Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery

by M. L. Longworth

  “I know that place,” Paulik said. The owner, a tiny, bustling woman, had limited stock, but what she did sell she had selected herself, including Domaine Beauclaire. “Will she remember you?”

  “I think so,” Chazeau said. “We talked about the wines for a bit, and I told her I was on my way to a cigar club. She might remember that.”

  “What time was it?”

  “It was just before seven, because I caught her just before closing.”

  “I’ll send someone over to her shop with your photograph,” Paulik said. “You’re free to go, but stick around Aix, okay?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Chazeau said. “My aunt’s funeral is on Saturday, and I’m going, even if she did give all her money away to puppies.”

  Paulik was about to leave the Palais de Justice, the bus driver’s address in his hand, when he almost ran into M. d’Arras, coming into the building.

  “Sir,” Paulik said, holding the door open for him, “can I help you?”

  “Yes,” M. d’Arras said, his voice trembling. “I want to talk to you about our neighbor, the annoying Philippe Léridon.”

  Bruno Paulik tried not to sigh. While Antoine Verlaque was driving across southern France to visit a nun—which would amount to nothing, Paulik was sure—he was being run off his feet: delegating work; interviewing Christophe Chazeau, André Prodos, and Natalie Chazeau; and attending one of the saddest funerals he had ever been to. And his wife’s employer was having wines stolen from right under his nose, and Paulik hadn’t done anything about it. He had sent a team to dust for fingerprints, but only family and winery employees’ hands had touched the cellar door.

  “Let’s find somewhere to talk, shall we?” he said. They walked down the hall and went into inquiry room number two, the same one that Christophe Chazeau had been in fifteen minutes before. “What is it?” Paulik asked, closing the door behind him.

  “He’s out in his garden all the time,” M. d’Arras said. “My dear wife thought he was up to no good there, and now I’m convinced of it too. He’s hiding something. I know it. I tried talking to him about it, and he told me to mind my own business!”

  “I would have said the same thing,” Paulik said. “People do garden, M. d’Arras.”

  M. d’Arras looked up in shock. “At night?” he asked. His eyes started watering, and he took out a yellowed handkerchief from his pocket to dab his eyes.

  Paulik leaned toward Gilles d’Arras. “I’m sorry, M. d’Arras.”

  The old man blew his nose and whispered, “It’s all right…. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “It’s up to us to find out what happened to your wife,” Paulik said. “You go home and get some rest. I’ll send someone around to your neighbor’s.” He looked at the old man, whose eyes were red, his skin pale. In two days’ time, he would bury his wife. “I promise,” Paulik added.

  It took Bruno Paulik ten minutes to find a parking spot and the right building at Jean-Pierre Bondeau’s sprawling apartment complex on the west, and poorer, side of Aix. He was taking a chance that Bondeau would be there, but it was almost dinnertime, an hour when most people were at home. He phoned André Prodos and told him he’d be late. Prodos said that was fine; he was behind schedule, and so would stay at the garage and work until Paulik got there.

  Paulik parked his beat-up Range Rover and walked along a sidewalk, looking up at the buildings until he found Bâtiment D; he rang the bell marked “Bondeau.”

  “Oui?” a male voice answered.

  “M. Bondeau?” Paulik asked, trying not to speak too loudly.

  “Oui?” came the answer. “Are you selling something?”

  “No, I’m the police. May I come up?”

  “Oh mon dieu,” Bondeau mumbled. “Third floor.” The door clicked open.

  Jean-Pierre Bondeau was standing in his open door when Paulik got to the top of the landing. He looked older than the thirty-seven years that the bus-station Intranet site claimed he was and, by the looks of it, didn’t seem to be Gisèle Durand’s type. Bondeau was short—under five five, Paulik thought—and overweight. He kept his gray hair in a brush cut and wore glasses. “Come in,” he said, stepping aside. “What’s going on?”

  Paulik showed him his badge and thanked him. “I’m sorry to come at dinnertime.” He looked over and saw what he assumed was the Bondeau family—mother and three children—sitting still at the dining-room table, watching him.

  “Good evening,” Paulik said to them.

