The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe Read online

  “You like perfumes?”

  Anne Marie nodded. “I just never get time to go shopping.”

  “I like the perfume you’re wearing now.” Monsieur Lecurieux smiled. “It’s nice.”

  “Ideal for the morgue.”

  “A lovely tree, the ylang ylang—but its roots break everything that gets in the way.” Monsieur Lecurieux’s face was dark beneath the brim of the panama hat. “You remember the ylang ylang we had in Basse-Terre, Gerty?”

  The woman squeezed Anne Marie’s arm, and whispered, “I’ll have to get him a hearing aid. He’s getting worse.”

  “We had to cut it down, because it was bringing down the wall of the garage. You remember?” Monsieur Lecurieux chuckled to himself. The rimless glasses glinted in the reflection of the overhead lights.

  “My husband’s seventy-eight,” Madame Lecurieux said, not without pride.

  “You both look very young.”

  “My husband worked for forty years in the customs and I was a schoolteacher.” Another squeeze of Anne Marie’s arm. “I’ve had a good life—a job I loved and a good husband.”

  “How old’s your daughter, Madame Lecurieux?”

  She did not reply and Anne Marie repeated her question.

  “Geneviève is thirty this year.”

  “Your only child?”

  The woman nodded thoughtfully. “Thirty at the end of July.”

  They had reached the entrance of the hospital. The parking lot was filling up with evening visitors. Rain glittered on the roofs of the cars. Women along the sidewalk were selling flowers and roasted peanuts. A crowd had formed around a Toyota truck where, in the yellow light of a butane lamp, a man was slicing green coconuts with a neat movement of his machete. He was doing brisk business.

  “Your daughter’s a lot older than Evelyne Vaton—six years older.”

  “They worked in the same ward … before my daughter started doing the lab work.”

  “What sort of girl was she?”

  “Who?”

  Anne Marie gestured again toward the hospital. “You never noticed something strange about Evelyne? Something that might explain why she lied?”

  Two men were working the red and white striped barrier at the main gate of the hospital entrance.

  “Where do you have to get to, Madame Lecurieux?”

  “My husband and I would rather walk. It’s not far—my brother lives in the Assainissement. The exercise is good for us.”

  “I’ll accompany you.”

  “You are a kind person.”

  Anne Marie laughed. “After the mor—the hospital, this warm air’s like a tonic.”

  “And to think my daughter spends most of her time with dead bodies.”

  Anne Marie disentangled her arm and walked to where Trousseau sat waiting in the Peugeot. He had left the door open, and he was reading a copy of the Bible propped on his attaché case in the wan circle of light of the ceiling lamp. He had put on his half-frame glasses. When he raised his head from his reading—he reminded her of her law professor at university—she told him that he could leave.

  “Won’t be needing you this evening, Monsieur Trousseau.”

  “You don’t need me, madame le juge? I can go home? Cook myself a meal?”

  “Where’s Richard?”

  Trousseau smiled at her toothily. “They gave him something to make him sleep. On the journey back, he got very talkative. Couldn’t get it all out fast enough. Seemed to think somebody wanted to kill him.”

  “Kill him? Why?”

  “He even asked me if I had a gun. He’s in the prison section with Docteur Lavigne.” Trousseau went on, “Richard Ferly works at the Crédit des Outremers. Everybody thought he was on holiday, seeing his son in Italy. None of his colleagues associated him with the photograph in the France Antilles.” Trousseau lowered his voice. “He has a history … been seeing a psychiatrist for years.” He sniffed. “You know what these blacks are like.

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “Schizophrenia among blacks is more frequent than among other social or racial groups.”

  “Where on earth did you get that statistic? The Watch Tower?” Before he could reply, Anne Marie said, “Palais de justice, seven thirty tomorrow morning. Now hurry home before you starve to death.”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “Seven thirty, with Lafitte and Parise.”

  “Saturday, madame le juge?”

  “Without fail.” Without another word, her greffier turned off the ceiling lamp, put the car into gear and made his way out of the parking lot.

  Anne Marie rejoined the couple. Madame Lecurieux was smiling at her while her husband watched the passing traffic, the car lights dancing on his the lens of his spectacles.

  “You really don’t have to accompany us. I imagine you want to return to your family, madame le juge.”

  Anne Marie looked at the older woman and smiled. “How do you manage to look so young?”

  “I obtained my certificat d’études in 1929,” the woman replied with pride.

  “If Geneviève is thirty, you must have had her fairly late in life.”

  Monsieur Lecurieux said, “Geneviève is our adopted daughter.”

  38

  Doctors Without Borders

  “Her company was agreeable. I spent my working life with children and it’s still a pleasure to have young people around. We live a very quiet existence in Basse-Terre, my husband and I. There are times when the television …” She paused. “It’d be nice if one day Geneviève could return but I understand she must think about her career.” Madame Lecurieux smiled reassuringly. “This girl was used to being with old people. We all got on very well. My husband liked her a lot. Didn’t you, Clamy?”

  “You didn’t, Madame Lecurieux?”

  She smiled. “Female intuition.”

  “What?”

