Martel turned forty-five degrees in his chair, completely focused on the new arrival. Convincing the newcomer of the nobility of his actions had become Martel’s paramount concern.
“See, I work for this élevage that raises the best beef in France, right?”
“I know that part,” the lieutenant said with a laugh.
“So when I get hired a bunch of years ago, the general manager, a guy called Gerlier, comes up to me and says I look like a guy he could trust and that I could double my salary without working extra time. So I find myself in charge of shooting steers with hormones. It’s no big deal. You just pop an implant into their ears with a little hypodermic gismo, and they’re good for three months. That’s how the beef got so good. Get me?”
The lieutenant smiled, took out a pack of Marlboro reds, flipped it open, and offered them to Martel, who looked at Capucine for approval. Capucine nodded and he took one. The two smokers went through the bonding of lighting their cigarettes and relishing the rush of the first drag.
“What’s the big deal with these hormones?”
“The big deal? They’re illegal. That’s the big deal. The European Community has outlawed them, just like they tried to make our cheese illegal. The stuff makes the beef way better, more tender and flavorful, you know, and since the steers grow faster, it costs lots less money. The Americans can use hormones, but we can’t. How dumb is that?”
“Got it. So then what?”
“So, one day my man Gerlier gets shot when he’s out hunting partridge with the nobs.”
“Did he die?”
“For sure. No more Gerlier. No more hormones. That gig was done and gone.”
“What about Vienneau? Why didn’t you go to him for more hormones?” Capucine asked.
“Vienneau! He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. All he did was walk around once a week, trying real hard not to get dirty, letting Gerlier show him what was happening. That guy couldn’t find the ear on a steer. How was he going to know about hormones?”
The lieutenant stood up and looked at his watch. Martel became agitated.
“Hang on, hang on. I gotta tell you this.”
“Sure.”
“So, the next thing I know, we have a smart-ass intern from the agricultural school who’s there for the summer. One cute tree-hugging asshole. You know the type?”
“Sure do.” The lieutenant took a drag on his cigarette and nodded in ironic sympathy.
“Well, this kid’s always out poking at the cattle and going over the growth records and all that, and I’m beginning to think maybe he’s figured something out. And wait. It gets worse. So this guy Bouvard, the one you always see on TV getting arrested for freeing us from crap in supermarkets, he’s going to come to town to do a number on this new fast-food restaurant we got. And our little intern goes ballistic. He’s got to meet up with this Bouvard. I mean, like it’s the most important thing that’s ever happened in his little life.”
“What was he going to tell him?”
“What do you think?” Martel asked with a sneer. “Stands to reason he’d figured out about the hormones. Shit. If Bouvard had found out about that, he’d have gone to town, even though we’d stopped. It would have been curtains for the élevage.”
“But you fixed it, right?”
“Sure did! I slipped a couple of Brennekes in my shotgun and went to the demonstration, like I was just having a look before going out to shoot a rabbit or two for my dinner. I pretty much knew what would happen. The flics in that town just can’t not push people around. And when everyone was shoving and hollering and the cops were shooting in the air, I just squeezed one off into that intern’s chest. Problem solved,” he said with satisfaction.
“Tell him about Bellec,” Capucine said enthusiastically, as if that had been his crowning achievement.
“Oh yeah, that guy was a real problem. So, like, you need another guy to help inject the hormone implants, right? Someone has to deal with the steer while you do it.”
“Sure,” the lieutenant said.
“So Bellec was my man. Trouble was that when we shut down the operation, he got pissed off. He had to keep getting paid, even though he wasn’t doing nothing no more. And that’s where I made my big mistake. I kept paying him. I mean, it wasn’t all that much, so why not, really? But then I made my second mistake. I told him about the intern thing. I mean, how dumb can you get? After that he wanted more money, or he was going to spill the beans. And every time I’d pay him, he’d want even more. Then I found my chance one Saturday and took care of him. Not for me, of course. It was because I didn’t want him to hurt the élevage.” Martel wanted to make absolutely sure that the lieutenant didn’t miss the point.
