Murder on the Mediterranean (Capucine Culinary Mystery)

by Alexander Campion

  “I hope our new friend isn’t going the make our dear Serge an offer he can’t refuse,” Jacques said. He barked out his donkey bray loud enough to bring the pool boy at a trot of alarm.

  At dusk they found themselves sipping Prosecco at the end of a table large enough to seat at least forty people, under an arbor of grapevines, the Tyrian purple sea resplendent in the distance. A servant slowly turned a ten-foot-long spit set into a grill inset into the stone wall.

  Tommasso pinched the fingers of both hands together and shook them in front of Alexandre at eye level. Capucine didn’t doubt that he had quizzed Serge closely on their biographies during their meeting.

  “I’m going to give you something you’ve never eaten, Signore Critico del Ristorante. A real Sicilian barbecue.” He pointed at the grill. “Beef, the best sirloin, veal so tender, you can eat it with a spoon even before it’s cooked, and wild pigs from the hill above us. ‘What’s so special about that?’ you say. Eh? What’s special is the marinade. Onions, basil, sage and wild thyme, oregano, bay leaves, pepper, olive oil, and just enough lemon juice.

  “And still you say, ‘That’s not so special. That’s the way I marinate my meat for my backyard grill at home in Parigi.’ But, you see, my friend, my fire is made with chunks of hundred-year-old olive trees. And there’s still another secret. What you don’t have in Paris is wine made from the Carricante grape—the base of my marinade—the most beautiful white-wine grape in the world, especially when it grows on the slopes of Mount Etna. My family at home sends them to me.”

  At the word family, Tommasso shot a glance at Capucine out of the corner of his eye. There was no doubt he knew full well that she was a police officer. Capucine wondered if the look probed for schadenfreude or if it was intended to be conspiratorial.

  The main course arrived, brought by three servants under the watchful eye of an enormously fat woman, who must have been the cook. The grilled meats were superb, imbued with the marinade but not overpowering.

  “But, signore, the best is the last to come. I’m going to give you a wine I’m sure you’ve never had before, the Alberto Loi Riserva, made from Sardinia’s most popular grape, Cannonau.”

  Alexandre perked up. He was not moved by barbecue in any form, but a varietal he had never tasted was definitely an occasion. A wooden-faced servant poured a glass for Alexandre and stood at attention behind his chair. Tommasso looked at Alexandre with a rigid grin as he took a sip. Capucine could see that Alexandre hated it, but he smiled bravely and delivered a long encomium on the wine’s merits. Tommasso beamed.

  Tommasso was obviously in his element. He repeatedly signaled the servants to fill dishes with a second helping, encouraged them to top wineglasses when they were barely half empty, and played the role of commandeering architect of the entire table’s conversation. This he achieved with playful asides and friendly kidding drawn from the nuggets of biography he had gleaned from Serge during the afternoon.

  Halfway through the dinner he jabbed his finger with mock aggressiveness at Florence.

  “I was your biggest fan when you were racing. I went out and got drunk when you won the Route du Rhum the first time.”

  Florence smiled at him with the barest hint of polite tolerance.

  “No, no, I’m serious. Sicily is a seafaring island. I’m from a fishing village near Catania. You could see Mount Etna from my parents’ house and drink this beautiful wine every day.” He raised his glass, then lowered his eyes for a beat to let his guests share the misery of his exile. “You had a boat with a very strange name. I learned that it was pronounced completely differently from the way it was spelled. What was it? Totoare? Totangee. Something like that.”

  “Tottingre, spelled Tottinguer?” Inès asked with a strong note of sharpness in her voice.

  “Brava! What a memory you have. I had no idea you were an aficionada of sailboat racing.”

  “It’s a bank. A very old one, currently run by a man called André Tottinguer.” She looked at Florence with the gimlet eyes of a juge d’instruction questioning a suspect.

  “How did you happen to name your boat after a bank?”

