Deadly Slipper (36 page)

Paul, getting up as well, called over his shoulder, “So nothing happened to her?”

“Nothing apart from running out of gas,” affirmed Loulou. “She said a kind monsieur stopped and gave her a couple of liters, just enough to get her to a station outside Beaumont.”

“Oh.” Julian looked startled and choked on his wine. “That was Arlette Cousty?”

“Mais oui,”
said Loulou, glancing at him curiously.

“Did I tell you the police are also looking more closely at my accident?” Gaston announced. “They found a log near where I had my accident that had bits of glass and plastic embedded in it that match the parts broken off my van. The suspicious thing is
that it was piled back in with a stack of cut wood at the side of the road. They’ve had a conversation with Vrac about it, but he put on his idiot act, so they couldn’t get much out of him, and all la Binette would say was,
‘Allez-vous faire foutre.’
”

“Speaking of them,” Loulou broke in, “you might be interested to know that a German hitchhiker made a complaint a month or so back about a pair answering the description of la Binette and Vrac. Said they picked him up and tried to extort money from him.”

“Something needs to be done,” said Gaston’s wife angrily. “That pair are a menace to society. My husband could have been killed.”

“For Alain it was the thrill of the chase as much as bludgeoning his victims to death,” Mara was telling people at her end of the table. “A sick perversion of a childhood game.”

“Hoo boy,” marveled Patsy. “This one should make psychoanalytical annals.”

“And he would have hunted you down and left Julian to take the blame?” cried Mado, back from the kitchen.
“Quel salaud!”

Mara went on, “It was simple for him to fake the map and then slip down to the forest to wait his chance. But Julian knew something was wrong from the start.”

“Hah!” snorted Géraud.

“And if it hadn’t been for Julian,” Mara went on with a severe look for both Géraud and Loulou,
“Alain would have killed me. So much for the lads.”

“Nonsense,” Loulou called down to her, “they had you covered every centimeter of the way.”

“Well, they took their damned sweet time getting there.”

Julian shook his head at Mara. “I can’t believe you actually suspected me of doing away with your sister. And a string of other women as well!”

She blushed into her plate.

He leaned meaningfully across the table. “You owe me, Mara.”

Her dark eyes flashed. “I already apologized.”

Julian shook his head. “Not good enough. Jeanne de Sauvignac can’t remember where they planted the rootstock. It could be anywhere.” He lowered his voice. “With my ankle, I’m going to need help if I’m to beat out that
chameau
”—he jerked his head in the direction of Géraud—“for the Prix Vénus.”

“Oh, now wait a minute. If it’s that bloody
Cypripedium
again—”

Géraud, whose ears had caught the mention, sneered, “Figment of your imagination,
mon vieux.
It never existed.”

Julian ignored him and reached for Mara’s hand. “A friend in need?” His look was appealing.

Her face softened. Laugh lines reasserted themselves over the frown. “Okay,” she gave in. “You’re on, damn you.”

“Watch out, kid,” warned Patsy over the rim of her wineglass. “He’ll have you speaking Latin.”

“Cypripedium?
Greek, actually,” announced Julian. “From kypris, which relates to Aphrodite or Venus, and—er—
podion
, little foot.”

“Rubbish,” snapped Géraud. “It’s from the Latin
pedium
, for ‘shoe.’”

“Whatever,” Julian sighed.

“C’est très ironique,”
Prudence remarked to the company at large. “All this interest in
pigeonniers
, and no one ever thought about Les Colombes. I mean,
colombe
means ‘dove,’ doesn’t it, which is a kind of pigeon?”

“Ah, ça.”
Loulou cocked his head, impressed.
“C’est très bon, ça!”

Mado and Paul came from the kitchen to announce the
plat principal:
tender, juicy squabs, studded with truffles and simmered in a rich wine sauce. The birds were presented in individual lidded clay casseroles. Bernard helped with the serving up. When the covers were lifted, a heady aroma wafted out, causing an ecstatic ripple of approval. There were also platters of asparagus and Julian’s favorite, pan-fried Sarladaise potatoes, dressed in garlic and parsley. Paul moved swiftly from glass to glass, pouring out a fine chilled Chablis.

Julian hobbled to his feet and rapped for attention. “Friends, I think we should all toast the culinary artistry we’ve been privileged to experience tonight.” He raised his glass. The others did the same. “I name this superb dish
Suprème de pigeonneau à la Mado.”
There was laughter and loud applause.

Paul leaned over the head of the table to give another thunderous rap. “Listen up, everyone. Important announcement. Mado’s given up smoking.”

“I don’t believe it,” cried Julian. “What brought this on?”

“Has to, doesn’t she?” said Paul in a choking voice. He went the color of raw beef. “Got a bun in the oven!”

Loud cheers and general pandemonium. Everyone kissed Mado, who was immediately made to sit. Gaston’s wife and Iris would have had her recumbent if she had not protested.

In the middle of all this, Bernard hissed in Julian’s ear, “Old Hilaire’s here. He wants to see you.”

“What? Now?”

