Author's Note: How Many Cameos can you find?
Mystery of Lon LeRoi
It was by late morning by the time that Inspector Herbert Petrie of the Police Judiciaire found his way to his desk where his partner, Julien Claudin was already there waiting in one of his deep maroon jackets of a well tailor his perfectly combed silver hair. Although Julien was the older man of their duo, he was not losing his hair, only its color. Something Herbert found himself rather envious of as his hair behaved quite the opposite, retaining dark coloring while thinning faster than mangy cat.
"We found her," Julien declared as he raised with a new file in the air.
"The Comtesse?"
"Yes! However, where we found her is the troubling bit."
Herbert settled into his chair and pulled up his spectacles from the breast pocket of his charcoal gray jacket while he took the proffered file. "And where was she?"
"The morgue."
Herbert frowned, "That isn't helpful."
"But this is," Julien reached over and tugged up the intake form, "it's forged. Someone broke into the morgue last night to place her there."
"Odd…" Herbert muttered and looked over the note. "Why go through so much trouble of all this? Afraid to report her death properly?"
"I don't know," Julien sat across from Herbert as he spoke. "But whoever this is, he did try to help her."
"You saw her?"
Julien nodded and sat back while rubbing his arthritic left hand. "I just got back. Whoever is behind this tragedy on the Chagnys, beat her. The cuts, the bruises. Even her leg seems shattered. All of it was bandaged and according to the examiner, done well. It was not some amateur who tried to help her."
"Any sign of the boy?"
"Not yet, but there have been some interesting rumors regarding several bodies coming from a forest near Vaujours."
"Vaujours," Herbert repeated, "That's not terribly far from Chelle." Which was a commune where Chateau de Chagny sat on northern outskirts of the boarder.
"A lot of forests to cover," Julien commented, "Which is why I sent Michael and Robert to investigate what exactly the local authorities have discovered. Might be nothing, but hopefully it is something. Maybe we'll discover who this Lon LeRoi fellow is and just how much he knows. If we find him, perhaps we will find the boy too. Alive I hope."
~x ~x ~X~ x~ x~
In a rented room of an establishment in Pigalle neighborhood of Paris, Eduard sat in a chair in the shadowed corner feeling rather satiated for now as he buttoned his trousers. A pretty slip of girl quickly worked on covering up her smooth skin and wiping the telling residue from her mouth and chest. He rather she kept the evidence of what she was on display, a nice little reminder of her actual worth to the world. It was the only thing she would ever be good for anyway.
When she was only half finished, a knock came at the door and the mood in to room shifted as someone dared disturb his evening. In a brisk movement, Eduard threw a purse at the girl. "Get out!" he throatily hissed at her.
She gave a small shriek as she fumbled with the satchel and bolted from the room. The pair of men on the other side of the door watched the girl scurry off with slackened jaw. "Nice legs," brute commented to the air as they stepped into the room and shut the door behind them.
"You better have better news for me,gentleman," Eduard growled from his chair. "I still have only heard of the Comte's death. This was meant to be a simple little assignment, and yet it has become a massacre of endless failings. I wanted no witnesses. Yet, the Comtesse and the little Vicomte still eludes your men as though mindless idiots are pursuing them. It will only be a matter of time before she talks to someone and word gets out more than it already has."
The two men regarded each other nervously. The first of the pair, a tall brute, large in build with meaty hands and a scruffy face slowly started to explain, "Well you see, we have some good news for you…"
"What would that be?" demanded Eduard.
"The Comtesse, Monsieur. Our informant in the Police Judiciaire has heard that the Comtesse's body has been discovered in the morgue. This is from the mouths of the lead investigators themselves. Someone named Lon LeRoi put her there."
"Put her there?"
"Yes. He broke in to the morgue and placed her body sir."
Eduard furrowed his brow. "Why would this LeRoi even bother with such a thing? It would make more sense to leave her in a gutter somewhere, like she deserves."
"It would suggest that this LeRoi does not want to speak with authorities," spoke the second man of average height and build with a deeply olive complexion, the Spaniard. "It is likely a false name as well."
"Well, I suppose that is a brief benefit, until he decides to spill whatever he knows. Either way, this is getting too messy, Hugo," Eduard growled as he looked back to the brute. "What of the boy?"
"Still no mention of the kid. But there is also talk that there were bodies found near Vaujours late yesterday," Hugo answer quickly. "There are more investigators who were sent there this morning."
"This means what to me?"
The brute grimaced. "I suspect those bodies are my men," he swallowed hard. "None of them returned after I sent them after the Comtesse and the brat."
"Are you suggesting a little Comtesse, a meek singer at best, and a brat took out your men?"
