To Olga With Love  

Inspector Duvall screamed. The murderer was methodically skewering each throat. Blood rivered through the filthy apartment. The fat American tourist was hemorrhaging from his eyes. She saw strange markings like chicken scratches.

Duvall awoke in a sweat. Bringing your work home with you was not good. Thank God there was no such murder. The mind was fantastically powerful, too much capacity to terrify the innocent. She would try a Darvon.

"What's wrong?" The next morning Jean Claude propped himself on one elbow. He was an engineer and cared little for her dreams.

"Nightmare. Nothing really." She did not like to mix business with pleasure. The telephone rang. LeGrand! Five found with their throats slit in Montmartre. Sitting around a table in a squalid second-storey flat, four of the dead attending a seance at Madame Blavatsky's, the other the clairvoyant herself.

LeGrand was waiting for Duvall at the crime scene. "You think because you're female, Duvall, you don't have to hurry for murder?" he said.

"You think because you're male you have to be insulting?"

"No matter," he said. "The case is solved. A trail of blood leads to the concierge's flat. He's an Algerian and he's fled with every penny any of them had."

"Has he been questioned?" Duvall stared at the five bodies sprawled in a bloody tableau around the seance table. No sign of struggle. Puzzling. Chicken scratches?

"Not necessary. Algerians steal, and the victims were robbed."

"I'm inclined to think stereotypes don't impress defense attorneys and jurors."

LeGrand blew his nose editorially, typical Parisian spring cold. "You take the neighborhood. I'll see about the Arab and the dead ones."

Duvall plunged into the neighborhood, a melange of 16th Century tenements, sex shows, and bars.

Smoking a Gaullois, Olga, Madame Blavatsky's sister, slumped in a yellowing slip beside an unmade bed. A row of the drug addict's little bottles filled a shelf in the corner.

"She was a fake and a cheat. It's no wonder someone murdered her," the sister said after some urging.

"Fake?"

"Yes, she was no more psychic than you or I."

"Who would have wanted her dead?"

"Disgruntled customer? Lover? Charles de Gaulle? How should I know?" The sister shrugged.

"She had a lover?"

Madame Blavatsky's lover if he could be called that, Maurice DuPard, was very sad and very drunk, as he nodded before a cloudy, amber glass of Pernod in his undershirt. His right foot was in a cast.

"Such a wonderful woman. The love of my life. I will revenge her murder." DuPard seemed about to weep.

Duvall was certain DuPard would revenge nothing. He had the do-nothing air of total incompetence.

"Has her sister Olga ever been married?"

"Once to a paratrooper, once to a Saudi, once to an Algerian.

Fine woman." Further questions led nowhere except tears.

The next day the Algerian concierge was arrested in Niort. Visiting his sister. Been there for days with bona-fide witnesses to verify. LeGrand sneezed twice in succession.

"Where does that leave us?" Duvall said.

"Without a lead." LeGrand wiped his mustache. "The dead offer nothing. The American couple were schoolteachers, first time in France, and the other dead were a farmer and his wife from the Dordogne, innocents from the cow pasture, thrill-seekers."

"So we're at a standstill?" Duvall said.

LeGrand snorted. "There's always your woman's intuition? Isn't that why you were hired? Psychic powers etc."

"Is that what you think?"

"I have no opinion," LeGrand snuffled. "I can, however, tell truffles from pig shit."

"Good. I have a plan to trap a pig," Duvall said.

Later that morning the knife was found in a garbage can a block from the murder scene. It had been wiped clean of prints. That evening Duvall put on spike heels, a sweater, and a leather skirt. There were certain advantages to being a policewoman. Jean Claude said, "You'll catch a chill in that outfit. And, cheri, please don't follow your wild hunches into someone's bed."

"You understand nothing of the psychology of women," she said.

"I've never claimed to. Males have no psychology."

"I've observed that."

