Death of a Chef

by Alexander Campion

  The Faïence de Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, an ancient concern that had been started just after the Revolution, had filed for bankruptcy. The chairman made speech after speech promising the workers that not a single employee would be fired after the debt had been restructured. The workers were convinced that the problem was mismanagement and that the business was fundamentally sound. A charismatic young foreman, Roque, became their spokesman. There were daily demonstrations of increasing violence.

  One day, the chairman’s driver attempted to force his limo through a crowd of demonstrators in front of the factory gates. A worker was knocked down. The crowd went wild. The chairman was pulled out of his car. Roque grabbed the chairman’s briefcase and later found a list of two hundred workers who were to be dismissed as soon as the banks agreed to the board’s terms.

  The gates were chained shut, and Roque announced the factory had been lawfully taken over by the workers. Roque then moved the inventories to a warehouse at the edge of the factory compound and laid a bonfire over twenty butane tanks, announcing he would blow everything up if the police attempted to breach the fence.

  Roque spent the night going through the files in the executive offices and discovered the details of the restructuring plan. In addition to the two hundred workers who were to be let go without indemnities, the factory was to be retooled to make cheap, mass-produced products. The faïence’s artisanal skills, honed over the centuries, would be irrevocably lost. On top of it all, other documents revealed that management had received massive bonuses, while worker pay was frozen due to the crisis. The press lapped it all up.

  In the end, the government capitulated and created a special form of bankruptcy that handed the ownership to the workers. The bank debt was rescheduled, and a pool of new investors was found to create a capital base. Much was made of the fact that the ancient production techniques, an important part of French heritage, would be preserved. Roque would act as “leader,” since capitalist titles had been abolished.

  The saga had held the nation enthralled for months. Roque became immensely popular, and it was even rumored that he would run for public office, but he never did.

  The caption under Brissac-Vanté’s photo explained he was pro tem head of the investors’ pool, which held 25 percent of the faïence’s shares.

  Capucine asked the receptionist to find the number for the gendarme capitainerie that was responsible for Châteauneuf-sur-Loire and the name of the capitaine.

  When she dialed the capitainerie, a crisp military voice answered, “Gendarmerie National, brigade de Gien.”

  Capucine announced her brigade and rank and asked if Capitaine de Crébillon was available.

  “Affirmatif, Commissaire,” the young voice barked, keen on leaving no doubt whatsoever that the gendarmerie was part of the military. Capucine’s heart sank. She had a very bad track record with the gendarmerie.

  In less than five seconds a suave voice came on the line. “Bonjour, madame. What a pleasure to hear your voice again.” Capucine was at a complete loss. The upper-class accent could easily have been that of any one of the denizens of her family’s dinner table, but no memory popped into her head.

  “Capitaine, a thousand pardons for intruding into your busy morning, but—”

  “Chère madame, my mornings exist but to be of service to you.”

  There was nothing Capucine loathed more than these flowers of aristocratic politeness, but she had to admit it was a pleasure to deal with a gendarme cut from a different cloth.

  “Capitaine, you’re too kind. As it happens, there’s some possibility—a minor one, really—that the death of Monsieur Roque might have something to do with one of my cases in Paris. Would it inconvenience you greatly if I came down to discuss his death with you?”

  There was a pause. The fleur de politesse seemed to have wilted. But it quickly revived. “Commissaire, who could refuse an offer so politely put? When would it be convenient for you to come?”

  “Would this afternoon be too soon? With the new autoroute I could be there in an hour and a half.”

  “Let’s have lunch then. There’s an army of journalists camped outside of my office. The last thing I want is for the press to think that the Police Judiciaire is investigating the case. There’s a reasonable enough restaurant in Gien called the Auberge des Moines. I’ll meet you there at one. How’s that?”

