Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Mondieu

the fencer and the painter

a dualism picturesque and particular.

draw me as the ocean breathing

above a coral reef

with your sweet palette mixed

in this fluid motion,

we are the ribbon dance

we are the hummingbird

we are the wind in the wildflowers

galvanized

until each sunflower is only electric

with our souls the conduit of eternity;

it is the rainbow and the breeze

born of storms and souls

spinning, weaving, then

pirouette until

we are the fireworks and

we are the waterfall

we are the hearth flames

Mondieu circled the tree, slow, as a prayer labyrinth of introspection. The tree, whether knowledge or life, now drooped subtly, the silver underbelly of leaves blackened, drying up and folding inward, as though each leaf curled into a protective fetal position, cradling its last ghosts of life. Each silvery star of a leaf dimming and dying, and the branches of the tree whose heavens were once brilliant now lost its constellations, its life.

                The inspector picked up a piece of fruit from the garden floor, now swarming with tiny worms. Was it the cold, the flooding, or was something else poisoning the tree? Or, was it simply time, an inconvenient timing? Too inconvenient. What did it mean? Was it important, or simply a byproduct of the city’s devastation? The tree’s branches looked lightly blanched, and its wrinkled more poignant. The branches that once tickled the highest reaches of the dome now sagged, borne down under the weight of an end, a bitter end.

                Mondieu crouched at the base of the tree. What was it that irked him about this particular instance of crime? Something to do with Addam and Lilya? Tiny bloodied marks had pooled near the cobbles, beyond the grass surrounding the central tree. It was a heart shape, and the inspector could still see, etched into his memories, their figures, entwined, naked, pale, and bloodied beneath the boughs of the tree.

                It wasn’t only this tree, either. All the trees, bushes, flowers alike collectively ached, a back-breaking passing into sorry death.

                Was this an accident? Or were these people selected? Was the snake motif important, the fangs penetrating their necks and ankles? What was the nature of the poison that drained their life-forces so easily? Maybe Marie had more information.

                Mondieu watched the tree for a while, its leaves no longer a delight, the fruit of its branches, but a burden, creaking like tired ship-masts after a tempest, or old stairs too often walked upon. A short while later the inspector left the arboretum, heading towards the menagerie. Water collected on the streets, leaching into the muddy soils and swamping the beleaguered plant-life. Fog collected in heavy wisps, obscuring the edges of the street and swirling around posts and branches in eerie manacles.

                The menagerie was empty, a ghost city within whose animals moved ponderously. They gazed at Mondieu’s passing with bleary-eyed indifference. Here was he who has not saved us, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

                Mondieu reached the wolves’ pen without seeing another soul. Surely someone must still feed these animals? Everyone was hiding away inside, huddled together for warmth. The inspector hopped over the ledge and dropped into the wolf pen. There were no wolves remaining. A stench remained, and bloodstains marked the stones. The ground wasn’t wet with flooding, thanks to the low stone wall surrounding the rim of the pen, though the sands were still dark with precipitation. The sign in the back with the criminal’s words had been rubbed away, painted over in a charcoal matte.

                This crime was different, somehow, than the rest. What was it? Something about this crime said that unravelling this one might tear the seams out, recursively solving each of the rest. Why was that? This one was the messiest. The inspector walked around the pen. The sands were mussed up with the movements of the policemen, cleaning squads, and the inspector himself, but the bones of the murder – how was it a murder? – still reeked, a redolence not completely dissipated, raw and primal.

                How had the murderer anticipated Horten’s arrival? Unless, of course, Horten wasn’t necessarily a target. Perhaps no one was. Was this an inadvertent murder? Without a triggering mechanism, there seemed no means of targeting any specific individual. If anyone had snuck in and trained the beasts, someone would have noticed, eventually. But nothing was locked, and anyone could have snuck in and simply fed the wolves a drug, a virus, and they went rabid, right at feeding time. Was it simply a convenience? The devil of a villain was too careful to rely on simple convenience as the delivery mechanism for each crime.

                Was each target of each crime deliberate? Or merely coincidental, and thus unimportant? Horten had been the only recipient of the first clue, and had disregarded it immediately, though he had

                So what was intended here? Day six was creation of man and creature, though day seven was only a day of rest. That was a piece of what irked him. Why the deaths on day seven? How was that symbolic of rest? Or was it not? Maybe it was a symbol aimed at the fall itself, the paradise lost. Were the wolves important or another red herring in a long list of such?

                Mondieu crouched down beside the stone on which Horten’s head had lain, reimagining the scene. Only a couple pieces left that didn’t quite fit. He just needed to find, and ask, the right question. What was that question?