  Florence laughed. “They paid for it. Ninety-foot, state-of-the-art trimarans cost a great deal of money. In those days I couldn’t have afforded even a single sail on that boat. Actually, I probably still couldn’t. All big-boat racers have sponsors. That’s the way it’s done.”

  There was an awkward silence. No one could think of what to say. With a clubman’s horror of conversational awkwardness, Dominique—who had consumed a bottle and a half of the Alberto Loi Riserva—smiled brilliantly at his wife. “Chérie, isn’t Tottinguer your biggest client?”

  Angélique’s brows screwed together in anger, and her mouth tightened into a taut line. “Nothing is more sacred than the confidentiality of an adviser-client relationship.” She glared at Dominique. “Even you should know that.” Then she glowered back at the table. “I’ve never heard of this Tottinguer.” Her tone was wrathful enough to deal a death blow to the dinner.

  CHAPTER 13

  The instant they emerged from their taxis at the marina, they saw something was very wrong. Wrong enough to jolt them out of their sleepy, happy mood, where the only thought in their heads was stumbling down the companionway steps and collapsing into their bunks.

  Bright lights skewered Diomede at her berth. They rushed down the gangway to the boat, their feet ringing out on the aluminum of the floating pier. Two uniformed policemen appeared, blocking their way. The boat had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. Two arc lights on tripods illuminated the scene. All the interior lights of the boat were on. On deck, uniformed police officers shuffled back and forth, scoring the nonslip surface with their boots. Below, more police officers could be seen through the ports, roughly rooting through the contents of the galley. Capucine had the sensation that their homely but honest boat was being raped.

  Serge was indignant. “What are you doing! Get off my boat immediately! You have no right. It’s a French vessel. You have no authority to be on her.” He attempted to shove past the policemen and board the boat. One of the officers put the flat of his hand on Serge’s chest and pushed. Serge stumbled backward and nearly fell.

  “Capucine,” he said, “do something. Make them go away.”

  “Serge, there’s nothing to do. The boat has been impounded. And I wouldn’t try to strong-arm a police officer again. That’s going to get you a night behind bars, which you definitely wouldn’t enjoy.”

  “So what are we going to do?”

  “Hotel,” Capucine said.

  Serge’s face crinkled, as if he was on the edge of tears. “A hotel? How the hell are we going to find a hotel at this hour of the night? Look at this damn place.” With a sweep of his arm, he indicated the bleak area behind the marina. The only amenities were a minute convenience store and a grim-looking café, both shuttered. Behind the marina lay a vast deserted industrial area.

  “What am I supposed to do? Cruise around Arbatax in a taxicab in the middle of the night, trying to find hotel rooms for ten people without luggage? That’ll be a perfect end to the evening. Merde, merde, merde!” He stamped the metal dock, making it ring.

  Serge marched off to the end of the jetty, snapped open his cell phone, punched a speed-dial button, turned his back on the police and the boat crew. In less than thirty seconds he swiveled back, his face alive with a radiant smile.

  “Grazie mille, Tommasso. You’re a prince among men. See you in a few minutes. Ciao.”

  “Problem solved. Tommasso is going to put us up for the night. He even has a supply of toiletries for his guests. I’m calling us some cabs. I can’t get away from these Italian cops fast enough.”

  Tommasso’s joy at their return seemed genuine enough. Capucine was sure that he would dine out for years to come on the tale of the evening he had offered a French police commissaire a room because her boat had been declared a crime scene.

  The villa seemed to contain an
infinity of suites, made sumptuous by the unsubtle hand of an interior decorator. They were decorated with aggressively endearing peasant furniture and precious scenes of olive trees and fishing boats.

  Large survival kits—plastic containers crammed with luxury toiletries, including toothbrushes, shaving equipment, colognes, deodorants, shampoos and conditioners, perfumes—one for men, another for women, had been placed on each pillow. The effect was that of a luxury Relais & Châteaux country inn.

  Capucine took a shower, hoping to cleanse herself of the feeling that for the first time in her life she was, somehow, on the wrong side of the law.

