Spectacle(54)

“I promise,” she said. Her voice caught in her throat, just a bit, because she’d never been so attracted to anyone. And only in that moment, when he bid her good-bye, did she realize it.



* * *



She sat on a wall outside Notre-Dame to read the newspaper and write her article. The Dark Artist sent “Paris,” via Le Petit Journal, nothing other than the Lovers fastened onto a paper with his signature. A tarot card reader who asked to remain anonymous suggested that the Dark Artist “might be mocking the idea of choosing a romantic partner” and “doing this to sneer at the idea of love,” both of which sounded like reasonable interpretations to Nathalie.

She felt a pang of sorrow for the fourth victim. Had she been a lover? A woman who once rejected him? She might have been a stranger who reminded him of a lost love. Or she might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time with nothing at all connecting her to the Dark Artist except chance.

What story does her death tell?

Nathalie folded the newspaper and shoved it in her bag. It’s not mine to know. I’ve already spent too much time in the Dark Artist’s head.

Leaning back, she noticed a mime performing for a crowd a short distance away. He was dressed in black with a painted white face and white gloves, standing on a small platform.

The mime was contained in an imaginary box and made a great show of trying to break through the top lid. Once he did, he indicated a ladder above the open lid and climbed it, triumphant as he reached the top. However, in his victorious joy, he lost his balance. He took a pretend tumble onto the ground, only to land gently, dust himself off, and stand up again with a bow.

Her attention snagged on his gloves. What if the killer was a mime? What if that was the Dark Artist, right there, performing for people, while his latest victim was on display on the other side of the cathedral?

She thought about going over to him to see … to see what? If the mime looked like a murderer? As if she could tell. As if she had anything to go on but gloves. Yet again. At least with M. Gloves, she could place him in the morgue the day of the first vision, just like the killer.

What do I know? What do I know about any of this? I’m just a girl with a gift like the Insightfuls, without being one of them.

Turning her back on the mime, she wrote her article. Inspiration. Was that what the Dark Artist meant? Was that blood jar a way to underscore his letter, his demand that she be more gruesome?

She didn’t want to play his game. She also didn’t want any more blood jars in her satchel. Or worse.

Nathalie added to the article, despising the space on the page dedicated to flattering him with exaggerated statements (“cavernous slashes from a vicious blade,” and “bruised flesh like fruit under the skin, waiting to burst”).

When she was done, she made her way to the newspaper headquarters, planning what to say to M. Patenaude as she rode the omnibus. She decided to act like a journalist about it: ask questions about Henard’s experiments without saying anything about her own visions. For now she wanted to do research, and she could attribute it to inquisitiveness.

She hurried upstairs, nearly colliding with one of the newspaper boys on the stairwell. After whispering an apology, she trotted down the hall to M. Patenaude’s office. Her stomach clenched as she raised her hand to knock on the closed door.

“He left early today,” said Arianne, picking her head up from the ledger. “I think something he had for lunch was spoiled. I told him not to get bouillabaisse from the Brasserie Candide because she keeps her food out too long. He doesn’t listen.”

Of all days.

Her gut twitched. She hadn’t counted on this.

Arianne extended her hand.

Nathalie stepped back. “Oui?”

“Your column,” said Arianne, raising a brow. “Isn’t that what you’re here for?”

She’d been so focused on talking to M. Patenaude about Insightfuls that she almost forgot. She reached into her bag, tore the article out of her journal, and handed it to Arianne.

“I don’t know about you,” said Arianne, tapping the desk with her fingernail, “but I refuse to walk alone in the city right now. My father accompanies me to work, and my brother meets me at the end of the day. Some of my friends have similar arrangements. Do you have someone to escort you?”

Nathalie shook her head.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Arianne said. She wrapped her arms around herself. “And reporting on the morgue besides? You have a lot of courage, my dear.”

“Or maybe just the foolishness of youth,” said Nathalie with an awkward titter. Papa was at sea and she didn’t have a brother, but she wouldn’t have taken their protection anyway. Would she? She’d like to think she wouldn’t mill about in fear, but who could say? The fourth victim might have felt the same and walked right into the path of the Dark Artist.

“You are anything but foolish,” said Arianne, smiling. She held up the article. “Kirouac is in the archive room, but I’ll give it to him to review.”

Archives.

An idea slinked into Nathalie’s mind.

“Speaking of the archive room, could I have the key and go in there for a bit? I have some research to do.”

M. Patenaude wasn’t available, but countless newspapers were. Some of them must have had stories on Henard’s experiments.