Jacques was waiting for him at the foot of the bridge where the River Vezere flowed into the Dordogne, a spot Bruno knew well because there was a rugby field nearby. They shook hands, and Jacques said curtly, “It’s not pretty.”
“Bodies in the water seldom are.”
“It’s not that. Just wait till you see.” He led the way across the grass and through a glade of trees with picnic tables. Stalls to rent canoes were still open for what was left of the season. The smell of roasting meat hung in the air from two families with barbecues. Beyond them was the pebbled beach leading to the shallows where the river took its lazy curve. The dog lay on the pebbles, covered by a tarpaulin. Jacques lifted it aside. The fine head of the Porcelaine had been crushed into a lumpy, distorted ugliness. The blood had been washed away, but the broken bones of the animal’s skull showed through the torn skin.
“That’s a terrible thing to do to a dog,” said Jacques.
“He was a great hunting dog in his time,” said Bruno. He kneeled to take a closer look. The skull was caved in over a wide area, smashed by something much bigger than a club, probably a large stone. “Any idea how long it takes for a dead dog like this to drift down from Saint-Denis?”
“We seem to get cats mostly. It can take anything from twelve hours to a few days, depending on the current or if it gets caught in the reeds. Sometimes the pike feast on them. Bodies tend to come ashore here because the flow around the bend brings them to the shallows. What do you want me to do with it?”
“I’ll take him with me, let the forensics guys see if they can find anything. Then I’ll probably bury him in Cresseil’s garden. He was a good dog, and the old boy was very fond of him. Can I get the van down here, or shall I just borrow the tarpaulin so we can carry him up?”
“Easier to carry him,” said Jacques. “His having been killed is significant, then?”
“Very significant. I’m now sure we’ve got a murder on our hands. Have you ever read Sherlock Holmes?”
Bruno parked his van beside the mobile unit and took out the tarpaulin-wrapped body of the dog. The brigadier and J-J fell silent as he laid it gently at J-J’s feet and unwrapped the covering to expose the shattered head.
“One of the finest hunting dogs in the valley,” Bruno said. “Your dog that didn’t bark. Or maybe it barked too much. Maybe your boys can find something from the bones. Somebody, almost certainly the murderer, killed him on the night Cresseil died and then tossed him in the river. He washed ashore earlier today.”
“You’re more angry about that dog than you were about the fire,” the brigadier said. “Well, I’ll leave you to your new case. I just came up to give you my congratulations and to thank you for solving the arson case. The laptop you brought back and that paint from the truck tire pretty much confirmed that the boy did it, all on his own. No big conspiracy, but a lot of fallout. You won’t have seen today’s Le Monde, but I got an e-mail. There’s a big story about this Agricolae group breaking all the rules in the book about GMO plantings and about the mystery of who owns it. It seems it’s owned by a holding company that’s registered in Luxembourg, and that’s where the trail stops for the moment. I’ve had Isabelle and two more of my people there for a day or two already. The list of shareholders will emerge soon. And I won’t be surprised to find it includes the name of the odd son-in-law or cousin of some of our politicians.”
“Is that going to be a problem for you?” asked J-J.
The brigadier shrugged. “The ministers and the politicians come and go, but we go on forever. They gave me a case to solve. Thanks to you two, it’s solved. You’ll get full credit in my report. I left all the computers in the mobile unit, by the way. We’ve taken the information we needed, so you can give them back to their owners. And I wanted to say thanks in a more personal way.”
He went over to his large black car and brought out a bottle and three small shot glasses from a cabinet that had been built into the back of the front seats.
“A British colleague introduced me to this when I was in London on a liaison course. One of their special whiskies, Balvenie. I was in that famous cave of yours earlier and saw that they had some, so I wanted to share it with you.” He filled the three glasses and raised his own to J-J and Bruno, and the three men sipped.
“Tastes of smoke and the sea,” said Bruno. “A fine drink for winter, and for a last toast to a good hunting dog.”
“If you ever need a favor from the RG, here’s my card with my direct line and e-mail. And if you ever want a change from this charming little valley of yours, Bruno, we can always use a good man.”
