by David Bishop
“Sir?”
“What about your buddy?”
“Sir?”
“The hack writer. Your pal. Matthew Kile.”
“You’re kidding right?”
“Not on your life, Sergeant.”
“I know you don’t like Kile, but that’s taking it a bit far, sir.”
“Not as I see it. You need to take off your blinders, Sergeant. Look at the facts.”
“Sir?”
“Kile has had an affair with Clarice Talmadge. He—”
“Now just a minute,” Fidge interrupted. “Kile acknowledged having had sex with the woman. Once, before she and her husband moved in. Before Kile knew she was married. That doesn’t constitute an affair.”
“Let us not forget the accused and Kile both claim she was in Kile’s condo when the murder occurred. In Kile’s condo, I might add, well past midnight, while her husband, the victim, was supposedly asleep, not to mention the other occupants of the building. You figure their only midnight rendezvous coincidentally occurred on the night the old guy got gunned? You thinking those two had a crocheting circle? Come on, Sergeant. Open your eyes. That was about setting an alibi while both of them headed down the hall to bump off her rich old man, their mutual guilt assuring they would each hold to their shared alibi. Well, they are not about to get away with it on my watch.”
“Sir, I know Matthew Kile. If he wanted, and I say ‘if’ he wanted this woman, he would have told her to get a divorce.”
“No. No. No. With the prenup, too much money left on the table, Sergeant. The sense of urgency came with the realization that her husband was about to drop her from his will. No. They needed to do it then, that night. To wait would cost them millions.”
“Kile has got money of his own. He’s made a gob from his writing. He doesn’t need to commit murder to gain a comfortable lifestyle.”
“Your thinking is warped, Sergeant, blinded. The point is she wanted her own money. It wouldn’t be the first time a hot number with a cold heart twisted a cop, an ex-cop, into doing her bidding.”
“Captain Dickson, sir, it is your right not to like Kile, but to manipulate your hatred into an accusation of murder—well, that’s sick, sir.”
“I’ll ignore your insubordination, Sergeant. Fundamentals: Means. Motive. Opportunity. They had them all. As we both know, Kile is no stranger to violence. I plan to recommend the D.A. amend his charges to include both Clarice Talmadge and Matthew Kile.”
“What do I do with this … wild theory of yours?”
“Get after it. I want you to canvas that building. Include the super and any regular service people, housekeepers used by the various owners, like that. Let’s see what those people know about this tryst. I’m betting some of the other condo owners have seen the two of them tiptoeing up and down the hall at night. They told Garson Talmadge, and he decided to drop his wife from his will.”
“This is a trip up fools’ hill, sir. I have other cases.”
“If you refuse, Sergeant, I’ll reassign the Talmadge case. I can’t have a detective handling a murder refusing to follow any possible trail. And this one is more than possible. It has all the elements: money, sex, greed, and a lover with a history of violence. The young wife who married the old guy for his money and learns she is being dropped from his will. It’s all there, Sergeant. You only need to see it for what it is.”
“I’ll look into it, Captain.”
“Rigorously, Sergeant.”
“Rigorously, Captain Dickson.”
“I will also personally be following up to talk with a few of those folks myself. So, you will be wise to make a diligent effort in that regard.” Fidge clenched his teeth as Captain Dickson finished. “I want a report from you on this within three days. We’ll meet at this same time. Here in my office. Good day, Sergeant Fidgery.”
Chapter 15
The taxi that took me from the Charles de Gaulle Airport was driven by a Frenchman who spoke wonderful English but had the wrong occupation. He should have been a tour guide. As he drove, he continually pointed out so many famous and interesting spots that they started to jumble together. One of the things he pointed out did get my attention, “The Center for the History of the Arab Civilization,” he said. I found that interesting in that I had come, in part, to learn more about the connection between the Talmadge family and Iraq.