“What do you mean, you took care of him?”
“There was this commotion one Saturday because the hunt had a stag run out on the ice and they were trying to shoot it. Everybody in the village goes down to the lake to look, and I see Bellec in the crowd. I have my car right there, so I get my CZ out of the trunk and pop a three-hundred Winchester Mag into the fucker. Another problem solved.”
“Pierre,” Capucine said, “you told your story very well. Everyone’s going to know that you really had the interest of the élevage at heart. Jean-Luc is going to print it out so you can sign it, and then we can all call it a night and get some sleep.”
Martel grinned like a little boy. He was finally going to get out of that horrible room.
Capucine knew it would take less then ten minutes. The microphones had fed the confession into the voice-recognition software of a computer in the staff room. The lieutenant would need a few minutes to make some corrections and add a few commas and would then bring it back to be signed and witnessed by all three officers.
Martel looked tired, but it was the virtuous fatigue of a job well done. Capucine felt depleted, her mind awash with half thoughts of the young Devere, who would never know what it was like to fall really in love or play with his children or have the joy of growing old with someone. She missed the phone book. Martel richly deserved to have his head slumped on the table with a trickle of blood dripping from a ruptured eardrum. The guilty so deserved to suffer like the guilty.
Then she remembered that in half an hour Martel would be on his way to the profoundly depressing La Santé Prison in the Fourteenth Arrondissement, where he would spend every day and every night of the rest of his life, with the sole exception of one morning in court, when he would stare, frightened, at a row of judges perched on a bench like a line of black crows on a branch, confirming his fate. There was at least some order to the universe.
CHAPTER 48
Even though the depths of winter were still distant, there was a mood of finality in the air. It felt as if the credits were about to roll and this was the last trip to Maulévrier, at least for a while. Only Capucine, Alexandre, and Jacques—and, of course, Oncle Aymerie—were in residence for the weekend. The château felt stale and fuggy, as if it needed a thorough airing out.
On Saturday Capucine and Alexandre decided to have a go at the last of the mushrooms. It was too cold for a picnic, but Odile packed a light snack they could nibble while rooting around the browning ferns—two kinds of tiny, glazed, cigar-shaped sandwiches: smoked salmon and Parma ham with Morbier cheese. Naturally, she also included a small flask of the inevitable Calvados.
Alexandre was elated. Either he was delighted to be released from the bonds of Saint-Nicolas or he had drained the dregs of his cane flask before filling it for the day. They held hands. They leaned against each other. They giggled. Capucine finally mastered the art of sipping from the cane flask with grace and elegance, a gesture that ineluctably engendered refined ribaldry from Alexandre. Capucine’s thoughts turned to the time they had been frustrated by the hunt. She gripped Alexandre’s hand more tightly and then put her arm around his waist. He moaned in ecstasy and dropped to his knees.
“Cèpes! Look at them! A whole basketful. In one spot. Dinner is saved.”
As he leaned forward to cut the first of the mushrooms from its stem, Capucine booted his bottom as hard as she could. Undeterred, Alexandre collected cèpes until his basket was filled to overflowing. He rose, smirking slightly, and took Capucine in his arms. “Where were we?”
Capucine kicked him in the shins. “You cad. Do you really think I’m going to play second fiddle to a pile of fungal growths?” Alexandre kissed her. Capucine kicked him again. And once again. But finally, ne’er consenting, she consented.
Later, walking back to town, Alexandre said, “You know, I think we should stop off and see our friend Homais. The stems of these cèpes are a little darker than they should be. I want to make doubly sure they’re not one of the poisonous varieties.”
Capucine didn’t reply but twisted around in that uniquely feminine gesture to check her posterior and make sure no leaves had stuck to her tweed skirt.
Homais’s welcome had warmed up a little but had not quite regained its former effusiveness. He invited them to come into his office at the back of the pharmacy—“my sanctum sanctorum”—and place the mushrooms on his worktable. As Alexandre spread them out delicately, Homais sat down at his desk and finished making some sort of note in dark green ink with an extravagant-looking gold Caran d’Ache fountain pen. Capucine wondered where he had learned to ape this classic and highly irritating affectation of Paris doctors.