“You’re not the first to try to lure him away,” said J-J. “Forget it, he won’t come.”
“Any news on the murder case?” asked Bruno.
“The boys found a couple of prints we can’t identify on a glass in the kitchen. The strands of hair under Max’s fingernails are from someone’s head; they’re not pubic hairs. They’ll need DNA analysis if we ever get a suspect. Bondino is still at the Manoir. He came back from a trip to Nevers, said he’d been looking for oak for wine barrels. We checked it out, and he was there, all right. He said he went straight to bed on the night after the fight and got up early for a meeting with some wine negociant in Bordeaux. That also checked out. The hotel staff said they gave him a wake-up call at 6 a.m. with coffee and he was out the door by twenty past. He volunteered to give us his fingerprints, so I don’t think he’s our man.”
“Did you check whether he had a key to the hotel?” Bruno asked. “He could have come and gone through the night without alerting the staff.”
“Yes, he has a key. He’s a very good customer, they tell me. Messy in his habits but tips well.”
“Well, good luck with this new case, and I’ll hope to see you two again sometime in happier circumstances,” said the brigadier, shaking hands and heading for his car. “If you’re coming to Paris, give me a call. I know you’re all rugby-crazy down here so I’ll see if I can get you some tickets for the next big match.” He climbed into the backseat and then lowered the window. “And take a look inside the mobile unit, in the evidence case. There’s a couple of bottles of that whisky, one each, with my thanks.”
As the brigadier was driven away, J-J said, “I hope you’re not tempted to take him up on his offer. You’d shake my faith in human nature. If you leave, how could I hang on to my little fantasy of giving up all this merde and enjoying the nice quiet life of a country cop, inquiring into stolen apples and dead dogs?”
“It’s amazing where dead dogs can take you, even out here,” said Bruno, looking at his watch. “Good news. We’re invited to dinner with a charming lady who thinks we need a good home-cooked meal after all our hard work.”
“I was wondering who you’d taken up with after that lovely inspector of mine went off to Paris.”
“I haven’t taken up with anyone,” said Bruno, grinning. “I’m just a battered old romantic nursing a broken heart.”
“Can we take my car, or is it on another one of your country lanes that likes to wreck my suspension?”
“She drives her old Citroen back and forth with no trouble, and my van takes the path just fine.”
“Right, we’ll take your van, unless you’re planning on staying the night and we need two cars.”
“We’ll just need the van.”
“Fine. You can tell me about our hostess on the way. Do we have time to buy her some flowers?”
“She grows her own flowers, and I’ve already got some wine. You could always give her your bottle of whisky.”
“A word of advice to you, Bruno, from an older and wiser man with the experience of many years of marriage,” said J-J, putting an avuncular arm around Bruno’s shoulders. “Never let your women get accustomed to really expensive presents. You don’t want to spoil them.”
“Particularly if you want to keep the whisky to yourself,” said Bruno.
As they climbed into Bruno’s van, J-J’s phone rang, and he put out his h
and to stop Bruno from reaching for the ignition. He listened to the caller, his eyes on Bruno’s face, and then he said, “Pick him up and take him to the gendarmerie. I’ll interrogate him in the cells there.”
He closed the phone. “No dinner for us. You’d better call your friend and tell her something came up. And let’s get moving. You know I told you we’d taken Bondino’s fingerprints? We’ve found his thumbprint on one of the glasses that were in Cresseil’s sink.”
35
Captain Duroc had done them proud. He had moved a small table and two hard-backed chairs into one of the cramped basement cells and put a dirty blanket over the ancient horsehair mattress atop the iron bed frame. Bruno leaned against the metal door as J-J faced Bondino across the table. The cell stank of ancient sweat, black tobacco and God knows what else, with a distant memory of disinfectant. It was an odd place to be for a man as spoiled and well-dressed as Bondino. He was wearing a cream silk shirt-open halfway down his plump chest to reveal two gold chains with various medallions-his usual slipperlike shoes and a matching black leather jacket. Not assuming his usual sprawling pose, he kept his arms and legs tucked in, as if nervous about contamination by the grimy cell. But his face was calm and his gaze firm.
