Monday, September 12, 2016

Maintenon Mystery # 8, Part Nine.

Having a bad dream, Boss?







Louis Shalako




Gilles tossed and turned. Sylvestre, who had taken to sleeping beside his pillow, let out a faint meow of complaint when Gilles accidentally hit him with his elbow.

Under the covers, it was too hot. Take the covers off, the relatively cool night breeze quickly chilled him, enough so that he wanted the covers back on again. A reasonable compromise was to get all snuggly under the blanket, and then pull it back a little and expose one’s backside as a kind of radiator. Over time, that took a certain consciousness, whereas sleep was supposed to be a natural, spontaneous occurrence.

Not for the first time, he felt some faint degree of sympathy for the incarcerated—

There were plenty of such individuals, male and female, all over the country and the world.

Prison conditions were of course designed to be uncomfortable. You were there to do time, in all of its majesty, and time was designed by the system to hang heavy on your hands. He had worked some long hours to put many of those people inside. The iron beds, chilly temperatures and wool blankets, the steel toilets, the bare concrete floors, all of that would have their effect.

Bad food, bad company and the never-ending noise would all have their effect.

His own bed was at least comfortable. At that exact moment, it wasn’t so bad. The problem was, of course, that he could see into tomorrow, and tomorrow would be here all too soon.

He wiggled his toes and yawned, a yawn that went on and on.

There was always going to be that dull ache in the lower back, and the left knee, and the left elbow. The feeling that his neck was never quite right until he’d fluffed up the pillows and put his head down just so.

Argh.

There were the noises, distant and nearby, some of them in the next building and some of them seemingly right outside the window. There were birds that flew, and made noises at night. It was the sort of thing one never really thought about. The sky was still dark when he looked out of the window. The clock ticked beside the bed, never louder than when a man couldn’t sleep.

“Merde.”

There was no great hurry to go leaping out of bed—

He had plenty of time.

It was the middle of the night.

Normally, he never remembered his dreams. It was almost like he didn’t have too many. This time was different. The last two or three, all blending together into one disjointed narrative, spewed forth by an uneasy conscience and a distempered fancy—or something like that, had been real doozies.

Something about a big building, and for whatever reason, he had a lorry. It was parked inside the building. Perhaps it was a loading dock, if so it was a big one. It was a big contractor’s supply company, judging by the stacks of lumber and plywood and cinder blocks. There were other things too, rows and rows of mysterious objects, and colourful small boxes.

Dreams couldn’t supply too many details if they weren’t already in the sleeper’s brain. He’d never really done that kind of work.

Gilles had pulled boxes, metal and cardboard, out of the back of the truck and dragged them to the cashier.

He was, apparently, just trying to prove it was his own tools, his own materials, and that all he wanted was to be let out of the building.

The cashier insisted he would need an exit pass from the store manager, who was of course hiding somewhere way off in the building. There were no stairs, no elevators to the second floor.

Gilles had somehow clawed his way up by leaping upwards at a rectangular hole in the floor above, grabbing the edge of something and pulling himself into that hallowed country. It was a big, empty room with white tiles, white walls, the ceiling beams exposed but also painted white.

Hopefully they wouldn’t ask him to build a set of stairs for them, or he’d be revealed for the fraud he was…

There were all these people walking around in a circle, (like the common area of a jail), where a bemused store manager had told him it was complete balderdash, and that he didn’t need a permit after all…and of course, there was no way down to the ground floor.

At that point, the dream had changed.

He was still in his little lorry. He wanted to back up—there was a flash of something in the mirror and the corner of the eye. He realized that he was waiting for someone to get out of the way.

He was looking around at what looked like a vehicle repair shop, possibly an automobile scrapyard. Strange how it was indoors. There were some interesting wrecks, really valuable old antiques if only they had been relatively intact. As it was, they were rotting into the ground. At that point some cheerful and handsome young man had backed out from behind him on a tiny red tricycle, legs too long and pedals too small, feet going like stink, and then he could finally get a move on, to wherever he might have been going. The fact he was naked was something else.

