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

by Longworth, M. l.

  “Julien, here, take a break and let me take over,” Virginie, the club’s sole female, said, winking at Verlaque and Jean-Marc. She took the knife from Julien before he could protest and began to quickly and deftly slice the ham. Jacob, an Egyptian Jew who commuted between his finance job in London and Aix, took the platter from Virginie and said, “I may as well pass this around since I can’t eat it. Why don’t you keep slicing and put some more on another plate.”

  “There’s salmon, Jacob,” Verlaque said.

  “I know, Arnaud already showed it to me when I told him I couldn’t eat this lovely pata negra,” Jacob replied, smiling.

  “You’re a good worker, Arnaud. I always hire young people who have shown a drive to work,” Jacob said to Arnaud, who was now standing beside Fabrice, who had his arm around the teen.

  “I do too!” Fabrice echoed, pulling Arnaud in closer. “I have three daughters and each one worked in my shops after school and during the summer holidays. They never complained.” Fabrice owned a franchise of plumbing stores that had started in Marseille but now went as far as Menton, just before the Italian border. Arnaud smiled at the two men and nodded, not sure what to say.

  “Arnaud is going to try a wide Churchill from Romeo y Julieta now,” Fabrice told the group. “It was one of Che’s favorites,” he told the teen, leaning in and squeezing him again.

  At the mention of his hero, the teen lit up. “I’m ready!”

  “You snip the end off with these cutters,” Fabrice instructed. Arnaud took the cigar and cutters from the club president and his hands shook.

  “Do it for him, Fabrice,” Jacob said.

  “Fabrice regrets not having a son, I think,” Jean-Marc whispered to Verlaque. Verlaque smiled and nodded in agreement.

  In no time the cigar was snipped, lit, and in Arnaud’s mouth.

  “Don’t inhale!” Virginie yelled.

  Arnaud coughed and his eyes watered. “I’m not sure about this…” He brought the cigar to his mouth and tried it again, coughing and blowing the smoke out of his mouth as fast as he could.

  Fabrice looked over his large belly down at the floor, saddened that his new apprentice was obviously going to take longer than usual to learn how to smoke a cigar. “Good try, Arnaud!” José said, and the other members, except Fabrice, cheered.

  Verlaque looked to his side to say something to Jean-Marc, but he was gone. He found Jean-Marc in the kitchen, washing the lettuce. “You’d make someone a good wife,” Verlaque joked.

  Jean-Marc smiled and then said, “I’ve been mediating divorces all this week, so please don’t talk of marriage. That institution doesn’t look that great to me right now.” He placed the lettuce in Verlaque’s salad spinner and turned the handle, watching the top spin. “How’s Marine? I haven’t seen her in a few days.”

  “I’m going to call her tonight. We got in a fight last time we saw each other. I insulted Sylvie, and for no good reason, if truth be known. I highly doubt marriage is in our future, so don’t worry.”

  Jean-Marc drained the water out of the salad spinner and looked at Verlaque. “Apologies are always gracefully accepted by Marine.”

  “You’re right. I was frustrated by this case, I think, and took it out on Sylvie.” He silently made a note to slip into his bedroom before the dessert course and call Marine.

  “How was Paris?” Jean-Marc asked.

  “Somewhat fruitful. We spoke to the lawyer who has Georges Moutte’s will and discovered that he had a pile of money, at least in one Paris account. And we had a mini-lesson in what constitutes a fake Gallé from a lovely curator at the Petit Palais. She confirmed that one of the Gallé vases the doyen had in his apartment was an obvious forgery, and that he probably knew it.”

  “Ah, Antoine. Always an eye for the ladies.”

  Verlaque looked at Jean-Marc, one of Aix’s most competent lawyers and a reliable and sure friend to both himself and to Marine. He thought it strange that his friend, slim, tall, and broad shouldered, never commented on the women he was dating. Jean-Marc surely must get flirted with all the time, Verlaque thought, given his gentle manner, clear blue eyes, and short-cropped, always perfectly groomed blond hair.

