The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery (29 page)

Louis, staring wide-eyed at his handiwork, was of no use. Before she could lose her nerve, Catherine leaned forward and patted the woman’s pockets. Nothing. A quick search of her trousers gave the same result.

Catherine turned to Louis. “There are no keys.”

***

0 - 4 - 5 - 5. Louis had started at 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 on the assumption that four digits were needed and he’d work his way through the combinations. The keys they used earlier were still on the other side of the door, but Marie-Pierre wouldn’t have shut herself down there with no way out, so they had gone up the stairs to study the exit. And sure enough, high up on the wall, they found a box similar to the one on the front door: a digi-code to unlock. That explained how Marie-Pierre had unlocked it earlier.

“We’re losing too much time,” Catherine complained. “We have to go back to get Maxime.”

Louis glanced back at her. “Why? Where is he?”

“He’s back down there. I think she killed him like she killed your father. But perhaps it’s not too late. We have to go find him.” Her voice was much higher than usual and she spoke fast. She was clearly freaking out.

Louis didn’t know what to do about it except try his best to get them out of there. “Maxime was in the crypt?” He sincerely hoped he hadn’t kicked the man’s head in to use his brain for tinder. Doing it to strangers was bad enough, but he’d talked to Catherine’s ex-husband only days ago. Louis rubbed his free hand on his thigh trying to remove the stickiness of brains.

A sob escaped Catherine. “No, farther down the tunnels. In a room full of dead people.”

Louis shook his head. “I think we should try to get out this way first. Then we can go back and look for him later. Our priority right now should be to get hold of the police and make sure we don’t die down here as well.” Louis didn’t add that if the man was already dead, there wasn’t much they could do for him.

Thankfully, Catherine seemed to accept his authority. “Who were those dead bodies down there?”

“Her parents.” Louis recounted Marie-Pierre’s story.

“Oh. If she hadn’t killed so many people because of it, I’d have felt sorry for her,” was the reply.

Louis let his right hand fall to his side to rest and continued typing digits with his left. The box was high up on the wall, not intended to be punched at for more than a few seconds. “At least now her parents can have a decent burial.”

Catherine covered her face with her hands. “God, I’m going to have to arrange for Maxime’s burial. And tell his mother.”

“Mm.” Louis tried to sound supportive, but his own mind was occupied with a different subject. He’d
killed
someone. He’d felt the moment when Marie-Pierre stopped fighting back. His mind refused to accept what that meant, so he’d kept pushing until Catherine interrupted him. A small part of his brain worried about the repercussions this could have on his life. Would he go to jail? Would people look at him differently knowing he was a killer? What would his mother say when she discovered he’d killed her friend?

To avoid thinking about Marie-Pierre, Louis launched a new discussion. “I just realized there’s another point where I agree with my father. Cremation sounds like the perfect solution. No tourist attraction, no using your brains for fuel. And there’s room for everyone.”

“Room?” Catherine sounded surprised.

“Yeah,” Louis replied as he entered another digit. “Doesn’t your family have a plot in a cemetery somewhere?”

“Yes.”

“It’s bound to fill up one day, isn’t it? In our plot, if my parents hadn’t both opted for cremation, the whole thing would be full by the time my sister or me died. I don’t even know what we’d be supposed to do then.” Louis imagined battling with such issues if his sister died before him. “Make sure to die first, I guess.”

“That’s optimistic.”

“The situation calls for it.” Louis changed arms again. God, it was tiring holding a hand over his head for so long.

After a pause, Catherine asked, “She really thought people would want this as an alternative to burial or cremation? I don’t see how visiting the dead body of your loved ones on a regular basis could do anyone any good.”

“I agree,” Louis said. He was up to 0 - 6 - 8 - 9. “And I think Marie-Pierre is the proof of that. She had her parents down here for thirty years.”

Louis thought about his father. “My father had his own wake and funeral all planned out. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to make any of the decisions, but I know my sister wasn’t happy with the cremation. She said she couldn’t talk to a heap of ashes.”

“I don’t see the difference with talking to a rotting body,” Catherine replied.

“The funeral and everything is for the people left behind, anyway, isn’t it?” Louis mused. “The dead don’t care.”