  Mme Bondeau nodded; the children continued to stare, mouths open.

  Jean-Pierre Bondeau motioned for Paulik to sit down on the sofa, and he sat across from him in a rocking chair. “Does this have to do with that old lady who took the bus to Rognes?” Bondeau asked.

  “Yes,” Paulik answered. “Your colleague took her to Rognes on Friday afternoon, and remembered her.”

  “Yes, Guy. He was really shaken up when he heard the news.”

  Paulik nodded. “You drove the evening shift back to Aix, right?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Was Mme d’Arras on the bus?” Paulik asked, watching Bondeau closely.

  “No,” he answered immediately. “Of course not. I would have said so, wouldn’t I?”

  “Yes…”

  “Hey! You don’t suspect me, do you? What’s going on here?”

  One of the children dropped a fork or spoon on the floor, and Paulik heard Mme Bondeau whisper, “Just leave it.”

  “Was there anyone on the bus that night?” Paulik asked.

  “Let me think a minute, would ya?” Bondeau replied, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees. “Friday, Friday…Wait, yes, there were. The bus is often empty on the way back into Aix, but there were three teens, three boys, who were going into town to see a movie. A three-D movie or something like that.” He sat up straight and smiled. “I remember them because they were polite. Not like some of the other kids I have to drive around.” He looked over at his own children and repeated, “Polite!” He turned to Paulik and added, “They were getting picked up by their parents after the film. I heard them say that because it wrecked their chances of going to some club.”

  Paulik nodded. Bondeau had confirmed that the bus was often empty going back; that seemed honest. And Paulik had seen the posters advertising a 3-D movie, but perhaps Bondeau had as well. “And you didn’t see anything unusual on the road back into Aix?” Paulik asked.

  “No,” Bondeau replied. “I would have said something if I had.”

  “Is there any way you could help us identify those boys on the bus?”

  Bondeau leaned forward. “Yeah,” he said, straightening up. “One of them was named Victor, if that helps. That’s my oldest son’s name.” He looked over at his son, who was about eleven years old, Paulik estimated, and also wore glasses. “Stand up, Victor, and say good evening. Politesse!” his father said.

  Victor Bondeau stood up, bumping the dining-room table as he did. “Good evening, sir,” he said to Paulik, and quickly sat down again, bumping the table once more.

  Paulik smiled. “Good evening,” he answered. He turned back to M. Bondeau and asked, “Victor? What did he look like?”

  Bondeau looked up at the ceiling. “Taller than my Victor, lanky, with those skinny low-hung jeans that some boys wear,” he replied. “Messy curly hair, but a nice face, and polite. Well brought up.”

  Paulik paused and then continued writing. “And the other boys? Names? Faces?”

  “Um…not much. One was perhaps younger than the other two, or at least shorter. Oh! And one was named Jérôme….”

  “Like Uncle Jérôme in Toulouse!” cried one of the children excitedly.

  Bondeau gave the children an impatient look. “Yes, like my brother.”

  “Anything else?” Paulik asked.

  “No,” Bondeau replied. “It’s a miracle I could remember that much.” He sat up straighter and put his hands on his thighs.

  “Very well then, thank you,�
�� Paulik said. He stood up and shook Bondeau’s hand. “Mme Bondeau, I’m very sorry to have interrupted your dinner. I’ll see myself out.”

  On the way out to his car, Paulik walked quickly and dialed the phone number for Domaine Beauclaire.

  “Oui,” Élise Bonnard answered.

  “Élise, it’s Bruno Paulik here. I’m sorry to call at dinnertime.”

  “That’s all right,” she said. “We haven’t started yet, but Hélène left about an hour ago, if you wanted to talk to her.”

  “No, I’d like to ask Victor something, if I may.”

  He heard Élise call Victor and tell him it was Commissioner Paulik on the phone.

  Victor Bonnard came slowly to the phone, his palms sweating. Olivier Bonnard looked at his son with a worried look, and thirteen-year-old Clara, setting her book down, whispered, “Way to go.”

  “Shut up, Clara,” Victor said, gently cuffing her on the head as he walked by her.

