Death of a Chef

by Alexander Campion

  “The butcher’s son,” David said, concentrating on chewing. He realized how much he missed real fougasse when he was in Paris.

  “And you’re writing a book about Jean-Louis Brault.”

  “Guilty again.” David swallowed his last bite of fougasse, washed it down with the last swallow of the rosé, and edged into Olivier’s space. “I was going to sit outside and have a pastaga. Care to join me?” Without waiting for a reply, David turned to Casimir and said, “We’ll be on the terrace. Can you bring us One Hundred and Two?”

  At the luncheon hour the village square was deserted. Not even a stray dog wandered by to lift his leg. The din of the cicadas was almost deafening. David savored the liquorish taste of the pastis, his third of the day.

  Olivier took a quick deep draught, downing a quarter of his drink.

  “You’re going to write about that . . . incident . . . with Fanny?” This time it came out as a question.

  David said nothing.

  Olivier downed another quarter of his drink, choked, and coughed.

  “Well, I don’t want to look bad in your book. I want you to say what really happened.”

  David said nothing, egging Olivier on with his silence.

  “The village will tell you that Fanny encouraged Anou. But that’s not true at all. Not at all. It’s important you know that.”

  David looked at him and slowly took a sip of pastis. “Let me try and visualize the scene,” he said. “You were, if I understand the situation, on top of Fanny when Brault came up with his pals?”

  “Of course I was on top of her. She was my girlfriend. And let me tell you, she was writhing and moaning and having a wonderful time. She really was. It’s important you understand that.”

  David nodded dispassionately. “And so what happened ?”

  “I noticed Anou and a bunch of his pals hiding in the trees, sniggering at us. They all had cans of beer in their hands and were having a good time at my expense. Fanny saw them, too, and stopped moving around. It’s true she looked at them. Who wouldn’t?”

  There was another long pause. Both men finished their drinks.

  “Then Anou came over to us and hauled me up by my collar and made me stand. I told him to let go. That’s when he hit me in the ear. It started bleeding.”

  “Did Fanny scream?”

  “No. She was so shocked, she just lay there with a funny expression on her face. That was all that happened.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “What did I do? Five of the biggest bullies in the village were about to beat me up. I got out of there as fast as I could. I was lucky to get home in one piece. Anybody would do that, right?”

  “And was Jean-Louis Brault there?”

  “I don’t know. Probably. It happened very fast. Jean-Louis was always hanging around with his big brother. He might have been behind the other boys. Yes, now that I think about it, he was there. Definitely!”

  A scrawny man in patched work clothes came up behind Olivier and called out, “Salut, Le Cocu! How’s it going, Cuckold!” Judging from the slur in his voice, the newcomer was a fervent adept of the maire’s school of mid-morning drinking.

  Olivier turned as sharply as a skittish cow prodded with a sharp stick.

  “Oh, salut, Philoxéne,” Olivier said meekly, his glow of self-righteousness evaporating like a wisp of mist in the morning sun.

  Philoxéne Cabanis, the fourth victim. The very man he was going to spend the rest of the afternoon tracking down. The Midi was definitely the place to do police work. Here, all you had to do was sit at a café table, sipping pastaga in the warm sun, and everyone you wanted would eventually come and sit right down with you.

  “Sounds like you were talking about my girlfriend, Fanny,” Cabanis said, making a sign at Casimir through the window of the bar. Casimir ignored him, industrious with his glasses.

  Olivier clenched his teeth and scowled at Cabanis.

  “What’s the matter, you wimp? Are you afraid I’m going to tell Le Cannois about how Fanny was so bored with your tiny little dick that she was begging Anou to come over and give her something man sized to moan about?” Cabanis grinned at David. “If this guy was an inch shorter, he’d be a girl!” He roared with laughter.

  Olivier stood up, his face flushed bright carmine.

  Cabanis stood up, too. “What are you going to do? Punch me, you little half-pint? Go on. Get out of here. Run back to your daddy and hide behind his apron, like you always do.” He pushed Olivier violently in the chest. Olivier staggered and regained his balance. “Go on. Get. No room for a little boy at a table of men.”