                Briefly thereafter, the inspector left the menagerie, heading out through the city. What could have caused all the birds to leave? The fish he had determined the cause of: asphyxiation. Seems a strange way for a fish to die, to be sure. Still, at least there was one answer in this mess of questions. The birds, though, did that make sense? Mondieu had a clue, or an inkling. He headed towards the information tower – he needed to go there anyway, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone, as they used to say.

                Turners was sponging up the water in a giant mop and squeezing it out into a bucket when the inspector arrived, mumbling to himself.

                “Turners?” the inspector asked, his boots causing the water to ripple in waves and slap against the metallic chassis of the machines on the floor. Turners glanced askance, and grumbled something obscene under his breath.

                “Yes, inspector Mondieu?” Turners replied, mopping up more of the mess and squeezing it into his pail.

                “I need to speak with you more about the virus left on these computers. What can you tell me? I must know everything.”

                Turners sighed, leaning heavily against his mop a moment before setting against one of the tables and rubbing his sweaty palms against his trousers.

                “Well, what is there to say? I completely removed it, if you must know, not that there is anything more I believe it could accomplish. This is a shell of a town now, and in it you can hear the ocean of inevitability.”

                The inspector stared at Turners, waiting for more, but Turners said nothing.

                “How long was it on the computers before you found it? Was it a timed release, or a manually run process?” the inspector fired, his tone brooking no evasive ambiguity.

                “Everything was time, I suspect. I don’t think anyone could have entered into the information tower without notice. Also, someone was inside the tower at each of the moments of the crime. So it could not have been manually initiated unless…” Turners fell silent, realizing the inspector may very well believe him a suspect. I do, thought the inspector. Everyone is a suspect.

                He’d known it already, but needed to hear it again. A recurring element was appearing, and patterns were the core of clues in these investigations. When you mark a pattern, follow it. It will lead you clear as paw prints in the snow to your predator.

                “So there are no remnants of the virus left intact? No evidence of its former existence.”

                “No,” replied Turners, swallowing nervously and slumping backwards into a desk behind him, jostling the machinery and almost knocking it over into the waiting pools.

                “Hmm…”  The inspector hummed darkly and dramatically, and watching the effect on Turners. “And when, exactly, did the virus take effect? What are the earliest signatures of anything outside the realms of normal?”

                “Follow me,” Turners replied, turning and scampering up the ramp towards the upper limits of the tower. When they arrived near the ceiling of the tower, Turners tapped some keys on a keyboard and brought up some graphs on a series of screens.

                “What is the first instance of change?” the inspector asked.

                Turners pointed at the graph, showing the deviation of the line over time. “The weather itself began deviating in a slow, downward crawl the day the birds fled. A brisk wind rolled over town, and even in the warm sun, there was a taste of winter.”

                The inspector nodded, following the graph downward in temperature over time. “So why did you not mention this earlier?”

                Turners gulped. “I, uh… I meant to, sir. Sometimes the weather controller has hiccups, and the weather can drop a few degrees or gain a few, here or there. Nothing to worry about, usually, sir.”

                “Hiccups? How often?”

                “Oh, once every couple of months, the weather might drop a couple of degrees. A little gust of wind seemed within the standard deviation,” Turners replied, staring at the ground, the monitors, anywhere but the inspector’s face.

                The wind. The birds felt the weather coming before it arrived – winter. Something in their genetics, their long evolution explained their escape mechanism: South, warmer weather. But surely that could not account for every bird leaving, simultaneous, could it? Was there something else there? There was a motif, a pattern evolving in the inspector’s head. Finally, it was all coming clear. He was figuring it all out.

                “And why wasn’t the virus noticed before?”

                Turners cringed at this last. “No one thought to look for it, sir. I’m none so good with machinery as I should be. Whoever this villain is, he’s better I tell you.”

                “Hmm. Well, keep it up, Turners. I’ll be seeing you soon, I’m certain. Don’t be going anywhere.”

                “Yes, sir. See you soon.” Turners simply stood still, moving only his eyes as the inspector walked down the ramp and out of sight, and he only moved when the inspector passed out of the tower, slogging further east towards the weather controller.

               

                Mondieu stopped by the police station and picked up a lantern before heading towards his next destination.  The police station was empty; even Seth was not lurking behind that great desk of his. The weather tower was a walk, and the inspector filled the time piercing his new theory with holes and tears of queries. Is this piece complete? Where is the fabric patchy and riddled with holes? Is there anything more I can learn at the weather controller?

                The weather controller loomed, taller and darker seeming than the first time the inspector had investigated. Now that he knew this weather controller had arrived almost forty years past, he could see the wear on the stones, the sun-bleached weathered nature of the walls and the hunger of the grasses and vines clambering up the walls and crawling across the cobblestones.

