Death of a Chef (Capucine Culinary Mystery)

by Campion, Alexander

  She entered the Vuitton stand and examined a stack of trunks piled ten feet high.

  A man in an ill-fitting green tweed jacket and baggy corduroy trousers rushed up with a yellow-toothed smile, hastily swallowing a mouthful of food.

  “I see you’re fascinated by the striped ones,” he said, indicating a pile of beige- and brown-striped trunks. “Louis Vuitton designed those stripes, which replaced the original Trianon design, for the eighteen seventy-six exhibition in Paris. They really belong in a museum.”

  He led Capucine to a stack of heavily distressed trunks and suitcases covered in the well-known brown cloth with the gold LV monogram. “These are from the very first run of the now famous Damier design, which was introduced in eighteen eighty-eight. They all date from the period between eighty-eight and ninety-two, when Louis Vuitton died and his son took over the business.”

  “You’re the owner of this stand?”

  “I am indeed, madame. Arnaud Boysson at your service.”

  Capucine produced her police wallet, badge on one flap and tricolored striped ID card on the other. Boysson’s ebullient mood deflated like a collapsed soufflé. He looked at her guardedly.

  “You sold a Vuitton trunk to Madame Cécile de Rougemont last week. When it was delivered, a dead body was found inside. I’m here to talk to you about that.”

  Boysson became ashen. “This isn’t about Chef Brault, is it? The papers all said his body had been discovered in a Vuitton trunk, but I just didn’t make the connection.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Madame de Rougemont’s name wasn’t mentioned in the press. I had no way of knowing the body was found in the trunk I sold her, now did I?” he said with a sullen look. He went to a desk in the corner of the stand and produced a large ledger bound in green cloth so old, it must have come from one of his Puces colleagues.

  On the defensive, Boysson pointed a grimy finger at an entry. The name had been misspelled. “C. De RougeMont.” Capucine had seen the amount on the receipt, but was again taken aback that Cécile had paid the price of a secondhand car for an old trunk.

  “Monsieur, I congratulate you on keeping such thorough financial records. That’s something one doesn’t expect at the Puces.”

  Boysson sniffed a sniff of righteous indignation, but said nothing.

  “Your trunks don’t come cheap, do they?”

  “The trunk Madame de Rougemont acquired is pre–World War I. It’s a true collector’s piece, complete with all fifteen of the original wood hangers. A very wise investment. I’m sure she’s an important collector.”

  Even though Capucine found the little man profoundly irritating, she resisted the temptation to tell him what Cécile planned to do with the trunk.

  “Did you notice anything unusual when you arrived here on Saturday?”

  “Yes, both of my shutters were down, but the padlocks had disappeared.”

  “Show me.”

  Boysson found a long pole with a steel hook at the top, went to the front of the stand, and pulled two screens halfway down.

  “All the stands are equipped the same way. The inside screen is mesh. You pull it down if you have to go out when the market is open. That way people can see the merchandise. The second screen is solid metal. We all lock both of them when the market closes. I thought it was the men from the delivery company who had forgotten to put the padlocks back. I called and scolded them, but the dispatcher didn’t seem to know anything about it, so I just bought new locks and forgot about it.”

  “I’m amazed you leave such valuable objects with so little protection.”

  “It’s more secure than you’d think. The doors to the building are locked at night, and there’s a night watchman with one of those portable time-clock devices to keep him patrolling all night long.”

  “And who has the keys to the building?”

  “All the stand holders do, of course, as well as the delivery companies. They usually make their pickups very early in the morning to beat the traffic.”

  “How does that work?”

  “We all have our own systems. Personally, I put a bright red sticky note on the piece to be picked up and also tie the bill of lading to the handle. That way the delivery people know where it goes and I get a signed receipt. The delivery people have the keys to my padlocks and are normally very scrupulous in locking up after they leave.”

  “We’re not sure where Chef Brault was killed. If it was here, do you think anyone might have heard the shot?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never been here much after closing time. But when you think about it, the watchman’s circuit takes him to the far end of the building. You might not hear a shot that far away.”

