had a lot of potential. Talent was no substitute for hard work, observing proper procedures and that painstaking attention to detail.

Their case, while coming together, was messy—very messy.

Attention to detail had saved his own ass more than once.

It was a lesson that once learned, would never leave them.

END 

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