“So then what?”
“So nothing. That’s all there is to tell.”
“Look, Antonin, I’m investigating your brother’s murder. I don’t give a shit who you fucked or didn’t fuck in your village twenty years ago. As I said before, I’m happy enough to hear what you have to tell sitting in the sun, sipping pastaga, but I’d be just as happy hearing it down at the brigade. Suit yourself, pal.”
“All right, all right. Fucking calm down and listen up. So, like it was just too good. Fanny had her enormous boobs hanging out of her dress and was really hotted up, but this wimp Felix just wasn’t doing it for her. So I did what a gentleman does. I got rid of pastis-dicked Felix and gave her what she wanted.”
“How’d you get rid of him?”
“Went up and whacked him one upside the ear, and he went running off home, howling. No problem there.”
“And then you got on Fanny.”
“Sure did. Made her moan like a cat in heat. She was begging for more.”
“That’s when you got your pals in on the act.”
“Right. I’d finished. She wanted more. And you have to be fair with your buds. She liked them pretty good. Not as much as me, of course, but pretty good.”
“You’re a real gentleman. Then what happened?”
“She pushed Galinette off her and said she’d had enough. So we left. That’s all there was to it. Fanny was a good old girl. She didn’t want any more, and we weren’t going to give her a hard time, now were we?”
“And Jean-Louis was with you during all this?”
“Damn straight he was. Listen, that kid had it rough. Our mom died when he was four, and good old dad, the fucking baron, wasn’t dealing out of a full deck. All he cared about were his goddamn vegetables and his crazy collection of broken faïence. Jean-Louis would suck up to him all the time. The little fucker was trying so hard to stick his nose up Dad’s ass, he was turning into a fag. So I took him with me wherever I went. I wanted to man him up.”
“Didn’t Jean-Louis have any friends?”
“Yeah. One. He was big pals with Fanny’s little brother. What a waste of flesh that little brat was. Always the snide comment. Always rolling his eyes at you. If he hadn’t been Fanny’s little brother, I’d have popped him hard enough to get some respect out of him. I don’t know what happened to that little fucker after, but he sure was a pain in the ass when he was a kid.”
“And when you’d had enough of Fanny that evening, Jean-Louis left with you?”
“No. He started to and then turned around and went back to Fanny. Did I tell you he had this puppy love thing with her? So I let him go. I figured he was just going to get his share, you know? Probably his first time. If I’d been a good big brother, I’d have gone back with him to show him the ropes. But then I figured, what the hell. He’ll sort it out all by himself, and if he can’t, Fanny will give him a hand. She never could get enough, that one. So my buds and I went off to use our last twenty francs to get some beers.”
The Boulangerie Barbaroux in Cassis was a far grander establishment than Fanny’s parents’ shop in La Cadière. Six tall circular tables surrounded by high swivel chairs were bolted into the floor along the long plate-glass window. A row of refrigerated display windows offered, in addition to the usual assortment of Provençal pastry, an array of sandwiches and prepared dishes, all of which could be heated in one of the three microwave ovens.
The boulangerie bustled with chatting office workers on their lunch breaks. David waited in line until one of the eight lithesome counter girls, their summer tans just beginning to fade, favored him with a smile and took his order. He chose a fougasse that was so laden with anchovies, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes, it might almost have been a Neapolitan pizza folded into thirds and slit elegantly by a calligrapher. An attractive, thirtyish, well-figured woman took his five- and ten-euro notes and returned his change. Fanny for sure. A perfect clone of her mother. A little heavier perhaps, but all the more attractive for it. He was the only one who paid in cash. All the others had paid with government-subsidized meal vouchers.
David took his fougasse and a bottle of Kronenbourg 1664 beer to his tiny rental Peugeot and waited.
By two thirty the boulangerie was deserted. Through the plate-glass window he could see the cheerful girls energetically buffing every glass surface with liquid from squeeze bottles.