“You’re lying. We know you were in that house,” said J-J. “We’ve got the fingerprints to prove it.”
Bondino shook his head. “I only went to that farm once, with Dupuy. I never went inside. I never took a drink of wine or anything else. He was there.” He nodded at Bruno. “He saw me leave. I want a lawyer, and I want the American embassy.”
“This is France, not the U.S.,” said J-J. “You’re under garde a vue. That means you answer my questions until you’re charged or I’m satisfied. So let’s go through this again. With my own eyes I saw you fighting with a young Frenchman over a girl. I saw him bleeding. I saw you restrained by the owner of the bar whose window you had broken. I saw your rival go off with the girl you thought was yours. This was more than just a barroom scuffle. This was personal, and it was vicious. You went in and hit him, and the guy turns up dead a few hours later and you tell me you had nothing to do with it?”
“I know nothing about it. I want to contact my embassy.”
“What really upsets me about this is why you had to kill the old dog,” J-J went on, speaking over him, but this remark about the dog drew a reaction. Bondino began shaking his head angrily. “We found the rock you used, bits of the poor animal’s blood still on it. We’re going to find your fingerprints on that as well.”
“I have never killed a dog. I would never kill a dog,” Bondino said. “I want to speak to my embassy.” He nodded at Bruno again. “He knows I like dogs.”
Bruno intervened. “You don’t need to be ashamed of anything. You had a fight over a girl. It happens all the time. We understand that in France.” Bruno kept his voice almost friendly. He and J-J had played the good cop, bad cop roles before. “We call it a crime passionnel, and we’ve got a special law for dealing with such matters. It gets a lesser punishment, did you know that? A guy gets home early from hunting, finds his wife in bed with another man. Blam-blam, he lets them have it, both barrels. Crime passionnel. He walks free. And that’s what it was here, a crime passionnel. You were inflamed with jealousy of this handsome young Frenchman who had stolen your girl. We’re all guys here; we understand that kind of thing. Was that how it was?”
“I’ll say nothing more until I talk to the U.S. Embassy.” Bondino set his shoulders as he looked at Bruno in a way that seemed more confident than defiant. Perhaps it was the manner of a rich and privileged young man who knew that expensive lawyers and political influence were available to him. But that kind of protective shell didn’t usually last long under interrogation, so Bruno found his curiosity growing. They seldom had people in a cell who looked as calm as Bondino.
“You can talk to the president of the United States if you want, but even he can’t explain away your fingerprints in that farmhouse,” Bruno said.
“I have nothing more to say.” This time Bondino gave Bruno an almost casual nod. The young man was in complete control of himself.
“Your body does. It will have a lot to say, just like your fingerprints,” said J-J. He leaned down into his briefcase and pulled out a plastic evidence bag and held it against Bondino’s head.
“It looks like a match to me,” he said. “We pulled these hairs from under the fingernails of the murdered boy. I say they’re yours, and they’re going to convict you of murder.”
“They can’t be mine,” Bondino said calmly. “He didn’t even get to touch me in that fight we had in the bar. I hit him, he went down and then the barman pushed me through the window. There must be a mistake.”
“There’s an easy way to settle this, although it does mean you’ll be enjoying my company for some days to come.” J-J turned to Bruno.
“Send me a couple of gendarmes to hold down this prisoner while we take a sample of his hair and a swab of his mouth.” He turned back to Bondino. “DNA will settle it.”
“You have no right to do this without letting me talk to my embassy.”
“This is a French police station under French law, and I’ll do what I damn well please,” shouted J-J, who seemed to be getting more excited by the interrogation than Bondino.
Bruno heard J-J’s intimidating voice echoing from the cell as he mounted the stairs, relieved to be out of that atmosphere and even more relieved for the opportunity to make some vital phone calls. He told Jules at the desk to send down two gendarmes and a DNA kit and then stepped outside into the cool of the evening and pulled out his phone.