He hadn’t noticed that part before…

Gilles ran down a long driveway, with tall hedges on both sides. It seemed he would never get to the end. It was night, and he turned to speak to some people, including his boyhood friend Etienne. The stars blotted out and everything went pitch-black, and then the stars burst out in joy again as whatever it was, whatever it might have been, went away.

There was more, of course, like the part where he was flat on his back, looking up at a ring of people gazing down at him. One of them, all dressed in white, using a big, shiny set of kitchen tongs, removed an impossibly-large piece of something out of his mouth, twisting and turning it this way and that past rubbery lips before finally pulling it out for all of their inspection…it must have been a police badge. Gilles could only see the back side of it, but the size and the shape were right.

Argh.

Meow?

So he really was awake, then.

“Come on, Sylvestre.”

Wrapping his housecoat around him and stuffing his feet into the slippers beside the bed, Gilles went looking for a glass of milk, as drinking at four-thirty-five a.m. on a workday was probably not a very good idea.

Sylvestre thought milk was a jolly good idea, although they said it wasn’t good for cats.

It was funny sometimes, how the gleam of a brandy bottle followed one around the room…

The cat followed him everywhere too. Maintenon had felt the odd moment of guilt about the animal, what with the long days he put in sometimes. Madame Lefebvre, his housekeeper, was there eight or eight and a half hours a day after all. Gilles didn’t see her sometimes for days at a time. The cat seemed happy enough, although there were times when Gilles felt himself a stranger in his own home. Perhaps cats were more accepting than they normally received credit for.

Cops have consciences, and one of the bigger nightmares of the job was to get the wrong guy.

Maintenon, if Father Bazin was to be believed, had done a real number on Marko Dubzek.

Sure, there were other people involved, but that one had been his case. At the time, Gilles had been disgusted, angry at the failure, and there had been some small element of hate in there as well. He’d just learned something about himself, and that wasn’t always very pleasant.

With a little help from Dubois, and Duvall. Gilles could still see that face.

Such things were bound to happen, and one had to hope that justice would prevail in the end.

The only way Maintenon could atone, in some small way perhaps, and better late than never, was to get the person who had killed Marko.

Marko.

What a name.

What a face.

Sitting in the parlour, looking out over the still darkened city, Maintenon heaved a deep sigh.

The cat was in his lap and the milk was warming up beside him as he smoked.

He scratched the cat behind the ears, and it rumbled and purred contentedly in response. The housecoat and pajamas were enough, barely, to keep him from feeling the claws rhythmically kneading his thigh.

Finally he whispered to the night.

“I’m sorry, Marko. I really am.”

I might have been wrong about you.

And my guts are just burning up with the acid.

***

People made certain statements. The police never took anything at face value, never took anyone’s unsupported word for anything. The thing to do was to check it out.

It was time to talk to Judith, with her mother and father right there in what was standard operating procedure.

Sergeant Allard had been asked to do the unpleasant but necessary duty.

She was very good at it.

They had agreed to come up to speak to police, all expenses paid.

The questions were pretty basic, whether the answer was yes or no, but the important thing was not to scare the girl, or even to scar her psychologically for life.

The girl wore a cute floral sun-dress, spaghetti-straps over tanned, bird-like shoulders. At this time of year, all kids were tanned of course.

Maintenon, for the first time, wondered about that objective stance, the ability to see things.

What might have been provocative in a grown woman was just cute on a little girl.

This was one hell of a moment.

It was just some little girl—right.

So far, the results were indifferent.

“So, Judith. You and Marko were great friends. What sort of things did you do together. Did he like games?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please call me Christiane.”

The kid was both slightly terrified of the police, and also probably curious about them. She seemed to be loosening up a bit. Everyone was being very kind, very friendly. She knew Marko was dead, and that this was a serious matter. Rather than frighten the girl by taking her fingerprints in the regular manner, she had been provided with a glass of grape juice. 

According to her parents, it was her favourite. It was brought in by a smiling young gendarme. He was in full dress uniform, thoughtfully wearing clean white gloves. It might have seemed odd to someone older, more sophisticated perhaps, but she accepted it readily enough. All major cities had them, cops in full dress uniform, out there directing rush-hour traffic with whistle and baton, the white gloves highly-visible.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What sort of games?”

The child’s voice was very low, eyes downcast all of a sudden. She had some idea of what death was.