  Lunch was surprisingly good. They started with friture de Loire, little two-inch river fish that were deep-fried straight from the Loire and were eaten whole—heads, bones, and all. The uniformed captain turned out to be a rubicund, short man in his middle thirties with a perfect half hemisphere of hard, round belly. Capucine was sure she had run into him at some social engagement or other. The fact that he took some time over the wine list was no surprise given the complexion of his cheeks, prematurely rosy from ruptured capillaries. When the fritures arrived, they were deliciously crunchy and perfectly set off by the icy Domaine de la Garenne Sancerre the capitaine had chosen.

  “They come from right out there,” the capitaine explained, waiving his glass at the broad, listless, almost stagnant Loire outside the window of the restaurant. He raised his glass at Capucine. “Sancerre is the great asset of this posting.” He aimed his glass at the region, a few leagues on the other side of the river. “I’m up for rotation next year and shudder at the thought of where they’ll send me.”

  “Who knows? With a little luck you may wind up assigned to Bordeaux,” Capucine said with her best smile. “Tell me about Roque’s death.”

  “There’s really nothing to tell. According to his wife, they went out to dinner, came home, the light switch didn’t work, Roque went down to the basement, and didn’t come back. She didn’t know what to do. She’s a fidgety kind of woman. Not what you’d expect with a husband like that. Anyhow, it took her ten minutes to find the courage to go down the stairs in the dark. She found her husband collapsed on the floor, his flashlight still shining at the wall. She ran back up and dialed sixteen. The SAMU people pronounced him dead. We weren’t called.”

  “So how do you know the details?”

  “How do I know? I know because I got a call from the lieutenant-colonel, my big boss, less than an hour after the SAMU picked up the body. He told me that Roque had died and they didn’t want the press to run away with the story. Madame Roque was not to be interviewed, and I was to leave three brigadiers in front of her house until further notice to make sure the press left her alone.”

  As if he had uttered a dinner-party banality, he lifted the glass of Sancerre to his nose and inhaled the bouquet without drinking. He looked over the top of the glass at Capucine to make sure she had understood the nuance of what he had just said.

  “Naturally, as common courtesy required, I offered my condolences to Madame Roque when I placed my men, and also had a quick look around the basement.” He lowered his head confidentially, shook it, and whispered, “This current government is so unsubtle.”

  This gendarme really was cut from another bolt of cloth, Capucine told herself. “Would it be possible for me to see the scene?”

  “I don’t see why not. You’re not the press, are you?” He gave a great rumbling laugh that made his rock-hard stomach jump up and down like a leather-covered exercise ball. “Ah, voilà,” he said as the main courses arrived.

  They both had quenelles de brochet, made from pike poached in court bouillon, crushed in a mortar, mixed into a creamy paste with eggs and flour, baked into quenelles, and served with a creamy, bright ocher Nantua sauce.

  “The pike comes from right out there,” he said, pointing at the river again with a stubby finger. “Doesn’t it, Jean?” he asked the waiter.

  “Oui, Capitaine. I caught it myself just this morning.” They both laughed heartily, as if it was the funniest joke in the world.

  Madame Roque turned out to be as skittish as promised. She greeted them at the door, wringing her hands in her apron, blinking like a startled fawn in a Disney cartoon.
<
br />   “Madame,” said the capitaine, “this is one of my colleagues. She needs to make a report, and I wonder if you would be kind enough to let her look at your basement.”

  Rather than reply, Madame Roque looked at the floor and shuffled over to a low door under the stairway of the modest cement house. The capitaine held his flashlight as they inched their way down the steep stairs. At the bottom, he flicked on the lights, and two naked bulbs revealed a damp cement cellar with an ancient washing machine and dryer, a metal wine rack a third full of wine bottles, and numerous baskets and plastic cases filled with the detritus of a modest life.

  The capitaine walked over to the wine rack and picked out a bottle. Obviously, fingerprints were not top of mind at the gendarmerie.

