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

by Longworth, M. l.

  Marine reached out her arm and pulled Verlaque up. “Let’s go to bed then. Tomorrow’s another day.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The Persian Letters

  Monique had come to Verlaque again in a dream. He bolted up and said, “You’re dead, Monique.” He was sweating and fell back onto the pillow, trying to slow down his breathing. He looked over at Marine, who was very still, both arms at her sides and her head tilted away from him, toward the window.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  Verlaque sat up again and threw off the covers. “Bad dream, sorry if I woke you. Would you like some coffee?” There was no way that he could now explain his past to Marine. He was determined that Monique was not going to jeopardize his relationship with Marine. Or was he just afraid? Taking the easy way out?

  Marine turned her face toward his and rested her head on her right arm. “When have I ever refused coffee?”

  “Right! Give me five seconds.” Verlaque walked into Marine’s bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. He picked up his watch, which was sitting on the counter, and looked at the time. “Merde!” he hollered.

  “What? Did we sleep in?” Marine called from the bedroom.

  “Yes! It’s almost 9:00 a.m.!”

  “Merde!”

  “What time is your first class?”

  “10:00!”

  A cell phone began to ring and Verlaque ran back into the bedroom and picked his phone up from the bedside table. “Oui.”

  “Sorry, sir. Paulik here. I just wanted to warn you before you come in this morning.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes. What’s going on, Bruno?”

  “It’s Roussel. He’s on the warpath. Just brace yourself.”

  “Merde, merci.” He hung up the phone and walked back into the bathroom and began brushing his teeth.

  “Is my Montesquieu book in the bathroom?” Marine called from the living room. “I need it for today’s class.”

  Verlaque looked at her bathroom counter, covered in a half dozen small jars of face creams; four lipsticks, each one with its cap off; a Chanel no. 19 perfume; a small volume of Rimbaud’s poetry; and finally, under a battered and wet Elle magazine, Montesquieu’s Persian Letters. “Found it!” he called out.

  Verlaque looked at Marine as she walked into the bathroom and smiled. “Funny choice for a law class. But then your lectures are famous for that.” He tapped her head lightly with the book. “I’ll go make coffee. By the way, I put the lids back on your lipsticks for you.”

  As Verlaque was pouring the coffee into two cups Marine walked into the kitchen. She was wearing wide-legged tweed pants with high-heeled boots and a crisp, tight-fitting white blouse with a long narrow green tie. “Good morning, Annie Hall,” he said as he handed her her morning drug. “It was one of my grandfather’s favorite books,” he continued, not able to take his eyes off of Marine.

  “The Persian Letters? It was one of my grandfather’s favorites as well,” Marine answered, sipping her coffee. “‘I may have lived in servitude, but I have always been free.’ Poor Roxane. My grandfather loved that line in the book. I’m going to write it on the blackboard this morning and have the students write for twenty minutes or so a response to it…they could approach it from a number of different angles…the contrast between European and non-European societies, or the advantages and disadvantages of different systems of government…”

  Verlaque broke in. “Or the nature of political authority, or even religious tolerance…didn’t Montesquieu marry a Protestant?”

  “Heaven forbid,” Marine answered, smiling. The Verlaque ancestors had been Huguenots, and Emmeline, a devote Anglican.

  “You’re right, it will make for a great discussion.” Verlaque smiled and put his hand through her thick auburn hair. “I wish you had been teaching in Bordeaux when I was a law student there.”

  “Ah, then we wouldn’t be sleeping together.”

  Verlaque smiled. “Montesquieu may have been bleak, but I always found those two Turks—what were their names?…”

  “Usbek and Rica.”

  “Thanks. I always thought they were quite funny, the way they misinterpret what they see.”

  Marine held the book to her chest and said, “But still Roxane is enslaved, and commits suicide because of it. So I guess it’s bleak and funny at the same time.” She brushed his cheek with the back of her hand and added, “Sort of like your English poet, non?”

