Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries)

by Longworth, M. l.

  Questions began, with the elderly Dr. Florence Bonnet asking Dr. Kahn to what degree he thought Cluny had inspired Saint Dunstan in England. Drs. Bonnet and Kahn spoke back and forth and Thierry, try as he might, could not keep his eyes open. He had stayed up most of the previous night reworking his paper and now was feeling the effects. He drifted off for a few minutes to be woken up by loud voices and Yann poking him again in the ribs.

  “What is it?” Thierry whispered, sitting up straighter.

  “You’re missing the fireworks,” Yann replied. “Everyone is fighting. It’s the drunken, debauched Cluniacs versus the pickle-up-your-butt Cistercians.”

  “Forty farms were needed to produce enough food for the monks at Cluny alone,” Claude Ossart said, his voice cracking. “The black-robed monks ate roast chicken and drank fine wines”—here he threw Yann a look across the room—“while monks from other orders ate porridge and drank broth.” Yann looked at Claude and shrugged, smiling.

  Thierry’s mouth watered at the thought of roast chicken, but he quickly remembered a fact he had read late the previous night and so he spoke up. “But the serfs who were transferred to monasteries under Cluny’s reign were regarded as fortunate…” He paused, wishing he hadn’t fallen asleep. He was feeling too drowsy to speak.

  “Go on, Thierry,” Annie Leonetti said, motioning with her hand to help him finish his sentence.

  “These serfs, under the protection of Cluny, were less subject to transfers, or even being sold like slaves.”

  Annie Leonetti smiled. “Quite right, Thierry. Thank you.”

  “The Cluniac order’s opulence knew no precedent, as Dr. Rodier so aptly proved, and should be condemned!” Claude now shouted. “The order was even too opulent for nunneries to exist, as they were not seen as cost-effective.” With “cost-effective,” Claude had bent his index and middle fingers to make quotation marks. “The monks at Cluny performed no manual labor,” he continued, not drawing a breath, “and when their priests, wealthy themselves, died, they left everything to the order. It was like the Mafia!”

  Marine Bonnet raised her hand and stood up from her seat in the back of the room. “With the Council of Altheim in 916, bequests of the clergy were honored, their holdings permitted to go to family or whomever they wished and not automatically to the church.”

  “There was strict discipline at Cluny under Abbot Peter the Venerable, as Dr. Rodier pointed out,” Claude continued, trying a different tack. “But after Peter’s death”—he paused and smiled—“in 1156…the order began to fall to pieces, making room for a less corrupt, more disciplined order of monks, that of the honorable men in white, the Cistercians.”

  Annie Leonetti secretly moaned to herself: all this talk of men. Where were the women in the Middle Ages? Beside her, Dr. Bernard Rodier smiled weakly, embarrassed by his protégé’s outburst and constant and unnecessary references to his mentor.

  “Let us not forget,” Marine said, once again standing, “that it was the rise of English and French nationalisms, as much as anything, that created a climate unfavorable to the existence of all-powerful, centralized monasteries such as what we had at Cluny.”

  Claude Ossart’s face turned red. Thierry Marchive smiled and looked over at Garrigue Druon, who was staring at him, and although he couldn’t be sure, he thought he saw her smile, raise her eyebrows, and then quickly look away.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Dragonflies

  Radia Habib picked up a shard of broken glass with a set of long tweezers and held it up to the light. “I’ve never seen one of these,” she said, squinting.

  “I beg your pardon?” Verlaque asked, not sure what she meant. She had certainly seen Gallé vases—they had passed a half a dozen on the way downstairs to her office in the basement of the Petit Palais.

  “Sorry. Such a good fake. The dragonfly is exquisite, isn’t it?” She held up one of the bigger shards that Paulik had brought along from Georges Moutte’s apartment—about two inches square—so that both Verlaque and Paulik could see. The insect, with its black elongated body, was in flight, its translucent pale blue wings all the more dazzling against the vase’s olive-green background.

  “It is beautiful,” Verlaque agreed. “So if it’s so exquisite, how do you know it’s a fake?” He looked at Mlle Habib, a dark-haired beauty with a long, aquiline nose and almost black eyes that she had accentuated with black eyeliner. She was a darker, thinner version of Annie Leonetti, he thought, a North African beauty, just further across the Mediterranean than Corsica.