  “Wouldn’t keep my wine in a cellar as humid as this.” He held the bottle up, wrinkled his nose, and then sniffed the cork end. “It’s cheap enough stuff, and the rotting cork isn’t going to help it any. Good thing the Communists didn’t win out, or we’d all be drinking this swill.” He shuddered and made a histrionic grimace.

  While he spoke, Capucine examined the fuse box. It was the old type that took screw-in fuses. Two or three spares were stored on top of a rag on the bottom of the box. On the floor underneath, a small puddle—no more than a foot in diameter—was surrounded by a large damp stain.

  “The SAMU said they found Roque lying dead right there, still holding the replacement fuse. They put it back on the sill and screwed in another so the lights would go on.”

  “Which one did they take out of his hand?”

  “This one here.” The capitaine made to pick it up.

  “Let’s let it sit for a moment. When you were down here yesterday, was the puddle larger?”

  “I’m not sure. Possibly. Why? Is it important?”

  “Do you think I could take the fuse found in Roque’s hand back to Paris? I’m curious how he was electrocuted.”

  The capitaine gave her a shrewd look. “You know you’re playing with fire. It was made very clear to me that this entire incident was to go away very, very quietly. I’m sure you understand that.”

  “It’s just that it may have a bearing on another case I’m working on. If it does turn out that there’s a connection, I’ll make sure you get full credit. If not, I’ll forget all about it. Does that work for you?”

  “As long as you leave me out of it altogether no matter what happens, feel free to take anything you want. If it turns out I’ve been useful to you and you insist on expressing your gratitude, you might ask Monsieur de Huguelet to suggest a bottle or two of wine you could send me.” He winked broadly at Capucine.

  Back in Paris Capucine called Pascal Challoneau in forensics.

  “One of my brigadiers is bringing you something I picked up this afternoon. It’s the fuse that electrocuted Firmin Roque. Can you work your magic on it for me?”

  “If you suspect foul play, we should check the whole scene out.”

  “Too late for that. And the gendarmes have been ordered to downplay it.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Got it. Don’t like it, but I’ve got it.”

  That evening, as she walked down the hall to the kitchen of her apartment to look in on Alexandre’s dinner preparations, her cell phone rang.

  “Tell me, Commissaire, was there a puddle under that fuse box?”

  “A small one. But it looked like it had mostly dried up. My guess was that it was a lot larger yesterday.”

  “That figures. The fuse you sent me is coated with a highly conductive gel. It’s probably the stuff that’s sold with those electronic muscle-contracting exercise machines you see in the ads. We’re doing tests right now to identify the proprietary formula, but there’s no doubt it was highly conductive.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means, Commissaire, that it was murder. That’s what it means.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Even though she had more than half expected something of the kind, the directness of Challoneau’s announcement had been a bolt. Without thinking, she dialed Capitaine de Crébillon’s cell phone. He didn’t pick up until nearly the end of the fifth ring. In the background Capucine could hear people laughing and the chiming of silverware on plates. Too late, she realized that she must be pulling Crébillon away from a dinner party, no doubt an egregious offense in his universe.

  “What a joy to hear your voice, Madame le Commissaire.”

  “Capitaine, can I abuse your indulgence once again and request yet another favor? I’m afraid it’s rather an important one.” It had become obvious that the courtly approach was the one that worked best with Crébillon.

  “Madame, what man could have any aspiration in life other than enhancing your happiness? How may I be of service?”

  “I wonder if you could call Madame Roque and ask her one or two questions for me.”

  Even through the insubstantial cell phone Capucine could feel the chill. There was a long pause. Finally Crébillon said, “Of course, madame. I suppose it’s not too late in the evening to make a call. What would you like me to ask her?” A flat tone had replaced the courtly melody in his voice. Capucine explained what she wanted.

  As she waited for Crébillon to call her back, she became increasingly aware of the enormity of her imposition on him. She was amazed that he had even taken the call. The news that Roque’s death was murder was going to be an embarrassment to the conservative administration. The press would jump at the chance of insinuating that the murder was a political act guided by the spectral hand of the government. It was precisely the sort of case where the police would be damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. Careers had been blighted by far less.