  “Um, yeah?” Victor said, standing in the kitchen with his whole family around him.

  “Hey, Victor,” Paulik said. “I just have a quick question. Did you take the bus into Aix last Friday evening?”

  Victor looked around at his family, perplexed. “Yeah, I did.”

  Paulik smiled. “You might have just proved someone’s innocence.”

  “Really? Cool.”

  “What were you going into Aix for?”

  “A movie, with my friends Jérôme and Thomas.”

  Paulik smiled again. “Which movie?”

  Victor laughed. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Some three-D crap. None of us liked it.”

  “Thanks a million, buddy,” Paulik said.

  “Hey, anytime.”

  Paulik hung up and tried Verlaque again; the judge’s phone was still on his messagerie, so Paulik left him a message, bringing him up-to-date, and telling him of M. d’Arras’s most recent visit. It was unusual for Antoine Verlaque not to answer his phone, and Paulik thought it was perhaps because he was driving back to Aix. Paulik got into his Range Rover and turned out of the parking lot, happy for the half-hour commute to Rognes, to his stone maison de village, and his wife and daughter, who would be waiting for him, and then he realized that he still had one more appointment.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The Car That Saved a President

  Paulik set his cell phone on the passenger seat and turned it off. Hélène had left two messages, which he hadn’t had time to listen to, and his daughter, Léa, one. He thought of ten-year-old Léa as he drove north out of Aix; he couldn’t remember the last time he had sat down with her and really been with her, reading or talking or even watching a film. He stopped at a traffic light and listened to Léa’s message: “Hello, Daddy. I know I’m not allowed to phone you at work except if it’s an emergency, but I just wanted to tell you that I got nineteen out of twenty on my math test. Mommy’s in a bad mood. See you soon!” He would love to go straight home; it was almost 8:00 p.m., and Léa usually went to bed at 9:30 p.m. But he had to interview André Prodos. As he drove on, he thought of the three deaths that remained, after a week, unsolved. Murders of women. “I’m sorry, Léa,” he said aloud, and turned up the opera CD.

  Prodos’s garage was almost in walking distance of the Pauliks’ house. As he pulled up in front of the garage, he could see lights on through the streaked window glass.

  Prodos heard Paulik pull up, and knew by the sound that he was driving an older Range Rover that needed work on the fan belt. That squealing sound it made as it turned was unmistakable. He came out of the garage to meet the commissioner, wiping his oily hands on a small blue towel.

  “Bon soir,” Prodos said, extending his elbow. “I’ve wiped my hands, but they’re still pretty oily. My elbow will have to do.”

  Paulik shook the mechanic’s elbow. “No problem. I’m Commissioner Bruno Paulik.”

  “Come inside, Commissioner.”

  Paulik followed Prodos through what looked to him like any office in a working garage: an old metal desk was piled high with old invoices and dirty coffee mugs. Posters and framed photographs covered every wall surface, along with a collection of trophies. There were no girlie posters or photos of Ferraris or Maseratis. The cars proudly featured were Citroëns, mostly from the 1960s and ’70s, and only two models, the DS and the ID.

  “Have a seat,” Prodos said, gesturing to a chair across from the desk.

  From where he sat, Paulik could see into the garage; a two-toned black-and-white DS 21 was on a hoist about six feet high, and a burgundy-colored ID was next to it, parked on the garage’s concrete floor. Paulik said, “I’m sorry about Gisèle’s death.”

  Prodos nodded. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

  Paulik tried to study the mechanic without making it obvious. Prodos didn’t look like a mechanic, or at least like other mechanics that Paulik had dealt with. He was tall and thin and wore small wire-rimmed glasses. His hair was brown, and receding, and he spoke and carried himself with…grace, Paulik thought. Grace.

  “I imagine you’re here to ask me about where I was this weekend,” Prodos said, looking straight at Paulik. “Gisèle looked like…looked like she had been dead for a while….”

  “Yes,” Paulik answered. “She was murdered on Friday evening, between six and eight p.m.”

  Prodos bit his lip and thought for a few seconds, and then said, “I was here, in the garage. No alibi, I’m afraid.”