Many Americans who have not traveled to France probably assume every Frenchman is named Pierre. That, of course, is not true as I would find out many times over before leaving their beautiful country. Nonetheless, my driver’s name was Pierre, or he simply used Pierre when driving Americans.
A few minutes and several tour-guide point-outs later, Pierre dropped me at the front of the Hotel Saint Christophe on the Rue Lacépède in the Latin Quarter of Paris, an elegant, older hotel with a welcoming air and a pleasantly bright lobby with windows overlooking the street. I paid Pierre and he gave me his cell phone number so I could reach him whenever I needed a cab.
A man sat in the lobby reading a magazine. He looked familiar. He was not someone I knew. His presence troubled me because I had seen him since my arrival in France. Without checking in, I went out to the street and walked a block to think about it. He hadn’t been in the plane. I couldn’t place him in the check-in-line. Then it hit me. He had some kind of connection with Agents Smith and Jones. That was it. He had been in the background when the door opened so the two agents could enter the small room where I waited. This man had walked by the open door, behind the agents, glancing in for only a moment. That’s when I saw his face. He could have been an airport worker passing down a hallway at the very moment the door was opened, but more likely his passing was intentional so he could get to the hotel and keep a tail on my doings.
I returned to the hotel, checked in and walked to the elevator, then went back to the counter and asked to switch rooms. If the man in the lobby was a tail, he had identified my hotel in advance, because he was there when I arrived. He could have persuaded the hotel’s management to let him install surveillance equipment before I checked in and for the desk to assign me that particular room.
In my new room, figuring the phone would not be bugged, I immediately called Brad Fisher and brought him up to date on my suspicions.
“Aren’t you being a bit paranoid?” Brad asked.
“Hey, just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.”
Of course, I had no idea just who was out to get me, or why they were out to get me. I was simply an ant in their world, and they were watching me through the glass wall of my ant farm as I went about my ant business.
After hanging up from talking with Brad, I took a long walk to stretch my legs and get something to eat. The Latin Quarter had many quaint cobblestone streets that could easily allow a playful mind to imagine walking in France in an earlier century, strolling along beside Alexandre Dumas’ famous quartet, D’Artagnan, Aramis, Athos, and Porthos. Eventually, I chose one of the many cafes on the boulevard St-Germain-dès-Pres. During the meal I called Pierre and arranged for him to pick me up in front of my hotel at ten in the morning. I gave him the address on Rue Mercoeur. He said he knew it well. During the walk back, I thought about how I might best approach Garson’s ex-wife, Chantal Talmadge.
Chapter 16
At ten sharp the next morning, I walked out of the Hotel Saint Christophe to find Pierre behind the wheel of his diesel Peugeot. He got out and opened my door. I told him not to bother with that in the future; I could open my own doors. Maybe one day I wouldn’t be able to, but the way I had my life planned that wouldn’t be for several decades yet.
“Just be on time and get me where I need to go, and I’ll be a happy camper.” Pierre asked me to explain what I meant by happy camper. I did. He was right. We Americans do talk funny.
The apartment house on Rue Mercoeur which we believed to be the residence of Garson’s ex-wife was a masonry building of considerable age, but kept up. A sign outside indicated
a vacancy. Pierre told me the sign said the available unit was a two-bedroom. My knock on Chantal’s door got no answer. I checked with the building manager who did not speak much English. I waved for Pierre to come join us. He learned that Chantal had lived there with her sister, but the two women had moved some time ago. The manager wrote down the forwarding address for us. I thanked her and headed back to the car, having again proven the pessimist’s creed that nothing ever goes smoothly, but then, this wasn’t too big a bump, so maybe the pessimists were only half right.
Pierre said something about the new address being in the Latin Quarter, not far from my hotel, and drove off with me rubber necking from the back seat.
Chantal’s new street was three blocks over from the Rue Monge and about eight blocks down. As we drove, Pierre pointed out Notre Dame Cathedral, and the Jardin des Plantes, France’s main botanical garden. True to his claim, Pierre knew exactly where Chantal lived. He dropped me off in front. I asked him to wait twenty minutes, then, if I had not come out, he could leave. I would call his cell when I was ready to be picked up.