  Olivier’s eyes moistened. He pivoted and walked off almost at a trot.

  “That’s the same thing that happened the evening we had that laugh with Fanny. Daddy’s boy there took one look at Anou and galloped off home. What he can’t get over is that Fanny had smiled at Anou and had beckoned him to come over. Can’t nobody say that’s not true. I was there. That Fanny always knew a real man when she saw one. She sure had an eye for it.”

  Cabanis made another gesture at the barman, with as little success. David turned in his seat and motioned to Casimir with his fingertips.

  “A Hundred and Two,” he ordered, putting a little twist on his grin to take the sting out of the incident.

  Cabanis nodded his thanks. “I guess it’s true that you’re becoming a caïd around here,” he muttered almost inaudibly.

  “I owe it all to clean living,” David said, clinking his glass against Cabanis’s. Both men chuckled.

  “So what’s your version of the story?” David asked.

  “Same as everybody else’s. We was just out having some beers and roaming around, seeing what was happening, and Anou gets an idea. ‘Let’s go over to that wood on the hill behind the village. That’s where that pussy Felix Olivier takes his girl. Let’s see if Fanny likes it or just lies there, wishing it was somebody else.’ So we go up there, and sure enough, they’re hard at it. Felix is trying to get her to take her dress off, but she wasn’t having any of that. Finally, she gives a snort and lifts her skirt and lies back in the grass. Felix was in and out in about three heartbeats. Fanny was really pissed off. ‘It happened again, you idiot. I told you, you have to learn to take it slow.’ That’s when Anou goes up to them.

  “When Fanny sees Anou coming up, she gets all smiley at him. So what was Anou going to do? He lifts Felix up by the collar and goes, ‘Let me show you what she means, wimp.’ Felix says something, and Anou gives him a good one up the side of the head and he runs off. Tu veux que je te dise? Do you want me to tell you? It was a whole different story when Anou got going. Fanny started moaning loud enough to get the whole village up there.”

  “And then you all had a go at her.”

  “Nah, just two of us. And then Fanny says she’s getting sore and it’s time to go home to dinner, anyway. So we go back down the hill. On the way down we run into Lucien Folon coming up. I guess his mother had sent him looking for Fanny to get her home to dinner on time. Lucien gives us all a dirty look, but nothing happens.”

  “And Jean-Louis Brault was with you.”

  “Funny thing that. He was with us when we went up the hill. That’s for sure. When we were up there, I sure didn’t have my eyes on no little kid. You can bet on that. But when we went back down the hill, he wasn’t with us. Maybe he’d run off scared. He didn’t want to go in the first place, but Anou made him.” He stopped short. “Think you can get your pal Casimir to bring us some more pastaga? He won’t serve me.”

  When the next round had been brought and water added with care, Cabanis resumed his tale. “Thing is, if that Folon kid hadn’t gone off the deep end, everybody in the village would have forgotten about it in three days. But no, Folon goes ballistic. First thing he does is beat the shit out of Jean-Lu every day at school. Got so bad, Anou had to show up and put a stop to it. That only made him wilder.

  “Next thing he does is pinch a fifty-pound bag of sodium chlorate f
rom the gardener’s shed at the school—you know, the stuff they use to kill weeds in gravel driveways—and sprinkle it around the base of the baron’s olive trees one night when it’s beginning to get stormy. There was no trace of it after the rain, but the day after, the leaves start falling off. I tell you, those damn trees still don’t give a decent crop of olives.” Cabanis shook his head in amazement.

  “But that wasn’t enough for Lucien. So he goes out looking for stray cats and gets about six of them in a burlap bag. He goes over to the Brault place real quiet in the middle of the night and throws the bag over this chicken-wire fence right into the baron’s precious bantam hens. In the morning half of them are dead, and the other half don’t lay for six months.” Cabanis leaned far over the table and whispered conspiratorially, “But that was nothing, I mean nothing, compared to what he did after.” He tapped the side of his empty glass significantly.