He pushed the plate-glass door open and walked up to the marble pay counter. Fanny was doing something complicated with the cash register. He assumed she was getting it to tell her what the luncheon revenue had been.
“Are you Françoise Folon?”
She looked him in the eye with a coquettish smile and then let her eyes slither down his frame. “Not for eighteen years. Now it’s Barbaroux. And no one’s ever called me Françoise. It’s Fanny.” The smile was her mother’s.
“I need to talk to you,” David said quietly.
“Police?”
David nodded his head a fraction of an inch.
“Come in back.”
The room behind the shop was the boulanger’s kitchen, with a long wooden table in the middle and two gigantic stoves along one wall. Fanny pushed two upright oak chairs to the corner of the table. They sat facing each other, the triangle of wood only half a barrier between them.
David studied her, pushing her back into her teens, seeing a full-breasted, lush-lipped, lusty adolescent, impatient with her too-small village, thirsty for the full measure of life’s sensuality. It was a common enough story, but the level of piquant in this one was far more intense than the average.
“I’m investigating the death of Jean-Louis Brault.”
Her eyes softened. “Poor Jean-Lu, just as he was finally unfolding his wings, they brought him down.”
“You were close to him when you were children?”
“I was the closest thing he had to a mother. He was my little baby. He had a terrible home. He lost his mother when he was little, and his father wasn’t really right in the head. He and my little brother, Lucien, were best friends, and he was always over at my parents’ boulangerie. My parents adored him, particularly my father, who loved to show him how to bake things. And, of course, Jean-Lu was best friends with Lucien, my little brother. The only child in the village that could get along with the little brat.” She laughed and shook her head. “He was a real problem, that kid. He mocked everyone. Never happy about anything. And jealous! Let me tell you.
“I’ll tell you a story. One morning my father and Jean-Lu were making pissaladière. My father would make this special dough for it that he would let rise and punch down four times. Then he handed it over to Jean-Lu, who must have been nine or ten, no more than that. Jean-Lu caramelized some very sweet Italian red onions he’d brought from his father’s garden. Then he made a perfect square out of the dough and laid the onions down as a bed. On top of that he made this complicated pattern with anchovies and Niçoise olives. In those days schoolchildren wore these smocks with big pockets, and Jean-Lu’s were always filled with all sorts of herbs and wildflowers he’d gather in the hills. He finished off his pattern with all kinds of colored wildflowers and then sprinkled some herbs on top. I tell you, when it came out of the oven, it looked just like a painting. It wasn’t just that it was the most beautiful pissaladière we had ever seen. It tasted absolutely unbelievable, too.
“Lucien took one bite out of his piece and threw it on the floor, saying Jean-Lu had put on too many anchovies and it was too salty.” Fanny laughed. “My mother was so mad, she slapped Lucien and sent him to his room without lunch.”
“Did Anou come to your house, as well?”
“Not really. He was the village hooligan. A tough guy. Sometimes he’d come to pick up his little brother and flex his muscles at me, but he’d never stay.”
David fell silent, searching for the words for his next question.
“In the village . . .” He paused. This was not quite right. “I understand that Anou assaulted you,” he bl
urted out, annoyed at his amateurism.
Fanny exploded in laughter. “Assaulted! As if any of those village children could assault anyone. But I know what you’re talking about, though. Let me tell you what really happened. I had a boyfriend. A nice, gentle little boy, the son of the village butcher. He would write me poems, bring me flowers. He was desperately in love with me. Girls at that age like that. Now I realize he must have been a pédé—a queer—and didn’t really like girls. He would kiss here and lick there, but he didn’t really like to get down to it.” She gave David a shrewd look, focusing on his long locks, having a hard time deciding which category to put him in.
“So, one evening we were in this little pine copse, and Olivier was getting me really worked up with his tongue but not doing much of anything else. I was starving. I’d had enough of the canapés. I wanted a good, thick, juicy red steak. Can you understand that?”
