Piercing the Veil, page 12
part #4 of Ghost Detective Novels Series
She also hopes he’ll know how to take care of himself. That is part of what officer training is for, right?
Since Lieutenant Florentin wasn’t given much of a choice, she takes Emeline to her desk. It’s in the same open plan workspace as Emeline’s desk, but given how rarely Emeline goes there, it’s hardly surprising they never ran into each other. Young Kevin’s desk is directly opposite his partner’s, and he sinks into his chair, a frown marring his baby-skin forehead.
The lady occupying the desk next to Emeline’s across the room, Geraldine something or other, is present, as usual, her nose no more than a handsbreadth from her screen. Emeline catches a flash of gray when she turns her head—probably Clothilde going over to yell at her when she misses a card on solitaire.
“I’m not sure—” Florentin starts as she powers up her computer.
Emeline has no intention of letting her come up with excuses now. “I’m sure it’ll be really easy to remember which cases Parayre helped you on. Someone of his caliber must leave quite the mark, right?”
Florentin gulps. “Right.” She glances around the room, noting who’s there.
Is she checking if her co-conspirators are present? If anyone will tell on her to the bosses? Help her out?
Except for a slight pause on Geraldine, Emeline isn’t able to tell if Florentin finds what she’s looking for—or determine if she was hoping to see a “friendly” face or not. Would these people try to help, or eliminate anyone who might break or give up important information?
“So what was the first case you worked on with Parayre? Must be something memorable.”
“Ah… Yes.” With no more excuses or possibilities to stall, Florentin searches through her case files until she finds one from five years ago. “It was a… suicide case.”
The pause is slight, but it’s definitely there.
Emeline can’t blame her. Covering murders up as suicides has been this lot’s preferred method for three decades and anyone up to speed on the case knows that Emeline knows this. A large number of suspicious suicides was the reason she was brought down here from Paris in the first place.
“Why did you need a senior consultant’s help on a suicide case? Were there suspicions of foul play?”
Given his age, Kevin Laplace wouldn’t have been working with Florentin five years ago. Without looking directly at him, Emeline takes note of every little reaction from the man. And right now, he’s sitting perfectly still in his chair, as if hoping his partner won’t notice him if he doesn’t move. He’s smart enough to agree bringing Parayre in on an open-and-shut case doesn’t make sense.
If Emeline can figure out how to leverage him, Laplace could become an asset in this case.
“No, there were no indications of foul play,” Florentin says, her voice firm. “A young man had decided to end his life by slitting his wrists in a hotel room, and there were no signs indicating a forced entry or signs of struggle.”
Slit wrists in a hotel room. Well, well, well. Doesn’t that ring a few bells?
If it’s a man, it’ll be a new name, though. A new clue. Until not so long ago, their research had focused on young women. Emeline suspected they were missing a lot of victims, but couldn’t be caught looking into it too closely.
“So he was depressed, then? Maybe it wasn’t his first attempt?” As long as Lieutenant Florentin doesn’t realize Emeline is playing stupid with her questions, she’s going to keep going.
Identifying Florentin as a weak link seems to be paying off. Know your enemy.
“Uh, no, it was his first attempt. But if he didn’t do it himself, he would have fought, not just laid down on the bed and let himself bleed out.” Florentin is gaining in confidence, oddly enough.
The case file is now open on her screen, and Emeline takes note of the name. Nathan Martin.
“So the tox screen came back with nothing, huh? Did you find out why he was at the hotel in the first place?”
Since Emeline knows perfectly well that no tox screen was done, she doesn’t wait for a reply. She’s happy to see the partner taking note of the obvious blunder, though, while Florentin is simply relieved she doesn’t need to answer the question.
“He went there to kill himself.” Her tone clearly implies this should be obvious.
“Oh, all right. So he didn’t have a meeting set up or anything. Good work on thinking about that.” Emeline shifts on her feet, pretending confusion. “So why did you need Parayre at all, if it was so obviously a suicide?”
While Florentin’s mouth opens and closes a couple of times, Emeline’s attention is suddenly drawn to the other side of the room. To Geraldine.
Clothilde reporting back: the lady is eavesdropping again. And sucking at solitaire.
Emeline will have to worry about who Geraldine is reporting to some other time.
“He helped deal with the family!” Florentin’s answer is so loud, Emeline startles. “They refused to accept the man had killed himself and were becoming a hindrance to the investigation. Parayre went to meet with them and explained the situation. They never bothered us again.”
While Florentin’s gaze is elsewhere, Emeline meets Kevin Laplace’s eyes. He understands the implications here. Something fishy was going on during that investigation, and Parayre didn’t “explain the situation.” Chances were, he made threats to shut them up.
But Emeline needs to be the one to look into it, not Laplace. If he gets caught, there is just going to be another missing police officer, to be found in a random grave decades from now. She shakes her head, so slightly she hopes Geraldine won’t spot it from across the room.
Laplace seems to get the message. If he is as bright as he seems, they may even have gained a spy.
