Scott shook his head. “I can’t imagine anything worse.”
“What did Webber do to you?” Sammie asked.
There was a long pause. “I hold him responsible for putting me in this chair.”
We didn’t say anything, prompting him to add, “In your research, did you ever hear mention of the Champagne Campaign?”
We both shook our heads, although Dick Kearley had spoken of it. “I thought not. Not a Hollywood-style story. After Italy was all but over-at least after the generals got their pictures taken in Rome-we were reassigned to southern France, first to take the Iles d’Hyères, and then to sweep along the French Riviera to Cannes, Nice, and the rest. The first part was tough, but then it got easy, and people like Webber became bored and restless. He’d been promoted, and the regiments had been mixed up enough that I was now serving under him. In any case, he was so focused on getting laid and drunk by then, he ordered us into a small hilltop village without reconnaissance. We were ambushed and shot up. I caught one in the spine, several others were killed. Useless casualties, all. Webber was supposed to be leading us, but of course, he was sacked out with some girl instead.”
“He didn’t get court-martialed?” Sammie asked, her sense of propriety offended.
“He was about to be, but then he was killed,” came the answer. “I think it was suicide, really. He didn’t want to go back to prison. Life was never going to improve beyond that point, where he could break every rule in the book in the name of patriotism, so he rushed a machine gun nest single-handed and was blown up by his own grenade. A hero’s death for a homicidal maniac. Another of war’s ironies.”
I caught the bitterness in his voice and reflected back on my own experience of combat and war-and to the men and women I’d known whose wounds, though less visible than Scott’s, had been far more crippling.
“You seem to have done well, nevertheless,” I said, giving vent to those thoughts.
He’d been staring at the marble mask over the mantel while he spoke, and now shifted his gaze to me. “Of course. Police officers. You probably both have military backgrounds. Someone like me must be like an alien from a distant planet, and not deserving of much sympathy-rich, pampered by servants, surrounded by beautiful things. It never occurs to you that can be as arrogant an outlook as any snobbery from a rich person.”
He pulled away from the desk and rolled around its edge, heading toward the double doors as he spoke. Hesitantly, we both rose and fell in behind him, realizing the interview had ended.
“It doesn’t matter,” he continued. “That’s the price of a democracy. Majority rules. If the little people decide the rich are useless assholes, regardless of what we may have done for their country or the welfare of its economy, then they’re right and we’re wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
He grabbed one of the doorknobs and retreated slightly, pulling the door open. “I’m assuming you have what you came for.”
Sammie stepped into the hallway, where Robert was waiting for us. I paused on the library’s threshold. “You were right that we did some homework before coming here,” I said. “Including interviewing a man who saw you killed by a dud mortar round as you sat next to Colonel Frederick.”
Scott merely tilted his head forward and tapped it with his fingertips. “Another combat death that wasn’t. Makes you wonder how many people died inside of coffins, simply because no one bothered checking for a pulse. It was a dud, and it knocked me out cold, but, as you can see, I survived.”
I couldn’t argue with the physical evidence, but as we drove back down the long, winding driveway past the wrought-iron gates, I wondered about the definition of the word “survival.”
Chapter 23
Gilles Lacombe called that afternoon, just as the sunlight was yielding to the gloom of another winter’s night.
“Joe?” he said. “I have unfortunate news. Pierre Guidry has just been found dead-strangled with a wire.”
I stared at the phone for a moment. “You know who did it?”
He let out a hapless laugh. “I am not sure I know anything anymore. Was it not Guidry that you thought killed Jean Deschamps?”
“Once upon a time. Who knows, now? Wasn’t Guidry under surveillance?”
Lacombe was obviously embarrassed. “His phones were tapped and we were watching him. But we did not have a full surveillance team for him. There has been much going on up here since you left. We have been very much stretched out.”
“The sharks gathering?”
“It is known the Deschamps are weak. Almost all the criminals we know have tried something by now. There has been much violence. The phone taps have told us that Michel is fighting for control.”
“Michel?” I asked, recalling how out of control he’d been the last time I’d seen him. “What about his father?”
“Marcel is almost gone,” Lacombe reported. “He is still at home, but it is clear he will not live for much longer.”
“What’s Picard doing?”
“We are guessing he is being the loyal family servant, as always.”
“Why guessing? Don’t you know?”
“We have not seen him in two days, but he is the one with the low profile.”
Given Guidry’s condition, I wondered how low that might be.
“Joe,” Lacombe added, “there is one extra thing, maybe small. Marie Chenin did a meeting with Michel. It happened outside and we could not hear it.”
I felt like a curtain had been drawn wide open. “Before Guidry was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Was Picard in on it?”
“No. She was very strong that she meet Michel alone.”
“And Picard hasn’t been seen since?”
Lacombe was silent for a few moments. “You are thinking Picard is dead, also?”
“Could be. Did you get pictures of Michel’s meeting with Chenin?”
“Videotape, with a telephoto lens. He is very excited by what she says. We have talked with her, but she tells us nothing.”
“What’s his attitude generally? Is he doing a good job rallying his forces?”
“I would say not. Michel is a young man I don’t think well equipped for this. His emotions are very strong.”
I chewed on that a bit, thinking it at best an understatement. From what little I knew of Michel, his “emotions” were cranked up enough to make him certifiable. But that was just a gut feeling. “Okay, Gilles,” I said, “thanks for the update. Let me know if Picard resurfaces.”
I rounded up what members of the team I could find. The Sawyer homicide had pulled away Paul Spraiger and Gary Smith, but Willy, Tom, and Sam were available.
I told them about Guidry.
“Great,” Tom said. “What’s that do to all your theories?”
“What’s Lacombe say?” Sammie asked more precisely.
“No clue,” I reported, not wanting to influence their thinking prematurely. “Apparently, the power vacuum in the Deschamps camp’s causing all hell to break loose. Marcel’s dying, Michel’s running around in a panic, and Picard’s nowhere to be seen.”
“There’s your bad guy,” Willy said. “Clearest scenario is that Guidry and Picard had a falling out over who would end up top man. Picard snuffed Guidry, and now he’s tucked away somewhere waiting for the boss to croak so he can run up a new flag, which’ll probably include a treaty with the Angels and maybe the Rock Machine, too.”
“What about Michel?” Sammie asked.
Willy shrugged. “Who cares? He’s a pimple. Once the dust settles, he’ll either fall into line or have a tragic accident. One thing for sure, though, the trap you set with that press conference just went south.”
It was a workable theory-one I hadn’t considered. We’d certainly witnessed similar ham-handed power plays before. But there were subtleties here that had dogged me from the start-ancient alliances that resisted fitting the brutal picture Willy had painted.
Like between Marie Chenin and Michel, whose playboy past, I thought, had helped camouflage a far more complicated and dangerous personality.