Page 28 of The Executioners Three
She towed Divya toward the left wall, to where a desk held piles of books and loose papers. “So this is everything my mom could find on nineteenth-century shipping in the area. She came this morning before we set up the stage. And while you study those, I’m going to dig up stuff on… well… stuff.”
“Oh lord,” Divya groaned. “I know that face.”
“What face?”
“YourPee Eyeface. But what you’ll find about a murder that wasn’t a murder in here, I don’t know.”
Freddie batted her lashes. “I’ll be four rows down, Madame Srivastava, if you need anything. And remember.” She shook a finger in Divya’s face. “Don’t steal records. No documents can leave the archives.”
“As if.” Divya gave another shudder.
While Divya got to work examining the old tomes, Freddie went straight for the PC near the middle of the room. It took a while to boot up because the beast was almost a decade old and ran on MS-DOS, meaning it had only a super-primitive archival program and no mouse. But Freddie didn’t need a mouse to get answers.
She typed in what she needed, exactly as her mom had taught her, first opening the main directory and then the archival software her mom used.
Soon, a blue screen was blinking at her with a menu. Freddie hit1on the keyboard, bringing her to a keyword search. Then she typed inbelland watched as the computer spat out a list of relevant documents.
It was a lot, and most had nothing to do with the Village Historique but instead referred to bells on various shipping vessels and lighthouses all along the lake’s coast. In other words: not useful.
So Freddie narrowed her search tobell + Berme.
This was a much shorter list, but perhaps unsurprisingly, almost all ofthe documents were recent additions to the archives—as in, written and added by Mom since 1980 when she’d commissioned the replica bell for the mausoleum.
There were, however, four journals from the famed blacksmith who’d kept detailed recollections of his bellfounding for José Allard Fortin. After scribbling down their locations, Freddie set off down the aisles. All four were in the same location. All four werealsoin French. However, to Freddie’s surprise, tucked next to the diaries was a book titledThe Curse of Allard Fortin: How Murder Shaped His Legacy.She’d never heard of it, and with a title like that, it was only natural she’d slide it off the shelf and take a peek.
It was a simple hardcover with a worn black jacket and a faded title in yellow sans serif font. The author’s name was listed asEdgar Fabre,and when Freddie creaked open the book, she found it had been published in 1949.
After that was a short table of contents.
And after that, a poem.
“Aha!” Freddie thrust up a pointed finger. “Eureka! And gesundheit!”
“That’s not whatgesundheitmeans,” Divya called from several rows over.
Freddie ignored her, hunching forward to study the poem—which she would bet a lifetime’s supply of Quick-Bis biscuits was the one Kyle had seen as a kid. Meaning this book must have been one of the many documents once living inside his garage.
And no wonder poor Kyle had been traumatized. The title alone made Freddie’s blood run cold.
THE EXECUTIONERS THREE
When northern wind gusts
Through trees bare of leaves,
Take heed and take watch,
For Executioners Three.
Their blood oath is summoning.
First comes the fog,
Rising from the shore.
Once rings the bell:
Cold death is in store.