“I see,” Emeline says, as if Florentin’s explanation makes sense. “He must be very good with people, indeed. I suppose that’s what he helped with on the Théophile Clément case, too? Convincing the family it made sense for their son and husband to take off because he’d earned a lot of money and didn’t want to share?”
Florentin gives a firm nod. “He’s very good at putting things in perspective.”
That’s one way of putting it.
Not wanting for Florentin to catch onto her only pretending to agree, Emeline decides to move on. “Has his participation in your other cases been similar? Would you mind showing me? I’m thinking it would be a great idea to get this man’s help on some of the cases I’ve been working on. Families who won’t agree with the police’s conclusions seem to be increasingly common.”
Yet again, it goes right over Florentin’s head. Emeline wonders if she’s really this dense, or if the trick the ghosts played on her in the car has somehow scrambled her brain for the day.
“Oh, he’d definitely be a great help. Here, let me give you his number. Although you should probably clear it with the commander before putting him on the payroll.”
Well, that’s a bonus.
For the next thirty minutes, they go through all five cases Florentin has worked on with Parayre. Disappearances and suicides, of course.
And as long as Emeline appears impressed, not a speck of suspicion from Florentin. If the woman really is this dense, chances are she’s as much of an unwilling participant as her partner. Someone has convinced her that doing what Parayre says is the right thing to do, and she’s not going to question the decision.
She is as much of a pawn as Robert Villemur was while he was alive and active in the police force. Someone uncertain enough to need the validation of others, who’s willing to look the other way for their own comfort.
Which means that the moment she wakes up and realizes she’s not on the right side of the law, she’ll be taken out as swiftly and brutally as Robert was.
So she needs to stay ignorant. Now that Emeline knows about her, she could perhaps be used at some point down the road, but attacking her and bringing her face-to-face with the consequences of her actions won’t do anybody any good today.
“Since I’m not sure I have a case where it would be worth it to contact Parayre right now,” she says as she shakes Florentin’s hand on her way out, “would you mind calling me if he helps you with anything? I’d love to see him in action. Always learn from the best, you know?”
“Sure, no problem.” And with a big smile, she returns to her desk.
Kevin Laplace, her young partner, seems to be asking a lot of questions with his eyes as he shakes Emeline’s hand. It’s encouraging to see he knows not to give them voice here.
“Take care of your partner,” Emeline says. “And keep your eyes open. Like I said, this job is a constant learning experience. Dangers lurking in the oddest places.” She shoots a meaningful glance toward Geraldine, who is still pretending to be engrossed in her game of solitaire.
Hoping that will be enough warning to keep the young man safe for the time being, Emeline makes her way toward the exit.
Time to have a look at Parayre’s handiwork.
Twenty-Two
Although I’m sure Evian would have loved to show up on Théophile Clément’s family’s doorstep for a midnight chat about their son’s disappearance, she manages to curb her enthusiasm and goes home and to bed. Before closing the door to her bedroom, we see her hesitating over whether or not to send a message to Amina. She writes three different messages, then erases them. She ends up putting her phone on the kitchen counter next to the bowl with our bracelets without hitting send.
The next morning, we learn she should have reached out to her girlfriend.
At a quarter to seven, with only the light from streetlamps and the bus station outside cutting through the darkness of the living room, we’re waiting for Evian to emerge from the bedroom when her phone rings, displaying Clothilde’s sister Joséphine’s name.
“Why would she call at this hour?” Clothilde says with uncharacteristic worry in her voice. “Why would she call at all? That can’t be good news.”
She tries to swipe at the phone’s screen to connect the call, but it doesn’t work any better this time than the last dozen times she made the attempt. While we can move very small objects—small like dust motes—there’s no actual contact. We’re powerless against a touch screen.
It’s just as well. Even if we’d been able to connect the call, Joséphine wouldn’t have been able to hear us. And having someone answer your call only not to say a word can cause a lot more worry than not getting through at all.
Luckily, the ring tone wakes Evian up. Or she may already have been on her way, because she exits her room wearing her usual jeans and black plain T-shirt after three rings, her expression that of a woman on a mission.
She makes a beeline toward the buzzing phone and frowns when she sees the caller name. “Joséphine? What’s wrong?” She puts the phone on speaker so we won’t have to crowd around her ear to listen in.
“Your friend seems to have left during the night,” Joséphine says. There’s a slight hesitation in her voice, as if she’s uncertain this information will interest Evian.
Evian is interested. “She left? What do you mean, she left? Where did she go?”
“Uh…” Although Joséphine has regained a lot of confidence since she left her husband, she wasn’t ready for Evian’s anger.
“Go easy on her,” I tell Evian gently. “It’s not her fault if Amina took off.”
Evian takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Joséphine. I’m just worried for Amina. Do you know when she left? Or even how?”
Joséphine lives in one of the smaller cities surrounding Toulouse, in a neighborhood made up of hundreds of identical houses. It’s relatively close to everything—if you have a car. On foot, in the middle of the night, it would be a never-ending maze where she could walk for hours before reaching public transportation.
“I assume she took a taxi or an Uber,” Joséphine replies and I do a mental face-palm. I still haven’t gotten used to people having smartphones and the luxuries they allow. Like calling some stranger in the middle of the night to take you wherever you want to go.