  “In the evening, she would go off to her room. The maid’d already cleared the table and my husband was already in bed. Before going off, Evelyne once or twice sat and talked but I bored her with my questions.”

  “In what way?”

  “Clearly she didn’t want to talk about my daughter.”

  “What did the girl talk about?”

  “It’s true we adopted Geneviève—but that was heaven’s blessing. I like to hear about her, hear about her job, hear other people telling me how my daughter’s getting on.” An apologetic shrug. “I’d ask questions.”

  “What did the girl reply?”

  “That Geneviève’s a doctor, and that she was only a nurse.”

  “What did she tell you about your daughter?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know.”

  They were returning to the city along the Boulevard Hahn. The yellow headbeams of Friday night traffic danced on the wet pavement and the spinning tires swished by. Anne Marie walked between the old couple, their arms now linked in hers, and she was reminded of the evening promenades with her family in Oran, before the violence put an end to innocent pleasures. “She talked about the hospital?”

  Madame Lecurieux shook her head. “She’s not an intellectual girl. Sweet and kind. And thoughtful. But her conversation tends to be limited. You must excuse me if I sound a snob …”

  “What did she speak about?”

  “Clothes—that sort of thing. Music—she was interested in zouk and all the modern music.”

  “Nothing about her life in Paris?”

  “She has a boyfriend—I asked her about that. I think she’s an only child.” The woman tugged gently at Anne Marie’s arm. “She’s not really the sort of person I imagine being the friend of my girl.”

  “Because she’s not the real Evelyne Vaton. What can you tell me about your daughter, Madame Lecurieux?”

  “An avid reader. Geneviève has the combined curiosity of her two parents, even if she doesn’t have our blood.”

  “When did you adopt her?”

  “That’s really not important.
We brought her up as our child. It wasn’t until she was twelve we told her the truth. She loved us too much to be upset.” For a moment, the old woman was lost in recollection. “My greatest joy—you have your children, I am sure you can understand. Always brilliant at school. Geneviève went to the lycée in Basse-Terre and won all the prizes. Got a scholarship. The youngest qualifying doctor in her year. She spent a couple of years in Africa with Medecins sans Frontières.”

  “She has a specialty?”

  “She hopes to be a hematologist—which now of course means that she does a lot of work in the lab. A shame, because Geneviève enjoys working with people and she loved doing the wards during the internship, but then the professor offered her a lab job—and what with AIDS and hepatitis and so on …”

  “AIDS?”

  “In Africa, she got depressed seeing the children die. She was in Uganda and she wanted to get back into research.” A slight heave of the shoulders. “The professor’ll get the Nobel Prize in time. Everybody says that about Professor Schondöffer’s research on immunization. She’s excited—but then that’s Geneviève. Our daughter has to be doing things.”

  “Very intelligent.” Monsieur Lecurieux’s walking stick tapped on the sidewalk. They crossed the road, past the hot dog van, the sickly smell of burning grease and the crowd of young people waiting to be served. “We miss Geneviève a lot, don’t we, Gerty?”

  Anne Marie touched the back of his hand then turned back to his wife. “When did you last speak to your daughter?”

  “Before Evelyne came out she telephoned to say she’d like us to put her up, that she worked in the same hospital, that they were best friends.”

  “You haven’t heard from her since?”

  Madame Lecurieux shook her head. “My daughter’s in Réunion—in the Indian Ocean—for a conference. When I heard about the car being found, I phoned. Just to tell Geneviève what had happened.”

  “You spoke to your daughter?”

  “There’s a time lag. I still haven’t been able to get through to her.”

  “Your daughter hasn’t phoned you?”

  “Geneviève tries to keep in touch, but I would so much like her to give up all this moving around to come back to Guadeloupe, once and for all. She could get a good job here at the hospital or in Basse-Terre. Get married and settle down in Guadeloupe. She’s a pretty girl; the boys all doted on her when she was at the Gerville Réache high school. But she must hurry up if she wants to give us the grandchildren Clamy and I want. Time she had children of her own.”

  (Anne Marie’s own mother had died long before Fabrice was born. Before Papa and the two girls left Algeria.)

  They walked in silence on a carpet of flame tree petals. “It was the ylang ylang or it was a flame tree that we pulled down, Gerty?”

  The two women laughed softly.

  “So to answer your question …”

  “I ask so many.”

  “I did notice something about Evelyne Vaton, madame le juge. About the girl calling herself Evelyne Vaton.” A brief hesitation. “I’m not a person to pry—why should I? If Evelyne’s my daughter’s friend, I know I’ve nothing to worry about.”

  “What did you notice?”

  “In the evening, she went to her room. She was always in a hurry. My husband was already in bed. She was always in a hurry to smoke.”

  “You don’t approve?”

  “Over the phone Geneviève’d reassured me that Evelyne didn’t smoke.”

  Anne Marie shrugged. “She was away from home.”

  “I don’t like to judge people and I know all the young people smoke marijuana now. You hear about it on the television—and it becomes fashionable.”

  “I’m terrified of my son taking to drugs.”

  “That’s what surprised me.”

  “What?”