  She dried herself off and walked through the house, emerging onto the terrace, sure it would be deserted save for Alexandre smoking his final cigar of the day.

  She was dismayed to see that Alexandre was locked in an energetic discussion with Tommasso about something they were drinking. Capucine debated turning on her heel and going to bed, but her desire to be with Alexandre won out. She padded out on the terrace in her bare feet.

  It was about grappa. Tommasso had placed an array of bottles on the long table and was attempting to persuade Alexandre of the superiority of the Sicilian product over the Sardinian. Capucine knew full well this was the sort of exercise that could amuse Alexandre until the rosy fingers of dawn crept up over the horizon.

  “Tommasso, you’re right. The Grappa di Malvasia delle Lipari is the clear winner. Bravo, Sicilia!” He downed the last half inch of grappa in his tulip-shaped glass, reached around Capucine’s waist, drew her toward him, kissed her temple.

  “It comes from a little village a few miles from mine back home. I know the man who makes it very well. He is my godfather. A man of many talents.”

  Tommasso handed Capucine a glass of grappa made by the many-talented man and refilled Alexandre’s. The three exchanged polite banalities. The wind from the hill brought down the odor of wild herbs and ruffled the canopy of grape leaves above them.

  Tommasso put his glass down on the table.

  “Mi dispiace molto. Nothing would give me more pleasure than chatting with the two of you all night long, but I’m afraid I have a very early meeting and must go to bed. But please, stay and enjoy the night.”

  The night was indeed magical. The moon had finally become entirely full, a perfectly round orb.

  “Let’s go down and sit by that pool in the rock grotto. It’s perfect for an evening like this,” Capucine said.

  Alexandre led her down three flights of steps cut into the rock to a natural grotto, which had been enlarged by architects and fitted with plumbing to make it appear to be a natural pool.

  “A whole night of having you in my arms, far away from any living creature, on a night like this. It’s my definition of heaven,” Alexandre said. But at the grotto Alexandre deflated when he saw Jacques sitting at the edge of the pool, facing the sea, his legs dangling over a twenty-foot drop.

  With some trepidation they inched out over the rocks to Jacques’s side and sat down, Capucine between her cousin and her husband. Alexandre passed one of the glasses to Jacques and shared his with Capucine. Alexandre lit a cigar.

  They said nothing, staring into a moon so incandescent, it cauterized the shock of the police defilement of the boat.

  Jacques’s loud voice shattered the calm.

  “Petite cousine, for once, I’m going to extract you from the bouillabaisse before you even know you’re in it. Aren’t you impressed?” He extended his empty glass to Alexandre for a refill.

  Capucine sat up straight. “Jacques, not now. It’s been a very long day. Let’s just go to bed.”

  “Petite cousine, all this sea air is making you dull. As I’m sure you’ve told your corpulent consort many a time, the best things in life come in small packages. And I have one for you right here in my hand.”

  He held out his closed fist, fingers down, to Capucine. Despite her pique at being teased, she opened her palm under his. He stretched his fingers open.

  It was difficult to see what it was in the dark. Alexandre lit his lighter.

  “A shell casing,” Capucine said.

  “Look a little closer.”

  It was a nine-millimeter shell casing marked SPEER around the bottom edge. It was from one of the so-called safety-tipped American rounds that the French police had started issuing three months before. A shell casing that could only have come recently from a French police weapon.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “It was wedged into the little recess at the edge of the deck on the forecastle. I noticed it as we were approaching the coast on our way into Porto Cervo after Nathalie went overboard.”

  There was a long silence, punctuated only by compact little cumuli of Alexandre’s cigar smoke rising into the moonlight.

  Capucine reached into her pocket, produced her iPhone, fussed with it.

  “Here,” she said, handing the phone to Jacques. “Show me exactly where you found it.”

  The picture on the little screen was a close-up of the foredeck area.

  “It’s Régis’s blog,” Capucine said. “I’ve become an avid reader. He posts endless pictures of our trip. This picture was taken before you found the shell casing.”