With a hitch in her breath, Catherine stammered, “Anything but this mummification stuff.”

Louis punched in the next code.

The door unlocked.

***

Louis’s victorious smile faltered as OPJ Petit appeared in the doorway. He hadn’t cracked the code. The police had finally arrived and unlocked the door with the keys from the other side.

“That’s one missing person accounted for,” Petit said dryly.

“Two,” Louis corrected and turned to help Catherine to her feet. She took his hand and together they walked out of the cellar stairs and into the light of the hallway.

At least ten Police officers crowded into the house. Véronique apparently managed to get them to take her seriously.

“We got two simultaneous calls to the seventeen,” Petit said as two of his colleagues started down the stairs to the cellar. “One from you which was cut off before you gave the complete address, and one from the land line of this house which was mostly silent.”

The front door was destroyed. Where they had been stuck earlier, there was now a gaping hole out to the sun lit street. A young couple sneaked a peek in as they strolled past. Louis saw several police cars and one fire truck.

“Both calls were from me,” Louis replied to OPJ Petit. “I was interrupted by Marie-Pierre Ezes, who wanted us to come back down in the cellar to be buried alive.”

The officer gave Louis a sharp look, but said nothing. Louis realized he was being flippant, but it was the only tool he had at his disposal to maintain a certain distance from the reality of the situation.

Louis pointed to the open cellar door. “They’re going to find a great number of bodies down there.” He relived the feeling of Marie-Pierre slumping under him and seeing the jagged point of a broken wine bottle cut through a good part of her neck. “Only one of them is recently dead.”

“Maxime and Alima are down there,” Catherine whispered. Her gaze flew to OPJ Petit. “Perhaps Maxime isn’t really dead. You have to be quick.” Her gray-blue eyes pleaded with the officer.

“Alima was also in that room?” Louis asked her.

“Yes,” Catherine replied, her eyes darting back and forth between Petit and Louis. “They’re in a room farther into the tunnels. With a lot of other bodies.” Louis squeezed her hand and didn’t let go.

Petit cut in. “How many bodies can we expect to find down there?”

Louis looked at the man’s chin as he answered. “Three in the cellar down there, one of which is Marie-Pierre Ezes. The other two are her parents, dead these last thirty years. Farther into the tunnels leading out of the cellar, you’ll find a crypt. It has perhaps twenty bodies, unfortunately no longer in prime condition. Could you please dig the dirt out of the full sarcophagus down there too?” They hadn’t touched it when they prepared their ambush, but he felt certain a body was buried in there.

Catherine took up the tale with a shaking voice. “Even farther down the tunnels there are more rooms. I only went into one of them, but it was full of dead, rotting bodies. That’s where my ex-husband and Alima Diatta are. Can you
please
go find them straight away? Max might still be alive.” Her voice cracked on her ex-husband’s name and Louis felt her hand tremble in his. From the sadness in her eyes, Louis didn’t think Catherine had any real hope of Maxime being alive but only that the possibility shouldn’t be ruled out.

“He came in to save me,” Catherine whispered. “The tunnels apparently link to our old house a couple of streets down.”

OPJ Petit moved away a few steps to confer with one of the two officers who’d gone first down into the cellar. As the second man talked, Petit stared at Louis and Catherine, his expression showing that what he was told matched what they’d said. Petit then gave several instructions to the other man and the man bounded down the stairs again, followed by several other officers.

“What is your role in all of this?” Petit asked, stepping closer to Louis.

Louis swallowed and took a deep breath. “I killed Marie-Pierre Ezes,” he said, looking the man in the eye.

“That was self-defense,” Catherine injected irritably. She faced the officer. “She had me abducted last night and was planning all sorts of wonders for my dead body. You’ll see examples downstairs. Louis and Maxime both came to save me, but that horrible woman killed Maxime and would have killed the both of us if we hadn’t stopped her.”

“All right, Madame,” OPJ Petit said, his tone a fraction softer than earlier. “Can I ask you two to wait in the ambulance outside, please, while I get an overview of the situation here? I’ll need to ask you some more questions.”

