“We noticed,” Garcia said. “Now, do you mind putting that thing away?”
The Scarab gave a mirthless laugh. “I mind. Please, go down stairs, slowly. If either of you try anything, the bald man dies.”
In the living room, Hugo turned to face the Scarab. The man looked tired and unkempt, but his eyes glittered. “What now?” Hugo asked.
Villier ignored him. “I asked you a question. How did you find me?”
“Fingerprints,” Garcia said.
“So soon?” Villier looked surprised. “Les flics are more efficient than I’d thought.”
“Why are you here?” Hugo asked. He wanted to get Villier talking, try to direct them onto safe ground. Not many people looked down the barrel of a gun at a serial killer and lived to tell of it, but the man had let one person live, so Hugo needed to figure out whether this killer might do the same for them. He doubted it, but for now it was the only option.
“This is my house. Why wouldn’t I be here?”
“Fair enough. I’ll ask it another way. Why are you here now? Today.”
“Non. No more questions.” Villier shook his head. “Not from you. Sit on the couch, both of you.” They lowered themselves, watching him intently as he moved to stand beside Garcia, his.22 again behind the capitaine’s ear. “Now, Marston, take out your gun and put it on the floor between your feet.”
Hugo paused. “You know my name.”
Villier’s lip curled. “Mais oui. After all, you know mine so that’s only fair, isn’t it? Alors, the gun.”
Villier watched as Hugo complied, then tapped Garcia’s head with the barrel of his weapon. “Now you.”
“OK, OK,” Garcia said. Hugo didn’t like the note of panic in his friend’s voice.
When both guns were on the floor, the Scarab moved to stand in front of them. “Now kick them to me.”
The guns clattered over the wooden floor and Hugo felt like a lifeline had been cut. “Did you hang the papers? What are they?”
Villier stared at him for a moment, as if wondering whether to answer. Then he nodded. “The salaud who raised me. He kept a diary. I didn’t know until after he’d died. He catalogued all the things he did to me and my mother. The sick bastard got off on hurting us, then got off all over again by writing it down.” He waved his gun at the walls. “Each of those pages details something he did to one of us.”
“Why paste them on the walls?” Hugo asked.
“So I can watch them burn.”
“You’re going to set fire to the house? What would your mother say about that?”
“My mother?” Villier laughed, but again without humor. “She wouldn’t mind.”
“Where is she?” Garcia said, his voice firm.
“Maman?” The black eyes swiveled to look at the capitaine. “My mother is dead. She’s been dead for thirteen years.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How did that happen?”
Hugo saw Villier’s jaw tense and the man suddenly bristled. “You mean there’s something you don’t know, American?”
“There’s a whole lot I don’t know,” Hugo said, keeping his voice neutral. “A whole helluva lot. You mind enlightening me?”
“Bien sûr,” Villier sneered. “I’ll tell you how she died. Or do you want to guess?”
“Non,” Hugo said. “I don’t want to guess. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“Very well.” The Scarab nodded slowly, a smile spreading over his thick lips. “I did it myself. I killed my mother.”
Chapter Thirty-six
“I don’t believe you,” Hugo said. And he didn’t, because it made no sense and because that smile had been too forced, as if Villier was trying to make himself into a monster just to scare them.
“I don’t care what you believe,” Villier sneered.
“Why would you kill your own mother?” Hugo pressed. Everything he’d assumed about this man told Hugo that he idolized his mother. Killing her didn’t fit the pattern, especially if he’d done it a dozen years ago, when he was little more than a boy.
“You wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t possibly understand, and I have no intention of telling you anything.” The slits that were the Scarab’s eyes shifted as he looked around him. A smile, more genuine and one that Hugo didn’t like, spread over his face. He turned his eyes back to the two men on the couch as he moved toward a desk by the front door. A wooden, straight-backed chair blocked his way so he moved it into the room. He opened a drawer and felt inside, pulling out a piece of paper, a pen, and a safety pin.
He moved back to the middle of the room. He folded the paper into four squares, the gun still in his hand, then ripped one of the squares off, dropping the rest of the paper to the floor.
He looked at Hugo, and said, “I wanted you to live. It’s true, I did.”
Hugo grimaced. “I hope you still do.”
“We’ll see.”
“Why?” Hugo chided himself for his previous reply. Being a smart-ass wasn’t going to win the day, he needed to get inside the man’s head. “Alors, tell me why you want me to live?”
“I like Americans who speak French.”
“No, really. I’m curious.”
“About everything, it seems.” He held Hugo’s eye. “You have come closest to catching me. You are a profiler, you know about behavior and why people do things.”
“Sometimes, yes.”
“Your job, it’s to try and figure it all out in advance so you can catch people like me before they hurt others.”
“That used to be my job, yes. Part of it, anyway.”
“The other part being when you couldn’t figure it out in advance. You’d put the jigsaw together afterward to understand, explain, and capture the killer.”
“Basically, yes.”
Villier smiled. “That’s the part of the job I was going to let you do. Not the capture part, but figure it out afterward and explain it to the world.” He shrugged. “If the world cares.”
“In my experience, the world is fascinated by people like you,” Hugo said. “By what you do and why you do it.”
Garcia shifted beside him and Villier looked at the policeman. “What do you have to say?” Villier sneered. “You just along for the ride?”
“Pretty much. I was looking forward to shooting you once he caught you.”
Hugo groaned inside. Antagonizing Villier was not going to help their situation. He cleared his throat. “Look, I can’t tell the world anything. I have no idea what the hell’s going on. Do you have some kind of plan?”
“Certainement,” Villier said. “You really have no idea, do you?”
“We really don’t,” Hugo said. “And unless you tell me, the world will never understand you.”
“I don’t believe that. If I let you live, you’ll figure it out. But I’m afraid your stupid trick to find out in advance isn’t going to work. I’m not as smart as you, Monsieur Marston, but I’m also not as stupid as you think I am.” He waved a hand to indicate both walls. “You’ve seen this. You know what they are. And you know I killed my mother. I’m guessing you can figure it out yourself, sooner or later.”
“How long do we have?”
Villier raised an eyebrow. “We? Oh, no, I never planned to have two of you left. No, that was never the plan.” He threw the pen and paper to Hugo. “Draw a circle on it. This big.” He held up his left hand, the forefinger and thumb touching.
“A circle? Why?”
“Do it.” He watched as Hugo drew, and then said: “Now throw the pen over here.” The pen landed near his foot and he kicked it across the floor, away from the men on the couch. He moved backward, always watching them, until he reached the desk chair. He put a hand on the back and turned it around. “Policeman, come and sit here.”