“So now I have to retell all of this to Antoine?” Sylvie asked.
“Yes. But I could arrange it that you speak to Yves Roussel instead.”
“Oh God! That short prosecutor who rides up and down the cours Mirabeau on his Harley?”
“Yes.”
“I prefer Antoine Verlaque.”
“So do I.”
Chapter Nineteen
Le Cha-Cha
Marine stopped between the third and fourth floors, as she usually did, to catch her breath. She was thankful that most buildings in old Aix stopped at the fourth floor and not the sixth like in Paris. She had picked up a small roast beef at Antoine’s favorite butcher, a place so small that she usually passed it before having to double back down the narrow rue du Maréchal Foch. The butcher did not flirt with her as other commerçants did—he took his job seriously; he was polite, but did not chat or tell jokes. It was obvious that the meat came first, and a poster on the wall confirmed that. It depicted a stone barn with a steep slate roof and flower boxes, below that the name of the farmer and his address and phone number in the Salers region of the Auvergne, inviting the patron to visit and see his herd of strong red cows. The farmer’s invitation almost read like a poem, and Marine read it over a few times to be able to repeat it to Verlaque: “Venez-voir mes belles vaches aux poils frisés et aux cornes en lyre, et leurs robes cerise et acajou…” (Come and see my beautiful cows with their curly fur and lyre-shaped horns; and their cherry- and mahogany-colored coats…)
Her stomach was doing flips as it sometimes did in the seconds before she saw Antoine. Sylvie had told her that this was a bad sign—that the relationship was a false one and was doomed. Marine liked to think of it as love, and that even after a year of on-and-off-again dating she was still excited to see him. It wasn’t boring or something she treated lightly, and that was the way she had always assumed great love was. Her parents used to listen to a Jean Constantin song from the 1960s, “Le Cha Cha du Coeur,” with the refrain, “C’est un bon signe quand on a un coeur qui bat…” That’s what she had, le cha-cha du coeur, and she agreed with the song: a pounding heart was a good sign. She knocked twice and then opened the door, calling out Verlaque’s name.
“I’m in the bedroom, I’ll be right out,” he answered. A fire was lit in the fireplace and a pile of wood lay neatly beside it.
“Hey, how do you lug wood up here?” she hollered.
Verlaque came out of the bedroom wearing Levi’s and a navy-blue polo shirt, his feet bare, his usual at-home look, whatever the season. “I made a deal with Arnaud, that kid downstairs on the first floor.”
“The skinny one?”
“Lanky, more like it, but yeah, that’s him. He knocked on my door one night a month or so ago, asking if I had any odd jobs that he could do. He’s saving money for a gap year before going to university…so I have him picking up my dry cleaning, buying stuff at Monoprix…Anyway, come here, you,” and he wrapped his arms around her narrow waist and kissed her until he felt her back relax and her body move toward his.
“Will you call your mother for me?” he whispered.
Marine quickly drew away and laughed. “Antoine!”
“I’m afraid of her,” he said, walking toward the fridge and taking out an open bottle of white wine.
“You’re not afraid of anyone.”
“Neither are you, Professor Bonnet.”
“I’m afraid of you,” she said, quicker than she meant to.
“I wish you weren’t.” He stopped pouring the wine and took a glass over to her. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m just a guy. Why are you nervous around me?”
Marine didn’t want to tell him how much she loved him, and that’s what made her nervous.
She had no idea what he wanted from her. She had to protect herself and so she laughed. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Verlaque smiled and kissed her again, and she could taste the crisp white wine on his lips and tongue.
“What do you want to know from my mother?” she asked.
“During the interviews, I found out that not only do many of the professors dislike each other, but Dr. Moutte was a specialist in the wealthy Cluniac order of clergy while Bernard Rodier is a Cistercian specialist. Two extremes, right? I wanted to know if your mother thought that Rodier could have detested Moutte because of their opposing studies, in addition to envying him the post of doyen.”
Marine sipped her white and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Just because the Cistercians were austere and at Cluny they drank out of gold chalices? Doesn’t that seem like a stretch?”
