Chapter 17
Detective Pilguez parked his Ford station wagon in the Columbarium visitors’ lot. As he made his way up the path to the administrative building, he shuddered.
The manager’s assistant welcomed him at the door with a scowl that rivaled his own, then took him to his boss’s office, where the executive seemed even more disturbed than either of them were.
“There you are, finally! They broke the window and forced the cabinet door open,” he moaned.
“I can see perfectly well, thanks. Nice cabinet, by the way. Did they close it before they left, or did you cover the crime scene in your greasy fingerprints so you could make my job even harder?”
With that, the detective set the tone. The manager stuttered as the officer began to draw his own conclusions about what had occurred.
“What kind of valuables were inside? Money? Bonds?”
“Just files.”
“Incriminating ones, I imagine, for someone to take the time to burgle such a depressing place.”
“They didn’t take any papers. Just an urn.”
“A what?” Pilguez frowned.
“A funerary urn.”
“Ah, and nothing else?”
“That’s quite a lot already.”
“If you say so. Was it made of gold?”
“Brass. The urn itself has no real value.”
“What was inside, then?”
“Ashes, of course.”
“Ah,” repeated Pilguez.
“Don’t you understand? They stole human remains. This is very serious.”
“Whose remains?”
“That’s the problem. We have no idea.”
“Ah!”
There was an awkward silence.
“I know plenty of people with skeletons in their closets, but this takes the cake. What were the remains doing in your office?”
“Someone had shamefully abandoned them here late yesterday morning. As soon as we found them, we dutifully took them in. We couldn’t just leave them lying around.”
“So, you took in a lost soul, in a way. I must say your profession seems much more interesting than I would have expected.”
“I can hear your sarcasm, detective. I realize this type of case isn’t exactly routine, but please do everything you can to find—”
“To find whoever it is,” Pilguez grumbled. “Jesus, what on earth did I do to deserve cases like this? So, let me see if I got this right. Someone left an urn in a cemetery—not a totally unreasonable thing to do, when you think about it—”
“Not a cemetery, a columbarium,” the manager protested in a pinched tone.
“You locked it up, and it escaped during the night,” the detective continued, as if the manager hadn’t spoken.
“Thirty years chasing criminals and now I’m chasing down an urn—so this is what it’s come to.
Did it ever occur to you that the urn could maybe contain something other than ashes? Drugs, for example?”
“Impossible. We opened it.”
“Are you absolutely sure? You didn’t . . . No, of course not, that would be unseemly. But if there weren’t any drugs inside, why would someone steal something that had been abandoned just hours before?”
“You’re the police officer.”
“More’s the pity! Let’s go back to the beginning, then,” Pilguez said as he took a notebook and pen out of his jacket pocket. “Any idea when the break-in took place?”
“I left my office at eight o’clock, just before the gates closed. Our night watchman makes rounds in the park, but he didn’t notice anything strange. I don’t know any more than that.”
“Theft of a funerary urn from the manager’s office,” Pilguez mumbled as he took notes. “What is it worth?”
“It has only sentimental value, I suppose.”
“Well, it’s going to cost your insurance company a fortune. No surveillance cameras?”
“This is a very nice neighborhood. Our residents are perfectly safe. Or, at least, that’s what we thought until last night. We’ll have some installed, you can take my word for it.”
“Of course. No fingerprints, no video, no identity. Hard to crack a kidnapping case without any leads.”
“A kidnapping?” the manager cried. “Do you think they’ll ask for a ransom?”
“I wouldn’t think so.”
“How can you be sure?”
“They can hardly threaten to kill the hostage. As for negotiating the return of the remains, no one even knows who’s in there.”
The manager nodded and slumped into his chair. “Why, then?”
“That’s a good question. I’ll admit the motive is unclear. Did anything strange happen yesterday? Even the slightest thing being off could put me on the right track.”
The manager stroked his chin and thought hard. “Now that you mention it, our organist had an accident yesterday, and someone replaced him at the last minute.”
“Now that’s the lead I was missing!” the detective exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “Now I’ll be able to solve the case in no time.”
“Really?” the manager and his assistant asked in unison.
“No, of course not. All right. What happened to your organist?”