The young bulldozer grinned and gave a massive shrug. Old Hilaire pushed through the bead curtain. He looked as he always did, like a pickled walnut, and, as usual, brought with him a whiff of goat.

“I found her!” he bellowed over the noisy company. His face was wreathed in triumph and delight. “
Ma petite
Edith. She turned up at the animal shelter in Bergerac.”

More cheers. Everyone who knew Edith had great affection for her. Those who didn’t shared in the general enthusiasm all the same.

The farmer went around, shaking everyone’s hand. When he got to Julian, he stopped, looking self-conscious.

“Monsieur,” he spoke with a kind of awkward ceremony.
He fished around in one of his capacious pockets. “Voilà, monsieur. For you.”

It was small, round, and fawn-colored, with a snub muzzle, bright eyes, black-tipped ears, and chubby white paws. A diminutive white blaze was just discernible on its chest. Julian received the pup, thinking that he really didn’t want a dog. Edith, now that she was back, was enough for him. But the pup made small murmuring noises as he held it and nibbled his ear with painfully sharp little teeth. It was warm, and its fur smelled of straw. Jazz saw it and, with a sharp bark, came up to investigate. Carefully and gently he sniffed the tiny body.

“Oh, the darling!” cooed Mara, reaching out.

Julian handed the pup across to her. She nuzzled it.

“Nine of them.” Hilaire was prouder even than Paul. “This one’s the pick of the litter. With Maman Edith’s compliments.”

“Hilaire, I’m honored.” Julian rose and shook the farmer warmly by the hand.

Jazz stood by, amiably wagging his tail.

Julian looked down at him. “Why, you old son of a bitch,” he growled fondly at the dog, who cocked at him a smug and knowing eye.

The man in the greasy beret dropped his burden to the ground. He glanced over his shoulder. As usual, he, André Piquet, was up to no good. Nothing serious, mind. Just the kind of routine skulduggery that the Piquets, a noted clan of
tricheurs
, generally practiced.

With a quick slash of his hunting knife, André severed the cord that secured the mouth of the sack. It sagged, spewing some of its contents over the damp litter of pine needles and last year’s fallen leaves. Sheathing the knife, he upended the sack. Smelly kitchen peelings mixed with dried maize tumbled to the ground.

Baiting
sangliers
, the tough wild pigs that hunters in the Dordogne prized above all game, was frowned on as unsportsmanlike, not to say damned sneaky. The idea was that the
sangliers
, which roamed freely
through the deep valleys and dense forests of this region of southwestern France, became accustomed to feeding at the baiting stations, with the result that, when the hunting season opened,
voilà
, you had a ready population of pigs in place for the kill. If you were quick off the mark, you could bring down an animal or two before anyone got wind of what you’d been up to. It was the Piquets’ guiding principle. Do it the easy way, secretly and fast, and your neighbor would never be the wiser. Also, it meant not having to share out your kill, taken on the quiet like that, with other hunters and local residents.

As he rolled up the sack and stuffed it under his jacket, André heard a sound. He looked about him. The woods in early evening were chill and gloomy. It occurred to him that everything was uncommonly still. Normally starlings and crows made a racket around this time. Suddenly he felt a little nervous. Was someone spying on him? Or maybe it was the speed with which the darkness was moving in.

Again, his ears caught the noise, a kind of scraping that was not the drilling of a woodpecker, or the creaking of branches in the wind. It seemed to be coming from somewhere to his right. Now curiosity vied with caution. Treading softly, he pushed through the thick undergrowth in the direction of the noise. He parted a curtain of pine branches and stepped into a small clearing. What he saw outraged him: a juvenile
boar, freshly killed by the look of it. It lay head-on to him, one of its underdeveloped tusks driven into the dark, rough earth.

“Putain!”
André, thrust suddenly onto the unaccustomed moral high ground, gave vent to his disgust. Baiting pigs was one thing, but hunting out of season, especially if someone beat you to it, really went against the grain. Funny, though, he hadn’t heard a shot. And there did seem to be an awful lot of blood about. The ground all around was churned up and soaked with it.

Then he realized that the wild pig had not been shot. Drawing closer, he saw that it had been brought down by something that had slashed its haunches, severing the hindquarter tendons to disable it before going in for the kill. Feeding had already begun, for the belly had been partly torn open, the slippery guts spilling out. André whistled through a gap in his stained front teeth. Whatever it was had to be big. A boar, even young, was a tough adversary for most dogs. Maybe a pack of dogs? he wondered. He hunkered down for a closer look, balancing on the balls of his feet.

It was then that the long gray form came on him, hitting him from behind with tremendous force. He sprawled forward, driven face-down into the blood-wet earth. He felt a visceral shock as something ripped deep into the flesh of his shoulder.

“Nom de dieu!”
André shrieked. A hunter, he knew the ferocity of the wounded boar, the dangerous valor of the stag at bay. Never had he encountered anything like the savagery of this attack. Desperately he rolled over, shielding his face and throat with one hand while attempting to free his knife from its sheath with the other. He stood no chance against it. With a snarl conceived in hell, the creature came in for the kill.