Verlaque shrugged. “I’m trying to think of all the possibilities. Plus, your mother seemed nervous during the interviews, especially when I asked her about the Dumas.”
Marine nodded. “She told me; she also gave me something for you, which I have in my briefcase. Can I ask her about your Cluny versus Cistercian theory tomorrow?”
Verlaque smiled. “You’re afraid of her too?”
Marine laughed and threw a kitchen towel at him. “It’s her bridge night!” Marine took another sip of wine and helped herself to a handful of peanuts. “In answer to your question, I think it’s more likely that Dr. Moutte was killed for the post and for the apartment. Everyone at the university talks about that apartment. It’s a real coup just to see inside that place, let alone live in it. What’s it like?”
“Grand, as that kind of bourgeois apartment in the Mazarin usually is. The pool and garden are huge; I don’t know how many mature chestnut trees there are…five, maybe six,” Verlaque said, smiling, knowing what a fan Marine was of gardens and swimming pools.
“You’re killing me!”
Verlaque salted and peppered the roast and began inserting slivers of garlic into it with the tip of a sharp knife. He continued, “The apartment was broken into last night, from the roof.”
“Do you think the break-in was related to the murder?” Marine asked.
“I’m not sure. A Gallé vase was broken but nothing seems to have been taken.”
Marine finished the last peanut and Verlaque watched her, amused. “Tell me more about the interviews,” she said.
“Well, there seems to be a fair amount of bickering among the faculty, and the grad students were terrified. We interviewed the staff too, but have pretty much ruled out all of them…no motives and they all had alibis that stick. The doyen had a telephone call late at night after his party, so we’re having that traced to see where it came from. Everyone denies having made it. What are people saying over in the Law Department?”
“Most of us are avoiding the subject, oddly enough. We’re all a bit freaked out, I think. Robbery has been mentioned, but that seems unlikely, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, nothing was taken. Just like the apartment break-in.”
Marine walked over toward the front door and bent down to get her briefcase. “My mother just found out some news about the Dumas. I have the paperwork here in my briefcase.”
The intercom buzzed and Verlaque looked at Marine, surprised.
“I forgot to warn you!” she quickly said, grabbing his sleeve. “I invited Sylvie over!”
“What?”
“Sylvie has something important to tell you…about the doyen.”
Verlaque walked over and pressed the buzzer to open the front door, saying, “Come on up, Sylvie.” He turned to Marine and took a sip of wine. “What’s going on? Did she know him?”
“She was his lover,” Marine quickly said, pacing back and forth in front of the apartment door.
Verlaque laughed out loud. “Are you serious?”
“Don’t laugh! Be nice to her!”
“Salut, Sylvie,” Verlaque said as he opened the door to his apartment.
“Salut, Antoine,” Sylvie said, leaning forward so that he could give her a bise.
“Coucou,” Marine said as she embraced her friend. “Come in! Antoine has a roast beef in the oven.”
“Good! I
’m starving! Listen, Antoine, judging from your laughter that, by the way, I could hear all the way down the stairs, I’m guessing Marine has just told you that I was sleeping with Georges Moutte. Let me clarify that it was only three times,” Sylvie said, holding up three fingers in his face. “And, I was going to break it off. And before you ask, no, I didn’t see inside of his apartment or his office.”
Verlaque poured Sylvie a glass of wine and handed it to her. “What did you talk about? Did he talk about retiring, or not retiring? Of his glass collection?”
“He tried to tell me about his collection, but when he said that it was turn-of-the-century decorative arts I cut him off. Had he collected Robert Mapplethorpe photos, that would have got my attention.”
Marine winced and Verlaque raised his eyes to the ceiling, smiling despite himself.
“He didn’t mention retiring or not retiring, as you put it,” Sylvie continued.
“So what did you…?”
“Talk about? Wines…he had some impressive knowledge, and we both really enjoyed drinking them. Italy too, we talked about Italy.”
“Ah. Did he mention Giuseppe Rocchia?” Verlaque asked.
“Rocchia? No. Who’s he?”
