Babayaga

Maroc’s office they compared notes. “She looks stubborn,” said Detective Lecan.
    “That’s quite a black eye she’s got. Wonder who hit her?” said Maroc, sounding uncertain.
    “I doubt it was Vidot or Bemm,” said Lecan.
    “You’re right. I don’t think an old hag like that could take on two able-bodied police officers. I mean, Vidot was a bit slight, but still.”
    “Absolutely, she’s much too ancient. I can’t see her overpowering Vidot. And certainly not Bemm. They were both fit enough to handle an old woman.”
    “What’s her story?” Maroc asked, taking a clementine off his desk and peeling it over the wastebasket.
    Lecan looked through the report. “The woman says she first found the car over on rue Dupin. Perhaps she’s telling the truth.”
    Maroc nodded thoughtfully. “Or she’s conspiring with Vidot’s wife, that’s my bet. The widow gets a new lover, the hag gets a new car. Not a bad deal for either.”
    “If we ever find ourselves in a similar situation, I’ll take the car,” Lecan joked.
    Maroc smiled as he continued: “We should at least grill the old cow, see what she has to say.”
    “Like I said, she looks stubborn,” Lecan said. “I’d let her sit and stew a bit before we try to get anything out of her. Time in the cell will soften her up.”
    Leaning back in his chair, Lecan read the rest of the file aloud. “She gave her name as Elga Sossoka, though she has no identification. She claims she took the bus in from the country to visit a friend but when she arrived, she says, she found that the friend had moved. Walking back to the bus, she saw the car with the keys hanging out the door. She says her feet were feeling sore and her ankles were swollen, so she took it and drove it around for a few days, trying to track this old friend down. She says she knew it was wrong to take the car, but she’s getting older and her mind makes mistakes.” Lecan threw the report across the desk. “Ridiculous! Who does that sort of thing? In a police car? Too absurd. I could blow up that story in ten minutes.”
    “So blow it up,” said Maroc.
    Lecan picked up the phone and instructed an officer to drive out to the address near Cergy where she claimed she had been living. “See if anyone’s there, tell them we have her in our cells. Let them know they might want to send a lawyer, but they shouldn’t expect her home anytime soon. Then ask a few questions and see what you can find out about her.”
    Maroc nodded as Lecan hung up the phone. “You’re right, twenty-four hours in a cell should soften her up, then we’ll put the screws to her. I bet she’s in it with Vidot’s wife. I can smell it. Which reminds me”—he picked up a stack of papers and waved them at Lecan—“Pingeot brought these transcripts by yesterday, want to take a look?”
    Maroc had placed Madame Vidot and her lover under twenty-four-hour surveillance, tapping their phone lines and watching each of their homes. Though the lovers had not attempted to meet, they spoke often. Which is how, the previous afternoon, Maroc had found himself listening to his very nervous subordinate, the young Christian Pingeot, reading lurid and explicit pornography out loud to him for the better part of an hour. “Then this Alberto fellow says”—the officer had cleared his throat—“ahem, ‘I want, um,’ ahem, ‘I want to thrust my spear deep into you, your’ … sir, I really cannot.”
    “Read it to me, officer.”
    “All right, sir. ‘I want to thrust my spear deep into your moist petals’—please, sir.”
    Maroc had to agree it was pretty bad stuff. But he had made poor Pingeot continue, simply because he enjoyed seeing the officer’s discomfort. Now he gleefully handed the transcripts to Lecan.
    Lecan read the report with wide eyes. “My, this fellow Alberto is a terrible poet,” he said.
    “Well, he certainly is Italian,” Maroc conceded.
    Lecan smiled. “Do the two know we are watching them?”
    “Hard to say. But she won’t let him come to her flat. And they cannot go to Alberto’s, his wife is there. So see what he proposes?” Maroc pointed to a section of the transcript.
    Lecan read it and smiled. “Ah-ha, the rascal, he wants her to meet him tonight in the Bois.”
    Maroc clapped his hands. “Ha ha, such good old-fashioned naughtiness. Makes me feel young again,” he laughed. “Well, why not join in the fun, eh? Are you up for a bit of surveillance tonight? Maybe we can catch them