She stationed herself at the intersection of Robespierre and Boulevard Dumoriez. A prancing horse reared in pink lights above her head. A Dutch sailor made a pass. She ignored him. He cursed and slunk off. She bought a glass of vin blanc from a bored-looking barmaid at a nearby cafe.

"I have a friend I'm looking for--Jean Marie Blavatsky. She does readings. Could you help me?" Duvall sipped the bad wine.

"I doubt it." The barmaid studied the back of her nails.

"I need to see her. She owes me money."

"Then you're too late," the barmaid scrubbed a glass. "She was murdered on Tuesday."

"My God!"

The barmaid recited the story.

"You say she did seances?" Duvall said.

"A scam. I knew her when she and her sister were common whores. Perhaps her thing was wearing out."

"So she was existing doing readings?" Duvall said.

"Existing? She was making scads. Natural born liar. They were flocking to her place. Ask Jacques."

"Who's Jacques?"

"The original psychic for the quarter. Veteran who lost an arm at Dienbienphu. She was cutting his business in half."

"No kidding? Where's his place?"

"Next block. Above the Coq d'Or."

Duvall stationed herself beside the gloomy stairway leading up to where the sign glowed in the window--Readings by Jacques. A cold drizzle fell. She turned down three offers before he showed up. He needed no introduction, bear of a man, no left arm, full beard, thatch of black hair bristling at his neck. Duvall shivered; a knife only required one arm.

"You need anything sweet tonight, Monsieur?" she said. "I'm very good."

"How much?" he grumbled.

"Not so much."

They struck a deal. She followed him up filthy steps into the stench of bad cooking. He fumbled at the lock then kicked the door open.

It was a cheerless room with a table, worn chairs, rumpled bed, crystal ball, and a 60-watt bulb on a cord. A torn shower curtain badly concealed the bidet. He bolted the door behind them and flopped on the bed.

"Go ahead and undress," he said.

Noticing a cage full of rabbits in the corner, she stripped everything down to her slip. Murderer who kept rabbits?

"Keep going," he said.

"It's too cold."

"Have it your way. Come over here."

He was gentle. When it was done, he fell instantly to sleep. Duvall sprung up and began to rummage drawers.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He sat up.

"I was looking for a match." If he were going to strike, it would be now. She looked around for something to use as a club.

He reached under the bed where the knife could be hidden. "I don't keep matches," he said. "Smoking is bad for you. Here's a lighter, Duvall."

"How do you know my name?" Her nails dug into her palm.

"Maybe you didn't notice, but I'm a psychic, cop.",

"You knew I was police when you invited me up?"

"What makes you think I murdered Blavatsky?"

"She ruined your business. You were jealous."

He stood up and moved towards her. "Sorry, copper. You're wrong. You should learn to read Arabic. Here's your 50 francs."

Feeling humiliated, she returned to headquarters to examine the knife. LeGrand had already gone home for the evening to complain to his wife of the world's incompetence. The handle of the stiletto had a concealed compartment.

Olga Martin was high on something when DuVall returned with the search warrant. DuVall carefully lifted the lid of each little jar on Olga's medical shelf and sniffed. Chloral hydrate.

Duvall recognized it. Leveling her small pistol at Olga' s shriveled bosom, she said, "I'm arresting you for the murder of your sister and four others at her seance. You gained access to the apartment that night and loaded the expresso with knockout drops, chloral hydrate to be exact. Then you slit the throats of the five and robbed each for one reason only. To cover your tracks.

"Your true object was your talented, younger sister who refused to support you in your drug habit any more. You owed her money and seethed with jealously. What better way to clear the slate than with murder? Too bad you were unaware that the stiletto, which we found later, had your name engraved on an inner handle in Arabic. 'To Olga With Love.'"

H. Turnip Smith plants his story seeds deep in the ground by the light of the moon in order to spook his neighbors and listen to his vegetables grow.

Contact Turnip at: turnips@prodigy.net

December 6, 2001
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