“One of the possible successors. He lives in Perugia,” Marine offered.
“Perugia? That he mentioned. He loved Perugia and seemed to know it really well.”
Verlaque looked at Marine and raised his eyebrows. “What did he say about Perugia, Sylvie?”
Sylvie finished her white wine and Verlaque quickly poured her some more. “Let me think…I seem to remember it was food related. Yeah, that’s it. Do you remember when we went to Perugia, Marine? And we had a so-so lunch on the main square?”
“Yes. It was overpriced, but we chose poorly. The main square was our first mistake.”
“So, I asked him where to eat in Perugia. He told me that his favorite restaurant is in town, but not in the old center—in a 1960s-era hotel. It sounds cool, Marine. Sixties decor and art, with a killer wine list.”
“Did he give you its name?” Verlaque asked as he washed the arugula.
“Yeah, he did, but I don’t know if I can find it. I wrote the name down on a scrap piece of paper and put it in my purse but I can’t remember which one. I’ll look though. It might be in the pink Fendi,” Sylvie said, winking at Marine. Sylvie made a very good living from her art photography. She was represented by a gallery in Paris and one in Berlin. Besides putting money aside for her Charlotte, she also had a passion for handbags.
Verlaque didn’t tell the women what Giuseppe Rocchia had said on the telephone earlier that day: Commissioner Paulik had asked Rocchia if he had seen Georges Moutte recently, and the Italian said that they had only met once, at a conference in Munich. If Moutte knew the city of Perugia well, then it was very likely that he had met with Rocchia there. And Marine’s mother had told Verlaque that both of the scholars were glass collectors. At any rate, Rocchia was now on his way to Aix, at Verlaque’s request.
“By the way, Sylvie, thieves are making their rounds on the roofs of Aix, so make sure you close your windows at night and when you’re out,” Marine said. Sylvie also had a top-floor apartment, just around the corner from Verlaque’s.
“Merde! Charlotte’s with a new babysitter tonight! I’m going to phone him right away.”
“Him?” Verlaque and Marine asked in unison.
“Yeah. He put a flyer in my mailbox, looking for part-time work. He’s saving up for his big Che trip around South America.”
“Arnaud!” Verlaque and Marine shouted at the same time.
Sylvie tilted her head toward the ceiling. “You two are so annoying.” She helped herself to the red wine that Verlaque had just opened. “Wow,” she said, looking at the label of the 1998 Châteauneuf-du-Pape. “You know, I do feel terrible for Georges.”
Marine and Verlaque looked at each other but neither spoke.
“Really I do!” Sylvie insisted. “In the end we didn’t have that much in common, but he was nice to me, if a little silly.”
“Who was the silly one?” Verlaque said.
Sylvie and Marine looked at Verlaque in surprise. “I beg your pardon?” Sylvie asked, setting down her wine.
“You heard me,” Verlaque answered. “Sleeping with an old man?”
“That’s none of your business!” Sylvie yelled.
Verlaque stayed calm despite how much he, at times like this, detested Sylvie Grassi. “It’s now my business, since he’s dead.”
“At least he was kind!” Sylvie answered, glancing at Marine.
Verlaque sighed and looked at Marine too. “Yeah, I’m a mean bastard, but you always come back.”
Sylvie grabbed her purse and Marine followed suit, picking her briefcase up off of the floor. She saw the yellow envelope that her mother had given her and shoved it back into the case. “I’m going with Sylvie,” Marine said. Before Verlaque could speak both women were on the landing and then heading down the four flights of winding stairs. He heard the front door bang as the oven timer went off.
Chapter Twenty
The Dancing Hours
Verlaque was asleep when the telephone rang. He had been dreaming of his mother and of Monique, and the telephone rang in his dream. “It’s Monique,” his mother told her thirteen-year-old son. “She needs you.” And so the young Antoine quickly got out of bed, throwing on his jeans, a polo shirt, and a pair of moccasins. A taxi would be waiting downstairs to take him across the Seine, from the Verlaque family mansion—not yet cut up into apartments—through the gates of the Louvre and around the place du Carrousel, long before I. M. Pei’s Pyramid would grace the square, across the pont du Carrousel into the sixth arrondissement to Monique’s apartment. It would have been a short walk for a thirteen-year-old, but Monique was impatient.