The small round metal button next to the door produced a pleasant chime I could hear ringing inside the apartment. A few moments later, the door opened in the hand of an elderly woman in a drab, brown housecoat, unwashed gray hair, and yellowed teeth. She leaned against the door frame. Her heavily-veined feet in gold slippers, one foot on top the other. She kept one hand on the door while her tired eyes scanned my face, perhaps trying to match me up with someone in her past.
“Madame Chantal Talmadge?”
“Que?” she said with the inflection of a question.
“Madame Chantal Talmadge?” I repeated, hoping she would at least understand the name.
“I speak English”
“Are you Chantal Talmadge?”
“No.”
“Is Chantal in? May I see her? I’ve come from America.”
“Come in, sir,” the woman said, with an inscrutable grin. “I’ll take you to her.” She uncoupled her slippers and stood back, opening the door. She led me down a short hall covered with a Persian runner, the floor creaking as if it had been laid to announce arrivals. We entered a living room with furnishings that were once up to the minute in decor. Sturdy furniture, overstuffed, and mostly covered in green velour.
She stopped, facing the fireplace. “What is your name, sir?”
“Matthew Kile,” I said, unsure what was going on as we were the only two people in the room.
The woman pointed to an urn on the mantle. Her hand touched it. Her voice went hoarse. “My sister, Chantal.”
I had come in search of answers, and instead I found a wiseacre French woman who shared an apartment with her sister who lived in an urn. I felt like Alice must have after having fallen down the rabbit hole. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to curse even more, but I did neither. Maybe I would later.
“May I ask your name?” I said, desperate to learn something that might help.
“I am Camille Trenet. Chantal’s sister. She never stopped using the name Talmadge.”
“Why not?”
“My sister never stopped loving that worthless man. She drank herself to death, because when she drank she believed he would return, and they would be happy again.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I’m sorry I lived long enough to go to Chantal’s funeral. I would have preferred to go to the funeral of that worthless man.”
“How long had you lived with Chantal?”
“We lived together all of our lives. Well, except for twenty years while I had a live-in job with an American family, and Chantal lived with that worthless man. My live-in job ended about the same time as her divorce, so we picked up where we left off and moved in together again. Many women have sisters. We were best friends. Now I’m alone.”
“Have you always lived in France?”
“Yes. Somehow I ended up working in the homes of American families, twenty years as a live-in with one family for whom I served as a housekeeper, the nanny and sometimes secretary. I spoke only English for all those years. Actually, despite being French, I mostly think in American and translate into French before I speak with my countrymen. I watch mostly American television, the channels I can get.”
While I listened, I looked about. The place was crowded with photographs of a younger woman, who looked to be Camille, and another I surmised was Chantal, both were very lovely. The pictures featured laughter, and men, and picnics near a body of water. Another photo was of Susan and Charles when they were younger, and two more of Susan alone. And one of an American soldier, maybe twenty-five, sat on the end table next to her.
“Well, your English is very good. Is this your sister?” I asked, putting my hand gently on top of that picture. “May I ask you, how did your sister die?”
“I meant it literally; Chantal drank herself to death … over that worthless man, the no-good son of a bitch.”
“The worthless man you speak of, I assume you mean Garson Talmadge?”
“Who else? The dog that walks on two legs.”
Camille, who had apparently gotten the stronger liver of the two sisters, ran her hands back over her head through hair which had the look of tangled seaweed after having been pulled and snipped by gulls.