  “Did you know Chef Brault? Had you ever been to his restaurant?”

  “Good Lord, no. I couldn’t begin to afford places like that. It’s true my pieces are valuable, but this is not a very profitable business. The holding costs for the inventory are enormous. When you work at the Puces, you trade a life of luxury for the privilege of spending your day surrounded by the things you love.”

  CHAPTER 9

  “Prosper!” the shirt-sleeved maître d’ called out.

  “Someone to see you.”

  He used the familiar tu. Ouvrard was obviously still one of the boys, clearly not yet Chef Ouvrard to his staff.

  Capucine had arrived at the restaurant just as the cleaning crew was getting to work after the luncheon service. Standing in the foyer, which was identical to the one in the hotel with its satin drapes and expensive-looking faïence on Greek pillars, she could hear the vacuum cleaners at work in the dining room. Ouvrard arrived with a blend of diffidence and truculence. Playing to his vanity, Capucine stuck her hand out to be shaken.

  “Chef, it’s good of you to find the time to see me. I know how busy you must be.”

  “No problem. Let’s go to the office. It’ll be quieter there.” Capucine couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t his office yet.

  The small glass-walled room looked out onto the kitchen, which was being mopped down while the plongeurs attacked pots and pans in a deep, steamy stainless-steel sink. Capucine and Ouvrard sat on either side of a small marble-topped table strewn with papers. The only decoration in the tiny room was a tall cylindrical faïence vase containing a few tortured, twisting branches.

  Ouvrard noticed Capucine examining it.

  “Chef loved this thing. It’s apparently a very valuable piece. I should probably move it into the dining room, but I don’t like to tamper with his stuff.” He seemed to realize the incongruity of what he had just said, and gave a short laugh. “I’m in a funny spot. I’m a sous-chef with no chef to report to.”

  “That can’t be easy.”

  “For now it’s not a problem. I just do what sous-chefs do—cook the boss’s cuisine. Sous-chefs exist so the chef can take a day off without anyone noticing.” He paused. “We keep our three stars until the new Guide is published on the last day of February next year. But they’re not my stars. They’re Chef’s. Until February I have to carry on as if he was still here. So I’m trying to fit into his clogs and lead my life as if it was his.” He looked at Capucine with a quizzical smile and snorted. “Right down to fulfilling his obligations to his girlfriend.”

  “And when you’re free to do your own cooking, will it be very different from Chef Brault’s?”

  “Of course. Chef was famous for his passion for vegetables. He took Alain Passard’s hyper-organic, neo-vegetarian school one step further. The blossoming of the philosophy of not putting anything on the table that doesn’t come from a horse-plowed field.”

  Capucine told herself that she was going to have to ask Alexandre to explain these horse-plowed fields chefs never seemed to stop talking about.

  “Actually, I think Chef was just neurotic. It wasn’t so much that he loved vegetables. It was that he was afraid of meat. Protein was an alien substance to him. But the result was phenomenal. His cuisine was truly ephemeral. He m
anaged to create intense flavor without the burden of substance—foams, purées whipped as light as air, magical things no one had ever eaten before. His dishes were like a chiffon veil wafting behind a dancing ballerina.” He looked up at Capucine to see if she understood. “Me, I want to hold the ballerina in my arms and feel the warmth of her body.”

  “Does that mean you’re going to do more meat?”

  “Naturally. Spring lamb, sweetbreads, poulet fermier raised on the farm of a friend of mine in Brittany. But it will be done with a delicacy that Chef would have appreciated. Absolutely nothing heavy. No beef and, above all, no game.”

  “Chef Brault enjoyed hunting, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know if he enjoyed it, but he certainly went pheasant shooting every now and then during the season. It was odd. He never brought back any birds. He said he didn’t want the reek of them even in the trunk of his car. If you ask me, it was another one of his neuroses. Did you know his father is a baron? I think he only went shooting because he thought it was a baronial sort of thing to do. It was his duty. A way of keeping a link to his family traditions.”

