Free The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery by R.W. Wallace

be the quickest solution, it also was the choice where he would bother the most people with his smell. He turned toward the bike station across the side street from the police station and saw a large group of people. They were mostly journalists—two of their vans blocked the pedestrians on the cycling path by the canal across the street—gathered around a police officer and a woman. Louis squinted to make sure his tired eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Nope, that was his sister.
    This was where she was holding her press conference? If he’d known, he would have put up more of a fight at being brought in the night before. She hadn’t spotted him yet. Trying not to draw attention to himself, he carefully turned on his heel again to head for the escalator going down to the metro. Too bad for his fellow travelers. They would have to hold their breath.
    “Monsieur Saint-Blancat,” someone called from behind him. Louis didn’t recognize the voice and figured it was probably one of the journalists. He sped up.
    At least three different voices called out this time. Ten meters to the escalator and Audrey’s voice carried above the journalists. “Louis, how nice of you to join us.” Louis slowed down, battling with his frustration and need for a shower.
    “Good job standing up for yourself,” a male voice yelled.
    Louis’s brows drew together. Standing up for himself? What were they talking about? He turned around. The whole group of journalists, at least twenty of them, were turned toward him. They were all shouting out comments and questions at the same time, so Louis had trouble making much sense of it. They were apparently all applauding him for standing up for himself, or the city of Toulouse.
    Audrey stared at him from atop a small pedestal behind the crowd of journalists. She didn’t look happy. In fact, there was a calculating gleam in her eye that Louis knew only too well. After a glance at the journalists—making sure they all had their backs to her—she crooked a finger at Louis, then pointed to the spot next to her.
    Sighing at the injustice of it all, Louis shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled over to join his sister.
    As he stopped in front of her, she hissed at him through a fake smile. “Where—? You stink! Did you go for a swim in the canal or something?”
    Louis gave her a mirthless smile. “Yes. And I’d really like to go home to take a shower right now. You hijacked a police press conference?”
    Audrey whispered at top speed before the journalists caught up. “It’s about the identification of the remains of the second body. You interrupted before he finished his statement.”
    “I didn’t interrupt,” Louis mumbled. “They did.”
    OPJ Petit, whom Louis was none too happy to see again, cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “If you don’t mind, I’ll finish reading my statement, then Monsieur Saint-Blancat and Madame Sentenac are all yours.” He waited for the journalists to accept this and ignore Louis for the moment, then read from a paper. “The skeleton of one Géraldine Hérault was found together with the body of Pierre Saint-Blancat. Madame Hérault was the owner of a small hardware store in the Saint Michel neighborhood. She was reported missing twenty-nine years ago.”
    And after all that time, she popped up on place du Capitole? Either the killer was a genius or the police were incompetent. Louis knew where he would place his money.
    Audrey leaned close to Louis while the police officer finished his statement. “I talked to Officer Petit earlier. He showed me some old newspaper articles from when the woman went missing. She apparently wasn’t particularly appreciated by her employees. They said she was ‘cold.’ But nobody thinks that should be reasonable grounds for killing her.”
    Once Petit finished answering the journalists’ questions, he let Audrey take over. She faced the assembled journalists who were once again turned in her