  The curator set down the dragonfly shard and picked up a smaller shard, this one dark brown, almost black. “This rim,” she said. “The color is too shocking…it never would have been used by Gallé. But more important is the rim’s cut itself…do you see it?” She held the shard up to her light for her visitors to see.

  “It looks perfect,” Paulik said, leaning in.

  “Exactly. It was cut by a machine. Gallés were hand cut.” She set the shard down and turned to Verlaque and Paulik. “Such a shame when the dragonfly was so well executed.” She picked up another shard and examined it in silence. “Ah. Here’s another giveaway. Look at this background color. Would you say it’s matte or semigloss?”

  Verlaque turned to Paulik in an exaggerated panic. “Semigloss,” Paulik answered, smiling. He and Hélène had painted their restored village house in Pertuis room by room, and he never wanted to see a can of paint again.

  “Right. But it should be matte. Gallé was so good at matte.” Habib looked at Verlaque and smiled.

  “How much would one of these be worth?” Verlaque asked.

  “A vase like this one, a real Gallé, anywhere from five thousand to eight thousand U.S. dollars.”

  “Dollars? The buyers are American?”

  “Yes, or Japanese, but the Japanese like only certain Gallés…flowers…and then only violets, roses, or poppies.”

  “Eight thousand dollars doesn’t seem worth the effort to forge,” Paulik said.

  “Ah, but that’s for this style of vase, and if you’re a forger, you want to cover all the styles, the whole range, from this type to the more sought-after soufflé vases,” Habib replied. Seeing her guests’ raised eyebrows, she continued. “The soufflé vases are also called ‘blown-out vases’…production began after World War I and continued after Gallé’s death. The vases are built up with layers of colored glass, then cut back with hydrofluoric acid. The design is protected with a waxy resist, resulting in a raised design, like a slight relief. We have two examples upstairs I can show you. Gallé’s atelier produced about fifty molds for blown-out vases, from large to small. The forms stay the same with each mold, naturally, but the colors change. The rarer vases and more expensive ones are done using rarer colors…some of those, especially the coveted white elephant, can get over one hundred thousand dollars at an auction house.” Mlle Habib sat back, content with her lecture.

  “One hundred thousand dollars?” Paulik repeated.

  “Yes. But some people pay just as much for a car, or even a watch,” Radia Habib replied, looking quickly at Paulik but then moving, and resting, her eyes on Verlaque.

  Verlaque leaned back and folded his arms, hoping to hide what the curator had obviously already seen…his grandfather’s watch, a Patek Philippe. “Would someone who collects Gallé know that this particular vase is a fake?” he asked.

  “Oh yes, despite the good workmanship of the dragonfly. The machine-cut rim gives it away.”

  “Thank you,” Verlaque said. “We won’t take any more of your time.”

  “It’s been no trouble. I rarely get visitors,” Mlle Habib replied, picking up the shards of glass on the table and putting them back in the plastic container Paulik had brought with him. “Call me if you have any more questions,” she continued, and she handed a business card to Verlaque.

  After they had left, Radia Habib sat down and smiled, thinking to herself that not only did she rarely have visitors in the basement of
the Petit Palais but seldom were they as oddly attractive as Antoine Verlaque. Physically he was, in her opinion, a knockout: thick black disheveled hair that was turning gray at the temples, a broad chest and shoulders, and lovely big hands with thick fingers that lacked a wedding ring. The broken nose only added to his charm. She imagined that he was a good cook or that he ate out a lot: his stomach gave that away. She too was a gourmande, she was just never able to put on weight, much to the chagrin of her four plump sisters. But what she liked most of all was his humor, the little bit of it she had seen. When she had made the reference to expensive cars and watches he had awkwardly tried to hide his own Swiss watch, and she had caught him smile and wink at her, as if to say, “Well, I tried to hide it!”

  She allowed herself a few seconds to fantasize a scene in which she made the judge her famous lamb tagine, and as she cut the apricots in half she set one in the lovely wide mouth of the judge, who then licked her fingers. She jumped as the office phone rang; it was her boss, calling her upstairs for a staff meeting—no doubt to discuss more budget cuts.