  David went up to the bar to get the drinks. PJ accounting wasn’t going to believe how much he had to spend on booze on this case.

  As he poured a fresh glass, Casimir said, “Watch out for that one when he’s had a snout full. He can get mighty nasty. That’s why I don’t want him in here.”

  David smiled, pursing his lips, and shook his head, miming that there was nothing to worry about.

  “What did he do next? Tu veux que je te dise? Do you want me to tell you?” Cabanis asked when David returned with the drinks. “He started killing us off one by one.”

  Beneath his level stare, David rejoiced. This was definitely the place to do police work. You didn’t even have to ask questions. All you had to do was bring the drinks.

  “You don’t believe me? Listen up. There were six of us that night with Fanny, right? You know what happened to Jean-Lu. What you don’t know is that someone shot Galinette in the head at close range. Then Escartefigue falls down a ravine in the hills up there.” Cabanis waved vaguely in the direction of the north with his arm. “That guy was as sure-footed as a goat, running up and down the rocks after wild herbs. Then Jean gets mowed down by a tractor as he’s riding home on his Solex. Even the dumb-ass gendarmes thought that was suspicious, but they still called it an accident.”

  Cabanis looked at David truculently. “And Anou? What do you think happened to him? Hasn’t been heard from in years. He probably was the first to get done in. So what does that tell you?”

  David said nothing.

  “No, merde, I’m not kidding. What does that tell you?” Cabanis almost yelled. Casimir looked at them with alarm from behind the bar.

  “It tells me that you think you’re going to be next.”

  “Goddamn fucking right that’s what I think. So get me another drink. I need one.”

  CHAPTER 31

  After Chéri left the office, Capucine traced a pattern on the imitation-wood surface of her desk for a few seconds, rooted around in her desk for Brissac-Vanté’s card, and dialed his cell phone number. True to Chéri’s word, it rang six times before voice mail clicked in. The phone was turned on and had a signal, but no one was picking up.

  Next, she called Brissac-Vanté office. A bright, young, perky female voice answered immediately.

  “Monsieur Brissac-Vanté, s’il vous plaît. This is—”

  “I’m sorry. He’s in a meeting right now. Can I take a message and get him to call you back as soon as he’s available ?”

  “Mademoiselle, this is the police. Would you please inform Monsieur Brissac-Vanté that I need to speak to him immediately.”

  “I’m sorry. He’s actually playing golf. He won’t be back until much later.”

  “Golf? No problem. Tell me where he’s playing and I’ll have him picked up.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “I can’t. . . . He, well, really, he’s gone to England for a golf tournament. I should have said that.”

  “Mademoiselle, lying to the police is a punishable offense. What if I send a squad car for you and we finish this discussion in my office?”

  “Please, madame,” the secretary said through an obviously dry throat. “I’m only telling you what Madame Brissac-Vanté told me to say. She called me last week and said that her husband would be going abroad and I was to take messages if anyone called. I only said it was England because he goes there so often.”

  “And you haven’t heard from him since then?”

  “No. Not a word. Not even an e-mail. It’s really weird. This is the first time this has happened in the whole year I’ve been working here.”

  “When, exactly, was the last time you saw him?”

  “Last Thursday evening. He was here when I left. He didn’t come in on Friday or any day this week.”

  “Do you know what his plans were for Thursday evening?”

  “Of course. I had made a reservation for a table for two at Le Grand Véfour for eight o’clock that night. I don’t know who he was taking, but a fancy place like that, it must have been a potential client.”

  Next, Capucine called Le Grand Véfour and used her married name, which invariably got her further in restaurant circles than her police rank. She asked for the sommelier, who was a close acquaintance of Alexandre’s.

  “André, can you do me a huge favor? Get the hostess to see if she had a reservation last Thursday for a Monsieur Brissac-Vanté.”

  He was back on the line in three minutes. “We did, but he was a no-show. He had a guest, a stuffy-looking business type, who sat around for half an hour, drinking a nice Dom Ruinart ninety-eight we have by the glass, and then left in a huff. Chef was seriously pissed off. We never have no-shows, and the guest stalked out without paying for his wine. Chef put this Brissac-Vanté on our no-reserve list.”