  Jean-Marc began ripping the salad and letting the pieces fall into a large glass salad bowl.

  “That is strange, though,” Jean-Marc said. “Why display a forgery among your treasures unless to say, ‘I know this one is a fake’?”

  “Moutte could have displayed that vase to remind himself what a forged Gallé looked like…”

  “If he was in the business of forging antiques, yes,” Jean-Marc answered. “Or, Moutte, even knowing it was a fake, couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. It could have been a gift, you know, like those gifts your mother gives you that you don’t like but you hold on to anyway. Best find out, if you can, who gave him that vase.”

  Verlaque raised an eyebrow and said, “Hold that thought.” He grabbed his cell phone off of the kitchen counter and texted Paulik and copied Officer Flamant on it. He set the cell phone down and was about to ask Jean-Marc about his love life when another club member entered the room. “Hello, men,” said Pierre, a small-boned bookseller every bit as neat and tidy as Jean-Marc, only dark-haired and about six inches shorter.

  “Hey,” Jean-Marc said, smiling. “I was waiting for you…here, try my salad dressing.”

  Pierre dipped his finger into the thick, dark yellow sauce that Jean-Marc had just made. “Perfect, as usual.”

  Verlaque looked at Pierre and then at Jean-Marc. “You’ve cooked for Pierre before?”

  Jean-Marc laughed and gently put a hand on Verlaque’s shoulder. “You sound like a jealous husband!”

  “I’m lucky, aren’t I?” Pierre asked, laughing. The judge continued to look back and forth between the two men, whom, he now noticed, were both wearing neatly pressed jeans, expensive leather moccasins, and Lacoste polo shirts. It suddenly became clear to him: their similar looks and interests and the fact that they had both spent a weekend in Barcelona in September and nervously avoided Verlaque’s eyes when he had asked them if they had bumped into each other that weekend.

  Verlaque smiled and got a bottle of champagne out of the fridge. “I feel like we should make a toast. How long have you been a couple? And when were you going to tell me?”

  “We’re telling you now,” Pierre replied. “We’ve been seeing each other for over a year.” Laughter, José singing a ballad in Spanish, and the sound of Arnaud coughing could be heard coming from the living room.

  “We need to rescue that kid,” Verlaque said as he ripped off the aluminum around the bottle’s neck and uncorked the champagne. He grabbed three glasses out of a cupboard and poured out the champagne and toasted his friends. “I’m thrilled for you both. Cheers.”

  “It’s an amazing thing when it happens, Antoine,” Jean-Marc said.

  Verlaque sipped his champagne and frowned. “When what happens?”

  “When you finally meet the love of your life.” Jean-Marc winked at Pierre and the three men raised their glasses and drank.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  A Confession over Grappa

  It was after midnight when Verlaque walked into Marine’s apartment. He hung up his coat on her coatrack and saw Marine standing in the doorway, her arms drawn around her chest, dressed in one of his extra-large cotton striped pajama tops and enormous fuzzy pink slippers. He walked across the entryway and hugged her, and when she kissed his cheek he drew her closer to him and held her tighter. She ran her fingers through his thick black hair and he finally leaned back a bit and looked at her. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  Marine pulled away. “You have to learn to be kinder to my friends, especially Sylvie…”

  “I will try to handle my temper with Sylvie. It’s none of my business if she sleeps around. I’m sorry.”

  “Even Vincent,” Marine continued, her face getting flushed. “Whom I know you think outrageous.”

  Verlaque sighed. “As
for Vincent, it’s not his being gay that I mind, it’s the over-the-top outrageous bit that bothers me.”

  Marine stepped back and looked at her lover. “Are you sure Vincent’s being gay doesn’t bother you?”

  Verlaque shook his head. “Rugby players aren’t at all homophobic.”

  Marine nodded. “You’re right. Now soccer players, on the other hand…”

  “Marine, have you ever wondered about Jean-Marc?”

  Marine laughed. “You’ve only just realized? Okay, I’m being unfair, as I didn’t see the signs either until very recently.” She laughed and pulled Verlaque close to her, kissing him on the lips.