Death was permanent. Murder was a sin. Crime was bad, if she even had any real idea of what that was. If she read the papers…and a lot of young kids did, if only skipping through to the funnies or the puzzles.

“We played Camelot…and he liked Word Toss.”

“What other games did you like?”

“Well, Monopoly of course. Marko liked Rook, but it wasn’t my favourite and we hardly ever played it.”

“That was nice of him. Was Marko a nice man?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Did he ever buy you candy?”

“Uh-huh.”

“At the store in the park?”

Judith nodded, eyeing her parents, who sat there looking as unconcerned as they possibly could.

They had been carefully briefed before bringing the girl into the room. They nodded happily, as if egging her on.

“Did you play cards?”

The girl nodded.

“Did he play Go Fish?”

A small smile came over her face, presumably a fond memory of her friend.

“Yes.”

“Did you guys ever play hide and seek?”

“Yes, but not with Marko.”

“So who did you play with?”

Judith mentioned a few names, and, judging by their list, with Tailler standing beside Gilles and madly flipping the pages, they were all mostly around her own age.

“Did Marko ever touch you?”

She nodded solemnly. She was pretty miserable, what with the strange adult, a police officer, interviewing her, perhaps understanding the significance of the questions on some level.

“I just want you to know that you’re not in any trouble. It’s just that we’re trying to catch his killer, right? I don’t want you to be afraid of him, either, because we’re going to get him. I think I can promise you that. Can you show me where he touched you?” Christiane had the doll, sitting knee to knee with the girl, but Judith reached up and touched herself on the left shoulder.

“Did you mind that? Did it make you feel, uncomfortable?”

“No.” The girl’s voice was very low.

Christiane moved on, quickly.
Let's move on here.

“Anywhere else?”

With some hesitation, she touched herself on the nape of the neck, and then on the top of the head.

“Did he ever ask you to sit in his lap, or anything like that?”

“Um…no.” There was a slight hesitation in the response, and Sergeant Allard picked up on it immediately.

Her mother was looking daggers at this point, the father looking distinctly worried, but the sergeant pressed on.

“Did you ever sit in Marko’s lap?”

The girl looked at her mother.

The mother looked at the sergeant.

“It’s okay, Judith. Please tell us what happened.”

In a halting voice, the girl explained.

They had been in the pool, and Marko had been there. This was a couple of summers ago, and her mommy and daddy wanted to go into town to get a few groceries. It was cheaper in town, and the girl explained that part very well. More selection, she was quoting her mother no doubt.

Judith had adamantly refused to go, and Marko, always cheerful, and she’d liked him at the time, had offered to keep an eye on her for half an hour or so.

“And so what happened.”

She’d climbed up into his lap, until he laughingly insisted that she get down and sit in her own chair or maybe go swimming or something.

Watching through the one-way mirror—even rural detachments seemed to have them, Maintenon blinked back tears.

His instinct was that there wasn’t much to it, and if they interviewed every kid in the camp, they would all probably say the same sort of things.

“Was there anyone who didn’t like Marko? You know, sometimes that happens, right?” 

People didn’t always get along.

Judith shook her head, and at that point Maintenon had to leave the room for a little fresh air and sunshine of his own. Tailler resisted the urge to give him a pat on the back on the way past. It wasn’t that kind of situation. Or maybe, Maintenon wasn’t that sort of guy—it just wasn’t that easy sometimes.

“So, who else did Marko play with?”

She mentioned more names. Police would talk to the parents, and it was always best to be sure.

Sergeant Allard would be very thorough, but the girl was getting restive and they really couldn’t keep the family much longer. Police had gotten lucky, in that they had friends and family in the Paris area, and they were willing to come up here from Auxerre. Their one-week stay at the camp was a summer thing, and they wouldn’t see it again until next year.

How the parents must hate us right about now…

They hate us right about now.
And yet, they were never going to get the full story of a man’s life. It was too much information, and too much to ask for, and there were very few people to ask anyways. Marko had been an isolated, private man in so many ways. Marko, in public view, known to have another family’s child with him, alone in the chalet or by the pool as they might have been, might have very well been on his best behaviour.