After a minute or two he reread his note, added a comma or two with an exasperated sigh, carefully capped his pen, and said, “Très bien, let’s have a look at your trove.
“Ah,” Homais said with his insufferably knowledgeable air. “These are not common cèpes, Boletus edulis. These are the prince of cèpes, Boletus aereus, what they call, even in this enlightened age, têtes de nègre. Monsieur, you have the luck of your wife.”
“Am I that lucky?” Capucine asked.
“The paysans think it’s either pure luck or witchcraft the way you produced a murderer out of thin air, but they understand nothing about modern forensic science. I wrote a piece on your brilliant arrest for the Paris-Normandie. It was very well received. I, at least, was happy to have had you sojourn in our little village. Now I am going to write a piece about the recrudescence of têtes de nègre so late in the year.”
Capucine couldn’t help notice both the “I, at least” and that her stay had been consigned to the past tense.
Later that afternoon it was Alexandre’s turn to be miffed when he was vigorously shooed from the kitchen by Odile, who seemed almost put out by his contribution of têtes de nègre. Compounding his irritation, the tremolos of Odile’s giggles, punctuated by Jacques’s Amadean cackle, echoed loudly on the ground floor until the evening apéro was served.
Dinner that night had a decidedly valedictorian flavor. The conversation started off as tepidly as the potimarron soup, a standard at the château, whose nutlike roundness invited one to curl up in a chaise longue with a book rather than fence across the table with rapier-like wit. Once Gauvin had cleared the soup plates, Odile herself arrived with the main course, blushing like a little girl. It struck Capucine that Odile was the only resident of the château who genuinely enjoyed life without reservation. She held a beautifully chased silver platter that held eight partridges, carefully arranged in two rows of four, covered in a nubbly, attractive brown coating. Conversation skidded to a halt. Partridges were not served breaded. Even more alarming was the aroma. Pleasant for sure, but definitely very un-French.
Oncle Aymerie broke the silence. With the courtly courtesy dictated by his pronounced sense of noblesse oblige, he asked, “Why, Odile, you seem to have outdone yourself. What new creation have you come up with?”
“Monsieur, this is perdrix crusted with peanuts and dried mangos on a bed of curry leaf and quinoa.” She could barely contain her pride.
“Quinoa?” Oncle Aymerie asked, nonplussed, carefully imitating Odile’s pronunciation, “KEEN-wah.”
“It’s a seed grown on the west coast of Latin America. The conquistadores didn’t think much of it, so it never made its way to Europe, but think of it as a sort of Latin American couscous.” Alexander’s explanation left his audience unimpressed.
“Exactly, monsieur,” Odile said. “And the partridge is roasted in a coating made of Greek yogurt, mango powder, crushed peanuts, chopped coriander stems, chopped green chilies, and, oh yes, just a hint of lemon juice. The quinoa bed is simplicity itself. Just add dried chili, curry leaves, mustard seeds, root ginger, and sugar, with chopped basil, tomato, and onions for volume. Voilà. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
Oncle Aymerie was visibly making an effort to keep his jaw from dropping. “But, Odile, where did you get all these things? Mango powder? Quinoa? Curry leaves?”
“Monsieur, there’s a new gourmet shop on the square. That’s where I’ve been buying the coffee you like so much.”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course,” Oncle Aymerie said lamely.
They began by picking at the partridge with all the misgivings of a ten-year-old forced to try a new food. It was delicious. Not just delicious, but the antithesis of the oh-not-again feeling that any kind of game evoked once the shooting season was under way. There was no question that Odile had been brilliant. But in being brilliant, she had raised another, profoundly visceral question: was Maulévrier really the place for brilliance?