“Monsieur le Maire? It’s Bruno. We have a real problem. Bondino has been arrested on suspicion of Max’s murder. We found his fingerprints at Cresseil’s place. He’s under garde a vue at the gendarmerie, being interrogated now. He’s asking for a lawyer and the American embassy. You know I have my doubts about this project, but I respect your views. If we want to salvage anything from this Bondino project, we’d better get him a lawyer and let him inform his embassy.”
“Is he guilty? How long can he be held?” the mayor asked.
“I don’t know if he’s guilty, but the evidence is very strong. He denies being inside Cresseil’s home or taking a drink there, but we found his fingerprints on a glass in the kitchen sink. There may also be DNA evidence, but that will take some days. He can be held for three days under garde a vue without being charged, then he’ll go before a juge d’instruction and can be defended by a lawyer. With some heavy pressure, we can probably get a lawyer in to see him before that. I could call Dupuy and get him involved. He can contact the embassy-No, please, let me finish. That is what we can do, but we need to decide whether we should intervene in this way. The evidence against Bondino is strong, but if he turns out to be innocent and we’ve done nothing to help him, there’ll be no chance of any kind of deal.”
“Where are you now, Bruno?”
“Outside the gendarmerie. Bondino is being questioned in the cells.”
“Do you have time to meet me?”
“If we make it quick.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. Make that three. Meet me at the rugby men’s bar.”
Bruno went back into the gendarmerie and told the desk sergeant that if J-J wanted him, Bruno had gone to see the mayor on some local business. Bruno left for the Bar des Amateurs. A large sheet of plywood still covered the broken window. He took a table outside, far from the only other occupied table. His glass of pression arrived at the same time as the baron’s big Citroen DS drew up outside the bar and he and the mayor climbed out. Bruno wasn’t surprised to see the baron.
“Bonsoir, Bruno,” the baron said, shaking his hand. “I was dining with the mayor, and he wanted me to come along.”
“We weren’t just dining, we were planning,” the mayor said, rubbing his hands together in that way Bruno recognized. Bruno felt his antennae quiver. The mayor was up to something. He’d expected his boss to be in
despair at the prospect of losing the Bondino project.
“That point you made about other businessmen possibly being interested in the vineyard project, it got me thinking,” the mayor said. “So the baron and I put our heads together, and maybe we can make a modest version of this scheme work even if Bondino pulls out.”
“I really don’t see him wanting to stay involved with Saint-Denis after this,” said Bruno. “When I left the cell they were just about to hold him down and take DNA samples by force.”
“Is he guilty?” asked the baron.
“As I told the mayor, I don’t know. Probably. His fingerprints show he lied about not being at Cresseil’s. He’s an arrogant young pup, thinks he can get away with anything with his money. But I can’t quite see it. He’s not a big guy, and he’s out of shape. Max was bigger, stronger and in peak condition. You’ve seen him play rugby; Max was hard as nails. I wouldn’t have thought Bondino would have had the couilles to tackle him, but then he did just that one night right here in this bar. That’s how the window got broken. If he took Max by surprise, or found him passed out in the vat, then it’s possible.”
“If we just let the law take its course, what happens?” asked the mayor.
“He can be held until J-J brings in a juge d’instruction, and the story probably won’t reach the media until then. With the fingerprints, there’s enough evidence for the magistrate to hold him after that, at least until the DNA evidence comes back. But by that time, we’ll have an international incident on our hands and half the foreign press corps camped out at this bar. ‘American wine tycoon’s son held on love-triangle murder charge after a body is found in a wine vat.’ You can imagine the headlines.”
“Would they keep him here for the three days?” the mayor asked.
“More likely they’ll move him to Perigueux. But the TV cameras will all descend on us anyway to get pictures of the wine vat, photos of Max on the rugby field, interviews with Jacqueline when they learn about the bar fight. Still, the main focus would be Perigueux, and the sooner Dupuy and the diplomats get involved, the sooner they’ll move him and bring in the lawyers.”
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