                Mondieu lit the lantern and entered through the threshold, already swimming in a new sea of sounds: mechanical whirrs and scrapings, a humming of electronic life. The weather controller was a mess, a pile of twisted and broken. A pair of metallic wings tore free from the side, angled awkwardly as though a nightmare-terror prepared to fly.  Lights studded the interior like capillaries and blinking maggots. What was this once, this magnificent technology that changed the weather, stopping the storms and the natural turning of seasons to create the perfect Eden?

                The inspector dropped down into the lower sections of the weather controller, sniffing a stench of chemicals, and touching at the shrapnel indentations lining the walls of the machines stomach, revealing the intestines of this technological monstrosity whose heart no longer beat. Another pattern, perhaps, and telling in its own way. All of these crimes, all of these clues possessed a number of things in common, and the identity of the villain was being forged in a montage of water-blurred images.

                What mysteries were hidden here? Still, the pattern held. And he knew, before he even visited the latest crime, that the pattern was reflected throughout the crimes. Now he merely had to reconstruct the mirror and reproduce the image, the face whose visage these broken images displayed.

                As the inspector walked back towards the police station, he considered how few people he actually knew within the city limits. One advantage gleaned through the criminals involvement was the clues. They indicated that the criminal kept his eye on the scene, wanted to know each element as it came and how much the inspector himself knew. That meant that the villain was involved, and had likely already met Mondieu. A city wide investigation, and still he only knew a handful of people. Who could it be?

                Seth was fidgety and unpredictable, young and inexperienced – expectedly so; Vespars and DuMont: did he know anything about them? Vespars was hiding something, he could see that. DuMont? Taciturn and brutish, though with a strange grace, and he had met with Marie that second morning, trading something: fruit? Supplies? What interest did he have in the exchange, and what was he getting out of it?

                The Doctor and Evelyn, fighting their way through their own investigation: suspicious. They knew at least as much as the criminal would, and seemed to find out ways of discovering more. And then there was their appearance at the tower on the night of the first stakeout. And Simon? Something about Simon was off-putting. He was skilled in too many areas, too easily sliding into the role of inspector, or mechanic, or technician, or finding things around town despite his inexperience with Garden and its people. He knew too much, too fast.

                Then there was Marie: who was she, and did she want something from him? He sensed his weak spot here, what was her motive?

                The Bear and Pavloh were outside characters, but what did they know? They both seemed wiser, patient in their years, but knowledgeable. They both knew things the inspector didn’t, he suspected. What were the right questions?

                And Turners. Somehow, he didn’t suspect Turners intelligent enough to accomplish all of these things. Unless he was hiding something, or appearing purposely foolish. The villain, whoever it was, certainly displayed the capability of cleverness, to some extent, though a sly sort of intellect.

                The inspector returned the lantern to the police station and walked towards the fountain at the center of the square. It was a wreck. Porcelain and plaster covered the ground in a splattering of pieces, some scattered even as far as thirty paces distant. Mondieu approached and glanced over the remains of the fountain. Was it the same explosion? The same chemical smell lingered over the remnants of the fountain as the weather controller, which indicated a similar explosive. Likely, whatever they were, they had been made in batches, and probably used chemicals that had been imported somehow, or brought into the city. Unless a secret, more advanced lab existed in the city, no one had the technology to create such timed devices – or a remote detonation.

                Did the mist mean anything? With the weather controller destroyed, unless the criminal had his own weather controller, which seemed like it might be difficult to hide, it would be difficult creating inclement weather on the fly. Plus, Turners had mentioned the downturn of the weather the day before the actual event. Wouldn’t the weather have already started getting warmer again earlier yesterday? Maybe, maybe not. Technology of this magnitude was beyond the inspector’s expertise.

                It seemed, however, that it was a timed explosion of some sort. The inspector remembered hearing a ticking, as of a clock, just prior to the explosion of the fountains. Maybe in the final moments before explosion, it ticked as a timer, or something set it off to start the countdown? Either way, both required circuits and technology, both of which were only clustered in one place in the entire city: the information tower. And even the information tower probably didn’t have the capacity, without special ingredients, to produce bombs like this. They would need a battery, or a large discharge of power, somehow. Still, even this last of crimes followed the pattern.

                Could he stop the final crime, knowing what he did now? Only a few pieces remained, and the mirror would be complete.

                The inspector checked his timepiece: four in the afternoon. Plenty of time before a dinner date with Marie. Heading south along the road, it seemed the fog was dissipating slightly, though vision was limited, and night was not long in the coming. No street lamps were lit, and few people walked along the roads as Mondieu aimed towards the Doctor’s lab.