Capucine could see Oncle Aymerie casting around the table, looking for the culprit. There had to be an éminence grise. Odile would never have dared such an initiative on her own. He settled first on Alexandre, who was rooting through his plate apparently admiringly, until it became obvious that he was reassuring himself that his precious têtes de nègre had not been drowned in the concoction. It was clearly not him. Oncle Aymerie then focused on Jacques and his eyes turned to flint. There would be words after dinner for sure.
“Ma petite Capucine,” Oncle Aymerie said in a voice more gravelly than usual, obviously determined to change the subject, “tell us about the case. I still don’t know what really happened.”
“Mon Oncle, explaining how a case was solved always disappoints people. It’s like a magician revealing how his tricks are performed. They always seem so simple and tawdry when you know how they’re done.”
“Ah ha! So you admit you had the ace of spades in your panties all along,” Jacques said. “Out with it. I thought I taught you what happens to coy little girls long ago.”
Capucine made a caricature of a pout. “If you insist. It’s a sad story that started because Philippe Gerlier was dosing the steers with illegal growth hormones. Actually, Pierre Martel and Lucien Bellec had been doing the work for him. Once every three months they would inject a slow-release capsule of a synthetic hormone into the animals’ ears.”
“Stop right there,” Oncle Aymerie ordered. “What’s so bad about these hormones?”
“Papa, these are,” Jacques said, ostentatiously looking at the door to make sure none of the servants were listening and lowering his voice to a dramatic whisper, “sex hormones. So if one day Odile served you a steak from the élevage and ate one herself, why, you would just spend your evening chasing each other up and down the corridors of the château.”
Oncle Aymerie was furious. “I won’t put up with that sort of impertinence,” he sputtered.
Odile, who had just made an appearance at the door to gauge the reaction to the partridges in the eating, was heard to mutter under her breath, “I wouldn’t be running fast enough for there to be all that much chasing.” Oncle Aymerie turned bright red.
It was Capucine’s turn to apply the proverbial oil.
“From the very beginning I was struck by the fact that the growth rate had fallen off when Gerlier died. There had to be a connection, and it was a good bet that he had been injecting them with hormones. What I couldn’t figure out was how he obtained them. It was only when I planted an undercover officer who discovered that Gerlier took frequent trips to visit an ailing mother in the American Midwest that it was obvious what he had bee
n up to. Particularly since police records showed that his mother had never left France and had died ten years ago.”
“But how did that lead you to Martel?” Oncle Aymerie asked.
“It was obvious that Gerlier couldn’t be doing it alone. He would have needed help to inject the steers. Martel was the logical candidate. He was in charge of the cattle while they were in the feed shed, so it would not attract attention if he ordered them sent down the chute for some kind of treatment. He was also so feared that the hands would stay away from him while he was injecting them.”
“It was all just guesswork?” Oncle Aymerie asked, dismayed.
“Not at all. The undercover officer, Momo, recognized him when he was beaten. There had to be something behind that assault. I was sure Martel had caught Momo snooping around and was desperate to get him off the premises. I still lose sleep about how close Momo came to getting shot in the back. But it turned out that Martel thought Momo was only rifling the accounting office for booze money. But it still made him nervous enough to want him gone.”
“That’s clear enough. But how could you have known he killed those two men?” Oncle Aymerie asked.
“I didn’t, but he was the logical choice. That day Martel showed us around the plant, Devere talked a good deal about hormones and was very excited about the upcoming visit of Jean Bouvard. Martel was clearly concerned. And Lucien Bellec, well, that just couldn’t have been coincidence. I relied on my intuition.”
Alexandre had taken the opportunity of the collective fascination with Capucine’s narrative to devour his partridges. “Capucine’s intuition is as reliable as a hound’s sense of smell,” he said, chewing contentedly.
“I was positive that if I arrested Martel, I would be able to make him confess. Of course, it was far more of a gamble than I should have taken, but it paid off.”
“Ah, the powers of the telephone book!” Jacques said. “It’s so superior to that messy waterboarding they make us use. If you don’t wear rubber boots when you do it, you ruin your shoes.”
Crime Fraiche Page 25