  Her phone rang. In a dry tone Crébillon told Capucine that Madame Roque had been at home and had been quite happy to answer his questions. She had never seen a puddle on the basement floor before. It was definitely odd, because there were no pipes anywhere near the fuse box. Also, she had noticed that there was a big plastic pitcher on the counter of the basement sink that had beads of water in the bottom. She found this particularly odd since the pitcher was kept under the sink and she never used it.

  “Voilà, Commissaire, I trust your curiosity is satisfied. Now, I really must say I think we would both be well advised to drop this matter. Don’t you agr—”

  Capucine hardly listened. The only thing that now mattered was to get forensics into that basement and fingerprint everything as fast as possible.

  Capucine stared at the dead phone in her hand with no recollection of having made her adieus to Crébillon. She hoped she had been as grateful as politesse required. But even if she hadn’t, her short reverie had been worth it. She had defined her course of action.

  “So you’re absolutely convinced it was murder?” Contrôleur Général Tallon said with a slightly sardonic grin the next morning. Even though he was now in the stratosphere of the Police Judiciaire hierarchy, Tallon, who had been in charge of Capucine’s first homicide case, continued to act as her mentor.

  “Of course it is, sir. The evidence is conclusive. We need to get the INPS out there right away, while there’s still something to be found.”

  “N’ayez pas de zèle, Commissaire, as Talleyrand liked to say. Don’t be zealous. You’ve opened up a very nasty can of worms here. Far more nasty than I suspect you realize. Let me deal with it. I’ll call you this evening.”

  When the call came, Tallon said nothing other than to invite her to lunch the next day.

  They sat side by side on the cracked leather banquette facing the door at the end of the front room of Le Vieux Bistrot. Tucked under the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral, over the years the restaurant had been carefully maintained to retain its dusty, between-the-wars feel. Capucine nibbled at a dish of a dozen quail eggs fried sunny-side up in country butter, tiny clumps of bright red smoked paprika and specks of brilliant green chives making pointillist dots on the white, tan, and dark yellow background of the eggs. Tall
on dug large hunks out of an enormous pavé de bœuf, a two-inch-thick fillet steak covered in bone marrow, which had been brought to the table in an aluminum-foil papillote. Neither of them spoke.

  Halfway through his steak Tallon put his fork down. “The worms in the can were a good deal nastier than I suspected. There was a meeting this morning at the Ministry of the Interior. Suffice it to say, it was held at the Hôtel de Beauvau so it would be more convenient for the minister to pop in.” With a frown, he picked up his fork and cut a piece of pavé.

  Several bites later he resumed his narrative. “As you can imagine, there was no joy in the room. In the end it was decided that the PJ was to investigate the, ah, situation. Under my direct supervision. Of course, I’ll appoint you to take charge of the day-to-day work.”

  A Château Beychevelle had been served in almost comically oversized stemmed glasses. Tallon rotated the base of his glass on the table with two fingers of his hand, making the liquid spiral up higher and higher in the glass. He was very angry about something.

  “There is to be a press conference. Facts and photos will be put on display, but the intended message will only be hinted at. No more than the slight murmur whispering through the long grass of evidence. A suggestion will be planted that there is a possibility the murder was a domestic incident revolving around a mistress.”

  Tallon’s frown intensified, and he puckered his lips. It looked like he wanted to spit in his glass. The plan was beyond Machiavellian, a perfect win-win for the government. Roche would be discredited by the breath of scandal, and the right wing would be absolved of any suspicion of harboring a lunatic fringe capable of a political murder. That Madame Roque would be devastated and might even be stigmatized as a suspect was of no concern.

  Capucine gripped the long, thin stem of her glass so hard, it snapped. A waiter rushed up to give her a new one and pour more wine.