Read Online The Twenty-Year Death by Ariel S. Winter - Free Book Online

Letreau have made two trips to the prison already, and that the warden has left town. Thissounds like something that’s bigger than just Verargent. Malniveau is a national prison after all. The people have a right to know.”
    Pelleter stood up, turned to the reporter, and stopped short. It was the man from the hallway last night.
    “You...”
    The man flinched as though the inspector had made a move to hit him. “I had to try,” he said.
    “Try what?” Pelleter growled.
    “If you would talk about an old case, even out of anger, maybe you would talk about the new case too.”
    The man was a small-town reporter, practically an amateur. He mistook Pelleter for an amateur too. “I know you’re doing your job, but you better let me do mine.”
    Pelleter called the proprietor over and settled his bill.
    The reporter stood too. “I’m going to write this story for a special evening edition either way. You might as well get your say in it.”
    Pelleter gave him one last look, which silenced him, and then the inspector went out into the street.
    He crossed the square. People went about their daily business. It was as Letreau had said: the town seemed unaware that twenty miles away there was another community where somebody had just been attacked that morning. The newspaperman hadn’t even mentioned the knifing.
    He turned the corner at Town Hall to go to the police station, and as he did a figure jumped out from between two of the police cars parked at the curb and rushed Pelleter.
    Pelleter turned to face his attacker, and was able to register the face just in time to not draw his weapon.
    “I warned you, damn it!” Monsieur Rosenkrantz said, forcingPelleter back against the wall without touching him. His face was red, and he leaned forward, crowding Pelleter, his chest and shoulders pushed out.
    Pelleter watched the American writer for any signs that he would actually turn violent. He remembered that Letreau had said all bark and no bite.
    “I told you to stay away from her. That she had nothing to say.”
    “She came to me,” Pelleter said.
    “I told you!” Rosenkrantz leaned even further forward, and then he pulled himself away, spinning in place and punching the air. “Damn it!” he said in English. Then he turned back to Pelleter, and said in French, “She didn’t come home last night. Clotilde is missing.”

5.
Five Wooden Boxes
    Pelleter watched the American writer pace the sidewalk in front of him, full of nervous energy. The inspector stayed on his guard, but it soon became clear that Rosenkrantz’s violence, like at the house the day before, was entirely auditory. There was no danger.
    “Come, let’s go inside,” Pelleter said.
    Rosenkrantz shook his head. “I’ve been looking for you. They won’t let me make a report anyway, it’s too soon.”
    “Has she ever run away before?”
    Rosenkrantz jerked towards him. “She hasn’t run away.” Then his manner eased again. “When she got home yesterday from her shopping, I told her that you had come around...She insisted on going to see you. She was in a panic. She was convinced that her father must be dead.”
    Pelleter nodded.
    “I know now that he is, but then...Well, good, I hated the man for all that he put Clotilde through as a girl, for what he did to her mother. He deserved to die. I hope he suffered...But last night, I told Clotilde to not get involved...That it only ever upset her, and that she should stay home...It was raining still... But she went out anyway.”
    “I saw her.”
    “Was she upset?”
    “I wouldn’t say that.”
    Rosenkrantz shook his head. “That’s Clotilde. You can’t always know.”
    “Does she have friends she would stay with? The hotel?”
    “I checked. Both. No one has seen her.”
    The two men looked at each other. Neither said what they were both thinking, that it would be easy for her to have gotten on the train and to be almost anywhere by now.
    “Do you think that she hated her father?”