                It looked like the Doctor was in, and alone, at the lab. Mondieu had not expected to find the Doctor so easily, but it certainly made things easier. He pushed open the door into the lab and stood opposite the table as the Doctor.

                “Good evening, Eve-” the Doctor began, before looking up and seeing the inspector. His face filled with surprise. “Inspector Mondieu? A pleasant surprise. What can I do for you?”

                “Doctor, I was hoping you might have some more information for me about the first couple of crimes. Did you ever discern anything regarding the poison in the first crime?”

                The Doctor slumped into his chair, his eyes tired and carrying dark baggage. “Apologies, inspector. I do not believe my equipment is of sufficient quality for this investigation. You ask for forensics, and my microscopes barely function, my material is shredded, and someone appears to have stolen some quantity of it. The poison loosens the blood, and causes a heavy stupor, so they slept, while their blood drained, I suspect. Though I am uncertain, to be honest.”

                Should I tell him it was I who stole the samples? No, it is better that he does not know. If he is guilty, it will make him antsy, and did he think he was the sole owner of said samples? “Stolen, you say?” replied the inspector, raising his eyebrows. “That is interesting. I’ll consider that later. And the second crime? Did you discover anything of note?”

                The Doctor shook his head. “Nothing that my instruments detected, though perhaps the samples have too little blood remaining, or the sand and stone mixed in has ruined my initial tests. I’m certain there is something if only I can find it, because if it isn’t something in their bodies, how could it be? A sound, a signal, a trained mechanism for attack? Who would train wolves to attack Horten, why Horten?”

                The Doctor’s eyes filled with tears, though he did not let them fall, squeezing his eyes shut and keeping them in, covering his face with a hand.

                “Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry to press. And your friend, Evelyn? Have you discovered anything more with her to tell?”

                “Nothing, Mondieu. I think we’ll leave the investigating up to you from here on in. It was a delusion, I suspect, and an ego. I hope you will find it in you to forgive us.”

                The inspector merely nodded, solemnly, tipping his head in acknowledgement to the doctor before slipping out into the night. A suspicious fellow, though honest. He was certainly intelligent enough to be the culprit, and he did own a lab for constructing such things as bombs. If he did, he’d probably already hidden the material elsewhere.

                I’ll keep that in mind for later.

                A successful day, and the pieces are filling in so nicely. Why could I not strengthen my resolve earlier? The cloud that had enervated his recent years felt as though it was lifting. A cycle of resurrection, driven from the detritus of another’s death: the inspector stepped out of the ashes.

               

                Mondieu arrived early at the restaurant, and the area was empty, even of servers. In only six days, the entire city was transformed in to a phantom, like a tumbleweed town in those ancient western flicks – nothing but dust and memories. Should he continue to wait here for Marie, or leave to find her? Perhaps dinner was off for the evening.

                As he considered leaving, Marie arrived, wearing a svelte white dress, sparkling like starlight and white as the caps of mountains. Her steps were soft and delicate, even in the puddles that lay as lakes on the cobbles, and she wore tall clogs, making her only a hand-span shorter than the inspector himself.

                Her hair was elaborately woven, and tumbled out and down past her slender neck. She was a swan of motion, sliding through the night, the moon swimming over the ocean, white and bright as first light.

                “Mondieu? I believe we have a dinner engagement?”

                The inspector floundered with words for a moment, enraptured. “Marie? Why are you dressed so elegantly?”

                “This may be our last night, Mondieu. I figured it might be nice to add some flair. It seems our favorite dinner location is vacant.”

                Our last night? “It seems so. So what shall we do?”

                “Do?” Marie asked, tilting her head and flashing a brief, coy smile. “Why, we shall dance. And then you will take me home, and we shall have dinner.”

                “Dance? But I do not-” Marie took the inspector’s hands, and propelled him onto the empty dance floor, soggy with water.

                Marie closed her eyes and began humming, and Mondieu held her hands limply. What do I do? I’ve never danced, and I don’t think boots are the properly footwear for this sort of graceful movement. It seemed Marie did not mind, pulling the inspector close and putting his hands around her back and her hands on his shoulder, gently swaying.

                “Can you imagine the music, Mondieu?”

                “I don’t-” the inspector began.

                “It’s violins, gently played. The moon, full, sheds its silver light over a salted floor, shining as black glass, and the violins sway with the mournful solemnity of eternity, the ocean tides, the swing of the seasons, and the deliberate, patient journey of mountains.”

                And they danced.

               

                “Thank you for that, inspector. I’d been hoping we might get a chance to dance,” Marie said with a smile.