  “Did he have any enemies that you knew of?”

  “Enemies? Chef didn’t know enough people to have enemies. Other than the staff at the restaurant, he only talked to his producers, and he had a love relationship with every last one of them. And, of course, his financial backer, who was the closest thing he had to a best friend.”

  “No girlfriends other than Mademoiselle Duclos?”

  “Not that I knew of, and Delphine tells me he wouldn’t even turn his head to look at a pretty girl on the street. She kept hoping he’d have a little fling on the side and cut her some slack.” Ouvrard laughed.

  “Tell me about the financial backer, Monsieur Brissac-Vanté.”

  “A bigmouthed playboy. The front-of-the-house staff didn’t like him all that much, because he’d come in and act like he owned the place. But I didn’t mind him, because he was good for Chef.”

  “Did he come here often?”

  “About once a month, sometimes more. Always a six-or eight-top, and he’d only call the day before. That would create real problems for the maître d’, as you can imagine. Then he’d talk big at his table, order very expensive grand crue wines—all of which we’d comp, of course—and expect Chef to come out so he could make a big production and tell his guests he was the éminence grise of modern haute cuisine and Chef was his favorite protégé.”

  “Did this irritate Chef Brault?”

  “Au contraire. He adored Brissac-Vanté. They’d spend hours on the phone. Brissac-Vanté was the only one who could get Chef out of the dumps. And thank God he could, because Chef could get very depressed when he set his mind to it.”

  “But Brissac-Vanté refused to invest more money in the hotel.”

  “Damn straight he did. That hotel was a complete waste of time. Brault probably picked up the idea from the Troisgros when he was an intern down there. It was right out of the Michelin Guide of the nineteen thirties. One-star restaurants were ‘very good,’ two-stars were ‘worth a detour,’ and three-stars ‘merited a trip.’ So naturally, the idea was that if you were taking a trip to a restaurant, you had to spend the night in the restaurant’s hotel.” He laughed. “Not only was that from another age, but it made no sense at all if you’re twenty minutes from Paris. I think Brissac-Vanté only staked Brault because he wanted to keep him happy and motivated in his kitchen. The idea of doing up more than three or four rooms was insane, but it was Chef’s biggest hobbyhorse.”

  “So who owns the restaurant now?”

  “The court hasn’t decided yet. Brissac-Vanté acts like he does. He came the other day with his wife and had a long lunch with some very heavy-duty wines. He stayed until the service was over and then gathered everyone in the kitchen for a pep talk. He was going to insure that no one had anything to worry about and the restaurant was going to go on forever and climb to new heights. He implied that I was in full charge, but didn’t actually say it. That didn’t make my job any easier, let me tell you.”

  “So Chef Brault had no enemies that you knew of?”

  “The only person that came even close to being an enemy was that son of a bitch Lucien Folon. That guy couldn’t stop hammering away at Chef. He’d write these reviews that you wouldn’t believe. Always the same stuff. Chef’s cuisine was limp-dicked, tasteless vegetarian crap, sexed up with bizarre, exotic spices. Everyone in the kitchen hates his guts. And he couldn’t stop coming. He’d be here at least once a month for lunch or dinner. If Chef didn’t insist on cooking everything that went on Folon’s table himself, the guys would probably have pissed on it.” Ouvrard chuckled.

  “Why do you think Folon hated Chef Brault’s cuisine so much?”

  “That’s the funny thing. I don’t think he hated it at all. He’d clean off his plate. I’d watch him through the judas. You know when they love the meal. You can see it in their eyes. Folon absolutely relished what he ate. Every time, we were sure he was finally going to write a good review, but the more he seemed to like his meal, the more he trashed us in the press. Go figure.”

  CHAPTER 10

  At seven thirty that evening Capucine sat in her office, reading the final edition of Le Monde, waiting for David to get off the phone so she could start a meeting with the three brigadiers.

