Spectacle(100)

M. Patenaude put the article to the side and folded his arms. “I agree. For many reasons, but most of all these two.” He sighed. “First, a witness saw a tall, dark-haired woman exiting the back of the building last night, right around the time they think the murder occurred. Second, the victim was an Insightful.”



* * *



Nathalie sat on her bed perusing the article and making notes. The ink was barely dry on the special edition, which featured a longer version of the article and included a colored sketch of the crime scene: The bloodied body of the victim, Hugo Pichon, was under a gray-and-white striped blanket.

Not that Nathalie needed another reason to trust Aunt Brigitte’s dream.

The Prefect of Police wanted “to gather more evidence before naming the suspect, but we will release the identity soon.” Zoe Klampert, presumably. And what of Blanchard?

“I’ll get it,” Maman called out. Someone must have knocked on the door; Nathalie hadn’t even heard it. Stanley hopped off the bed to investigate.

“Nathalie?” Maman’s voice again. “You have a visitor.”

Not Simone, or she’d have said so. Louis, perhaps, or someone from the newspaper?

Nathalie stepped out of her room and blushed. Christophe, holding a small cloth bundle, greeted her. He offered the bundle as she came closer. “Something to supplement my apology.”

She took the bundle and unwrapped it.

Pain au chocolat.

Nathalie smiled. “Very kind. Thank you. But … why?”

Maman excused herself, saying she was going to organize her fabrics in the bedroom. She was starting work again at the tailor shop soon and wanted to be well-prepared. Nathalie sat on the sofa and invited Christophe to join her.

“Blanchard was a fraud,” said Christophe as he sat down. “His story unraveled under scrutiny, thanks in part to M. Patenaude. It turns out that Blanchard didn’t kill Zoe Klampert, but he was indeed in love with her.”

Nathalie cringed. “Does he know who she is? What she’s done?”

“What she’s done—no. He does know who she is.” He lowered his voice. “The place he told us he buried her? It was her father’s grave.”

“What?” Nathalie scowled. “That’s cruel.”

“It is,” Christophe began slowly, “but it proved useful in another way. Her father was Dr. Pascal Faucher—and her given name is Faucher, too. We don’t know why she goes by Klampert; we can’t find any marriage record for her—or anything at all in her adult life. It’s as if she ceased to exist years and years ago.”

Nathalie thought about the photograph in the apartment. “That’s probably who was in the photograph I saw.”

“The one that was gone when the police arrived? Possibly,” said Christophe. “I didn’t know this until today, but Dr. Faucher was a scientist who experimented with blood and magic, like Henard. He didn’t have the same breakthrough, but he was on the same path.”

Nathalie could barely get the words out. “Her father was another—another Henard?”

Christophe nodded as Stanley hopped on the sofa between them.

That fact changed everything and nothing. Unless they caught Mme. la Tuerie, all they had were unwoven threads strewn across the floor.

“Also,” Christophe began, drawing out the word as he glanced away. “I should have given weight to Aunt Brigitte’s dream—and more important, your belief in it. I wanted so badly for this to be over that when we had a plausible suspect, I couldn’t see any other path. I apologize for any false hope and distress I caused.”

Nathalie wanted to be upset with him, even just a little. Then she looked at that crooked eye tooth and those blue eyes, listened to that kind and reassuring voice, and let everything he said filter through her heart and mind. No, she couldn’t be angry with him.

“I forgive you,” she said. “We’ve otherwise made a—a good team.”

A careful smile spread across his lips. “And I brought you pain au chocolat.”

“And you brought me pain au chocolat.”

Nathalie broke off a piece and offered it to him with a grin. They spoke for a while longer, and after he left, his woodsy orange-blossom scent remained. She wished she could bottle it and put it on the shelf beside all the other things worth remembering.





48


The following day, Le Petit Journal identified Zoe Klampert as the primary suspect in the murders of Damien Salvage and Hugo Pichon.

More details emerged about the victim: Pichon, age 40, had no next of kin and had lived with his mother until her death in 1884. Since then his only company were the caretakers who visited him once daily—one of whom discovered his body.

“The door was unlocked when I got there,” said Pichon’s nurse [name will be withheld for privacy]. “I reached for the key above the doorframe. Gone. And M. Pichon always called out to greet me as soon as I walked in, unless he was sleeping. Then I would go straight up to him and he’d take me by the hand and thank me for coming. He didn’t call out and he wasn’t snoring. I—I was afraid to look.”

At this point in her recitation of events, the nurse became tearful and required several moments to recover. “I walked carefully into the bedroom and didn’t know what I was seeing. His neck, chest, arms were covered in blood, almost like someone bathed him in it. When I got closer, I saw one deep cut here”—here she pointed to the base of her throat—“and I shouted and ran downstairs to the landlord and pounded on his door.”