  Twenty minutes later Capucine double-parked in front of the Brissac-Vantés’ building on the avenue Henri-Martin. As she approached the door, an extremely well-dressed, silver-haired gentleman exited and held the door open for her with a courtly bow and an engaging smile. Delighted she had been spared announcing herself on the interphone, she rewarded the gentleman with an almost imperceptible wiggle of her gluteals.

  The door was opened by a maid in a black polyester dress and a white lace-bordered apron, an outfit Capucine had been sure existed only in the movies.

  “Madame Brissac-Vanté, s’il vous plaît,” Capucine requested with the easy smile of a social call.

  “Madamie pas ici,” came the answer in a thick Portuguese accent.

  Capucine aped a look of alarm and dismay. “But I’m supposed to have lunch with her.”

  “Não here. She esta with horses,” the maid said on the defensive, convinced she was about to be blamed for something.

  It took a few seconds for the penny to drop.

  “L’Etrier? We’re supposed to be having lunch at l’Etrier? Silly me. I always mix everything up.”

  The maid’s happy smile was as warm as the Algarve sun.

  Despite the fact that l’Etrier had enough acreage in the Bois de Boulogne for three riding rings and comfortable boxes for over a hundred horses, the clubhouse was a modest little affair with a small bar, a tiny sitting area, and a twenty-cover dining room.

  As Capucine approached the clubhouse, two teenage girls lazily put their geldings over three-foot jumps. They both wore brightly colored ski jackets over riding pants with suede leggings instead of boots, clearly the equestrian must of the season. After each jump they would look into the plate-glass window, presumably at doting mothers.

  Yolande Brissac-Vanté sat by herself at the diminutive bar. At Capucine’s approach Yolande turned, took a moment to recognize her, jumped off her stool, preparing to run, then realized she was cornered. Her face was a tight rictus of terror, eyes so wide, the white was visible all the way around the azure irises.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m trying to find your husband. Do you know where he is?”

  Yolande choked back a sob and looked wildly around the almost empty room. The barman could be heard noisily stacking bottles in the
kitchen.

  “He’s away on a business trip. I’ll have him call you as soon as he gets back,” she croaked. “Now go away.”

  “Madame,” Capucine said, “if your husband is missing, it’s potentially very serious. He’s a key person in two murder cases. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to take you to my brigade for a formal interview.”

  Yolande cringed as if she had been struck.

  “We can’t talk here,” she whispered. And then, in a much louder voice, “I was just about to go see my mare. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Wordlessly, they walked down long rows of square, oversized boxes until they reached one that displayed a neat card in a metal frame: Euthymie. Yolande leaned over the lower half of the door and peered in at her horse munching hay in the back of the box. An elderly, grizzled groom in blue workers’ overalls ambled over and mumbled, “B’jour, m’dame.” Yolande started and recoiled, ready to run again. Recognizing the groom, she sighed in relief. The groom apologized for the intrusion, then launched into a patois narrative about poor Euthymie’s near foreleg inflammation, which at long last seemed to be responding to the ointment the veterinarian had prescribed.

  Yolande smiled at the groom. “That’s wonderful. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been needing some good news.” Her horse stuck her head out of the box, lips questing for treats in the pockets of Yolande’s tweed jacket. Yolande stroked her nose. “The softest thing the dear Lord ever made,” she said, more to herself than to Capucine. Her eyes filled with tears.

  “It was last Thursday. He told me he was going straight from work out to dinner with a prospective client. But he didn’t come home that night. I’m such a bad wife, I suspected he had gone out with a girl and gotten too drunk to come home.”

  Capucine said nothing.

  “He didn’t come back the next night, either. I thought he must have run off with someone. I was in a rage. I despise myself for having so little trust in him. Then the call came. It was terrible, but it was as if a ton of bricks had been lifted from my chest. They want money. All I have to do is pay and I’ll get him back. Isn’t that wonderful?”