Deadly Slipper Read Free

go.”
    Mara managed a smile. “Thanks. I’ll be okay.”
    “No problem, really. Where are you staying?”
    “Ecoute-la-Pluie.” She opened her bag and gave him her card:
Mara Dunn—Interior Designer/ Décoratrice ensemblière.
    Julian looked surprised. “You’re not a tourist?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I should have made that clear. I’m Canadian, but I live here.”
    “Ah,” he said, as if that explained something. “Of course.” He lowered himself into a leather easy chair—obviously his favorite since the arms and seat were badly worn. “And the photographs? Look,” he said, against his better judgment, “don’t you think you’d better tell me what this is all about?”
    Wearily Mara let her head fall against the sofa back so that she gazed past him at an indeterminate spot on the ceiling. “Yes,” she said at last. “The photos.” Briefly she closed her eyes. “You see, nineteen years ago, my sister Bedie—Beatrice Dunn—I think my sister may have taken those pictures.”
    He stared at her blankly, waiting for her to go on.
    “In 1984, my sister, Bedie, disappeared in the Dordogne.” Mara had told this story many times. With each telling, the recital became bleaker, more mechanical, reducing the people in it to mere essential facts. “She’d come over with her boyfriend, Scott Barrow, for a hiking holiday. They were camping not too far from here at a place called Les Gabarres. It was early May, and they’d had a lot of rain. Scott wanted to push on. Bedie wanted to stay. They had a fight about it, and Scott packed up and took off.” Mara was silent for a moment. “When he came back to the campsite a couple of days later, Bedie was gone. Scott waited around for a few more days. He was sure she’d be back because, although she’d taken her backpack and camera, a Michelin guide, and a book on flowers, the rest of her things were still in the tent. We—none of us—ever saw her again.”
    Her eyes wandered to the windows. Darkness, the early darkness of remnant winter days, was closing in, but the rain was letting up. “The police launched a massive search. It was in all the papers. They questioned everyone in the area and followed up with campers who’d left during the critical period, anyone who might have seen her or given her a ride. A German family said they saw her go out of the campsite the morning after Scott left. Alone and on foot. No one else knew anything.”
    Throughout this narrative, Julian had been regarding his visitor with an increasingly troubled gaze. Now he stirred, rising to poke mechanically atthe dying fire. He spoke with his back to her. “What about the boyfriend? Surely he must have had some idea where she might have gone?”
    “No. In fact, for a time Scott was a prime suspect. The police were sure it was a crime passionel. They put him through hell, poor guy. Why did he leave? Why had he waited so long before reporting her missing? Scott told them that he had simply hitched a ride to Bordeaux and back, and that he hadn’t been particularly worried about Bedie, at least not right away, because, as anyone who knew her could tell you, Bedie was perfectly able to look after herself. The police didn’t believe him. On the other hand, they had no proof of foul play. There was no body, you see.
    “My parents and I came over as soon as we were notified. We stayed on for three months, looking for her. Scott stayed, too. We showed her picture to everyone—hikers, campers, waiters, shopkeepers, farmers. My father offered a reward for any information about her. We had dozens of leads that went nowhere. Finally, the police told us we were complicating things by trying to run our own investigation. They told us to go home.”
    “And then?” Julian turned back to sit down again.
    “And then, a couple of months later, in the fall, the French police contacted us again. Someone had found a woman’s body in a wood near Carennac, over in Quercy. Her skull