Louis couldn’t help but wonder if they would arrest him for killing Marie-Pierre. If they did, he wouldn’t resist arrest, but he’d get the family lawyer on the case within minutes.

They were escorted out to an ambulance by an officer so young, Louis didn’t think he could have finished high-school yet. Two paramedics jumped to action when they saw them coming, bringing Catherine into the ambulance to look at her injuries. Her feet were covered in bloody dirt. Louis let them work their ministrations, suffering them checking him out to find nothing but a few scratches and very dirty clothes.

Half an hour later, OPJ Petit was back. His face looked even grimmer than usual. “Your story seems to check out,” he said. “We found three other rooms with bodies in them, though none were as rotted as the ones in the room where we found Monsieur Marty.”

He turned to Catherine, who bolted up behind Louis in the ambulance at the mention of her ex-husband’s name. “I’m sorry, Madame Marty, but your ex-husband was indeed dead.”

Catherine nodded as she sat down next to Louis and looked down at her hands.

Louis said, “That would be the chambers Madame Ezes was experimenting in to reproduce the properties of the crypt.” Something had been nagging at Louis since he’d come out of the house. “Is it true that the tunnels connect to their old house like she said?” he asked, pointing to Catherine.

Petit seemed to debate with himself if he should answer the question, but ended up nodding.

“This just proves that she wasn’t alone on this,” Louis said. “That house was bought by the city of Toulouse and I don’t think Marie-Pierre had that kind of power. Bernard Gallego does.”

OPJ Petit frowned, clearly regretting giving Louis any information. “Why don’t you let us do our job, Monsieur Saint-Blancat? We’ll look into it.”

Louis didn’t like being put down by a man only a few years older than him, but was too tired to fight. “Fine.”

Petit spoke to both of them. “I have one request of the two of you: no talking to the press about this.” Under his breath so only Louis could hear him, he added, “This is going to be big enough as it is.”

Louis glanced at Catherine. She stared at OPJ Petit, eyes blank.

With a journalist in the middle of it all, good luck keeping a lid on it.

Thirty-Nine

The ambulance and police cars’ revolving blue lights produced dancing violets on the brick walls of the surrounding houses. The paramedics finished bandaging up Catherine’s feet. Since there were only minor injuries, they decided to stay put until the police officer in charge gave the all clear. Louis’s hand covered his forehead and eyes as he shook his head.

Catherine’s legs dangled back and forth, a movement that made her think of five-year-old girls with ponytails. It helped to be reminded that innocence still existed in the world. “So…what’s with the plastic sheep?”

Louis lowered his hand and gave Catherine a crooked smile. “You noticed that, huh?”

Catherine managed a faint smile of her own.

“It’s not a particularly funny story,” Louis said. “It was the farewell gift from my nephew. He’s two and that was his second most favorite sheep.” With a look of feigned hurt, he added, “I wasn’t quite worth parting with sheep number one.”

This time, Catherine’s smile was genuine. “That’s so sweet.”

They watched the emergency lights dance around in the street.

Catherine took a breath to ask a question, then changed her mind. But decided she had to know. “How did you know about the brains? Please tell me that wasn’t an idea you picked out of thin air.”

Louis drew a hand across his face. “That was the old crypt of the Cordeliers church.”

“The one we talked about at the café? That preserved bodies?”

“Yes. As you could see, the properties of the crypt are still the same.”

“That doesn’t explain the exploding brains.” Catherine studied Louis’s profile.

Shaking his head, Louis made a half-hearted attempt to brush the remains of dead brains off his t-shirt. “I found that crypt absolutely fascinating when I was thirteen. I read everything I could about the place. I think I already told you of Le Bouffon Plaisant, who visited the crypt and claimed to have felt up La Belle Paule’s body?”

Catherine nodded.

“There was also another guy who wrote quite a long article about going to that crypt. He’d apparently been allowed to experiment with the bodies.”

“Experiment?” Catherine felt her lips curl at the idea of willingly doing anything to dead bodies.

“The article didn’t actually say what he did, only what his findings were. He said the bodies appeared to be perfectly preserved, but that was actually only the skin. The insides had mostly dried up, and if the bodies were brought outside of the crypt for any amount of time, they turned to dust.”