“Imagine, Molly. Imagine what it would be like to live through your beloved spouse having an affair. Your heart is breaking. You stay late at work because it’s so painful to see her brighten up when she leaves to go meet him. And one day you come home to find her lying at the foot of the stairs, crumpled up, dead. The absolute love of your life.”
“I have had some experience with a cheating spouse,” she said quietly.
“Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve never had the idea from you that Donnie was your passion, your deepest love. Am I mistaken?”
“…No. You’re not.”
“Well, I’ll just say…that from my experience in Morocco, with Julio…I can understand how a trauma like what Pierre experienced…might make him behave in unexpected ways. Maybe he thought he did call. Maybe he knew right away it was no use. Maybe he hardly even knew what he was saying.”
Molly nodded.
“One thing about Pierre—he held everything in. It shouldn’t be a surprise that when tragedy struck, his natural inclination for stoicism got even stronger. Anyway. Besides Pierre, any other suspects?”
“Ah,” said Molly. “Let me bring out dessert for that conversation. I need to fill a few profiterole shells with ice cream and heat up the chocolate sauce, I’ll be right back.”
“That sounds heavenly. Hurry!”
Lawrence got up and wandered into the meadow while he waited for Molly and dessert. He saw the orange cat prowling through the tall grass, and lights on in the pigeonnier. Then he thought about his Moroccan friend Julio, and his crooked smile, and ran his hand over his eyes with a sigh.
“Okay, tell me,” said Lawrence a few minutes later, scraping several profiteroles onto his dessert plate as soon as Molly had put down the platter. “Oh my heavenly Father, these look good. Last night got so crazy I don’t even remember eating any.”
“Well, you did. A substantial pile, if I remember correctly, which I do.”
Lawrence laughed and sighed again as he chewed, more happily this time. “So…other suspects? You wouldn’t tell me a thing during the investigation, so now I want all the details.”
Molly finished her first profiterole and helped herself to several more. “Ben was thinking Caroline Dubois.”
Lawrence looked up sharply. “I’ve known Caro for years,” he said. “She’s quite unhappy. But a murderer?”
“It took a while for me to unravel what was going on there. Things weren’t adding up, you know? When I first met her, she lied about Séverin’s having an affair with Iris. I didn’t understand why she would do that, especially once she admitted she too had a crush on Iris. I’ll tell you, the more people I talked to, the sorrier I was that I never got to know her. She had most of the village under her spell!”
“Not me,” said Lawrence, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Oh, really? Female beauty really does nothing at all for you?”
“I appreciate yours,” said Lawrence, grinning. “And hers too. It’s just that…I could see that some of the reason so many people went ga-ga over her was that Iris…all right, she was very beautiful, and also she kept herself held in. You never for one minute got the feeling that she was letting out what she actually thought or felt about much of anything.”
Molly nodded. “It’s sad to think that she never really got to embrace her life. At least that’s how it looks from the outside. She was so restrained, so controlled.”
“Very. And so, in my opinion, people were then free to imagine all sorts of things about her. They could make her into anything they wanted, because she presented something of a blank slate.”
“Huh. Interesting idea. But Séverin and Dubois—they knew Iris better than that. They worked with her for years.”
“And maybe the affair was the one time she finally let her hair down. Understandable that Caro would have a difficult time. I mean, think about it: she’s in love with a straight woman, so the whole thing is doomed from the get-go. And then her boss zips in and steals her, right from under her nose, and she has to see them together day after day.”
“That’s gotta hurt.”
“Yeah. Plus Séverin treated her badly. Caroline had written Iris a poem, laying all her feelings out there—and Séverin found it. And he sent it to Iris without a word that he hadn’t actually written it himself.”
“Quite a betrayal. And incidentally, how did you find that out?”
“I get to keep a few secrets, Lawrence. Or…I’ll tell you if you share your sources?”
“Never in this life, my dear. Isn’t this the most exquisite night? I could lean back and look at the stars for hours if it didn’t start to make me crabby about not having anyone to share it with.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean.” He reached his arm around his friend and the two of them finished the bottle of wine and kept looking up into the sky, filled with the usual swirling and conflicting emotions that is the human condition. Ben was off somewhere, doing something, as was Julio. Frances and Nico were presumably blissfully planning their wedding.
But Molly and Lawrence were happy too, if a different kind of happy, and there was no point in wishing for a different flavor. Peace and calm reigned again in Castillac, and there were enough leftovers in the refrigerator for at least two more meals.
And importantly, the proprietor of the best pâtisserie in the village had not been guilty of murder after all. That alone was something to celebrate.
THE END
Also by Nell Goddin
The Third Girl (Molly Sutton Mysteries 1)
The Luckiest Woman Ever (Molly Sutton Mysteries 2)
The Prisoner of Castillac (Molly Sutton Mysteries 3)
Want a free short story set in Castillac? Click here!
40
Glossary
Chapter 1
fêtes…………………………….………….celebration
salut………………………………………..hey, hi
bonsoir………………………………….…good evening
pâté…………………………………….…..delicious paste made of ground meat, fat, and spices
La Baraque…………………………………house, shack. Name of Molly’s house (and gîte business)
Chapter 2
cantine……………………………………..school cafeteria
gîtes………………………………………..holiday rentals
pigeonnier…………………………….……place to house pigeons; dovecote
Chapter 3
pâtisserie……………………………..…….pastry shop
Chapter 4:
mousse au chocolat……………….……….chocolate mousse
Chapter 5
coucou…………………………………….hey there, hello (said to get someone’s attention)
Chapter 6
Excusez-moi! Il y a quelqu’un……………..Excuse me! Is anybody there?
bon sang…………………………………..exclamation of frustration, such as ‘for heaven’s sake’. literally, good blood.
Chapter 10
bon………………………………………..good
Merci, à bientôt……………………………thanks, see you soon
Chapter 11
oui…………………………………………yes
département……………………………….French version of county
Chapter 19
tutoyer…………………………………….unlike English, French has both a formal and a familiar way of addressing someone. Using the ‘tu’ form of ‘you’ is familiar, what you would use with family and friends.
Chapter 20
chérie……………………………………..dear
mairie……………………………………..town hall
Chapter 21
colombages………………………………half-timbered
Chapter 24
merde………………………………….…impolite word for excrement
Chapter 26
coup de foudre………………………..….thunderbolt
Chapter 30
à tous……………………………….……to everyone
Chapter 33
Jésuits……………………………………flaky pastry filled with almond cream
palmiers………………………………….pastry, supposedly shaped like a palm-leaf
tart tatin………………………………….buttery apple tart
Chapter 35
duxelles…………………………………….small dumplings
lardons……………………………………..bacon
ratatouille…………………………………..a stewed dish of tomatoes, eggplant, onions, zucchini, and garlic
confit………………………………………a preparation that involves submerging meat in fat, which preserves it. Makes the meat very succulent.
profiteroles………………………………..a great pile of cream puffs drizzled with chocolate sauce
Chapter 36
pâté à choux………………………………cream puff paste
Chapter 38
mon Dieu…………………………………my God
For my ever-skeptical and magnificent children, Julian and Nellie.
Acknowledgments
Enormous thanks to Nancy Kelley for saving the day, and to Tommy Glass and Heather Penner for their sharp eyes.
Also a grateful shout-out to the best readers a writer could have, who give me terrific feedback and catch the billions of typos.
About the Author
Nell Goddin lives in Virginia but dreams of living in France again someday. Hopefully by then the dogs will have calmed down enough that the neighbors won’t want her to move away.
Drop by for a visit!
nellgoddinauthor
www.nellgoddin.com
nell@nellgoddin.com