  Verlaque and Paulik made it onto the train with about two minutes to spare, dodging grandmothers with suitcases, students with enormous duffel bags, and the pigeons that fly about the Gare de Lyon. Verlaque was already asleep when the train was still on the outskirts of Paris, and Paulik stole a few minutes to listen to opera on his iPod, a gift from Hélène and Léa for his fortieth birthday. In Burgundy Verlaque awoke and Paulik suggested they stretch their legs and get a coffee in the bar car. They each ordered a double espresso and stood with their elbows on the counter, watching the vineyards of what Bruno Paulik considered the world’s best wine fly past them. “So Georges Moutte knew that the dragonfly vase was a fake,” Paulik said when they had both stirred one pack of sugar into their coffees and had a first sip.

  “Apparently. Which explains why he set the vase on that dresser: he didn’t care about it. But why display the vase at all, if it’s an obvious fake?” Verlaque asked, tearing himself away from the view.

  Paulik sipped his coffee. “Because he thought it was such a good fake? Was he dealing in fake Gallés…selling them to unsuspecting foreign buyers?”

  “That’s a thought. He’d have the best counterfeit on display, in his bedroom, where only he would see it.”

  “That could be a motive for murder,” Paulik suggested.

  “A pissed-off buyer?” Verlaque asked.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of his partner, or associates, in the fake-glass business. A double cross? Or did Moutte want out and threaten to reveal their identities?”

  Verlaque nodded. “That would explain his visits to Italy that Maître Fabre told us about. This all points to Rocchia,” he said. “The fellow glass lover.”

  They watched in silence as the hills of Burgundy and Beaujolais gradually became flatter as they approached Lyon, and the vineyards disappeared and were replaced by fields of soy and grains.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  La Pata Negra

  It was just before 8:00 p.m. when Verlaque walked onto Aix’s place des Trois Ormeaux. Despite the cold November evening, there were already a few occupied tables on the cobbled terrace that was named for the three elm trees that grew in each corner of the triangular square. Paul and Emilie, the owners of L’Epicerie, a food and wine emporium also on the square, had set out portable heaters, and on each chair placed a small woolen throw. Although Paul offered a good selection of reds and whites, this cool evening called for red, which most of the patrons that evening had ordered. In summer, Paul and Emilie put bottles of white and rosé in the square’s fountain to keep cool. Verlaque had once seen a map of Aix that dated from the thirteenth century, and in the place of the fountain and well-dressed Aixois sipping wines were two gallows.

  Verlaque flew into the shop and ordered an entire pata negra leg of ham and a case each of champagne and red wine. He phoned Arnaud to come pick up the wine, which Paul stacked on a cart, and Verlaque took the ham, wrapped in tea towels, under his arm. Paul opened the door for the judge and said, “Swing by Monoprix and buy a couple of heads of lettuce for a green salad…that’s all you’ll need for the pata negra.”

  The pig was heavier than Verlaque had predicted—he guessed it weighed twenty pounds—and by the time he got to the cours Mirabeau his arms were aching.

  “Well, well,” he heard a voice say behind him. “Looks like you have a hoofed friend with you.”

  He turned around and saw Annie Leonetti, smiling. She took ahold of the pig’s hoof, which was sticking out of the towel, and shook it. She looked closer and peeked under a section of the tea towel. “Is this a pata negra?”

  “Yes,” Verlaque answered, embarrassed to be carrying a pig’s leg.

  “Don’t ever tell any of my relatives this, but that is the best ham in the world, even better than we can get in Corsica.” Annie Leonetti made the sign of the cross for slurring her island. “Imagine a black pig that has eaten only wild herbs, grasses, and roots, and then just before it’s slaughtered, is fed solely acorns.” She smiled at the thought of it, but Verlaque remembered that the last words Dr. Leonetti had spoken to him had also been about death.

  “And then is cured for four years,” Verlaque added, unable to stop himself.

  Annie Leonetti threw up her hands in mock amazement. “Ah, oui! Well, it looks like you’re in a rush. Can I help you with anything? Were you just about to go into Monoprix with your friend?”

