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

Pelleter asked.
    “If you’re suggesting that Clotilde might have killed the old man, you can forget it. She can’t kill a fly.”
    “But if she thought she were in danger, or if she were angry...”
    “No,” Rosenkrantz said, shaking his head and frowning. “You met her. She’s so small, and gentle, and quiet. Like I said, you hardly ever even know what she’s feeling, she just keeps to herself...” The American writer’s eyes got soft. “She’s practically a kid. She’s never run away before...”
    Pelleter nodded. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
    Rosenkrantz’s eyes flashed and his fists closed, his rage returning. “Listen you...” But then he swallowed it back, taking a deep breath. “Thank you,” he said.
    Pelleter turned to go into the police station, and Rosenkrantz grabbed him by the arm. Pelleter looked back, and this time the American writer just looked sad and scared. He let go of Pelleter’s sleeve, and Pelleter went into the station.
    A country woman in the waiting area looked up at Pelleter with an imploring, forlorn expression that did not see him.
    This was a police station face. It was the same everywhere.
    The inspector went behind the counter and into Letreau’s office.
    “Rosenkrantz was just here,” Letreau said, running his hand through his hair, which only caused him to look more harried.
    “I saw him outside.”
    “Now the girl’s missing.”
    Pelleter took a seat.
    “I don’t like this. Things are happening too fast. There was apparently a reporter around here earlier. One of our local men. The Vérité is usually a weekly paper, but they’re putting out a special edition about this business. I think my boys know not to talk, but who knows...Do you think we should worry about it?”
    “The newspapers don’t mean anything.”
    “The missing girl.”
    “You can worry if you think it’ll make a difference.”
    “I guess it never does.”
    “Where’s your man from the front desk?”
    “Martin? I sent him to Malniveau. Your questions about how much we knew about the prison got me thinking. We need to have somebody on site if this whole thing started there...I told him to demand to see the files, any files, to dig up what he could.”
    Pelleter nodded his approval, some of his own concern fading from his face. “Good. Very good.”
    “He left this for you,” Letreau said, handing across a paper. “It’s not much help, unfortunately.”
    It was the paper that listed Meranger’s known associates. Martin had systematically gone through the entire list, and marked it “up to show the present location of all of the people on the list. He had even included a key at the bottom: a cross-out meant the person was dead, a circle meant prison, otherwise he hadpenciled in their address. Nobody was near Verargent. None of the prisoners were at Malniveau.
    “Good,” Pelleter said, reading over it. “This is good work.”
    “It leaves us just where we were before. Knowing nothing.”
    “Maybe.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    There was a knock on the opened door and an officer stood at attention just inside the office.
    “What is it?” Letreau said, his frustration spilling over onto the man.
    “Sir. Marion is still waiting for you...”
    “Oh, I know Marion is waiting for me. Doesn’t she know I’m busy here!” He stood, banging his thighs on the underside of his desk. “God damn it!”
    He leaned his hands against his thighs, turning his head to the side, a sour expression on his face, biting back the pain.
    Pelleter watched his friend. This murder was too much for him.
    “And...” the officer started.
    “What!”
    The young man lowered his voice almost by half, cowed. “We just received a call from a farmer outside of town. It seems that he has found a box in his field.”
    “So,” Letreau said sharply, standing to his full height with a deep intake of breath.
    “Well, he said that it seems to him like it may be a coffin. He wants us to come