  Once a week Alexandre wrote a column called “Celui Qui Ecrit la Bouche Pleine—He Who Writes with His Mouth Full.” It was about various food topics: a little restaurant gossip, his views on current food trends, comments about what he had been eating, maybe a dish he had invented and thought would be perfect for one chef or another. It was one of the more popular columns in the paper. That day’s was a eulogy of Jean-Louis Brault. Under the column’s logo and his picture, Alexandre had started with a quote from Destouches.

  “La critique est aisée, mais l’art est difficile. Criticism is easy, but art is difficult.”

  Capucine had no idea who this Destouches was. The biographical Robert dictionary told her he was a composer famous for an opera she had never heard of, and had died in 1749. She went back to the article.

  This has been a black week indeed in the annals of food criticism. One of my colleagues has completely lost sight of what the word criticism means.

  Every lycéen knows it comes from the Greek kritikós, “capable of discernment or judgment. ” That is—or should be—the goal of all food critics.

  Yet Lucien Folon published a piece in Le Figaro declaring that Chef Jean-Louis Brault’s fatal flaw was his hubris, which deluded a vegetable prep cook into believing he was a true chef, tempting him to fly so close to the sun of haute cuisine he singed his feathers and plunged to his nemesis.

  I’m dumbstruck. Chef Brault had been crowned with the highest accolade our country has to offer its most cherished culinary artisans: the third Michelin star. How dare anyone defame him? Folon dares, dear readers, because he has so lost sight of the meaning of kritikós, he seeks to sell newpapers by spitting on angels.

  Do you know why we all persist in believing Chef Brault committed suicide, when there is such abundant evidence to the contrary? The answer is obvious: Folon had driven him to the brink. The assassin merely completed the task.

  Capucine found the depth of Alexandre’s anger almost erotic.

  Isabelle clomped through the door, followed by David and Momo.

  “It’s nearly eight o’clock. I’m starving,” Capucine said. “What if we have this session over at Benoît’s?”

  There were enthusiastic nods from all three brigadiers. Capucine folded the newspaper, tucked it under her arm, and walked out with her team.

  Benoît’s, on the corner twenty yards down from the brigade, was one of a dying breed of restos ouvrier—workers’ restaurants—and a jackstay for the flics of Capucine’s brigade. It wasn’t that worker’s restaurants were closing; the problem was they were going upmarket. But at Benoît’s you could still get lunch with an appetizer, a main dish,
cheese, dessert, and a quarter bottle of red for only five euros on top of the ticket restaurant, the meal vouchers supplied by the Ministry of the Interior. Sadly, the working-class Twentieth was rapidly becoming a hip new frontier, complete with trendy restaurants. If Benoît’s went that route and began charging thirty or forty euros for lunch, the brigadiers would find themselves eating at McDonald’s. But that was—hopefully—unimaginable.

  The four detectives trooped into the restaurant, retrieved their napkins from cubbyholes labeled with their handwritten names—complete with rank so punctiliously noted that many brigadiers had first learned of their promotions by the change in their cubbyhole labels—and moved to a corner table. Angélique, a woman of heroic rotundity, announced what they would be eating: boudin—blood sausage—with sautéed apples for the men, and a pavé de saumon grillé—a paving-stone–sized hunk of grilled salmon—on a bed of lentilles du Puy for the women. And, of course, they would be drinking the house Tavel, which was universally known to be the best that had ever come through the gates of Paris.

  When the food arrived, the detectives waited for Angélique’s back to be turned and rapidly exchanged plates. Capucine loved boudin; Isabelle hated fish, but David adored it; and—completely erroneously—none of them thought Momo cared what he ate.

  Once the wine was poured and the mandatory thirty seconds of silence to concentrate on the food had been observed, Capucine put down her knife and fork.

  “Let’s start with you, Isabelle. Did the database have anything interesting to say about Brault?”

  “Not really. His bio is pretty much what you’d expect. He graduated from the maternelle and école élémentaire in La Cadière-d’Azur and then matriculated in the town’s lycée. After a year in high school he transferred to the école hôtelière in Paris.

  “He went to Paris all by himself?” Capucine asked. “He must have only been fourteen.”