"Well, no… but she did kill two of my men before we could even apprehend her to begin with." Hugo wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt. "But— but it could mean she got help from someone. Perhaps it was that LeRoi fellow."
The Spaniard slid a step away from Hugo.
"Sounds like you need to do better in your recruiting if a woman can take any of them out in the first place! For your sake, Hugo, you should pray that they find the boy's body out there with them."
Hugo swallowed.
"You, Tavares. I want you to find out who this LeRoi is and where he living. If he has any connection out towards Vaujours, it should not be hard to undercover. Whether he helped the Comtesse or just delivered her body matters not to me. He needs silenced, permanently."
"I will find out who this person is, you have my word."
"Good. It's better than some others," Eduard shot a pointed glance towards Hugo who hung his head.
~x ~x ~X~ x~ x~
The scene was a mess to say the very least, and the story unfurled with a considerable amount of backtracking.
The end point was where the investigation began, two bodies in the creek with their throats sliced deep, two living horses with another deceased in the water. There were numerous tracks to follow, cemented by the near frozen ground. Of the apparent chase that transpired, there was a count of three galloping horses. Two tracks along the banks of the creek, the third coming out of the wood, halfway between the dead animal and the dead men.
Man of an above average height and lithe build stood at the heart of the scene. Michael Carriére took in every available detail with light blue eyes while his short light brown hair rippled in the chilly breeze. He could almost visualize the end, the dead horse traveling down the creek bed to hide the trail, the pursuers not caring of they were tracked gaining ground. Then the interloper who, put a block to the pursuit.
The interloper who put himself between the fallen fir tree with the dead horse and the pursuers who meant to do greater harm than just killing an equine.
Ahead, Robert Destler as identified by his dark attire and long brown hair tied back with a black ribbon at the nape of his neck, walked downstream of the creek with eyes cast down. He followed the trail of disturbed gravel and hoof prints left in mud by their 'victims' with sure and precise steps over uneven ground as he moved without hurry.
Robert was good at his work, among the best even. However, his cool and calculating demeanor was as off putting as the silky smooth and soft cadence of his voice that did not seem to match his presentation. It was too, practiced. Had he been anything other man than a fellow investigator of homicide, Michael could almost envision him being something worse than the murderers they hunted.
In turn, Michael focused on hoof prints that came from the woods and followed them in a more relaxed manner compared to his friend. These tracks were harder to follow through deadfall and rougher terrain. But freshly snapped branches and disturbed leaves made the job a bit easier. It went as straight as the forest would allow of any horse and rider. The strands of long black horse hairs snared on broken branches were a bonus to Michael's endeavors.
When he emerged, he was in the meadow uphill from the stream with Robert still a forest where five more bodies lay. In the forest it was harder to envision all that transpired, but in theory, one died to his own knife in the back, another had a stab to his heart and bullet wounds to his back. The knife used, Michael assumed, was the one nestled in the jugular of the third man. Victims four and five lay together, fatal ligature marks from marred their throats. Thin like it was more of a cord than a rope, and it was missing from the scene.
"Nine horses and seven dead riders. I am willing to bet," Robert observed in his usual mellifluous infliction that was only just projected loud enough for Michael to hear, "that it was de Chagnys riding the dead horse." Robert slid to Michael's side with look to the mess hoof tracks around the victims. "If we follow the trail long enough, we are bound to find our way to the chateau."
Michael cast him a wary glance but gave a nod nonetheless. "Agreed. But right now, I am more interested in who is number Nine."
Robert turned and pointed to a spot in the meadow. "Chagnys and Nine met over there. Pure happenstance too, his horse is a fiery one."
"Nine decides to help the Chagnys. Takes out seven men with ease, using their own weapons against them," Michael shook his head, "apart from one knife and a line of cordage. These men chasing the Chagnys ran into a damn expert. He came back for the cord at some point after everything."
"Probably to return a horse as well," Robert added. "I have a hard time believing three rode the same horse out of here, if the Comtesse and little Vicomte were together. Nine directed them to the water and the direction."
"And he knew how exactly to catch up. I don't think that six and seven were meant to leave this forest alive…"
"There are some good Samaritans out there; but not like this one. We have blood near the dead horse, do you think it will be enough to track him?" asked Robert, but it was not really a question when they both knew the odds.
"I don't see the point. We would have better luck trying to figure out where he came from. Even that…" Michael shrugged. "Our best play is to start questioning anyone who lives nearby and to see if we can get a good cast on the hooves of Nine's horse."
"It won't be much."
"But if it's unique enough, we can pair it with this," Michael held up the long horse hairs. "Then we would have one of best leads yet. Perhaps, I can't imagine that there will be an absence of information from him."
Author's Note: Did you find them all? I know one or two of them are harder to notice...