  Paulik nodded. “Did anyone call the garage, by any chance?”

  Prodos shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. It was just me and the cars.”

  “When did you and Mlle Durand split up?” Paulik asked.

  “We stopped seeing each other about a month after she stopped working at the clothing store in Rognes,” Prodos said. “It was more my decision than hers, and it was very hard on both of us.”

  “But you still kept in touch, and went to see her on Monday.”

  “Yes,” Prodos replied. “Neither of us have cell phones; Gisèle felt she couldn’t afford one, and I’m too old-school for such advanced technology, so the only way I could get hold of her was on her landline. But she didn’t answer all weekend. I was worried about her. And so I closed the garage early on Monday evening and drove over to Rognes to see her.”

  “I’m sorry,” Paulik said. “Did she have any other friends?”

  “No, not many,” Prodos replied. “We’re both loners.”

  “How was her mood recently?”

  “Gisèle was in a real funk—a depression, really—but I just couldn’t reach her anymore. I needed to protect myself—my mother was a depressive, before she killed herself when I was thirteen—and Gisèle’s mood reminded me too much of…”

  Paulik watched the mechanic closely. André Prodos looked down at his crossed arms and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “And to think I’ve had years of therapy,” he said, trying to smile.

  Paulik smiled and said, “Take your time. Anything you can tell me about Mlle Durand’s habits, and moods, will help.” Paulik thought to himself: a garage mechanic who not only has seen a therapist, but admits to it.

  “Anyway,” Prodos went on, “Gisèle and I had stopped dating, but that didn’t stop me from loving her. So I checked up on her, tried to boost her morale.”

  “Was she seeing anyone?”

  “No, I really don’t think she was. She would have told me.”

  “I was told that some of her previous boyfriends were not so nice,” Paulik said.

  “She went for the tough guys,” Prodos answered. “Until me. At least I like to think of myself as a gentle soul.”

  Paulik looked at Prodos; he spoke like a poet, not a mechanic. “Any of those guys on your suspect list?”

  “I thought of one of them, Georges Hoquet, right away,” Prodos replied. “I even phoned him up, ready to accuse him, or at least ask him to a duel. But his brother answered the phone: Hoquet is in Paris.”

  “Paris isn’t that far away….
”

  “In jail,” Prodos went on. “For armed robbery. Has been for over a year.”

  “I see,” Paulik said. “What did Mlle Durand do all day?” he asked, changing the subject. “What were her habits?”

  “I think the only time she went out was to do a bit of grocery shopping,” Prodos said.

  Paulik wrote, “Double-check shops in Rognes,” in his notebook. “Did she go into Aix often?”

  “Nah,” Prodos replied. “Even when we were dating and I could drive her in, she didn’t like it. She found it too snooty. I go about once a week to the Cinéma Mazarin, but she wouldn’t come, so I ended up going to films alone.”

  Paulik nodded. The Cinéma Mazarin showed foreign movies—in their original languages—and art films.

  “That was the big problem for me,” Prodos went on. “Gisèle was a great woman, but was too easily intimidated. She lacked so much self-confidence. I tried to help her….” Prodos again looked down at his folded arms and then took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

  As Paulik waited for Prodos to collect himself, he saw, across the office, toward the door that led to the garage, a bust of Charles de Gaulle.

  Prodos put his glasses back on and looked up. “President de Gaulle was a huge Citroën DS 19 fan,” he said, noticing the commissioner’s puzzled expression. “It saved his life.”

  “Really?” Paulik asked. “I didn’t know.”

  “In 1962. The president’s car was ambushed, and shots were fired. The would-be assassins fired at de Gaulle but hit the tires instead. The DS kept rolling along, with two flat tires. Got the president out of harm’s way.”

  “My grandparents had one,” Paulik said. “Sort of like that one you have up on the hoist, but it wasn’t as fancy. Definitely not two-toned. It was light blue. Eggshell blue, my mother used to say. I thought it was the sleekest car in the world.” Paulik sat back and laughed. “The way those headlights moved with the steering wheel! Talk about avant-garde!”