                The inspector looped Marie’s arm as they walked back through the city towards residential. “What now, Marie, on this, our ‘last night’ as you say?”

                Marie just smiled. “You’ll see.”

                They arrived at Marie’s house, and the windows were lit with the dim, flicker of candles. As they entered, Mondieu noticed as dinner was set up.

                “Marie…” the inspector began, a gruff tone rising up. “I’m investigating murders, and crimes that threaten to destroy a city. I don’t believe I have time for a dinner.”

                Marie pouted, extending her lower lip slightly. “Oh, well… can we discuss the murder and any questions you have over dinner? I’ll tell you anything you like to know.”

                Mondieu sighed and sat down, and Marie smoothed her dress and sat across from him, uncovering the dish and serving the inspector roasted lamb, green beans, potatoes, and apple sauce, and filling up his glass with what appeared to be a white wine.

                “Well? Any questions, inspector? I’m sure you must be teeming with them, overflowing, really. If you just need an outlet, here I sit, awaiting your words.”

                “What did you meet with DuMont for?”

                “I already told you. He gave me samples of the tree,” Marie replied, her brow scrunching in confusion.

                “But what did you give him?” the inspector asked.

                “Money, actually. He’s not from around here, and appreciated something which I had no use for since I arrived in Garden.”

                “And Robinson? Did you meet with him as well?”

                “Robinson provided me with information about the tree, and some samples when DuMont was busy, particularly in these most recent of days. The tree has changed so much in the past week, you know. I think it is dying, though I cannot determine why. Perhaps it is just the cold or maybe it is something else, some inner determined time of death, like fall or…”

                The inspector held up his hand, cutting off Marie’s quiet monologue, as she had started mumbling to herself, almost forgetting the inspector’s presence. “What did you give Robinson in return?”

                “Nothing, actually. He was solely interested in the product of the research itself. I don’t think he liked the tree much, to be honest, and considered that maybe my research might spark an interest from the outside world, and someone would take it away for study. I’m not actually entirely certain of his motives, to be honest. A strange fellow, that Robinson.” Marie swished around her wine glass, staring down at her plate of untouched food, and sipped delicately at the wine.

                “Why do you say that Robinson is strange?”

                “He’s always out, doing something or other, but it’s never obvious what he is doing. He’s hungry for knowledge, but never anything in particular. He’s like a mob boss without a mob, a collector of facts. I’ve never been able to quite put a finger on him, or why he works for the doctor.”

                They sat in silence for a while, each tasting the food and glancing at each other over the candles. The inspector broke the silence, eventually, setting down his fork with a metallic burr. “And the Doctor? What do you think of him?”

                “I think he’s out of his league, with this investigation stuff,” replied Marie simply. “Oh! I found something, and I had meant to tell you earlier. Follow me.” Marie picked up her napkin from her lap and tossed it over her unfinished meal, before standing up and walking over to her bench against the wall. The samples from a dozen fruit were affixed to slides and lined up before the microscope, each meticulously labeled and tracked in a journal set to the side.

                Marie picked up a slide she had placed on the other side of the microscope and lined it up beneath the lights, twisting some knobs and lining it up properly beneath the magnification. “Look here, Mondieu.”

                The inspector looked through the glasses and saw a strange yellow substance nestled against a runny crimson and white liquid.

                “Do you see it?” Marie asked expectantly.

                “What am I looking at?” Mondieu asked, expecting the answer before he heard it.

                Marie told him, and another mirror piece slid into place: all but one. The image was almost clear now.

                “What is it, Mondieu?” Marie asked, alarmed at the inspector’s sudden silence and wolfish grin.

                “Nothing, Marie. Everything will become clear, soon enough. Where were-”

                The doorbell rang.

                “I’ll get it,” Marie said, starting for the door.

                “No, Marie. Let me. I think I know who it is,” the inspector replied, slipping past Marie and opening the door only a handbreadth, blocking Marie’s view of the visitor.

                The inspector turned around, holding an envelope sealed with wax and the criminal’s sign. Sliding out the letter, he read it briefly.

                LAST LIGHT BEFORE ETERNAL NIGHT

                GARDEN’S PLIGHT, HAVE YOU SAVED IT?

                “What does it say,” Marie asked, trying to peer over Mondieu’s shoulders, but he slipped it back into the envelope and tucked it away into his cloak.

                “Thank you for dinner this evening, Marie. I had an exemplary night. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” the inspector said, putting on his hat and opening the door.

                “But Mondieu!” Marie called, but it was too late. The inspector had already slipped into the deep, utter blackness of night. And it was evening, and it was night: day six.