He might have been a very different sort of person, at home in Paris, in the dark of night and in the anonymity of the crowd. As far as money went, such things (sexual things) often went for as little as five or ten francs…sometimes just the price of a drink, or a pack of cigarettes. 

Those last ones would be juveniles, homeless, unwanted, and with nowhere else to go.

That might be so, but unless something really startling leapt out at them in the next few minutes, Judith wasn’t going to be able to help them.

This was some relief, but Maintenon still wasn’t very happy about it. Naturally Tailler understood.

Somewhere in the world, their killer was still out there. Catching killers had become Gilles’ sole reason for existence. Without that, he had nothing. Tailler understood that much.

So far, they had no idea of motive.


(End of excerpt.)



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Maintenon Mystery # 8, Part Eight.

Curious about spiritual matters? I can help.



Louis Shalako




Maintenon, as always, was at the office early. He was waiting for Tailler, checking messages on his desk, and waiting for the percolator to be done with its magic.

There was a knock.

“Hello. Come in.”

A priest entered, taking off the wide-brimmed black hat, and taking a quick look around. He seemed surprised to find Maintenon alone. He reached up, and hung the hat on the rack like it belonged there.

This was a confident little man. Up to a point.

“Er, hello, I am…my name is—”

“Father Bazin.”

“Ah, yes. That’s right.”

“So. You were a friend of Marko Dubzek.”

“Er, I suppose one could say that. And you’re Maintenon.”

Gilles stood and shook hands with the man.

“You weren’t a friend?’

“Er, no, ah, yes—I suppose one could say that.”

“So which is it.”

Gilles didn’t mean to be rude, exactly, so he moved over to the coffee area and set out two cups.

“Coffee?”

“Ah, sure.”

“Cream? Sugar?”

“Yes, please.”

“One lump or two?’

“Ah, two, please.”

The spoon clinked as he stirred thoroughly, making the man sweat a little and also giving him a moment to think about it.

“I was his spiritual counselor. And over time, we did become friends…I suppose.”

To Maintenon’s eternal surprise, the Monsignor pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at moist eyes.

Maintenon set the cups down within easy reach and took his seat behind the desk.

“Please, Father. Sit down.”

“Thank you.”

“Smoke?” Maintenon proffered the silver case that Anne had given him for their twenty-fifth anniversary.

“Er, no, thank you—normally I wouldn’t, but these are trying times.” He accepted Gilles’ lighter as Maintenon observed.

He had his own pipe, tucked into a side pocket.

Snap.

Puff, puff.

Smoke eddied.

“Yes, they are. So. What can I do for you, Father?”

The door opened and Hubert came in, all full of life and cheerfulness. A look from Maintenon and he gave a quick nod, heading to the coffee and the cups.

The Monsignor took a quick look. With his cleft chin and wavy brown hair, Hubert was a good-looking young man, impeccably dressed as always. Statistically average in every way, somehow God had done a very good job of putting him together. Perhaps reassured by what he saw, the priest picked up his cup and had a tentative sip.

“You’re not going to like this, Inspector.”

Father Bazin didn’t seem all that comfortable with it either. He studied his pipe in a kind of unconscious surprise. It was that habitual, with a lump of smouldering, charred tobacco still in it.

Ignoring the lighter on the corner of the desk, a big kitchen match scratched, filling the room with sulphurous smoke.

One’s nostrils twitched, but it smelled good, too—reassuring in so many ways, bringing back a hundred memories somehow, not all of them good. Maintenon’s father had used kitchen matches.

They sat there smoking.

Maintenon waited, then spoke when it went on too long.

“We understand that you cannot violate the privacy of the confessional. And yet, anything that you can tell us, might be of help. Monsieur Dubzek, no matter who he was or anything he might have done…well. Under the law, no man has the legal right to take the life of another.” Certainly not without due process, and the full sanction of the state and the law.

War, maybe. But then—wars were such lawful things, and everybody made an effort to keep it looking that way.

Legalistic, he believed they called it.

Maintenon took his time, and opened up the dialogue.

The man had come on his own volition. Perhaps a little empathy—a little logic and persuasion.

He went on.

Without the law, there would be anarchy—the jungle. Those jungle ethics, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, as he put it, was bad enough in its natural environment—the jungle. 