  “Stop trying to seduce me!” Verlaque said, laughing. “I only just realized this evening…and how long have I known Jean-Marc? I’m stunned!”

  “Why are you stunned?” Marine asked. “Does it change Jean-Marc? No. Does it change the way you feel about your friend? No. Why does who he sleeps with interest or surprise you?”

  “All right, all right. I guess I was surprised because he never talked about it.”

  “Why should he have? I sometimes think that that’s all you think about.”

  “Sex? No, you’re wrong.” Verlaque pulled Marine in closer. “I think about wine and cigars too.”

  Marine gave him a friendly slap, but the look on her face wasn’t a happy one.

  “I’m crazy about you, Marine. You should know that by now.”

  Marine still couldn’t bring herself to smile. Verlaque looked closely at the freckles that covered her face, neck, and chest. “If you’re waiting for me to propose,” he said, “it’s…”

  “A waste of time,” Marine cut in. “No, I’m not waiting for a proposal. Those kinds of decisions are made by two people these days, Antoine. Even in the late 1950s my parents made that decision together, there was no kneeling down, no hidden engagement ring…”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry…for all the times I’ve angered you, for all the times I’ve been so unclear, so indecisive. You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. That I’m sure of, I realized it today, in Paris. I was speaking to an old man, and he’s just lost his wife, and…”

  Marine broke in. “Antoine, would you like a grappa? Because I sure would.”

  Verlaque threw his head back and let out a roar of laughter. “Is the pope Polish?”

  “I take that as a yes.” Marine walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer compartment in her refrigerator, taking out a long, thin, icy bottle.

  “Isn’t that the grappa we bought last year in Liguria? You still have some left?”

  Marine smiled. “I’ve been saving it for when my lover comes over to my apartment in the middle of the night and trips over his words, trying to tell me that he loves me.” Marine looked at Verlaque, finally relieved to have said the words that she had kept inside for so long. Well, this is it, she thought. He’ll either fess up right now, or run out of the door.

  Verlaque stood with his back resting against the kitchen door for what seemed like an eternity staring at Marine, she would later tell Sylvie. He quickly moved toward her, pushing her against the refrigerator, wrapping his arms around her slender waist and putting his face in her hair. “My love, my love,” he whispered over and over. He kissed her lips, his mouth moist and soft, and then kissed her cheeks and forehead and neck. “I love you, Marine.” He took her head in his hands and looked at her, and kissed her on the mouth once again, running his hands up from her waist and over her small breasts, then up to her cheeks. “I love you,” he repeated once more and then stepped back, looking at her.

  “You just knocked over all my fridge magnets and Charlotte’s drawing,” Marine said. She leaned down to pick up the drawing, hiding her smile.

  “Marine?”

  She stood up, smiling, and grabbed Verlaque by the collar of his sweater, bringing him near her and kissing him. “I love you too, Antoine. Let’s not talk about this anymore for now, okay?”

  She took the grappa bottle into her living room. Verlaque followed her, sat down on her sofa, and watched the freckled beauty as she opened an antique corner buffet and took out two small crystal shot glasses that were etched with dragonflies.

  “I had forgotten about these glasses,” Verlaque said, leaning toward the coffee table to look at them, grateful for her elegance, grateful that she had not needed to hear, or say, more on the subject of love that evening. “See, you were everywhere with me today in Paris. That vase that broke in Moutte’s apartment was also engraved with dragonflies.”

  “These were my grandmother’s,” Marine said, pouring the clear white alcohol into the glasses.

  Marine sipped some grappa and winced. “I’ve forgotten that the first sip always burns, and then after that…smooth as silk.” She took another sip to test out her theory, and nodded.

  Verlaque told her about their discoveries in Paris, that Moutte has displayed a vase that he knew was counterfeit, and how the doyen had definitely been to Umbria, even a glassblowing factory near Perugia.

  “Let’s have a look,” Marine said. She walked over to her bookshelves and pulled out a shoe box full of maps. She spread out a map of central Italy on her coffee table and rested her elbows on her thighs, looking down. “The lawyer told you that the town starts with an ‘F’? Let’s look as closely to Perugia as we can, since Rocchia grew up there. That’s where he would have all of his contacts, right?”