“He slipped in the shower.”
“Fascinating! Who replaced him?”
“We don’t know that, either. It wasn’t anyone who works for us. Actually, while we’re on the topic, our gardener saw the very same musician in the park the day before.”
“But the urn was left yesterday?”
“Truly, no detail escapes you, detective. Maybe he was casing the place. Mr. Bartel’s daughter spoke to him. In fact, she’s the one who went and got him for the service. Our gardener saw them together outside.”
“Where might I find this young woman?”
“We have her father’s address.”
The detective copied it down in his notebook and left.
Thomas woke up late. He heard noise coming from the living room and found his father sitting in front of the TV.
“How did you turn it on?”
“No idea. I thought really hard about it and poof! Wavelengths work in mysterious ways—I spent my entire life working as a surgeon only to be reincarnated as a remote control. Totally worth it, am I right?”
Thomas sat down next to him. He wished they could trade places, wished he could protect and reassure his father.
He would have liked to tell him that things would be better the next day, even though he knew they were running out of time together.
But Raymond made the first move, as always, to console Thomas.
“Don’t be glum, son. We tried. And this trip gave us some extra time together.
Not everyone gets that. I can’t bear to see you sad because of me.
I had a wonderful life, and yours will be even better.
Think of all that’s ahead of you: concerts, love, the beauty of sunrises, the joy of being alive, everything you have yet to experience.
It’s wonderful. Do you realize how lucky you are?
Don’t waste a single second feeling sorry for me.
I made my choices and wouldn’t change them for the world.
Even though I worked a lot, I raised you too; I loved you, watched you grow and become a man—such a good man!
So, believe me, I’ll be going without any regrets, except for Camille, but I’m sure she’ll understand.
You and I don’t have much time left, so go ahead, ask me anything you want.
Actually, just ask me one question, whichever one is most important to you, and I promise to answer. ”
Thomas looked affectionately at his father and asked, “Tell me, Dad: What does it mean to be a father?”
“What time is your plane?”
Manon lifted the metal security gate halfway up and ducked to get into the bookstore.
Then she turned off the alarm and looked around.
She loved this time of day, before opening, when she could walk alone among the shelves, take inventory of her stock, flip through a book she grabbed off a table, or choose what she would read to her mother in the afternoon.
She put down the book she’d picked up. It struck her that, starting now, life was back to normal.
Manon wasn’t the kind of person to let herself wallow; she had inherited Camille’s optimism.
She walked into the storeroom and started opening boxes full of the summer’s new releases.
Books were published seasonally, but their release dates didn’t always coincide with the best time for reading them.
Manon spent a lot of time shelving them appropriately.
She would place them on tables, arranging them like flowers in a vase—never by theme.
She wanted to kindle customers’ curiosity.
Booksellers live to answer readers’ questions.
Giving advice, making recommendations, and sharing in a customer’s delight all brought her joy, even when the reader wasn’t particularly friendly.
That thought reminded her of the order she had placed for the antiques dealer next door.
She rifled through the boxes she’d received that week and pulled out the titles he’d requested.
Then she returned to her desk behind the counter to start on the accounting.
A pile of bills was waiting—but they would have to wait some more.
She had just received a text.
Saying that he needed time to pack, Thomas escaped to the bedroom while his father watched yet another episode of his new favorite show. He climbed out the window, crossed the yard, walked up the alley that ran along the side of the house, and knocked on his hosts’ door.
A few minutes later, he returned the way he’d come.
Next, he worked up the courage to call his agent and ask for a favor.
“What are you doing in San Francisco?” Marie-Dominique asked. “I believe you’re supposed to be in Paris.”
“My father always said belief is for religion.”
“Leave your poor father out of it. So, what’s your plan exactly? Are you going to come back to Paris—in time to hop on a plane to Warsaw and play after flying all night? Is that really reasonable?”
“More reasonable than canceling the concert. But I have no choice. I have to stay here one more day.”
“So, you need me to get your ticket to Warsaw.” Marie-Dominique sighed. “Will you ever change?”
“If I changed, you wouldn’t like me as much.”
“Who says I like you? You’re terrible.”
“Marie-Do, don’t make me beg. Oh, all right, I’m begging you.”