Bring it to life in a crowded city or a prosperous, settled nation. It would be a kind of hell on Earth, where all men feared their brothers and people huddled, armed to the teeth beside their campfires and waited for the inevitable attacks…wondering who among you would be the next to die, the next one to be killed.

Father Bazin nodded thoughtfully, listening well, and sipped his coffee.

“Hmn. Good. Sounds like you’re about ready for the truth.”

Gilles sat up a little straighter on this strange news, and then he settled more deeply into his seat.

Hubert made a few noises, obviously able to hear everything and sort of wondering if he should leave and give them a few minutes. He had the odd thought that they were like two peas in a pod…all squeezed in together and yet with different fates and a common outlook.

Unfortunately, he had a case-load of his own and he was falling behind. There was never enough time in the day and he had calls and visits to make. With a bit of luck he’d be locking up another killer by lunchtime.

He had a notebook full of scribbles. It was just as much his workspace as anyone else’s.

And yet, his own business was confidential, and there was a stranger to overhear any phone calls.

A pretty kind of problem, although he could go next door and use their phone—there would be questions from them too, of course.

The men ignored Hubert and it was all one could do, but to shrug sometimes, pick up the phone and dial the number. He kept his voice down, trying to catch every syllable from the other side of the room and doing two or three things at once…

Now, where is that stapler…

“Marko Dubzek was a fine human being. He was a very nice man. It’s true—he owned the building. And there was a brothel there.”

“A child brothel.”

“Yes, Inspector.”

“Go on.””

“When he found out about it, he made a big mistake. He went to the owner.”

“Monsieur Dubois.”

“Non.” He hesitated. “I’ve heard the name, of course. I mean a man named Duvall.”

Earnest eyes searched Gilles’.

“You came here to tell me something, Father. And, as you well know, confession is good for the soul—”

Bazin had the grace to blush.

“Yes. Yes it is.” The Father cleared his throat, eyes everywhere except on Maintenon’s. “Understand, we were friends. That only came after a while. We had some interesting conversations. But I swear on the Virgin, this is truth.”

“Very well.”

“And he threatened them. He was pounding on the desk, shouting at them, calling them every name in the book. This is what he told me. You have to imagine how angry he was. This turned out to be a big mistake. And then, a very short time later, the police got involved. You guys were all over him…like a dirty shirt, as he put it.”

A little light went off in Maintenon’s head.

He swung his feet up onto the end of the desk.

They’d had an anonymous tip—with Dubzek mentioned by name.

Merde.

“Dubois?” The tone was different this time.

“Ah—yes.” The father sipped coffee and flicked ashes. “I mean, probably.”

It was just a voice on a phone, giving information to anyone who picked up…that was all anybody knew. That was all the cops knew as well.

That was all Gilles had known at the time.

The father leaned back, and swung his feet up onto the desk.

They were friends, now.

It was that easy.

“Okay. Please tell us what happened.”

Hubert: statistically average.
Hubert dropped the file he was reading, eyebrows raised. With a piercing look from Maintenon, he picked up a pen and began taking a few quiet but copious notes, his pen scratching away.

Gilles sat there with one leg across the other, hands calmly folded in his lap.

“I’m not violating the sanctity of the confessional.” The Father might have eyes in the back of his head, but this sounded like it was for the record. “He told me all of this long after he first ran into me. After hearing the story, I kind of took an interest. Dubois, and Duvall, set out to destroy him, or perhaps, at the very least, to teach him a lesson. To put the fear of God into him, and, ah…they did a pretty good job of it. With a bit of help from the police department, I might add.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes. By that time we had become friends. Imagine it, two men, both single, both of a similar mind—that we are put here by God to do some good in the world, or at least, to leave it in the same condition in which we found it.” Father Bazin dabbed at his eyes again.

Maintenon studied him. He seemed quite sincere. It was hard to conceive of any other reason for his coming here and making these extraordinary statements. Not that he disagreed, exactly.

“Tell me, did you ever visit Marko at the nature camp?”

The father grinned. He laughed, eyes still watering.

He shook his head.

“No. Not my cup of tea, really.”

“Do you ever go out without the, er, habit—”

“No. I’m quite comfortable with the uniform. It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s hot or cold out.” He grinned again. “There’s no such thing as an undercover priest.”