  Verlaque and Marine parted on the rue d’Italie and Verlaque carried on up the rue Thiers, hoping he wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. As the road curved he saw ahead of him a roadblock, and for a few seconds thought perhaps the Palais de Justice was being roped off, but then remembered that it was Thursday, market day. Although he found the stands with their artfully displayed mountains of vegetables beautiful, zigzagging through the crowd was tiresome. Not today…all he could think of was Marine. He walked by one of his favorite sellers—a man who only sold what was local and in season—and today he had four piles of wild mushrooms sitting on his long wooden table: delicate little orange girolles; black trumpet mushrooms; pointy, pockmarked morels; and big fatty cèpes. Verlaque stopped at the stand and asked for two hundred grams of each of the mushrooms, which the vendor weighed and put into separate small paper bags. “Fry them with parsley and lemon, right?” Verlaque asked.

  “And garlic,” the vendor replied, smiling. He threw a bunch of flat-leaf parsley into one of the bags.

  “Thanks.” Verlaque paid, took the four bags, and crossed the street, already imagining the dinner he would make for Marine that night. On his way into the Palais de Justice, Verlaque ran into Alain Flamant. “Salut,” the young officer said, shaking Verlaque’s hand. “I made about a dozen phone calls yesterday, sir, including the hotel that Professor Rocchia gave us in San Remo…no Giuseppe, or Dottore, or Signore Rocchia stayed there on Monday.”

  Verlaque stopped on the stairs and looked at Flamant. “You’re kidding? Thanks, Alain.” He ran up the rest of the stairs two at a time, anxious to find Bruno Paulik. “Good morning, Mme Girard,” he said as he walked past his secretary’s desk.

  “Hello, Judge,” Mme Girard answered, and then held up her pen as if in warning. Verlaque nodded as he could hear Yves Roussel’s voice around the corner.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Verlaque said as he saw Yves Roussel standing outside Verlaque’s office door. “Come on in,” Verlaque said, opening the door. “Giuseppe Rocchia didn’t stay at the Hôtel des Anglais in San Remo on Monday night.”

  Roussel stayed silent and Verlaque looked at the prosecutor, surprised.

  Verlaque continued, “He has no alibi for Mlle Zacharie’s murder, has lied about his whereabouts that night, and lied to us about never seeing Georges Moutte in Perugia. Yves, I don’t know if Bruno filled you in yet, but we have reason to believe that Rocchia is involved in making fake antique glass, and that Moutte knew about it. That could be why he was killed…he could have threatened to blow the whistle on Rocchia, or perhaps he had been involved all along, and suddenly got a bad conscience about the whole thing.”

  Yves Roussel smiled and walked across the room, pretending to be interested in Verlaque’s leather-bound law books. Roussel, just under five-three, rocked back and forth on the toes and heels of his blue cowboy boots. “Fascinating, Antoine,” he finally said, turning around. “Wrong, but completely fascinating.”

  Verlaque looked at Roussel and rolled his eyes. “Tell me, Yves, why it’s wrong.”

  “Don’t mind if I do. I’ve been waiting half the morning to tell you. I’m on my way to make my first arrest of the day, in fact. I could have done it without you, but wanted to be polite…fill you in on it.”

  “The bank machines? You found those idiots?” Verlaque asked, sitting down and placing the mushrooms on his desk. Roussel was such a moron, he thought, making a big display about arresting some small-time hoodlums who went around the countryside stealing from cash machines.


  “No, my friend, that case remains unsolved for the moment.” Roussel walked up to Verlaque’s desk and put his hands on its glass top. “I’m off to arrest someone for the murder of Mlle Audrey Zacharie.”

  Verlaque shot up out of his seat. “What? Who?”

  “Yann Falquerho.”

  “Are you crazy, Yves? On what proof?” Verlaque asked.

  Bruno Paulik opened the door and came into the office. “Sorry I’m late.”

  “That’s fine, Bruno,” Verlaque said, looking at Roussel. Bruno Paulik’s arrival was very welcome, even if late.

  “I just met with Mme da Silva, Moutte’s housekeeper,” Paulik said. “I was following up on the text message you sent last night. She can’t remember the name of the person who gave the doyen that vase, but she does remember it was an Italian.”

  “Rocchia,” Verlaque said.