  “Children can be difficult at adolescence—it’s a time when they’re discovering themselves. Girls in particular. You expect teenagers to experiment. To smoke, to drink, to try drugs. You don’t expect that behavior from a grown woman who has the responsibility of children.” Anne Marie shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Evelyne Vaton had left her five-year-old daughter in Paris. Smoking marijuana—it’s not what you expect from a mother, is it?”

  39

  Phone

  The phone was ringing as Anne Marie ran up the stairs, past Desterres sitting next to a police officer and into the office. She slung her bag onto the table and grabbed the receiver. “Judge Laveaud,” she gasped, out of breath.

  “Anne Marie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I phoned your house and Fabrice told me you were still working.”

  “Just got back from the morgue, Lucette. Third time in two days. Hold the line. I’ll turn on the light.”

  “You can’t speak to me in the dark?”

  Anne Marie set the phone down to switch on the ceiling lamp and closed the door. The police officer gave a resigned shrug and glanced pointedly at the watch on his wrist. “The dark makes me irritable—my children laugh at me about it,” Anne Marie said as she lowered herself onto the chair. She kicked off her shoes.

  “You work too hard, Anne Marie. Your job can always wait.”

  “The préfet can’t. Nor can Arnaud.”

  “Fabrice and Létitia need you.”

  “I know, I know.” Anne Marie sighed. “I’m going into the lycée tomorrow. Fabrice seems to be acting up and I want to know why.”

  “A way of compensating.”

  “Compensating for what, Lucette?” The evening air was cooling fast but Anne Marie was sweating. Her cold was returning; she was going to sneeze.

  “Children need to know they’re loved. Love is time, Anne Marie.”

  “It wasn’t me who walked out on them,” Anne Marie retorted.

  “They need you more than the préfet or Guadeloupe needs you. Or Arnaud. There are other juges d’instruction.”

  “Is that what you’re phoning me about, Lucette?”

  “We must talk.”

  “Let me bring up my children as I think fit. I have a family to feed.”

  “You need your children just as much as they need you.

  “Let me bring up my children as I see fit.”

  “You need your children for your own wellbeing.”

  “You should have had children of your own.”

  There was an awkward silence, then Anne Marie said, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Nearly eight o’clock on a Friday evening and you ought to be at home.”

  Anne Marie sneezed noisily. She put her head back and looked up, her eyes watering, at the ceiling with its yellow bulb and its familiar zigzags of damp. “I know, I know, I know.”

  “I need to see you, Anne Marie.”

  “What for?”

  “You’ve already seen the woman?” A hesitation. “That name I gave you.”

  “I saw Madame Théodore yesterday.”

  Lucette Salondy hesitated again. “I haven’t been totally honest with you. I’m phoning you from my office. Can you come over now? It’s important.”

  Anne Marie laughed. “You’re still at school at this hour?”

  “I don’t have a family to go home to.”

  Anne Marie lifted her head and looked at her watch. Nearly five minutes to eight. “There’s somebody I’ve got to see. The préfet is breathing down my neck. Can you give me an hour, Lucette?”

  Satisfaction in Lucette Salondy’s voice. “Not too late, mind, and then we’ll take the children for a pizza.”

  40

  Handcuffs

  He walked slowly into the room.

  Anne Marie frowned, sneezed and took a Kleenex from her drawer. To the police officer, she said. “You can remove the cuffs.”

  He was dressed in green. He was wearing clothes identical to those of the previous day, except they were cleaner and better pressed. Green trousers, a safari shirt with epaulettes and short sleeves, a green foulard
tied at the neck. Green canvas shoes.

  “I’ll probably have to arrest you.”

  “Don’t feel it’s an obligation.” Desterres rubbed nervously where the handcuff had left a red mark on his wrist. “I’d rather go home.”

  The enlargement of Polaroid photograph lay on the top of the desk; it had been slipped into a transparent plastic folder for protection.

  “We’d all like to go home.” Again she sneezed. “It’s late, I’m tired and my children are waiting for me. Please sit down, Monsieur Desterres.”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  “You’re not under arrest, Monsieur Desterres.”

  “Then why the cuffs?”

  “What cuffs?”

  “This has gone beyond a joke.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” Anne Marie concurred. “First I must ask you several questions.” She pushed the folder toward him. “Questions that need to be answered.”

  Desterres smiled. “I wish to speak to my lawyer.”

  “What made you come and see me?”

  “What am I supposed to do when two policemen appear at my front door?” He glanced sideways at the officer who stood behind him. “I’ve been five hours with cuffs on my wrists. You treat me like a common criminal.”

  “Yesterday—Thursday morning you turned up here of your own accord. Unsolicited and unaccompanied, you waited for over an hour to speak with me.”

  “I’d rather see you than the police.” He rubbed again at his wrist. “Perhaps I was wrong.”

  “How did you know the girl had been murdered?”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It was on the evening news on RFO.”

  “There was never any mention of the girl being white.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I’ve just been looking at a video of the evening news,” Anne Marie lied. “There’s no mention of the girl’s race or color, yet you came here, telling me you’d seen the Vaton girl on Sunday morning.”

  “That is correct.”

  “The dead girl’s not Vaton—and although she has pale skin, she’s probably a local girl, probably mixed blood.”