He quickly sat up, relieved that he could see his Soulages painting glowing in the moonlight despite its color—black—applied in thick strokes across the immense canvas. It was the first thing he had bought when his grandmother Emmeline died. The art gallery had been on the rue de Seine, curiously across the street from Monique’s former apartment.
“Oui,” he grunted into the phone, unhappy to be woken from a deep sleep by a telephone but relieved that he was no longer thirteen.
“Apologies, sir,” Bruno Paulik said. “Bad news.”
Verlaque got up and took the phone with him, walking down the hallway toward his kitchen and flipping on the lights that lit up the white marble kitchen counter.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Mlle Zacharie, sir. She was hit by a car about two hours ago. Hit-and-run…no witnesses.”
Verlaque drew a deep breath and then asked, “Is she dead?”
“Yes. It was instant, so they tell me…it happened on the boulevard Roi René, beside the retirement homes.”
Verlaque thought of how many times he had crossed that part of the ring road that circled Aix’s vieille ville and of how cars raced up three lanes of traffic after rounding the corner of the avenue Victor Hugo. “Are you at home?” Verlaque asked.
“Yes. Do you want me to come in?”
“No, no; there’s no point. Try to get some more sleep, and I’ll see you at the Palais de Justice later this morning.”
At 9:00 a.m. Verlaque almost collided with Paulik in the lobby, who jumped back, trying to steady his coffee, which swirled around in its white plastic cup, narrowly escaping his white shirt.
“Sorry! Why don’t you dump that stuff and I’ll have Mme Girard make us a real coffee in my office?” Verlaque suggested.
Paulik didn’t say anything but replied by pouring his light brown coffee into a potted palm tree. “No one has come forward yet about the hit-and-run. It happened around 11:00 p.m., which isn’t so late,” he said. “You’d think there would have been people around.”
Climbing the stone stairs that led to the upstairs offices, Verlaque suggested, “If it was intentional, the driver could have been wait
ing at the side of the road for a moment when there were no other cars. Plus the residents of that old folks’ home on the south side of the boulevard were probably all tucked in for the night.”
“As were the residents in the old folks’ home on the other side of the street,” Paulik added.
“There are two retirement homes?”
“Yes,” Paulik answered. “But the one on the south side is decidedly more upscale.”
“Don’t tell me you have a great-aunt or -uncle in one of them.”
Paulik laughed. “No, sir. I don’t.”
Mme Girard was at her desk when they walked into her office. She stood up, as was her habit, when she saw them. “Good morning,” she said. “Prosecutor Roussel has just been here, and Officer Flamant left a message. I took it down for you,” she continued, handing Paulik a piece of paper.
“Thank you, Mme Girard,” Verlaque said. “Would you mind making us two espressos? We’ll try those new Brazilian capsules I ordered, the light brown ones.”
“Certainly,” she answered. Verlaque watched her walking away, so self-assured and in her usual office uniform of a short skirt, silk blouse, and Chanel-like wool jacket. He knew that her husband was a well-off real estate agent who owned his own firm and that Mme Girard—somewhere in her late fifties or early sixties—didn’t have to work. But she loved her job and once told Verlaque that if she didn’t work she would spend too much time at her tennis club. He admired her for that—his own mother had never worked but always seemed tired and anxious. His grandmother had busied herself with painting, volunteering to teach English at the local primary school, and hosting simple but elegant parties for the family business. Verlaque sat behind his desk as Paulik silently read Flamant’s message, and he thought of the family business and its head office, which had been near the parc Monceau, and was now an embassy for a small Middle Eastern country. How he had loved to visit his father and grandfather in that building, greeted with a huge smile and flourish of his hat by Roger, the concierge who had watched over the premises for over forty years. Roger’s wife doted on the young Verlaque brothers, serving them slices of warm apple tart from her kitchen that looked onto the cobbled courtyard.
Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) Page 12