  “He’s not the only Italian on the planet,” Roussel said. “As I was saying, I did some calling around while you two were up in Paris yesterday,” Roussel continued. “My first call was to the precinct in the seventh arrondissement, where M. Falquerho spent an evening behind bars for breaking and entering.”

  “We know about that, Yves.”

  “Wait for it,” Roussel replied, holding up his right hand, the palm facing Verlaque. “So I spoke to one of the officers, who looked up that evening’s records, and the officer who arrested Yann Falquerho that evening, and who scared the pants off him, has now been promoted to Europol in Brussels. So, I called up Officer, now Sergeant, Addaoud, and spoke to him about that evening. After all, we’ve had a suspect with a crime record all along…so I thought it warranted some digging.” Roussel looked at Paulik as if to blame the commissioner for overlooking that point.

  “Come off it, Roussel,” Verlaque said, his voice raised. “That kid broke into his father’s club as a prank! A rich, bored kid in Paris looking for something naughty to do on a Saturday night!”

  “Well, this rich kid has also had a run-in with the police in Brittany, in some little town where he spends his summers.”

  “Carnac,” Paulik said, sighing. It infuriated him that Roussel couldn’t remember the name of the town that held one of the greatest alignments of prehistoric standing stones in France.

  Roussel ignored Paulik and continued. “Sergeant Addaoud told me that he had wanted to frighten some sense into the kid, because Paris wasn’t his first offense. The summer previous to that, Yann Falquerho was detained for guess what?”

  Verlaque threw up his hands. “You got me.”

  “Car theft. Seems the kid knows how to hot-wire a car, only this car belonged to a friend of his father’s who didn’t press charges. The kid has a thing for BMWs, apparently.”

  Verlaque sat down and put his head in his hands. “The poor kid. I almost wish you hadn’t told me that, Yves.”

  “Alas,” Roussel said, raising his hands in the air.

  “Let’s get Yann in here, and his friend Thierry too,” Verlaque said. “They were together the night of both murders.”

  “Falquerho’s lying and he’s got his poor little friend to cover for him!” Roussel screeched. “I’m going straight there, to their apartment!”

  “Like hell you are,” Verlaque answered. “We’ll bring both the boys here, since they’re each other’s alibis for both murders.”

  “Falquerho ran a car…a BMW…over an innocent woman, and he, with the help of his chubby friend, probably killed Professor Moutte! Let’s go now and surprise him!”

  “No, Yves!” Verlaque looked at Paulik and said, “Call them, Bruno, and get them in here right away.”

  “You’re making a big mistake!” Roussel hollered, so loudly that Mme Girard had to put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. She had been giving her niece a recipe for an easy-to-make mushroom pâté, having seen mushrooms in the market on her way to work.

  “Maybe, Yves, but we’re going to do this in a civilized way and get some honest answers from these two kids. They’re scared, and obviously lied to us about Yann’s past, but they aren’t murderers.” As soon as he said it, Verlaque realized that he sounded every bit as naive, and possibly misled, as Usbek and Rica.

  Verlaque’s office phone rang and he spoke with his voice lowered to Mme Girard and then hung up. “You’ll both want to stay for this,” he said to Paulik and Roussel. “The maid who found Georges Moutte’s body is in the waiting room.” The commissioner and prosecutor exchanged surprised looks and turned to face the door, ready to greet the woman. Mme Girard knocked on the door and Verlaque answered it.

  “Thank you for coming,” Verlaque said as he reached over and took Mlle Winnie Mukiga by the arm and helped her to sit down. She folded her hands on her lap and looked down at them.

  “Are you feeling better?” he asked, looking at the tall woman who sat so still. She raised her eyes to meet his, and he saw that in another life, born in another country and in another time, Mlle Mukiga could have been a famously rich fashion model. Her dark black skin shone, her face free of blemishes or wrinkles, and her cheekbones prominent. But she needed a haircut, and her eyes looked tired and sad. “Yes, I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” she finally answered.

  “It’s not a problem. We have the report you gave the first policeman to arrive on the scene, and Commissioner Paulik has briefed me on the statement you gave him on Saturday afternoon. Could you please tell me what exactly happened that morning?” Verlaque asked.