David nodded sagely, trying hard not to grin at the metaphor.
“And then I heard Anou and his little gang snickering. It was just too much for me. I know I shouldn’t have, but my blood was up. So I made a gesture for Anou to come over. I guess you know what happened next.”
David said nothing.
“It wasn’t as good as I expected it would be. Anou was strong and rough, but he had no sense of rhythm. He was doing it all for himself. One of his friends, Escartefigue, was much better. He really had the knack for it.”
“But you stopped them.”
“Of course I did. I saw Jean-Lu standing there, crying his eyes out, looking miserable. All of a sudden I realized what a torment it must have been for him. So I shooed the boys away—they left, clucking like chickens—and I took Jean-Lu into my arms. He cried for a long time. He was such a sweet child. When I looked up, there was my stupid little brother, wide-eyed, jealous that I was comforting his best friend and lusting after me at the same time. He didn’t give a shit that his best friend was upset. All he cared about was himself and what he wanted. What a jerk that little kid was.”
CHAPTER 43
“This wasn’t the easiest case we’ve ever had, eh, Commissaire?” Isabelle asked.
Hands on the wheel, Capucine turned and gave Isabelle a tolerant smile. They crossed the Pont Marie onto the eternally peaceful Ile Saint-Louis.
“I got worried when you refused to believe I was right about who the murderer was. But I guess you saw the light in the end,” Isabelle continued.
Capucine turned left at the rue Saint-Louis en l’Ile.
“Commissaire, I can’t imagine why you didn’t agree with me from the beginning. The trail of evidence was a mile wide.”
At the end of the street, Capucine turned left again onto the quai d’Anjou, drove a few hundred feet, and parked illegally in front of a garage door.
Both women got out of the car and walked up to small, crimson, enameled wood door with a semicircular top, which centuries before had undoubtedly been the servants’ entrance to the spacious town house. Isabelle produced a bunch of keys, examined the lock, opened it. Inside, they inspected a row of mailboxes labeled with small plastic numbered squares and, only occasionally, a scrawled paper label with a name.
“It’s in the back,” Capucine said.
Isabelle opened a second door with her set of keys, and they crossed a tiny stone-flagged courtyard with three cracked clay flowerpots containing shriveled geranium plants. The building in back had been built up over what had once been the stables. There was no lock on the door.
“Putain—shit,” Isabelle said. “No elevator.”
Capucine strictured her to silence with pursed lips. They began the climb up the four flights of worn oak steps on the sides of their feet, making as little noise as possible.
After two flights they paused to catch their breaths. Capucine’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. Automatically, she glanced at the caller ID. David. Calling in the middle of the afternoon meant it must be serious.
Capucine cradled the phone in her cupped hand and pressed the green ON button.
“Not a good time, David. Tell me quick,” Capucine whispered softly.
“I just interviewed Fanny Folon. The incident wasn’t at all what we thought. It couldn’t have been Lucien Folon. He doesn’t even come close to having a murderer’s profile, and there’s no motive at all.”
“He hasn’t been a serious suspect for weeks. I’ll call you later, and we’ll tell each other all about it.”
At the last landing they stopped in front of the door on the left. Capucine knocked politely. Nothing happened. Impatiently, Isabelle rapped loudly, her knuckles reverberating on the wood. The door opened a timid crack. Isabelle pushed it open violently with her shoulder.
“Police!”
Chéri Lecomte fell back, eyes wide.
When Capucine stepped around from behind Isabelle, Chéri’s eyes gaped even wider.
“Ca . . . Capucine . . .” Her voice faded.
“Mademoiselle, you’re under arrest for the murders of Firmin Roque and Jean-Louis Brault.”
The instant she took measure of the situation, Chéri’s confidence popped up like a jack-in-the-box.
“You can’t arrest me. I’m an American citizen. Here, just look at this.”
Chéri wheeled and grabbed at her handbag on a table by the door.
