“Ah,” he said, “Agent Sharp. Look—I’m on a tight schedule. We’re a new company, you have to see it our way. Already, we’re making headlines—the wrong sorts, I’m sure you understand.”
Adele just stood waiting.
His face reddened a bit and he seemed to be resisting the urge to stroke his goatee, instead, doing this strange thing with his hand where he absentmindedly pinched at his neck, squeezing the skin together just about his throat. The skin was quite loose, and for a moment Adele was reminded of a friend she’d once had who’d lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time, causing the skin to be similarly elastic.
“Well,” the conductor continued, “now that you’ve come and seen, is it quite all right if we continue on our way? We’ll have to head back to the station. The experience is more pleasure than business and as I’m sure you’re aware it’s not easy enticing new travelers after such a failed expedition.”
Adele blinked in the face of this flood of rapidly communicated words. She winced and said, “I’m sorry Mr. Granet, but until the investigation is over, I can’t allow—”
He coughed, cutting her off, his eyes responding to her unfinished sentence with a flash of annoyance. “Come now,” he said. “Surely you wouldn’t bankrupt us just for some old lady!”
Adele raised an eyebrow and he coughed again, pulling at his neck skin once more. “I mean…” he stammered, “there are so many others who would be missing out.”
Adele shook her head. “Sorry, Mr. Granet. The train stays in the station until I say so. Good day.”
Then she turned and stepped off the lounging compartment, following John and gesturing for Officer Allard to fall into step
“Which hospital is the witness staying at?” Adele called over her shoulder.
“The General Hospital Ille de France. It’s not far.”
Adele nodded but didn’t reply, thinking about the conductor. He had seemed mighty rushed to get moving, and hadn’t seemed particularly bothered by a passenger dying. This didn’t point to guilt, but it might point to neglect. As for his desire to keep going, Adele couldn’t care less. That wasn’t her job. Neglect on either side would allow a guilty party to skate by unnoticed.
It was Adele’s job to make sure this didn’t happen. First step: interviewing the witness to the death itself.
CHAPTER SIX
The hospital was surprisingly small, no more than two stories, looking more like a converted paper supply company than a medical facility. John and Adele followed Officer Allard into the first floor, through glass doors that didn’t slide so much as reluctantly allow themselves to be pushed along a track.
A young woman sat behind a low, dusty counter with peeling varnish strips revealing a plastic frame for what was pretending to be wood. The woman glanced up, peering through her glasses and adjusting a row of pens which she’d stacked neatly on the calendar in front of her. “Can I help you?” she asked, glancing back down at her pens and rolling a couple into somehow preferable positions.
“We’re here to see Ms. Dubot,” replied Allard. “Is she okay to speak?” He spoke with actual concern in his voice.
The woman smiled as she seemed to recognize Allard, some of her focus shifting now toward the chipper policeman. “Oh, hello!” she said. “How are you?”
Allard leaned against the faux wooden counter, beaming as if he were talking to a long-lost sister. “Wonderful,” he said. “How are you doing today, Adrienne? I certainly hope they’ve cut back your work hours.”
Her smile notched up a bit more, as often happens when someone remembers your name. She began to reply, but John stepped in, cleared his throat, and said, “I don’t mean to intrude on this little reunion, but could we see Ms. Dubot?”
Adele resisted the urge to roll her eyes at her partner. Allard glanced at John and quickly shook his head. “Reun—no, no, we only just met yesterday. But how about it, is Ms. Dubot up for some company?”
The woman behind the counter had a somewhat cooler gaze as she glanced at John. But then, instead of buzzing an intercom or calling for a nurse, she walked around the counter and began to stroll down the small, simple hallway of the tiny hospital. “Come,” she said. “We’re understaffed so I’ll have to show you. If she’s asleep, though, I’m not allowed to let anyone in.”
Adele waved away the concern and broke into a quick stride next to the receptionist. They passed one room, which had an empty bed against a bare wall. Then reached a second. The woman pushed open the door, a bit of flaking paint spinning to the tiled ground, and then stepped into the hospital room.
This area was cleaner than the first room had been and smelled faintly of cleaning solution and sanitizers.
A slight woman sat upright in a reclining bed, not quite wide enough for anyone besides the small frame of the woman who Adele decided must be Ms. Dubot, seeing as she was the only one wearing a hospital gown in the room.
The woman’s eyes widened as the four figures all entered, and she seemed to startle all of a sudden. One frail hand darted up to her chest, but then fell just as quickly as she seemed to recognize the arrivals. “Hello,” she said quietly. “You must be the police.”
Adele glance at the woman who’d led them here, waiting for a sign of approval, but she didn’t receive so much as a nod, so she took the initiative to step further into the room, saying, “Ms. Dubot, hello. We are with DGSI. Do you think you’d be up to answering a couple of questions for us? If anything is too alarming, we can stop at any point you’d like.”
The small woman had curling hair and porcelain features, with a slight red flush to her pale skin. The curls seemed natural and bobbed as her head tilted a bit, reclining against the three pillows she’d used to prop herself up.
“Do I have to?” she said. “It was all so horrible.”
Adele winced in sympathy but drew nearer to the bed, holding a hand out behind her to indicate the others should remain back.
She stood at a respectful distance, but came to a halt near the foot of the bed. “Ms. Dubot,” she said, “we don’t mean to take up much of your time. Would you be able to give me a brief recounting of what you saw, though? You don’t have to do anything you’d rather not, but it could certainly help if you did.”
The woman took a shuddering breath, her eyes still wide in their sockets, as if strained from the inside. She closed her mouth and swallowed, and then, with a quiet murmur, she said, “It was so awful… Her hand… it was cold. She grabbed me…”
Adele frowned. “The victim grabbed you? Were you fighting?”
The young woman shook her head adamantly, her curls shifting and bouncing across her pale face. “No, nothing like that. She wouldn’t even talk to me, in fact. I left, but forgot my purse. As I came back, I saw her sitting on the couch, but she looked alert all of a sudden.”
“And then?”
“I went to get my purse…” Here Ms. Dubot started breathing heavily, staring off into the distance over Adele’s shoulder as if she weren’t quite present in the room. “One moment Ms. Mayfield was fine… The next…” A soft sob escaped Dubot’s lips.