  Mukiga swallowed and spoke. “I began my cleaning at the end of the hall as I always do. There’s Dr. Rodier’s office, which is spotless, so I dusted where I thought it needed it, and vacuumed, and then locked his office door. I have a master key.”

  “Go on,” Verlaque said gently.

  “I then cleaned the two small public restrooms…there’s a women’s and a men’s…and the fourth door down that hallway is the doyen’s office. I’m always a little nervous before I clean his office.”

  Verlaque looked at her. “Why is that?”

  “Because of the artwork, all those glass vases. He was very particular about them.”

  Verlaque nodded and silently noted that although the doyen was particular about his Gallé collection, he had let one in his apartment sit on a dresser that was unsteady—the fake.

  Mlle Mukiga took a tissue out of her purse and dabbed her forehead. “But that morning, as I reached into my apron pocket for the master key, I saw that his door was partly open. I opened it all the way and called his name, but no one answered. I went in to begin cleaning the room and saw a file on the floor, next to his desk. I crossed the room and picked it up, and when I looked over the side of the desk, I saw him lying there.”

  “And then?”

  “I walked around the desk and knelt down beside him. I knew he was dead. I thought he had had a heart attack, and it was only when I leaned in closer, to close his eyes, that I saw the blood on the carpet, and blood on the side of his head.” She closed her eyes but continued speaking. “And then I screamed. I didn’t mean to, but it brought back too many memories for me. My family, in Rwanda, they were killed, and when I came home one afternoon from my auntie’s house, that was the way I found them. Heads bashed in, blood on the floor…” She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around her thin waist.

  Verlaque watched her, and when she had begun to breathe evenly and slowly, he continued his questioning. “You called the ambulance then?”

  “No, I didn’t have to, because Odette, one of the other cleaners, heard me and came running up from the floor below. She called the ambulance and then helped me get up and took me into the adjoining office to sit down. When I had finally calmed down it became chaotic again, with the ambulance attendants arriving, Dr. Leonetti in and out, and then finally the police…”

  Verlaque sat forward. “Dr. Leonetti was there?”

  “Yes, she too heard my screams. She must have been working in her office. I can’t even remember if we spoke, I just remember her there, in the secretary�
�s office with us.”

  “That wasn’t in the police report taken Saturday morning at the school,” Verlaque gently said.

  The maid shook her head. “I’m sorry, that’s possible, because it seems like I’ve only just remembered Dr. Leonetti’s face in the office now, just this instant.”

  Verlaque became restless. “Thank you so much for coming in, Mlle Mukiga,” he said, getting up and walking over to where she was seated. She too got up and he offered her his arm. “I’ll walk you down to the front door,” he said.

  She smiled. “Thank you.” Winnie Mukiga draped her long slender arm through his and leaned slightly into him, but Verlaque could tell that despite her exhaustion, this was a woman who was strong, and proud.

  In a few minutes Verlaque was back in his office.

  “Who gets to call that Ivy League show-off?” Roussel asked as he jumped up out of his seat.

  “I will,” Verlaque said. “I’ll ask her to come in as soon as possible.”

  Roussel walked toward the door but turned to Verlaque and said, “He probably used a different name.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Verlaque asked.

  “For the hotel. Rocchia’s a celebrity, especially in Italy. He probably used a phony name at the hotel.” With that Roussel walked out of the office, slamming the door.

  Bruno Paulik got to his feet. “I’ll call the boys, and have Flamant call Rocchia.”

  Verlaque nodded. “I’ll call Rocchia. Have you ever read the Persian Letters?” he asked.

  “No, I never have. Molière? Marivaux?”

  “Close. Montesquieu. There are these two Turks, Usbek and Rica, who go on a grand tour of Western Europe, hilariously misinterpreting the people and customs they see along the way.”

  “Are you referring to Roussel?” Paulik asked. “Or Yann and Thierry?”

  “No, us.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Frankly, My Dear…

  “Next time ask to speak with the manager and not some bellhop,” Giuseppe Rocchia said into the telephone. “I stay in so many luxury hotels that I can’t remember if I used my real name or not. Try under Signore Bianco…that’s the name I usually use when traveling with…um, a companion. And ask for the manager…he recognized me, no doubt.”