  Verlaque laughed despite himself. “You couldn’t run downstairs and buy three heads of salade frisée for me, could you?”

  “I’d be delighted!”

  Verlaque braced the ham leg on his stomach and reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a handful of coins, handing them to Dr. Leonetti. She walked quickly into Monoprix and he waited on the sidewalk under a plane tree, trying to look inconspicuous. He thought of what they knew so far…that Moutte’s big Gallé vase was indeed a fake; that Rocchia and Moutte had, no doubt, dined together in Perugia; and that Audrey Zacharie had recently come into money and she had expected the haul to continue. Could the killer have broken into Moutte’s apartment only to break the vase as a warning to Audrey Zacharie? Is that why Audrey had run out of the apartment and why she’d screamed when she saw the broken vase?

  “Voilà!”

  Verlaque looked up as Annie Leonetti handed him a familiar red bag. “Have fun wherever you’re going!”

  “Mille mercis!” Verlaque said as he took the bag and began walking away. He turned right onto the rue Clémenceau and saw Carole standing in her tabac’s doorway. “Bonsoir, le Juge,” she said, winking.

  He felt doubly foolish, having had a murder suspect buy him three heads of lettuce and now having the lovely Carole see him carrying a leg of ham. “Bonsoir Carole!” he answered. He looked ahead and saw Arnaud coming toward him. “I’ve never been happier to see someone!” Verlaque said to him, laughing.

  “I dropped off the wine, put a couple bottles of champagne in your freezer, and thought I’d run back down here and help you.”

  “Great…thanks,” Verlaque answered, handing Arnaud the pata negra. “Carry this for me, if you don’t mind.”

  “Some of your friends have arrived already,” Arnaud said, taking the ham. “I let them into your apartment, as instructed. They’ve invited me to stay, providing I try a cigar.”

  Verlaque laughed and remembered his first cigar—with his grandfather Charles at their home in Normandy. He had been around the same age that Arnaud was now. It had been an instant love for Verlaque, but he knew that this was rarely the case. His brother Sébastien hated cigars, as did his father.

  “You’d be more than welcome.” They walked up the rue Gaston de Saporta and turned right onto the place des Martyrs de la Résistance and then down Verlaque’s small street. He reached into his pocket and got out his own set of keys to open the outer green door to his building. “The guys must be starving,” he said as he and Arnaud ran up the stairs.
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  “Oh no, don’t worry. One of them bought two big pizzas after he parked his car…you know, that pizza truck across from the Parking Bellegarde that does the wood-fired pizzas. He was in your kitchen, cutting up the pizzas into little pieces, when I left.”

  A chorus of “Ooh la la”s was heard as Verlaque and Arnaud entered the apartment, the air already thick with cigar smoke. “Pata negra!” a few people called out. Fabrice, the club’s president, yelled, “Bring that animal here, Arnaud! We’ve got the stand all ready and the knives sharpened. They were dull, by the way, Antoine!” Someone handed Verlaque a glass of champagne, and muttering thanks, he downed it.

  “Give a glass of champagne to Arnaud, will you?” Verlaque said to no one in particular, yelling over his shoulder as he walked down to his bedroom. “I’m going to change.”

  Verlaque smiled as he pulled on his blue jeans. It was a treat to have his apartment full of people—friends—and it reminded him of being at his grandparents’ house in the seventeenth, the frequent party guests a strange mix of artists whom Emmeline had known at art school, business acquaintances of his grandfather Charles’s, and the odd neighbor who had, like Emmeline and Charles, fallen in love with that treelined street in the most unlikely of Parisian neighborhoods.

  “Arnaud is going to Cuba,” José, one of the club’s members, hollered as Verlaque walked back into his living room.

  “I know,” Verlaque answered, taking another glass of champagne from his friend Jean-Marc and smiling. “Arnaud saved me this evening, and he’s agreed to clean up this mess, so after our cigars we’ll raise a little tip collection for his trip, okay?”

  The group vocalized its approval of this idea and Verlaque walked over to the bar that separated his kitchen from the dining room, where Julien was cutting thin pieces of ham and setting every second piece on a large oval plate and every first piece into his mouth.