“Despite what you may have heard of French women, after that worthless man left, my sister never gave herself to another man, which was very different than right after the war. The Nazis were gone, and many French women had suffered at their hands. We had been too young for the Nazis and had dressed to look still younger. But that changed after the liberation. We were older by the time your boys came here, and we dressed to look still older. Your young soldiers were glorious, and they always had Hershey bars and sometimes nylons. My sister and I were wild-eyed teens. We flirted with your soldiers and had a lot of laughs. If you and I were to go for a walk, I could show you many places where we satisfied sweaty American GIs. Those days were beyond description. We hoped two of them would take us back to America, but the magic ended. They left. We remained.” She laughed openly, her eyes searching back for the memories. “In France, girls are considered women at a younger age than in America, at least in those days, probably still. My memory only remembers the fun of those years, not the cruelty. There was so much destruction. Chantal and I were gorgeous in those days. Love was always in the air, and chocolate flowed like water.”
After laughing hard enough to cause her to cough and then swallow, she added, “These silly modern women think they invented not wearing panties so their ass will wiggle more. Ha.” Then she got up and turned around slowly in her house dress. “You like? My tits are bigger now. Then again, so is everything else.” It had not been so much an invitation as an expression of whom she had been and whom she had become. After pursing her lips, she laughed, a sadder laugh than before.
“Do you know that Garson Talmadge is dead?” I asked, still standing, facing the urn.
Camille turned to me, her face blank. No words. She just stared.
“He was murdered,” I said.
“I don’t know whether to laugh or cheer,” she finally said. “I will likely do both later when I am alone.” Camille touched my arm and nodded toward her couch. I sat down. She sat across from me in a swivel rocker. The flower-pattern fabric on the arm of the chair above the wooden tip excreted its soiled white stuffing.
“Why are you here?” She asked. “I did not kill him. Although, given the chance …” Her stare continued while I imagined her mind reviewing the ways she had fantasized murdering him if the chance had ever come for her. She now knew that chance would never come. “Who beat me to it?”
“That’s what brought me over. His wife, Clarice, has been charged with his murder. I’m investigating for the attorney who is defending her. We believe Clarice is innocent.”
“Whether she is guilty or innocent is irrelevant. The man deserved to die, so even if she did murder him, I will help if I can. But I don’t see how I …�
� Camille apparently had a habit of leaving things she spoke of unfinished, maybe crowded out by a memory. If her apartment expressed anything, it said Camille Trenet lives in her past.
“I have come to learn all that I can about Garson when he lived in France, about his son and daughter and his weapons deals. What do you know about his selling French weapons to Saddam Hussein, or anyone else?”
“I do wish to help. Hurray for the wonderful woman who killed that worthless man.”
“Alleged,” I said in a correcting tone.
“Huh,” she mumbled. “Oh, yes, American lawyer talk I hear it on television. Let me get us something to drink, and then I’ll answer your questions. This may be a long conversation. Things I have never told anyone. Chantal had sworn me to secrecy, but she is dead now. And that worthless man is dead. The time has come to drag the ugliness out of the darkness.”
By now, Pierre would have likely driven away. I would call his cell when I finished visiting with Garson’s ex-wife’s sister.
Camille opened the door on a cabinet in the lower part of the end table next to her chair and brought out a half full bottle of Seagram’s Seven Crown. Her chubby hand strangled its neck. “American whiskey. My sister started drinking this stuff with that worthless man.”
That part checked. Seven Crown had been the brand Garson had used to bookend the boxes of corn flakes that sat on his bedroom dresser.
She reached in again and brought out two glasses, her fingers inside as she lifted them to the bigger table that centered the space between us. “Is this to your liking?” she asked.
“Just fine,” I said, and then smiled. “I am, in fact, an Irish whiskey man. Once you have sipped Tullamore Dew, you are spoiled for all other spirits made by mortals. Although, in fairness there are many other fine Irish, Scottish, Canadian and American whiskeys, like this one. Thank you.”
Camille poured the whiskey warm, in portions for gulping. I confess Seagram makes a fine product, but my ancestors would label me traitor if I did less than my duty to carry the family tradition through my generation, and pass it along to those who follow. I proudly say that both my daughters have already accepted their responsibilities in this regard. Hopefully, my ancestors will forgive my transgressions and remain calm in their final resting places.