“Ah…what, er, what does a man like you do for entertainment?”

“Me?” He shrugged. “Well. I take long walks. I read books. I listen to the radio, and minister to my flock, which is actually quite small.”

It was mostly on paper, as he put it. He wasn’t unhappy with his lot in life.

“Honestly. After a time, Marko told me everything, and I suppose it was the same with me.”

So they really were friends.

One couldn’t tell them everything, of course. No one ever did.

“You must have some moments of isolation…loneliness.”

“Hmn. Yes.”

The father was an administrator. An ordained priest, he had initially been a Franciscan monk.

He’d sort of gotten bitten by the bug—ambitious, as he self-deprecatingly put it.

If one was sincere, it probably wasn’t much of a sin.

At this point, it was Maintenon’s turn to smile.

These days, Bazin was as much accountant as anything. He’d had his own church for twenty-four years and that experience was crucial for what he was doing now. He kept the books for the diocese, and inspected the accounts of churches around the diocese when there was a call for such a thing. He trained younger men, when they got their first church, and was always there to answer technical questions when they came up. The father had ended up in a dead-end, where he never really saw the people.

“How did you meet?”

“Marko was a member of my congregation, many years ago, and we ran into each other one day in the park.” Marko had a lot of questions, according to the priest.

There was a long silence as Maintenon thought about it.

“Any objection to giving us your fingerprints? I must assume that we will find some of your prints in Marko’s apartment.”

“No. Not at all.” His calm serenity seemed hard to shake, as if he had nothing to fear.

It was an interesting story, Duvall and Dubois, and Dubzek threatening them. It painted an entirely different picture of a man Maintenon had thought he understood.

It might also be true—

In which case—

Fuck.

Maintenon. Inspector Gilles Maintenon, although he had been a mere sergeant working Vice back then, was in some small way, responsible for some of the things that had happened to Monsieur Dubzek.

Some of the bad things.

We can always be wrong, of course.

Imagine being accused of something like that.

Imagine the police being after your ass for something like that.

“Who operated the brothel?”

“Claude. Claude Duvall. He seems to be the top dog.”

Maintenon’s guts seethed.

“Claude Duvall. Merde.”

That case was ten or twelve years old, dating to shortly after the War.

He’d made rapid promotion upon demobilization, upon coming back to the force, what with the general depopulation of the male gender in France over four years of nothing but shot and shell, a personal hell that never seemed to give up and let a man alone…

“Do you know if Marko had any other male friends?”

“Not really, but one must assume so. He talked about any number of other people. I mean, not all of our conversations were so…heavy.”

“Were you there Thursday night by any chance?”

“Ah, no. Ah, the Tuesday morning was the last time I saw him.”

“So what do you guys talk about?”

“Marko was deeply curious about spiritual matters. I have to admit, I’m a bit repetitive on the subject of the grace of God, forgiveness, and how a man should live in this world.”

“I see…” Sort of.

Hmn.

“Tell me, was Marko a good cook?”

“Yes, I think so. I really didn’t get to experience very much of it, but we had lunch one day and it was quite good.”

“Really. What did you have?”

“Home-made roasted potato and spring leek soup, steak and mushrooms in gravy, what he called his killer coleslaw…a tossed salad. He’d even made fresh bread.”

“Huh. Interesting. So. Tell me about the décor in there.”

“Ha. Yes. He did that not too long ago. Four or five years ago, no more than that. He might have been trying to shake things up in his life. It may have been a way of dealing with certain things…”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…well, the question of evil. He’d gone through some rather ugly experiences—and I don’t know, maybe it was just his way of thumbing his nose at evil—Satan, and the devil, and all of that.” The priest thought, and then went on. “He was wondering why bad things happen to good people. I think he must have been a little sheltered before that. I mean, with all of his money and everything. He’d never run into anything that he couldn’t handle on his own before. This time, it was different—and he was scared. Really scared, Inspector.”

“I see. So a few years later, maybe he’s gotten over it, and this was his way of showing that.”

“So you do understand.”

Not really, maybe—

There was more of course.

There always was.

There was a lot more—a lot.


(End of excerpt.)



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