  Jacques put his finger on the screen. “Right here.”

  Capucine took the smartphone back, zoomed in on the image. Régis’s pictures were very high resolution. It was obvious there was no shell casing.

  “Is there a chance it rolled there after the picture was taken?” Capucine asked.

  “None whatsoever. It was wedged in tightly. So tightly someone must have jammed it in so it wouldn’t get lost.” Jacques beamed his Cheshire cat grin on Capucine. “Aren’t you glad, little cousin, that it was me who found it and not one of those heavy-booted carabinieri?”

  He held his palm out flat in front of Capucine. Automatically, she placed the shell casing in his hand. In a single fluid motion, Jacques crooked his thumb and projected the shell like a small boy shooting a marble. It rose in the air, the moonlight glinting on its polished brass surface, and fell into the thick undergrowth far below.

  “It won’t ever be found down there. That’s one thing we can count on.”

  “Jacques! That was evidence.”

  “That’s precisely the point. Now we can go to bed.”

  CHAPTER 14

  The next morning, as they were all eating breakfast on the long table on the terrace, a Fiat police squad car tore up the driveway and braked sharply, spraying gravel. Capucine assumed she was being picked up for an “interrogation,” one step up from an “interview” in the hierarchy of police investigation. Capucine wondered if she would be taken away in handcuffs.

  Two police officers, elegant in red-striped trousers and tunics with polished chrome buttons, emerged from the car and, with great politeness, inquired after Commissario Le Tellier.

  As Capucine descended the steps to the driveway, both officers came to attention and saluted smartly. This was certainly not the way suspects were picked up in France. One of them apologized for the intrusion and said that the vice questore had requested her presence at the questura. “But at your entire convenience, Signora Commissario.” The officer smiled conspiratorially. “Please, finish your breakfast. We will be happy to wait.” Definitely not the way people were picked up in France.

  At the questura, she was taken to the vice questore’s office, a room imposing enough for a junior minister. The vice questore looked like anything but a police officer—aristocratic aquiline nose, silver hair brushed back from his forehead, well-tailored brown summer suit. With smiling lips and frowning eyes, he rose from behind an antique desk, circled to her side, and motioned her into a wooden armchair cushioned in red silk embroidered with gold thread. Without saying a word, he sat facing her in a matching chair. Two men eased into the room. One was Ispettore Manfredi; the other, a few years older and considerably more muscular, looked like an old-school hard-nosed cop. They took seats in opposite corners of the large
room.

  So, this was to be an interrogation, after all, but there was definitely something odd going on. The tension in the room was palpable. Capucine admired the vice questore’s interviewing technique. After a good many long beats, the vice questore introduced himself. “Vice Questore Piras. And, of course, you’ve met Ispettore Manfredi. And this is Commissario Capo Deiana.”

  A senior commissaire. There was a lot of brass in the room. Too much brass for an interrogation.

  Languidly, the vice questore crossed one long leg over another, taking great care not to flatten the knife-sharp crease of his trouser leg.

  “We are faced with an exceedingly delicate situation, Commissario,” the vice questore said. “I understand the ispettore explained to you yesterday that evidence has been discovered that strongly indicates the disappearance of your employee was the result of foul play.”

  “Yes. Apparently, a sea jacket with a suspicious hole in it.”

  “Precisely. The forensics unit has completed its analysis. The hole was unquestionably made by a nine-millimeter bullet.”

  “Were there any traces of blood?”

  “No. But the forensics experts say all traces of fresh blood could have been washed off by the salt water. But there was evidence of gunpowder singeing around the edge of the hole, indicating that the shot was fired at close range.”

  He gave Capucine one of his expressionless looks, inviting her to comment. She said nothing.

  “The interesting thing, however, is that there is a name printed in indelible laundry ink on the jacket’s white manufacturer’s label. The name is not Martin, the victim’s, but Maistre. I understand you have a Signorina Inès Maistre on board. What can you tell me about that?”