“When I got up this morning, she was gone. She left most of her things, though, so I’m assuming she’ll be coming back. Perhaps she didn’t want to miss a day at work?”
Evian’s jaw muscles work overtime as she fights down the no doubt incendiary words wanting to come out. No reason to say them to Joséphine. Better to keep them for Amina.
“She, uh…” The doubt is back in Joséphine’s voice and this time it’s more uncertainty than fear. “She told me about the events leading up to her coming here to stay with me.”
“Yes?”
Did Amina tell her hostess that she’d gone grave robbing to steal a bone in the hope of freeing a decades-old ghost?
Maybe Joséphine is lying and she’s the one who kicked Amina out of the house.
“She told me you’re working with Clothilde?”
Oh.
Clothilde, who is sitting in her usual spot on the kitchen counter, hands under her thighs as her Converse-clad feet swing through the cupboards below her, freezes. There’s hope and eagerness in her eyes—I’m sure she’d love nothing more than to communicate with her sister—but also a good portion of fear. What if her sister rejects her?
“I, uh…” Evian didn’t expect this conversation to take that turn any more than we did. It’s a rare thing to see her floundering for words. “You mean I’m working on solving Clothilde’s murder?”
Joséphine rightly takes Evian’s hesitation for confirmation. “No, she said you are working with Clothilde’s ghost. That you’re carrying one of her finger bones on your arm.”
“I’d, uh, appreciate it if you didn’t repeat that to anyone.” A hand to her forehead, Evian sits down on the couch, her eyes glued to Joséphine’s name on the phone’s screen on her coffee table.
“She was there that day when you saved me, wasn’t she?”
Clothilde’s hand goes to her mouth.
“Yes, she was,” Evian says after a pause. She doesn’t like talking about this with people, but I think she hates the idea of lying to Clothilde’s sister even more. The woman has already suffered enough.
“She was with me, trying to calm me down.”
“And messing with the heads of your kidnappers,” Evian supplies, a faint smile on her lips. “She’s very good at haunting people.”
A sob comes through the phone, and Clothilde appears next to it as if by magic. She doesn’t say anything, for fear of upsetting her sister further or for fear of not being heard over the phone.
“That sounds like my Clothilde,” Joséphine says. “How did she end up with you?”
Evian runs a hand down her face. “You’re being very open-minded about ghosts, Madame Humbert.”
Joséphine chuckles. “I don’t need much convincing, Captain Evian. In fact, this explains a lot about what happened here that day, things that didn’t make sense to me before. Clothilde being there feels… right, I guess.”
Clothilde runs a reverent finger over her sister’s name on the phone.
“But how did she end up with you? Didn’t you come from Paris not long ago?”
“She has only been with me for a few months,” Evian replies. “Since I started working on her case. Before that, she was in the cemetery where she was buried.”
“She was all alone in a cemetery for thirty years? Or does everyone become ghosts?”
I can practically see her looking around, wondering if she’s surrounded by ghosts listening in on her life.
“No, not everyone becomes a ghost.” And now I get to listen to Evian make the explanation I’ve perfected over the years. “Only those who die with unfinished business. In Clothilde’s case: her unsolved murder. But she wasn’t alone. A friend was with her almost from the start, and they’re still working this case together.”
I must assume this conversation has gotten to Clothilde, because the look she sends my way is nothing short of loving. I hold nothing back as I smile at her, letting her know how much I appreciate having had her for a friend for three decades.
“Oh,” Joséphine says. “That’s good. Will you tell her thank you for me? And that I miss her terribly?”
“No need,” Evian says. “She’s right here, listening to every word you say. Glued to the phone, if I’m not mistaken.”
Clothilde narrows her eyes at Evian but doesn’t move away from the phone.
“Oh.” Joséphine’s voice cracks, and she sniffles. “How wonderful. I love you, Clothilde.”
“I love you, too,” Clothilde whispers, and Evian repeats her words out loud for her.
“You have to let me meet her in person again soon,” Joséphine says once she finds her voice again. “But right now I suppose we should worry about your friend Amina. So she’s really off to save a ghost?”
Evian growls and pulls on her hair. “Saving that ghost, as she calls it, is what got her into trouble in the first place. Since, by definition, the murders we work on are as of yet unsolved, we’ve been running into a lot of ghosts during the investigation. Amina felt bad for them and wanted to ‘free’ one who was all alone in a tiny cemetery in the Pyrenees.”
“That sounds like a good thing, but I sense it isn’t?”
Evian sighs. “It comes from a good place, yes. But that doesn’t warrant illegally digging up a grave and taking off with one of the bones. The ghost in question was so scared she opted to stay behind in the cemetery rather than follow Amina. And Amina got caught by someone dangerous, someone who does not want us to solve this case.”
“Oh, my.”
“And that’s why she was going to stay with you. To keep out of harm’s way and let me work my case without distractions.”
Joséphine hums. “Her talking about ‘explaining things properly’ makes more sense now. Although I cannot be certain, I think she must have gone back to the ghost to try to convince her to come with her.”
