Spectacle(98)

Due to her copious notes, she had everything memorized, even the experiences wiped from her memory. Two things had never made sense to her, but Aunt Brigitte’s dream helped her piece it together.

Twice the Dark Artist had spoken words that seemed out of context. One was “Yes, of course!” after Agnès pled “No.” Yet the visions hadn’t allowed Nathalie to hear anyone except the Dark Artist. Why add the “of course”? And just before he met his own demise, he said, “Enough already!”

To whom?

To Mme. la Tuerie. The final time, if not the time with Agnès, too.

“I’ll wait here,” said Papa wearily, stopping at a restaurant near the morgue. He’d insisted on coming. After Nathalie recounted Aunt Brigitte’s dream, her parents said she wasn’t to go anywhere, not even the morgue or the newspaper, alone. (“It’s the drop of water that made the vase overflow,” Papa had said, invoking a favorite saying.)

Nathalie didn’t object. She was relieved. Part of her felt like a little girl again, following Papa along like she did in the Catacombs—although this time it was she who led with speedy, resolute steps. The rest of her knew this was the only option, the only way to stay out of danger short of locking herself in the apartment.

She hurried toward the side entrance of the morgue and saw Christophe outside having an animated conversation with two police officers. He gesticulated with excitement—something she’d never seen before—and nodded attentively as they spoke. He looked the way she felt.

The three men finished talking as she drew closer. When Christophe saw her, he trotted over to her with a grin.

“I have news!” he said.

“So do I!” Her heart threatened to pound straight out of her chest.

“You first.”

Her breathing escalated so quickly she couldn’t get the words out on the first try. Drawing a steady breath, she tried again. She stumbled over words, eyes looking everywhere but at Christophe, and barely kept tears from interrupting. Eventually she managed to convey Aunt Brigitte’s attempted suicide and the early trek to the asylum. As she pointed out where Papa was sitting, her voice caught. How could this be her day so far, her life right now?

Nathalie smoothed out the waist of her dress several times before continuing. “Tante had a dream, a disturbing nightmare, about Zoe Klampert trying to kill me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” said Christophe, shaking his head vigorously.

“Yes, I do!” She repeated the dream and the vivid comprehension she gleaned from it, waving him off when he tried to interrupt. “Christophe, she wasn’t merely a partner who collected blood. She’s a murderer in her own right. I’m sure the man she stabbed in the dream was the Dark Artist. It had to be. Who else?”

“Nathalie, the news I wanted to share—”

“The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the handshake,” she said, scratching her temple. “Why would I shake her hand? Unless it represented the day I fainted in the morgue and she extended her hand to help me up—”

“We think we have the man who killed the Dark Artist. And Zoe Klampert might be dead.”

Blood. All of it. Every drop in Nathalie’s body felt as though it drained away and onto the sidewalk and into the streets of Paris. “What—what of Tante’s dream? I know she’s in the asylum because of those very dreams, but she’s right; I feel it in my soul. She didn’t know anything about the Dark Artist or Zoe Klampert. She’s closed off from the world.”

“I don’t know.” Christophe sat down on a bench and beckoned her to join him. “The man who claims responsibility, Raymond Blanchard, turned himself in today. He admitted to the letter, the silk tie fragment, all of it. He didn’t kill the Dark Artist over any sense of justice but rather unrequited love for Zoe Klampert.”

“He loved her?”

“Apparently,” said Christophe. He began talking with his hands. “Blanchard saw his cart and followed him to the Seine that night; by the time he caught up to him on foot, the body was dumped. Or so he claims. The confrontation was over Zoe; they struggled and … you know the rest.”

“I do. And I don’t. I don’t know what to believe.” Nathalie squeezed her eyes shut then opened them again. “What did he say about killing Madame la Tuerie?”

“Shot her and buried her in a shallow grave. He told us where we could find the body—in a cemetery. Police are on their way there now.” Christophe held his finger up. “I almost forgot: He said Zoe Klampert wasn’t her real name but that he didn’t know more than that.”

Nathalie pressed her back against the bench, defeated. She should have been happy, should have absorbed Christophe’s initial enthusiasm. Why wasn’t she?

Because in spite of everything Christophe said, she wanted to believe Aunt Brigitte’s dream. And she wanted him to as well. “You don’t think there’s truth to my aunt’s dream?”

Christophe gazed at her for a long while before responding. “Some of the details are astoundingly accurate, but we have a suspect right under our noses. The police know of your ability and trust it. I—I don’t think they’d grant that same confidence to Aunt Brigitte. Even though she’s an Insightful—”