Isabelle grabbed Chéri’s extended arm, twisted it behind her, and slammed her into the wall with a loud thud. She twisted the other arm around and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.
Capucine opened Chéri’s handbag, extracted an American passport from a side pocket, and waved it disdainfully in front of Chéri’s face.
“As they used to say in New York, ‘This and fifteen cents will get you a ride on the IRT.’ In France it will get you absolutely nothing. Let’s get going.”
Back at the brigade Chéri was put in one of Capucine’s interrogation rooms, recently redecorated as blandly as a mid-market motel room. Only the black-framed six-foot-long mirror—a fake, intended to raise the stress of the interviewee—and a folding metal chair, painstakingly chosen for its lack of comfort, hinted at the room’s purpose.
Chéri was seated in the uncomfortable chair, rubbing her wrists to ease the pain of the over-tight handcuffs. Slate-faced, Isabelle observed her from behind a Swedish blond-wood desk. Capucine paced the room.
“I demand you call the American embassy. You have no right to hold me like this. I need them to appoint me a lawyer right away.”
“Don’t be silly. This is a police interrogation. You have no right to a lawyer. When I hand you over to a prosecutor for trial, you’ll have the opportunity to select counsel and your embassy is free to help you with that. But until then, you’re all mine,” Capucine said with a malevolent little smile.
“All right, have it your way. What can you possibly think I’m guilty of?”
“I’m going to start by telling you what happened, and then you can fill in the details. You were at the center of a racket that produced and sold forgeries of antique faïence. Pieces from Chef Jean-Louis Brault’s collection were copied at the Faïence de Châteauneuf-sur-Loire by Firmin Roque. Then you either sold the copies yourself or had them sold through your contacts.”
Chéri raised her eyebrows with polite incredulousness, as if a slightly tipsy friend had made a comically farfetched allegation about one of her acquaintances.
“Really?”
“But you got greedy. And instead of returning all of Chef Brault’s original pieces, you kept some of them and gave him forgeries.”
Chéri maintained her tolerant smile.
“But Brault discovered what you were up to and went into a paranoid rage. He was so out of control, you thought he might go to the authorities. So you killed him.”
There was a long pause. Pantomiming extreme patience, Chéri made a show of her thin smile.
“And when Roque learned that Brault had been murdered, he immediately made the connection. He knew that if his involvement in the forgeries became known, hi
s halo of Marxist sanctity would crumble. He insisted you come to see him. He intimidated you. You knew he was a consummate politician and perfectly capable of blowing the whistle so he could frame you and Brault and hide behind the smoke screen of your murder trial. So you seized your opportunity and killed him, too.”
Chéri laughed happily. “You have a delightful imagination. I can just see you and Alexandre sitting around the dinner table, sipping wine and swapping your fabulous stories. Kudos. But you don’t have the slightest shred of proof for any of this.”
“As it happens, I have more than enough evidence to remand you to the juge d’instruction right now.”
The merest trace of worry dimpled Chéri’s brow.
“Let’s review the evidence. The tip-off was the outrageous bid you placed on that sixteenth-century Menton rafraîchissoir. The explanation was obvious. You had returned a forgery of the original to Brault after it had been copied at Châteauneuf. A few months later Brault decided to sell it to help finance his hotel. You saw the piece in the auction catalog and desperately needed to buy it before someone noticed it was a fake.”
Chéri shrugged her shoulders.
“Next, we have the fact that four pieces in the auction of Brault’s collection were discovered to be fakes. As it happened, two of those pieces had been auctioned to Brault by the commissaire-priseur, who was certain that when he sold them, they were genuine. Therefore, someone must have substituted the originals with forgeries. And that someone had to be you.”
Chéri shrugged again.
“Our forensics unit determined that you were selling fakes made at Châteauneuf from your stand at the Puces. Since you were selling identical copies of the same piece on successive days, it was obvious you were actively and knowingly perpetrating a fraud.”
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