  “He grew up in Perugia?”

  “Yes, my mother is full of information these days.” She leaned over Verlaque and took a pencil off of the side table next to him. “By the way, she gave me a file for you, and I meant to give it to you that night I stormed off with Sylvie.”

  “I’m sorry about what I said,” Verlaque said.

  “I know; I’ll tell Sylvie. Let’s look at my mother’s file. Basically, it contains the Dumas’s bank statements.”

  Marine opened the file and put the bank statements on the coffee table. “None of the professors, my mother included, have ever wanted to take responsibility for the fellowship, and so only recently did they discover that bit by bit someone has been taking out money.”

  “Pardon?”

  “In cash withdrawals, from the savings account.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, in the Law Department it’s only our head accountant who has this kind of authority,” Marine said. “But my mother told me that the Theology Department’s accountant retired two months ago, and they haven’t yet agreed on a replacement.”

  Verlaque laughed. “And with all the unemployment in France!”

  Marine bit her lip. “Well, tell me, who has banking privileges in your department?”

  “Me, Roussel, and Mme Girard. So, someone was embezzling? Moutte? That could explain where he got the money for all that stuff and why he left all of his assets to the school, in particular for the fellowship.”

  “I should think so! My mother also told me that Audrey Zacharie was flirting with the doyen during that party on Friday night. What do you think about that?”

  Verlaque sipped some grappa and then said, “Mlle Zacharie was fiercely protective of that department, from all reports. Perhaps flirting with Moutte was just another way to have more control over her little empire on the fourth floor. What do you think? You’re a woman.”

  “Mmm. What if…there really was counterfeiting going on, which was confirmed today, yesterday now, by that curator you visited. Audrey, since she did try to control what went on in the department, might have found out about it. Would she then try to blackmail Moutte? She’d have one on him, right? So the flirting at the party was just reminding him of that, of her new power over him.”

  “Not bad. Wait a minute!” he said, pouring a tiny bit of grappa into Marine’s glass. “Audrey Zacharie did have a mysterious windfall recently, her boyfriend told me about it and I saw some of her shopping splurges in their apartment.”

  “And if she was blackmailing Moutte and Rocchia, that would make Rocchia a suspect fo
r her murder. Does he have an alibi for Monday night?” Marine asked.

  “He was en route from San Remo the evening Mlle Zacharie was hit. And on the night of Moutte’s murder, he was at home in Perugia with his wife.”

  “He could be lying. His marriage was one of convenience, my mother told me. And have you checked out the hotel in San Remo?”

  Verlaque sipped some grappa and leaned back. “One of our officers was making phone calls today while we were in Paris. I’ll know first thing tomorrow morning. I think that Mlle Zacharie came into the apartment to look for what the thief was looking for; and she then found us there,” Verlaque said. “She left in a hurry too, when Bruno and I were in another room.”

  “What did she say she was doing there?”

  “Looking for a grant application for one of the grad students.”

  “That would be easy to check, wouldn’t it? Just ask the student. Speaking of students, I went to the symposium on Cluny today and heard some of the students give papers. Two of the boys, Yann and Thierry I think their names are, did very well. The female grad student just seemed to be tripping over her own feet the entire afternoon, and the fourth one…”

  “Claude?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Well, he was enraged! Anything anyone tried to say in favor of the Cluniac order just sent him into a tizzy! Really a weird kid. I guess he was just defending his mentor, but really…”

  Verlaque finished his grappa. “Yeah, grad students always get too enthusiastic about what they’re studying, as if it’s the only way to look at a certain subject. He’ll calm down once he gets out into the real world.”

  “That’s exactly what my mother said after the lecture.”

  Verlaque feigned outrage at being compared to Florence Bonnet, and Marine laughed. She took Verlaque’s empty glass from his hands and stood up. “You look tired.”

  Verlaque looked up at her. “I’m so tired I could fall asleep on this sofa, fully dressed.”